Saddam to do the air dance

Now this is what I call the swift carriage of justice...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Senior Iraqi officials on Friday dismissed suggestions from Washington that they would hang this weekend and said some in cabinet were pushing for the execution to be put off for a month or more.

But Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has called for the ousted president put to death this year for killing and oppressing Shi'ites, said there would be "no review or delay" in the sentence following this week's failure of Saddam's appeal.

And a defense lawyer said he thought Saddam might well die on Saturday after lawyers were told to collect his belongings.

They're supposed to videotape every aspect of this process, from the turn-over, his perp-walk to the gallows, and finally the execution itself. I doubt it will be televised internationally, but within 5 minutes of the event it'll be on YouTube for all to see.

UPDATE: Saddam did indeed do the air-dance. The media in this country, in the interest of taste, good form, and their saddness at his passing, chose not to show the whole thing. You can find the whole clip all over the web if you want to watch it. Some guy recorded it on his cell phone so it's not very high quality and you don't actually see him dancing at the end of the rope but you see him fall through the trap door and the rope snap taught. Kind of disturbing...like a train wreck...you don't want to see the carnage but for some reason you cannot look away.

Location, location,...oh, and famous murders

They always say nothing increases the value of a home like a celebrity dying there under suspicious circumstances. Well, the next best thing is to have this countries most infamous murder in the last 30 years take place there...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- The house on a quiet, tree-lined Modesto street where police believe Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife, Laci, is being sold again for nearly $350,000, a real estate agent said Wednesday.
A couple that wants to stay anonymous are working with real estate agents to close on the three-bedroom, two-bath home where the Petersons lived until Laci Peterson was killed in 2002.

I don't think I could live in a house knowing that a girl and her baby were murdered there. I would always be looking around wondering, "Did it happen over there in that corner?" or "I wonder if he used that hose to wash up after murdering her." I think I would become, in spite of not wanting to, obsessed with finding some evidence of the murder...a blood stain, drag marks, suspicious substances in the garage. Every knick in a door frame, every pulled carpet fiber, every smear on a window would become suspicious to me as possible evidence of something.

How do you live in a place where something so terrible happened so recently without it entering your every thought when you're there?

A GREAT MAN

Gerald Ford is no longer with us. I mourn his passing. Gerald is only remembered as the non-elected president. His life is swept under the carpet without review. This man served 48 months in the armed services and only received 10 medals while in action. He was elected numerous times to a seat in Congress, and was then selected by Nixon as his running mate. He was greatly troubled by Nixon's lying, and only came to pardon him later, for the country. Historians are now starting to review the campaign between Ford and Carter, and are discovering that the outcome might have been different if Ford had a little more time. He was coming on strong in the polls at the end. He was a fine man and we should all take a moment today to thank him for his service to our country. As President all he did was restore honor to the White House and deal with the ending of the Vietnam War- which regardless of side chosen was an ugly task. Hopefully as time goes on, he will be graded higher and higher as one of our leaders. A classy guy with a true love for the country. What else could we ask for out of a President - at least he didn't embarrass the country.

The virtual family

I don't know if I think this is cool or weird...

Accenture researchers Dadong Wan, right, and Adam Pilon, on screen, demonstrate a video-conferencing device Friday, Dec., 15, 2006, that allows families to dine together from different locations. Wan says his technology research company is developing a prototype called "The Virtual Family Dinner" to bring family interactions back to extended family members, like the elderly, as often as desired. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey)

All the togetherness you can stand that comes with family holiday dinners, without the annoying questions about why you aren't married yet or aunt Mildred's rutabaga casserole. And when your wacky liberal uncle starts in on you about your conservative political blog, you can just turn off his channel...excellent!

Peace for me, but not for thee

Every time coallition forces decline to fight Muslims out of respect for their observance of Ramadan, remember this...

British intelligence and law enforcement officials have passed on a grim assessment to their U.S. counterparts, “It will be a miracle if there isn’t a terror attack over the holidays in London,” a senior American law enforcement official tells ABCNews.com.
British police have been quietly carrying out a series of key arrests as they continue to track at least six active “plots” tied to what they call “al Qaeda of England.”
Officials said they could not cite any specific date or target but said al Qaeda had planned previous operations during the Christmas holidays that had been disrupted.
“It is not a matter of if there will be an attack, but how bad the attack will be,” an intelligence official told ABCNews.com.

I'm shocked, shocked to learn that the Religion of Peace would attack civilians during their observance of a Christian holiday...SHOCKED!!!

Rosie and The Donald

Rosie O'donnell and Donald Trump continued their mutually beneficial(from a publicity standpoint) fued this week and the media predictably chose sides...Rosie's of course. As liberals, most in the media despise Trump simply because he's wildly successful, rich beyond imagination, male, and white. Rosie, on the other hand, is adored by the media because she's a lesbian adopter of children, politically to the left of Fidel Castro, and regularly criticizes George Bush on her stupid, daily celebration of hyper-estrogenized carpies...The View.

The current comparison the media like to make is which one gives more to charity, Rosie or The Donald. To the leftist media, the more you give to charities, the better person you are. It matters not to leftists that when that one-time donation is used up by the recipient, that person and his family are no better off than before the gift. The important thing is that it make the giver feeeeel good about him/her self.

Maybe Rosie gave a million more dollars to charity than The Donald but who cares? How many jobs has Donald Trump created in the process of acquiring all that wealth? I would guess in the thousands at least. Look how many lives Trump has uplifted by providing employment and opportunities for providing for one's own self, rather than depending on the charity of others. How many jobs had Rosie created? None?

Consistent with all leftists, the media value gestures, appearances, and feelings rather than results.

How better to serve your fellow man than to provide them with the pride and individual empowerment of employment...not just one-time, soul-sucking handouts.? That's not to say soul-sucking handouts are bad, but if the choice is a one-time hand-out or a job...surely the provider of jobs deserves some credit.

Arf, Arf

I just love when liberals get bitten in the behind by their own fanatical positions on things like animal rights...

NEW YORK - Macy's has pulled from its shelves and its Web site two styles of Sean John hooded jackets, originally advertised as featuring faux fur, after an investigation by the nation's largest animal protection organization concluded that the garments were actually made from a certain species of dog called "raccoon dog."

It seems the Chinese have a one-dog/family policy to go with their one-child/family policy. Appartently the Chinese culture allows dogs and even cats to be killed for their pelts. Amusingly, when Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, or whatever name he's going by this week, oredered the Chinese factory to produce his hoodies with faux fur, he didn't realize the Chinese would slaughter dogs and cats to make the clothing. When you use foreign factories to produce your product to take advantage of the cheap labor, you have to allow for the possibility of the local culture and customs to sneak into that production.

I find it amusing that P.Diddy and the rest of the animal rights sycophants are upset about how China treats it's animals, but the post-natal slaughter, and/or selling into slavery, of thousands of baby girls doesn't seem to upset them in the least.

Animal rights? What about basic human rights, Sean?

At any rate, that old song, "How much for the doggy in the window?", has a whole different meaning in China.

