Iraqi citizens wouldn't let themselves be intimidated by terrorists, and turned out to vote in droves.

Officials have said it could take up to 10 days to get final election results, but officials said initial reports indicated voter turnout appeared to be higher than expected, even in Sunni areas where insurgent attacks have occurred on a near daily basis. [...]

In the southern city of Basra, ITN's Juliet Bremner reported that turnout was almost 90 percent. She said voting was peaceful and orderly, with elated Shiites -- oppressed for decades under Saddam -- "determined to cast their votes in their desire for freedom, peace and food."

But amid the stories of Iraqis defiantly waving their ink stained fingers in the air (showing that they had voted), and people walking miles to get to polling places, not everyone was happy this weekend. That's right, John Kerry was still bitter and making a complete ass of himself on Meet the Press:

KERRY: It is significant that there is a vote in Iraq. But no one in the United States or in the world--and I'm confident of what the world response will be. No one in the United States should try to overhype this election...

RUSSERT: Do you believe this election will be seen by the world community as legitimate?

KERRY: A kind of legitimacy. I mean, it's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.

I think this election was important. I was for the election taking place.

Some on the left have gone to great lengths to cast doubt on the legitimacy of this election. The fact of the matter remains, that any free election held would have legitimacy. The same way that President Lincoln was elected in 1864, even though Confederate states did not take part in the election.

Kerry's derision, and that of those on the left smacks of bitter partisan politics. No doubt if there man were at the helm, they would be calling this a huge political victory.

UPDATE: At least some people in the U.S. are showing solidarity with the Iraqis.

Officials at a New England school district are ticked off at George W. Bush for making them accountable with his 'No Child Left Behind' act. So, they are taking it out on their kids by cancelling the annual spelling bee.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Linda Newman said the decision to scuttle the event was reached shortly after the January 2004 bee in a unanimous decision by herself and the district's elementary school principals.

The administrators decided to eliminate the spelling bee, because they feel it runs afoul of the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"No Child Left Behind says all kids must reach high standards," Newman said. "It's our responsibility to find as many ways as possible to accomplish this."

The administrators agreed, Newman said, that a spelling bee doesn't meet the criteria of all children reaching high standards -- because there can only be one winner, leaving all other students behind.

"It's about one kid winning, several making it to the top and leaving all others behind. That's contrary to No Child Left Behind," Newman said. [...]

"There was no debate at all. It was one of the easiest decisions," the assistant superintendent said because "there was no question among the administrators" that a spelling bee was "contrary to the expectations" of No Child Left Behind.

And this woman is supposedly qualified to look out for the best interests of people's children. If I had kids, I wouldn't let her near them.

(Hat tip to James Taranto.)

UPDATE: After very public pressure, the school system has decided not to cancel the spelling bee.

Diversity advocates say we should be accepting of all types, but let one guy bring a bikini-wearing doughnut girl to work and all hell breaks loose.

About 5 a.m. last Friday, a retiring employee reporting for his last day at work brought a bikini-clad woman with him, said John Osgood, deputy manager of the Department of Public Works.

As other employees reported to work, "she was standing there asking them if they wanted a doughnut," he said. advertisement

After 20 minutes, the woman left. No female employees happened to be present, but between 10 and 15 workers saw the woman, Osgood said.

After a city investigation, a work-group supervisor in the solid waste services division was fired Thursday and two other work-group supervisors were disciplined. Their names have not been released. [...]

The Public Works employees "have worked hard over the past three years to develop a culture that . . . respects diversity," Councilwoman Pam Goronkin said.

Yeah, except when that diversity includes a nice young girl like this.

It looks like an internet sales tax is on the way. Dozens of states are ticked off that they have been thus far unable to tax internet sales that cross state lines. But what is most disturbing is their whole attitude about taxation.

At stake for the states is potentially billions of dollars a year in revenue that is currently going uncollected. A study released last July by the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures estimated that state and local governments lost $15.5 billion to $16.1 billion in 2003 in revenue from untaxed Internet sales.

That's right, if you buy a DVD from a guy in another state and don't mail in your 50-cents tribute, the states are somehow losing money.

Thankfully the Virginia Senate defeated the gun show killer bill last week. But the usual suspects in the media are still ratcheting up the rhetoric.

Gun buyers, including criminals, can continue to avoid background checks by doing business with unlicensed dealers at Virginia gun shows.

The Senate voted 20-17 yesterday to kill Sen. Henry L. Marsh III's bill requiring criminal-background checks on all purchasers at gun shows. State law requires federally licensed dealers to conduct the checks at gun shows, but it exempts unlicensed vendors, such as gun collectors and private sellers.

So if you sell your used car to your neighbor, you must be an unlicensed used car dealer.

Mr. Marsh, Richmond Democrat, said Virginia is the only state along the coast from North Carolina to the Canadian border that has not closed "the gun-show loophole."

That's because we border the North East, which includes gun control paradises such as Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.

If you think putting your safety in the hands of a burglar alarm is a good idea, think again.

Police in a prosperous Californian city near San Francisco will begin ignoring most burglar alarms, prompted by too many false alarms and too little money.

Fremont police said the overwhelming majority of warning signals they receive are false alarms that cost the city $600,000 a year. Because of budget cuts, starting next month they will only respond if they have additional verification, such as a video feed of a crime occurring or a witness report.

Remember, Police Officers are able to prevent only about 5% of crime. The other 95% the police are simply investigating after the fact and filling out reports. In fact, they can't even be held responsible for refusing to assist you. Food for thought.

"Rise in violent crime but burglaries and car theft down" -- UK Telegraph, January 25, 2005.

Dwight Jones didn't meet much resistance when he allegedly robbed a Wachovia Bank in Richmond. Because of Wachovia's "no guns" policy, he didn't even need to arm himself.

Most interestingly, Jones father happens to be Delegate Dwight C. Jones, D-Richmond. Del. Jones is famous for, among other things, trying to pass legislation to ban guns in Virginia's banks. I suppose he was just looking out for his son.

What with the war going on in Iraq, and the seriousness of these times, shouldn't we consider cancelling the Super Bowl? Wouldn't those millions of dollars be better spent helping the victims of the Tsunami or something?

I mean, they could still play the game, but maybe cut back on some of the hoopla.

D.C. residents are upset at car sharing firms. They want 140 public curbside parking spots to be turned over to them, so their users will have spots all over the city to pick up and drop off the cars. Residents already have a tough enough time finding parking, but their voices are falling on some deaf ears.

City officials defend the program as a way to reduce the number of vehicles in the District.

"The point of the program is to reduce parking and traffic congestion in the neighborhood," said Rick Rybeck, the deputy administrator of the D.C. Department of Transportation.

Of course city officials don't have to worry about fighting for parking.

The council voted in July 2002 to exempt itself from the city's parking regulations. The measure, coming after a year in which traffic-enforcement officers had cracked down on illegally parked council members' cars...

[Council members have] the freedom to park in bus zones, in restricted spaces near intersections, at building entrances and on restricted residential streets. It also freed council members from having to put money into parking meters.

As usual, rules for thee, but not for me.

What Ravenwood is doing: Watching the Gatti-Leija fight on HBO.

What Ravenwood is drinking: Fat Bastard Chardonnay (France, 2002).

In case anyone cares.

The anti-gun Brady Campaign has been sounding the alarm about the Fabrique Nationale 'Five N Seven' handgun. They claim that the gun easily defeats police body armor and have been calling it an "assault weapon" that should be banned by Congress. (Because only Congressional bans will prevent crime.) They even claim to have a video showing it defeating body armor.

But then there is the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, another anti-gun organization, who is saying something different. (emphasis in original)

In response to numerous questions that ATF has received regarding the capabilities of the 5.7 X 28mm cartridge, the following technical information is provided.

FTB classified SS196 ammunition as not armor piercing.

The FN 5.7 (Fabrique Nationale) pistol is a semiautomatic pistol in 5.7 X 28 mm caliber. [...]

FTB has also examined a 5.7 X 28 mm projectile that FN Herstal has designated the "SS196." The SS196 is loaded with a Hornady 40 grain, jacketed lead bullet. FTB classified SS196 ammunition as not armor piercing ammunition under Federal firearms statutes.

According to FNH USA, FN Herstal tested the SS192 ammunition. SS192 ammunition did not penetrate the Level IIIA vests that were tested. FNH USA states that SS196, Hornady V-Max 40 gr. bullets fired from a 4-3/4 inch barrel did not penetrate the Level II vests that were used in testing.

FNH USA has informed FTB that SS192 is no longer imported for commercial sale to the United States and that commercial sales of 5.7 X 28mm ammunition are restricted to the SS196 (not armor piercing).

I can only imagine how irrirated the ATF must be that they were being flooded with calls over this. Brady claims to have video showing the gun defeating body armory. The AFT meanwhile has numerous scientific studies (that must be done before any gun can be approved for import) that show it doesn't.

Okay, I've been chastised for being too quiet about this. The good news is that the Hokie Basketball team is #3 in the ACC. That is most unexpected, considering we were picked to be a bottom dweller in Basketball. The bad news is that they play Duke on Sunday.

And HoosierHokie sends this lovely cartoon:

Vice President Dick Cheney can't catch a break. Apparently he was caught wearing green (probably a Halliburton color) instead of the more formal black at the Auschwitz ceremony.

Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.

You would think Chirac and Putin would feel more comfortable in yellow.

"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper's Friday editions.

Between the somber, dark-coated leaders at the outdoor ceremony sat Cheney, resplendent in a green parka embroidered with his name and featuring a fur-trimmed hood, the laced brown boots and a knit ski cap reading "Staff 2001."

"And, indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults," Givhan wrote.

Considering he worked for Nixon, this is probably the first time in a long time that Cheney has been said to look like a young boy.

This meme has been going around for a few days now. I meant to post it earlier, but forgot. Microsoft's mapping service, apparently leaves a little bit to be desired.

Nathan Gonzales notes that Democrats are living in fantasy land. 'If only 60,000 voters in Ohio had changed their minds? Damn, that's frustrating.'

But Gonzales tries to bring them back to reality:

In the real world, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in the Electoral College 286-251, with 270 needed to win. (One elector in Minnesota cast his vote for John Edwards.) Yes, if Ohio had gone for Kerry, he would have totaled 272 electoral votes, and would be thawing out from his parade walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

But while 60,000 votes would have made the difference in favor of Kerry, just 45,000 votes the other way paints a completely different picture. If 5,000 voters had switched in New Hampshire, Bush would have carried the state. If 6,000 voters had switched in Wisconsin, Bush would have carried that state. And if 34,000 voters had switched in Oregon, Bush would have carried it also. So, in this backward hypothetical world, Bush wins reelection with a considerable 307 electoral votes.

In addition, Bush could have lost Ohio and still won reelection if only a few thousand voters in New Hampshire or Wisconsin had magically decided to change their minds. The fact of the matter is, the voters voted and Bush won. And playing "What if..." is left for the loser.

Candidates who come up short invariably offer the "what if..." message to prove to themselves and others that there isn't much difference between losing and winning. But, of course, there is.

If Bill Mueller had not singled in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, the Red Sox would never have even made it to the World Series. And if only 3 points switched hands on September 27, December 12, and December 26, the Washington Redskins would have made the playoffs.

And if I had wings, I could fly.

Priceless.

The faces of crystal meth. Read the article to find out what it does to your teeth. Augh.

All is not right in Maryland. Get this:

• Maryland Democrats raise taxes on HMOs
• Maryland HMOs raise rates on their customers
• Maryland Democrats blame Republican Insurance Commissioner for the rising cost of insurance

Why am I not at all surprised?

Becky Jensen offers her Chicks' Super Bowl Guide, so you ladies can attend a Super Bowl Party without looking out of place.

Have you ever wondered what happens at the bottom of a football pile? Check out this account by Ike Reese, a linebacker for the Eagles.

"When we played the Patriots last year [Eagles running back] Brian Westbrook fumbled a punt, and we were all down there scrambling for it. [Patriots linebacker] Mike Vrabel had my testicles in his hand, and he was squeezing them. Where the football ends up depends on who has the strongest will or the strongest hands. Guys reach inside the face mask to gouge your eyes. But the biggest thing is the grabbing of the testicles. It is crazy."

SI has plenty more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so Ted Turner called the guys at Fox News a bunch of Nazi's and compared them to Hitler. Interesting, considering CNN's sweetheart relationship with Saddam Hussein. But still, I guess Ted's never heard of Godwin's Law.

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

By tossing the H-card out there, Ted Turner loses the debate by default. At least Fox News has a sense of humor about it. "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network, and now his mind," said a Fox News spokesperson. "We wish him well."

Mel Gibson did absolutely no campaigning for an Oscar. He didn't even send out a screening video. On the other hand, Michael Moore was actively campaigning for a "Best Picture" nomination. But will CNN do a similar story on Moore or his 'partisans'?

Internet Christian soldiers are admitting defeat in their battle to win a best picture Oscar nomination for "The Passion of the Christ" -- but their campaign to influence Hollywood goes on.

Web sites supporting Mel Gibson's movie about Jesus' last days -- the eighth-highest grossing American film of all time -- failed to convince enough Oscar voters that it deserved a best picture nomination.

CNN goes on to say that 'Passion' just wasn't worthy of any awards. They quote Oscar "scholar" Tom O'Neil as saying, "The vast consensus of American film critics said it was not worthy -- beginning with The New York Times, which called the movie a 'serious artistic failure.' "

Personally, I don't think it was "Best Picture" material (but then neither was 'Gladiator'). But I think Gibson should definitely had been considered for "Best Director".

Other unworthy 'Best Picture' films (in this man's opinion):

Gladiator (2000)
Titanic (1997)
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Platoon (1986)
Godfather II (1974)
French Connection (1971)

In the face of apathy, anti-smoking bigotry marches on. Refusing to hire people who smoke is nothing new. I've been noting it for the better part of two years. But it is becoming much more common. The Lansing State Journal notes that Kalamazoo Valley Community College is also discriminating against smokers.

Would-be employees at Kalamazoo Valley Community College will have to choose between their cigarettes or their jobs, too. The college adopted a policy this month under which the college refuses to hire as full-time employees people who use tobacco during school hours or on leisure time. The idea behind the hiring change is based on health care costs, said Sandy Bohnet, vice president for human resources at the college.

For those of you who don't think this will happen to you, here is food for thought. Reuters notes that Weyco, who recently fired 4 people for refusing to submit to intrusive testing to see if they smoked in their spare time, already has a plan for overweight workers. The owner admits that he would fire them too, except that Michigan law prevents him from doing so.

Next on the firing line: overweight workers.

"We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise. But if you're obese, you're (legally) protected," Weyers said.

He has brought in an eating disorder therapist to speak to workers, provided eating coaches, created a point system for employees to earn health-related $100 bonuses and plans to offer $45 vouchers for health club memberships.

The 71-year-old Weyers, who said he has never smoked and pronounced himself in good shape thanks to daily runs, said employees' health as well as saving money on the company's own insurance claims led him to first bar smokers from being hired in 2003.

So Weyers would fire them, but he can't because of some silly law. So the next time some fatty gets a poor eval, or is fired for something frivolous (like not resetting the copy machine), he'll have to wonder if it was Weyer's blatant bigotry working behind the scenes.

But you do see the progression. Weyco started by not hiring smokers. Then people weren't allowed to smoke during work hours. Next thing you know, he's trying to test employees to see if they have nicotine in their system, and firing them for refusing to comply with his nannying. I'm a non-smoker, and I would still refuse to submit to such a test. If Weyer handed me a cup I'd probably throw it in his face. (If he's lucky, I wouldn't fill it up first.)

When it comes to these bans, the rules get progessively worse a little bit at a time. (Which is always the way these things work.) I don't doubt that Weyers doesn't have every legal right to do what he's doing. But that still doesn't mean he's not an asshole.

Related articles:
1984: Fired for being a smoker -- January 26, 2005

Talk about misplaced priorities.

A NURSERY nurse was fined �60 yesterday for holding an apple in her hand while driving around a bend after police used a spotter aircraft, a helicopter and a patrol car to win the case.

Northumbria Police went to extraordinary lengths to gather evidence against Sarah McCaffery, 23, who had missed breakfast and grabbed the apple to eat on her way to work. Magistrates ruled that she had not been in full control of her car. Miss McCaffery was also ordered to pay �100 costs at the tenth court hearing of the case.

Chris Kay, for the prosecution, said that the bill was �425, not including the aerial photographs and the squad vehicle's video. The full cost of bringing the case against Miss McCaffery is thought to have been about �10,000. [...]

The court was told how police brought in a fixed-wing spotter aircraft to fly over Miss McCaffery's route to work and take photographs. Later the force's helicopter repeated the exercise before a patrol car made a video of the journey.

In their defense, officers said they had actually thought she was driving while illegally talking on a cell phone.

Hollyweird stars are fighting to get driver's licenses for illegal aliens. (emphasis mine)

More than 30 actors, musicians and writers, including Diane Keaton, Carlos Santana and "Million Dollar Baby" writer and producer Paul Haggis, took out the ad Monday in the entertainment industry trade paper Variety.

