The Carnival's up, a few items, and this year's favorite videos

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A few current news items from Maria and Larwyn:
Dictator's daughter told her father would hang as she enjoyed beauty salon

In the beauty salon, and elsewhere in the Jordanian capital Amman, the 39-year-old mother of five, who is nicknamed "Little Saddam' because her temperament so closely resembles that of her father, is much-feared.

Especially if her upper lip is not waxed just right.

Knowing the enemy, and a World Exclusive: Saddam Hussein's Last Interview.

Nancy's going to have a heck of a time Draining the swamp.

My neighbor TigerHawk explains Some of the things I believe, but cannot prove: regarding risk
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My two favorite You Tube videos this year:
First, Bryn having a haptic moment:

Too bad I sing like a frog or I'd audition for her understudy. Love the Spanish subtitles, too.

and second, the cannonball guy:

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The last Christmas card of the year, from Maria.
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In case you're wondering, I don't do year-end predictions, and I never make New Year's resolutions. Have a wonderful New Year's eve.

How I almost made $5 this morning

As the NYT won't listen to my very assertive requests to cancel my subscription, I browsed through the contents of this morning's edition and found their annual Sunday Magazine obituary issue, quaintly named "The Lives They Lived".


The front page shows in neon signs JUNE ALLYSON EUGENE LANDY STEVE HOWE and a dozen others. Before looking inside, I said to The Husband, who was just getting out of bed and had walked into the kitchen for a glass of water,

I bet you $5 they don't mention Jeane Kirkpatrick.

The Husband might have been half-asleep but is very familiar with the NYT editorial criteria.

He declined to wager. Darn.

Sure enough, no Jeane Kirkpatrick. Instead, they had Anais Nin's "other husband", and the Naked Guy. Can't say I had heard of those two before.

At least The Economist showed more grace: in their year-end "Special Holiday Double Issue", they have her obituary, along with op-ed comment ("Certain sentences from her most famous article, "Dictatorships and Double Standards" - written on her summer holiday in France, published in Commentary magazine in November 1979 - now induce a sigh." [link added], and we all know how deeply The Economist has been sighing):

Her actual job was ambassador to the United Nations, the first woman to do it. She found the UN a dangerous place, the work miserable, and Security Council debates "more like a mugging than anything else". There, too, her shade seemed to haunt the corridors in the days before she died. Her style at the General Assembly was a model for John Bolton's, confrontational and blunt to a degree, and the present ambassador, as he resigned amid general hooting, candidly acknowledged his debt to her. But times were different then. Mrs Kirkpatrick represented an America that had become, under Jimmy Carter, an apologetic and unconfident country. She saw no need to compromise or conciliate on anything, but instead came out furiously fighting against the "expansionist" Soviet Union and its client states. "There is...only one revolutionary society in the contemporary world," she cried in 1984, "and that is our society."

America still remains the one revolutionary society in the contemporary world. Thank you, Ambassador Kirkpatrick.
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Cinnamon Stillwell writes about how the Experts Discover Men And Women Are Different! Cinnamon explains,

The manly virtues include character, confidence, honor, inner strength, pride, responsibility, loyalty, generosity, industry and dignity.

The antidote to the trans confusion, male girlfriends, and weepie guys? The Discovery Channel Guys, of course! Not one wuss in the lot - and Bear Grylls looks great without a shirt on.

Unfortunately he waited to take off his shirt until he was adrift on the Pacific Ocean, but still...

Saddam to hang at 10PM EST

A top Iraqi official said Saddam will be executed before 10 p.m. EST Friday.

I certainly hope al-Jazeera carries the execution. This is why:
Earlier this year when I went to listen to Dan Senor, one of the main points he made was that

Arab Muslims are voting and holding their governments accountable; al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya have broadcast this around the regions... This is very powerful and very important.

Specifically, on Saddam's trial, he stated,

The trial sends a message to almost every ruler who identifies with Saddam. The only thing that never happened is the governments to be held accountable - until now. The trial's being aired by al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. Senor spent half a day with one of Saddam's attorneys and was told that other area rulers are terrified, and particularly mentioned Al-Assad.

One dramatic development in the trial in recent days was Saddam's admission that he was responsible for the 1981 assassination of a small Sunni town where 150 people killed and the town was razed.

It is important for Iraq to close this 3-decade chapter [in its history].

Let's not underestimate the power the image of Saddam's execution will carry across the Middle East.

Update Round-up at Right Voices

Iraq The Model has the latest.

Update, Saturday December 30 While CNN spouts off how Saddam - whose own official documents suggest that a staggering 5 million executions were made during Baath era alone - was a"champion of the Arab cause", Gateway Pundit points out that Saddam was hanged inside one of his former torture centres. As I said above, area rulers are watching.
The Anchoress, who's a much better woman than I, grapples with the issues of morality. Me, I'm glad the SOB's dead. So is Pamela.

And now for The Very Briefest of Neocon Retrospectives. More from Claudia Rosett.

Another update: Again, we can be proud that the United States of America brought him down. And that no dictator can ever feel entirely safe again.

Hat tips: Larwyn

Later update, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred and Dr Sanity examine the reaction from the Left.

Ken's idea of a good time = celebrate tyranny's Golden Jubilee

When he's not using taxpayer money to pay for high-ticket lawyers to defend him from bloggers, Red Ken's always looking for a good time.

What better, then, than to pull out all the stops in 2009 to celebrate 50 years of communist paradise in Cuba?

And it's going to be an all-out all-city event:

The event, to be staged in 2009, will involve street parties, sports venues and some of London's leading museums as well as the closure of Trafalgar Square.

Although the Mayor's office refused to provide budget estimates, it could cost up to £2 million.

Even when Ken says,

"We've got the backing of the Cuban government for a massive festival to celebrate 50 years of justice in Cuba,"

one can't help but realize that
1. the Cuban government's backing won't include financing
2. Ken's idea of "justice" is, in a word, perverse.

However, since the celebration won't take place for another 2 years, here's to hoping that by then Cuba will enjoy a free society.

Now, that would be cause to celebrate: I love Trafalgar Square - I might even join in.

Badillo speaks out on education

In today's WSJ, Stalled in America: Why one Hispanic immigrant is being trashed for his blueprint for success

Like many millions of other immigrants, New Yorker Herman Badillo is living the American Dream. His new book, "One Nation, One Standard," is a call to arms for Hispanics who are being shut out of that dream. So why are some of Mr. Badillo's fellow Hispanic Americans now calling him a race traitor and bashing his book even before it was published yesterday?

Strictly speaking, Herman Badillo's not an immigrant, since he was born an American citizen, and, as I have said earlier, "Hispanic" is a convenient construct, but the article is very interesting:

first consider the credentials Mr. Badillo brings to his subject. He arrived in the U.S. as an 11-year-old orphan in 1941 and by 1970 was elected the first Puerto Rican-born U.S. congressman. Mr. Badillo has since been deputy mayor of New York under Ed Koch, run for mayor himself and was former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's counsel on education, eventually leading efforts to reform and restore to excellence the City University of New York system.