News in Brief

-- The final report on Sandy "the Burgler" Berger came out yesterday. His efforts to shield the Clintons from blame and criticism for their lack of action that could have prevented 9/11 resulted in a $50,000 fine(obviously the Clintons paid this for him as hush money), 300 hours of community service, and astonishingly, the loss of his top-secret security pass for 3 short years. This guy stole documents pertaining to international terrorists from the national archives in his socks, underwear(yuck), and pants legs. If this had been a Republican National Security Advisor trying to protect George Bush, the national media would be screaming impeachment, treason, and demanding imprisonment from the roof-tops. But remember, it's Bill Clinton, there's a whole different template for dealing with Democrats...it's called complicity.

-- Monica Lewinsky is back in the news today and it has nothing to do with Bill Clinton, thankfully. It seems she has graduated from the London School of Economics. Good for her. Hopefully she can finally get beyond the Philanderer-in-Chief and enjoy a promising career, leaving behind Bill Clinton as just an embarassing footnote to her life.



-- "Mohammad" or the alternate spelling "Mahammad" has quietly moved up to number 22 on the list of most popular boys names in the UK and Wales. If this isn't the canary in the coal mine for the islamification of Europe, I don't know what is.

-- The next time you hear George Bush, some other politician, or pro-illegal-alien activist carp about' "illegals doing jobs Americans won't do", remember this and know they are lying to you. Hundreds of legal Americans lined up outside the Swift&Co. meat-packing plant to fill job vacancies left by the hundreds of illegal aliens that were swept up in the ICE raid last week. It turns out that Americans will do the so-called hard labor jobs that Bush tells us they won't do, just not at the low wages the illegal Mexicans will do them for.
"But Ed" you whine, "the prices we pay for those goods and services are lower because the labor costs of employing illegals is lower than for American workers."
Silly, economically ignorant reader, the bacon might be a little bit cheaper but we more than pay for the illegals in other ways like, social services, education benefits, medical care, cheap housing that is unavailable to needy Americans, crime, prison over-crowding, the dumbing down of the public school curriculum to accomodate non-English speakers...the list of unseen costs of illegal aliens goes on and on and on. If you ask me, I'd rather pay a few pennies more for my bologna and ground chuck than have emergency rooms close because the illegals use them as primary medical care, my children get sub-standard education, and billions of dollars are sent to Mexico and not spent in the local economies where they are earned.

-- Well, what do you know? Who would have guessed the champion of the common man, the defender of the world's poorest souls, would illegally maintain a rent-controlled apartment for 10 years for his wealthy family member and ambassador, and in doing so, deprive a deserving poor family of inexpensive housing?
I'll tell you who would have guessed. I would have guessed, that's who. Why wouldn't you suspect the leader of the most corrupt, incompetent collection of despotic, self-serving reprobates in all the world, of bilking the American taxpayer for 10 years for his personal gain? He's been doing just that at the expense of millions of poor people all over the world as head of the disastrous United Nations.

Hillary...gimme a break

Dan Collins over at Proteinwisdom.com has a really clear analysis of Hillary Clinton's claim today that had she known then what she knows now, she wouldn't have voted for the war...really, check it out...he nails her!

http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/trackback/21960/LvPTlJ0c/

Bush the Enabler

No matter how they disguise themselves around election time, eventually Congressional Democrats will always show themselves to be the vile, loathsome wretches they are.......Oh, and you can toss Bush in with them after reading this...

The Bush administration has sent signals since last month's elections that the president is prepared to accept some tax increases on upper-income families, worrying congressional Republicans and fiscal conservative watchdogs who say he will compromise with Democrats to win a legacy accomplishment.

The favorite target of Democrats is always the richest Americans and businesses. It's easy to get the hand-out, loafing-class Americans(the Democrats' bread and butter voting base) to hate the rich simply for being rich. It doesn't matter that the top 5% of wage earners in America already pay 50% of the taxes Democrats use to buy votes...Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will squeeze them for more. It doesn't matter that the richest Americans create most of the jobs and wealth this country enjoys...Democrats will use class envy to soak them for still more. I always wonder why loafing-class Americans enjoy it when Democrats punish achievement by seizing more and more from the rich, when the poor don't get any of that money. I think they just take perverse pleasure in the misery of those who have more than them, and evil, Democrats are always ready and eager to exploit that dark side of human nature to seize political power.

That being said, it's not the Democrats that disappoint me (I always expect the worst from Democrats because they never fail to deliver it), it's George Bush rolling over for Democrats like a lap dog on a fundamentally conservative issue like taxation.

Bush has become a weak, tax-and-spend, big-government, RINO sell-out. The complacent, impotent Republican party will deserve to toil as the minority under the abhorrent, contemptible Hillary when she wins in '08, because of their desertion of conservative principles during the Bush presidency.

While European Socialists fiddle...

Here's a perfect example why Europe is falling before our very eyes...

Two out of three charged with rape in Norway’s capital are immigrants with a non-western background according to a police study. The number of rape cases is also rising steadily. Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

These are the same crazed Muslim jihadists who murdered Theo Van Gogh and who rioted in response to some cartoons of Muhammed. In case you haven't figured it out yet, or you are a liberal who doesn't want to know the truth about Islam, the radicals target the most hospitable socialist countries to which to immigrate. There they reproduce like rabbits and demand that the host country change in order to accomodate their wacky religious practices. And the self-destructive Euro-weenies continue to tax their most productive class to death to pay for the upkeep of these Islamic parasites.

It's exactly like feeding a colony of termites as they busily gnaw at the foundation of your house.

And in what might be the stupidest quote of the year, the mindless academic blames the Norwegian women for their own rapes...unbelievable!

Conspiracy theories of sports in Alabama

Here are a few of the conspiracy theories floating around Alabama today...

1. Alabama still thinks it has a shot at Nick Saban(they probably do). Jimbo Fisher(OC at LSU) and Saban are big buds and want to coach together again. Fisher's continued availability helps Alabama recruit Saban from the Miami Dolphins when his season there ends in a couple of weeks. The conspiracy: the Alabama Board of Trustees, who astonishingly also control the UAB program, deep-sixed the possibility of UAB hiring Jimbo Fisher as head coach to use him as bait to get Saban to come to Alabama.

2. The person who has the most to lose if Nick Saban comes to Alabama is Tommy Tuberville at Auburn. His career and wallet have been the beneficiaries of Alabama's coaching merry-go-round for the last 5 years. The last thing he wants is for Alabama to get a competent coach. The conspiracy: Tuberville's agent, Jimmy Sexton, also represents Saban. Tuberville may have offered Sexton a bigger percentage to disuade Saban from taking the Bama job.

3. This isn't really a conspiracy but more of a curiosity. Why didn't UAB even consider Hoover coach Rush Propst for the job? For a struggling program like UAB, a shot of excitement from a proven winner like Propst would be great. He could draw some of the Hoover players to UAB. For some reason, UAB wouldn't even talk to him. If I were Propst, I'd stay at Hoover. He has better coaches offices, better player facilities, better stadium, better everything except salary. Of course 350K a year is a powerful lure compared to the 60K he makes at Hoover.