The group urges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to approve a new bill that would allow illegal immigrants to get a license as long as background checks found they had no criminal violations.

Um, since when is violating immigration laws no longer a criminal violation?

Eighteen year olds can vote and go off to war, but they aren't allowed a drop of beer, and lawmakers in Vermont hope to change that. Vermont state legislator Richard Marron wants to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18, and personally, I support them 100%. If teenagers can be taught to drive a 2-ton automobile on the highway, why not teach them how to be responsible with a glass of beer or wine?

The MADD crowd is sure to hoot and holler about drinking and driving. But people who break drunk driving laws are not likely to obey underage drinking laws either. And this is not a question of access, as any resourceful teenager can get their hands on alcohol and drugs if they want to. And drunk drivers don't magically disappear at age 21. If it was just a question of age, why not raise the drinking age to 45, or 60.

No, this is about personal responsibility, and the earlier we teach kids the better. Only an idiot would assume that a person magically matures at midnight 21 years after they're born.

But the problem in Vermont is more than a question of age. It's one of funding. You see, the federal government dictates that states with a drinking age lower than 21 lose a percentage of their highway funding. In Vermont that adds up to $10 Million a year. The fed is always forcing their way on the states, and they've done it again recently with the lowering the BAC from .10 to .08. As if the drunk driving problem is going to be solved by busting the small percentage of drivers in that .02% range, the fed is forcing states to lower their legal BAC level or lose up to 8% of their funding. Gee, if you don't toe the line on more than one of these regs, you might not get any highway funding at all.

Which brings me to ask rhetorically, how does the fed get away with this to begin with? If you said the Seventeenth Amendment, give yourself a gold star. The hideous Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution allows for the popular election of Senators. U.S. Senators used to be appointed by the state legislature, and their job was to represent the interests of the states in the federal process. (As opposed to the House, who represents the people.)

With the passage of Seventeen, the last bit of influence the states had over the Fed was pretty much wiped out. And with states' rights out of the way, Congress cleared the way to grow the government into the huge federal bureaucracy that we are left with today. Instead of the states looking out for the differing interests of their local populace, you have this attempted all knowing, all powerful government trying to be all things to all people.

If Vermont wants to have more control over making their own laws, perhaps they should start by repealing Seventeen.

Two Georgia teenagers went into a store intending to rob it. Both left in body bags. What happened in between is quite compelling.

The cash register at Shoat's Grocery and Package Store in Oglethorpe County held just $300 Monday when the two teenagers walked in.

If they had been patient, the would-be robbers could have had it.

Gloria Turner and husband Bobby Doster were about to hand over money when one teenager forced a shootout. [...]

"I'd have given it to them. Our insurance would have covered it," said Gloria Turner, who has owned the store for eight years with her husband.

Turner, 56, was rearranging the store, in the tiny community of Hutchins, when the teenagers walked in Monday evening.

One was wearing a wig that partly covered his eyes, prompting Turner to quip, "Can you see to walk with that thing on?"

The teen mumbled something, she recalled. He ran past Turner and shoved her husband, Bobby "Shoats" Doster, against the bakery counter.

The second teen pulled a white skullcap over his face, pushed Turner to the cash register and demanded money.

"I was about to give it to them . . . when the first guy says, 'You're not moving fast enough,' and pulls out a gun," Turner said Tuesday.

The teen aimed the gun at her husband and fired. The bullet missed. His gun jammed.

That was enough for Doster, who pulled out a .380 from his pocket. At the same time, his wife grabbed the 9 mm she kept under under the counter.

Both began firing at the teenagers, who ran to the back of the store for cover. A full-fledged gunbattle erupted.

The teens crouched behind a meat counter. The one with the gun popped up every few seconds to fire another round.

The unarmed teen kept shouting, "Shoot them! Shoot them!" while tossing at the couple whatever items he could get his hands on, Turner said.

The exchange of gunfire lasted less than five minutes "but it felt like hours," Turner said.

She remembered firing with one hand and dialing 911 with the other.

Deputies arrived four minutes later to find the store littered with shell casings. Both teenagers lay sprawled on the floor - one shot several times, the other with a bullet in his chest, said Sheriff Mike Smith. Authorities withheld the identities of the teenagers until relatives could be notified. One was 17, the other 19, police said. Both were from Athens.

Turner and her husband will not be charged, Smith said.

"People have a right to protect their lives and their property," Smith said.

"We don't encourage them to take the law in their hands, but sometimes they are left with no other choice."

In other parts of the country, Turner and Doster would have been led away in handcuffs for having the nerve to defend their own lives. Thankfully some people still understand that the government is not responsible for our safety.

Because one boy was a juvenile, the names have not been released. But how long before someone surfaces to tell us what little angels these two were?

Fairfax County Chairman, Gerry "Hit and Run" Connolly, not only failed driving school, but he failed market economics as well. The Washington Post reports that Connolly wants to lower housing prices for some residents of Fairfax County (VA) by increasing property taxes on others.

The plan, called "a radical proposal" by board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D), was devised by a panel of top planning and housing officials from the county and the private sector. Released publicly for the first time yesterday, it calls for dedicating $17.5 million annually -- equivalent to a penny on the real estate tax rate, which is $1.13 per $100 of assessed value -- to keep 1,000 units of housing at affordable rental rates.

Connolly said drastic steps are necessary to address what he called a crisis over affordable housing in the county. The escalating cost of housing is pushing teachers, firefighters and other county services to seek cheaper alternatives far from the county, which in turn creates long commutes and further clogs roads.

The "crisis" over affordable housing has to do with supply and demand. There are many more people that want to live in the D.C. area than there are homes. Until that problem is fixed, prices will continue to skyrocket and subsidies will be doomed to fail. Connolly's proposal is nothing more than socialist redistribution of wealth. He wants to increase taxes some county residents to provide cheaper housing for others.

Workers are moving further outside the county because it's too damned expensive to live here. If their commute becomes too much of a burden, they'll pack up and find a job in some other market. When market economics kick in, Fairfax will simply have to start paying their employees more or risk not being able to attract qualified workers. That's what capitalism is.

The idea that one neighbor who has the ability should help pay the mortgage of another neighbor who has a need smells a lot like communism. As is the nature of the red menace, it will undoubtedly spread. Advocacy groups are already saying it's not enough.

Stephen Wade of the Washington Regional Network for Livable Communities, an advocacy group for affordable housing, praised Connolly for taking up the issue.

"Its a good first step for Fairfax," he said. "However, one penny [on the tax rate] per year is only enough to preserve the affordable housing that is there. They should have two cents -- the other one for the production of affordable housing."

Why stop at two cents? Why not a buck? And as always, communism loves company:

He said Fairfax's proposal would lag behind similar efforts in Montgomery County, which raises about $18 million a year, and the District, which raises $40 million.

Ahh, two jewels of a capitalist society. Compared to Berkeley and San Francisco, Montgomery County and the District almost look normal.

What else can you say about the Oscar snubbings of both Mel Gibson for Passion of the Christ and Michael Moore for Fahrenheit 9/11? Passion did pick up 3 lesser nominations, but was shut out for the major awards. Interesting, in that Gibson didn't campaign for an Oscar nor even send out a copy of the movie, while Moore actively campaigned for the Best Picture nomination.

Mel Gibson's controversial box-office hit "The Passion of the Christ" missed out on a best picture pick, but it earned three nominations: for cinematography, makeup and original score.

However, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- ineligible for a best documentary nomination because the film was not submitted for that category -- was shut out across the board.

Both movies earned millions of dollars at the box office, although Passion's take dwarfed Fahrenheit 9/11 as well as almost every other film out there. I think the snubbings illustrate just how irrelevant award shows have become. (As if George C. Scott's 1970 refusal to accept the award wasn't enough of an indicator.)

That Mel Gibson was snubbed for Best Director in favor of Mike Leigh for "Vera Drake" (some film about abortion) is laughable. How many people have even heard of Vera Drake, much less seen it? (It opened in the USA on 2 screens and peaked at 93.) I realize that monetary success is not the yard stick used for the Oscars, but let's get real. Without the money makers, the other films would never get made. And no matter what you think of the movie, Directing Passion of the Christ in the dead languages of Latin and Aramaic deserves some recognition.

Since he actively campaigned for an Oscar, Moore will no doubt be upset at the snub. As for Gibson, in that his huge $35 Million risk got him $600 Million in return, I'm sure he's crying all the way to the bank.

Largely absent from the media is the story that the 10 year budget deficits forecast by the "nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office" have been slashed dramatically. During the run up to last years election, predictions of huge deficits were trumpeted throughout the media. While any 10 year forecast is dubious at best, the silence on the news of the adjustment is deafening.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is likely to estimate Tuesday that shortfalls over the next 10 years will total perhaps $1 trillion less than the $2.3 trillion in red ink it forecast last September, congressional aides say.

That is a cut of more than 43%, but the media is reporting this as a technicality. The news is technically good, because the CBO forecast doesn't include any Iraq war funding.

When the budget office issued its last update in September, it assumed the roughly $112 billion Congress approved for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan last year would be repeated every year for a decade.

But Congress has yet to approve any war money in 2005. So the budget office is required to assume that there won't be any new war funds provided this year.

Well, why even bother doing forecasts? If you cannot make logical assumptions the forecast isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Forecasts from the "nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office" are nothing more than masturbatory exercises that give politicians on each side of the aisle fodder to throw at each other. I guess that is what makes it nonpartisan. They're doing nothing more than creating sound bytes for themselves.

If this is what the world is coming to, I want to go back to paying for my own health care.

Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.

Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.

Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.

The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.

I've always believed in right to work laws, and this company is free to discriminate and hire all non-smokers if it wants to. I would never work for such a horrible company any way, and let's face it, any company that worries about what you are doing on your own time is a horrible place to work.

But this is an ever increasing trend and should not be taken lightly. This is what happens when you insist on relying on employers to cover your health care.

Health care coverage is supposed to be a company provided benefit that helps employers recruit good employees. I don't mind paying for my own health care, but I am going to demand a higher salary to cover the cost. If my employer throws that in as a benefit to get me to come on board, than that's great too.

A good benefits plan is a wonderful recruiting tool. But that shouldn't give my employer the right to delve into my private life. They don't own me or my body, even if they do pay for my health insurance. Sure, today they are picking on smokers, but tomorrow it will be over-eaters. What's to stop a company from measuring your body mass index or making you step onto a scale before coming in to work? The answer is nothing, except of course market economics. You push too far, and narrow your talent pool. When you can't attract top talent, you suffer in the marketplace.

Besides, group health insurance is just that. It spreads the risk over a large group, allowing you to take advantage of the savings. I tell you what, I have zero chance of getting pregnant. So why then, do I pay for insurance that includes pregnancy benefits? Perhaps my company should fire all the fertile women, who have a high chance of having a costly pregnancy. Whats more, I'd be willing to bet that we can demonstrate that pregnant women need more time off (for doctor's visits and the like) and are much more likely to interrupt their career (or quit outright) after the baby is born. You could make the same argument for any insurance you aren't likely to need, whether it be pregnancy, substance abuse, or day care.

Smokers are a minority, so they are likely screwed on this one. Over-eaters are more protected because there are so many of us out there. You discriminate too much and there'll be nobody left to hire. But my point is that while your employer may be writing the check to your insurance company, you are the one paying the bill. You are just accepting a lower salary in exchange for those group benefits. Perhaps it's time to change all that. Maybe instead of having your employer (or God help us, the government) provide your health care, we should simply demand more money to cover the costs ourselves. (Independent contractors already do this.)

The only downside is that personal responsibility is becoming rare and people are likely to just blow the money and go without insurance. Maybe a voucher system would be better, whereby companies provide you with a list of preferred health care vendors and a monthly voucher.

Remember, this doesn't stop with smoking and even eating. What about those motorcycle riders? That looks both scary and dangerous. Then there is skydiving, or mountain climbing. Both are risky activities and make you more likely to cash in your company life insurance policy. When companies start using such a weak justification to control your private life, there is no end in sight.

I'll repeat something I first said back in October 2002. Under the guise of decreasing insurance premiums, here are some other regulations they should impose:

No skydiving, water-skiing, motorcycling, hang gliding, or bungee jumping.
No reading or watching TV in the dark.
No going to loud rock concerts.
No running with scissors.
No burning candles after 9 PM.
Employee's homes must be properly equipped with bath mats.
No electrical outlets without a safety cover.
Employees must always use the handrail on the stairs.
Employees must wash hands, regardless of whether or not they are returning to work.
No frayed extension cords.
No answering the door without knowing who it is.
No talking to strangers

Anyone caught participating in the listed activities should be fired on the spot.

Related articles:
All your vices are belong to us-- 01/08/2004
The Unprotected Minority -- 08/19/2003
Pleasure Police, literally -- 10/22/2002

Some Londoners are taking notice of the progress the U.S. has made with respect to gun freedom and violent crime.

Over the last 25 years the number of firearms in private hands in the United States has more than doubled. At the same time the violent crime rate has dropped dramatically, with the significant downswing following the spread of right-to-carry legislation. The US Bureau of Justice observes that "firearms-related crime has plummeted since 1993", and it has declined also as a proportion of overall violent offences. Violent crime in total has declined so much since 1994 that it has now reached, the bureau states, "the lowest level ever recorded". While American "gun culture" is still regularly the sensational subject of media demonisation in Britain, the grim fact is that in this country we now suffer three times the level of violent crime committed in the United States.

Personally, I think it's common sense, although it's not all that common these days. A world without guns is a factual impossibility. The only possible scenarios are: everyone has guns; and only the government and the criminals have guns. In places that insist on banning guns, like the city of Washington D.C., the latter prospect can be exceptionally deadly.

A tape reported to be from terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shows their true motives in trying to stop the Iraqi election.

"We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it," said the speaker in the 35-minute message.

"Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion," he said, and that is "against the rule of God."

So what say those naysayers of President Bush who are pooh-poohing the idea of elections in Iraq? They are certainly in dubious company.

They're coming. The anti-smoke nazis are already gearing up their campaigns to capitalize on Johnny Carson's death. Most news reports prominently mention that Carson was a frequent smoker and that he died of emphysema, a disease attributed to smoking. The stories about the dangers of emphysema have already started.

Now I don't doubt the facts surrounding Mr. Carson's death, nor the dangers of emphysema or smoking. But I will point out that the man was 79 years old. He had already outlived the average life span by more than half a decade. He chose to smoke and considering his longevity, lived a full and happy life. He may have suffered from the disease in his final years, but how many people die in perfect health?

Even Carson himself used to say: "I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself."

Then there was the esteemed Sir Winston Churchill, who must have died a happy man: "My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them."

Anyone who is droning on about the Patriot Act or accusing people who disagree with them of repressing their freedom of speech, should read about what is really happening to cyberdissidents.

Javad Gholam Tamayomi, Omid Memarian, Shahram Rafihzadeh, Hanif Mazroi, Rozbeh Mir Ebrahimi, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and Fereshteh Ghazi are some of the most courageous people you've never met.
Not exactly household names, but each deserves a standing ovation.

During a crackdown against Iran's nascent online press last year, these sundry online journalists and bloggers got chucked into jail.

Since the internet crosses borders the Axis of Evil also has to rely on censorship mechanisms to keep their loyal subjects in line.

A recent report written by Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, was appropriately entitled, "The Internet in the Arab World: A New Space of Repression?" Among other conclusions, the report found that many Arab governments view the Internet with ambivalence. "From the governments' point of view, the disadvantages of the Internet stem from its very advantages. This attitude has affected the growth, or the lack thereof, of the Internet in the region."

So it is that some Middle Eastern regimes regularly use Domain Name System redirection or Internet Protocol-blocking techniques to prevent certain Web pages from loading. It's not difficult, and the measures are fairly effective. For example, Saudi Internet surfers looking for sites about Israel receive messages telling them the information has been blocked.

Elsewhere, China, the odds-on favorite to become the fastest-growing economy of the decade, is also the odds-on favorite to become the biggest Internet filterer of them all.

CNET doesn't mention it, but what else do all these countries have in common? If you said gun control, go to the head of the class.

Gee, who do you suppose they are trying to blame with this photograph of global warming? (It looks to me like Canada is to blame!)

The chicken littles warn:

Global warming is approaching the critical point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea-levels would be irreversible, an international climate change task force warned Monday.

The report, "Meeting the Climate Challenge," called on the G-8 leading industrial nations to cut carbon emissions, double their research spending on green technology and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol.

Tell that to Tony Grieco of Somerville, Mass, who is digging out his car from under 5 feet of snow.

In a related note, Steven Milloy notes that the U.N.'s World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction is trying to push the agenda that there are no "Natural" disasters any more.

As the global warming alarmist community likes to point out, the U.S. is the largest single contributor to the alleged global warming, emitting 25 percent of all greenhouse gases while possessing only 4 percent of the world's population.

Toward the goal of blaming the U.S. for what used to be considered "natural disasters" in order to eventually extract financial compensation, the U.N. conference's draft action plan is riddled with references to climate change [read, "U.S.-made climate change"] as causing or contributing to "disasters."