Out of this experience comes Mr. Badillo's blueprint for immigrant success in America. The main focus of "One Nation, One Standard" is the Hispanic community, and his central theme is education, without which, he emphasizes, no amount of work or other opportunity will help a person rise. What's got his critics in a tizzy is Mr. Badillo's assertion that Hispanic parents cannot depend on the government to educate their children.

As a parent, I would insist that no parent can depend on the government to educate their child. In a true sense, education implies a formation on moral, intellectual and social values that transcends the classroom, and which can not be provided by a school.

In the case of immigrants, as I blogged about last year, prior generations of immigrants were directed towards what it meant to live in an American culture by school and other social institutions, and now schools purposely avoid doing that for the sake of multiculturalism.

Instead, he says, they must push their kids and rise up against a system that steers Hispanic and other minority children into segregated classrooms of designated underachievers.

The most grievous mistake any parent can make is to allow their child to be placed in bilingual ed. As Dr. Krauthammer noted,

As the results in California have shown with Hispanic children, it delays assimilation by perhaps a full generation. Those in "English immersion" have more than twice the rate of English proficiency of those in the "bilingual" system (being taught other subjects in Spanish while being gradually taught English).

However, school administrators who get funding for bilingual programs will place the children in those programs because it justifies their jobs and it generates funding. By doing so, they deny these children the means to success not only in our country but across the world.

The article on Badillo continues,

The critics have focused on a few phrases in the book noting that the Hispanic immigrant community has not always placed as high a value on education as, for instance, Asians have. This is not an insult and does not sound like one when you actually read his book.

It is not an insult - it is the truth.

As Mr. Badillo explains, the Hispanic cultural experience was formed in part by centuries of Spanish colonialism and the feudalism it spawned in Latin America, followed by decades of dictatorships and strongmen. This cruel legacy has imbued many people with a subconscious notion that stations in life don't change, and a sense that help can only come through the luck of having a benevolent leader.

"One Nation, One Standard" calls on Hispanic Americans to throw off those mental shackles and claim the rights and opportunities that other citizens enjoy. His goal, he told us in an interview this week, is to sound an alarm that what is now the country's major immigrant group is at risk of becoming the first such group not to follow the path of each generation doing better than the last.

After I left liberalism I've disagreed with many of Badillo's politics, and I'm glad to see that he refers to himself as an ex-liberal. He's right on the mark when it comes to education. The book is called One Nation, One Standard: An Ex-Liberal on How Hispanics Can Succeed Just Like Other Immigrant Groups, and I'll be reading it.

Venezuela

The latest from Venezuela is that Chavez to shut down opposition TV

The Devil's Excrement compares Latin America to Asia:

The problem is regional. Most countries in Latin America, with the relative exceptions of Brazil and Chile, continue to be focused on commodities and some basic products derived from them.

Asia has been going the other way, looking for the growth needed to improve the life of their populations, China, India, Korea, Malaysia and other countries in the region have bent over to attract foreign investment and create friendly atmospheres for them. Some like India had excellent educational systems in place. Others decided to invest not only in education, but in high quality education at all levels and staring from the bottom.

Venezuela News and Views looks at The new Venezuela: Chavez or else and how the cult of uniformity kills natural joy.

Alek Boyd is closing up VCrisis,

I once felt that my dignity was being trampled upon. I once believed that by exposing the vices and double discourse of chavismo I was doing my bit for my country. No more. Most of my countrymen, on both sides of the divide, think otherwise and behave accordingly. Chavismo is but a manifestation of Venezolanismo and its time has come. The country has changed for good, those who were in the back of the list are now in power and with a fresh mandate. Whatever comes after depends on them, in the meanwhile many folks around are having the time of their lives.

I had a very interesting conversation after the Venezuelan election with Miguel, Alek and Daniel, in which Daniel said that he had predicted that Chavez would win, but not even the Chavistas were predicting the 20 point lead. In today's WSj, Mary Anastasia O'Grady's article, The Populist Persuasion explores Venezuelan and Latin American politics:

To make a proper analysis of the political scene at the start of 2007, let's first dispel the myth that Latin Americans rushed to embrace Marxist revolution at the polls in 2006. There were hard-left "victories" in Venezuela and Bolivia but neither of those elections qualify as democratic. The Venezuelan contest was riddled with irregularities, including and unaudited voter registry, and Chavez-controlled judiciary and electoral council, and the incumbent's use of state oil revenues in the campaign. It is impossible to divine voter preferences in that race.

(You can listen to my Pajamas Media podcast with Daniel for a detailed explanation of the labyrinthine Venezuelan electoral process.)

O'Grady's article contains one object lesson for the USA:

But there's another reason, too, I think, that Latin America cannot seem to get out of the spin cycle of populism. And that is the intellectual impoverishment the region suffered in the second half of the 20th century, when the state got control of academia and the liberal debate about what constitutes a free society was silenced. The observation of Venezuelan-born journalist Carlos Ball in this column on Jan. 5, 2001 - that after 40 years of far-left control of "the schools, the univerisities and arts" in Venezuela "the general public [had] fallen under a well-organized system of leftist indoctrination" - applies to the vast majority of Latin nations.

And it also could in the long run apply to the USA, as many institutions are grappling with that problem.

O'Grady ends her article by explaining,

Defeating chavismo is as much about refuting an ideology that rejects individual liberty as it is about containing a military threat. This requires a challenge to the populist paradigm that now pervades Latin political thought. It is an achievable goal but one that, as Mr. Ayau can attest after years of hard work, won't come easy. Until we get such an intellectual breakthrough, expect persistent instability and lots of Latin emigrants, with or without Chavez.

It doesn't take a psychic to forecast that 2007 will bring more of the same.

Update ... meanwhile, in London ...

Bloggers in Lebanon

Michael Totten's back in Lebanon, and has a terrific report on Hezbollah's Putsch - Day One, with his own photos. As always, Michael does exceptionally good blogging and you must read the entire post. One thing is clear, Michael loves Lebanon and its people.

Mary joined Michael in Beirut, and she also has pictures.

Judith went to Israel and later met with Mary.

Three fascinating reports by three bloggers I've had the honor of meeting, and who I greatly admire.

Meanwhile Hezbullah has been handing out cash rewards based on the number of Jews killed and injured by 'Palestinian' Kassam rockets that are shot from the Gaza Strip

Hugh pounded him to a pulp

Joe Rago gets his butt handed to him. Hugh Hewitt did the honors:

what is it about this vast collection of pensions, and time servers, and tenured editorialists, and beat reporters covering car crashes, that makes it better than the blogosphere?

JR: I'm sorry, I'm not following the question.

HH: What is journalism, in your eye, that blogosphere isn't? What's so great about the mainstream media?

You can listen to it here.

While Joe, who graduated college less than 2 years ago and is twenty-three years old (I have a pair of Ferragamos that are older than him), was clearly outclassed in every way, what I want to know is, why did the WSJ publish his ridiculous article on its op-ed page? This wet-behind-the-ears kid hasn't even bothered to read the WSJ's own Best of the Web, which showcases exactly that: the best of the web.

Maybe the WSJ wanted the bloggers to blog about it?
(h/t Larwyn)

Update: An exploration of the blogosphere by someone much more knowledgeable and experienced, The Blogosphere at War, and the information warriors.