Consider this an open thread to discuss football situations and state sports in general.

K.I.S.S.

If the State is going to be in the business of executing citizens who've commited crimes which carry the death penalty, certainly they should be competent at killing them. Oddly, they keep getting more and more complex with the methods of execution.

The complexity started with the electric chair. There were like 10 things that could go wrong and people thought it was too barbaric--they had a point.

Then came the gas chamber. From a remote position, you have to mechanically lower a pouch of cyanide chunks into a bath of sulfuric acid...the reaction produced cyanide gas which killed almost immediately...but the visual of the condemned prisoner trying to hold his last breath was ghoulish.

Now we have the idiotic lethal injection method. This way of execution is susceptible to human error more than any. When you miss the vein, you cant' even see that you've missed it.

I say the states should return to the more simple, tried and true methods of execution: hanging, firing squad, and maybe guillotine. I mean how can you mess up a good old fashioned hanging? All you need is a rope and gallows. It has stood the test of time. Or we could use the firing squad. (Gary Gilmore chose the firing squad back in 76) 5 guys, proven competent with a gun, at close range cannot miss the big red heart on the white smock covering the prisoner. Finally, the guillotine proved it's usefullness and reliable servicability during the French revolution. If it's good enough for French royalty, it's good enough for our hardened capital criminals.

Evolutionary fact: those unfit for survival...don't survive

If you don't know any better than this, I don't know what to say...

SEATTLE (AP) - About 100 people have been poisoned by carbon monoxide produced by generators and charcoal grills used for warmth and light during the widespread power outages caused by a major storm in western Washington state.
One man died of inhaling the colorless, odorless gas. At least six other people were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning in Oregon.
"We're dealing with a carbon-monoxide epidemic in western Washington," said Dr. Neil Hampson of Virginia Mason Medical Center, which treated more than 55 people in its hyperbaric chamber, where pressure is used to force oxygen into the blood.
"This has the potential to be the worst case of carbon-monoxide poisoning in the country," Hampson said.

Carbon-monoxide epidemic? How about calling it what it is--a stupidity epidemic.

How can a person have survived to adulthood unharmed when they think lighting a charcoal inside the house is an acceptable source of warmth? You'd think they would have managed to kill themselves by some other stupid means by now. These stories never cease to amaze me, and I hear them every year.

"But Ed", you ignorantly whine, "these are poor, uneducated people who have never been taught about the dangers of carbon monoxide. It's not their fault for poisoning themselves and their families. It's society's fault for not educating them, for not fixing their heat source fast enough, and for not providing for their basic living needs."

Silly liberal reader, if your family were freezing with no promise of a quick heat return, would you not take them to a shelter, or a hotel, or somewhere with generators, outside? Regardless of his level of poverty or education, even the dumbest American should know not to build a fire in his house that is not in the fireplace.

UAB's gain is Georgia's gain

I just heard that UAB hired Georgia's offensive coordinator Neil Calloway as head coach. As a Georgia fan, that's great! Georgia's offense is boring and uncreative. We have like six offensive plays and Richt insists on sticking to the game plan regardless of effectiveness or the score...see the Kentucky and Vandy games from this year for proof. Now maybe we can hire somebody who will bring some creativity, flexibility, and excitement to the offense.

For my Bama readers: It must be sort of embarassing that UAB, a third-rate football program with third-rate facilities, second-rate fans, and no stadium can replace a coach within a week of losing one, and nobody wants the Bama job...OUCH!

Good Deeds

WELL DONE WORCHSTER WREATH COMPANY!!!

I first heard of this amazing story about 3 weeks ago. The man that owns this company has donated these wreaths for portions of Arlington cemetary for the last few years. This picture gives all of us an idea of the magnitude of placing 5000 free wreaths at each tombstone in the area.

This man is not a veteran, he is just a good Americam wanting to remember fallen soldiers that have died for the freedoms of our country. He has done this quietly and without any fanfare - it is just his way of saying thanks to our servicemen amd women for doing their job.

I look at this kind act of servitude and compare it to the antics of Cindy Shehan, whose protests seem to bring about all that is bad in this country. I don't know if her son is buried at Arlington, but if he is, and his body is entombed in one of the previously decorated areas, then he received the tribute as well. The liberal media plasters all kinds of negative press at us daily, and we are rarely exposed to acts of kindness at all, but it is nice to know that good people still do good and unselfish things.

It is time that the regular folks stand up and thank OUR military for the job they have done - whether we agree with the fight or not, these people don't get to pick, they just have to do their job, so at least pat them on the back and say thanks.

I close with a quick story:

My 12 year old son and I were sitting at the Auburn-Georgia game this fall. In the row in front of us and about 5 seats over, was a young man who had spent the last 2 years in Iraq (as a Marine). His tour was up, he had come home to marry ( they were on their honeymoon) and set up housing before he was reshipped back over for a final 6 months tour. He had received tickets through a friend, because he had never seen a college football game -live. If you remember, the day was ominous, with a guarrantee of rain. As the drops started to slowly spurt out of the sky most folks donned their rain jackets and ponchos. The young Marine and his wife sat there without any protective gear. An uneselfish act of kindness and patriotism happened. The 50 year old man whose seats are next to mine, instead of adorning his poncho, took his and his son's and handed them to the Marine. His statement was something like this," you have fought to protect this country, this is least I can do to repay you for your service". I felt a tear well up in the corner of my eye as I watched this unfold. My throat got tight, and I knew that I had seen an amazing thing. More importantly my son had witnessed this as well. A random act of kindness - 2 men who had or would never see each other again, yet 1 was compelled to show love to the other. Kinda makes Cindy a little more patheteic doesn't it.

By the way, if you can find it, the USA today did a front page story on "THE WREATH GUY". Read the poem. Reflect on all the good and great things about our country. Try to find the time in your life to show kindness. Maybe one person at a time we can start to change this country back to the country it used to and should be. Merry Christmas to all.

Communing with nature

Everybody likes wildlife but, this is a bit close...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - An Australian wildlife worker pulled a 7-foot python out of a septic tank Wednesday after a plumber found it hiding in a woman's toilet, officials said.
Peter Phillips, a wildlife officer for the Northern Territory's Parks and Wildlife Service, was called to remove the snake after a plumber who was fixing the blocked toilet discovered it curled in the pipes.
"The ... resident originally called a plumber because her toilet was blocked," Phillips said in a statement released by the Northern Territory government. "I arrived to see a large python head peering out of the toilet bowl."

It would almost be worth the expense of removing the snake just to see my wife react to a python in the toilet.

Potential power shift in the Senate

The news that Sen. Tim Johnson (D) South Dakota was gravely ill and in brain surgery sent shock waves through Washington yesterday and this morning. In a ghoulish display of insensitivity, partisans of both parties reckoned how the possibility of his inability to hold office might affect them personally.