The Bush administration rightly opposes the U.N.'s effort to de-naturalize disasters and has requested that the document's references to climate change be removed. But U.N. officials oppose such changes.

"I hope there will be a global recognition of climate change causing more natural disasters," said Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

Weather disasters like hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, ice storms always have, and always will plague man. As far as we know, they are entirely natural occurrences. There is absolutely no credible evidence that humans - much less Americans in particular - have had have any discernible impact on the frequency and severity of - dare I say it? - natural disasters.

By changing the movement from 'global warming' to 'climate change', they have made it impossible to refute their claims. If it gets hotter, it must be 'global warming'. If we have a blizzard, it must be extreme weather due to 'climate change'. We used to call it weather, but now if it's not 72 and sunny, the environmental wackos claim the end is near.

Several people have emailed me the story about San Francisco implementing a 17-cents per grocery bag tax. I covered it two months ago, so I won't rehash it all now.

I am wondering, however, what will happen when the law of unintended consequences kicks in. My bet is that shoplifting will increase as they become indistinguishable between those people opting to carry their purchases out without a bag.

Before Bush was re-elected, detractors were talking down the economy. Now in the face of facts that the economy is chugging along rather nicely, the naysayers are claiming that money isn't everything.

A growing body of research on the "economics of happiness" proposes that material wealth is overrated.

These controversial researchers do not say economic growth is undesirable, and they note that unemployed people are almost always unhappy.

But they say policy-makers should pay more attention to what people say about their satisfaction with life as they consider how far to go in the pursuit of unbridled growth.

Is this what it's come to now; goverment policy-makers are supposed to make sure we are satisfied with life? What they need to do is relax the myriad of stifling government regulations that keep people from pursuing their own happiness.

The nomination of Condi Rice to Secretary of State is being blocked by none other than Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Dr. Rice is black and Sen. Byrd is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. I'm not saying there is a connection, but if the political parties were reversed, I'm sure the mainstream media would make it front page news.

After all, Republican Trent Lott was ousted from his Senate Leadership position for having the nerve to say something good about the late Strom Thurmond. Here is a white, former Klansman standing in the school house door and nary a peep is made.

This guy has lots of photos from the Inauguration, but most of them are covering lefty kooks (unlike the righty kook pictured above).

FCC chairman Michael Powell will certainly not be missed by many. Hopefully now the censorship of the "public airways" will stop. People who are offended by language and nudity should turn the channel rather than trying to fine TV and radio stations into oblivion.

I understand that some people don't like to see a boob during the Super Bowl, but this is the guy that had TV stations afraid to air Saving Private Ryan. I say good riddance.

Remember that kid that was supposedly named Yahoo because his parents met over the internet. Turns out to be a scam put on by the reporter. He allegedly faked the birth certificate to gain publicity for himself.

It's sad to think that this Romanian tabloid has higher journalistic standards than CBS.

Reuters thinks this has to be a real life Homer Simpson. (full article below)

A Czech man is being taken to court after he hid in a restaurant washroom until the employees had left and then hooked up beer kegs directly to his mouth.

Cleaning staff found him drunk and lying on the floor of the bar at the restaurant in the city of Brno, about 200km (120 miles) east of Prague, the CTK news agency reported on Thursday.

"He had broken the door of the cooling mechanism ... and detached the hoses leading from the keg, squashed them in his mouth and literally filled himself up with beer," CTK quoted a police official as saying.

The man will be charged with damaging property because he caused 8,000 crown ($340) damage to the beer cooling box.

Let's put it this way. Just having your photo taken with a gun is enough to disqualify you from public office.

A Conservative parliamentary candidate has been dismissed after he was pictured on the internet with a range of guns, rifles and a hunting knife.

Robert Oulds, the prospective MP for Slough in Berkshire, appeared with the weapons in the camera phone images.

Tory deputy chairman Andrew Mackay said the party had faced no choice but to remove him from its candidates' list.

"This was a serious error of judgement which was unacceptable in a parliamentary candidate," he added.

This is what is left of the party of Winston Churchill.

An Ohio student is in hot water for skinning and cooking a Guinea pig in class.

A high school principal promises he's going to give the living skills curriculum an extreme makeover after a student skinned and cooked a Guinea pig and a rabbit during class.

The student, a 16-year-old boy, told the principal, Beto Gage, that he killed the animals at home before bringing them to Ledgemont High School. Gage said living skills teacher Diana Stevens lets students prepare a meal of their choice on Wednesdays. [...]

The student had asked Stevens if he could catch and cook a wild rabbit and she approved, provided he gut the carcass before class, Gage said. He said the student, whose name was not released, is an active hunter.

The animals, however, apparently were purchased at a pet store.

The local humane society and police are "investigating the incident". But if the kid killed them properly and prepared them for a meal, what is the big deal? While I personally would never eat a rodent, I don't think it's any worse than preparing and eating any other animal.

George Bush's showing of his support for the Texas Longhorns was lost on Norwegians. They thought he was saluting Satan. No, that would be Notre Dame and you salute them with only one finger.

This RCOB courtesy of Pat at Brainster's Blog:

Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due, right, a U.S. Army recruiter, is surrounded by protesters at Seattle Central Community College, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Seattle. After about a 10-minute standoff during which protesters tore up U.S Army literature, the protesters were successful in getting Due and another recruiter to leave their table under escort by campus security officers.

It's shit like this that makes me think that if the protesters can't play nice, we should go back to the days of water hoses and rubber bullets.

They got me for $26.

Ravenwood's Universe has made the Top 10 (at number 10) on John Hawkin's quarterly Favorite 40 Bloggers list. It's an honor just to be mentioned, but I never expected Top 10. I had previously hovered between 19 and 22.

Thanks for the recognition, John. It is truly appreciated.

On Thursday I noted a Powerline Blog report that ABC was looking to do a story on the funeral of an Iraqi war soldier to provide "balance" to their Inauguration coverage. Powerline wryly noted that soldiers being buried on Wednesday or Today aren't good enough, nor are those killed in Afghanistan, a training exercise, or aiding Tsunami relief.

James Taranto notes that ABC got their story:

Peter Jennings: Fair to say, we think, that at some point today here in Washington, the war in Iraq was on everyone's mind, when the president spoke; when the antiwar demonstrators shouted as the president went by; when one or another military unit did something here today as part of the celebration. And we thought, too, of the many wounded at the army hospital here, watching it all on television.

And in Rockport, Texas, today, just about the time the president was speaking, there was a funeral for a young marine reservist, 21 year-old Matthew Holloway was killed in Iraq last week by a roadside bomb. His brother told a local paper that as much as Matthew wanted to be home, he was very proud of what he was doing in Iraq, and it is something you hear from so many people in the services, including the 10,000 who have already been wounded.

How can they be so shameless? ABC deliberately sought out a report of a military funeral just to thumb their nose at the Bush Administration's celebration.

The crew of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln responded quickly to help the victims of the tsunami. But lately their efforts have been hampered by pompous relief workers who look at the Lincoln as a floating hotel, and her crew as their personal servants.

From one of the boys on the front lines:

It has been three weeks since my ship, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived off the Sumatran coast to aid the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged their coastline. I'd like to say that this has been a rewarding experience for us, but it has not: Instead, it has been a frustrating and needlessly dangerous exercise made even more difficult by the Indonesian government and a traveling circus of so-called aid workers who have invaded our spaces.

What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincoln's wardroom a few days ago. I went in for breakfast as I usually do, expecting to see the usual crowd of ship's company officers in khakis and air wing aviators in flight suits, drinking coffee and exchanging rumors about when our ongoing humanitarian mission in Sumatra is going to end.

What I saw instead was a mob of civilians sitting around like they owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.

My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.

As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of "Nice china, really makes me feel special," in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.

My attitude towards these unwanted no-loads grew steadily worse that day as I learned more from one of our junior officers who was assigned to escort a group of them. It turns out that they had come to Indonesia to "assess the damage" from the Dec. 26 tsunami.

Well, they could have turned on any TV in the world and seen that the damage was total devastation. When they got to Sumatra with no plan, no logistics support and no five-star hotels to stay in, they threw themselves on the mercy of the U.S. Navy, which, unfortunately, took them in. I guess our senior brass was hoping for some good PR since this was about the time that the U.N. was calling the United States "stingy" with our relief donations.

As a result of having to host these people, our severely over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these "relief workers" from place to place every day and bring them back to their guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by default.

When our wardroom treasurer approached the leader of the relief group and asked him who was paying the mess bill for all the meals they ate, the fellow replied, "We aren't paying, you can try to bill the U.N. if you want to."

In addition to the relief workers, we routinely get tasked with hauling around reporters and various low-level "VIPs," which further wastes valuable helo lift that could be used to carry supplies. We had to dedicate two helos and a C-2 cargo plane for America-hater Dan Rather and his entourage of door holders and briefcase carriers from CBS News. Another camera crew was from MTV. I doubt if we'll get any good PR from them, since the cable channel is banned in Muslim countries. We also had to dedicate a helo and crew to fly around the vice mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., one day. Everyone wants in on the action.

The article goes on to note that the Indonesians will not even allow them to continue their routine training missions in their waters. So their skills are eroding and they have no clear "exit strategy" from the region. Meanwhile we aren't even getting any recognition for the aid we are providing.

Be sure to read the rest, it is quite compelling.

(Hat tip to KdT)

The recent mission to Saturn was largely successful, but not without it's typical boneheaded NA$A mistakes.

David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn's largest moon.

Actually, the AP gets it wrong. Atkinson's team spent 18 man-years, not years (as in 18 men spent 1 year, or 9 men spent 2 years).

While this was a cooperative effort between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency, the mistake is typical of NASA. Consider the following:

Two-thirds of NASA's Mars missions have failed.

They recently created a $239 Million paper weight because they forgot to bolt down a weather satellite before trying to flip it over.

NASA lost a $159 Million space probe, which they described as "low cost".

The Mars Polar Lander plummeted to it's destruction because NASA scientists mixed up newtons and kilograms.

And that's just the highlight reel. Let's not forget two space shuttles and 14 astronauts that were lost largely due to NASA's unwillingness to listen to the concerns of lower level managers.

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Hosting the inauguration is a bit like hosting the Super Bowl. -- Ravenwood, January 19, 2005.

Inauguration Is Super Bowl of Schmoozing -- AP, January 20, 2005.

Whenever they want to drum up support for their latest gun ban crusade, gun grabbers trot out a long line of police officers to lend credence to their cause. In trying to extend the Clinton Gun Ban which expired in September, the Brady Campaign trumpeted:

Law enforcement organizations that support the ban include:

International Association of Chiefs of Police - (IACP)
Major Cities Chiefs Association - (MCCA)
Police Foundation
Police Executive Research Forum - (PERF)
International Brotherhood of Police Officers - (IBPO)
National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO)
National Fraternal Order of Police - (FOP)
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives - (NOBLE)
Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association - (HAPCOA)
National Black Police Association - (NBPA)

While a handful of high profile police chiefs and their labor organizations support reining in the freedom of law abiding citizens, the rank and file cops do not.

The National Association of Chiefs of Police released their 17th Annual Survey of Police Chiefs and Sheriffs, and here is what the respondents thought about gun control:

With regard to private citizens owning firearms for sport or self-defense, 93.6 percent of the respondents supported civilian gun-ownership rights. Ninety-six percent of the police chiefs and sheriffs believe criminals obtain firearms from illegal sources and 92.2 percent revealed they hadn't arrested anyone for violation of the so-called "waiting period" laws. When asked if citizens concealed-weapons permits would reduce violent crime, 63.1 percent said yes.

Cops on the street realize that passing another law isn't going to do much to take guns out of the hands of people who don't obey the law any way. Instead it makes their job more difficult by forcing them to harass and chase down law abiding citizens.

If the federal sentencing guidelines are unConstitutional, how can states like Maryland get away with adding 20 years to a criminal's sentence for crimes involving so-called "assault weapons".

World Net Daily reports that President Jimmy Carter has been linked to the oil-for-food scam at the U.N.

Based upon an investigation by Move America Forward, it appears President Carter and his associates are among the former officials with whom Vincent collaborated.

"One of two things happened," suggests Morgan. "Either President Carter was totally duped, and allowed himself to be conned into working as an indirect agent of Saddam Hussein, or President Carter knowingly associated himself with a foreign agent who was seeking to undermine American foreign policy."

Well, it wouldn't be the first time. Carter never met a dictator he didn't like.

Movies and music are big business in California. Having thus far been unable to stop internet piracy with lawsuits against internet providers and end users, California is trying a new approach. They are going to start throwing software developers in jail.

The proposal, introduced by Los Angeles Sen. Kevin Murray, takes direct aim at companies that distribute software such as Kazaa, eDonkey or Morpheus. If passed and signed into law, it could expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don't take "reasonable care" in preventing the use of their software to swap copyrighted music or movies--or child pornography.

Peer-to-peer software companies and their allies immediately criticized the bill as a danger to technological innovation, and as potentially unconstitutional.

Opponents also say that it could further dampen California's tech industry.

What was Michael Moore doing with an armed bodyguard? I thought he hated guns? I thought the "culture of fear" is what ruined America? I thought gun owners were a bunch of paranoid racists?

In typical lefty fashion, he wants guns banned for you and me, while he walks around enjoying the protection of an armed security force. Too bad he didn't hire someone smart enough to obey the law.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested for carrying an unlicensed weapon in New York's JFK airport Wednesday night.

Police took Patrick Burke, who says Moore employs him, into custody after he declared he was carrying a firearm at a ticket counter. Burke is licensed to carry a firearm in Florida and California, but not in New York. Burke was taken to Queens central booking and could potentially be charged with a felony for the incident.

If he gets off, it will be because of Michael Moore's celebrity status. This is the same city that has prosecuted several householders for using unregistered guns to defend their family.

OhioCCW has more:

Like another overweight gun ban extremist before him (Rosie O'Donnell), we now see that Moore believes guns are necessary to protect Hollywood aristocrats like himself, but that the working class schlubs he claims to speak for in his movies simply cannot be trusted with arms.

UPDATE: Geek thinks the guy wasn't "carrying" in the sense that he was on duty, but simply declaring a firearm in his checked luggage in accordance with FAA regulations. Either way, it's not unlike New York to go ballistic and still persecute the guy.

UPDATE2: The security company is refuting Fox News' claim. Kevin Baker reports that they are saying he works for their agency, and is sometimes assigned to Michael Moore.

Obesity indicator on student report cards? -- CNN January 19, 2005.

I will not be attending any of the Presidential Inauguration events planned for today. I'm not afraid of terrorism or the weather, but I do have a JOB. I didn't take a break for Lee-Jackson Day or Martin Luther King Jr Day, so I'm not taking a break for Bush either.

Sorry, but there is too much work to do, money to be made, and hey, this blog aint gonna write itself.

If you too can't enjoy the festivities, check out Jib Jab's latest.

From Power Line:

ABC wants to "balance" its coverage of President Bush's inauguration with coverage of a military funeral:

Jan. 19, 2005 - For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20. If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below:

Note that only the families of Iraqi war dead need apply. If a soldier died in Afghanistan, or aiding tsunami victims in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, or in a training exercise, never mind. That isn't the "balance" ABC is looking for.

ABC has since removed the request, but Captain Ed has a screen shot.

(Hat tip, Kevin Baker.)

That cop killing Marine who supposedly was trying to avoid service in Iraq has been making a lot of headlines lately. But Michelle Malkin notes that most of what you've been hearing is incorrect.

Is this cop an idiot, or just keeping the mag handy?

A bill requiring private buyers and sellers who attend Virginia gun shows conduct background checks passed out of the Senate committee and is headed for a vote of the full Senate. This is the non-existant "gun show loophole" that gun grabbers keep harping about.

So, what does it mean? Gun dealers, regardless of location, must always conduct background checks. But private citizens who are not in the firearm business are free to sell their guns to anyone who is a Virginia resident and who is not precluded from buying a gun. If this bill passes, selling your gun to another private person at a gun show without conducting a background check (as if you were a dealer) is a felony.

Now, most sales at gun shows are already done by dealers who are required to do a background check. But there is a small percentage of people who, rather than run a classified ad in their local trading post, take their gun to a gun show to sell it to a dealer or another private citizen.

The bill still has to pass the full Senate and then the House, but it's 8-7 passage out of committee is very disheartening.

Oh goody, more hate mail. This particular fan of the Universe was too cowardly to leave a valid email address, so I'm forced to respond publicly. Since he didn't even leave his name, I'll just call him Sarah, in honor of my favorite reactionary gun grabber Sarah Brady. The article that triggered Sarah's emotional outburst is this one from a few weeks ago, where I noted a fatal shooting that had occured very near to where I live.

Ravenwood wrote:

"As if I needed to justify my reason for carrying a gun, this fatal shooting occured right next door to where I live."

Sarah whines:

Thanks for using my dead friend to stoke your weak justification for owning a gun.

