Good Riddance, 2006! Hello, 2007!

I'm glad to see 2006 go.

For me personally, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

It was a year of extremes, a rollercoaster.

Suffice it to say I've had enough of 2006. I'm ready for it to end, and hope for a better 2007.

Good riddance, 2006!

My 2007 Predictions:

ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS will be the root of terror and unrest and misery and death in the world -- enemies of peace.

JIMMY CARTER will continue on his anti-Israel crusade, serve as propagandist for Hamas and like-minded groups, and cozy up to terrorists.

DEMOCRATS will work to raise state and federal taxes, and put personal power and ambition before country.

KIM JONG IL will shave his head due to a bout with lice. He'll like the look and stick with it.

JIM DOYLE will deny his involvement in the corruption smothering Wisconsin government.

TOM BARRETT will express his outrage on his inability to deal with his outrage over the crime in his dying city.

RUSS FEINGOLD will sink into a deep depression when he acknowledges that he will never fulfill his dream -- a date with Sharon Stone.

BRETT FAVRE will not retire.

ROSIE O'DONNELL will be the next celebrity photographed getting out of a limo sans underwear. (No need for the pixelation of the graphic photos due to her layers of fat.)

AL GORE will make the longest and most boring Oscar acceptance speech in Academy Awards history.

CINDY SHEEHAN will get arrested.

MICHAEL McGEE JACKSON JR. will admit to having another alias -- TITO.

JIM WEBB will write an Off Broadway play -- The Macaca Monologues.

HILLARY CLINTON will formally change her surname to Rodham, and so will her HINO Bill.

STEVE KAGEN will be sued by an 87-year-old woman after he tackles her for behaving suspiciously like a terrorist on a shuttle between DC and New York.

BARACK OBAMA will soldify himself as the Dem 2008 presidential front-runner when he opens each speech he makes by saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD will sport a Hitler-style mustache.

AL FRANKEN will not run for the Senate when he realizes that he's not good enough, he's not smart enough, and doggone it, people don't like him!

My 2007 Resolutions:

SLEEP MORE. (Sleeping sitting up doesn't count.)

EAT MORE.

LAUGH MORE.

WORRY LESS.


HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Cellphone Video of Saddam's Execution

(Al Iraqiya - IRAQ/Reuters)


Courtesy of Google Video, we can all watch Saddam Hussein die.

The hooded executioners place the noose around the Butcher of Baghdad's neck. The final chapter of Saddam's reign of terror is at hand.

Saddam remains defiant. He prays.

There are many accounts of Saddam's final moments -- the bitter exchanges, the taunts, the last words.

(Here and here and here are a few.)


The trapdoor beneath him opens, like the entrance to Hell, and he dies.

The video shows his body swinging. The movement isn't a sign of life, just physics.

Yes, it's gruesome; sort of. It has a surreal quality. I've seen far more disturbing scenes in movies. I know this is different. It's real.

Still, it's not particularly shocking to me. It's a rather quiet demise for this monster.

Should I be troubled by my "so what?" reaction?

Should I care that he was executed and that's against my personal beliefs about capital punishment?

I suppose I should.

I don't.


(Biladi TV/Reuters)

Video of Saddam Hussein being executed

Originally posted as a link on the Something Awful forums, I saved and uploaded it to google video before the it died.

Spare Saddam!

A video grab taken from al-Iraqiya television shows ousted Iraq president Saddam Hussein moments before being hanged in Baghdad. (AFP/Al Iaqyia TV)



A frame grab from Al Iraqiya television shows a noose being placed around former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's neck December 30, 2006. REUTERS/Al Iraqiya (IRAQ)


I think today's editorial in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Death penalty still wrong," was prepared well in advance of Saddam Hussein's execution.

The Editorial Board may have had it ready for print as soon as Saddam was captured in December of 2003.

We all knew this was coming. The board knew that the death of Saddam would provide a perfect opportunity to slam the Bush administration and supporters of the death penalty.

(Unlike the Editorial Board, let's not forget that some Dems are pro-death penalty. For example, Oscar shoo-in, superstar Al Gore is FOR the death penalty. He believes in killing criminals. Just don't melt the polar ice caps.)

I'm not endorsing the death penalty here. I'm pointing out that the Editorial Board's reasoning is weak.