Of course if he cannot serve, the Republican governor of South Dakota will appoint a Republican to take his place, shifting the power back to the Republicans in the Senate. (the balance is now D-51 R-49, another R would make the balance 50/50 with Dick Cheney breaking any ties.)

I sincerely hope that Tim Johnson recovers and can serve out his term to '08. That being said, the Republicans desertion of conservatism renders them undeserving of power but, it would be hilarious to me, to see Harry Reid have to move out of his new Senate office even before the new paint has dried.

We will be treated to more wailing and gnashing of teeth from Senate democrats than we've ever witnessed before. They'll demand that the SD governor appoint a democrat because that's what the people voted for. Sadly for them, and happily for us, S.D. law doesn't say anything about who the governor has to appoint...he can appoint anybody he wants.

Breaking News...

Lettuce Suspected in Taco Bell E. Coli

The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 13, 2006; 11:10 PM

WASHINGTON -- Health officials on Wednesday zeroed in on lettuce as the likely suspect in the E. coli outbreak linked to Taco Bell.

Indignant, lettuce denies any involvement...proclaims innocence, vows to hunt down the true culprit. Points leaf at onion.

Holy Crap!

Peter Boyle dies at 71.

He was great as Frank Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond and in Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder.

I enjoyed and will miss his comedy.

...it's the motion of the ocean.

I don't typically comment on stories like this, but this is kind of funny. First it was the Germans, now the Indians have a study about male endowment...

A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.

The study found that more than half of the men measured had penises that were shorter than international standards for condoms.

It has led to a call for condoms of mixed sizes to be made more widely available in India.

The two-year study was carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research.

And then this is my favorite line in the story.

Over 1,200 volunteers from the length and breadth of the country had their penises measured precisely, down to the last millimetre.

"Length and breadth"...heh, heh.

p.s. Are those Halloween condoms? They're orange.

It's good to be the king

I can't even imagine what this guy's life must be like...

Tiger Woods has signed his third multi-year agreement with Nike, according to an ESPN report.

Terms of the contract were not released, but they have been quite lucrative in the past. Woods' original contract in 1996 was worth a reported $40 million over five years. In 2001, he signed another five-year deal for a reported $100 million.

If you make hundreds of millions of dollars a year playing golf, you're married to a Swedish lingerie model, and you are the most recognizable person in perhaps the known universe...it would be pretty cool to be you. On the other hand, you can't go out to dinner, see a movie or take your wife for ice-cream without getting mobbed by rude, sychophantic fans who don't respect your privacy or personal space.

A measure of anonymity can be a good thing. Then again, I would gladly trade my anonymous obscurity for 100 mill. and a career stroke average of like 68.

The War on Christmas

I am finally in the fray. I have lived with the cheapening of this special day for years and have stood by and watched this Christian holiday be demeaned and belittled for too long. No more!

This past weekend a rabbi passing through SEATAC airport in Seattle noted his objection to the Christmas Tree display, stating that there should also be a menorah present. The airport authority removed and eventually replaced this display. I want to know why it was removed in the first place? He should have been told that no offense was meant.

We, Christians have long stood by and allowed our religion to be belittled and demeaned by other and/or non believers for too long. I , nor no one I polled on the issue, find any offense when Kwanzaa or Hanuka displays are seen. I understand that it is intended for other people, I accept their belief and move on. Let's get real about this War. It isn't about the tree, the gifts, or the music, it is strictly about the birth of a little baby some 2000 years ago. It is about limiting freedom of worship because somebody doesn't agree with it. They say it infringes on their freedoms, but truthfully and sadly, it is about controlling others freedoms, once again.

I do not want to live in a world where control is veiled under the auspice of religion. I will say Merry Christmas to all I see; I will not say Happy Holidays again - ever. I will not intend to offend anyone with my celebration, but if someone is offended then they can deal with it on their own. I will treat people as I am supposed to treat them - with a servant heart and with a kind and gentle demeanor.

Enjoy this glorious season; Remember why it is celebrated; Merry Christmas!!

A liquid North Pole in our lifetime...let's book a cruise

This is going to be pretty cool if it happens...

Ice-free North Pole by 2040
December 13, 2006
ICE is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea within 30 years.
Ships will be able to sail over the top of the world, and tourists will be able visit what was, until climate change, one of the planet's most inaccessible landscapes.

US researchers, assessing the impact of carbon emissions on world climate, have calculated that late summer in the Arctic will be ice-free by 2040 or earlier.

Some ice would still be found on coastlines, notably in Greenland and Ellesmere Island, but the rest of the Arctic Ocean, including the pole, would be open water.

The researchers, funded by NASA, said the ice retreat was likely to remain constant until 2024, when the process would suddenly quicken.

In 30 to 50 years, they concluded, summer sea-ice would have vanished from almost the entire Arctic region.


So, if all the arctic ice is melting so fast, where is the concomitant rise in sea levels we were breathlessly warned about by the wacko-environmentalist, man-made global warming believers? If Al Gore is to be believed, shouldn't there be massive coastal flooding around the world?

Arctic ice floats on the ocean much like an ice-cube floats in your tea glass. When the ice melts, the glass doesn't get any fuller because it's already displaced the water. Obviously, Al Gore and his greenie-sychophants were busy protesting something or other the day that concept was covered in physics class.

The Perils of Packrattery

If this story weren't so disgusting and sad, I might be able to find some humor in it...


December 10, 2006 -- Police and firefighters yesterday rescued a Long Island man who had been trapped in his bedroom for four days after piling up a 7-foot-high mountain made up of bags of his own feces, jars of urine and other debris.
An officer responded to Charles Ruoff's dilapidated home in Centerport around 3:30 a.m. after receiving an anonymous 911 call asking police to check up on the 64-year-old veteran who hadn't been seen in days.
As he explored the house, the cop heard Ruoff calling weakly from a second-floor bedroom where he had walled himself in with a mountain of his own filth. He said he had been trapped since Tuesday.
The Centerport Fire Department freed Ruoff using heavy rescue equipment.
Ruoff was taken to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Northport where he was treated for dehydration, hypothermia, bedsores and general weakness, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Donner said.


Collecting garbage and waste until you literally wall yourself in...I enjoy hearing heartwarming stories about senior citizens keeping busy with hobbies.

Diana conspiracy theory #348

Anybody want to hazard a guess as to why Bill Clinton's CIA was surveilling Princess Diana at the time of her death? He probably thought he had a chance to "get with" her, if you know what I mean. Whatever the reason, this news will initiate another ridiculous round of conspiracy theories, 20/20 investigative segments, and made-for-TV movies.

Pulling back the curtain on the wizard

Now they're killing each other's kids?

Gunmen in Gaza City have shot dead the three sons(ages 6-10) of an intelligence chief linked to the Palestinian party Fatah.
One adult was also killed in the attack which took place in a street crowded with children on their way to school.
The boys' father was named as Baha Balousheh, who led a crackdown on the now-ruling Hamas movement 10 years ago.
The BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says the motive is unclear but Mr Balousheh's position means he would have made many enemies.
Tensions between Fatah and the Hamas government have frequently led to gun battles in the streets of Gaza that have killed dozens of people.