Why is it people that send hate mail always seem to be related to someone featured in the news story? Back when I was doing Defending Your Life stories, I used to get mail all the time from people claiming to be relatives of the dead goblin. They would chastize me for casting their "dead friend" in a negative light. 'Yeah, he was raping the bitch, but she had no reason to shoot him. He's really just a good kid.' Whatever.

But this guy wasn't necessarily a goblin. I guess it could have been gang related, but all that was reported was that the guy was dead. I didn't opine as to whether or not it was good or bad. Lacking more detail, "dead friend" seems to be an innocent victim in all this. My use of his death for a gun rights piece is no more shameless than the Brady Bunch's constant use of deaths to further their freedom grabbing campaign. I think people just throw that in there thinking that if they know the guy, it lends credence to their otherwise incredible argument. But I digress.

The story is not about a weak justification of my need to own a gun. It is not really about justification at all so much as explanation. In fact I even state "as if I needed to justify", which clearly states that I think I do not. But there are people out there that really want justification, so I figured I would provide some evidence. And considering that someone actually died, I don't think the justification/explanation is 'weak' at all.

Also, it's not about my need to own a gun, rather my desire to carry a gun. Maybe it's just semantics, but I am a stickler for details. Technically I don't need to justify either activity to anyone. I'm a free person and will carry a gun if I so choose. I hate to bloviate so much on the first sentence, but it was packed with so many elements that needed a response: 'dead friend'; 'weak justification'; and 'owning a gun'. I guess I could have just said "you're welcome".

While contributing to the problem of gun ownership...

Hold everything. Who says gun ownership is a problem? Millions of Americans own guns and it's not a problem. It seems to me that the only problem around here is whiny gun fearing wussies trying to force their will on other people.

...and proliferation...

Proliferation is a myth that gun grabbers made up. Their belief is that the mere existance of guns is what makes people evil. That he even used the word 'proliferation' implies that he belongs to some organized anti-gun group.

...(not to mention introducing ordinance to your neighborhood)...

I think he means ordnance. Introducing an ordinance (as in a gun ban ordinance) to my neighborhood is what gun grabbers want to do.

...all that thing is going to do is keep inflating your bullshit John Wayne sense of safety.

Actually, owning a firearm really does increase my safety. It's banning law-abiding citizens from owning guns that, for some reason, seems to give gun fearing wussies a 'sense of safety'.

...I'm sure your gun kept you plenty safe that afternoon, asshole.

Well, I didn't get shot like "dead friend" did. Maybe if Boo had a gun, Boo wouldn't have got shot.

...I'm sure if we all carried weapons. we'd be as safe as you.

Sarcasm is not his strong point.

...Pick other anecdotes to back up your disgusting, primitive views on weapons you dink-penised mook of a fucking troglodyte.

I'll pick any anecdotes I want, and there is not a damn thing this guy can do about it. And nice ad hominem attacks. Truly the tool of a weak mind. That word of the day toilet paper is really paying off for this guy.

Washington D.C. continues to whine about the $12 Million it will cost to secure the city for the inauguration. D.C. officials claim that hosting the inauguration is an unfunded mandate and that they should be reimbursed from federal taxpayer dollars. The Bush Administration points out that D.C. already gets federal funding for security as part of their homeland security grant.

Perhaps what is most hilarious is that Mayor-for-life and crackhead Marion Berry along with the rest of the ultra liberal D.C. City Council are threatening to boycott the parade if Bush doesn't pony up. That's right, Bush would keep the $12 Million and not have to put up with the D.C. City Council. (Where's the down side?)

At first I thought that Bush probably should throw some bucks their way. After all, it is his party. But then I changed my mind. Hosting the inauguration is a bit like hosting the Super Bowl. This party is bringing days of celebration to D.C. Thousands of people will be flowing into the city, packing hotel rooms, parking garages, and restaurants. D.C. will reap plenty of financial reward from parking and traffic tickets alone. Not to mention all the sales and use taxes. Any city in America should be thrilled to host an inauguration. If D.C. is going to make such a big stink over it, why not take the show on the road?

But then D.C. historically tries to have it both ways. They bitch about the presence of the government like it's some huge burden. They claim to have to put up with all the traffic, noise, pollution, and added stress of having all these offices located inside the District, and not getting anything in return. D.C. has long wanted to implement a commuter tax because of, they claim, all the people from Maryland and Virginia who use D.C. services but don't pay for them.

But then as soon as the government tries to open new agency offices in Maryland or Virginia instead of the District, D.C. whines about them not putting everything downtown. They wouldn't want to miss out on their chance to extort more money from the federal largesse. The security for the inauguration appears to be just another extortion.

The 122nd edition of Carnival of the Vanities is upon us, and Jack Cluth is hosting it once again. And once again, I've been drafted.

As well as fielding entries, Jack has included many folks that he's come to "admire, marvel at, or despise". You decide which category I fall into.

Mayor Bloomberg is going after New Yorkers who buy cigarettes online. He claims they are costing the city millions of dollars in unpaid taxes, and he clearly aims to collect.

Andrew Hoffer, a resident of Queens, New York, received a letter from the city demanding $1,005 for 67 cartons of Bronco cigarettes he bought from a now defunct website called "cigaretteoutlet.com." The letter states that if he doesn't pay up in 30 days, he will be fined $200 a carton, which in his case adds up to $13,400. [...]

Silk has heard from a number of individuals who have received the letters. The letters are not only vague, she said, but they make demands with no proof. "The letters say that this is what you owe, and this is what you must pay -- period," said Silk. "Even if you get a parking ticket, at least you have the right to fight it. Here, there is no appeals process, no grace period."

Crime is skyrocketing in Bloomberg's New York. While he's out threatening to break people's thumbs and citing people for owning ashtrays, black marketers are killing each other over territory. And all of this mess was created by a single man on a neo-temperance crusade to force everyone to quit smoking.

Fox's American Idol is implementing Affirmative Action this time around, because not enough guys are making it to the finals.

Springfield Police Chief Wiggum once said, "Can't you people take the law into your own hands? I mean, we can't be policing the entire city!"

Fairfax County (VA) has an 'Operation TIPS' style tattletale system, where citizens can report bad drivers to the police. The police then mail out a nasty gram asking the driver to be more courteous of other drivers.

Yesterday I reported three people for driving slow in the fast lane.

Related articles:
Life imitates the Simpsons - 12/13/2004

In the early 1900s there were roughly 500,000 white tailed deer in America. Today there are 25 to 30 Million of them, and the extreme overpopulation is wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.

Today's high deer population may shape how the country's forests look decades from now. The animals are reducing the number of trees and seedlings and affecting which species will survive, forestry experts say.

"There are no saplings, no underbrush for ground nesting birds," said Richard Parker, regional director of the Genesee State Park Region. "There will be no regeneration of the forest. In 40 to 50 years, as the current forest dies, there will be nothing to replace it."

The deer are "eating anything and everything that's there," he said.

The deer also caused 1.5 million vehicle crashes in 2003, causing $1.1 Billion in damage.

The cops in Sweetwater Florida are suffering from a budget crisis. So rather than destroy their outdated firearms, they are selling them second hand and using the cash to buy the new ones they need. Naturally the very idea of guns being sold to the public (even sold by cops) has the gun grabbers in a panic.

"When you buy a used gun, it's like buying a used car - you're not going to pay top dollar for it," said John Shanks, director of law enforcement relations at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "These guns are going to go back into the civilian market. They're going to be very inexpensive to buy."

This is where the gun control movement takes on racist connotations. (The term "Saturday Night Special" in reference to cheap guns actually comes from a racial epithet.)

Shanks remark shows that the Brady Campaign prefers that guns be priced so high that only the most affluent can afford them. This keeps them out of the hands of the poor and minorities; people who cannot afford private security or armed body guards. Given that the tend to live in high crime areas, they are also perhaps the most in need of cheap firearms.

Everyone keeps saying this Newdow guy is just out for attention, but I think he just needs to get laid. One of you women out there should volunteer to do the deed. Just be careful not to scream "Oh God".

If I see one more whiny news report about the cost of President Bush's inauguration, I'm going to blow a gasket. The delightfully named Democrat from New York, Rep. Anthony Weiner, thinks Bush's celebration should be cancelled in the face of the war and the tsunami.

Hello, McFly. It's a private party. They can spend as much or as little as they want. Where were the calls to cancel New Years Eve or the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations?

Besides, if you cancel the inauguration, the tsunami will have won.

Senator John Kerry gave a speech yesterday at Boston's annual breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So what did the former Presidential candidate have to say? Let's just say that the only difference between him and Algore is the beard.

"In a nation that is willing to spend several hundred billion dollars in Iraq to bring them democracy, we cannot tolerate that here in America too many people were denied that democracy, unable to vote, suppressed, purged from lists, and not given the right to have their vote counted." [...]

"Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways," he said. "In Democratic districts it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote while Republicans sorted through in 10 minutes. Same voting machines, same process, our America."

Notice the veiled comparison of Democrats v. Republicans to that of Brown v. Board of Education.

Check out this conclusion made by the Washington Post:

President Bush will begin his second term in office without a clear mandate to lead the nation, with strong disapproval of his policies in Iraq and the public both hopeful and dubious about his leadership on the issues that will dominate his agenda, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

That sounds pretty damning. Of course, it's all bullshit.

A look at the actual poll questions should illustrate the problem. Just about every single question is worded, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is [doing whatever]". The problem with this type of question is that it is not specific enough. On the question of Iraq, liberals may think Bush is being too much of a hardliner while conservatives think he's being too soft on the terrorists. Both could easily cast their vote for "disapprove".

The same could be said for the economy, or education, of judicial appointments. As a conservative, I don't think Bush has done enough to make tax cuts permenent. I also think we spend way too much on government schools and that Bush isn't pushing his judicial appoints through effectively. I could easily vote "disapprove" in all three of those categories.

And in many of these polls, that is the whole point. The pollsters have a desired result, and they need only word the questions in such a way that yields the tally they want.

The Post concludes that there is "strong disapproval" of President Bush, but their poll fails to indicate whether detractors think he's doing too much or not doing enough.

Is it just me or does the mainstream media seem to obsess over whether or not American's think invading Iraq was a good idea? It's not like we can go back and change the past. And are these polls weekly or what?

Researchers are claiming that parents should hold their kid back a year to boost their self esteem.

Researchers found students who started first grade at an older age relative to their classmates scored higher on measures of self-esteem years later.

Grouping children by year of birth is a necessity for most school systems. But in recent years a debate has emerged about whether children whose birthdays fall near the "cutoff" for their age group should be held back or encouraged to enter first grade early.

Speaking as someone who started school at age 4 because my birthday was near the "cutoff", I think this is a travesty. I take great pride in knowing that I started school earlier than most kids and graduated at 17. I was chided a little bit in college when my friends threw me an 18th birthday party, but for the most part I felt like I was ahead of the curve.

On the flip side is my friend Meathead. He was also an early starter whom I met in the 2nd grade. But he was held back after the third grade, which we all still make fun of to this day.

The only real disadvantage I had was in sports and fending off bullies. Being up to a year younger than everyone else made me a much easier target for early bullying. Luckily I had an older sister who didn't like bullies horning in on her action. She beat up more than one neaderthal thug telling them that beating me up was her job.

When Jane Goodall wanted to learn about apes, she camped out in the jungle with a notebook and observed their every move. The Washington Post seems to be taking a similar approach to figuring out the people in so-called Red States who voted for George W. Bush.

Early in December, with a photographer and his assistant, I drove from Nebraska, near the geographical center of the United States, to the heart of Texas -- more than 700 miles, through empty spaces and sprawling cities and all or part of four states. We headed pretty much due south, no dodging or weaving. And never did we pass within 100 miles of a county that voted for Democrat John F. Kerry in the recent election.

We were voyaging on the Red Sea...

We met dozens of people along the way. We asked them about themselves, about their communities, about their votes. Some were leery of us. Several asked politely: "What are you trying to accomplish?" Others were more blunt: "What's your angle?" Another version: "What are you hoping to find?"

We met Bruce Owen outside Abilene, Kan. He invited us into his home, introduced us to his wife, Donna -- and then seemed to wish he hadn't. He told us he rarely saw people like himself portrayed in "the media," except as objects of derision.

The Post reports that they later tagged Mr. Owen's ear so that they could locate him later and check on his progress. Meanwhile his neighbors were rounded up for transport to the Washington Zoo to see if they will breed in captivity.

Lawrence Summers, the President of Harvard and last Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, is in trouble. Apparently he had the nerve to tell a group of feminists that men and women are different.

The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers...

The remarks prompted Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Nancy Hopkins - a Harvard graduate - to walk out on Summers' talk, The Boston Globe reported.

It's no secret that men are more naturally attuned to analytical subjects like math, science, and killing spiders, while women are better at creative activities like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. (Hard to believe I'm still single isn't it?)

Seriously though, on average women are better at things that require creativity and emotion while men are better at physical and analytical stuff. That's not to say that women cannot grow up to be scientists and their male counterparts, interior decorators. I'm just saying that they have to work at it a little harder.

Elsewhere on the web, there are those opinionists that took the safe way out. James Taranto refused to agree with what we all know is true, and stuck with poking fun at Nancy Hopkins, who said she almost vomited after hearing the speech.

You've just gotta love this Nancy Hopkins, who managed with her little outburst to reinforce stereotypes of feminists as humorless harpies and of women as ruled by their emotions.

Way to go out on a limb there.

Jeff Jacoby notes that America's House of Representatives isn't even as democratic as Iraq's Parliament to be.

Divide Iraq's 25 million people by the number of members in the new parliament (275), and the result is one legislator for every 91,000 people. That will make Iraq's government almost exactly as representative as Great Britain's -- each member of the House of Commons also represents, on average, about 91,000 citizens. Other democracies are comparable. The ratio for Italy's Chamber of Deputies is 1 to 92,000. For the French National Assembly, 1 to 104,000. For Canada's House of Commons, 1 to 105,000. For the new Afghan House of the People, 1 to 114,000. For Germany's Bundestag, 1 to 136,000.

But in the US House of Representatives, each lawmaker represents, on average, a staggering 674,000 citizens.

Jacoby notes that we have added Representatives as population increased, but for some reason stopped doing so when we reached 435 back in 1910. Since then the population has tripled.

Enlarging the House to around 1,300 members -- triple its current size -- would doubtless take some getting used to. But the benefits would more than outweigh any inconvenience.

Jacoby doesn't mention that the freeze on new House members almost coincides with the institution of the federal income tax in 1913. I wonder if politicians have resisted Representative increases because it would mean taking home a smaller piece of the fiscal pie.

Global Warming zealots always try to use anecdotal evidence to support their moonbat doomsday theories, so I feel compelled to counter that with some of my own. (Evidence that is, not moonbat theories.) Minnesota is recording near record low temperatures, and cold Arctic air has plunged as far south as the Gulf Coast.

Thermometers registered a low of 54 degrees below zero at Embarrass, Minnesota.

"You keep living, but it gets old after a while," said Christine Mackai, the town clerk for the community of about 1,400 people in northeast Minnesota.

Minnesota's record is 60 below, set on February 2, 1996, in Tower, about 10 miles north of Embarrass...

While below-zero readings stayed in the upper Midwest, thermometers dropped below the freezing mark all the way to the Gulf of Mexico coast.

The morning low was 28, with wind chills in the upper teens, at Mobile, Alabama, Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi, and Pensacola, Florida. A hard freeze warning was in effect overnight into Tuesday morning for parts of Mississippi, the weather service said.

The record cold temperature for Minnesota was set a scant 9 years ago. No doubt that is a byproduct of President Clinton's good environmental housekeeping.

Senator Edward Kennedy said yesterday that the Iraq war is like Bush's Chappaquiddick.

"Going to war without an exit strategy is a bit like driving your car into a lake," said Kennedy. "He's just created this horrible mess, and rather than try to fix it he's standing there on the shore pondering the future of his political career."

Kennedy went on to say that calling the war Bush's Vietnam didn't make any sense, because Bush never served in Vietnam.

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

I wonder why Asian minorities don't seem to be suffering from this problem.

Economic equality has become the paramount civil rights issue of the 21st century, civil rights advocates said as they prepared to celebrate King's birthday on Monday.

Fewer blacks than whites own their houses, get fair loans, invest in the stock market or sit on corporate boards, or have any real control over much of the trillions of dollars flowing in mutual funds, pension plans and the financial markets, they said. [...]

Jackson points out that while minorities put money into mutual funds and pension plans, they are scarcely to be found among the decision makers who determine how those funds and plans are invested. His Rainbow/PUSH organization has called for more diversity on Wall Street, among money managers and board members.

"They should be invested in the people's interest," he said.

Corbett worried about forcing people into a "permanent underclass."

"When people do not have access," he said, "you're leaving those people out of the system."

If anyone is forcing people into a permanent underclass, it's those that practice the soft bigotry of low expectations. Mr. Jackson, please call your office.

Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach normally supports gunowners. He is an avid hunter and sportsman, and usually votes against any gun control bill that comes up for a vote. That is why it came as a surprise that he secretly helped put into place a rule that would try to ban guns from the Richmond Capitol building.