Saddam Hussein was a monster. His execution by the Iraqis he cruelly governed will understandably be cause for celebration in many quarters and perhaps cause for more insurgency in others. And, yes, the world is better off with one fewer tyrant.

But this in no way changes one central truth: Capital punishment remains a bad idea even for really bad people. People like Hussein, for instance. The problem is not so much that such people don't deserve to die as it is that a nation debases itself by stooping to the level of a killer.

The execution of Saddam was not an eye for an eye.

For that to be the case, Saddam would need hundreds of thousands of eyes.

Furthermore, does a nation debase itself when it excuses atrocities and disrespects life by coddling monsters?

...The virgin Iraqi government, designed to be a shining example of democracy in the largely autocratic Middle East, went astray by adopting capital punishment, a practice democracies have shed worldwide as unbefitting them.

"Virgin Iraqi government"?

What does that mean?

Unfortunately, Iraq got no good guidance on the issue from its mentor, the United States, one of the last holdouts against this trend. The Bush administration backs capital punishment enthusiastically.

Remember, Dems enthusiastically back capital punishment, too.

That helped them win control of the House and Senate, acting like conservatives to appeal to mainstream American voters.

I knew a lib media outlet like The JS would blame Bush for Saddam's execution.

The buck always stops with Bush. I wonder if The JS blames Bush for its declining readership as well.

Iraq's use of the death penalty has already drawn criticism from world bodies such as the United Nations, the Vatican and Amnesty International, which considers the punishment a human rights violation. But these organizations are doubly critical of the penalty in Hussein's case because they say his trial failed to meet standards of fairness. The groups cite interference in the judicial proceedings from the executive branch and other problems.

Criticism from the corrupt, genocide-ignoring UN and the politically driven AI is a joke.

Criticism from the Vatican is valid because it's based in teaching that is morally consistent. The Vatican is against the death penalty, but it doesn't trumpet the murder of millions of babies via abortion.

However, to suggest that the trial was unfair is ridiculous. Whatever minor problems there may have been, the evidence against Saddam is clear and overwhelming. How many thousands of people need to be exhumed from mass graves?

His execution also robs the Kurds of some modicum of justice. They first wanted a second trial for Hussein to conclude. The deposed dictator is charged with genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s.

Huh?

Saddam is dead.

Do you think the Kurds feel cheated that they couldn't put him on trial and sentence him to death, too?

Is The JS arguing that the Kurds should have had that opportunity?

That's a pretty stupid argument, considering the board is against the death penalty.

The gallows have seen a step-up in traffic in Iraq this year. Some 53 people took the one-way trip there in 2006. Yes, Iraq has horrible problems with lawlessness. But the executions only add to the cycle of violence.

Fifty-three?

How does that compare to decades of atrocities and death under Saddam?

It's not in the same league, not even close.

The government has a tough time teaching the lesson that the people must stop settling scores with beheadings and other violence if the government itself is settling scores with hangings.

How stupid!

An alleged criminal being put on trial, found guilty, and being sentenced to die is not the same as an innocent person being taken hostage, tortured, and beheaded.

The Editorial Board's inability to distinguish the differences are an embarrassment to The JS.

Hussein said he prefers to die at the end of a rope rather than to waste away in prison. Will his execution make him a martyr?

One thing is certain. An execution diminishes those who enable it.

What's certain is that the Editorial Board prefers to bash Bush rather than highlight the tyrant Saddam's crimes against humanity.

I think the Editorial Board is more comfortable with the mindset of these protesters:



Activists from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) hold a burning doll symbolizing U.S. President George Bush during a protest against the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in Srinagar December 30, 2006. REUTERS/Yawar Nazir (INDIAN ADMINISTERED KASHMIR)


A demonstrator condemns the hanging of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Bangalore. (AFP/Dibyangshu Sarkar)


An activist from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) writes on a doll symbolizing U.S. President George Bush during a protest against the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in Srinagar December 30, 2006. REUTERS/Yawar Nazir (INDIAN ADMINISTERED KASHMIR)

SADDAM IS DEAD

Human remains just exumed from the mass grave near Haila, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

Photo: Tom Bullock, NPR News


An Iraqi man cries openly and kisses the plastic bag containing the remains of his uncle, who had been missing for more than a decade.

Photo: Tom Bullock, NPR News


A child's garment found in a shallow grave.

