Buddhist story about courage:

A notorious bandit came to the Buddha one day and informed him that he was the most fierce and brave bandit in all the world, and was going to demonstrate it by killing the Buddha. “Ah,” said the Buddha. “If you are that powerful, you can grant me two wishes before I die.”

“All right,” said the bandit, “but be quick. Time is short, and I have many more people to kill.”

The Buddha pointed to a young sapling tree growing nearby, and said “Cut off the smallest branch on that young tree.” The bandit laughed, and with one quick swipe of his sword, it was done and the tiny branch fell to the ground. The Buddha picked it up.

“Now, old fool,” said the bandit, “what is your final wish?”

The Buddha handed the tiny branch to the bandit, pointed to the tree, and said, “Now put it back on.”

Legend has it that the bandit achieved enlightenment in that instant.

This is not mine... and I don't take credit... I'd give credit, but it was a quote within a quote..and I don't know who to give credit too...

That said:

What Do You Call It?

1. What do you call it when a group of people take the law into their own hands and kill people without a fair trial?
~ A lynching
What do you call it when the United States takes the law into its own hands and kills people without a fair trial?
~ Operation Enduring Freedom

2. What do you call someone who explodes a bomb and kills innocent people?
~ A terrorist
What do you call someone who drops a bomb from a plane and kills innocent people?
~ A brave American pilot

3. What do you call a weapon that can kill thousands of people?
~ A weapon of mass destruction.
What do you call a weapon that has killed 1.5 million, including more than 500,000 children?
~ Sanctions

4. What do you call an attack on the Pentagon, a command and control center in the United States?
~ A cowardly attack
What do you call the destruction of an Afghan village by U.S. bombs?
~ An attack on a Taliban command and control center

5. What do you call it when about 3,000 people were killed in the September 11th attack?
~ An atrocity
What do you call it when about 5 million people were killed in the Vietnam war?
~ A mistake

6. What do you call someone who stands up in front of a crowd and tells stories?
~ An entertainer
What do you call someone who stands up in front of a crowd at the Pentagon and tells stories?
~ Donald Rumsfeld

I been reading a lot of comments pro-con on the Miers appointment to the Supreme Court.. the pros: "she could be a LOT worse" the cons: "anyone who thinks Bush is brilliant and is his confidant is BAD".. "croynism over competency"

I think I like Steve Clemons measured take:

It will be interesting to hear to what degree Miers holds sacred the delicate but vital system of checks and balances that make this nation a democracy and which the Bush administration has spent so much political capital trying to undermine.

All that said, there could have been far worse choices for the Supreme Court -- so I am of mixed views on Miers.

Nonetheless, I think that it should become standard practice for ALL committees of the United States Senate tasked with considering the credentials of an Executive Branch political nominee to read the following short passage ALOUD at the opening of a confirmation hearing:

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, "The Appointing Power of the President," No. 76

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. . . . He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

Another highly Unqualified appointment by the Bushies:
Chair of the Texas Lottery Comission surely qualifies one as a Supreme Court Justice, or is it being a graduate from Souther Methodist University??

Harriet Miers Biography
Harriet Miers serves as Counsel to the President. Most recently, she served as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff, and prior to that she was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. From 1995 until 2000, she was chair of the Texas Lottery Commission. Harriet received both her undergraduate and law degrees from Southern Methodist University.

An interesting tie in from an old Greg Palast article:

Gregory Palast
Sunday January 21, 2001
The Observer
Congratulations to George W Bush and to Camelot on their victories.
More than a year ago, we reported that the Government had decided to let Camelot retain control of the National Flutter in perpetuity. That was two weeks before the formal bidding process began. Despite our announcement, Richard Branson soldiered on, refusing, like the last dinosaur, to heed the voice whispering: 'Excuse me, but you're extinct.'
Yes, there was a moment in October when Oflot announced Branson as the putative winner. But I wasn't fooled. In 1968, a young George W. Bush, not the brightest campfire on the prairie, somehow got chosen to be a fighter pilot for the Texas Air Guard over hundreds of other young men eager to defend Dallas from bomber attack. The job, incidentally, carried an exemption from the Vietnam war draft.