Even more surprising is that Sen. Stolle would resort to anti-gun rhetoric when defending his backdoor gun control.

"But nobody can guarantee to me that everybody who walks through that door with a firearm is a law-abiding citizen. The Capitol Police were without authority to even ask questions.

"A convicted felon could come through the front door with a loaded shotgun in his hand, come up to the metal detector, hand the shotgun to the police officer and get it back after he goes through the metal detector."

That's so absurd it borders on paranoia. There are no guarantees in life, even with armed guards in place. And any convicted felon that had it in for Stolle probably wouldn't use the front door.

So, just how dangerous is allowing guns inside the Capitol building? Well, lets look at the last time an incident happened.

...not since Jan. 5, 1866. Capitol historian Mark Greenough said no gun has been fired in the white-columned building since that day, when a feud between newspapermen from two competing Richmond publications erupted in the Rotunda.

One journalist fired his pistol as he ducked behind the priceless statue of George Washington. His intended target returned fire and knocked a chunk of marble off the tassel on Washington's cane. It was later repaired.

That's right, the last gun fight was nearly 140 years ago, and it was between two members of the media. Maybe they should ban reporters.

If Stolle were a regular gun grabber, it wouldn't bother me so much. But his NIMBY attitude reeks of hypocrisy. Especially considering he is opposed to banning guns from libraries and day care centers. I too am opposed, but then I cannot think of any place I would support banning guns. If a privately owned day care center wants to ban guns that is their right. But no publicly owned facility should ever be permitted to deny citizens their freedom.

The Steelers have fought their way to another home AFC Championship game, and I am reminded of another time that it happened. On January 1, 1998 I quit my job and became voluntarily unemployed. I laid around the house for a week, drinking heavily and playing video games. On Friday I told my mom (yes, I was living back in Virginia Beach with my folks) that I was going out to run some errands and would probably not be home in time for dinner. I went over to Lope's house, which was a frequent meeting place for me and my girlfriend. There were three couples there, with Lope and his wife playing host, and MonkEspank (a/k/a Bill) and his wife visiting as well. At about 2 AM, my girlfriend left, and Monk's wife took the car and the kids home to put them to bed. Lope's wife retired for the evening, and the three of us were left alone to bullshit the night away.

Monk, Lope and I stayed up the rest of the night pounding beers. The beer ran out, and the three of us had successfully killed several 24-packs. I passed out about 6 AM, and less than an hour later, Lope was waking me up with a gentle kick to the head.

I lay on the couch and opened my eyes to the sunlight pouring through the front window. Lope was saying something to me, but I didn't understand him and just stared into space with a stupid look on my face.

Finally he got through to me. "We're going up to Pittsburgh to see the AFC Championship game," he said. "Are you going?"

I didn't have a job or anything better to do, so I managed to say something like "Sure, what the hell."

Lope already had a book bag packed with some clothes, and Monk was out trying to pack the car with snacks and drinks. I felt dead to the world, so I stumbled outside to the puking tree on Lope's front lawn. I let loose a few good heaves and figured better here than in the car. I washed my face and got a drink of water before we were off to Monk's house. I crawled into the back seat and slept the whole way over.

Bill woke up his wife and told her where we were going. He quickly packed a bag and grabbed some beer and gatorade for the ride up to Pittsburgh. He was from Pittsburgh, so he called his dad and told him that we were on our way.

When it came down to packing my own bag, I was told that we wouldn't be stopping at my house. I was deemed a flight risk and outvoted. I certainly wouldn't have backed out on the trip, but my house was about a half hour out of the way. Not having a say in the matter, we hit the interstate and pressed Northward. I wasn't in much of a state to protest, so I rolled over in the back seat and passed out. When I woke up, we were just outside Washington D.C.

I looked outside and asked where we were. Monk told me, and then handed me a Gatorade bottle and asked me if I wanted a drink. I can't stand Gatorade, and it was a good thing too because what was inside didn't look like Gatorade. My instincts turned out to be correct, and rather than lose time stopping at rest stops Monk had used the empty bottle instead.

We did stop once for lunch and gas, and pressed on into Pittsburgh that evening. We arrived at Monk's father's house. He lived way up in the mountains of the Pittsburgh suburbs. It was cold and snowy outside, and when we stepped onto the porch I noticed that people just set beer on their porch rather than waste room in the fridge.

Bill's mom was very nice and welcomed us into their home. I was beginning to regret not having a change of clothes. Bill's dad was nice but gruff. As he shook my hand, his first words to me were, "Nice to meet you, now get the fuck out of my chair."

I cleared out of his way and went out front to grab some beers off the porch. It helped cure my hangover while we talked strategy about the next day.

Bill's dad was amazed that we had just driven up there on a whim. We didn't even have tickets for the game. Lope's father, Pete, had just died and left him a few thousand dollars. It wasn't much of an inheritance, but Lope promised to pay for the tickets if we picked up the rest of the trip. We drank a quick toast and said, "Here's to Pete."

We spent the rest of the night drinking and shooting the breeze. The game was the next day.

We arrived in Pittsburgh and started looking for parking and ticket scalpers. There was no shortage of guys standing around outside the stadium with signs that read, "We need tickets". Lope and Monk saw that and figured we didn't stand a chance of getting into the game. That's when it occurred to me that they had never been to a football game before.

"They don't need tickets, they have tickets," I told the guys. "The other side of that sign is probably a seating chart."

I was right and we started negotiating with the scalpers. Finding three tickets together was proving to be difficult. We finally found a guy with three decent tickets, so Lope forked over $750 from Pete's inheritance. We were both grateful, and Lope promised to try to drink at least that much in beer at the stadium. We promised to pick up his tab and went inside.

Inside, Lope and Monk were both giddy. They had never been to a game before, whereas I had been to several games in college. Lope and Monk are both socialites and quickly made friends with everyone in our section. The Pittsburgh fans are fantastic and we were the talk of the section. Our story of driving up there on a drunken whim seemed to play pretty well. I purchased another round of beers and we made another toast, "Here's to Pete."

The Denver Broncos jumped out to a big lead and unfortunately Pittsburgh never recovered. It's hard to describe the disappointment We had just assumed that if we went through all that trouble to go to the game, Pittsburgh would win. We sat there for about a half hour after the game was over and watched the AFC trophy awarded to John Elway. We were bitter about the loss, but the trip was still worth it.

Back at Bill's, I was able to do some laundry and finally get into some clean clothes. We left on Monday but didn't head home right away.

We dropped in on Racer X, who lived in Ohio, and stayed the night. His wife wasn't exactly pleased that we were there, which I don't really understand considering all the money we added to her swear jar. On Tuesday we drove over to Canton and visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We toured the Hall and paid homage to all the greats who had ever played the sport. I had hoped to press on into Ohio and visit my relatives, but I was outvoted again, so Tuesday night was spent back at Racer's.

Wednesday both Bill and Lope were homesick and missed their wives and children, so we headed home. We dropped Bill off and headed to Lope's house where I had left my car.

We said our goodbye's and on the drive home, I reflected on the good times we had just experienced. I arrived home to a worried and pissed off mom. In retrospect, going out to "run errands" on Friday and not showing back up until Wednesday was a pretty awful thing to do to the woman. She got over it though and was just happy that I was okay and had had a good time.

Denver went on to win the Super Bowl, and I eventually ran out of money and got another job. I moved away from Virginia Beach, as did MonkEspank. I don't hear from Lope or Monk much at all any more, and that girlfriend is now a distant memory. Still, I have many fond memories of all of them. I also keep a bag packed in the car with a spare change of clothes.

So this weekend when I watch the AFC Championship game and root for the Steelers, I think I'll make a familiar toast. "Here's to Pete."

Ahh, what would we do without France?

Several readers have sent me this one. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership has come out with their annual rankings. Maryland got the highest ranking with an A-, while states like Idaho, Montana, and Vermont got failing grades. So, Maryland must be doing a much better job to prevent gun violence, right? Well, not exactly.

You see, the Brady Campaign doesn't actually look at gun violence when determining their rankings. Instead they look at gun ownership and how easy it is for law abiding citizens to obtain and possess a firearm. In fact the states the have passing Brady grades have some of the highest rates of gun violence in the country, while the failing states have the lowest.

States like Ohio dropped from a D+ last year to a D- this year because they passed a law permitting law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm. Brady assumes that this will lead to more gun violence and grades accordingly, without even looking for evidence that it actually does.

Since criminals prefer disarmed victims, more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens actually means less crime. Recent studies by the Center for Disease Control and National Research Council tried to link the prevalence of guns to gun violence, but actually found that no amount of gun control reduced crime. Neither organization is considered Second Amendment friendly, and had they actually looked at the data objectively could have easily concluded that the opposite was true.

So more than anything, the Brady grades are a measure of how well states are doing to take away freedom from law abiding citizens. The only ones who should hope for good Brady grades are criminals, while freedom loving Americans are actually better off failing.

ASIDE: I have to take issue with Brady's arithmetic. Out of the 7 grades given, Virginia received: B, B, C, F, F, F, F, with an overall grade of C-. The way I figure it, we got a solid D average. Nevada had higher grades: D, B, B, F, A, F, D- and came in at a D overall, so the categories might be weighted unevenly.

Officer uses pepper spray to subdue diabetic suffering from insulin shock

Key West Police Lt. Kathleen Ream, commander of the department's Bureau of Professional Standards, called the incident "unfortunate," but said nothing in Officer Rich Thomas's report indicated that he acted improperly...

Ream said police department policy allows officers to use pepper spray if a subject fails to comply with an officer's order and that nonresponsiveness is considered noncompliance.

Well that's good. The officer didn't do anything illegal.

Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson was born January 21, 1824. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929. As you can see, coincidence seems to have brought their birthdays together.

Robert E. Lee's birthday has been celebrated as a Virginia holiday since 1889. In 1904, the legislature added the birthday of Stonewall Jackson to the holiday, and Lee-Jackson Day was born. Eighty years later, Republican President Ronald Reagan declared the day in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Virginia, who since 1978 had celebrated King's Birthday in conjunction with New Years Day, made the change and simply tacked him onto Lee-Jackson Day. Thus Lee-Jackson-King Day was born.

In January of 2000, Virginia's Republican Governor James Gilmore asked the Legislature to move Lee-Jackson Day to the previous Friday, which would give Martin Luther King, Jr. a holiday of his own. The Legislature agreed, and the holidays were shuffled around, giving Commonwealth of Virginia employees a nice long 4-day weekend.

I made the personal decision to keep the three men together on one day, as a symbol of unity, justice, and a warm snuggly feeling inside.

So Happy Lee-Jackson-King Day, everyone...

The AP reports that the Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax beat Milton on Wednesday night by a final score: 5-2.

...in basketball. The game-winning basket came in the 2nd quarter.

"I've never had a player hit a game-winner in the second quarter before," BFA-Fairfax coach Glen Button Jr. said.

It could not immediately be determined if the score was a state or national record low, but the contest certainly attracted attention.

"It had to have been one of the most boring games in the world," said Bob Johnson, the director of student activities for the Vermont Principals' Association, which governs high school sports.

Neither team scored in the second half.

"It was the ultimate deliberate stalemate," Milton coach Jim Smith said. "They didn't come out after us and we didn't go in against them."

Smith said the slowdown was implemented because BFA (7-4) has a strong scoring presence, while Milton (2-8) does not. The Milton players believed their best chance to be competitive was to just hold onto the ball.

I once went out with this smokin' Hooters waitress who was aspiring to be a model. She was absolutely gorgeous, but at 5'4" tall I told her quite flatly, "I see a pole in your future." She didn't quite know what I meant, but apparently this guy does.

School officials in Palo Alto are reconsidering their use of a popular speaker for an annual career day after he advised middle school students that they could earn a good living as strip dancers.

William Fried told eighth-graders at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School that stripping and exotic dancing could be lucrative career moves for girls, offering as much as $250,000 or more per year, depending on their bust size.

Fried later told the AP, "It's sick, but it's true." (IMHO, it's not all that sick.)

(Shamelessly stolen from KdT, who has a more political analysis of what is going on.)

The search for "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq has officially ended. Democrats and anti-war nuts from the "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" crowd are making a big deal over the announcement, as if there were no WMD found at all. I'm not the only one who noticed that the GOP is letting them get away with it.

Bush would do better to explain to the American people just what U.S. forces did find in their search for banned weapons in Iraq - starting with, for instance, the 1.8 tons of partially enriched uranium Saddam had socked away. [...]

And if Bush needs more ammunition to refute Pelosi, he could cite the discovery of Sarin gas-filled artillery shells. [...]

And if the White House wants some dramatic imagery to show how easy it was for Saddam to hide banned weapons, how about those photos of the 30 Iraqi jet fighters that weapons searchers found buried in the sand near Baghdad.

Maybe now we'll start looking for WMD elsewhere, like Syria or Iran.

Yesterday morning I received an email from Ebay which basically said that they are doubling their fees. Some fees were increased more than others, but generally their commission percentage and fees were going up, up, up.

I don't buy or sell a lot on Ebay, but others do, and they are none too happy. The AP reports that many small business owners who rely on Ebay may close their stores or look for other online options. Then there were others who looked for more tyranical options.

The changes, combined with eBay's dominance in the auction and online payment sectors, prompted some members to ask whether the government or a fair-business consortium should regulate fee structures so small-scale entrepreneurs don't get gouged.

"Yes, it is a free market and sellers can take their business elsewhere, but there is very little competition for this style format," said Artie Klawans, an art dealer in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

While I wasn't happy to see Ebay hike their fees, I don't think that using the threat of lethal force to get them to lower their price should even be an option. Ebay is not a monopoly, nor are they doing anything illegal. They are merely capitalizing on their own success.

For all their greed, Ebay has already seen their stock price drop 5% after the announcement. Buyers and sellers are already considering other online auction options, and Ebay is sure to lose market share. That is the way the free market works. When one company starts overcharging, customers go some place else. Getting the government involved is likely to make it worse for everyone involved.

Geez, gun grabbers don't even wait for crime to be a problem any more. Now the mere quantity of guns is deemed to be problematic.

Belgium's social-liberal Spirit party has called for a total ban on the private use of firearms after new figures shows that 2 million guns are in circulation in the country.

The figure, published Wednesday, means that theoretically one in every five Belgian residents owns a gun, although only 669,273 guns are registered in the central registry.

For her part, Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx is expected to support a strengthening of federal gun control laws in the near future.

You would think that people that experience Nazi occupation first hand would know better.

Now scientists are saying that driving your SUV and burning fossil fuel is a good thing:

Cutting down on fossil fuel pollution could accelerate global warming and help turn parts of Europe into desert by 2100, according to research to be aired on British television on Thursday. "Global Dimming", a BBC Horizon documentary, will describe research suggesting fossil fuel by-products like sulphur dioxide particles reflect the sun's rays, "dimming" temperatures and almost cancelling out the greenhouse effect.

The researchers say cutting down on the burning of coal and oil, one of the main goals of international environmental agreements, will drastically heat rather than cool climate.

No matter which side of the debate researchers are on, the one thing they all agree upon is that they need more money for more research.

In all the punditry I see flying around about CBS and Memogate, people seem to be ignoring a fundamental problem with CBS' actions and those of the news media today. The forged documents should have been presumed to be fake until they are proven to be real, not the other way around.

Think about this. Had the source of the documents used any common sense at all to make them appear as though they were authentic, CBS might have gotten away with it. Had the forger changed the margins a little bit, turned off MS Word's automatic superscript feature and used a non-proportionally spaced font, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Even worse, we might be welcoming President Kerry next week instead.

The problem wasn't the documents themselves. The problem was that CBS, USA Today, and others that ran the story, ASSUMED as a matter of fact the documents were authentic in the absense of proof that they were not. Since the documents were the whole story, it should have been the other way 'round. Their job should have been to take the documents and then prove that they were real. In the absense of that proof, there is no story at all.

If the forger hadn't been so inept, CBS would have gotten away with rigging the outcome of a Presidential election.

Funniest essay ever. And check out the grade he got at the end.

(It's scanned JPGs and is really slow to load, but funny as hell. I'm tempted to mirror it here instead. Also there is an abundance of foul language)

Mirrored: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The debate over whether or not to reveal who voted for whom in the NCAA College Football Coaches Poll rages on. Conspiracy theorists believe that some voters dropped Cal to below 6th in the coaches poll to pave the way for Texas to go to the Rose Bowl. Since the coaches poll is secret, we'll never really know for sure. In the end, Texas ended up being the better team but it's still a shitty way to win a bowl bid.

I'm of the mind that the coaches poll should be scrapped completely. First of all, the coaches don't really even vote. They are busy coaching their team and usually delegate it down to an underling who doesn't likely watch any games to know if Louisville is better than Boise State or not. Second, the poll is secret which opens it up to tinkering like what happened this year. When it came time to send teams to a bowl game, Cal took a sudden nose dive in the polls because the coaches favored Texas. Third, with the BCS likely doing things by committee from here on out, what's the point of having a second poll any way? We already have the AP which is definitely the superior of the two.

Now you can't eat red meat either, because it causes cancer.