Reid to Bolivia, grim milestones, and other items

Reid to Bolivia
Elephants in Academia emailed with this news, Sen. Harry Reid Traveling to Bolivia This Week

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will join a bipartisan delegation on a trip that includes stops in Bolivia and Ecuador, two members of Latin America's recently emerging left. International trade and anti-drug efforts are among the topics on the senators' agenda.

As Academic Elephant said,

I'm sure Amauris Sanmartino is top on their agenda.

Amauris Sanmartino's the Cuban dissident critical of President Evo Morales' ties to Havana. Even when he's a permanent resident in Bolivia, he was arrested and will be deported to Cuba. Babalu has where to contact Harry Reid on behalf of Dr. Sanmartino. (Update: Dr Sanmartino's going to Gitmo)

Harry will miss the funeral

Grim milestones
Barcepundit says, WHAT A MORONIC REPORT. Go read about it.

Moral exhibitionism
Dr. Sowell writes,

Progressives are in the business of complaining and denouncing -- as a prelude to seeking sweeping powers to control other people's lives, in the name of curing the ills of society. The last thing they want is to discover and discuss how millions of people rose out of poverty by entirely different methods, often by freeing economies from the control of people with sweeping power over other people's lives. Poverty and economic disparities are the raw materials from which the political left manufactures a sense of moral superiority, self-importance and political power. Against that background, it is understandable how they strive to keep poverty alive as an issue, even as they claim to want to end poverty, by playing lady bountiful to the poor. Even as they define deviancy downward, many of the progressive intelligentsia define poverty upward, so that people with amenities that even the middle class could only strive for, two generations ago, are still called "the poor" or the "have-nots." Except for people who can't work or won't work, there is very little real poverty in the United States today, except among people who come from poverty-stricken countries and bring their poverty with them. Talk about "the working poor" still resonates in politics, but most of the people in the bottom 20 percent of American households are not working full-time and year-round. There are more heads of household who work year-round and full-time among the top 5 percent of American heads of households than among the bottom 20 percent. The left has striven mightily to make working no longer necessary for having a claim to a share of what others have produced -- whether a share of "the nation's" wealth or "the world's" wealth. They have also striven mightily to inflate the number of people who look poor by counting young people with entry-level jobs, who are passing through lower income brackets at the beginning of their careers, among "the poor," even though most of these young people have incomes above the national average when they are older. The real obsession of the left is in gaining power or, at the very least, engaging in moral exhibitionism.

Peace Prize, you ask?
Via Larwyn, Arafat's Orchestration of 1973 Murders Acknowledged by State Department

How much different would the history of the Middle East be if the world had been forced to face the reality of Arafat's involvement in the murder of American diplomats over 30 years ago?

Update Doug Ross has The Friends of Terror Scrapbook

Two podcasts
Louisiana Conservative interviewed Wild Bill. You can listen to the podcast here

If you haven't listened to it yet, go to Eternity Road and listen to Francis Porretto's wonderful tale fo the Census taker

Last, but not least
a truly beautiful post.

Update
Edwards Enters Race

The Spanish surgeon

The Spanish surgeon's been in the news, not to be confused with the Spanish Prisoner,

The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence game dating back to 1588
...
Key features of the Spanish Prisoner are the emphasis on secrecy and the trust the confidence artist is placing in the mark not to reveal the prisoner's identity or situation. The confidence artist will often claim reputation for honesty and straight dealing, and may appear to structure the deal so that the confidence artist's ultimate share of the reward will be distributed voluntarily by the mark.

Of course one's stretching the imagination when trying to find any similarities between the Spanish surgeon and the Spanish Prisoner ploys. What's clear is that the Cuban free-healthcare apartheid system doesn't even work for the big honcho:
Reuters says, Spanish surgeon rushed to treat Castro:

Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, an intestinal specialist, traveled to the Caribbean island on Thursday aboard an aircraft chartered by the Cuban government, according to Spain's left-leaning El Periodico de Catalunya newspaper.

The plane carried medical equipment not available in Cuba in case the leader needs further surgery due to his progressively failing health, the newspaper reported.

By the way, in Spain, conservative politicians questioned the use of Spanish funds to pay for medicines being sent to the Cuban leader since June (h/t Val). But I digress.

The Beeb's a little more specific about Dr Garcia Sabrido's skills:

Dr Garcia is an expert on intestinal ailments, particularly cancer.

If you do a Google Scholar search, here's Neoadjuvant Chemoradiation With Tegafur in Cancer of the Pancreas: Initial Analysis of Clinical Tolerance and Outcome and Dr. Garcia Sabrido also presented a paper at the 2nd World Congress of the World Federation of Surgical Oncology Societies, Naples, Italy, September 19-22, 2001: the doctor's a cancer specialist.

Therefore, when the doctor categorically says,

"He hasn't got cancer," Garcia Sabrido said, adding that he believed Castro could be physically capable of running the country again. "While respecting confidentiality, I can tell you that President Castro is not suffering from any malignant sickness."

one must believe him. You can even watch him say it.

After all, as Taranto points out,

Of course, Spanish doctors have lots of experience dealing with dictators who are still dead.

This is all speculation on my part, folks. Nothing to report ... for now.

Give Sadr the Treatment, and today's other items

Give Sadr the Treatment: How to beat Iraq's Shiite extremists

What I'm trying to say here is that the military component we need at this particular stage should be different from the routine military operations that U.S. and Iraqi military had been conducting so far.

The new military component should be designed to create a friendly climate where politicians can strike deals and reach compromise without coercion from radical extremists.

And so if more boots are to be added on the ground then the mission will have to include freeing politicians and parties such as Nouri al-Maliki and Tariq al-Hashimi (of the Dawa and the Islamic party respectively) from the ropes that bind them to Muqtada al-Sadr and harmful elements in the Sunni political scene.

Right now is a good time, perhaps the best time we have, to launch this effort since there's already a large front forming from the parties that are willing to talk against the extremists' camp.

If the way forward requires maintaining the basic course of the political process and empowering (and cleaning) the current government and its head then the only way to do this is to relieve Mr. Maliki, his party and the rest of the Shia alliance from the dominance and influence of Sadr, and there are two ways to accomplish this: either persuade Mr. Maliki and his team and promise them great support and protection from Sadr's reach, or deal a lethal blow to Sadr and his militia in order to render him unable to inflict harm on Mr. Maliki and other members of the United Iraqi Alliance.

Now really, it shouldn't be that difficult to figure out that the first way isn't working out right, what's needed now is to take the decision to try the second way and deal with the biggest threat to stability in Iraq in the way we should.

Holidays in the news:
Via Bill, Kwanzaa -- Racist Holiday from Hell

John Kerry wasn't in a holiday mood ...

An exercise in arrogance: The Beeb's Channel 4 presumes to tell Christians what Christmas is about by having a Muslim woman deliver an "alternate" Christmas message. Here's the video:

The Hajj starts tomorrow. Will the Beeb's Channel 4 have a Christian woman give Muslims an "alternative" pilgrimage message?

Point - counterpoint on Indonesia:
Friendly Muslims vs. Here Dhimmi Dhimmi Dhimmi...

Books, and other items from Larwyn, Cinnammon and Maria
Austin Bay reviews Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Alexandra and Dr. Sanity ponder Iran.

