Here is a story about a woman, her fish, and our federalized, professionalized airport security TSA goons. Apparently a small fish swimming around a plastic bag is a huge security threat.

Read the story to find out if the little fishy went to market or stayed home.

Here is wishing everyone a Happy New Year. I will be heading way out west for a night of drunken debauchery with Jenn with two 'n's. Since I have serious doubts about making it home tonight, and since I don't have to work tomorrow, don't look for too much posting until at least Friday.

"I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis." -- Brazilian Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva, as reported by Reuters.

What is this Brazilian judge so upset about? He is upset that Brazilians who want to obtain a visa to enter the United States will need to be fingerprinted and photographed first. As retaliation, he has lowered himself to committing acts "worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis", and ordered that any Americans wanting to enter Brazil receive the same "absolutely brutal" treatment.

Oh the humanity.

I'll stop short of calling Michael Jackson a liar, but this does not look like someone who has just had his shoulder dislocated.

More and more U.K. police are finding themselves outgunned, reports CNN. Recently an officer was shot and killed while trying to arrest a car thief. Since he was unarmed, the officer had no way to defend himself.

There are growing calls in the UK for all police to carry guns after an unarmed officer was shot dead. [...]

Norman Brennan, Director of Protect the Protectors pressure group, said: "Gun crime has become a cancer on society and we cannot allow it to be terminal.

"Unarmed officers are sitting ducks when trying to tackle the increased gun crime in this country that is out of control."

While I respect the tough job of those in law enforcement, I cannot help but question these people that claim that officers should be armed in the interest of their own safety, but law abiding citizens should not. So the streets of England are so rough that officers need to be armed, but regular folks are fair game for the armed thugs that plague British streets.

I say fuck 'em. If they don't want citizens to be armed, then they shouldn't be armed either. What's good for the goose is just as good for the police officer. Let them see what it's like to always be looking over your shoulder and worrying if that oversized thug with the beady eyes is going to thump you on the head or not.

I have spent most of the day frantically trying to get a hold of Washington Redskins' owner Daniel Snyder. I met him once a few years ago, but I doubt he remembers me. Still, upon hearing that he would soon be looking for a new head coach, I figured I had to give it a try. My father has been watching the Redskins now for about 20 years. He's seen the best and worst of them all, and from his easy chair in Virginia has had all the answers to the Redskins' coaching needs. Dad would yell at the screen, "You aren't gonna go for it, you dumb son of a bitch!" He was almost always invariably right, and he would just seems to know when the 'Skins were going to foul it up.

Since Dad retired from his 9-to-5 job this past October, I figure he is going to have lots of free time. I would like to finally see him put his vast football knowledge to good use and become the head coach of the Redskins. While he doesn't have any professional or collegiate football experience, he has spent Sunday after Sunday hooting, hollering, shouting, and cussing at the players. Besides, that seems to be all that matters to Snyder, who has had 4 different coaches in 5 years.

Indeed, Dad's chances to turn the team around are slim, and the $5 Million salary might end up exempting him from his monthly social security checks. Still, I think he'd be the best man for the job. Hell, he certainly couldn't do much worse.

Presidential hopeful John Edwards is running on a campaign of raising taxes. Here is how he is selling it:

Sen. John Edwards, campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, said Monday his targeted tax-cut proposal would create 5 million new jobs in his first two years in office and end the "two Americas" that President Bush has created.

"One America does the work, while another America reaps the reward," Edwards said in a speech detailing his efforts to bolster quality of life for middle-class Americans. "One America pays the taxes, while another America gets the tax breaks."

Geez, Edwards sounds like he could be campaigning for a flat tax. Not that you really need to be told, but he's not talking about reducing the 96% share that the top half of wage earners pay. Edwards wants to raise their taxes and give some of the money to the working poor.

The top 50% obviously doesn't do any work. They reap financial reward through deceit and trickeration, while the bottom 50% works their butt off to come up with their 4% of the tax burden. Edwards wants to shift more people from the bottom 50% of wage earners off of the tax rolls completely, and he's willing to do it in exchange for your vote.

Perhaps voters should send him a letter letting him know for how much they are willing to sell their vote. I've already gone on record as saying that the price of my vote is enaction of the Earned Income Gun Credit.

Reuters notes that Saudi Arabian pleasure police will be out in full force this holiday season, making sure people don't have too much fun.

Morality police in southern Saudi Arabia plan to conduct raids to ensure that shops do not sell flowers, candles and gifts to those planning to celebrate New Year, a local newspaper reported on Monday. [...]

Answerable only to King Fahd and separate from ordinary police, members of the authority patrol the streets with police escort, ensuring that their strict interpretation of Islamic customs are upheld.

Doesn't that just sound lovely. How long before the activists that are anti-religion, anti-smoking, anti-fast food, anti-SUV, anti-drinking, anti-patriotism, and in favor of harsher penalties for hate crimes thought crimes enact such an organization in our country?

GFWs and their willing accomplices in the media never cease to amaze me. When an Albany (NY) officer was shot, they did what comes natural; blame the gun. Not only that, but they try to use some boogy man evil sounding gun label to further their cause (emphasis mine).

While authorities continue to piece together exactly what happened late Tuesday night, they do know one thing for certain--the weapon of choice used by the suspect, Keshon Everett. It was a semi-automatic machine pistol.

Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings said incidents like these only confirm the need for better gun control.

Jennings said, "I'm a strong proponent of doing whatever we have to do to get the message out that if you violate the laws relative to carrying an illegal weapon then you should go to jail."

For those of you that are gun ignorant, this is either more of the same gun ignorance, or a pathetic attempt by gun grabbers and the media to make a pistol sound worse than it is. Add it to the other lexicons like "high powered sniper rifle", and "assault weapon". They might as well call it something like a .45 caliber 9mm 12-gauge shotrifle.

Why report the news when you can just make it up. The L.A. Times isn't about to let any good unemployment numbers rain on their "Bush Bashing" parade. Instead, they count people who are no longer getting sports cars as signing bonuses and six figure dot.com incomes as "underemployed" to come up with a new number that fits their "bad economy" agenda. To make the numbers even worse, they throw in those people that aren't even looking for work, and then parrot the Democrat response to their new and improved 9.7% unemployment figure:

No wonder the Democratic presidential candidates have seized on jobs as a potentially powerful weapon.

Howard Dean criticized President Bush for "the worst job creation record in over 60 years." Richard Gephardt said that "I have three goals for my presidency: jobs, jobs, jobs." John Kerry said "the first thing" he'd do as president would be to fight his "heart out" to bring back the jobs that have disappeared in recent years.

Bush, meanwhile, is quick to seize credit where he can. When the unemployment rate for November fell one-tenth of a point, he went out immediately to give a speech at a Home Depot in Maryland.

What liberal media?

The AP notes that the FBI is warning police to be on the lookout for people carrying books. They just might be terrorists.

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

Librarians be warned. You could soon be shipped off to Gitmo as a terrorist co-conspirator.

Way back in May, I noted that the "Blame Bush" crowd was busy pointing fingers at the Bush Administration for all of life's problems. After reading the last item on Taranto's Best of the Web, I decided it was time to update the list. I'm sure there are dozens of things left out, but according to my meager records President Bush has been blamed for the following:

Terror attacks in Saudi Arabia.
Not doing enough to prevent the September 11th terror attacks.
Being distracted during the war on terror.
Everything bad about the economy.
Senate filibusters of judicial nominations.
The Columbia Space Shuttle disaster.
Destabilizing (whatever that means) Australian Democrats.
1000 deaths in an Indian heat wave
The Enron accounting scandal.
Floods in Mozambique.
Arsenic in our nation's water supply.
High gas prices, oil prices, and college tuition.
Terror attacks in Turkey.
Everything that is wrong with North Korea.
This summer's U.K. heat wave.
California's fiscal problems, and the eventual recall election.
Administration political leaks.
British intelligence failures.
Blowing Valerie Plame's "CIA cover".
Strained US-China relations.
Power system blackouts and power outages.
Spending too much campaign money.
U.S. budget deficits that were approved by Congress.
Extinction of the Inuit peoples of Canada and Alaska.
Stealing the skull of Geronimo.
Nigerian email scams.
Beef tainted with Mad Cow Disease.

And of course, lets not forget the lunar eclipse.

I agree that rushing for 2000 yards in a season is quite an accomplishment, however, very little is ever said about the fact that when O.J. Simpson initially broke the 2000 yard barrier back in 1973, it was during a 14 game season.

Am I the only person out there yawning over this supposed mad cow scare? Personally, I think this is more about news ratings and less about food safety. The same people that are harping on mad cow, also got their panties in a bind over shark attacks and anthrax letters. Meanwhile, you are probably at least 100 times more likely to be killed on your commute to work this morning.

You know it's time for tort reform when toddlers start suing for lost wages:

A 2-year-old model and actor who cut his head at a playground is seeking unspecified lost wages and other compensation from the city.

Konrad Mader of Greenwich was running toward a treehouse at a playground Nov. 4 when he crashed into a railing, according to a claim filed last week by his mother and reported Friday by The Advocate of Stamford. The blond toddler received several stitches.

Deena Mader, the boy's mother, did not specify how much she is seeking on behalf of her son.

In a letter to officials, she demanded compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering and a "lost wage amount due to his inability to audition or take modeling or commercial jobs while his head heals."

Scott Norvell notes that Indymedia seems to look for racism in everything.

The deep thinkers at Indymedia have come to the conclusion that the Lord of the Rings trilogy paints a "racist stereotypical tapestry" that does a disservice to young viewers everywhere.

Lloyd Hart says people of color are all associated with the Dark Lord Sauron in the movie and the elephant-riding mercenaries too closely resemble the cultures of Africa, Persia and East Asia. The Uruk-hai also too closely resemble Native Americans, which is sure to cause "a great deal of cultural and racial alienation."

The fact that King Theoden, a white guy, calls his troops the "great warriors of the West" clinches it in Hart's eyes.

"Can you imagine how people of skin color, of Persian, Arab and East Asian ethnic background feel when they come out of these films where all the heroes are white and all the "evil doers" are of dark skin." Hart writes.