And according to the ISG Report, James Baker thinks we should sit down with child-murdering terrorists like these guys and establish some kind of 80's-style dialogue, and that will solve the problems in the middle east? You don't sit down with terrorists. You don't sit down with terror states like North Korea, Iran, and Syria. You destroy them, either economically or militarily.

ISG stands for Iraq Study Group, but many of the 79 proposals deal with middle east stability in general. Isn't it curious how James Baker's recommendations in the ISG Report mirror very closely the regional goals of the Saudi's? Few realize that James Baker has been the Saudi's #1 lobbyist in Washington for the last 10 years.

Let the Fatah, Hezbollah, and Hamas terrorist groups handle their own business. We don't need to be involved. Iraq is a big enough problem for us itself.

Nothing else to do

This doesn't bode well for the future of Scandinavia...

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) -- Alcohol is now the leading killer of Finnish adults, with consumption reaching an all-time high last year in the Nordic nation, officials said Friday.
More than 2,000 people between the ages of 15 and 64 were killed by alcohol poisoning or illnesses caused by alcohol consumption last year, the government's leading welfare and health agency said. Nearly 1,000 people died in accidents or violent incidents caused by alcohol.

Combine almost year-round frigid temperatures, an inspiration-killing Socialist welfare state, relatively little sunlight, with unpronouncable names, and what's left to do but drink? With everything in the Finn world creating mass depression, could social scientists not have predicted this?

Seriously, can you imagine calling up a girl named Yarny Svenglishgreusenhosen for a date?

Man-made global warming believers are dumb, and now it's official

It's about time a conservative in Washington quit cow-towing to the dumb enviromentalist wackos, and said what all rational, thinking people know, that is, man-made global warming is a myth perpetrated by anti-capitalists who hate America...

Washington D.C. - Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the outgoing Chairman of Environment & Public Works Committee, is pleased to announce the public release of the Senate Committee published booklet entitled “A Skeptic’s Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism. Hot & Cold Media Spin Cycle: A Challenge To Journalists who Cover Global Warming.”

Click here to download the "Skeptic's Guide" (http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6341044%20Hot%20&%20Cold%20Media.pdf)]

I downloaded this book into Acrobat Reader and it makes for very satisfying reading, that is unless you buy all the AlGore, the-sky-is-falling crap about man's activities destroying the Earth. Inhofe says what George Bush and other self-proclaimed conservatives should have been saying all along. Seriously, check it out.

Guest Blogger

Dedicated reader of TRR, "Reid" will be guest blogging in this space now and then on topics of interest to him. He's new to the web log game so please be nice, at least at first.

This is the only known image of "Reid" using his computer. It is said that he surfs sometimes for days on end, his pasty, sunlight-deprived skin reflecting the soft electronic glow of the screen. His only nurishment being Milo's burgers and Jolt cola thrown down the basement den stairs by members of his family.

Anybody who reads his comments on TRR knows Reid is at least as opinionated as me, so be on the lookout for his posts and if you disagree with what he has to say, sock it to him.

Choice for me, but not for thee

Who would have imagined that the free market could determine whether a fast-food joint survived in a community without the health nazis getting involved?

McDonald's is closing its outlet in a town known for quality food and healthy, local produce.
The fast food chain in Tavistock, Devon, simply wasn't being used enough by locals.
So after seven years struggling to make ends meet in a town that has won many accolades for the quality of its food, McDonald's will finally shut up shop on Saturday.
John Taylor, chairman of Tavistock EatWise campaign, said: "Because of the quality of our local food McDonald's has not been able to compete."

Why, it's almost as if what I've been saying about free market competition was absolutely true. Citizens exercising parental and personal responsibility, making free choices in the interests of themselves and their families actually have an effect on the market...an effect that is hundreds of times more efficient and reflective of what that community desires, and without the tiresome meddling of liberal do-gooders who foist their personal preferences on their fellow citizens.

I wonder what the trans-fat nazis up in New York have to say about letting free market competition determine the ingredients of food here. They'll say that average U.S. citizens won't make the "correct" choices, so those "choices" have to be made by someone more enlightened. Elitist liberals disgust me.

dumb hippie of the week

You'd think smelly hippies would have more sense than to lock metal collars around their own necks.....but then, they are dumb, smelly hippies after all...

ENVIRONMENTAL activists were arrested in Newcastle yesterday after attempting to block the first shipment of genetically engineered canola coming into Australia.
Police used cutting equipment to free three Greenpeace protesters, who used neck locks to chain themselves to vehicles blocking the gates to the Cargill processing plant at Kooragang Island. One of the protesters required medical assistance after she was cut on the neck by machinery used to free her.

Locking yourself up by the neck to protest canola oil?

Seriously folks, you can't write comedy like this.

The results of this little study caught my eye this evening...

The rich really do own the world
A major study of wealth distribution reveals the richest 2 per cent own more than half of global household assets

ESTANISLAO OZIEWICZ
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

For those who aren't wealthy, it seems blindingly obvious that the rich own the world. Now, in a first-ever exhaustive study of global wealth, it's clear just how inequitably the riches are spread around.

The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half of global household wealth, and almost all of the well-heeled live in North America, Europe and richest Asia-Pacific countries.

"We find there's a lot of inequality, which is what we expected and is not that surprising," said University of Western Ontario economist James Davies, who was a co-author of the study, conducted by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations. "But it turns out, the world distribution of wealth [assets minus debts] is more unequal than the world distribution of income."

Look out, the corrupt U.N. is going to demand that the richest nations contribute even more of their wealth to the poorest nations in order to rectify this injustice. Why else would the U.N. commission a study like this if it's ultimate goal wasn't to take from wealthy countries and give to poor countries in the name of fairness and equality? The most cursory glance at the list of wealthy nations reveals that they represent the most capitalistic, free-enterprise driven economies in the world, while the poorest countries represent the most oppressive, corrupt, evil dictatorships and theocracies on Earth...that's no coincidence. Here's a breakdown of the global wealth holdings but it mirrors roughly the U.S. wealth holdings...

What the rich own:

1% of richest adults own 40% of total global wealth

2% of richest adults own 51% of total global wealth
5% of richest adults Own 71% of total global wealth
10% of richest adults Own 85% of total global wealth

Notice anything familiar about this list? Anybody who pays taxes in the U.S. should recognize these numbers as roughly identical to the percentages of the federal tax burden borne by the wealthy by percent rank. The top 1% of wage earners in America pay about 40% of the taxes collected by the government, and the top 10% pay roughly 85% of the taxes. The bottom 50% of wage earners in the U.S. collectively contribute only 5% of the taxes that are used to pay for the goody bags they get from the government each month...and by "government", I mean fellow tax payers.

Notice how the author of this article conveniently left that morsel out. All liberals want to do is show how the evil rich possess too much wealth and should be forced to give some of it, in the form of high taxes, to the poor, downtrodden of the world. They never acknowledge how much the rich already "give". The consumers of wealth, especially in the U.S., are getting essentially a free ride courtesy of the producers of wealth. No country gives a fraction of charity to it's own poor as well as to the poor of other countries that the U.S. does, yet the America-hating liberals here and at the U.N. can never get enough.