Via Larwyn, Books on my Amazon Wish List
and
Now, Murtha's Lobbyist Connections Come Into Question. Now isn't it precious, as the Church Lady would say, having a lobbying group's acronym spell P-A-I-D?

Via Cinnammon, The Sandy Berger Experiment: Bush Official Destroyed 9/11 Documents

Via Maria, the US Navy Presidential Ceremonial Honor Guard Drill Team:


More blogging later.

Venezuela: You gotta have faith

At Publius Pundit, the latest trend in the cult of personality: CHAVEZ GOES JIM JONES. The post links to this article, Archbishop Hugo Chavez?

According to media reports coming out of Latin America, President Chavez is considering a proposal that would establish him as the high priest of his own form of evangelical Christianity, convert his cabinet members into bishops of a lower rank, and submit church activities to the civil and military power of his government.

It is still unclear who is behind the proposal. Publicly, it has taken the form of a petition by leaders of "Centro Cristiano de Salvacion (Christian Center of Salvation). The association claims to represent 17,000 evangelical churches and 5,000,000 Venezuelans. Their request is simple: make their denomination the country’s official religion, teach it in all public schools and pay the pastors from government coffers. In turn, they will make Chavez their head bishop and promise to submit absolutely to his authority.

Chavez' political critics say the petition is anything but spontaneous and independent. Edgar Zambrano, a deputy of the Venezuelan National Assembly, told the Spanish newspaper "El Mundo" that he has no doubt that "President Chavez is the one behind the proposed law." Human rights groups are crying unfair play, warning this may be a government-orchestrated ploy to wrest away power from yet another sector of Venezuelan society, while allowing Chavez to appear to be merely acquiescing to popular acclaim.

As Robert Mayer commented,

Turkmenbashi dies... and the next day, is reborn in Venezuela!

Robert's referring to Turkmenistan's dead dictator.

Meanwhile at Miguel Octavio's blog

This year there will be fewer of us. Some have emigrated in what appears to be an irreversible trend. Not only some siblings, but even more from the next generation. Others have left on vacation outside the country. Through the magic of technology, we will use webcams to watch each other open presents wherever they are. There will be no all nighter either, there are no kids left who still believe in Niño Jesus to watch open the presents in the morning.

Every year in the morning I would think this was the last year I would stay up, but I would always forget it the next year. I guess this time I will miss the all nighter, and the arepas in the morning too, but mostly, I will just miss those that are not here...because Christmas is less Christmas without all of them here...

The Discovery Channel Guys

After two days away from political blogging, I'm still not in political news mode, so there.

Being the only female in the house I'm outvoted when it comes to TV selections, so I've watched a lot of Discovery Channel stuff over time.

I love the Discovery Channel guys.

My first pick is my fantasy cab ride, The Cash Cab. The Cash Cab's the only game show I can stand. There's this guy named Ben who drives a New York city taxi and he asks you trivia questions. If you get the questions right he gives you money. If you don't, you still get a free cab ride: A win-win situation.

I've been taking cabs in NYC for over 25 years and one can only dream of finding a
1. nice American cab driver
2. who speaks English
3. knows where he's going
4. and doesn't drive like he's in the throes of demonic posession.
Making $500 after answering a few questions would only be the icing on the cake. The Cash Cab is on at 5PM while I plan and make dinner, at the same time as Larry Kudlow's program on CNBC, which comes to think of it, has also made me a little money.

The Dirty Jobs marathon was playing on Christmas Eve while I was cooking. Mike, the show's host, has achieved fame and fortune by finding the grossest, messiest jobs around and building a TV program about them. All the jobs require a great deal of physical extertion. Most of the jobs are done by men, with a few exceptions, such as the lady that shucks oysters and the Army maintenance engineer. Some of the jobs - such as silkscreening - require great skill and training, and others are simply disgusting, but Mike's there, showing us that there is great pride in doing a job well, and that these jobs are indispensable to the functioning of our society:

But you'll walk away from Dirty Jobs with more than just a glimpse into unfamiliar occupational duties - serving slop to pigs, collecting sperm from stallions and removing bones from fish, for example. If you're like us, you'll also gain a new understanding and appreciation for all the often-unpleasant functions someone is shouldering to make your everyday life easier, safer - and often cleaner.

Mike's nice-looking and seems like a real nice guy but I hope he gets good and clean before he heads home after he's done. You don't want him bringing that stuff into your house.

I wasn't sure whether to include Man vs. Wild on this post, because I think the premise is crazy. So I (F) discussed with my son (S), and the conversation went like this,

F: It's crazy.
S: It's not!
F: I've watched the program and the guy's crazy.
S: He's not crazy. He's cool.
F: OK, I'll look up the program on the website. What's the guy's name?
S: Bear.
F: The guy's named Bear?
S: That's his real name. Bear Grylls.
F: That explains a number of things.
S: Like what?
F: Like why he has a job that requires him to be dewormed after he's done in the jungle.
S (Patiently explaining to the obviously clueless mother): It's called surviving, Mom. The idea is to go to the jungle and survive.
F: My idea would be to go to Club Med in Cancun and have a great time.
S: He's not going to do that - he was Special Ops in the British Army, and did a program on the French Foreign Legion. And he can fish with his bare hands.
F: That, too?
S: Oh yeah, he's cool.
F; You're right. I'll include him in the post.

But my favorites are Adam and Jamie of Mythbusters, which yesterday had a marathon while I was cooking. (Do I see a pattern here?) Adam and Jamie do actual science experiments while having a great deal of fun (they do get to blow up a lot of stuff), and their crew are definitely cool. However, The Husband, who worked as a scientist in a lab, complains about their lack of safety measures, especially when it comes to flammable materials.

I'm sure I'm not the only Mythbusters fan out there since last Friday I nearly started an altercation at the Barnes and Noble at Marketfair. I was looking for this book and for a last-minute gift when I saw a lady go by carrying a copy of MythBusters: Don't Try This at Home. I was standing at the Information desk while the clerk looked up some information for me, and I asked her where the book was. She said she'd go and get it for me while I picked up the Che book.

She was back before I got back to the Information desk, and waiving the book in the air said, "Mythbusters book!" Four people raised their hands trying to grab at the book while the clerk fought them off.

She managed to tell them where the book was, and as I headed to the register with the copy she'd found me, I saw two people getting in a tug of war over the one copy left at the display.

As I'm writing this post American Chopper's Christmas special's playing. I haven't watched American Chopper yet. No time like the present - they're making Santa a motorcycle.
-----------------------------------------
Not related to the Discovery Channel, but cool,

Recipe: Bacalao en escabeche

This is a traditional Puerto Rican dish, marinated salted codfish.

Ingredients and utensils you'll need:
2 lbs dried salted codfish (bacalao)
a glass covered dish (I use an old Pyrex oval covered dish).
1 cup flour
1 gallon-size zip-loc bag
a large frying pan
2 large onions
6 cloves of garlic
2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbs pepercorns
2 bay leaves
2 tbs capers
1 cup of large green olives stuffed with pimentos
1/2 cup of wine vinegar

Rinse 2 lbs of salted bacalao (dried salted codfish), and place in a glass dish. Fill the dish with enough water to cover the fish. Cover.
If you're working ahead of time you can leave it soaking in the refrigerator overnight. Otherwise, drain and replace the water once every hour for at least 4 hours.
(I do not advise soaking the fish in milk to drain the salt.)