Historical revisionists in Hampton, Virginia are pressing to change the name of Jefferson Davis Middle School. It is a move from the usual playbook to erase Confederate history and associate negative stereotypes with everything Confederate. To epitomize the movement, you need look no futher than the photo caption of this AP/CNN article:

Vernita Dixon, 13, a student at Jefferson Davis Middle School, thinks the name of her school should be changed to Abraham Lincoln because "he freed the slaves."

Ah, such irony. Here we have CNN and the AP helping further the revisionist agenda, while ignoring the mistruths that are being taught to children like Vernita. The fact is that Lincoln didn't free a single slave with his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that major media and text books give him credit for. Evidence shows that if Lincoln had his way, slavery would have lasted at least another 100 years.

To find such evidence, you need look no further than Ebony Magazine, who quotes the book Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, by Lerone Bennett Jr.

In what some critics call a hoax and others call a deliberate ploy not to free African-Americans but to keep them in slavery, Lincoln deliberately drafted the document so it wouldn't free a single Negro immediately.

What Lincoln did--and it was so clever that we ought to stop calling him honest Abe--was to "free" slaves in Confederate-held territory where he couldn't free them and to leave them in slavery in Union-held territory where he could have freed them. [...]

A growing body of evidence suggests that the Emancipation Proclamation was a ploy designed not to emancipate the slaves but to keep as many slaves as possible in slavery until Lincoln could mobilize support for his conservative plan to free Blacks gradually and to ship them out of the country.

This is no mere theory; there is indisputable evidence on this point in documents and in the testimony of reliable witnesses, including Abraham Lincoln himself. The most telling testimony comes not from 20th century critics but from cronies and confidants who visited the White House and heard the words from Lincoln's mouth. There is, for example, the testimony of Judge David Davis, the three hundred-plus-pound Lincoln crony who visited the White House in 1862, some two months after Lincoln signed the Preliminary Proclamation, and found him working feverishly to subvert his announced plan in favor of his real plan. What was Lincoln's real plan? It was the only emancipation plan he ever had: gradual emancipation, the slower the better, with compensation to slaveowners and the deportation of the emancipated. His "whole soul," Davis said, "is absorbed in his plan of remunerative emancipation, and he thinks that if Congress don't fail him, that the problem is solved...."

What are we to understand by all this? We are to understand, among other things, that words, especially Lincoln's words, are deceiving and that Lincoln announced his first plan as a mask to cover his real plan and his real end. That at any rate is the testimony of another intimate Lincoln friend, Henry Clay Whitney. What was his real end? The Proclamation, Whitney said, was "not the end designed by him, but only the means to the end, the end being the deportation of the slaves and the payment for them to their masters--at least to those who were loyal."

Now, I don't mean to intentionally disparage Abraham Lincoln, but I cannot stand idly by and let the "holier-than-thou" attitude of historical revisionists go unchallenged.

So, you may be asking yourself just who really did free the slaves. Well, again, I'll look to the article in Ebony magazine.

To the extent that they were ever "freed," they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was authored and pressured into existence not by Lincoln but by the great emancipators nobody knows, the abolitionists and congressional leaders who created the climate and generated the pressure that goaded, prodded, drove, forced Lincoln into glory by associating him with a policy that he adamantly opposed for at least fifty-four of the fifty-six years of his life. The best witness once again is Abraham Lincoln who said shortly before his death that "he never would have done it, if he had not been compelled by necessity to do it, to maintain the union."

For those of you that do not know, I am a non-smoker. I enjoy the occasional cigar every now and then, but I smoke them very infrequently (maybe once or twice a month) and usually in the privacy of my own home. I will also admit that I hate coming home from a bar smelling like cigarette smoke. I remember when I used to travel every week and eat in restaurants every night, my entire suitcase would reek of smoke. In spite of my personal feelings, I will still never support a government mandated smoking ban. If a restaurant wants to set a policy allowing or disallowing smoking, that is their business. Since there are plenty of choices out there, if other people's smoking bothered me too much, I would simply vote with my wallet. Besides, it isn't my place to use the police power of government to force business owners to comply with my ideology. But that doesn't stop some folks.

As the Washington Post points out, there are still heated political battles going on out there, and tyranny is winning.

Selby Scaggs, the owner of the Anchor Inn Seafood Restaurant in Wheaton, is convinced that there is nothing healthier for his business than cigarette smoke.

Before October, his patrons would park on stools at the bar and pop money into a computer trivia game while ordering drinks and chain-smoking. But after Montgomery County's indoor smoking ban took effect Oct. 9, Scaggs's alcohol sales dropped 40 percent, and the game business fell by more than half.

"I still have some regulars who come in, but they don't stay long, and they don't spend as much money," said Scaggs, who is lobbying to have the county ordinance rescinded.

Anti-smokers aren't happy with having a mixture of smoking and non-smoking restaurants. They want every place, even those they will never patronize, to abide by their temperance rules. In fact, since smokers can just move to places unaffected by the ban, temperance will not work without widespread implementation.

According to tax receipts and dozens of studies, indoor workplace smoking bans have had no effect on the overall fiscal health of the bar and restaurant industry, especially when implemented uniformly on a statewide level.

When smoking bans are implemented on a small scale, customers will cross county or city lines to seek out smoking havens and places not affected by the ban. Prohibitionists realize this, and will always seek to expand their ban. With enough never being enough, it won't be long before smoking bans are expanded to include the privacy of your own home or automobile. (Homes and cars with children will be especially easy targets.)

Even though there is plenty of proof out there that smoking bans will financially hurt some small business owners and their employees, the smoke nazis are constantly pushing the hard sell with confusing studies and financial figures. Studies often contradict each other.

Although some studies indicate that restaurants and bars are hurt financially by smoking bans, those surveys were funded largely by the tobacco industry or its associates and often used flawed data, according to an analysis by Andrew Hyland, a research scientist at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, who examined 97 studies from 30 states and eight countries.

Hyland works for a cancer institute, and he has the nerve to accuse the tobacco industry of being impartial. As if his own agenda doesn't skew his "analysis". Of course some reports just don't tell the whole story. Consider this statement about the New York State smoking ban:

Five months later, the New York State Department of Labor reported that the bar and restaurant industry had grown by about 10,000 jobs.

The job growth is good news, but it is taken out of context. We are in an economic recovery, and without taking that into account, it is difficult to say what impact the smoking ban has had on New York's economy. How much would the industry have grown without the ban? Have they taken the impact of terrorism on New York tourism into account? This could also be part of a normal post-9/11 recovery.

Of course, nothing sums up the attitude of the neo-temperance movement like this:

"Once these policies become the social norm, people tend to adapt and support them," said Lois Biener, director of the Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Just because resistance may be futile, and acceptance may be inevitable, doesn't mean that their policies are any less tyrannical. They can spew all the statistics they want, but they don't ring true when coupled with the fact that Dietle's Tavern in Silver Spring and Tropics Restaurant in Germantown have both gone under as a direct result of the Montgomery County (Maryland) smoking ban.

No government should be in the business of behavior control. Those that support the nanny movement need to accept the fact that people have vices. Using the threat of lethal force in an attempt to change a person's habits or behavior to something you find more acceptable is tyranny no matter how you slice it. Good financial statistics and stories about silver linings don't change that fact.

I had inside information that this guy was going out of town right after Christmas. Since he hadn't posted in over 10 days I pinged his site with a trackback causing it to rebuild. The expected result was a blank page.

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

Either Wesley Clark is delusional or he thinks the American public is stupid and ignorant. He is apparently blaming President Bush for 9/11, but giving credit for Libya's nuclear concessions to ex-president Bill Clinton.

Geez, the Washington Post is still harping on 16 words from President Bush's State of the Union Address back in January. Apparently some advisory board has spent long hours trying to figure out if there is any reason to impeach Bush over the following factually correct statement.

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In their findings, the board claims:

...there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate" a story, the [unnamed] source said. Instead, the source said, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Hussein's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.

After reporting the he-said/she-said hearsay, the Post gleefully editorializes:

The findings of the advisory board do not appear to add many new details about the uranium episode, but they make it clear that the White House should share blame with the CIA for allowing the questionable material into the speech.

Isn't it ironic that the Washington Post is basing their entire claim on "a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings". Should this source turn out to be mistaken or deliberately lying, I wonder if they will be as hard on themselves as they have been the President. I doubt it.

I'm leaving today to go to my super secret undisclosed location. I'll be back on Monday, and probably won't get too much blogging done between now and then. Everyone have a safe holiday and Merry Christmas.

The Hokies are coming to town and they are kicking off the season against top ranked USC, reports the Washington Post.

FedEx Field has been chosen as the site to open the 2004 college football season matching Virginia Tech against Southern California. Kickoff for the Aug. 28 Black Coaches Association Classic is scheduled for 7:45 p.m.

You can bet dollars to donuts that I'm going to do everything I can to get tickets to this game. Given that Northern Virginia is packed with Hokie alumni, that may not be an easy task.

Brazil apparently has some sort of crime problem, and based on their recent actions, things are only going to get much worse.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a sweeping gun-control law Monday in an effort to rein in what he called "an epidemic of murder by firearms."

Under the so-called disarmament statute passed Dec. 9 by Congress, only the armed forces, police, prison guards and private security personnel can possess firearms in Brazil. [...]

Exceptions to the no-guns rule can be made as long as an individual is at least 25 years old and can prove he needs a weapon "because his physical integrity is in danger," according to the new law.

So if you're a regular Joe living in crime ridden Brazil, you're fucked. According to the police, if you have a firearm with which to protect yourself, you are no better than a common street thug and deserve to go to jail. Unless you are one of the political elite, or you can afford to hire private security or bribe a local official into giving you a gun permit, you are pretty much at the mercy of the common criminals. I'm sure they appreciate the government disarming their victims.

After Saddam Hussein was captured, the United States apparently called on some of the top experts in their field to make him presentable to the Iraqi public once again.

I must admit that I love science, and I love astronomy. Still, I must admit that most space exploration is not worth the money. I would also ask if sending expensive gadgets off into space is worth it, when it's funded by money seized from private citizens at the point of a gun. Especially when you read things like this.

