BANGKOK, Thailand -- Mystical twin boys, reputedly born with black tongues and bullet-proof animist powers, no longer lead a deadly God's Army of 200 guerrillas along the violent Burma-Thailand border.

Johnny Htoo, one of the sensational twins, surrendered with nine other God's Army rebels to the military in Burma, mainland Southeast Asia's biggest country, which is also known as Myanmar.

Eighteen-year-old Johnny Htoo's brother, Luther, was not mentioned in Wednesday's (July 26) announcement in Burma's government-produced New Light Of Myanmar newspaper.

The "ten-member armed group of God's Army, led by Johnny Tu [Htoo]," surrendered to soldiers in Burma's southeast Coastal Region Command camp.

The 10 men abandoned a "base in the other country," it said, referring to Thailand.

Johnny Htoo, and nine others, also gave up some assault rifles, ammunition, and a hand grenade.

They "returned to the legal fold" on July 17, the report said without elaborating, an indication they received amnesty.

AUSTIN, Texas -- State of play in the Middle East: Lebanon, extensively damaged plus a half-million refugees; Syria, tired of being dissed; Israel, disproportionate. Are you kidding? Did it work last time they occupied Lebanon? Condi Rice, undercut by neocons at home? Iraq, completely fallen apart. Iran, only winner? Everybody else, mad at Bush. Most under-covered story, collapse of Iraq.

And what do I think this is? A media story, of course.

From the first day of 24/7 coverage, you could tell this was big. By the time Chapter 9,271 of the conflicts in the Middle East had gotten its own logo, everyone knew it was HUGE. I mean, like, bigger than Natalee Holloway. Then anchormen began to arrive in the Middle East and people like Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson -- real experts. Then Newt Gingrich -- and who would know better than Newt? -- declared it was World War III. Let's ratchet up the fear here -- probably good for Republican campaigning.

Syndicated columnist Richard Cohen declared in the Washington Post on Tuesday that an-eye-for-an-eye would be a hopelessly wimpy policy for the Israeli government.

“Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness,” he wrote. “For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy’s back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights.”

Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like “punch out your lights” as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers.

In mid-November 1998, when President Clinton canceled plans for air attacks on Iraq after Saddam Hussein promised full cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors, Cohen wrote: “Something is out of balance here. The Clinton administration waited too long to act. It needed to

Special interests, lobbyists, pay to play...  64 percent of California's voters say that campaign contributions have had a negative effect on public policy decisions and 78 percent believe that the state government benefits special interests more than our citizens. Apparently, the other 22% have never read a newspaper. 

If you’re sick of politics as usual, then Proposition 89, the Clean Money and Fair Elections Act is for you.  Prop 89 gives candidates a choice in financing their campaigns:  Either do what they do now, which is solicit large donations from wealthy individuals and corporations or, collect only small donations and receive public financing.  This proposition gives us voters a choice too.  We will be able to vote for candidates who spend their time begging for campaign money from those who demand expensive favors in return or for candidates who do not.

The “Clean Money and Fair Elections Act” is a dividing-line issue pitting the extremely rich, who want to keep politicians in their pockets and the rest of us, who want our representatives free from their control.