The United States and Britain team up to show Syria's government that when you “cross a line” (referring to a gas attack that killed at least 355 people, though some reports have stated the death toll was over 1,000), the world is going to get involved.

Police in Spokane, Wash., have arrested a second teenage suspect in the fatal beating of 88-year-old Delbert Belton, who was a WWII veteran.

After being found guilty last week for the Fort Hood shooting spree four years ago, the sentencing phase of Maj. Nidal Hasan's trial starts today.

There's a Coca-Cola vault? I want to go to there.

In preparation for a hearing this afternoon on same-sex marriage, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver has printed 1,000 same-sex marriage licenses.

Kids at Joy Junction learn how to capture their wishes and dreams with a camera via the Pictures of Hope program.

Mayor Richard Berry's office initiates the "Equity in Pay Task Force," aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women.

For those who find themselves taking long drives and suddenly getting the urge to have sex, Zurich, Switzerland now has “sex boxes” where people can drive up and give it a go. It's also safer for the prostitutes.

And now, the big question: Do we really want to see a John Lennon clone?

I am all for protesting and other forms of expressing disagreement. Shout it from the rooftop, I always say. Well, I may not actually say that, but I pretty much agree with it. Sometimes, though, a line is crossed.

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church thrives on crossing that line.

Living in Kansas City, I had an awareness of Phelps long before he began picketing the funerals of fallen soldiers. For those of us who resided within driving distance of his hate-spewing, self-righteous pulpit, Phelps was an occasional topic of conservation, a local oddity, a crazy who was a predictable result of living too long on the Kansas side of the state line. Then his “church’s” protest of Matthew Shepard’s funeral fetched the nation’s attention and added brimstone to the fire of Phelps’s preaching, changing my view of his being just a proximate weirdo to that of a horrific figure. Suddenly, he was more than a backwoods idiosyncrasy, he was a national asshole.

I had one run-in with Phelps around this time. On my day off from the Midtown diner I worked at I headed to a local independent theater to see a film about gay people living in Lawrence, Kan. At least I think that’s what it was about—I never got in. The box office girl looked at me like I was an idiot for trying to buy a ticket, and that’s when I noticed the large shouting crowd three feet from me.

On the theater side of the street were hundreds of angry people who should have been making their way to their seats. Instead they arrived for the movie and found Phelps and his gang of goons waiting to tell them they were going to burn in hell. Carrying posterboard signs bearing clever slogans like “Save the Gerbils” and “God Hates Fags” they yelled insults and generally behaved like schoolyard bullies. Phelps gave an interview to Kansas City’s local gay personality, a drag queen named Flo. Phelps seemed unaware that he was talking to such an unrepentant sinner and the movie-goers cheered and laughed at Flo’s antics.

Phelps is now protesting outside the Obama children’s respective schools. The group’s website, godhatesfags.com, explains why they’re protesting schools: “Littles, run from liars, NOW! ...More for the little nasty God-hating Quakers. You will NOT be able to get away from these words by that bloody-handed Antichrist Obama.”

Nice guy.

Also on the protest schedule is Ft. Hood. But why subject people to such ugliness when they are mourning tremendous losses? Because, “Who else is going to tell you these words of truth at your time of extreme trauma? Only your friends at WBC: God Sent the Shooter. Thank God for the Killer, and repent of your evil.”

The Obama family and our troops are only some of the people Phelps has targeted. Catholics, Jews and the entire Swedish people irk the hell out of Phelps. Visit his websites to see if he hates you:

Godhatestheworld.com

Priestsrapeboys.com

Beastobama.com

Jewskilledjesus.com

Godhatessweden.com

Godhatesfags.com

Americaisdoomed.com

In reaction to the Fort Hood shootings, the founder of Albuquerque-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation is calling on President Obama to condemn harassment of Islamic military personnel.

Mikey Weinstein says the president must issue a zero-tolerance policy for any military man or woman "inflicting harassments, retribution or reprisal against an Islamic member of the U.S. military."

The foundation has 18 active cases at Fort Hood “involving soldiers who allege they have been subjected to nonstop fundamentalist Christian proselytization,” according to MRFF. Weinstein calls it one of the worst hotspots among the 1,000 U.S. installations around the world.

Weinstein is himself a military man who graduated from the Air Force Academy. He’s a Republican and was White House counsel during the Reagan administration. The Alibi reported last week on the foundation’s 2010 nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.

A gunman killed 11 people and wounded 31 this afternoon at the Fort Hood soldier readiness area in Texas.

The gunman, killed by police response forces, has been identified as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan.

Two other soldiers are suspects.

Fort Hood is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which is designed to help soldiers overcome combat stress issues.

In June, Fort Hood's commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, told CNN that he was trying to ease the kind of stresses soldiers face. He has pushed for soldiers working a day schedule to return home for dinner by 6 p.m., and required his personal authorization for anyone working weekends. At the time, two soldiers stationed there had committed suicide in 2009 -- a rate well below those of other posts.