Governor Ted Nugent?

As Motor City Madmen go, Jack White and Eminem have nothing on 57-year-old Ted Nugent. The self-described "Rosa Parks with a guitar and a raised middle finger" might be bringing his right-wing politics-on-steroids to the Michigan Governor's Mansion. He's considering a "high-percentage maybe" run for the office. He yells at me his platform, which includes something about "cops that have their legs blown off and soldiers who are in wheelchairs and children with leukemia, who don't get the money because some fat pig welfare brat is sitting on his worthless ass." The NRA board member, Fox News talking head, rock guitarist and author of books such as "Gods, Guns, and Rock 'N' Roll," "Blood Trails 2" and "Kill It & Grill It: A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish" recently moved his family -- his wife, Shemane, and four kids -- to Crawford, Texas, because he liked the school system there. Nugent divides his time between Crawford and a home near Jackson, Mich., and maintains Michigan residency. The staunch guns advocate taught his children to shoot with BB and cork guns before they even entered elementary school. In the meantime, Nugent is on a rock tour, which stoped at Harriet Island, Saint Paul, Minnesota on Friday. In an recent interview, Nugent held forth on politics, music, even Tom and Katie. He also called the interviewer a "liberal chimp" with allegiance to those "pathetic hippies." But in a nice way.

• Nugent on hunting: "Certainly, there's a powerful folklore dynamic to a grizzly bear, an elephant, a rhino, buffalo and lions. And I've killed all of those things. ... I share campfires with terminally ill children, soldiers who have given up their legs and arms and eyes so that I can go hunting, so that you can have a career and I can have a career and we can go barbecuing and we could be the best that we can be and travel across state lines without the Gestapo and the French stopping us."

• On eating Nugent-style: For his beef supply, he relies on a few "conscientious organic producers." For most everything else he hunts. "There's nothing more pure and organic than critters of the hoof. ... If I've been smart about anything in life, it's that at the tender age of 57, there's not a city in America where there isn't one of my fellow brothers with something dead and fresh over mesquite waiting for me. Is that beautiful or what?"

• On the enduring controversy over his famous comment that "if you can't speak English, get the fuck out of the country": "You've heard the horror story of the dumbing-down of America. Part of that dumbing-down is also the chiseling away of true independence, which drove the original immigration dreamers coming through Ellis Island. ... They knew they had to read those English words while they're pushing the broom, while they're sewing those garments, while they're doing that dry cleaning, while they're picking that fruit, while they're working on those shoes, you know what I mean? That era of work ethic towers over the current (one) of 'no comprende.'"

• On why he appreciates Michael Moore: "He's quite a beast of burden, isn't he? Nothing makes me look better than Michael Moore. He stands for everything I don't believe in and I stand for everything he doesn't believe in."

• On Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: "I see a lot of smiles. I love when people are happy. She's a bomber. She's stunning. He's a handsome young man and a brilliant actor unto himself."

• On what he would do in the event of a "War of the Worlds"-like alien invasion: "I'm privy to some firepower dynamics that your average civilian is not and we would just wipe the cock suckers out. And then we'd probably saute them and use them for bait and kill some bear over their carcasses."

• On why he sports the Confederate flag at his concerts: "(It's) a historical symbol of a lifestyle and a freedom and an independence below the Mason-Dixon line that many great men and women gave up their lives for during the Civil War. To me, it represents a certain defiance against federalism, a certain defiance against other people telling you how to live your life. And I wear it because I'm a big fan of defiance."

• On guns: "You should be able to put the second bullet in the same hole as the first bullet. That's gun control. I think good gun control is that no felons should have any access to firearms."

• On his newest pop-culture obsession: "Since the Motown greats, I don't think I've ever seen such soul, such virtuosity in every one of those gals and every one of those musicians to the point that I was stunned and genuinely chilled by the soul and dynamic of that Destiny's Child operation."