The odds of all four spacecraft succeeding are slim.

Since 1960, roughly two-thirds of the three dozen spacecraft sent to Mars have failed, including two 1999 NASA missions, the Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander. Most have been lost on launch or arrival, the most perilous portions of any mission.
The most recent failure was the Japanese satellite, Nozomi, which failed to enter orbit around Mars earlier this month.

NASA's back-to-back 1999 failures prompted the American space agency to tighten oversight of the design, construction, testing and launching of its spacecraft, including this year's batch.

When government's spend money on these efforts, what they are really saying is that your money is better spent on sending hunks of metal into space than on your family's clothes, food, books, and what not.

Convicted murderer Lee Boyd Malvo had his life spared by a Chesapeake jury; something that he did not do for his victims, and probably would not do if he had one of the jurists in the crosshairs of his rifle. If there was ever a case where an underaged perpetrator deserved the death penalty, this was the case. It is hard to express how disappointed I am in the verdict, and the Chesapeake jury. (Having grown up in Virginia Beach, I can say that there is no love lost for Chesapeake, any way.)

One consolation is that Virginia is not one of these fruity Californiastan states that gives people 6 life sentences and then lets them out in 10 years. Virginia abolished parole several years back, so unless there is a major change in the law, or a gubernatorial pardon or commutation, Malvo will die in jail. In Virginia, Life means Life.

Still, I'm sure it is little consolation to the next of kin of Malvo's prey.

Want to see if you can cut it as an airport security screener? MSNBC has an interactive "game" where you have to identify the threats. (Click the first interactive on the bottom.)

"Washington D.C. is nothing more than a cardboard city, populated by actors and droids." -- Michele of A Small Victory.

I'll present this without further comment.

Firefighters in Glenview have been told to take down their indoor Christmas decorations after some residents complained that they were offended.

The decorations -- which included lights, a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus -- were inside Glenview's Station No. 7, at 3507 Glenview Rd., in the firefighters' main living area. Although the decorations were all inside, they were visible from the street if someone driving down Glenview Road peered into the windows.

"We need to serve all our residents and customers, and we had been receiving calls from citizens who were not happy seeing what they perceived to be Christmas or Christian decorations on a particular firehouse," said Janet Spector Bishop, a spokeswoman for the village.

First Austria, now the Czech Republic.

Labor unions in the Czech Republic demanded Monday that stores stop playing Christmas carols incessantly or pay compensation for causing emotional trauma to sales clerks.

Have people really become such wussies that they can suffer severe emotional distress simply by hearing Christmas music? And apparently the two nations are forcing people to work in these stores against their will. After all, if they were really bothered by the music, they would just go get a different job, right?

It looks like the ChiComs are taking steps to provide for individual private property rights. Meanwhile, the United States seems to be going the other way.

A 31 year old New York City woman, Giuseppina Guidici, had an abusive husband. After Guidici's husband "held up a gun and threatened to kill her father", she shot and killed him. Sounds like another case of a scumbag wife beater getting what he deserved, doesn't it? Well not in the liberal utopia that is New York, where the rights dead scumbags are cherished more than those of the law-abiding.

This week, Guidici was sentenced to five years probation for second-degree manslaughter, reports WINS (emphasis mine).

The Queens District Attorney said both the prosecution and defense agreed that Giuseppina Guidici, 31, suffered from battered woman's syndrome.

Guidici "had been repeatedly physically abused and threatened by her husband throughout their violent marriage," District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement. Brown said sentencing her to jail time "would not have been in the best interest of the couple's only child."

So the prosecuting attorney agreed that she was repeatedly physically abused and suffered from emotional distress, and that putting her in jail would be a tragedy; yet he still brought a case against her. I guess he wants to send a message to people who dare to defend their life. (And don't give me this "he didn't have a choice" bull shit. Prosecutors always have a choice, no matter what the law says.)

Guidici should just count her lucky stars that she didn't live in Brooklyn, where prosecutor Charles Hynes claims, "If you get caught with a gun in Brooklyn, you're going to do jail time." No matter what the circumstances.

The sharpies and cell phones were bad enough, but this is getting rediculous.

"The capture of Saddam has not made America safer." -- Foreign policy expert and Presidential candidate, Howard Dean, December 15, 2003.

Libya has agreed to allow snap U.N. nuclear arms inspections, just a day after declaring it was giving up plans to build an atomic bomb -- as reported by Reuters less than a week later.

Madeline Albright probably thinks that the Libyans had this politically timed just to make Howard Dean look stupid. Given that the threat level was recently upgraded to orange, Dean will probably say "I told you so."

The Sierra Times, an excellent online publication and regular read for our staff writers, will soon riding into the sunset of cyberspace. It looks like they might still allow some links to be posted, and they promise to keep their existing articles online, but it appears to be the beginning of the end for them. (Or the beginning of the beginning for the site's owner, who is taking a new job in major media.)

Kim du Toit takes a close look at what the enemy is doing. It seems that Americans for Gun Safety Control has a game plan for Democrats to further the gun control agenda. Kim takes a look at their game plan on a point by point basis, but I think he doesn't quite address the bigger picture.

After reading both Kim's excellent analysis and the AGS document, I can only conclude the following. By losing key democrat supporters, the AGS has been effectively neutered. To me, the document appears to be a desperate attempt to sell gun control (or "gun safety" or whichever) to the Democrat Party. Democrats have been burned on the issue many times in the past, and this appears to be the gun grabbers attempt at wooing them back under the guise that there will be no political fallout.

That is of course, untrue; there will be tremendous political fallout. However, AGS may just succeed in achieving some of their short term goals; extending/expanding the "assault weapons" ban, and closing the "gun show loophole", at the expense of the careers of their political allies in Congress.

Most incriminating Saddam photo ever.

It's time for the friday five...

1. List your five favorite beverages.
Let's see, pick any five of these: Budweiser, Sam Adams, Spaten, Hacker Pschorr, Guiness, Harp, Amstel, and Heinekin.

2. List your five favorite websites.
Aside from this one, there's Boortz.com, Opinion Journal, World Net Daily, Washington Times, and of course Walter E. Williams home page.

3. List your five favorite snack foods.
I don't really do much snacking. If I had to pick something, I would say potato chips, ice cream, popcorn, and yogurt. If you must have a fifth, pick anything from question 1.

4. List your five favorite board and/or card games.
Texas Hold'em, Five Card Draw, Seven Toed Pete Down the River, Blackjack, and Trivial Pursuit.

5. List your five favorite computer and/or game system games.
NFL Fever, Grand Theft Auto III, Quake, and anything Star Wars.

This is just a bit bizarre:

A Chinese court has ordered an online video game company to return hard-won virtual property, including a make-believe stockpile of bio-chemical weapons, to a player whose game account was looted by a hacker.

Li Hongchen, 24, had spent two years, and 10,000 yuan ($1,210) on pay-as-you-go cards to play, amassing weapons and victories in the popular online computer game Hongyue, or Red Moon, before his "weapons" were stolen in February, the Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

In a day and age where online gamers actually eke out a living by selling their virtual property on Ebay, it was only a matter of time before legal disputes cropped up. In this players defense, he did try to get the gaming company to restore his property and/or punish the hacker who stole it from him. They decided not to act, so he took it to the courts.

One of my ideas is gaining traction over at Random Nuclear Strikes. When I buried it in a long boring post about taxes, I was wondering if anyone would even pick up on it. Analog Kid gets a gold star for actually reading through the crap I put on here.

Young America's Foundation has compiled the Top 10 most shameful campus events in America's education system in 2003. Here are some of the highlights:

10. Gonzaga University (Spokane, Wash.) administration officials censored a conservative student group's flyer advertising a Young America's Foundation organized lecture because the word "hate" was used on the flyer.

9. Park Ridge elementary school officials in Nampa, Idaho, told an 11-year-old student to stop wearing his patriotic military theme T-shirt to school.

8. Students at Smith College, an all-female school in Massachusetts, voted to remove all feminine pronouns from the school constitution and replace them with gender-neutral ones.

7. The president of the University of Arizona sent out a formal letter to the class of 2003 stating that tortillas would not be allowed at their commencement.

6. A group of teachers and parents at Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, Calif., is pushing to rename the school because Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder.

5. A 14-year-old New Jersey student was suspended for five days for drawing a picture of a stick figure U.S. Marine shooting a Taliban fighter.

4. The administration of Roger Williams University (Rhode Island) froze funding and attacked a conservative campus organization for advocating diversity of thought through the group's publication, The Hawk's Right Eye.

3. Professor Rosalyn Kahn of Citrus College in Glendora, Calif., forced students in her Speech 106 class, a required course, to write anti-war letters to President Bush and penalized their grades after some refused.

2. Professor Nicholas De Genova of Columbia University stated during a six-hour university "teach-in" on the war in Iraq that he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" - a reference to the eighteen American soldiers who were ambushed and killed in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993.

1. Wesleyan University in Connecticut now offers a "Gender Blind" dormitory floor for incoming students who aren't sure what sex they are.

I think the list leaves a lot to be desired. Although there are a few in there older than a year, my list includes much more of the hypocrisy and "zero tolerance" nonsense that schools are teaching our nation's children.

10. Education Minister Elizabeth Witmer was roughed up by Ontario Teachers Union members after an address at their annual meeting.

9. A 12-year old Rio Rancho student was suspended for two days after a teacher observed him getting two drinks from a soda machine. The machine was mistakenly dispensing two drinks for each one purchased, and for taking advantage of the 2-for-1 deal, the student was accused of stealing.

8. Students at Minnesota's Winona Middle School were instructed to bring their guns to a gun safety class, and then barred from entering the school under threat of the school's "zero-tolerance" policies.

7. The Maryland State Board of Education passed a regulation mandating the suspension of children that call each other names or make jokes about someone's sexuality. When asked about other forms of teasing, Marilyn Maultsby, president of the board, said, "Harassment because of their sexual orientation is more egregious than for an issue such as acne."

6. After more than two years in service, a Wisconsin hotline set up for students to report guns in schools had received only seven calls, five of which were pranks. The hotline costs $50,000 a year to implement, and has a slower response than the 911 emergency system.