The Maryland State Police issued a report about the failure of their "ballistic fingerprinting" database. After diverting millions of dollars away from real police work, the system has solved ZERO crimes. KdT has the scoop, which can be summed up by the following:

"Guns found to be used in the commission of crime...are not the ones being entered into" the system. [...]

Extremist gun control groups supported this requirement because it amounts to a de facto gun registry in the guise of a crime-fighting tool.

How long before some liberal quack pipes up and says the 'fix' for the system is to throw more money at it while deflecting blame on neighboring states (like that evil Virginia) who haven't thrown their money down a similar rat hole.

One of the most ignored stories of 2004 is how Democrats in Washington State stole the Gubernatorial election. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a timeline of events, which itself is pretty damning. But the Wall Street Journal takes a look at the most damning evidence.

In December, officials in King County, which includes Seattle, discovered 573 "erroneously rejected" absentee ballots, plus another 150 uncounted ones that showed up in a South Seattle warehouse. There were reports that hundreds of voters were registered in storage rental facilities and private mailboxes, that felons had voted, and that military ballots were sent out too late to be counted. Then we learned that several hundred provisional ballots had simply been fed into voting machines, making it impossible to authenticate their legality. Now it turns out the number of votes cast in King County exceeds the total number of voters by about 1,800.

They also report that according "to a KING-TV poll, 53% of Washingtonians believe Mr. Rossi won the election, against 36% who think Ms. Gregoire won it. Washingtonians also want a revote by a similar margin." Still, the WSJ notes that unless fraud can be proven, the revote that GOP candidate Dino Rossi wants isn't the best option.

Now here is a bill that I can get behind. H.R. 47, called the Citizen's Self Defense Act of 2005 says that governments cannot deny a person their basic human right to defend themselves. If they do, they can be sued in Federal court.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland. Not only does it state that a citizen has the right to keep and bear arms, but it helps define why a person has that right: the police cannot protect you, and are not legally liable to do so; police cannot and do not even respond to all calls for help; when police do respond, they often take more than 1 hour to do so. It also states that citizens frequently use firearms to defend themselves, and that the government should not be permitted to discourage self defense through gun control laws or criminal prosecution.

It's a good bill. A very good bill. So good, that the Democrats and gun grabbers are likely to throw a caniption fit trying to get it shot down.

The full text of the bill is below:

To protect the right to obtain firearms for security, and to use firearms in defense of self, family, or home, and to provide for the enforcement of such right.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Citizens' Self-Defense Act of 2005'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds the following:

(1) Police cannot protect, and are not legally liable for failing to protect, individual citizens, as evidenced by the following:

(A) The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals, only the public in general. For example, in Warren v. District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981), the court stated: `[C]ourts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community.'.

(B) Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities.

(C) The United States Department of Justice found that, in 1989, there were 168,881 crimes of violence for which police had not responded within 1 hour.

(2) Citizens frequently must use firearms to defend themselves, as evidenced by the following:

(A) Every year, more than 2,400,000 people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals--or more than 6,500 people a day. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.

(B) Of the 2,400,000 self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.

(C) Of the 2,400,000 times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, 92 percent merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8 percent of the time, does a citizen kill or wound his or her attacker.

(3) Law-abiding citizens, seeking only to provide for their families' defense, are routinely prosecuted for brandishing or using a firearm in self-defense. For example:

(A) In 1986, Don Bennett of Oak Park, Illinois, was shot at by 2 men who had just stolen $1,200 in cash and jewelry from his suburban Chicago service station. The police arrested Bennett for violating Oak Park's handgun ban. The police never caught the actual criminals.

(B) Ronald Biggs, a resident of Goldsboro, North Carolina, was arrested for shooting an intruder in 1990. Four men broke into Biggs' residence one night, ransacked the home and then assaulted him with a baseball bat. When Biggs attempted to escape through the back door, the group chased him and Biggs turned and shot one of the assailants in the stomach. Biggs was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon--a felony. His assailants were charged with misdemeanors.

(C) Don Campbell of Port Huron, Michigan, was arrested, jailed, and criminally charged after he shot a criminal assailant in 1991. The thief had broken into Campbell's store and attacked him. The prosecutor plea-bargained with the assailant and planned to use him to testify against Campbell for felonious use of a firearm. Only after intense community pressure did the prosecutor finally drop the charges.

(4) The courts have granted immunity from prosecution to police officers who use firearms in the line of duty. Similarly, law-abiding citizens who use firearms to protect themselves, their families, and their homes against violent felons should not be subject to lawsuits by the violent felons who sought to victimize them.

SEC. 3. RIGHT TO OBTAIN FIREARMS FOR SECURITY, AND TO USE FIREARMS IN DEFENSE OF SELF, FAMILY, OR HOME; ENFORCEMENT.

(a) Reaffirmation of Right- A person not prohibited from receiving a firearm by Section 922(g) of title 18, United States Code, shall have the right to obtain firearms for security, and to use firearms--

(1) in defense of self or family against a reasonably perceived threat of imminent and unlawful infliction of serious bodily injury;

(2) in defense of self or family in the course of the commission by another person of a violent felony against the person or a member of the person's family; and

(3) in defense of the person's home in the course of the commission of a felony by another person.

(b) Firearm Defined- As used in subsection (a), the term `firearm' means--

(1) a shotgun (as defined in section 921(a)(5) of title 18, United States Code);

(2) a rifle (as defined in section 921(a)(7) of title 18, United States Code); or

(3) a handgun (as defined in section 10 of Public Law 99-408).

(c) Enforcement of Right-

(1) IN GENERAL- A person whose right under subsection (a) is violated in any manner may bring an action in any United States district court against the United States, any State, or any person for damages, injunctive relief, and such other relief as the court deems appropriate.

(2) AUTHORITY TO AWARD A REASONABLE ATTORNEY'S FEE- In an action brought under paragraph (1), the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing plaintiff a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs.

(3) STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS- An action may not be brought under paragraph (1) after the 5-year period that begins with the date the violation described in paragraph (1) is discovered.

I knew that our freedom of speech was under constant attack, but I didn't realize it had gotten this bad.

"How do you tell when a lawyer is lying?" Harvey Kash reportedly asked Carl Lanzisera.

"His lips are moving," they said in unison.

While some waiting to get into the courthouse giggled, a lawyer farther up the line Monday was not laughing.

He told them to pipe down, and when they did not, the lawyer reported the pair to court personnel, who charged them with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

"They just can't take it," Kash said of lawyers in general. "This violates our First Amendment rights."

Dan Bagnuola, a spokesman for the Nassau County courts, said the men were "being abusive and they were causing a disturbance." He said he did not have the name of the lawyer who complained.

I have little doubt that the guys were rude and obnoxious, but I didn't realize you could be arrested for it. With such a loose standard, you would think that New York jails would be overflowing.

A new San Francisco law targets animal abuse, but goes a little further than you might expect.

The board of supervisors has passed a new ordinance requiring a certain standard of living for man's best friend. Included are specifics on food, water and even doghouses.

Animal control officers say it was difficult to prosecute pet abusers under the old law, because the standards were too vague.

By law in San Francisco, Fido is considered what is termed a companion dog. And a pet owner is actually a pet guardian.

Okay, make that 10. At 10 PM tonight, CNN is going to air a special called Extreme Weather with Aaron Brown. (Apparently earthquakes and tsunamis are now considered weather.)

In a special edition of "NewsNight," we take an in-depth look at nature's wrath, from a record number of hurricanes and tornadoes to devastating mudslides and horrific tsunamis. Tune in at 10 p.m. ET.

Neal Boortz is betting that at some point they will try to tie the whole thing together with global warming (or 'climate change') as it is now being called.

I've noted several times that when it comes to traffic cameras, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams was more interested in revenue than safety. Mayor Williams has admitted it himself several times, but he also usually played up the safety angle as well. But recently the Mayor was caught in an unusual moment of candor reports the Washington Times.

In a memo to the D.C. City Council, Williams pleaded with the council to continue the traffic camera program because there was an "urgent need" for revenue. He never once mentioned the word safety.

"There is an urgent need for the approval of this contract to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues," Mr. Williams wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp. [...]

A spokeswoman for Mr. Williams yesterday said that the mayor's views about red light and speed cameras haven't changed and that he probably should have included "an extra sentence about public safety" in his letter to Mrs. Cropp.

"The mayor has always felt that with the red-light cameras and the other equipment we use to catch people who are speeding, safety is our foremost goal," said Sharon Gang, spokeswoman for Mr. Williams. "He's never varied from that."

Safety is so important that he completely forgot to mention it. She can't come up with a better excuse than that?

I would have said that Williams was simply speaking to the Council in a language they understand.

We've all heard it. You call up any company nowadays and you get a disclaimer saying that 'This call may be monitored for quality assurance'. CNET reports that someone actually is listening, and what they hear can be surprising.

Most callers do not realize that they may be taped even while they are on hold.

It is at these times that monitors hear husbands arguing with their wives, mothers yelling at their children, and dog owners throwing fits at disobedient pets, all when they think no one is listening. Most times, the only way a customer can avoid being recorded is to hang up.

One call monitor even ratted out a female operator for getting a little too friendly with a cell-phone customer. After some flirtation, she apparently coughed up her personal phone number to the caller on the other end.

Next time I call and get put on hold for any length of time, I might just leave a few goodies for the monitor. Some heavy breathing, maybe some orangutan sounds. The only limit is the imagination.

So saith the Tigers.

Auburn's 13-0 Tigers finished second in the AP and coaches Top 25 polls, but have been declared the 2004 Peoples National Football Champion.

College football fans across the country were allowed to vote on their choice as the national champion. Auburn emerged No. 1 ahead of the two other undefeated teams following the bowl games--No. 2 Southern Cal and No. 3 Utah.

ESPN television and radio football analyst Jim Donnan is expected to make the national championship trophy presentation on the Auburn campus in January after announcing it on Thursday evening on a television show on the CSS network. [...]

"Who knows, I think we have the best team in the country," [Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville] says. "This peoples polls will give us an opportunity say we were national champs. It means a lot to us and we look forward to having a trophy and putting our name on a ring saying we are 2004 national champs."

Never heard of the People's Poll? Perhaps that's because this is the inaugural year. The award was created by a frustrated Auburn fan, pretty much for the sole purpose of crowning his favorite team the National Champion. While I agree that Auburn got a raw deal, that they are taking this bogus award so literal is frankly, a little sad.

Many predicted it. It was only a matter of time before some insensitive environmentalists started harping about how the tsunami returned things back to nature. Some of them are actually happy that coastal development was wiped out.

Many believe the tsunami that devastated this tourist hotspot and killed thousands had one positive side: By washing away rampant development, it returned the beaches to nature...

"This whole area was littered with commercialism," said the 43-year-old from Maui, Hawaii. "There were hundreds of beach chairs out here. I prefer the sand." [...]

"Everyone is talking about it. It looks much better now," he said. "This looks a lot more like Hawaii now, where vendors aren't allowed on the beach."

Easy for him to say, he wasn't sitting in one of those beach chairs when the tsunami hit.

This really smacks of bigotry. Other than tourism some of these third world nations don't have much to offer. Who are we to demand that they not develop their land and live in poverty instead?

The giant Arizona greenhouse called Biosphere-2 is up for sale, if anyone is interested. If you don't remember the Biosphere project, it was basically a bunch of NASA inspired scientists trying to create an artificial Earth biosphere. If we ever want to do any long term space exploration or set up a colony on Mars, the astronauts will need something like the Biosphere.

But I digress. I couldn't help but think this passage seemed a little too rosy.

In 1991, eight "biospherians" were sealed inside for a two-year stay. But the project was plagued by rising costs and other setbacks. . .

Having remembered something about Biosphere 2, I thought right away that "other setbacks" sounded deliberately vague. I seem to remember something about a slight vermin problem. So, I did a little digging and it turns out that the shoddy AP reporter left out the most interesting part of the story:

Biosphere 1 is planet earth. Biosphere 2 is the little greenhouse near Tucson, Arizona.

If you've never been on a tour of the place, it looks and feels like a very good idea very poorly executed. The people who conceived of it should have had basic engineering skills (Or at least should have had advisors). A major part of the problem (and they tell you this on the tour) for the first experiment was the fact that the people who put the research together were largely ingnorant of comon construction techniques involved in the building of the Biosphere. They had no clue - for instance - that concrete sets, not dries, via a chemical process (hydration) and not a thermal one (which is why you can pour concrete into water and have it set. In fact, if you use concrete on land you have to keep adding water to it so it can set properly). So the Biospherians were placed into a container where the concrete (which takes up to 8 months to fully "set") used up a lot of their oxygen. This was not newfound knowledge. Any on-the-job concrete pourer could have told them this.

Also, during the transfer of flora into the biosphere, they allowed an Arizona desert insect known as the Crazy Ant (Paratrechina longicornis) into the Biosphere. An incredibly adaptable varmint. It went about killing off all the insects needed for a sustainable biosphere as well as destroying some plants and making life difficult for some of the other animals...

The crazy ant infestation remains to this day.

Biosphere 2 was destroyed, not from poor science, but from poorly *executed* science, ignorant in the various needs involved in building and maintaining an enclosed, fully sustainable system.

Why the AP reporter left this out is debateable. I'm not going to say it was media bias, environmental or otherwise. But you must admit that the "other setbacks" are far too interesting to just gloss over.

Poor Neil Cavuto, had the nerve to open up a door for a woman. What happened next reeks of classic New York feminism.

"Do I look paralyzed to you?" she asked. [...]

When I recomposed myself, I had to follow her.

"Excuse me," I asked - now feeling every bit of my offended macho Italian roots - "but exactly what bug got up your butt?"

"Treating me like I have to be coddled," she said.

"By opening a door?" I asked.

She went onto explain the door thing was part and parcel of a bigger thing: An attempt by men, she said, to make women feel like they're lesser.

Talk about having a permanent chip on your shoulder. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be nice to people.

Activists are pissed off at a local New Paltz (NY) theater owner because he ran a radio advertisement that criticized Michael Moore, and praised "the values associated with John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Stewart". He was only trying to appeal to the conservative talk radio market segment, but some busybody activist group is boycotting the theater and calling the ad hate speech.

The group called the ad on local radio stations "blatantly racist."

"... It is especially offensive that the theaters' management recalls John Wayne movies as the paragon of 'family film fare,' " it said in a press release. "John Wayne starred in over 100 of the most violent films ever made, including dozens in which Native Americans and Mexicans were portrayed as dangerous savages created specifically for remorseless sport hunting by white settlers and armies."

I don't care what your political affiliation is, anyone who idolizes Michael Moore over John Wayne is a total weenie.

"I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." -- John Wayne as The Shootist.

"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway." -- John Wayne on courage.

"I like America to some extent." -- Michael Moore.

"Americans are possibly the dumbest people on the planet....in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks. We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing." -- Michael Mooore on why America sucks.

See what I mean?

The Register reports that all sorts of security cameras are accessible via the Internet, and voyeurs have been able to find them by doing a simple Google search.

Searching on certain strings within a URL sniffs out networked cameras that have Web interfaces permitting their owners to view them remotely, and even direct the cameras' motorized pan-and-tilt mechanisms from the comfort of their own desktop.

Video surfers are using this knowledge to peek in on office and restaurant interiors, a Japanese barnyard, women doing laundry, the interior of an Internet collocation facility, and a cage full of rodents, among other things, in locales scattered around the world.

In today's camera infested society, someone could be watching you right now. If you're surfing nekkid, maybe you should put some clothes on.

The founders of Google aren't the only ones raking it in. Their generous stock grant program and recent IPO has made around 1,000 new millionaires around the office. Companies must report stock sales of major stockholders to the SEC, but usually the only ones affected are company executives. At Google, however, even stock sales of some of their rank and file must be reported.

The disclosures have so far affected about 400 of the company's 3,000 employees, and include documenting one trade of just five shares worth $850.

Of course all those disclosures are public information, which means that employee relations can be a real problem around the office.

"The whole culture's really strange when there are two people in the same cubicle and one's worth $1 million and the other is worth nothing and they both know it," said one person close to the company. "It's created this asymmetry where some people feel more entitled than others."

Something tells me it's not the millionaires who have a sense of entitlement.

CBS has axed four producers over the "memogate" scandal which broke right before the Presidential election.

According to a CBS statement, an independent panel appointed by the network concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in putting together the piece, which aired September 8. That failure was compounded with a "rigid and blind" defense of the report, the statement continued.

On a related note, CNN exercises a little schadenfreude.

Check out the 'advertiser links' block

Both "Passion for the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" won People's Choice awards. But to those on both sides of the political spectrum, before you get too excited keep in mind that these are the same morons who voted for Julia 'Mr. Ed' Roberts as "Best Smile".

I'm sorry, but even though this was the fourth or fifth most prestigious award of the year, I just cannot get into Hollywood self gratification. Besides there are so many awards shows now they are little more than marketing. Unless someone is flopping a boob out (a real woman's boob, not a boob like Michael Moore), starting a riot, or making a complete ass of themselves during their acceptance speech, I don't care to watch.

