The Midday Quickie

White House denies bin Laden hunt downgraded. No matter how much they try, they cannot deny the fact that they care more about their phony war than they do about catching the man who supposedly orchestrated 9/11. Don't they remember that Bush was the one who was caught with his pants down when he made the mistake of saying he had never said he wasn't concerned about Osama? Evidently, everyone at the White House forgot that this stuff gets archived.

More Britons call for use of profiling. As racists as profiling sounds, and as much as I dislike it, even I admit that airport terminals would grind to a halt if every single person is searched. Then again, we shouldn't dismiss little kids or families with children as being safe to board. Otherwise, we'd be forgetting about the kind of tactics used in Vietnam. Anyone can be used as a weapon. Geez, what a sign of the times.

Woman goes to church to duck deportation. A prominent activist for illegal immigrants sought sanctuary in a church Wednesday rather than turn herself in for deportation, saying she fears being separated from her young son. "I am single mom. My son, he is citizen," Elvira Arellano, a Mexican national, said from just inside the doorway of Adalberto United Methodist Church. "I am not terrorist. I am not criminal. I am mom. He is my son."

New York Times hires agent for movie deals. What. The. Hell. I'm guessing they want to make big bucks off the whole Valerie Plame leak story, and they will.

GOP Senator George Allen's Sister Documents Her Brother's Bully Tactics: "He Saw Dentistry As A Perfect Profession -- Getting Paid To Make People Suffer".... Damn. According to his own sister, he must have been some piece of psycopathic work as a child. Take a look at this: Referring to George's early leadership skills, Jennifer wrote: "We all obeyed George. If we didn't, we knew he would kill us. Once, when Bruce refused to go to bed, George hurled him through a sliding glass door. Another time, when Gregory refused to go to bed, George tackled him and broke his collarbone. Another time, when I refused to go to bed, George dragged me up the stairs by my hair."

Dem angst escalates. In recent days, Lieberman has rankled Democrats in the upper chamber by suggesting that those who support bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by a certain date would bolster terrorists' planning attacks against the U.S. and its allies. He also sparked resentment by saying last week on NBC's Today show that the Democratic Party was out of the political mainstream. OK, will Joe finally just come out and admit that he switched parties?

Plame lawyer plans to force Cheney, Rove testimony. A lawyer plans to use a legal precedent that allowed President Bill Clinton to be sued while in office to force Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove to testify in a lawsuit brought by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband. You have balls, sir. Mighty big balls.

School board fights to keep Jesus portrait; Lawsuit targets painting that has hung at W.Va. high school for 37 years. I honestly don't see what's wrong with it staying there. Or with buildings having a copy of the Ten Commandments...so long as we have a copy of the Koran (Qur'an) to go with it, and portraits of other gods. Have to represent everyone, you know.