After 4 hours, remove the fish from the water, rinse again, and dry with a paper towel. Cut in 2" long pieces.
In a gallon-size zip-loc bag, pour 1 cup of flour. Place the pieces of fish one at a time in the bag, zip, and shake to cover with flour. Place on a plate.

Slice 2 large onions, and peel 6 cloves of garlic. Leave the garlic cloves intact.

On a large frying pan, pour 2 cups of the best quality extra-virgin olive oil you can afford, and heat on a medium flame. Add the fish, turn the fish over after 4 minutes, and add the onions, the bay leaves, pepercorns, and the garlic. Lower the flame to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the capers and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Remove from the flame, and let it cool for 20 minutes.

After it's cooled for 20 minutes, place the fish on the bottom of a large glass caserole, add the onions, and the olives. Pour 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar and then add all the oil and everything that remained from the frying pan. Cover and place in the refrigerator. Marinade for at least 3 hours before serving. The longer it marinades the better it'll taste. Preferrably, let it marinade overnight.

Serve at room temperature over freshly-boiled yuca (you can buy it frozen), or if you can't find any, cooked white rice. Make sure to remove the garlic and bay leaves before serving. Serves six.

A couple of things to bear in mind:
Since it takes such a long preparation time, I only make this a couple of times a year. As I've said before, I'm all for a simple menu.
The better the quality of the ingredients, the better it'll taste. Make sure to get the best extra-virgin olive oil, capers, olives, and bay leaf.
Purists prefer Betis brand olive oil, but I like extra-virgin olive oil.
Traditionally you'd use a cast-iron frying pan, but I prefer my Emerilware Stainless 12-Inch Fry Pan that can be placed in the dishwasher.
If you like it zippier, add more vinegar. I prefer a milder taste.
The reason for using a glass dish is that you must use a non-reactive non-porous material to marinade the fish.
Open a window a bit, and wash down the kitchen surfaces after you're through cooking because the cooking smells will linger.
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In other cooking news, down in Miami this year's ManCamp was more eventful than usual: both Steve and Val got injured.
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Back in NJ, after all this eating I'm heading to the gym right now. Will post more later.

'Twas the Blogger's Night Before Christmas...

... and Neo-neocon has the poem!

Merry Christmas!

My friend Maria took this picture last year (this year we're nice and warm and sunny):

Wishing all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful, healthy and prosperous 2007,
Fausta

PS, Don't forget to track Santa
PPS, if the kids ask how does he do it, here's a post on Santa Claus high-tech tools

"Ne jamais ecraser le buste vers l'assiette"

"Don't put your bust in your plate" (and how would I do that in the first place??), and don't moan over the beef Wellington, says the Belle Ecole. Like they do in Latin America, make sure to keep your hands on the table.

If all these rules prove to be too much, you then have to find a French guy to pour you a glass of wine. Luckily, that's the easy part. The difficult part's getting rid of him once you have your drink.

Yup. They're from France.
--------------------------------
Drink 'cuts brain injury damage'.
No word as to whether you should pour yourself the drink, or find the French guy.
--------------------------------
Yes, the NYT is still being delivered. On today's front page, the story of the mother of all Freudian slips. Says the article,

"It's very Freudian."

At least it didn't involve his mother.
--------------------------------
ATTENTION, LAST MINUTE SHOPPERS (h/t Beth)
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The Doctor has the Insanities!

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Burberry news the Anchoress will find interesting,


More blogging later if time allows.

And in a lighter mode, Junk Bond!

Via Ace (whose commenter's phrase I "borrow"),

Daniel Craig is urging movie bosses to revolutionise the James Bond franchise by including a gay scene involving the superspy in the follow-up to Casino Royale.

So much for that. As they say in my native land,
Adios, James.

Update, Sunday, December 24: Looks like he didn't say it, after all.
In that case, Nos vemos, James

Today's must-reads: SC&A and Eternity Road

Two exceptionally good posts from two of the brightest bloggers around:

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred's post Monsters From Within, Monsters From Without goes a long way towards explaining, as he so well puts it,

the origins of widely accepted terror as an acceptable form of political or religious expression

I had posed a question during an email exchange, and here's part of Siggy's post to that question (emphasis added):

Radical Islam has assumed the face and costume of militancy and violence, not the face of theology. The gun- and frenzied use of the gun, has become a part of the faith. This of course, is clearly antithetical to Judeo-Christian values, moral and principles (The Church never advocated the butcher and slaughter of all non believers). Democracies do not settle differences with violence- and in large measure, that is why the Islamists reject dealing with us. The Islamists are willing to engage us violently because they believe that secularism abhors conflict- and thus, we are theirs for the taking. They understand they will not have to face equal or violent consequences of their actions. That in itself is one definition of the 'Clash of Civilizations.'

That is why they oppose a peace deal with Israel, real democracy within the Palestinian Authority, Iraq or anywhere else in the region. In their minds, democracy, freedom and peace means that secularists have asserted their dominion over Islamism. That notion is intolerable- and as many as need be will die preserving the illusion that democracy, freedom and peace are evil and in opposition to Islam. They deliberately define democracy as a religion in opposition to Islam. That is why their opposition to democracy is so fierce. To believe in democracy is to be apostate and thus, deserving of death.

Modernity is also suspect is the Muslim world. We can define modernity as the change brought about by self expression, higher education and modern economies that function efficiently and seamlessly. Ayatollah Khomeini resisted modernity, as do the Saudis, ostensibly for religious reasons. That said, Saudi ideologies are roundly rejected by countries like Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Syria. They reject modernity because modernity, like secularism, favors democracy.

The rejection of modernity also explains the indifference the Arab world has to education and functioning economies. Failed and dismal Arab world education levels and economies are of little and no concern to Arabs because education and functioning economies represent the reality of a real future. Recognizing and anticipating the future is an integral part of modernity. The future is a reality the Arab world has consciously rejected, by word and deed.

Healthy societies do not naturally reject the future and modernity. Every parent does what they can to address their children’s future and to ensure they the future well prepared. That is how society functions and perpetuates itself. Children are the future and it is incumbent on us to ensure their success. It is also incumbent upon us to do what we can to leave a better world for our children- a concept not at all understood in much of the Arab world, for decades led by dysfunctional political and religious leaders. How this dysfunction operates needs to be understood.

In fact, the Arab world has made clear their intent and desire to return to the past, and not have to face the future. Facing the future means the Arab world would have to be held accountable for their dysfunctional behavior that has made poverty and failure a part of the Arab world reality of today.

On a different but not totally unrelated subject, Francis Porretto ponders the war on Christianity in his post By His Stripes:

Anti-Christians are not uniform in their motivations. Many are hostile to the notion of divinity. Others dislike any assertion of a moral standard higher than that imposed by man-made law. Some merely practice a thoroughgoing skepticism about anything they can't verify by the direct and immediate report of their senses. And some are consumed by envy at the serenity enjoyed by the majority of Christian adherents, a condition unaffected by variations or fluctuations in their worldly estates. No doubt there are others with other reasons.

