The following photo of Al Gore was taken by me at his appearance on May 23, 2007 at the Marin Veterans’ Auditorium, in the Marin Civic Center in San Rafael, California.

At the end of my photo essay about that event, I invited readers to send in their versions of what Al Gore’s secret message might be. The response was overwhelming! All the outstanding submissions are displayed on this results page.

First, here is the original photo and caption—for those of you who want to download it and give it a try yourselves—followed by the readers’ hilarious renditions of Al’s secret message.

Switzerland’s reputation as a haven of tolerance for immigrants has been undermined in recent weeks by calls for a ban on new minarets, a mysterious synagogue blaze and neo-Nazi threats to disrupt national day celebrations.

Switzerland is known for public order and efficiency. Its neutral status and high living standards, as well as its need for lower cost workers, have historically attracted refugees from conflicts around Europe and the world.

But with rising immigration -- and lack of integration caused partly by tight laws on handing out Swiss passports—religious and ethnic tension has been on the rise, particularly focusing on Muslims.

“Radical Islam is a huge foreign political factor,” said Swiss culture and politics expert Jonathan Steinberg of the University of Pennsylvania. “None of the immigration before constituted an international threat. Now they do.”

ROSIE O’Donnell left “The View” with a bang, not a whimper, following her on-air smackdown with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Wednesday.

Yesterday, Rosie’s chief writer, Janette Barber, was allegedly escorted from the building after she was caught drawing moustaches on photographs of Hasselbeck that hang in the “View” studios.

Yesterday, O’Donnell posted a video that may have symbolized how she’s feeling about “The View.”

The tape consisted of ducks swimming in a pond accompanied by an audio track of the John Mayer song “Vultures,” whose lyrics include “How will I hold my head to keep from going under?”

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in months on Friday, delivering a fiery anti-American sermon to thousands of followers and demanding U.S. troops leave Iraq.

It was not immediately clear why he chose to return now to his base in the Shiite holy city of Najaf from Iran. His speech had new nationalist overtones, calling on Sunnis to join with him in the fight against the U.S. presence. He also criticized the government’s inability to provide reliable services to its people.

“Nationalist overtones?” It appears his Sith masters in Iran have been giving him some PR lessons.

Funny that Mookie shows up now… Just as several brigades of US forces are about to arrive in Iraq.

Hey guys… One shot, one kill!

Military generals and the families of fallen soldiers were among hundreds of people who attended a ceremony Thursday to honor 37 special operations soldiers killed during combat in the past year, as well as five men who died during the Korean War.

The names of the soldiers were etched into a memorial wall at Fort Bragg, bringing the total to almost 1,000 names of Green Berets and Army Rangers. Five soldiers killed during the Korean War also were added, including one man whose mission was only recently declassified.

“Their deeds are legends and we will recount them for years,” Lt. Gen. Richard Wagner, commander of the Army Special Operations Command, told about 500 people sitting under tents on a plaza at this large Army base.

The soldiers killed in the last year were “fighting what will probably become our nation’s longest war,” Wagner said, adding that the soldiers “come from strong families, and communities of character.”

And the heroes honored are…

oops...

Here’s a fone number you can use to call your Senator FREE and have a good chance of getting through:  800-882-2005 Oh, BTW, they’ll give you instructions on how to tell your “representatives” that to “Support immigration reform that protects families and workers,” but you can give any message you wish once you’re connected.

Who’s picking up the tab for this expensive little set-up?  *cough*SOROS*cough*

So much for the value of immigrants…

“We’re living in a nation beset by suicidal maniacs,” Thompson said, launching into criticism of the immigration bill.
A strong supporter of the Iraq war, Thompson criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for publicly stating the war has been lost—“fine, fine message to those people giving their lives for us”—and the Democrats for debating a timetable for “surrender.”

“Al-Qaida have a 100-year plan,” Thompson said. “We have a plan until the next election.”

if he had a lawn you’d better get off it

Jed
1993-2007

I’m probably going to miss him the most.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are among the presidential candidates who will be invited to appear and speak at an “exopolitics” conference in Washington this September.

Exopolitics?

“[T]he social, political and media aspects of 60 years of denial of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race - exopolitics,” explains Stephen Bassett, executive director of the Paradigm Research Group, which has lined up a “powerful” group of speakers for its “X-Conference 2007.”

These speakers “collectively hold enough knowledge of extraterrestrial-related phenomena and governmental involvement with this phenomena to end the state-imposed truth embargo tomorrow. All it would take is for the political leaders and the political media to pay attention,” he says.

Every member of Congress will be invited to the conference, where they will be told that as many as half of all Americans (that’s a lot of voters) believe in extraterrestrial origins for at least some of the unidentified objects seen, photographed, filmed and tracked on radar in the skies above earth.

So Congress and W want to grant “Z Visas” to the terrestrial alien invaders.  So what’s the deal?  Will the nuts at this conference propose we issue “X Visas” to extraterrestrial alien invaders coming here to do the work earthlings won’t do?

What song (by what artist) contains the following lyrics?

Like Sam the butcher bringing Alice the meat
Like Fred Flintstone driving around with bald feet

I’m off to see a sneak preview of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

Will give you my review later on this evening.

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

A Nebraska entrepreneur facing allegations that his firm does business with scam artists targeting the elderly, Vinod Gupta, has directed more than $3 million in the past decade to political campaigns and projects connected with President Clinton and Senator Clinton.

Mr. Gupta’s company, infoUSA, Inc., repeatedly rented marketing databases to unscrupulous individuals who used the lists to engage in fraud, according to the New York Times. A front-page article in the Sunday paper said the company promoted a list called “Suffering Seniors,” which featured ailing older people, and other lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” and those deemed to be “gullible.”

Mr. Gupta, the chairman and CEO of infoUSA, has been one of the most generous benefactors to causes affiliated with the Clintons. He donated $2 million to a national millennium celebration organized by Mrs. Clinton’s White House office, according to a book published by her chief fund-raiser, Terence McAuliffe. Mr. Gupta also gave $1 million for the construction of Mr. Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

In 2000, Mr. Gupta gave $100,000 to support Mrs. Clinton’s Senate bid and hosted a fund-raiser in his home that raised $100,000 more. “She was so good,” he said of Mrs. Clinton’s talk there, according to the Omaha World-Herald. “I think she is smarter than the president.”

Mr. Gupta and his wife, Laurel, were also the Clintons’ guests for a stay in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom in 1999...............

Because you clowns keep asking for one, I present the KisPers’ favorite Maxim Post© subject…