Diana Moon posts a long discussion from a scholar who reviewed the script of Mel Gibson's new film about the crucifixion. There's more in it than you wanted to know about legal threats from Gibson's production company. But buried under that is a bit about the film itself, which apparently features

a vicious riot of frenzied hatred between Romans and Jews with the Savior [en route to Golgotha] on the ground in the middle of it getting it from both sides

among other scenes apparently deriving less from canonical Christian scripture, or anyone's history, than from the mystical visions of a German stigmatic nun from the early 19th century.

Nope, no anti-semitism here.

Also on tap, her tart take on the killing of Saddam's sons:

Call me a crackpot, but I think that U&Q should have been arrested and put on trial. And made an example for future generations, and protocols and procedures should have been established, and we should have shown the Iraqis we are willing to go the extry mile to show that we believe in civilized norms and yada yada.

Call me a crackpot, but I think that you shouldn't go to a jungle claiming that your intervention is based on the rule of law, and is meant to establish the rule of law, and then act like Tony Soprano.

Hey, she's not the one who keeps posting entries hinting that Dubya's courtship of the loony fundamentalist right in this country might be something even uglier than the cynical political posturing it looks like.

(And yes, killing and not capture of the spawn of Saddam was a deliberate choice made by Dubya's administration; as Lambert at Eschaton points out, the place was surrounded the night before, with a psy-ops team in place; they certainly had time to ask HQ whether to use it).

She's back! And still headed to housing court!