1992 ‘Naked Preacher’ stirred controversy

In 1992 a man began preaching the word of God on public access TV. And he did it naked.

“The Naked Preacher,

Olympia falls short of precipitation record

OLYMPIA, Wash. Washington's capital city fell just short of a monthly record for rainfall.

During November, 19-point-67 inches of precipitation fell at Olympia Regional Airport.That's just shy of the city's all-time wettest month -- at least since 1948, when weather observers began taking readings at the airfield.The wettest month on record at the Olympia airport was January of 1953, when there were 19-point-84 inches of precipitation. But some weather watchers note that January has an advantage in the race for wettest month: It's got one more day than November.

I actually can't believe that we didn't set the record last winter when we had that long stretch of rain -- 36 straight days, I think.

This may not be hyperlocal news, but the Venezuelan presidential elections are taking place tomorrow. Hugo Chavez verses Manual Rosales.

I´m in Caracas covering them and keeping a small blog at my site www.justinvela.com

Things are somewhat crazy here. Outside my hotel the opposition are honking its slogan, Atravete, or Be Bold. Át a rally I was at a opposition leader had them raise up their hands and made them swear to go to the voting stations and ¨defënd their vote¨ Whatever that means.

Shit probably won´t hit the fan until Monday or Tuesay, if it does at all. Its far more polarized here then the US though and everybody is very angry at the other side.

Robert Fisk: Like Hitler and Brezhnev, Bush is in denial
Published: 01 December 2006

More than half a million deaths, an army trapped in the largest military debacle since Vietnam, a Middle East policy already buried in the sands of Mesopotamia - and still George W Bush is in denial. How does he do it? How does he persuade himself - as he apparently did in Amman yesterday - that the United States will stay in Iraq "until the job is complete"? The "job" - Washington's project to reshape the Middle East in its own and Israel's image - is long dead, its very neoconservative originators disavowing their hopeless political aims and blaming Bush, along with the Iraqis of course, for their disaster.

History's "deniers" are many - and all subject to the same folly: faced with overwhelming evidence of catastrophe, they take refuge in fantasy, dismissing evidence of collapse as a symptom of some short-term setback, clinging to the idea that as long as their generals promise victory - or because they have themselves so often promised victory - that fate will be kind. George W Bush - or Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara for that matter - need not feel alone. The Middle East has produced these fantasists by the bucketful over past decades.
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