But they cannot point to one single thing that the "mythical" Jesus ever said or did that to which a decent man could raise the slightest objection. For to do so, they'd have to take issue with:

• The desirability of spiritual peace and forgiveness of others' sins;
  
• Gratitude for the gift of life in a lawful universe and honor to those who are the temporal reason for it;
  
• The prohibitions against murder, theft, fraud, and covetousness;
  
• Last but most striking of all, Christ's denial of the rightness of enforcing religious precepts with temporal force, as exemplified dramatically in His treatment of the adultery of Mary Magdalene.
  

Many creatures of darkness live in our accumulated cultural consciousness. Some are historically well attested: the great mass murderers of the Twentieth Century, for example. Others, such as Attila and Ghengis Khan, are more remote, with more uncertainty attached to their deeds. A few villainous names survive in the epics of deep antiquity, but their stories are most uncertain of all. None of these are worshipped; they're held up to the young of today to illustrate what horrors are possible to Man. Even evil figures whose actual lives are entirely uncertain present useful profiles in human depravity; we reflect upon them because we can sense that the stories attached to their names are things men might really have done -- that no degree of malice is inherently beyond us.

Go read 'em. You'll be smarter when you're done.

Update, 2:55PM
Alifa emailed,

I tried using the comments section but it wouldn't load.

In this post you quote Francis Porretto, ending with "Last but most
striking of all, Christ's denial of the rightness of enforcing
religious precepts with temporal force, as exemplified dramatically in
His treatment of the adultery of Mary Magdalene."

I probably should be replying to Mr. Porretto, but I'd like to point
out that I think he has conflated a couple of New Testament stories,
and perhaps even thinks that Mary Magdalene is the reformed prostitute
of legend. Mary Magdalene in the New Testament is a woman from whom
Jesus cast out evil spirits; but in Christian preaching over the
centuries, she was conflated with other New Testament figures of the
same name or no known name.

It looks like he's referring to the story of the woman taken in
adultery that is included in some (but not all) of the manuscripts of
John, beginning of ch. 8.

This is a very problematic story; I do not think that it means what
people usually think it means. Looking at it with Jewish eyes, there
are just too many missing pieces for it to be about the immediate
stoning of an adulteress by an angry mob.

If she was caught "in the very act" then the man involved was also
taken, but in this story, he's missing. In Jewish law, both parties
were liable for the death penalty in adultery, and the act must have
been witnessed (which is what is claimed here). So where is the man?

Secondly, as we also know from the story of Christ's Passion, the Jews
could not sentence someone to death without Roman approval in those
days.

In addition, we are not told that the woman and her lover were ever
brought to trial -- admittedly, we don't know exactly how a Jewish
court in Jesus' day would have handled an adultery case such as this,
but certainly by the late Roman period, Jewish law made it very
difficult for a death penalty to be handed out, and there were many
formal procedures, the calling of witnesses, etc. that had to take
place before a sentence could be handed down. None of this is present
in this story; we have rather the idea that a mob was ready to stone
the woman (but not her unknown partner). Execution by stoning
following a court sentence was a formal ritual. According to Jewish
law, the person bringing the accusation had to cast the first
stone --- the implication being that if an unjust accusation was being
made, the one who initiated the execution was himself liable to at
least a heavenly judgment because an unjust execution meant the
accuser was committing murder himself. Cleary Jesus is drawing on this
strong Jewish tradition, but changes it to "let he who is without sin
cast the first stone."

So what gives?

It may be that Jesus was once again being tested on his teaching. One
suggestion is that this story is referring back to his teaching that
marriage was permanent, with no divorce. A woman "caught in the very
act" could well mean simply that she was divorced according to Jewish
law and was in the process of getting remarried. If so, this story
does not make that clear at all. In Jewish circles in late Roman
times, there was a great debate about divorce; should it be easy to
divorce, or difficult? The rabbinical schools of Hillel and Shammai
took different sides on this issue.

Or perhaps the story has to do with Jewish versus Roman law -- should
she be executed according to Jewish law without Roman approval?

Once more Jesus neatly sidestepped the question, and I cannot help
wondering what exactly he's referring to when he says "go and sin no
more."

---------
I hope you'll forgive me for ranting a bit. This is one of the
biblical stories that is too often used to paint a harsh and
unforgiving portrait of the "Jews." Like "an eye for an eye..." used
in the sense of meaning a call for vengeance, even though vengeance is
specifically forbidden in the Bible.

I'm emailing Francis on these very interesting points
Update 2 Francis replies in the comments section

The Che myth

Michelle Malkin blogs that Target's pulled the Che CD case but still carries the Che Calendar.

Nothing shows what an ignoramus you are like having a Che Calendar hanging on your wall.

Yesterday I was talking to Mary Anastasia O'Grady of the WSJ, and I asked her, what book would she recommend for a quick primer on Che? Mary's choice is The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, published by The Independent Institute. I read the whole book (67 pages of text) in one sitting last evening.

As it turns out, Alvaro had an epiphany because of Che's image hanging on a wall (page 2):

A few years later, I spent a semester studying at an American university. Che Guevara made a new attempt to seduce me. This time, my friends were mostly politically active Puerto Ricans who wanted their land to be independent.

It never ceases to amuse me how many independentistas come to the continental USA for college. But I digress.

One of them hung a poster of Che Guevara on his wall and, next to it, a picture of "Comrade Gonzalo", the genocidal leader of Shinning Path, Peru's Maoist organization.

And that's another thing: the rich Marxists. When I was at the University of Puerto Rico, one of the most Marxist guys around drove a convertible Jaguar. Now, when you realize that a Jaguar in Puerto Rico at that time cost twice what it cost in the continental USA, you really appreciate the meaning of the word irony. Alvaro continues (emphasis added),

As I came into the room one afternoon and this couple [Che and "Comrade Gonzalo"] faced me from the wall, I was paralyzed. It suddenly downed on me why my South American friend from boarding school had never been quite able to persuade me to take up Che.

There it was, pure and simple: just like Abimael Guzman, Che was the negation of what I most seemed to long for in this complicated word - freedom and peace. I must have vaguely sensed this at school, but now, for the first time, I was able to fully grasp a precious truth: one should never be confused by the many variations of that species: the tyrant. Stalinist Che Guevara and Maoist Abimael Guzman belonged to different camps and represented contrasting attitudes to life - the former being the quintessential pinup, the latter a bizarre recluse - but what they had in common, their lust for totalitarian power, was much more important than their differences.

I had experienced firsthand Shining Path's campaign of terror against the very poor peasants in whose name it purported to act. Like millions of Peruvians, I had personally been affected in different ways by this unlikely reincarnation of Cambodia's Pol Pot in the middle of the Andes. Seeing Che Guevara next to Guzman on a chic campus wall brought to light the ugly truth about the Argentine hero of the Cuban Revolution, but, more importantly, it inspired the poignant realization that all those prepared to use force to take life and property from their fellow men are soul mates whatever the ideological or moral subterfuge used to conceal their real motives. "Really, you should rip that off. You have no idea," I said to my friend, and I left the room quite disturbed.