"Reno-Lake Tahoe gets most snow since 1916" - CNN Headline, January 10, 2005

After all, you would certainly be hearing about so-called "Global Warming" if they were experiencing a record heat wave.

At the beginning of 2004, President Bush made the bold statement that the economy would create somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.6 Million jobs. When only 100,000 or so jobs were created last January, naysayers scoffed at the claim and said that there was no way we'd even come close to that number.

Who's laughing now, when it has become apparent that Bush's original figure was not that far off the mark.

Employers added 2.2 million jobs in 2004, the first annual increase in payrolls since before the 2001 recession and a turning point for the nation's labor market after three years of job losses. [...]

At the recent low-point for the job count, in August 2003, the nation had 2.7 million fewer jobs than on the eve of the recession. By last month, that deficit had been shaved to 122,000. That gap could be fully erased by the end of this month, according to many forecasts, thwarting Democrats' prediction during the presidential campaign that Bush would be the first U.S. president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net national job loss in one term.

Keep in mind that the final revised figures haven't been released yet, and the projections tend to be understated.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one who noticed this. Larry Kudlow offers more excellent commentary.

James Taranto gives us this delightful zinger.

Bloomberg News reports that France's President Jacques Chirac gave a speech to a group of foreign diplomats in Paris:

Chirac spoke to the ambassadors about the need to help establish peace and security in the Middle East. On Jan. 9, Palestinians vote to choose a successor for Yasser Arafat as their leader.

"After the election of the Palestinian president, let's work together to make the retreat from Gaza a success," Chirac said.

Only a Frenchman would talk about making a retreat a success.

The New York Times is considering charging users to read their tripe. The real question is how bloggers will continue to exist without such a wealth of misinformation around to fisk any more.

UPDATE: The big worry here is that many other papers will follow suit, just as they have for annoying site registration. However, even if pay for play is the only way to go, the demand for news and comment will still be there. Now that I think about it (with some help from Ralph's comment), if all the news sites start charging a fee maybe bloggers will become even more relevant and popular.

Virginia Governor Mark Warner may run for the Senate in 2006 or even President in 2008. So says the Washington Post, who also gushes "Warner has cultivated an image of fiscal discipline and bipartisanship that is catapulting him into the ranks of "the mentioned" among Democrats".

By "fiscal discipline", they mean Warner passed the largest tax increase in Virginia history to cover a budget deficit that wasn't even there. The multi-billion dollar tax increase is adding to Virginia's already large $1 Billion budget surplus. After pledging "I will not raise taxes, I will not raise taxes, I will not raise taxes", Warner cried about the impending financial doom if a massive tax hike weren't passed right away. When the lie unraveled a month later, and it was discovered that there was no budget deficit, Warner told Virginians that government needed their money more than they did.

When the Post says "bipartisan, they mean that the Democrat Warner and the tax and spend Republicans in the Virginia legislature already have big plans for spending all that extra tax money that they are seizing. Warner is brining bringing politicians together from both sides of the aisle to buy votes and grow the size of government. And that's really what bipartisanship is; Democrats and Republicans each getting the pork barrel spending that they want.

The Washington Post is right, Warner would make a very good candidate for the Democrats. But God help us all if he manages to win.

Italy has spurned private property rights and is demanding that restauranteurs not allow their patrons to smoke. What's more they are taking the New York City approach and making bar managers put themselves at risk and police the new rules.

Making bartenders and waitresses enforce the anti-smoking rules has already proved fatal in NYC when annoyed patrons became violent. They don't have the luxury of having a badge and a gun to enforce the law like cops do. The other trend that the Italians will notice is people going outside for a smoke and not coming back to pay their check. The increase in theft means we'll all be footing a higher bill.

But Italy isn't New York, and Italians aren't taking the new rules lying down. Many restaurant and bar owners have said that they will not enforce the rules. The effectiveness of the ban will depend mostly on how much pressure police put on local business owners. New York faced similar sentiment, but Mayor Bloomberg was able to crush it by ratcheting up a gestapo organization that ticketed citizens for everything from smoking, to illegal signage, to sitting on a milk crate.

Let's see how many alarmist gun-ban cliches that a person can squeeze into a single article.

A .50-caliber sniper rifle can hit a target at 4,500 feet, shatter bulletproof limousines, penetrate sandbags, earth berms, armored vehicles, commercial planes, and drill through the walls (and living rooms) of 10 suburban houses lined up one after another.

Just what makes a sniper rifle? And will it shoot through bedrooms and kitchens too, or just living rooms? This is a shameless ripoff of Joe Piscopo's classic line from Johnny Dangerously about his .88 Magnum - "It shoots through schools".

The Geneva Conventions don't prohibit .50-caliber weapons' use against military personnel, and army manuals describe its usefulness in battle. But the weapon's use on civilians and in civilian areas is prohibited.

Does the Geneva Convention ever permit the Army to shoot civilians?

Oddly enough -- or maybe not so oddly in the twilight zone of Second Amendment zealotry -- you can buy a .50-caliber weapon from your friendly mail-order gun dealer.

Only a black powder gun, else you need to go through a licensed FFL dealer when shipping across state lines.

The Barrett line of .50-caliber sniper rifles, patented in 1987, is the "One Shot One Kill" enthusiasts' gun of choice.

Snipers have a club? I wonder what their secret handshake is.

After its introduction and wide use in the first Gulf War, it made some famous cameos in the arsenals of infamous separatists in the 1990s (Timothy McVeigh owned one, the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, had some).

That particular rifle may have been invented in 1987, but the .50 BMG round actually dates back to before WWII.

Even then, McVeigh's Ryder truck killed more people than his .50-cal did. And judging by the way Janet Reno surrounded them with tanks and firebombed their church, those .50-cals didn't do the Branch Davidians much good. Had they been able to fend off the attack with them you might have a point about the gun's usefulness.

The .50-caliber weapon is also used by civilian police forces, although not by the area's largest forces -- the Daytona Beach Police Department and Volusia's and Flagler's sheriff's offices.

So it's alright for the police to own them, but not a civilian? Just what do the police need with a gun that can kill a man from 4,500 feet away?

On Jan. 1, it became illegal to make, sell or distribute Barrett's .50-caliber Browning machine gun rifle in California.

Machine gun rifle? What happened to 'one shot one kill'? In this case, machine-gun is a gratuitous 'scare' tactic. He admits that the Barrett was invented and patented in 1987 and debuted during the Gulf War (which was fought in 1991). Unfortunately though, the manufacture of machine guns for civilian use was banned in 1986, years before the Barrett was produced. What he's referring to is the round, which was originally developed for military machine guns. But the original Barrett gun is a single shot bolt action rifle, and admitting that would make it sound much less scary.

. . .the debate surrounding the weapon's use (and now its lone-state ban) shows the distances gun extremists will go to to defend the indefensible -- and the sorry state of gun control efforts: Just last fall Congress and the president let expire a ban on assault weapons.

Actually Bush said he would have signed a renewal of the Clinton Gun Ban, but it never got to his desk. (But if he had though, he wouldn't have been re-elected)

But the so-called 'Assault Weapons Ban' is a red herring. It covered guns that were supposedly 'sportsterized'. That is they were made with folding stocks, flash hiders, and bayonet lugs. They were supposedly easy to carry, conceal, or 'spray fire' when 'shooting from the hip'. None of that could be said about the Barrett.

True, run-of-the-mill criminals aren't about to spend the necessary $2,000 to $8,000 to buy a .50-caliber sniper rifle, and gun control advocates would be hard pressed, if that's the route they chose, to blame shooting sprees on the weapon.

Kinda moots his whole point on banning them, eh?

Nevertheless, the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, in 1999 reported "a nexus" between the weapon and "terrorist groups, outlaw motorcycle gangs, international drug cartels, domestic drug dealers, religious cults, militia groups, potential assassins and violent criminals."

How nuanced. Guns don't cause outlaw motorcycle gangs and gun bans don't affect any of these people. Period. Both domestic and international religious militia dealers won't have any trouble getting their hands on the guns they want, legal or otherwise.

But a weapon's use (or non-use) by criminals isn't the only reason to argue for its ban.

Then what is the reason. I'm still waiting to hear a good one.

Tomahawk missiles haven't been used for criminal purposes domestically, either. That doesn't mean that a very rich weapons enthusiast should be allowed to have a few in his backyard.

That's not a reason, that's a total non sequitur. There's no "nexus" between these two things. Instead it is a revamped version of the 'nuclear weapon' cliche that gun banners always trot out. You wouldn't want your neighbor to be carrying around a 100 gigawatt positron collider, would you?

And what does he mean by saying they haven't been used for criminal purposes "domestically". Is he trying to intimate that they have been used for criminal purposes internationally? Maybe he's referring to a certain President and a certain aspirin factory.

What would possibly be the use of a weapon specifically designed to take out life at a very long distance, and originally designed as an antipersonnel and anti-aircraft gun, for sporting uses, let alone self-defense?

Guns don't hit people. They hit what you aim them at. That is the point, no matter whether it shoots B-Bs or Volkswagons.

There is almost no risk from a .50 caliber BMG rifle. Yeah, they probably can shoot through a house and might be able to shatter a limousine. But then I could also drive my car through your living room if I wanted to, and cars are a lot more common and a lot easier to hit someone with.

The rifle is simply a long range target rifle. Whether you're shooting Iraqi terrorists or buffalo the rifle doesn't care, and neither should you.

Like I've said before, the gun is never going to be popular among criminals. For starters it's expensive. Like several thousand dollars expensive. Drug dealers aren't going to buy one when they can get a pussy 9mm on just about any corner of "gun-free" Washington D.C for $100. Second, they are big and heavy. You don't exactly stick this in your pocket. Most of them are either fixed or have a big tripod. You'd probably need a 1/4 ton pickup truck to carry it around. Also the ammo is extremely expensive. At $2 to $3 a round you aren't going to be firing this thing very often.

Of all the things that people die from, guns are pretty low on the list. And on the gun list, .50 caliber rifles aren't even listed.

UPDATE: Reader Steve S. notes that pushing for a .50 caliber ban is the flavor of the week for the anti-gun lobby. It's more than coincidental, that CBS and the VPC are both banging the .50 caliber gun ban drum this week. Watch for Democrat Rep. Jim "Blame those dirty J-E-W-S" Moran to introduce legislation soon.

For you John Wayne fans out there, you'll be happy to know that "The High and the Mighty" and "Island in the Sky" are both rumored to be released on DVD in May.

Both films have hardly been seen since they debuted in the theater. My father kept asking for "The High and the Mighty" for his birthday for years (knowing it wasn't available). I found a bootleg VHS transfer of the 16mm film for sale on Ebay and quenched his thirst. The quality was horrible and it cost a fortune, but he was happy.

Now it's coming on DVD, and I'm sure he'll be one of the first ones to own it.

California Senator Barbara (I have a gun permit but you can't) Boxer starting to cry over the state of Ohio being allowed to cast their 20 electoral votes.

"Secondhand Smoke Raises Cervical Cancer Risk" -- Headline, Fox (search) News

Eventually everything will be found to cause one form of cancer or another.

The idea that America not only knew about the tsunami but deliberately caused it is being floated by President Bush's naysayers. World Net Daily has a run down of the latest conspiracy theories:

The U.S. government knew of the disaster ahead of time and failed to warn Asians in affected countries, as evidenced by the American Navy base situated on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia that was alerted and escaped unscathed from the effects of the tsunamis;

Indian and U.S. military testing of weapons using electromagnetic waves triggered the earthquake;

Aliens caused the disaster as a way to correct the planet's "wobbly" rotation;

The Australian and Thai governments deliberately failed to respond to warning of the impending earthquake.

Although these wacky theories sound as though they could have come from the Democratic Underground message board, they actually come from terrorist mouthpiece Al-Jazeera. It is sometimes hard to tell the two apart.

When it comes to tsunami disaster relief, the oil-rich Muslim nations are at the bottom of the list. Peter Jennings says that it's all Bush's fault.

On Tuesday, CNN's Octavia Nasr reported that "Arab countries are at the bottom of the list" of those pledging relief. She noted how "Saudi Arabia has pledged $30 million" and contrasted it with "the $155 million raised in 2002" in a "telethon on Saudi TV for families of Palestinian suicide bombers." A few hours later, on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, Kerry Sanders pointed out how "there's a growing debate in the Arab world whether oil-rich nations have done enough to help fellow Muslims. Contributions from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar have been relatively small." But on Wednesday's World News Tonight on ABC, Jennings managed to hold the U.S. accountable for the Muslim stinginess: "In the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf, citizens are being urged to do more. Indonesia is a largely Muslim nation. Ironically, the controls on Muslim charities after 9/11 may be keeping contributions down."

Jennings offered no source or authority for his theory which aired over video of kids scooping rice into bowls. . .

Unfortunately, this high school dropout is a citizen now so we can't deport him back to Canada.

Neal Boortz has an idea about why our skools are failing. Pat Sears, a school counselor at Barnwell Elementary School near Atlanta sent home a notice telling parents how best to review their kids report cards.

Report cards can provide good opportunities for teaching children how to develop enthusiasm and positive attitudes. When you review your child's report card, be sure to focus on your child, not the grade. Focus on learning rather than on evaluation and competition. Ask questions: "What subject was most enjoyable? Which was easiest this semester? Which was harder? What do you wish you had done differently? What help do you need?

Show that you care. At this time, it is important to let children know that they are valued for more than the results of their academic efforts. Don't forget that your child will be looking at you, watching your expression, and evaluating your reaction to the report card in your hand. Continue to encourage your child to try her/his best, but remember to let the child know that her/his value to you far exceeds academic achievement in school. This is important whether the grades are excellent or in need of improvement.

As parents, we need to remember that these are opportunities for trust building and relationship building with children. We want our children to believe that they can come to us with any challenges and concerns they might have in life, and this is a good opportunity to demonstrate that to them. While we are reading that report card, the child is reading our expressions! Look up when you do it, and see your child!

This is the time to build in the security with you and to build a barrier against the peer pressure that many parents are becoming increasingly concerned about as their children get closer to teen years!

Yeah, focus on the learning but not the grade. Then you're your kid will be smart enough to become a school counselor some day.

Colleges are becoming increasingly hostile to free-thinking students. Sandi notes that on both the left and the right, professors are becoming increasingly intolerant of student's political views and even going so far as to threaten students who don't conform to their world-view.

(Link via reader, Steve Scudder)

Reuben Frank says that 2004 was the Year of the Quarterback in the NFL. Peyton Manning broke Dan Marino's 20 year old touchdown record, while he and other notables were chalking up yardage up and down the field.

Daunte Culpepper (4,717), Trent Green (4,591) and Peyton Manning (4,557) became the first trio of quarterbacks to surpass 4,500 yards in the same season in NFL history. Only once previously had two QBs thrown for 4,500 yards the same year -- Dan Marino (5,084) and Neil Lomax (4,614) in 1984.

What Frank doesn't mention is that this is also the first year that strict new pass interference rules went into effect. Cornerbacks weren't allowed to so much as breath on a receiver without drawing a flag.

The Houston Chronicle reported way back in August that Texan's coach Dom Capers had to send a tape to the NFL asking for clarification on just what was pass interference and what wasn't.

The play in question involved cornerback Jason Bell, who had position down the sideline but was called for pass interference when he turned around to look for the ball and leaned into a Dolphins receiver. The rule states that a defensive back can have no illegal contact with a receiver once he is five yards past the line of scrimmage.

"Anytime you have shoulder position and you're looking back for the ball I don't think it's a foul," Capers said. "I just want to get clarified on that because he did things exactly how we coached him out here on the practice field. You don't ever want to be coaching something that's going to get called in the game."

Having corners play further off the receiver is bound to net more yards and more touchdowns. That concept seems to have escaped the sports writers who are busy raving about shattered records.

Virginia Tech impressed some people this year. In 2004, Sports Illustrated picked the ACC Champion Hokies to finish 8th in the conference. That is why I take Stewart Mandel's 2005 Power Rankings with a grain of salt. I think it's fantastic that he picked Virginia Tech at #3, but Vick or no-Vick replacing quarterback Bryan Randall will be tough. Randall was only somewhat mobile and not a very accurate passer, but he brought leadership to the team and knew how to make plays when they needed them. Filling his shoes will be no easy task, even for Marcus Vick.

Confederate Memorial Hall at Vanderbilt University is back in the news again. The liberals that run Vanderbilt want to change the name of the hall to get that evil word "Confederate" (which means 'allied') off the front of the building. They claim that because of the memorial, their diverse faculty and student body cry themselves to sleep each night. (Okay, maybe I embellished that last part)

The building was built in the 1930s in part by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Their stipulation for helping build the hall was that it be named 'Confederate Memorial Hall' in honor of the Tenesseans who died in the Civil War.