American Islamic Scholars Issue Fatwa Against Terrorism

A council of Muslim scholars in the United States has issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, against terrorism and extremism. The Muslim scholars released the ruling during a press conference in Washington, saying that Islam condemns terrorism, religious radicalism and the use of violence. Council Chairman, Muzammil SiddiqiThe scholars serve on the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Muslim jurists who interpret Islamic law. The council's chairman, Muzammil Siddiqi, read the fatwa, which says "targeting civilians' life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is forbidden, and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not martyrs." "All acts of terrorism targeting the civilians are haram, forbidden in Islam. It is haram, forbidden, for a Muslim to cooperate or associate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence," he said. The fatwa also says it is the "civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of civilians." The Islamic scholars say the fatwa was prompted by a similar ruling from the Muslim Council of Britain, following the July 7 terrorist attacks in London. U.S. Muslim groups have frequently condemned terrorist acts, but the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Nihad Awad, says issuing a fatwa is the strongest statement that can be made by the Islamic community. "This is the heaviest weight any opinion can be given. The reason I am saying this is because those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam try to misinterpret and misuse certain issues in Islamic jurisprudence and they have no authority or qualification except their anger. These legal Muslim scholars come to say we are the authority on this subject and we are the ones who determine how to interpret Islam. Therefore, I don't think any person in the globe can quote the Koran or the traditions of the Prophet [Muhammad] to justify the harming and the killing of innocent people," he said. The Muslim scholars have called for the fatwa to be read during Friday prayers at mosques across the United States. Salam al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, says he hopes the message will resonate globally, but also close to home. "We hope that this would influence other parts of the world, but more importantly I think we are doing this for our children and for our future," he said. "Our children need to be very clear on these matters. There should be no confusion and no ambiguities. As we stand together, tall, as leaders of established Muslim-American organizations, this is a message to our future generation and to our children that this notion that suicide bombing or terrorism has any room in Islam is rejected outright." The Council on American-Islamic relations has launched public service announcements on radio and television saying that Islam forbids terrorism. The announcements are in English, Arabic and Urdu, and say those who use violence in the name of Islam are betraying their faith.

RUN DICK RUN!

Helen Thomas
Grumpy old wire reporter Helen Thomas is vowing to 'kill herself' if Dick Cheney announces he is running for president. The newspaper HILL first reported the startling claim on Thursday. "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself," she told the HILL. "All we need is one more liar." Thomas added, "I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does." Dick Cheney with the late Pope John Paul II

Texan Executed For Slaying Of Minnesota Woman

David Martinez A former Austin drifter was executed Thursday evening for the rape-slaying of a Minnesota woman attacked on a jogging trail eight years ago. David Martinez received lethal injection for the 1997 killing of Kiersa Paul, a 24-year-old former art student who said she was going to meet him at a popular Austin park.Kiersa Paul"Only the sky and green grass goes on forever, and today is a good day to die," Martinez said in a brief statement before being put to death. As the drugs began taking effect, Martinez sputtered and gasped several times before losing consciousness. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m., eight minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms. Paul's parents came from Bloomington, Minn. They held hands with another of their daughters, and watched through a window a few feet away from Martinez. He made brief eye contact but said nothing to them. As other witnesses, including his mother, entered a chamber viewing area, Martinez nodded and smiled. Martinez, 29, was the 10th condemned prisoner to receive lethal injection this year in Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state. Attorneys tried to block the execution with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that prosecutors in Travis County should have done more to investigate claims of Martinez's abusive childhood. Jurors who determined he should be put to death should have had more of that information so they could have better considered whether a life prison term would have been more appropriate, lawyers said in their appeals. Moments before Martinez was scheduled to die, the high court rejected the appeals. Martinez was convicted of capital murder for the death of Paul, a University of Minnesota sophomore art student who came to Austin to visit her sister in late 1996 and decided to extend her stay. She'd found work as a cashier at an Austin bakery and apparently met Martinez through mutual friends. Eight years ago last week, Paul told her sister she was heading out on her bicycle to a popular Austin park along the Barton Creek greenbelt to meet someone she knew only as "Wolf," which was Martinez's nickname. The next morning, her body was found by a jogger. She'd been raped and strangled, had her throat cut at least eight times and had an "X" carved into her chest. Martinez was arrested days later. A Travis County jury deliberated only 15 minutes at his 1998 trial before convicting him of capital murder. Two weeks later, they decided he should be put to death."The case on guilt-innocence was fairly overwhelming," Darla Davis, a Travis County assistant district attorney who was one of the trial prosecutors, said Wednesday. "We had DNA, we had hair consistent with his in her hand, he had her belongings, and he had a knife with her blood on it." "Sometimes in capital cases, the issue is not going to be whether he's guilty or not," Bill White, one of Martinez's trial lawyers, said. "The issue was the punishment issue. "Our goal was to bring forward evidence in terms of his own life in his family and how he grew up and the circumstances that certainly were not the best. ... My idea was to try to talk them out of death." Court documents indicated Martinez's mother may have abused and neglected him. Their house was filled with bird feces. His father was living elsewhere in an openly gay relationship and involved in the manufacture of sadomasochistic sex toys. When he stayed there, he also may have been abused. Later, Martinez at times lived on the streets of Austin. Appeals lawyers tracked down his father, but they said he refused to cooperate. He also had refused to testify at Martinez's trial. At the time of the slaying, Martinez was on probation for a 1995 conviction for possession of an explosive device, a homemade hand grenade police found in his car during a traffic stop. At least eight other Texas death row inmates have execution dates, two in each of the next four months. After Martinez, next on the schedule is Gary Sterling, set to die Aug. 10 for the 1988 robbery and slaying of a Navarro County man.