CPA photo

Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging for crimes against humanity, but Al Jazeera doesn't want to believe it.

Aljazeera reports:

Unconfirmed reports say that Saddam Hussein has been hanged in Baghdad. More soon.

_____________________________

9:46 pm CT and Al Jazeera still won't confirm Saddam's execution.

_____________________________

At 9:48 pm CT, Al Jazeera reports:

Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, has been hanged, according to a television station in the region.

Reports on Al Hurra, a US-backed station, said that Saddam was executed shortly before 6am (03:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The former Iraqi president, who was ousted in April 2003 by a US-led invasion, was convicted last month of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shia villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination attempt in 1982.

An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday and the Iraqi government rushed through the procedures to hang him by the end of the year and before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Saturday.

The government had kept details of its plans shrouded in secrecy amid concerns that it may provoke a violent backlash from his former supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil war.

Saddam's conviction on November 5 was hailed by George Bush, the US president, as a triumph for the democracy he promised to foster in Iraq after the invasion almost four years ago.

With U.S. public support for the war falling as the number of American dead approaches 3,000, Washington is likely to welcome the death of Saddam, despite misgivings among many allies about capital punishment.

...During his three decades in power, Saddam was accused of widespread oppression of political opponents and genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq. His execution means that he will never face justice on those charges.

Saddam insisted during his trial that he was still the president of Iraq. He said in a letter written after his conviction that he offered himself as a "sacrifice".

"If my soul goes down this path [of martyrdom] it will face God in serenity," he wrote in the letter.

"His execution means that he will never face justice on those charges."

Although I don't support the death penalty, that statement is false.

Saddam was tried, found guilty, and received his sentence.

He did face justice. Justice was done.

He now faces the judgment of God.



"I said what I said. I am not guilty."

--SADDAM HUSSEIN (1937- 2006)

Saddam Super Sunday?

(AFP/File/Patrick Baz)


How will the world usher out 2006 and ring in 2007?

Perhaps with the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Creepy.

DUBAI (Reuters) -- Saddam Hussein has been handed over by U.S forces to Iraqi government custody, his lawyers said on Friday, in an apparent step toward his execution.

"I understand they have handed him over," said one defense lawyer who declined to give his name.

This defense lawyer makes it sound like Jesus is being handed over for crucifixion.

Another lawyer said that U.S. officials had asked him to pick up the personal effects of the former Iraqi president who has been sentenced to death.

"The American side called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects of the president and Barzan al-Tikriti," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, referring to Saddam's half brother, who has also been sentenced to death.

I wonder what sort of personal effects Saddam has.

Hair dye?

A Koran?

Look at this, from Reuters/Hollywood Reporter:

"TV plans tasteful coverage of Saddam execution"

Television networks face a killer of a conundrum with the impending execution of Saddam Hussein, whose hanging could be videotaped and perhaps aired on Iraqi TV.

The timing of Saddam's date with the gallows was unclear, but late Thursday CBS, NBC and Fox News Channel reported that the former dictator, convicted this year in the deaths of 148 people in 1982, would be turned over by the American military to the Iraqi government within 36 hours and hanged before the start of a Muslim holiday on Sunday.

Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped by the Iraqi government, though it wasn't clear whether it would be released to the public or broadcast.

"We will video everything," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie told CBS News.

Judging by the Iraqi government's release Tuesday of videotape of the hanging of 13 convicts, it could be a gruesome affair. Meetings were held Thursday in at least two network headquarters over how to handle the potentially graphic images.

ABC and CBS said they wouldn't air the full execution if the video became available.

...The operative word: taste.

"We have very, very strict guidelines with how to deal with that," said Bob Murphy, senior vp at ABC News. "If there were pictures made available of the execution, they would have to be viewed by senior management before we would put them on the air, and we would make a judgement of taste and propriety of what we would show."

Right.

The operative word is "taste."

If there's one thing that the networks lack, it has to be taste.

It's not like network TV hasn't aired footage of someone being put to death before.

In 1998, 60 Minutes aired a Dr. Kevorkian assisted suicide.

How is it that was touted as a humane act?

Granted, a hanging is more gruesome than a lethal injection, and Saddam isn't choosing to die; but I suspect the executives at the networks are salivating over the potential ratings of Saddam's death sentence being televised.