Many years later, when I had the chance to encounter numerous other disguises for tyranny, some on the left but others on the right, I focused on that image from university as the starting point of a larger reflection. The conclusion I reached continues to haunt me today: there are myriad forms of oppression, some much more subtle than others, sometimes adorned with the theme of social justice and at other times obscured by the language of security, and recognizing and denouncing the deceitful psychological mechanisms with which the enemies of liberty attempt to bamboozle us into voluntary servitude is one of the urgent tasks of our times.

I highly recommend The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty

From the horse's mouth

Via Jay, whose blog appears to be down right now, and Annie, the news straight from the al-Qaeda horse's mouth: Al Qaeda has sent a message to leaders of the Democratic party that credit for the defeat of congressional Republicans belongs to the terrorists.

Party on, Speaker-elect Pelosi!

Meanwhile in India, Sonia Gandhi is under threat from al-Qaeda. Sonia, who was born and raised in Italy, won't be attending Nancy's women's tea or the private party at the Italian Embassy

Update, via Larwyn, U.S. SENATOR BARBARA BOXER GIVES AWARD
TO CAIR EXTREMIST

Happy days are here again. It's starting to look just like the nineties.

Following up on the triborder area nine,

Last week I posted that the US Treasury Dept. had

designated nine individuals and two entities that have provided financial and logistical support to the Hizballah terrorist organization. The designees are located in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and have provided financial and other services for Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Assad Ahmad Barakat, who was previously designated in June 2004 for his support to Hizballah leadership.

I just found out that The Office of Foreign Assets Control has released the names, addresses, and passport numbers of those individuals. Click on the link for the full information.

Gustavo Coronel writes about corruption in Venezuela

Gustavo Coronel was a member of the Board of Directors of Petroleos de Venezuela (1976-79) and, as president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida, was the Venezuelan representative to Transparency International (1996-2000). He knows what he's talking about.

First, read Gustavo's Executive Summary of his Cato Institute Report, Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela. (The report is available on PDF file at that link).

Then read, Chavez, corruption and the OAS (a second memo to the OAS)

It seems clear that the convention has not produced an improvement in the manner Latin American countries have managed the problem of corruption.

Why is this so? Basically because it cannot be enforced. Although the convention is a valuable compendium of all the potential manifestations of corruption in member states it is simply unusable to enforce honest and transparent practices in those member states. The reason is that corrupt practices in Latin America are almost always initiated within government structures, in the bureaucracy of those countries. They exist because government institutions are weak, controls are lax or inexistent and political leadership is insincere about wanting to curtail corrupt practices or incapable of keeping his followers in line. When this happens, the OAS cannot act unless the state requests it. But, how can a member state ask for action against corruption, if corruption is being practiced by the state itself, if the main political and bureaucratic representatives of the state are involved, through commission or omission, in the practices of corruption?

The Inter-American Convention Against Corruption says in its preamble that the member states are "convinced" that corruption undermines legitimacy, that democracy "requires the combating of every form of corruption," that fighting corruption "strengthens democratic institutions" and that the states are "responsible to hold corrupt persons accountable… and to cooperate with one another for their efforts in this area to be effective." It goes on, article by article, to ask for efforts by the states and for cooperation among states to fight against corruption. It defines corruption in terms which leaves no doubt as to what corruption means: (a), the incorrect, dishonorable and improper fulfillment of public functions, (b), illicit enrichment, (c), lack of biding practices in government contracting, (d), impunity and complicity in the commission of corrupt acts, and, (e) bribery and extortion, transnational bribery. Corruption and illegal flows of money, says the convention very specifically, cannot hide behind bank secrecy rules.

What can the OAS do, then, when a member state violates practically every component of the preamble and every article of the convention?

Read every word.

Update On a related theme, Latin America's Wrong Turn

The very real prospect that Latin America will now be backtracking on its reform agenda could not come at a worse time for the region. It would seem all too probable that Latin America's unprecedented commodity boom will soon fade as global growth moderates, while its international borrowing costs will rise as global liquidity dries up. More menacing still is the almost certainty that competition from China will only intensify in the years ahead.

(h/t Pajamas Media)

Dershowitz, Che, and today's items

Alan Dershowitz asks Why won't Carter debate his book?

When Larry King referred to my review several times to challenge Carter, Carter first said I hadn't read the book and then blustered, "You know, I think it's a waste of my time and yours to quote professor Dershowitz. He's so obviously biased, Larry, and it's not worth my time to waste it on commenting on him." (He never did answer King's questions.)

The next week Carter wrote a series of op-eds bemoaning the reception his book had received. He wrote that his "most troubling experience" had been "the rejection of [his] offers to speak" at "university campuses with high Jewish enrollment." The fact is that Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz had invited Carter to come to Brandeis to debate me, and Carter refused. The reason Carter gave was this: "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

As Carter knows, I've been to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, many times -- certainly more times than Carter has been there -- and I've written three books dealing with the subject of Middle Eastern history, politics, and the peace process. The real reason Carter won't debate me is that I would correct his factual errors. It's not that I know too little; it's that I know too much.

Nor is Carter the unbiased observer of the Middle East that he claims to be. He has accepted money and an award from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan , saying in 2001: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." This is the same Zayed, the long-time ruler of the United Arab Emirates, whose $2.5 million gift to the Harvard Divinity School was returned in 2004 due to Zayed's rampant Jew-hatred. Zayed's personal foundation, the Zayed Center, claims that it was Zionists, rather than Nazis, who "were the people who killed the Jews in Europe" during the Holocaust. It has held lectures on the blood libel and conspiracy theories about Jews and America perpetrating Sept. 11. Carter's acceptance of money from this biased group casts real doubt on his objectivity and creates an obvious conflict of interest.

Carter's refusal to debate wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that he claims that he wrote the book precisely so as to start debate over the issue of the Israel-Palestine peace process. If that were really true, Carter would be thrilled to have the opportunity to debate. Authors should be accountable for their ideas and their facts. Books shouldn't be like chapel, delivered from on high and believed on faith.

-----------------------------------
Irwin, Echuta, and Val emailed on this: Target Pulls che guevara CD Case from Stores
Here's why it matters: WSJ (by subscription only)

Guevara is not just a dead white guy from a well-to-do family who terrorized a racially mixed nation and executed hundreds of thousands of innocents in the late 1950s and 1960s. He is also a symbol of the totalitarian regime that persists in Cuba, which still practices his ideology of intolerance, hatred and repression. It is not the torture and killing alone that make the tragedy. That only describes the methodology. Guevara's wider goal - to forcibly strip a population of its soul and spirit - is what is truly frightening and deplorable. Christians, who celebrate the birth of their Savior on Monday, have particularly suffered under Guevara's dream of revolution, which has lasted since 1959.

-----------------------------------
Cinnammon thanks a serviceman at Christmas.
-----------------------------------
A few articles from Maria
Why radical Islam - and why now?

Bust the joint up

Updates from Germany--War on homeschooling

The world in 2007
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Support Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Juan Compean of the Fabens, Texas Border Patrol Station
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Update: Don't miss also AP whitewashes Ahmadinejad (again)

Global Orgasm reminder

As previously noted, tomorrow's both the Winter Solstice and the Global Orgasm for Peace Day.