5. Six year old Kevin Long was suspended for 10 days for possession of a "weapon". The "weapon" turned out to be a plastic knife that Kevin had been given by the school's cafeteria to butter his bread.

4. Sixth grade teacher Mary Bond tried to implement a rule that would ban talking between boys and girls, in an attempt to stop "public displays of affection." The rule was eventually overturned by the school principal.

3. 13-year old Chip Chaffee spent his entire Thanksgiving holiday working on his narrative writing project. He wrote a fictional story inspired by his father and grandfather's military experience. His teacher refused to accept the story because it contained violence.

2. 13-year old Raylee Montgomery was suspended after her shirt became untucked. She apologized, tucking it in, and asking if she could continue to class, but was instead punished under the school's "zero tolerance dress code".

1. 15-year-old Brandon Kivi was expelled for letting his asthmatic girlfriend use his prescription inhaler during an asthma attack. The two share the same prescription, and rather than watching her die because she had forgotten her inhaler, Brandon chose to save her life.

I'll let you be the judge of who has the better list.

As a native Virginian, reading this makes me beam with pride. Tell all those Texans what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality. Can you imagine this guy having been tried in Maryland?

Hal R. Varian, a professor at U.C. Berkeley is taking aim at sport utility vehicles as a danger to the community. Since it is hard to refute the fact that occupants of larger cars are less likely to be injured in an accident, he instead makes the claim that drivers are saving themselves at the expense of their neighbors. He portrays SUV drivers as self centered at best, and at worst, murderous.

In his op-ed piece in the New York Times, (filed under business "news") Varian tries to make an objective claim that people that drive SUVs kill more people and cost society more money than do drivers of those little econobox death traps.

Michelle White, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, estimates that for each fatality that light-truck drivers avoid for themselves and their passengers, they cause four fatalities involving car occupants, pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists. "Safety gains for those driving light trucks," Ms. White said, "come at an extremely high cost to others." [...]

Think about a safety-conscious soccer mom choosing a vehicle. If there are mostly small cars in her town, she can reduce the risk to her and her family in the event of a collision by buying an S.U.V.

The unfortunate side effect is that the large S.U.V. would cause significant damage to smaller cars if she was involved in an accident.

All you SUV drivers out there should run out and buy Yugos. Sure, you may be more likely to die in an accident, but your neighbors will certainly thank you for it; at your funeral.

Just what does this story have to do with the picture?

Via Scrappleface:

(2003-12-18) -- Wesley Clark, the Democrat presidential candidate, said yesterday that if he were president he would have captured Osama bin Laden by now and jilted First Lady Laura Bush.

"I would have gotten him," said Mr. Clark of Mr. bin Laden. "And I would have divorced Laura. I just don't find the woman attractive."

A spokesman for the Clark campaign said, "The former general's rich fantasy life and spirituality contribute to his geopolitical acumen."

Mr. Clark also noted that if he were Franklin D. Roosevelt, he would have captured Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini in early 1941.

Mrs. du Toit is hanging it up. She will be missed.

Now that Saddam has been rounded up, we can spend time on serious human rights issues. George Carlin apparently wasn't far off when he claimed that feminists wanted to change manhole covers to personhole covers, and a lady's man has become a person's person. Mary Valentich, is helping lead the charge to change the term 'alderman', which she says is a human rights violation, to 'councillor'. Scott Norvell quotes her as saying:

"This has to do with gender equality. It's an important issue -- it isn't just a name, it's a symptom of a male-dominated mentality."

Is there any wonder that feminist movements have delved into self parody?

Here's one for those of you that are still unsure about carrying firearms. In all his infinite wisdom, a federal judge has decided that having aspiring Presidential assassin John Hinkley run loose around the neighborhood is not a bad thing.

John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate President Reagan in 1981, will be allowed to make unsupervised visits with his parents away from the mental hospital where he lives, a federal judge decided Wednesday.

Hinckley's lawyers had argued that psychiatrists favored the idea. But government attorneys said Hinckley is still dangerous -- and that he's been trying to fool his doctors.

It's just too bad that citizens of Washington D.C. and Maryland, where access to firearms is severely limited, will just have to hope and pray that Hinkley doesn't have a mental relapse.

"One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable. The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure." -- Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, giving the United Nations a piece of his mind.

Unfortunately, it will probably fall on deaf ears.

It is no secret that many communities use property tax assessments and re-assessments as a way to hike taxes. Here in Fairfax County Virginia, the county tax assessors have raised taxes an average of 16.9% over the past three years. This year they are hiking taxes only 10% and telling people "at least it's not 16.9%". In most communities, however, the property owner always has an avenue for appeal. Well, that may change in Anchorage.

Appeals cost the city money, and according to the Anchorage Daily News, an article that reader Tom Scott dutifully points out, city officials want to nip property tax appeals in the bud before they happen. They want to do this by simply charging people an up front fee for having their day in court. How ingenious.

The city wants to add fees and tighten up the process people use to challenge what the tax assessor says their property is worth.

This is expected to reduce the number of appeals and help the city catch up on its backlog of open cases.

But, according to critics, it will unreasonably increase the burden on property owners who question their tax assessment, intimidate people out of appealing and reduce citizen oversight of the assessor's office. [...]

The city wants to start charging between $30 and $1,000, depending on property value, to file an appeal.

Tom Scott asks "What's next? A fee for appealing a speeding ticket?". The word 'appeal' makes it sound as if they've already been through the legal system before. This is more like the court charging you for even fighting a speeding ticket in the first place. Imagine getting pulled over for speeding, and issued a $100 ticket. You show up in court, and they tell you that since you own a Mercedes, it'll cost you a $1000 up front to fight the ticket in court. Had you owned a Kia, it would only be $100, but since you drive a nice car and have a lot of money, it's going to cost more. Don't worry though, if you win, you get the money back. This is just to stem the tide of all of those whiny citizens that actually want to have their day in court rather than just submitting themselves to the actions of the executive branch.

Despite New York City's strict firearms laws, they are still plagued with violent crime. So what does the City Council do? They are cracking down on retailers selling toy guns.

Many of the guns were cowboy-style six-shooters with silver or chrome barrels - a violation of a 1999 city law requiring toy barrels be cast in bright colors to differentiate them from lethal firearms.

GASP! A toy that looks like the real thing. I'm shocked, I say, shocked. Just how they came to the conclusion that a toy that doesn't shoot at all is a "six shooter" remains a mystery.

While I cetainly do not advocate drunken driving, I think that lawmakers might be going just a bit overboard when cracking down on drunken driving. For instance lowering the legal BAC limit from .10 to .08 has done little to help the problem. The reason being that people between .08 and .10 are not the cusp of the problem. It doesn't do much good to treat someone who has had 3 beers and blows a .08 on the the same as some nut who has had 20 beers, can barely walk, and blows a .20.

That's why I am skeptical about Virginia's attempt to get tougher on drinking and driving. Some of the proposals include a mandatory sentence for first offenders, and mandatory jail time for driver's with a BAC level of .15 (lowered from .20). There would also be tougher penalties for people who dare to refuse a field breath test. (Current law assumes you are guilty and suspends your license for a year.)

Despite past attempts to get tough on drunk drivers, state officials claim that 41% of traffic fatalities are related to drinking, and that drink driving deaths have outnumbered homicide in the past two years. (Not that officials would pad those claims to drum up support for tougher laws.)

Virginia's Governor Mark Warner is working hard to sell his "screw your neighbor" tax "reform", whereby he plans to shift taxes from 65% of the population to 35% of the population, and rake in an additional $1 Billion in new taxes to boot. Warner has even set up a Screw Your Neighbor Tax Hike Calculator, whereby I should actually SAVE a whopping $160 in 2006, assuming I don't get a raise or take up smoking between now and then. But, since it takes more than a paltry $160 to buy my vote, Warner had better come up with something more substantial. A $500 tax credit for every gun I own should do the trick. (Call it the Earned Income Gun Credit.)

According to Governor Warner, 65% of Virginian's will pay less taxes under his plan for "reform". So, 65% of the taxpayers can use the calculator to see just how much they are screwing their neighbors, while the other 35% can use it to see just how much they are getting screwed. Warner hopes that by kowtowing to a 65% majority, they won't realize that he's breaking his "no new taxes" campaign promise.

It is no secret that pleasure police routinely use the tax system as a form of government coersion. Sin taxes levied against smoking, drinking, fast cars, and other luxuries are frequently used by nanny governments as a way to shift human behavior from a habit they deem as 'unfavorable' over to a 'favorable' one. But what happens after people's behavior actually starts to change? What will the government do when they actually see an impact on their sin tax revenue?

Well, in Australia, the government simply shifts the tax over to the 'favorable' habit, after enough people have adopted it. For instance, in Australia people who use environmentally friendly fuels will soon no longer enjoy those government tax breaks.From July 2008, excise will be phased in over four years for alternative fuels such as LPG and ethanol, starting at 2.5 cents per litre.

The final rate will be 12.5 per litre in 2012. [...]

"It moves to put excise on a more logical, intelligent basis but we've made it plain that the new regime is not going to apply until the middle of 2008," [Prime Minister John Howard] said.

Mr Howard says the Government is also offering $1,000 to motorists who stick with the LPG option.Well, you didn't think the government would actually do without all that tax money, now did you? That means all you folks out there that don't mind higher taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, and SUVs because they don't apply to you, need to realize that they soon may be shifted over to your favorite vices. Today's cigarette taxes are tomorrow's fast food taxes. In the not so distant future, that SUV tax may be shifted over to the next automotive fad, like minivans or hybrids. After all, someone has to pay for the environmental clean up of the chemicals in all those clean running, "environmentally friendly" batteries.

As for Australia, for the time being Aussie taxi drivers appear to be thumbing their noses at the government and may go back to conventional gasoline.

The smoking ban is taking it's toll on New York City businesses reports Ban the Ban.

The New York Nightlife Association has released an economic impact study of the smoking ban's effects on New York City bars and nightclubs. Their findings:

-- 34 percent of New York City bars, hotels and nightclubs surveyed have reduced staff since the city and smoking ban took effect, by an average of 16 percent. 74 percent of those establishments identified the smoking ban as the cause of the reduction in staffing.