I've asked it before, and I'll ask it again...why are we in the United Nations?

Mission for the U.N.

Seriously, should we be interested, much less concerned, about a military coup in Fiji? We're a tad busy battling worldwide terrorists who've vowed to eradicate or subjugate all free, peace-loving peoples on Earth. I'm not sure how high on the interest-meter a coup on a tiny, tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific registers.

Now this would be a perfect peace-keeping mission for Kofi Annan to undertake as his last act in office. He should employ the awsome authority and power of the U.N. to solve the crisis in Fiji.

When good celebrities go bad

Man if it weren't for Nick Nolte's post-career mug shots, Rip Torn would be the celebrity-least-likely-to-take-a-good-mugshot winner. I was always a fan of Rip Torn's, he was great in the Jerry Sanders Show.

Nothing's more undignified for a celebrity than getting his picture taken after a two day binge. No makeup, hair guy, or favorable back lighting for the mug shot.

A cryin' shame

After all the weak, incompetent appointments Bush has made, he finally got one right in John Bolton over at the disaster known as the United Nations. Then this...

President Bush surrendered to congressional foes yesterday in his fight to install John R. Bolton as permanent ambassador to the United Nations, a harbinger of how the political world has changed since Democrats captured both houses of Congress.

The dreadful U.N. has done nothing worthwhile in it's entire existence...name one! The corruption at the U.N is singular in it's depravity, and the collection of theives and America-hating despots that suck at the teat of the American taxpayer daily, has no equal in it's incompetence and loathsomness.

That Bush rolled over so easily is a testament to his own incompetence and unwillingness to stand up for a good man and call a spade a spade. The Democrats hated John Bolton because he held the U.N. to some standard of ethical behavior. Democrats, like John Kerry, would cede American sovereignty to the U.N. because it fits in their world view of a one-world government. Bush may not have had the votes to keep Bolton, but he sure could have told the American people why he didn't have the votes...because the Democrats are vermin, interested only in the acquisition of political power and the destruction of political foes, like John Bolton.

You watch, Bush will nominate some "Mike Brown" weenie type of whom SanFranNan approves to the U.N. and it'll be business as usual....demanding more tax-payer money from the U.S., condemning the U.S. no matter what it does, condemning Israel no matter what it does, and raping and pillaging every third-world rat hole they occupy.

Remind me again why we're in the U.N.

A subversive on the bench

Most of you probably saw Stephen Breyer's interview with Chris Wallace this weekend. The following quotes illustrate just how dreadful liberal justices are, and how important it is to have a conservative in the White House because of the far-reaching consequences of their appointment's decisions...

In his interview, Breyer argued that in some cases it wouldn't make sense to strictly follow the Constitution because phrases such as "freedom of speech" are vague. Judges must look at the real-world context -- not focus solely on framers' intent, as Scalia has argued -- because society is constantly evolving, he said.

"Those words, 'the freedom of speech,' 'Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech' -- neither they, the founders, nor those words tell you how to apply it to the Internet," Breyer said.

Pointing to the example of campaign finance, Breyer also said the court was right in 2003 to uphold on a 5-4 vote the McCain-Feingold law that banned unlimited donations to political parties.

Acknowledging that critics had a point in saying the law violates free speech, Breyer said the limits were constitutional because it would make the electoral process more fair and democratic to the little guy who isn't tied to special interests.

"You don't want one person's speech, that $20 million giver, to drown out everybody else's. So if we want to give a chance to the people who have only $1 and not $20 million, maybe we have to do something to make that playing field a little more level in terms of money," he said.

Breyer echoed the same idiotic "living breathing Constitution" garbage that Al Gore invoked during his failed campaign for President. It should come as no surprise that Breyer is a Clinton appointee when he uses liberal code words like "level the playing field". Liberals always employ feel-good phrases like "level the playing field" to mask their attempts to skirt the Constitution.

Since when is it the role of the judicial branch to decide fairness, and then legislate from the bench in a way that rectifies that perceived unfairness? Legislation is the role of Congress. See, to liberals, the Constitution is an obstical to be gotten around in order for them to foist their subversive agenda on the rest of us. Liberals(democrats) think that anything that makes them feel good and wins them votes should be law and so they appoint liberal judges who will agree with them. Conservatives look at the Constitution first, regardless of whether it makes them feel good or wins them votes.

The problem with allowing huge donors now is that they can do it in relative secret. Why not have absolutely unlimited political donations by anybody in any amount but with full and immediate disclosure? If ALL donations were immediately and fully disclosed in newspapers, radio, TV, and Internet, the candidates would be seen for exactly what they are...up for sale. What would be the chances of a candidate getting elected who took 20 million from the Sierra Club, big tobacco, or Hollywood? Not very good once the voters saw what was expected for that money.

Breyer wants to limit the free political speech of Americans just because they might be rich. Why should one American's political speech be restricted in favor of another's?

Airhead of the week

Nothing's more insufferable than a cockney, airhead actress pretending to be a cultured, British elitest...

Oscar-winning US actress Gwyneth Paltrow feels dinner talk is far more interesting in her adopted homeland Britain than back in her native country.
"I love the English lifestyle, it's not as capitalistic as America. People don't talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner," she told "NS," the weekend magazine supplement of daily Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias on Saturday.

"I like living here because I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans," the 34-year-old added.

She said having US pop star Madonna, 48, who married British film director Guy Ritchie six years ago, nearby was another advantage to living in London.
"She's like an older sister. Everything I have gone through, she went through ten times worse and ten times longer. She gives me good advice about how to say no and take care of myself," said Paltrow.

How can you claim to be "more intelligent and civilized" when you name your child Apple? Gwyneth can stay on her side of the pond for all I care...and keep Madonna over there.

Good point

I was just listening to Neal Boortz and there was some caller complaining about the unfairness of America by pointing out the existence of "haves" and the "have-nots" in this country. Neal made the excellent point that unless you are mentally retarded, if you were born in this country, you, by definition, are a "have". No country on Earth offers more opportunities, regardless of socio-economic status at birth, than America. The only question is the degree to which you take advantage of them.

Here are a few other phrases popular with democrats which all conservatives should recognize as red flags of liberalism...

"filthy rich"...textbook class envy from liberals which conveys the idea that if you are rich, you must have gotten your money unfairly by stepping on the back of the common man, and are therefor dirty. This is how liberals justify the hideous progressive tax scheme they use to seize money from the achieving, productive class and give it to the loafing class...aka, democrat voters.

"income redistribution"...this deceptive liberal favorite is based on the assumption that income is "distributed" in the first place. Income is not distributed, it's earned.

"tax cuts for the rich"...this is a class envy ploy used by liberals when talking to their hand-out voters. It impunes Americans who earn and achieve as having gotten their wealth infairly. Tax cuts are for people who pay taxes. The bottom 50% of wage earners(democrat voters) pay only 5% of the federal taxes collected by the government. How can you give a tax cut to people who don't pay taxes?