I figured I better give advance warning to anyone interested, in case you either want to synchronize yourselves or prefer to abstain, so you can make the necessary arrangements.

My apologies to people in the countries on the other side of the International Date Line for being remiss in notifying you ahead of time.
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Following up on other news, the eyeballs went for £16,500.00. Does that include shipping and handling? No, it doesn't

Shipping: Collection or shipping will be the buyers full responsibility.

He forgot to mention something

US policy, not poverty, 'is cause of terrorism' TERROR: THE MOTIVE

A LEADING US academic will challenge the establishment this week when he makes the controversial claim that poverty is not the root cause of international terrorism.

Alan Krueger, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, will say suicide bombers tend to come from middle-class families. He will also argue that terrorism is directly motivated by US policy decisions.

Let see ... Indonesia, Goa are under warning right now - are they bastions of US policy decisions?

He argues that terrorists, instead of coming primarily from poor states, tend to hail from oppressive regimes, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This, he says, shows that terrorists tend to be motivated by fanaticism, not poverty. "In most cases [a suicide bomber] is not someone who has nothing to live for, but someone who desperately believes in a cause."

Now, what cause would that be?

More from Dr. Sanity.

sandy berger's pants

a poem by John Jay:

he gots ants in his pants
and a bowling ball, blue,
three pairs of socks,
and an old brown shoe.

he gots ants in his pants,
some bricks and some mortar, too,
some sand and six pounds o' rocks,
gots to repair an old chimney flue.

stuffed his briefcase under his belt,
full of papers and micro-fishies
hand carried his lunch out in a paper sack,
didn't want no mayo, gettin' on his micro penis-iche.

he gots ants in his pants,
a framed autographed glossy of monica, brand new,
two ink pens and a magic marker,
and an old recipe for whatchacallit stew.

he gots ants in his pants,
why, my goodness, if you worked for bill, wouldn't you?
gots some sins and omissions for the commissions,
why, my goodness, working for bill, whatchagonna do?

oh yeah, he gots ants in his pants,
and some used-to-be-state-secret stuff, can't view,
i'd like to know some of that guff, wouldn't you?
but, my goodness, working for bill, what you gonna do?

end up like vincent, with the 9 millimeter flu?

oh, sandy, he gots ants in his pants,
some chump change, case he gots to get frugal
and a road map of arkansas, and environs,
case he gots to go hide, with the billings, and susan mcdougal.

chorus for soros, ...
so who gots the papers,
think that they belongs to billy,
or do you 'spose, just like the law office billings
that they wind up on a desk belonging to hilly?
she smells like the sweetest rose, if they vanish in the vapors.
oh, yeah, just vanish in the air, like a wraith of swirling ether.

john jay @ 09.17.2006

John was inspired by Atlas.
Not just in his socks. Under a construction trailer, too.

No, Hillary: it takes a mother and a father

After I mentioned yesterday that Hillary's masterpiece on statist "parenting", It Takes A Village, is being ressurected for the 2008 campaign, two people emailed me saying that Hillary was in The View flogging ITAV - and you know she's running because she's wearing pink again.

Wonder of wonders, they have it on You Tube:

(Update: A friend sent a link to YouTube's second part of The View)
One thing about The View and Oprah, their camera lenses are filtered so heavily to disguise wrinkles that everyone's in a haze. I bet that if I was a guest in those two programs I'd look at least ten years younger, or a great deal more blurry.

But notice the huge family photo of the disfunctional former-and-future First Family in the background.

Can we possibly believe that Hillary Clinton has any credibility in family matters? This is a woman who's been married to a man who dragooned the country into the most public illicit affair in modern history while all the while insisting that it was all a fabrication of a "vast right-wing" conspiracy" (her words). This is a woman who in page 11 of her own book says,

Everywhere we look, children are under assault: from violence and neglect, from the break-up of families...

As Kay S. Hymowitz asked, Remember New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's apocalyptic prophecy that millions of children "would be put to the sword" if welfare reform became law? Well, Moynihan was right. The culture of dependence on government, which Hillary so proudly believes in, tore those lives apart, for generations to come.

Hillary's book continues,

...from the temptations of alcohol, tobacco, sex

Thus speaks the wife who publicly countenanced her husband's perverse insistence that oral sex is not sex - and allow me to remind you that back in the 1990s those of us with children gave up cable TV because we didn't want to have to explain to the kid(s) what oral sex meant.

...from greed, materialism, and spiritual emptiness.

... and from Whitewater, commodities trading payola, and Marc Rich and his ex-wife, too.

Of course, The View would never ever raise such unpleasantness to the "next mom POTUS". And heavens forbid that we mention the excellent Bush economy, or the existential menace from terrorism.

Mary Grabar today has an article on The girls on The View

But it's a sign of our crumbling civilization that a bunch of girls of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds, sitting around all dressed up for a coffee klatch, some of them with cleavage spilling out of Victoria's Secret Infinity Edge Push-Up bras, spout off opinions borrowed from disturbed teenagers and Michael Moore, and call it a talk show.

This was the danger of giving women the vote. The danger to conservatives (and the survival of this country) is the voting bloc of single women, i.e., those who lack the guidance of a man in the form of a husband or intellectual mentor.

These are women who pride themselves on being independent and empowered when they dress like prostitutes (look at the view of cleavage on the View!). These are the women who watch the View. These are the women who support Hillary Rodham Clinton. These are the women on the show who ask Senator Clinton questions like "Do you think being a mom will help you in the White House?" as they did on December 20. These are the women who think it matters that a potential presidential candidate waxes on about the same themes in her re-released book, It Takes a Village: that preschool programs need to be expanded, that working parents should have time off to take care of their kids. This is the potential presidential candidate who was applauded on the show for allowing one of her staff members to bring in her baby’s playpen.

This is a woman who started off with a discussion about how much she likes to do crafts at Christmas time.

(Let me go on the record: I don't do crafts, and except for pies, I don't bake. Also on the record: I don't believe for a moment that Hillary does crafts at any time - Christmas or other - but she might have her assistants do it, just as she had Barbara Feinman write ITAV)

Yes, I can imagine: we'll have playpens and parenting classes and crafts classes in the new Clinton White House, maybe even a special prayer room for the Muslims and breaks five times a day for them. This will bring peace to the world by setting an example, for all the terrorists will supposedly drop their weapons in awe of this "village." Hillary's answer to the Iraq question was that she wanted the country to have a "conversation" again. What - like the one they have on The View?

News flash: there are fanatics who want to annihilate us and Hillary Rodham Clinton is talking about crafts and "conversations."

I agree with Mary that women need men for intellectual challenge. Men are great thinkers and doers and women have a lot to learn from men. Not all men are, and not all great thinkers and doers are men, but women need intellectual challenge from men, because men think differently from women.

And that's one of the thousand reasons why children need a mother and a father.

No, Hillary, it doesn't take a village to raise a child: It takes a mother and a father. And if that's all you're running on, it's time to put away the pink outfits and make room for a better candidate who's willing to face the issues of our time.

Books for Christmas

Dr. Sowell has the list:




Please visit the Christmas Store for last-minute gift ideas.