-- 76 percent of bars and nightclubs have experienced a decline in customers since the smoking ban was enacted, by an average of 30 percent. 78 percent of businesses surveyed said that the smoking ban had a negative impact on their businesses.

-- Bars and nightclubs that do not serve food reported a 19 percent decrease in alcohol sales since the smoking ban was enacted.

I was happy to hear this weekend that U.S. forces had captured the coward rat bastard Saddam Hussein. I would have preferred to hear about how he repeatedly fell out of the back of the truck on the way to prison, but our forces seem to be treating him with much more care than he ever gave to any of his thousands of victims. Now we get to sit back and watch the media circus, as some no good peaceniks line up to say that the capture was not all that significant, while others worry about how well Saddam is treated while in captivity.

Given that we've found no substantial weapons of mass distruction, no extensive tunnels and bunkers that he was supposedly able to hide in, you have to start wondering if Saddam wasn't a bit of a braggard. Obviously, he was a ruthless monster responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, and going to war was definitely the right thing to do. However, I have to wonder if some of the stuff wasn't exagerated.

Why do I get the feeling that this kid will some day be living off of federal tax dollars a la the National Endowment for the Arts.

Remember last year when Terrell Owens pulled out a pen and autographed the football after he had just scored a touchdown? At the time I wondered how far football prima donnas would go to feed their ego. Well, this year Joe Horn paused to make a cell phone call from the end zone, after scoring his second TD for the New Orleans Saints. After the game, Horn was defiant.

"Would I take it back? No, no. I knew exactly what I was doing," Horn said after the game. "And I understand -- I'm quite sure that I'll be fined."

I made it back home to Virginia tonight. I see that nothing really important happened while I was gone. The best way to sum up my trip is with the classic Far Side cartoon about the special place in hell for people who drive slow in the fast lane. Unfortunately, Gary Larson doesn't allow people to share his cartoons, so rather than scan it and post it, it's going to have to stay put on my bulletin board.

I did NOT get to go shooting while I was up there. My friend's wife wouldn't let him go, which only serves to justify my life of bachelorhood. Sorry ladies, but for every good woman out there looking for a decent man, there are at least two more who won't let their husband go out with his friends. It's not like I drove 400 miles or anything. Oh wait, I did. I'm really not upset about it, but I will point out that while I have seen countless wives stop their husbands from going out with their buddies, I have never once seen a man tell his wife she couldn't do the same.

I did get to see a lot of my family, and for that I am grateful. Thanks to my cousins for putting up with me, giving me a place to stay, feeding me dinner, and taking me out drinking. It was quite a blast, and hopefully they'll make it down to D.C. sometime so that I can offer my hospitality in return.

I'll be leaving town this weekend to visit this guy. I have a sneaking suspicion that his two little germ factories are going to try to give me the flu while I'm up there.

Hopefully we'll get to go out shooting on Saturday. I still haven't test fired the AR-15 that I built back in October. Perhaps I can talk his little brother into christening it with the first test fire. (While I stand WAY back.)

I'll be gone all weekend and Monday too. Of course all this means that I won't be blogging. If today's many posts and the archives aren't enough to keep you busy, try checking out the sites on the blogroll. You could also check out some good sites that aren't there but probably should be:

The Ville
In A Mays
Palace of Reason
Calblog
The Twins
Angelweave
New American Revolution
Palace of Reason
Random Nuclear Strikes

... to name a few.

"Neighbors said the Bixbys were angry over the road-widening project, even though it would take only a portion of their land." -- The AP, seemingly oblivious as to why someone would be upset at the state seizing their land. The Bixbys were summarily arrested and charged with the murder of two officers, who were shot while assisting the state with the seizure.

"If we can't be freer than this, I'd rather die." -- Steve Bixby in the Greenwood County courthouse.

While I never advocate violence, I feel that state officials share a large portion of the blame.

Bloomberg's anti smoking laws have claimed three more lives. This time it wasn't a hapless bouncer who was killed after being forced to enforce Bloomberg's law. Instead it was members of the criminal element that has sprouted up in response to the Mayor's policies.

With city and state taxes boosting the price of cigarettes, hundreds of streetwise hustlers are selling cheap tax-free smokes - an illegal but lucrative trade that is becoming nearly as cutthroat as dealing drugs.

One teenage victim, Cody Knox, was buried yesterday, two weeks after he was chased by two fellow bootleggers and fatally stabbed because he was undercutting cigarette prices by a buck, stealing his rivals' business.

Of course when New York passed a state wide ban, and NYC Mayor Bloomberg artificially boosted the price of cigarettes to somewhere between an arm and a leg, the results were pretty easy to predict.

When that happens, everyone will just stop smoking, right? Wrong. Cigarettes and tobacco products will go underground. As enforcement increases, prices will skyrocket and trafficking will be a lucrative business. It will also lead to more serious crimes, like murder, and money laundering.

Bloomberg's ban has even led to common thievery, like people running out on their checks.

Atheism has become the official religion of France, and the government is recommending banning "Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and large crucifixes". Soviet French official Bernard Stasi claimed that religious "forces are trying to destabilize the country", and that the lack of any religion will help bring all the different people together under an iron curtain of hope.

Democrats are planning a liberal talk radio network dubbed "Central Air". Well if this is a harbinger of things to come, they are going to have tough times ahead.

An attempt by Democrats to provide an alternative to what they consider is conservative-dominated talk radio flopped after just two days when the show's host quit.

The host complained that Minnesota's DFL was calling all the shots, setting the agenda, and relegating him to the position of infomercial host.

A pair of North Carolina spammers are facing felony charges in Virginia for sending out mass emails with AOL's servers. Will this really make a dent in SPAM? Methinks not.

I've always had a soft spot for strict Constitutionalists, and this week Dr. Walter E. Williams wrote a brilliant op-ed about government powers and spending. Williams quotes James Madison in Federalist paper 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

Williams rightly points out that if Madison were alive today, he would have been tarred and feathered for pushing fiscal conservativeness. Congressmen on both sides of the aisle don't think twice about seizing money from hard working Americans to spend on "bailouts for airlines, prescription drugs, education, Social Security," and just about everything else; with no Constitutional authority. Given that we are the ones that keep sending the same bums back to Capitol Hill, we have only ourselves to blame.

Hell, I'd be happy if they'd just hold spending for a year or two. In November, I knew that when tax and spend liberal "fiscal conservative" Gerry Connolly won the Fairfax County Supervisor seat, that it would spell trouble for Fairfax residents. (like myself) I just didn't think it would happen so soon. Nary a month has passed since the election, and Connolly is already raising taxes. Fairfax county is planning on raising real estate assessments by 10%, while the local government is patting themselves on the back for not raising taxes as much as they usually do. In recent years the assessments have increased an average of 16.2%, so in some circles this will probably be considered a tax cut.

The tax hike will mean that the average Fairfax tax payer will shell out over $4000 a year, and that 60% of all county taxes will come from property taxes. Connolly wants to change that by collecting all sorts of other additional taxes. He is pushing the state to allow Virginia counties to levy their own food taxes, hotel taxes, and cigarette taxes. He claims that he'll use the money for "homeowner tax relief". (The very same homeowners for whom he just raised taxes.)

In 2004, Fairfax County will spend almost $4.5 Billion (with a B).

Check out the common thread making the rounds on major media, as reported by the MRC.

"Former Vice President Al Gore, who actually won the popular vote in the last election -- Gore versus Bush -- has decided to endorse Howard Dean..." -- Peter Jennings on ABC.

"Gore's seal of approval, remember, comes from the man who won the popular vote for President in the 2000 election..." -- Wyatt Andrews on CBS.

"The man who won the most votes for President last time plans to vote for Howard Dean this time. Tonight, what the Gore endorsement really means." -- John Seigenthaler, filling in for Brian Williams on CNBC.

"Former Vice President Al Gore, who lost the race for President even though he won the popular vote, has decided to back Howard Dean." -- John Seigenthaler, filling in for Brian Williams on CNBC.

"Former Vice President Al Gore -- who if nothing else can say he received more votes in a losing campaign than George W. Bush did in a winning one..." -- Aaron Brown on CNN.

"Former Vice President Al Gore, who won the popular vote in the last presidential election, will endorse former Vermont Governor Howard Dean..." -- Brian Williams on NBC.

Ahh, the mythical popular vote. As if Presidents have ever been elected that way. It never seems to bother these people that smiling Bill Clinton only ever garnered 42% of the "popular vote". Considering that many absentee ballots were never even counted in some states because they would not have affected the outcome, we may never really know who "won" the "popular vote".

Meanwhile, Neal Boortz points out what a first class asshole Al Gore is showing himself to be, by turning his back on Joe Lieberman. If you remember, Lieberman called Al Gore, and made sure that he wasn't planning on running again before throwing his hat into the ring. Gore apparently didn't even give him the courtesy of a phone call before thrusting the dagger into his back.

OFCC reports that the Ohio legislation has finally passed a concealed carry bill. It will be sent to the Governor's desk, where he can either sign it, refuse to sign it, or veto it. If he refuses to sign it, it still becomes law, but he gets to have his cake and eat it too by both not supporting it, and not actually blocking it.

From what OFCC says, the bill still has several problems with it like the carjacker protection amendment, and the inclusion of license information in the public record. We'll have to wait and see what happens, but Governor Bob Taft, a Republican, will likely veto the bill and take his chances with the legislature again.

Where have I seen something like this before? Oh yeah, right here.

Anyone who says gun registration doesn't lead to confiscation needs a good swift kick to the nads. In Australia, where the only legal gun is a registered gun, GFWs are pushing for a total ban on some models. The claim is being made that even legally owned firearms are easily stolen and used for evil, thus legal owners should be punished.

[National Coalition for Gun Control] chairwoman Samantha Lee says the use of a stolen semi-automatic Glock pistol in a gunfight at a Hurstville carpark in Sydney on Sunday shows that legal handguns can easily become illegal guns.