"working Americans"...this is also a class envy ruse which conveys the idea that the rich don't work. The truth is that if you are willing to work in America, you will never be poor for long. With the exception of the trust fund babies like Ted Kennedy, the rich are rich precisely because they worked harder than anybody else. (Reminder: Ted Kennedy has never done anything productive. He has sucked at the public teat his entire professional life.)

"giving back to society"...use of this phrase assumes that success or wealth was "given" to begin with. Giving is great, but it's not "giving back" when one chooses to simply give.

"winners of life's lottery"...this was a favorite phrase with democrat "Tricky" Dick Gephardt. He used it to convey the message that success and failure in life is total chance--like a lottery. If wealth and poverty are doled out at random, he reasoned, then that is patently unfair and we should take from the winners and give to the losers....socialism in a nutshell.

Are you detecting a pattern here? Fostering envy between phony classes of Americans is how the Democrats divide and conquer. And that's one of the biggest differences between liberals and conservatives: liberals say, "Those evil rich took what rightfully belongs to everybody. Hate the rich." Conservatives say, "If you make good decisions and work hard, you too can be rich."

Which one are you?

This is hilarious!

I know you've heard about nut-job preacher Fred Phelps. He and his sychophant followers go around protesting funerals of US servicemen killed in Iraq to draw attention to their anti-homosexual agenda. Here they are protesting something or other and this guy deals with their hate in the best way possible...humor. Nothing makes hateful people look stupider than when the targets of their hate make fun of them.

No matter what is given, it's never enough...

Am I the only one who is going to vomit if I hear one more whining minority demand reparations for slavery?

A black rights organisation has said Prime Minister Tony Blair's declaration of "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade did not go far enough and failed to address the issue of compensation.

Blair said the bicentenary of the trade's abolition next year offered the opportunity to condemn Britain's past involvement in slavery.

But his statement in black community newspaper New Nation, stopped short of a full apology, in what activists said was an attempt to stave off demands for reparations.

"Blair's article is taking a backward step from Britain's official position in 1807 when it abolished the trade and expressed regret for what had happened," said Kofi Mawuli Klu of rights group Rendezvous of Victory.

"This has heightened feelings among people in the African community. We want an apology of substance that addresses the demands for African reparations," he added.

In his statement, Blair said: "I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was - how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition - but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever could have happened."

When are these whining blacks going to stop blaming whites for all their current problems? Slavery ended 200 years ago -- 200 YEARS AGO!!! Why does Blair's apology count for anything? He didn't own slaves. That's as idiotic as expecting me to come to your burned down house and apologize for the vandals who lit the fire. Would that make you feel better? Of course not.

This is about money. Blacks want to blame anything but their own bad decisions for the predicaments they find themselves in, and guilt-ridden, whitey liberals make easy targets. Assigning collective, inherited guilt based on skin color makes it easy to demand other peoples' money, because they are demanding it from society as a whole rather than specific individuals.

I didn't own slaves, but my great-great-great-great grand parents may have and guess what? I'm not sorry! How can I be sorry for something I didn't do? Why should the distant decendants of victims of some societal wrong have a right to my property and wealth as compensation for a crime which I didn't commit, and from which they didn't suffer? It is infuriating to me when politicians cave to political correctness and pander to this nonsense. Worse, it encourages the race-mongers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to demand still more. These guys make their livings perpetuating racism where ever their imaginations can conjure it up. And other blacks are happy to be absolved of responsibility for their own lives by blaming white society for their problems.

I'm generally a fan of Tony Blair but this is embarassing and pathetic.

If blacks want to improve the lives of other black people, start by staying off drugs, not having babies out of wedlock, staying in school, and finally by doing something about the slavery that still exists today in of all places--Africa. That's right -- black people keeping other black people as slaves...in the motherland. Where's their outrage about that? You'll be shocked, shocked I say to hear that there's no money to be gotten from African slave-holders.

Why, it's almost as if their pretend outrage is all about getting money they didn't earn and not so much about helping black people.

And the wheel goes round and round

Well, it looks like the Tide won't have Mike Shula to blame for a nose-diving football program anymore, and Auburn fans are sad to see the age of automatic wins over Alabama coming to a close. As a Georgia fan, I was looking forward to kicking Alabama around for four years as they get back on our schedule again at some point in the next few years.

Astonishingly, the Tide nation remains myopically fixated to the memory of "Bear" Bryant. They refuse to believe that there are no longer any coaches with any connection to the Bear left in football. This is why they hired Mike Shula. "If there are no more former coach assistants of the Bear, let's go hire a former player so we can keep the "Bear family" thing going."

People, it's been like 20 years. Go find a quality coach regardless of whether he has previous Bama ties, or has ever heard of Bear Bryant. As long as they continue to cling to the memory of Bear Bryant like a child clings to a rag doll, the football program will continue to decline and the carousel of coaches will continue to turn year after year. Soon, Alabama will be in the ranks with Kentucky, Vandy, Ole Miss and the other bottom feeders of the SEC.

No good deed goes unpunished

See, this is why many Americans hesitate before doing something nice for strangers...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house, free and clear, to a couple who said they were left homeless by the storm. But the couple turned around and sold the place without ever moving in, and went back to New Orleans.
"Take it up with God," an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had flipped the home for $88,000.
Church members said they feel that their generosity was abused by scam artists. They are no longer even sure that the couple were left homeless by Katrina — or that they were a couple at all.
"They came in humble like they really needed a new start, and our hearts went out to them," said Jean Phillips, a real-estate agent and member of the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ. "They actually begged for the home."
Church members also were shocked by an ungrateful interview the couple gave to WHBQ-TV in Memphis.
"I really don’t like this area," said Delores Thompson. "I really didn’t, and I didn’t know anybody, so that’s why I didn’t move in and I sold it."

Americans are the most charitable and generous people on the planet by any measure. Then along comes a pair of ingrates like these two jerks who punish an entire congregation for being nice to them.

These loathsome wretches deserve, in a karmic sort of way, for their current house to be burned to the ground, and I hope it happens to them...and they don't have insurance.

I don't generally take pleasure in the suffering of others...Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I do...expecially when they deserve it. And nobody deserves to suffer like these two.

Between Iraq and a hard place

I no longer see any reasonable or acceptable way out of this...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.
The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry, aided by “corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials.
As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid for hundreds of kidnap victims, the report says. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments — previously identified by American officials as including France and Italy — paid $30 million in ransom last year.

Here's the current situation in Iraq as it stands right now: Shiites and Sunni Muslims are killing each other at an astonishing rate -- a civil war by any standard. Iran and Syria are financing the flooding of Iraq with crazed jihadists who're willing and able to blow themselves up to kill other jihadists and Americans. The Iraqi army and civilian malitia are infested with crazed jihadists who use the authority of their uniforms to kill other Muslims who are not Sunni or Shiite, whichever they are. Al Maliki is not strong enough to lead a country at war with itself. Joe Biden's idea of partitioning the country is a fine idea but in practice how do you do that? Sunni and Shiite have been waring for generations and we cannot stop it. Saddam Hussein was an evil, piece of garbage and it's good that he's gone but can we judge that the power vacuum he leaves behind has lead to something better? And finally, 3000, give or take, dead Americans, not to mention the American tax-payer funded treasure expended to accomplish what exactly?