Vandy claims that the contracts are no longer valid (they are old and dusty) and that they can rename the buildings as they please. Unfortunately for the heritage group, the evidence presented in court shows that the contract was largely oral, and what was written down was not signed. It also probably lacked words like 'forthwith' and 'heretofore'

But in my biased Southern opinion, the Daughters of the Confederacy make a very compelling argument. How can the building remain a memorial if they change the name? Indeed Vandy admits that they want to change the name for the sole purpose of making people forget about Confederates.

Also, the 1920s and 30s were a different time. People stuck to their word and an oral contract was often good enough. And the college has honored that contract for the past 75 years. If it wasn't valid, why didn't they add a corporate sponsorship as soon as the cement was dry?

Both the faculty and the students need to lighten up.

I am reminded of the kerfuffle over Lee Hall, the dormatory I lived in during my first two years at Virginia Tech. The residence hall is named after Claudius Lee, Class of '96 (that's 1896). Lee had a long and meritorius career at Virginia Tech and was a member of the faculty for 50 years. He was considered a "mechanical genius". Well, apparently someone somewhere found an old 1896 yearbook from Lee's undergraduate days that listed him as the "father of terror" and presented the "K.K.K" as a campus organization. A 1997 investigation revealed that it was just a tasteless student prank, but even 100 years after the publication the ensuing commotion resulted in proposals to change the name of Lee Hall to "Diversity Hall". (Which would have resulted in a lack of annual giving from Ravenwood.)

Cooler heads prevailed and both the ad hoc committee and University President recommended keeping the name. To help diffuse the issue, the committee even noted that "no school in the South - that is, no historically-white four-year public institution in the former Confederacy - enrolled a black undergraduate before Virginia Polytechnic Insitute did, in 1953. Tech's early encounter with desegregation came without court order, and preceded every white land-grant school in the ten states of the former Confederacy."

Of course Virginia Tech also has a large Corp of Cadets and the U.S. Military integrated at about the same time, but that's beside the point.

One of the latest anti-gun crusades seems to be legal challenges and legislative attacks on gun clubs and shooting ranges. Anti-gunners typically claim to be supporting gun safety, but not giving gun owners a place to practice shooting contradicts that dubious claim.

For the past 60 years, gun enthusiasts have been firing rounds at the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club, the largest shooting range in Southern California.

But now the club is in the crosshairs, since residents of the city of Azusa say it no longer fits in with the area's increasingly suburban way of life.

Some are lobbying the City Council to adopt a new general zoning plan that would force out the gun club when its lease expires next year.

...people who live nearby say they've put up with relentless gunfire echoing throughout the canyon, hour after hour. The firing gets so loud, they say, that they have to stay inside all day to get any peace and quiet.

Here's an idea. If you want peace and quiet, DON'T MOVE NEXT DOOR TO A GUN RANGE! It's a bit like moving to Las Vegas and trying to outlaw gambling. Or neon lights. Or Elvis.

I can't imagine why democrats hate Fox so much.

Democrats hope to block the vote for the entire state of Ohio.

Citing massive irregularities on Election Day, a handful of House Democrats and one senator plan to attempt to block Ohio's 20 electoral votes from being counted when a joint session of Congress convenes Thursday to tally results from the 2004 presidential election.

Bush won Ohio by more than 100,000 votes. The margin of victory was higher than several other states like Minnesota (98,444), and Wisconsin (11,813). It was even somewhat close to Kerry's margin of victory in Pennsylvania (128,869). Overturn any one of those states for Bush, and Ohio's 20 electoral votes don't even matter.

Ironically, the one person not contesting the election is John Kerry himself.

UPDATE: It would also appear that none of the lawmakers from Ohio are objecting to having their electoral votes counted. If they wanted to stoop to the liberal's level, maybe a bunch of red-state politicians could vote to nullify California's electoral votes.

"Sexuality is a large issue in America right now, but it isn't so much in other countries. There's a raging fundamentalism in morality in the United States. From day one audiences didn't show up. They didn't even read the reviews in the [American] south because the media was using the words: 'Alex is Gay'." -- Oliver Stone, blaming the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy for the flop of his multimillion dollar failure, Alexander.

Did you go see Alexander? No? You must be a raging moral fundamentalist then.

In April, Virginia's lying, no good, sumbitch of a democrat governor, Mark Warner, coupled with some tax and spend Republicans in the state legislature forced through the largest tax increase in the 400 year history of the Commonwealth. The lying fucktards screamed doom and gloom about not being able to pay the light bill unless they pushed through nearly $1.5 Billion in new taxes. A month after the bill passed, it was revealed that Virginia was actually running a budget surplus. At the time Governor Warner called the surplus a surprise (he had no idea, honest), but said the amount of the surplus was insubstantial.

Now, it has been revealed that Virginia has more money than lawmakers know what to do with. Nearly $1 Billion more. Will the politicians return that money to the taxpayers? Will they roll back any part of the largest tax increase in state history passed just over 6 months ago? Of course not. Now the only question is how best to spend it.

The state is enjoying an estimated $1 billion surplus from higher-than-expected tax collections, and lawmakers plan to use at least a chunk of it to pave over local unrest, especially in congested Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, caused by traffic-clogged roads and long commutes to work. [...]

The Republicans said their election-year plan -- all House members face voters in November -- would go further by establishing a continuing stream of new revenues that would pump $1.83 billion into transportation over six years.

The major new revenue sources, Republicans said, come from diverting about one-third of the state's taxes on vehicle insurance premiums, ranging from $127 million to $169 million a year, and raising about $100 million annually through imposing bigger fines on bad drivers.

House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, said the plan's provisions are "sensible solutions" for accelerating the state's transportation improvements without boosting taxes.

The Speaker says they aren't increasing taxes. But the "new revenue" stream will include diverted taxes, bigger fines, and part of this year's budget surplus (which is available only because they passed the largest tax increase in state history).

I heard that shortly thereafter Howell's pants actually burst into flames.

Last year the Washington D.C. summer jobs program employed 5,000 young people (age 14 to 21). The problem is that 9,000 people submitted an application. This year D.C. lawmakers are proposing to hire everyone that applies.

Since this is a taxpayer funded program, the city should hire the yutes as personal assistants to those that pay the most city taxes.

Geek takes a look at statistics, opinion polls, and how the news media twists them to fit their world view. But I had to chuckle at this:

But do guns make you safer? "Americans are divided on the topic," Gallup reports, with 46% saying that having a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be, and 42% saying guns make households safer.

Guns definitely make my home a more dangerous place to be... for criminals.

When the Utah Utes beat Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl, some of their fans tried running out on the field to celebrate. That's when police drew their TASER guns and opened fire. The TASER is not a "stun gun". While it is an electronic device that can be used to incapacitate a violent suspect, it can also maim or kill. It was certainly NOT designed to be used as a cattle prod for crowd control.

A University spokesman later admitted that they had attacked the students "to protect the goal posts".

The officers used the weapons at the Sun Devil Stadium in part "to protect the goal posts and the field" for an NFL game scheduled the following day, [Arizona State University spokesman Keith Jennings] said.

"It was justifiable," he said. "They were also trying to protect people, if they go down to the field and knock over the goal post, that sort of thing, we're liable if someone gets hurt. ... We just wanted to force them back into the stands."

It occured to me that I too might be liable if someone hurts themselves on my property. I wonder if the police would give me one of those zappers to keep people at bay?

The newly elected Sheriff in Clayton County (GA) is shaking up the department.

On his first day on the job, the new sheriff called 27 employees into his office, stripped them of their badges, fired them, and had rooftop snipers stand guard as they were escorted out the door.

The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. [Sheriff Victor Hill] told the newspaper their replacements would be black.

Judge Stephen Boswell issued a temporary restraining order on the grounds that Hill's firings were without merit and violated civil service laws.

Neal Boortz says that the tsunami tragedy is bringing all the socio-commies out of the woodwork, and they are calling for income redistribution and "fairness" between the haves and the have-nots.

Uh oh. Here it comes. The Independent Online Edition features an article today titled "Could the tsunami disaster be a turning point for the world?" The lead paragraph reads: "As the international aid effort grows and George Bush launches a fresh appeal, we ask politicians and commentators if 2005 might see a new determination to tackle global poverty."

So, there you go. A massive earthquake and the resulting tidal waves are somehow being translated into an urgent need to address the problem of world poverty. We all saw this one coming.

Neal goes on to catalog the numerous comments of people who seem to think the way to get poor people out of the poor house is to seize money from the evil, hated, rich people. Not once does someone mention that freedom is the real way to pull third world nations out of poverty.

New Zealand is experiencing the coldest December in 59 years. Kiwis were expecting to break out the summer clothes last month, but got snow and ice instead.

Snow, frost, hail and a tornado marked the first month of summer, with the coldest temperatures recorded in December since 1945.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research figures for last month show it was the fifth coldest since records were established in 1853. The national average temperature was just 13.4C - 2.2C below normal and more like spring than summer.

The record-breaking low temperatures not only kept the summer clothes in the cupboard but slowed the growth and ripening of berries, stone fruit and crops.

Apparently changing to the metric calendar means Summer starts in December instead of June.

An Indiana school system is using a segregation policy to ensure that peanut eating kids don't intermingle with non-peanut eaters. But it's not the kids with peanut allergies who are being shoved aside, it's the kids without them.

Savannah Dowling is a typical 8-year-old girl; much of her protein comes from peanut butter sandwiches.

However, if she wants to bring one to Central Indiana's Pleasant View Elementary School, she has to eat it at a special table in the cafeteria to accommodate one first grader with a severe allergy. Soon she'll have to take her lunch to an area the school is calling the "peanut gallery" so the one child with the peanut allergy isn't affected.

School officials have not yet decided if sugar eaters and cheese-eaters will be locked up to protect diabetics and the lactose intolerant.

New York is hoping to pass a bunch of new gun control laws this year. Apparently the lax firearms laws in New York City are causing all sorts of gun violence. Included on their wish list is a law that would allow, nay, encourage New Yorkers to sue out of state gun dealers and manufacturers. New York lawyers must be chomping at the bit.

Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn), the Council's most vocal supporter of a tough gun-liability bill, raised objections yesterday to the removal of a provision aimed at so-called bad-apple dealers.

Critics of the gun industry contend that 75% of all guns used in crimes in the city can be traced to a small number of dealers in states with lax gun laws.

As originally drafted, the Council bill would have exposed those out-of-state gun dealers to damage liability if they sold more than 20 guns within any continuous 12-month period that were subsequently traced to use in a crime here.

Maybe Yassky's cohorts removed the provision because they didn't think they could get away with it.

The Bowl Championship Series is still balking at the idea of instituting a playoff system in 1-A ball. Next year's model looks to be a selection committee.

Someone needs to sue them for false advertisement. The BCS is not national, not a championship, nor is it a series. Regardless of what system they choose, the problem will not go away so long as they continue to insist on a single "championship" game that forces the selection of two teams. It's not the way they select the teams it's the fact that they are limiting it to the arbitrarily decided top two.

An analysis I heard on the radio recently summed it up the best. The BCS is basically a marketing tool. The six major conferences have pooled their resources to sell their bowl games for a lucrative TV contract. It does create some interesting bowl matchups and some good football games. But lets at least call it what it is.

"Hi, I'm Richard Gere and I'm speaking for the entire world. We're with you during this election time. It's really important: Get out and vote." -- Richard Gere, urging Palestinians to get out the vote.

If ABC wants to boost their ratings, they should do something to keep the OU band from playing the same annoying fight song between each and every single play.

Oklahoma plays some good ball, but I don't know how their band members keep from blowing their own brains out for being forced to play the same riff over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I've been watching the Orange Bowl for five minutes now and I've already heard that infernal song 10 times. In another five minutes I'm muting the TV and putting in Disney's "It's a small world after all" soundtrack.

My schedule has been full lately and staying up late to watch the football game last night means no blog entries for today.

While I'm obviously disappointed with the results of the Sugar Bowl, it was an exciting game at the end. Virginia Tech played risky rather than conservative and ended up leaving 7 points off the board (2 FG and 1 PAT). Those are the breaks, so I'm not going to make excuses but the clock management by the officials at the end of the game was down right horrible.

I've never seen a team allowed to run so much time off the clock between snaps in College ball. College has a 0:25 second clock that starts from when the ball is set. That means that taking over with over 2:00 left to play, they should not be able to run out the clock without getting a first down.

Auburn ran a play with 2:00 left, which was whistled dead at 1:58. Granted there was some pushing and shoving, but the ball was not set until 1:31. Auburn was able to run another 25 seconds off the clock and snap the ball with about 1:07 left. That is a full 53 seconds after the play ended. That play was dead at about 1:05, and the next snap was taken at 0:22 for the end of the game. That is another 0:43 seconds, 25 of which is the game clock with the other 18 is due to the refs.

Add it all up and the refs cost the Hokies 45 seconds over two plays. Auburn couldn't have asked for more cooperation.

Also, I was a little miffed at having to listen to former Auburn coach, Terry Bowden, all night long. As if that wasn't enough, ABC brought out Auburn alumnus Charles Barkley (of basketbrawl fame) to pile it on.

I did get a chuckle out of them showing Darryl Tapp's brother who is stationed in Baghdad. Immediately after showing Darryl Tapp (who is black) on the TV screen, ABC switched to a live feed from Baghdad where Tapp's brother and other members of his military unit had gathered to watch the game. The soldier Tapp was the only black guy in a sea of about 8 to 10 white faces, and holding a VT flag, but the announcers still felt compelled to ID him each time. "Tapp's brother is the one of the left." "Tapp's brother is seated in the center... with the flag."

Nobody is picking the underdog? I've seen lots of predictions about the Sugar Bowl tonight, and the consensus seems to be that it will be a tough game, but Auburn will come out ahead. The Las Vegas oddsmakers are giving Tech 5 to 7 points.

Fox Sports (CFN) Auburn 26, VT 17

CNN (Sports Illustrated) Auburn 34, VT 24

CNN/SI (Mandel) Auburn 24, VT 14

MSNBC Auburn 24, VT 21

Given that a recent poll on ESPN showed that 85% of respondents think Auburn is going to win, you aren't going very far out on a limb by picking Auburn. I think they might be overstating Auburn's chances however, especially since they still seem to be fixated on winning the national championship rather than the Sugar Bowl. Auburn isn't the only one looking to prove something:

"There are two national championship games," [Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville] insisted. "There's one here at the Sugar Bowl, and there's another one at the Orange Bowl." [...]

Said Tuberville: "Obviously, we feel like there's one more vote. We'll be auditioning."

Overlooked in this whole process is Virginia Tech (10-2), which must feel like a Ford Pinto on display at a classic car show.

"Nobody's really giving us a chance," defensive end Noland Burchette said. "Every commentator, every news reporter I see, they think it's going to be a blowout."

Personally, I don't make predictions. One reason being that I think they are bad luck, and another reason being that I am obviously biased for Virginia Tech. Rather than ask my who I think is going to win, you should just ask me by how much I think Virginia Tech is going to win. Hell, I was confident that we'd beat USC, and we know how that turned out.

There is one thing I am sure of, the chance for drunken revelry tonight is nearly 100%.

GO HOKIES!

CNN reports that researchers have discovered the deepest coral reef in the United States off the coast of Florida. At 250 feet deep, scientists were not even sure the reef could survive in such low sunlight. Of course now that they've discovered something neat, scientists feel compelled to preserve it. Naturally, they want to rein in the rights of everyone else, including others who also make their living from the sea.

Officials who oversee the gulf are now wondering how to preserve the reef.

The scientists' research has been presented to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, which will decide in the coming months whether to restrict fishing or trawling in the area.

We have officials who oversee the Gulf of Mexico?

Now, I understand that dragging fishing nets along the sea floor could potentially damage the reef. But so what? What right gives these scientists and conservationalists more access to the sea than anyone else? Most of the people that would come down on the side of conservation are people who would never visit the reef any way.

It seems to me that a fishery management whatever-it-is would have the job of preserving fishing waters for years to come. That is, they would manage fishing only such that waters don't become devoid of fish. I could see where they would want to limit the size and number of fish taken to preserve the sport and economy of fishing for generations to come. But lets hope they don't become a political pawn of environmental groups, who won't let you fill in that pothole in your back yard because they consider it a pristine wetlands.

As if I needed to justify my reason for carrying a gun, this fatal shooting occured right next door to where I live. (Full article posted below.)

A man was shot dead in a parking lot behind Springfield Mall on Thursday, authorities said.

The body of James Ridley, 25, of Camp Springs, Md., was found in a black Toyota parked outside a Subway sandwich shop.

"As we were going into the store a woman was just screaming. She seemed like she needed help, and we went to see what was wrong. And there was a gentleman in the car who appeared to be bleeding from his nose," said Tina Harris, who happened onto the scene.

Police said Ridley was shot in the upper body. The gunman then fled.

Investigators were trying to determine what led to the shooting and were checking with businesses in the area to see if a surveillance camera captured the crime.

Like I've said before, police are able to prevent crime only about 5% of the time. The other 95% they investigate after the fact.

What is Sloth?

What it is: Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Why you do it: You're shiftless, lazy, and good fer nuthin'.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be thrown into snake pits.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Sloth is linked with the goat. . .and the color light blue.

What does it all mean? It is the reason why there is no posting yet today.