Ms Lee says the ownership of such guns outside the police force should be banned.

"We question why anyone within Australia requires a semi-automatic handgun for civilian use," she said.

[Banging my head against the wall] Again with the need argument. I'm not going to rehash this again, but I will bring up something I wrote back in July.

When you start trying to justify property ownership on the basis of need, you start down a path that could rid us of many of today's modern devices. For instance, any one of us could get along without our refrigerator, television, computer, telephone, video game system, toaster, or even electricity. The automobile strikes me as being particularly unnecessary.

Twenty year old Jack Vu stands accused of a felony and faces up to five years in prison for taking photos up a ladies skirt in a Seattle area Safeway. Vu allegedly used one of those cell phone cameras to take snap shots up a young shopper's dress.

Last September, the Washington state supreme court threw out the convictions of two men charged under the state's voyerism law, because women don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they wear skirts in public.

The pleasure police are even attacking Santa Claus, reports Scott Norvell. The ACLU is sending letters to schools, warning them not to admit any fat men in red suits over the holidays.

After receiving a letter of complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union, the school board there voted to put a stop to the nefarious [Santa related] activities and said it will re-examine how it treats all religious holidays in the schools.

One can hardly wait for the zero tolerance nightmares this will bring up: kids expelled for drawing pictures of Santa; and police raids where students are held at gunpoint while rouge Santa's are hunted down with dogs.

So the U.S. has decided that all those nations that refused to support us during the Iraq war will be missing out on lucrative reconstruction contracts.

"This kind of decision just begs for retaliation and a tit-for-tat response from countries (such as Germany, France and Russia)," said Schooner. -- Reuters, reporting that the U.S. decision to limit Iraq reconstruction bids to coalition partners could spell diplomatic trouble down the road.

"Gosh, you mean that the U.S. might not get the rebuild business the next time France defeats another country militarily?" -- Spoons, who apparently isn't buying into the empty threats and rhetoric.

The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act puts severe limits on what people can say leading up to an election. For instance, you are not allowed to criticize a political candidate 30 days before a primary election and 60 days before a general election. When the law zipped through congress, pundits were hoping for a presidential veto. It didn't happen. (Actually, Bush has yet to veto any legislation.) When the fight got to the Supreme Court, pundits naturally assumed that the SCOTUS would overturn the passage on First Amendment grounds. Well, that didn't happen either.

The court also voted 5-4 to uphold restrictions on political ads in the weeks before an election. The television and radio ads often feature harsh attacks by one politician against another or by groups running commercials against candidates.

The groups they speak of are hard working people like you and me. They are often demonized as "special interest groups" and "attack ads", but they are basically just like minded people pooling their resources to wage a political battle. That is exactly the kind of behavior the First Amendment was designed to protect. The erosion of the First Amendment, means there are only a few Amendments left that haven't been eroded away over time.

Of course, the media is largely giving the decision a pass. All anyone can seem to talk about is that the soft money ban was upheld. Nevermind that both political parties have already found a way around the soft money ban, and it is pretty much useless no matter what the SCOTUS says.

The Washington D.C. area residents felt a temblor yesterday reports the Washington Post. I'm glad they told me, because had it not been plastered all over the news yesterday evening, I never would have known. My friend Anna apparently felt something, but most people I spoke with were oblivious to the minor earthquake.

It looks like Bobby Brown may be in trouble again.

Jimmie 'Dyn-o-mite' Walker has a pretty good piece on the increasing racial divide in the U.S. He admits that white people are expected to play by different rules.

Yes, folks, there is a double standard.

No, it's not fair and yes, it's going to continue. . .

White people are frozen out of "ANY" discussion on race because of the severe consequences. . .

Tazteck gives us an inside look at what traveling the 270 beltway around Columbus is like, with the much feared 'sniper' running around loose. Can anyone say, media hype?

The Congressional Budget Office says that if Senator Kennedy expands the Medicare 'Free' Prescription Drug Program, the $395 Billion cost will probably be closer to $2 Trillion (with a T) by the second decade, reports the Washington Times.

Under the newly signed Medicare law, a senior who enrolls in the new benefit would pay $250 annual deductible and about $35 monthly in return for the government paying three-quarters of annual drug costs up to $2,250. If the senior's annual drug costs go beyond that, however, he falls into a coverage gap, during which there is no additional help from the government until drug expenses reach $5,100. Then catastrophic coverage kicks in, and the government picks up 95 percent of additional drug costs.

The bill that Mr. Kennedy and other Democrats are set to introduce today would close that drug-coverage gap, ensuring that a senior would have continuous coverage from the government.

For the record, Senator Kennedy, who is pushing to expand the Medicare bill, wants to pay for any cost overruns with a tax increase on the rich.

I'm not exactly sure how this happened?

DOUGLAS, N.B - A pregnant woman whose car went out of control on a slushy road Monday delivered a 26-week-old baby before dying of her injuries in hospital.

It seems to give new meaning to the phrase born yesterday.

Owen Courreges notes that NYC Michael Bloomberg is lashing out at the makers of the Grand Theft Auto video game, claiming they are guilty of human right's violations. He seems to have trouble separating fantasy from reality. Perhaps he can get the U.N. to send in inspection teams and call for 12 years of sanctions.

All across the country, doctors, teachers, coaches, and ministers, are working in fear. The "litigation nation" that the United States has become is giving them pause and making them walk on eggshells for fear of being sued. Newsweek reports that ministers are even afraid to be too comforting toward their congregation, for fear of being accused of hanky panky. The lawsuit worries even stretch to the playground.

Playgrounds all over the country have been stripped of monkey bars, jungle gyms, high slides and swings, seesaws and other old-fashioned equipment once popularized by President John F. Kennedy's physical-fitness campaign. The reason: thousands of lawsuits by people who hurt themselves at playgrounds. But some experts say that new, supposedly safer equipment is actually more dangerous because risk-loving kids will test themselves by, for instance, climbing across the top of a swing set. Other kids sit at home and get fat -- and their parents sue McDonald's.

Talk about your damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. Trial lawyers have created a lottery mentality, whereby people that suffer any sort of loss in life feel that someone, anyone, should compensate them for it. One day, it might just be you.

California liberals are trembling with fear at the thought of retail chain Wal-Mart coming to town, editorializes Harley Sorensen of the SF Gate. Sorensen claims that while Wal-Mart does not break any laws, they are unethical and could ruin the California economy.

To the best of my limited knowledge, Sam Walton did not break any laws building his fantastic Wal-Mart empire, and his low-price philosophy certainly helped a lot of people. But Walton's success was ruthlessly created on the backs of fragile human beings, a good many of whom are worse off for the experience.

"Hello, Wal-Mart, good-bye, Safeway and Vons and Albertsons and Ralphs and Raley's and the other supermarket chains, and good-bye 250,000 excellent union jobs statewide."

Sorensen apparently thinks Wal-Mart is using slave labor. To him, the thought of paying employees a free market price for their labor instead of artificially inflated union wages must seem unconscionable. Indeed, he goes on to say just that.

If you're a journeyman checker at one of the supermarket chains in California, you make around $19 per hour with excellent health benefits, even if you're a part timer. That's not enough to buy a house in Northern California, but it's a living. However, the same job at Wal-Mart pays about $9 per hour, with health insurance so pricey that many employees can't afford it. That's low enough to consider living in your car.

That statement is very telling, mostly that $19 an hour is not enough to buy a house in California. Second, that Sorensen expects an entry level grocery clerk to be able to buy a house with his part time job. I don't know too many first year grocery checkers who own their own homes.

What Sorensen doesn't address is the effect that more Wal-Marts might have on the overall cost of living. Perhaps if Northern California had more discount stores, you wouldn't need to make $19 an hour to earn a living. In flyover country, there are many hard working Americans who eke out a living on $9 to $12 an hour wages. They do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, and Sorensen's attitude that their pay is meager and damaging is insulting.

In the end, it comes down to simple economics. On one side, you have a retailer with an hours worth or work an $9 to spend. On the other, you have a worker with an hours worth of time and a desire to earn that $9. The relationship is mutually beneficial. Sure, the retailer would rather pay less and the employee would rather earn more. But that balance should be left up to the free market, and not unions and artificial wage inflation.

Who ever said sports writers don't have a sense of humor?

The new Battlestar Galactica airs tonight. CNN notes that purists are bound to be outraged at the radical changes they've made. Personally, I felt that the miniseries could only survive if they changed all the characters, and kept the basic premise the same. They have done just the opposite.

Apparently the characters are all there, although Starbuck has undergone a sex change, and the struggle seems much more. . . Metrosexual.

Gone is the space fantasy with the dashing caped warriors of old. Now they're handsome heroes in uniforms akin to Air Force fighter pilots. The aluminum Cylon enemies look more like humans, complete with feelings, including one with rabid sexual desires.

And the quest is not for a mythical Earth -- it no longer exists.

People that do not remember the original may not mind the radical changes, but that's not me. I'll tune in for a little while, but I plan on being disappointed.

The United Kingdom has slowly but surely taken away her citizen's right to self defense. Handguns are banned and long guns are heavily restricted. People are barred from carrying knives, chains, bats, pointy sticks, flashlights that use 'D' batteries and anything else that might be used to fend off an attacker. Citizens are routinely arrested and prosecuted for defending themselves in an attack. It should not be so shocking, that the resulting atmosphere is one filled with routine muggings, rapes, and unprovoked attacks.

Now, after a string of such attacks, Britain is warning women not to go jogging.

"There is no sexual motive apparent, no robbery. The sole reason for this attack is for the self gratification of the individual."

England sounds like a wonder country, doesn't it? The criminals roam free and the law abiding citizenry is locked away behind iron bars.

Once again, the BCS computers have made a mockery of college football. This year, they have selected LSU and Oklahoma (ranked #2 and #3) to play for the "national championship", leaving behind the #1 team, USC, reports the AP. Oklahoma has a chance to be crowned the "national champion" by the BCS, even though they didn't win their conference.

But hold everything. USC, who is ranked 1st in both the AP and Coaches poll also has a chance to be crowned "national champion" as well. While the Coaches must vote for the BCS winner, the AP can still vote USC as number one if they win the Rose Bowl. That could create a shared title, which the BCS was supposed to prevent.