Look, if we had gone in there with overwhelming force and a plan to deal with this inevitable insurgency, rather than with the touchy-feely, kinder gentler warplan that we waged, we probably could have accomplished something definable as winning. With the whining liberals in America constantly harping about civilian casualties at every turn, I honestly don't see how we can wage ANY war ANY WHERE, successfully. If you are going to attack a country, you have to accept beforehand, huge numbers of civilian casualties, especially when the enemy cowardly disguises itself as civilian.

Seriously, what is the answer here? Where do we go now? Continue like we are today for the next ten years or more -- a few hundered Iraqi civilian and insurgent deaths alonside a half dozen Americans dead each week? That scenario is totally unacceptable! The elected Iraqi government is incompetent, corrupt, and weak. The American people will only tolerate so much useless American deaths without a plan for victory...this probably explains the mid-term election results as much as anything. As much as I loathe the sniveling, liberals in this country, we may end up putting up with some sort of embarassing scheduled pull-out like they suggest, that is if we're not going back in full force and obliterate the insurgency, with the understanding and acceptance of millions of civilian casualties. Sadly, America just doesn't have the guts for that kind of warfare any more.

I'm afraid there's no palatable way out of Iraq now. Given that, what's the plan?

One friend suggested that we take all the leftover Katrina dingleberries still demanding tax-payer support, and give them Baghdad to rebuild...at least they won't have to worry about flooding. Hey, it's as good a suggestion as any I've heard from Washington.

Multiculturalism....Ugh!

As a parent, how peeved would you be if your child's teacher performed a stunt like this?

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue sticks from his pupils. He tells them the items now belong to him because he "discovered" them. The reaction is exactly what Morgan expects: The kids get angry and want their things back.

Morgan is among elementary school teachers who have ditched the traditional Thanksgiving lesson, in which children dress up like Indians and Pilgrims and act out a romanticized version of their first meetings.

He has replaced it with a more realistic look at the complex relationship between Indians and white settlers.

Morgan said he still wants his pupils at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving. But "what I am trying to portray is a different point of view."

This is the insane, multicultural idiocy that liberals embrace every day in this country. Liberals believe that all white people are genetically evil, victimizing all other races and cultures, and we must therefor spend our lives making up for it by teaching our children how utopian and pristine the native American culture was before the disease-ridden white devils came and ruined everything.

Well as long as we're telling the "truth" about life in the fourteen hundreds, why not tell about how the savage Indians scalped their enemies alive and raped and traded women as property. I'll bet that teacher in California didn't share that with his class.

These are elementary school kids for heaven's sake! When they grow up and go off to college, they can be taught that America is the root of all evil in the modern world there, but not in elementary school.

Dumb liberal of the week

The oft skewered Cindy Sheehan, tired of her protests being ingnored in the U.S., traveled across the big pond to protest with other smelly hippies in South Korea this week. The U.S. wants to expand the number of U.S. bases there in the face of looming threats to our close ally by the communist North Koreans.

Look at this picture and see if something is amiss. Is there anything sadder than dumb-hippie protesters who can't spell their own protest signs?

These guys got off easy

Six Imams were removed from a flight in Minneapolis after they stood during pre-flight and started reciting their prayers. Of course we all know that Muslims face Mecca like 5 times a day and engage in a prayer ritual. I don't know about you, but anybody, much less Muslim Imams, reciting prayers before a flight would understandably freak me out. This is the reality of air-travel since 9/11. In the U.S. you don't get to behave weirdly anywhere near airplanes. If it had been English soccer hooligans who had hijacked the three 9/11 flights, not to mention all the other terrorist attacks around the world, rather than Muslims, then people with English accents, cut-off Union Jack t-shirts, and beer breath would be highly suspect.

But it was Muslims who attacked us on 9/11. Go down the list of terrorist incidents in the past 20 years and 99% of them were by radical Muslims. For these guys to complain about the treatment of Muslims in this country is preposterous. Muslims get treated better in the U.S. than in any other country, including the Muslim ones. These six guys are lucky they didn't get their butts whipped by some good ol' boys on the flight. How are Americans supposed to know that these guy are just saying their harmless daily prayers and not their "final" prayers before starting to kill passengers? There's no way to know without speaking Arabic, and I wouldn't have blamed the passengers if they had attacked the Imams pre-emptively.

Liberal double standard

By now I'm sure you've heard about Michael Richards "N-word" rant at a comedy club. He was reacting to a couple of black hecklers. Richards attempted to control the damage last night by going on Letterman by satellite to apologize. Jerry Seinfeld was the guest on Letterman, which propably marked the first time since the show ended that these two comedic geniuses shared the stage. It was absolutely surreal to me to have two of the funniest guys on Earth trying to be serious on a late-night comedy show. At one point during Richard's attempted apology the audience was giggling, obviously in anticipation of "Kramer" doing something funny, and Jerry said, "Stop laughing, it's not funny." I kept waiting for a punch-line too, even though I knew none was coming.

One, if you're a comedian, you don't go on Letterman to apologize for doing something stupid and indelicate and expect people not to laugh. And two, if he had just said, "Look, I'm not a professional stand-up comedian. I don't know how to handle hecklers. I was humiliated and embarassed and I lashed out at these two guys, sorry.", he wouldn't have to do all this public groveling. Just be honest.

Then astonishingly, Richards went on to link his conflict with the hecklers to the US conflict with Iraq. Of course liberal Letterman let him get away completely with this.

Mel Gibson, who had booze to blame, said basically the same thing and his problems are far from over still. Do you think the media deal with liberal-leaning stars differently than conservative-leaning stars like Gibson?

Milton Friedman -- RIP

Economist Milton Friedman passed away yesterday. His contributions to conservative thought are unmatched in my estimation. His professional accomplishments in economics and general social policy include:

-pursuading President Nixon to abolosh the military draft, reasoning correctly that an all volunteer fighting force would fight harder and stay enlisted longer.
-advancing the notion of laissez-faire capitalism...that is, the government should stay out of the private market and let men acting in their own self-interest determine market dynamics. Example: it was traders who discovered Enron's crimes, not government regulators. And traders, operating in the free market, punished Enron within days of the discovery by driving it's stock price down to nothing. It would have taken the government years to figure it all out and dole out punishment.
-advocating school vouchers long before it became en vogue to conservatives. He reasoned that free-market competition in education would quickly eliminate bad schools and elevate productive schools by letting parents choose which school their kid attended. He was absolutely right.

These three things stand out to me as Milton Friedman's greatest contributions to American society. He championed the ideas of individual liberty and freedom when few others were. Reading about his philosophies stands as a reminder to me of how far the Republican party has fallen from it's conservative roots.

America needs some more Milton Friedmans.