Both Presidents Bush, past and future, deny that they used influence to get young George the Air Guard post.
Years passed. George fils became Governor of Texas. Gtech, already in control of the Texas lottery, was in hot water. An audit had questioned the company's proficiency as operator in Texas, its top sales representative was jailed in 1996 for bribery in New Jersey and, in 1997, the company was caught paying a consulting fee to the boyfriend of the Texas lottery director.
The remainder of the story may sound awfully familiar to Richard Branson.
The Texas lottery was opened up for bids, and a Gtech competitor was designated as having the best offer. Transfer from Gtech was subject only to review and negotiations. Then - surprise! - Bush's lottery commission dumped its new director, dropped the apparent winning bidder, and the head of the state Lottery Commission, Harriett Miers, announced it was best simply to stick with Gtech. Linda Cloud, executive director, said it offered the best deal.
Up until 1997, Gtech had a lobbyist, a politico named Ben Barnes, to whom Gtech paid more than $23 million. Some malevolent soul had written to the US Justice Department earlier claiming that Barnes had fixed for Bush Jr to get the Guard slot - information which Barnes allegedly used to lock in Gtech's lucrative Texas contract for good.
But that letter, and the accusations in it, remained buried until a year ago when, confronted with it, Barnes stated in an affidavit that, indeed, it was he who called the Guard for young George.
Barnes denies he used this information for Gtech. Bush and Gtech also deny any link between Bush's military service and the Gtech contract.
In the middle of Gtech's US troubles, it flew the Tory government's lottery regulator into Texas. Oflot's Peter Davis endorsed the UK's emulating the 'Texas Model' of lottery licensing. This model is based on granting almost all aspects of a lottery to a single licence-holder. The problem, say experts, is that once the initial operator is chosen, it is in practice impossible for anyone to win the licence.
In Britain Camelot, using Gtech's technology and operations, won that initial contest based on its Texas and other 'experience' over your raw crew, Richard. This was after, you may recall, Gtech's chairman, who has since resigned, tried to bribe you out of the competition.
Tony Blair, then in opposition, promised reform. That should have been your first warning, Richard. Labour, once in power, rather than force Camelot to dump Gtech, permitted the consortium to shuffle the corporate ownership, and transform Gtech, from lucrative partner into lucrative prime contractor.
Labour's 1998 reform of the Lottery Act kept the single-licence Texas Model.
And, just in case you did not get the hint, the new law provided no end-of-licence transition period, making it impossible to transfer the system to a new operator.
The fact that Labour effectively saved Gtech's bacon in 1998 has absolutely nothing to do with an idea mentioned in 1997 by a would-be Gtech lobbyist.
The lobbyist, Derek Draper, told me (into my hidden tape recorder) that his friend Peter Mandelson needed someone to 'sell tickets for this ridiculous Dome thing. Gtech is offering to do that via the National Lottery [ticket]-selling equipment.' Draper added: 'Now it doesn't take a lot to work out that if the Government thinks Gtech can sell government tickets for the Dome, it's got to be a legitimate firm to sell tickets for the lottery.'
Gtech's one and only use of its machines for a purpose other than the lottery was to sell Dome tickets, at no charge to the Government.
Labour's 1998 reform virtually locked in the Camelot-GTech group.
Nevertheless, Gtech nearly blew it by concealing a computer cock-up that ate some wagerers' winnings. That required another corporate reshuffle, with Camelot promising to sever its links with Gtech.
'Severing' Gtech, the Observer's Jamie Doward disclosed on Christmas Eve, means Camelot will pay Gtech about £230m under the new licence, more than it received under the last one. That's no surprise. Camelot's promise to cut off Gtech, as one industry wag said, 'is like promising to sever their arms and legs'. At an operating level, Camelot can't function without its technology.
How appropriate that the Lottery Commission confirmed the Camelot-Gtech group's new licence a week after Al Gore conceded his victory to George W. Bush. So who was the real winner of the presidential contest? Some might say Bill Gates. One of Dubya's first appointments was of the key Secretary for White House Matters: attorney Harriet Miers, the US lottery commissioner who dealt with Gtech's contract.
'Harriet was always flying to Seattle [home of Microsoft]', says Lawrence Littwin, the Texas Lottery director Miers fired in 1997. That's no surprise, as her law firm represented Gates at the time. Miers will, of course, have to give up her interest in the law practice while working for the White House.
Some wonder whether Bush, as President, will continue the Justice Department's push to break up Microsoft. Watch this space ...
Before the 7 November event that some Americans call an election, the Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, ordered the removal of several thousand felons from the state electoral rolls. A little investigation on our part revealed that these 'arch criminals' had not, in fact, committed felonies. They were not innocent: almost all were confessed Democrats, and half of them were African-Americans. They lost their right to vote, costing Gore the White House.
The list of faux felons was provided by the firm contracted by the state to search records is ChoicePoint DBT. This company's board is stuffed with Republican bigwigs, though ChoicePoint denies it favours any party.
Our report caused some discomfort in the States. Of a thousand letters I received, one stood out: 'You pansey [sic] Brits think that the average American is under-educated and stupid. Yor [sic] story is full of outright lies.'
But rather than seeking a correction, the writer made some uncomfortable suggestions for the improper use of the Prince of Wales.
Now, a coalition of America's leading civil rights lawyers, acting for the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, has filed a class action suit against the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris and ChoicePoint for 'wrongfully purging black voters', which, it turns out, is a violation of the US Constitution. ChoicePoint says the claims are baseless.
The NAACP's lawyers thanked The Observer for uncovering the facts. Unfortunately, unlike our letter writer, they had no suggestions as to what we should do with the Prince.