What the BCS is missing is that they have pretty much set the stage for a mini-playoff. With #1 USC playing #4 Michigan, and #2 LSU playing #3 Oklahoma, all they need to do is set up another game where the winners play each other. That would settle once and for all who the national champion is. It would also be an additional game from which to derive revenue, which is what the BCS is all about. Of course we all know that a playoff will never happen if the BCS has their way.

So, what we are left with is the human coaches and AP saying that USC is number 1, and the computers saying that they're wrong. Just what do football coaches and sports writers really know about football any way? Complex computer models prove that by getting more first downs, touch downs, and points this season than anyone else, Oklahoma is the best team. What the scoreboard actually says doesn't really matter.

The White House is upset at John F. Kerry's use of the "F-word" in a recent interview for Rolling Stone, reports the AP. In the interview with Rolling Stone, Kerry is quoted as saying, "When I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, `I'm against everything?' Sure. Did I expect George Bush to f--- it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did."

Kerry defended his actions by pointing out that he served in Vietnam.

"John Kerry saw combat up close, and he doesn't mince words when it comes to politicians who put ideological recklessness ahead of American troops," said spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "I think the American people would rather Card and the rest of the White House staff spend more time on fixing Bush's flawed policy in Iraq than on Sen. Kerry's language."

Kerry was in the Army, but he swears like a drunken sailor. Speaking of Kerry's Army career, the AP goes on to give a ringing endorsement of the French looking Senator who unbeknownst to us, served in Vietnam.

On the 62nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Kerry laid a wreath in remembrance at the Navy base in Coronado, Calif., where he trained before shipping out to Vietnam, where he was wounded and was awarded the Silver Star and Bronze Star with combat V. Kerry, a swift boat commander in the war, was joined by his daughter, Vanessa, and two crew mates who served with him in Southeast Asia.

Shit, that's not exactly sticking to the fucking topic for an article that was supposedly focusing on Kerry's goddamned profanity.

After a months of waiting, I have finally been selected as one of the newest members of the Quantico Shooting Club. The facilities down there look great, so it should be well worth the annual dues. Membership also helps me qualify for the Civilian Marksmanship Program, which some Congressional Democrats (Lautenberg and Feinstein) are trying to shut down.

The NRA is seeking status as a news outlet under campaign finance laws, reports the Washington Post. How much luck they will have is anyone's guess, but if you want to know just what is wrong with the hideous McCain-Feingold Act Incumbent Protection Act, just take a look at this statement:

If the NRA were to be considered a media organization, it would be free to say what it wanted about candidates at any time. . .

Gee, there used to be a time when all Americans had that protection under the First Amendment. What part of "Congress shall make no law" don't they understand?

Or for the kid in all of us... Here are some fun links for those of you that are snowed in this weekend:

Make-a-Flake Snowflake Maker

Dress Santa

(hat tip to Dannews)

The Washington Post makes this startling realization:

Auto manufacturers have long been moving toward making SUVs more car-like. They weren't doing it for safety. They were doing it for money, in direct response to growing consumer demand for trucks that behaved more like cars.

I'm just shocked, I say, shocked. I had no idea that corporations would be so brazen in their attempt to enrich their shareholders, rather than hemorrhaging money for the good of the public.

All is still not right in the world. Yes, Melvin Spaulding has been released, and he has yet to be formally charged for shooting and wounding one of the three young men that was attacking his friend. Still, it doesn't appear as though any of the ruffians has been charged for the beating of a 63 year old man. Also, Spaulding has apparently been told that although he is free for now, and has not been charged with a crime, he cannot own a gun.

Given that Spaulding was originally arrested for attempted murder, and held without bail (a fate usually reserved for those deemed to be an immediate threat to the public), I had been wondering if all the facts were in. As the days go by, though, no more facts are rolling in, and the cops are looking worse and worse. That they chose to nullify Spaulding's Constitutionally protected freedoms without due process rings of tyranny and governmental abuse of power.

Related articles:
Things that make you go ARRRRGH! -- 12/03/2003.

How long before Texas A&M is sued for dropping Affirmative Action legalized racial descrimination? After all, under the premise of affirmative action, not considering race is considered fundamentally unfair.

Yeah, ok, so it is in alphabetical order. Seriously though, many thanks to Hawk for including me on his short list of losers of the 2003 Warblogger Awards. I can only hope that we have many more wars to come so that I might try again year after year. Between North Korea and Iran, there are plenty of people left to bomb. Maybe someone should send these DPRK tourism brochures to the Bush Administration. He might want to check it out in the off season.

Labor unions in Austria have unsuccessfully pushed to ban Christmas music. Now they are resorting to begging retailers for mercy.

An Austrian trade union has claimed the repetitive playing of Christmas Carols in department stores is nothing short of "psycho-terrorism" for salespeople.

From morning to night, for weeks before Christmas, there was the same Christmas music in department stores over and over again, said Gottfried Rieser of the Union of Private Employees.

"Many staff in the retail sector suffer psychologically from it. They get aggressions and aversions against Christmas music. On Christmas Eve with their families, they can't stand Silent Night or Jingle Bells any more," he said.

With no legal way to stop companies from playing repetitive Christmas music, Rieser is pleading with company owners to cut back. If they refuse, the terrorists will have won.

This guy became a believer, shortly after he nabbed a Salvation Army donation pot.

Edward Sanders, 40, grabbed the pot Tuesday and pulled it away after a short struggle with volunteer Patricia Parra, a 60-year-old woman who suffers from cerebral palsy, said South Tucson police Sgt. Dan Snyder.

As Sanders started to run away, he was struck by a Honda sedan and police captured him.

Sanders was treated and released, and arrested on suspicion of robbery.

Kevin at The Smallest Minority notes that the U.K. is planning on using roadside scanners to detect people carrying firearms and knives around town. It's those same scanners that allow police and airport security to see right through the clothes of young attractive women and get a peek at their hidden goodies.

Personally, I'm not that worried. I'll just get the folks that made my tin foil hat to make me some tin foil clothes as well.

Someone should bribe Glenn to help this guy.

". . . the foray has opened new credibility questions", claims the Washington Post. Just what are they upset about? Apparently the turkey Bush is holding in this photograph was a decorative prop or centerpiece prepared by the chef, and not an actual turkey meant to be consumed by the troops.

When it comes to finding something to criticize Bush about, as Neal says, how desparate can you get?

With finances in the red, Chicago decided to install red light cameras at selected intersections which have proven to be lucrative cash cows. The Chicago Tribune reports that 1,114 motorists have been fined more than $100,000 in just 3 weeks for running red lights. Camera proponents claimed that the cameras were a "safety" measure, even though lengthening the yellow light is the most effective way to reduce red light running. Now that they are installed, Chicago wants to dig even deeper and set the cameras to fine people for speeding as well.

"The software system we have has the ability to record speed," said Brian Steele, a spokesman for the city's Transportation Department. "We are looking at a way to wrap that violation into the red-light violation."

And why not. You could also analyze the photos for expired tags and decals, broken headlights, and worn wiper blades. With some quick analysis, you could easily boost your average fine from $100 to $500-$600. Imagine the kind of cash they could rake in.

Just a quick update on Geuda Springs, Kansas, where city lawmakers passed mandatory ownership and maintenance of firearms. Their idiot mayor vetoed it, much to the chagrin of GOA.

Reason 106: Xbox deflects real bullets, "real" being the 9mm variety.

There is a lot of buzz over that Paris Hilton video floating around out there. Personally, from what I've seen of Paris Hilton, she isn't all that attractive. I've never been a huge fan of bleach blondes, and her bony 105 pound frame just doesn't do it for me. She looks like Karen Carpenter after falling into a vat of peroxide.

Her rudeness and condescension doesn't add much value either.

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams offers a glimmer of hope on fighting the city wide smoking ban repeal of property rights, reports ABC News.

The mayor says with the hospitality industry being so important to the city's economy, he can't support an outright smoking ban for bars, restaurants and nightclubs. [...]

The mayor says he supports Republican Councilwoman Carol Schwartz's efforts to provide tax breaks for bars, restaurants and nightclubs that voluntarily go smoke-free - saying it could be a reasonable compromise.

On the surface it sounds reasonable, but I wonder if the tax benefits will eventually turn into tax punishments for those that don't toe the government line. It also sets up an unlevel business playing field on the basis of the government wanting to control people's behavior. Given that the D.C. government isn't likely to cut spending to match the tax breaks, those tax dollars will have to be made up somewhere else, and you know what that means.

"How insane is New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg? Not satisfied with banning smoking in nearly every bar, restaurant and club in the city, his Health Department is giving out citations for possession of ashtrays, the New York Times reports" -- James Taranto, Michael Bloomberg's New York (last item) -- December 03, 2003.

"Apparently now, even ashtrays are illegal" -- Ravenwood, Bloomberg's Secret Ashtray Police -- September 29, 2003.

According to News Max, Howard Dean has apparently never heard of the First Amendment. When asked about the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Dean said that he'd break up media corporations that don't toe the Democrat line.

"Eleven companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television," the ex-Vermont governor complained to MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who then asked the candidate point-blank:

"Would you break up Fox? ... Rupert Murdoch has 'The Weekly Standard.' It has got a lot of other interests. It has got the New York Post. Would you break it up?"

Dean shot back, "On ideological grounds, absolutely yes."

Dean did sense the trap Matthews was trying to spring on him, and started backpedaling fast. He did go on record as saying, "What I'm going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one."

Had to see this coming.

If you have blood pressure problems, you probably don't want to read this (this means you, Kim). A 71 year old Florida man has been jailed for using a firearm to stop an attack on his 63 year old friend. Not one, not two, but THREE men were beating a 63 year old man, when 71 year old Melvin Spaulding used his .22 caliber pistol to stop the melee. A 20 year old goblin was struck in the arm and hospitalized. (In a typical half-assed manner, the ages of the other two men were not reported.)

For defending his friend's life, Spaulding was arrested and is being held without bail. Pinellas County Sheriff's spokesman Tim Goodman had this to say about Mr. Spaulding:

"I'm sure he was concerned for his friend's safety...," Goodman said. "The use of a weapon to stop a confrontation is not the right way. He would have been better off calling 911."

AUGH! Goodman deserves a swift kick in the gonads. The idea that Spaulding is supposed to just hang around waiting for the coroner to arrive while his friend is beaten by THREE young street toughs is incomprehensible. Spaulding did the right thing in helping his friend, but because he didn't rely on the all-knowing, almighty government for protection, he's being held without bail. There is no word on whether or not Mr. Spaulding will be charged with attempted murder, but the AP does report that the 20 year old assailant was arrested on an unrelated battery charge from earlier that night.

King's interview was a "puff piece" that "ignored the unnecessary torture she inflicted on America." -- ex-Clinton staffer, Bob Weiner on Linda Tripp's interview with Larry King.

Shooting the messenger is such a novel idea. Using Weiner's logic, anti-war protesters should be protesting the New York Times for inflicting "unnecessary torture" on them for reporting the war news.

Virginia's tax and spend Democrat Governor Warner has resorted to shameless vote buying, reports the Washington Post. Of course they don't call it that, but they do note that Warner is promising that his $1 Billion two year tax increase will not affect a majority of the voters.

"If there is one thing I want you to remember," Mark R. Warner told the [crowd], "it's that at the end of this plan, 65 percent of Virginians will pay less."

So by promising to only raise taxes on the top 35% of Virginians, Warner pretty much guarantees success, right? Well not exactly. As J. Pepper Bryars of the American Spectator points out, Alabama voters recently rejected a similar tax increase (by a 2-to-1 margin) that was advertised to lower taxes for 70% of the populace.

So why would voters reject a tax increase that was billed to shift their tax burden over onto their neighbor? Well, Bryars notes that voters are smarter than they look. They realize that increasing taxes on their employer is going to mean a few less dollars in their paycheck, and that increasing taxes on local business owners is going to mean higher prices. While tax cuts eventually trickle down, so do tax increases.

Russia is set to kill the Kyoto Protocol once and for all, reports The New York Times. Without Russia and the U.S., the Kyoto goals are completely unobtainable, thus by spurning the treaty, Kyoto is pretty much defunct. Ironically, Russia had the most to gain from Kyoto. With the fall of Soviet Union era industrialism, Russia had already reduced emmissions 30% from 1990 levels and could have sold those credits to other nations at a premium.

"A number of questions have been raised about the link between carbon dioxide and climate change, which do not appear convincing," Mr. Illarionov [a senior Kremlin adviser on economic affairs] said in the interview. "And clearly it sets very serious brakes on economic growth which do not look justified."

Russia has also complained that major polluters like China and India are not even bound by the treaty, giving them an unfair economic advantage. But mostly, experts say, Russia is bothered by its declining financial return from joining the treaty.

So, basically Russia crunched the numbers and discovered that the long term financial hit wasn't worth the short term gain. They could probably make billions up front, but the long term stifling effects on their economy aren't worth it.

Doesn't this just sound delightful.

In the surreal world of North Korean tourism, you can feast on local delicacies served by glamorous lady comrades, watch an acrobatics show infused with Stalinist humor and climb a storied mountain covered with plaques and monuments celebrating the totalitarian Kim clan.

But be back indoors by the midnight curfew -- or face fines, questioning by authorities or, well, worse.

I can see the posters now. "Visit Pyongyang, the city that'd better sleep".

Anyone looking for a new pet? He can open the car door for you.

Owen Courreges notes that some lefty wackos cannot even be trusted with glue.

Employees at as many as 16 area Starbucks were greeted Sunday morning with stores whose doors had been glued shut, police said, in objection to the ubiquitous chain's "corporate coffee."

Apparently they didn't use "corporate glue", because employees were still able to open the store on schedule.

Former California Governor Gray Davis' shameless vote buying ploy has been repealed by both houses of the state legislature. The measure passed the assembly 64-9 after passing the senate 33-0, which illustrates there was probably little or no support for the law (save for trying to salvage Davis' career) to begin with.

Canada is figuring out what we already know; that tougher gun laws don't mean less crime. Gary Mauser, author of the paper and professor of business at Simon Fraser University, comes to this conclusion:

"It is an illusion that gun bans protect the public. No law, no matter how restrictive, can protect us from people who decide to commit violent crimes. Maybe we should crack down on criminals rather than hunters and target shooters?"

One of these days, Mauser will realize that it's about controlling people, not crime.

Event though I'm a pretty big guy, this is why I refuse to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

Is anyone taking odds on how long it will take for the lawsuit to be filed? I watched the video footage of Nathaniel Jones confrontation with the police twice. I have to admit that I agree with the Mayor's initial assessment that it clearly shows "a 400-pound man violently attacking a police officer in a manner that put the lives of police officers at risk".

Personally, I've always advocated tough treatment of criminals, and I don't think that police should be subjected to this kind of behavior. At the risk of sounding cruel, I would say if a man takes a swing at an officer, he gets a bullet in the leg. A second punch is worth a bullet to the chest. That goes double for 350 pound PCP addicts.

Traffic increased again in December. Thanks to everyone that sent some traffic my way. As you can see, it has just about doubled over the past 6 months.

It actually could have been a tad bit higher, had it not tapered off over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Unemployed Left With Congressional Inaction on Jobless Bill -- Fox News.

When Canada passed a law requiring all guns be registered, they estimated that it would cost about $2 Million. Last year, before the deadline for registration had even passed, officials admitted that the cost would reach $1 Billion by 2005. This year, officials have admitted that the cost will reach $1 Billion in 2004, a full year earlier than "expected".

Combining this with the fact that several provinces have said they will not prosecute those that refuse to register, I would say that the program's days are numbered.

The L.A. Times lashes out at 'evil' corporations like Wal-Mart, over low wages paid to employees. The very title of their hit piece speaks of the Wal-Mart "Empire", and laments that "the prices can't be beat, but the wages can". Tugging on heart strings, they deliver the sob story of a worker at a competing grocer.

Kelly Gray, the chief breadwinner for five children, lost her job as a Raley's grocery clerk last December after Wal-Mart expanded into the supermarket business here. California-based Raley's closed all 18 of its stores in the area, laying off 1,400 workers.

Gray earned $14.68 an hour with a pension and family health insurance. Wal-Mart grocery workers typically make less than $9 an hour. [...]

Wal-Mart's penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company's own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.

No mention of a father in this story, just Kelly, trying to eke out a living for her five children at a local grocery store. So who is the guilty party here? The Times vilifies Wal-Mart, which is actually a shot taken at the thrifty American consumer. Market forces for bargain goods have made Wal-Mart very successful. Competitors who have been unable to add value to their own offerings have had to either meet Wal-Marts price point or leave the market entirely, which is what happened to Raley's.

Caught in the price wars, are hard working Americans like Kelly Gray. I'm sure Gray was very good at what she did, but unfortunately for her, her skill set was not so rare that she could dictate a $15 per hour wage. Wal-Mart cannot and should not pay someone $15 an hour to do a job that someone else is willing to do for $9. Even if that worker doesn't do the job as well or as efficiently as Kelly, price conscious American consumers pretty much don't give a damn. Indeed, if you walk into a Wal-Mart you are likely to find trash and clutter in the aisles, half empty shelves, missing price tags, and pallets of merchandise just placed on the floor for shoppers to pick from. People that shop there, for the large part, will put up with the "pig sty" image to get at the bargain basement prices. Personally, I'm not one of them. I shop at Target, where they add the value of cleaner aisles and store personnel that are a lot more competent.

Of course the Times supports unions and "living wages", which would not only keep wages artificially inflated, but would also mean higher prices for customers. Imagine McDonalds charging you $10 for a Big Mac, or the Times raising the price of your newspaper from 50 cents to $3, because every worker in the building is guaranteed a $15 per hour "living wage".

Instead of writing a hit piece against capitalism and the Wal-Marts of the world, the Times ought to be writing a piece about displaced workers who refuse to expand their skill set. If you're still making slide rules in a pocket calculator world, don't blame the rest of us for not buying your slide rules.

Would you think that a blogger who is regularly published by Fox News would be immune to cyber begging? Well, think again.

Here's reminding you that Ravenwood's Universe, is brought to you free of advertising and cyberbegging. It is fully funded by the staff writers who are hard working, over taxed middle class Americans. If you want to help us and others out financially, vote for lower taxes.

California businessman, Ward Connerly, is known for fighting state sponsored discrimination. He has opposed "Affirmative Action", and recently failed in an attempt to pass a law prohibiting the government from classifying people by the color of their skin. Because of his political views, Connerly is now facing stiff opposition from pro-descrimination activists, reports The Washington Times.

Now his foes are mounting a petition drive to remove Mr. Connerly from the University of California Board of Regents. [...]

The petition, which can be accessed at www.ThePetitionSite.com, reads, in part: " ... Ward Connerly, the most notorious and fanatical right-wing opponent of civil rights in California, still sits securely ensconced on the Board of Regents of the University of California, using his position every day to advance a right-wing national agenda aimed at rolling back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement of 1960s and rendering meaningless the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that separate can never be equal."

To the race warlords Affirmative Action, the premise that blacks should be favored over whites in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past, apparently does not apply to those that do not support the affirmative action agenda. Those that are preaching that the rules ought to base promotions on race rather than merit, want Connerly (who is black) removed from his position based on his merit, rather than his race. If they truly believe in affirmative action, shouldn't they support Connerly no matter what his political views are, simply because he's black; or is Connerly "not black enough" for them?

If you thought Congress had a conflict of interest in voting themselves a raise, take a look at how things work in Illinois. A Cook County judge has decreed that anyone trying to stand in the way of his pay raise is violating the law.

A Cook County judge ruled Monday that the governor's veto of a 2.8 percent cost-of-living raise for the state's 900-plus judges was "unlawful."

Neither the governor nor the Legislature can cut a judge's salary while they are in office, Judge John K. Madden ruled. He ordered Comptroller Dan Hynes to start cutting the judges' paychecks at the higher rate.

Of course he's using the liberal definition of cut.