The entire mess depresses me.

Theoretically, I'm opposed to the death penalty.

If I'm to be morally consistent, even a cold-blooded, murderous monster like Saddam should not be killed for his crimes.

But I know if Saddam had ordered the slaughter of my family members, I'd want him dead.

Why should he be allowed to live after committing such atrocities on such a massive scale? Why should he get to continue to eat and sleep and breathe when he robbed life from so many?

He shouldn't; but yet, I can't support his execution.

So I'm a hypocrite.

It's a moral dilemma for me.

Everything is so ugly -- the mass graves, the hundreds of thousands dead, the war, all the death.

RJay has compiled some reminders of Saddam's lifework:

Mass Graves of Iraq: Uncovering Atrocities

NPR Iraq Mass Grave Photo Gallery

Bodies Exhumed from Mass Grave in Iraq

Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves

Human Rights Watch Gallery

Experts: 300,000 in Saddam's Mass Graves

Graves of Mass Evidence

Iraq Mass Graves Field Report – w/Video

How do civilized people respond to such inhumanity?

By giving Saddam good health care, three meals a day, Doritos and Raisin Bran Crunch for the next ten or more years, until he dies of natural causes?

That doesn't seem appropriate at all.

I don't know.

Then there's the idiot media.

The libs in the media claim to care about taste. What a crock of crap!

I bet they wish they could debate about televising footage of President Bush being executed. You know, "Too bad it's Saddam, and not Bush."

Is that unfair? Too harsh?

I don't know anymore.

I hate the war. I hate Saddam more.

I hate all the hate.

Former President Gerald Ford

President Gerald Ford with his golden retriever, Liberty, in the Oval Office in 1974. Photo courtesy Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library


Like President Harry S. Truman, President Gerald Ford died a day after Christmas.

LOS ANGELES -- Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one never elected to nationwide office, has died. He was 93.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," former first lady Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

Statement by President Bush on the passing of former President Ford:

Laura and I are greatly saddened by the passing of former President Gerald R. Ford.

President Ford was a great American who gave many years of dedicated service to our country. On August 9, 1974, after a long career in the House of Representatives and service as Vice President, he assumed the Presidency in an hour of national turmoil and division. With his quiet integrity, common sense, and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the Presidency.

The American people will always admire Gerald Ford's devotion to duty, his personal character, and the honorable conduct of his administration. We mourn the loss of such a leader, and our 38th President will always have a special place in our Nation's memory. On behalf of all Americans, Laura and I offer our deepest sympathies to Betty Ford and all of President Ford's family. Our thoughts and prayers will be with them in the hours and days ahead.

According to AP, Ford was in the White House for just 895 days.

I like President Bush's phrase "quiet integrity" to describe former President Ford. That's his legacy.

I know that there are lots of radical Lefties who despised Ford for granting Richard Nixon a pardon.

The ones still upset about it need to get a life, and appreciate and respect Ford for his decency.

He was just what America needed, guiding the country through a period that could have been marked by disorder. Ford fulfilled the difficult role of being the first and only president in our history to assume the office without being elected.

Yes, Ford was selected, not elected. He was an excellent selection.

He embodied what's great about the American system of government -- we are a nation of laws, not men.

Listen to President Ford be sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.

Read President Ford's remarks upon taking the oath of office.

Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.

To the peoples and the governments of all friendly nations, and I hope that could encompass the whole world, I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for peace. America will remain strong and united, but its strength will remain dedicated to the safety and sanity of the entire family of man, as well as to our own precious freedom.

I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad.

In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

Quiet integrity.
____________________________

GERALDFORDMEMORIAL.COM

Silent Night

Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will one day walk on water?

Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?

Did you know,
that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered,
will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?

Mary, did you know
your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?

Did you know,
that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby,
you've kissed the face of God.

The blind will see
The deaf will hear
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know
that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?

Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?

Did you know,
that your baby boy is heaven's perfect lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding, is the great I AM.

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all.

Merry Christmas!

RESPONSIBILITY

There is so much in life that we can't control.

We aren't as powerful and self-determining as we like to think.

It's because I often find myself at the mercy of things I can't control that I jump at the chance to choose the direction of my life whenever I can.

The following story is so tragic. There's so much misery because the people involved chose to behave in a reckless, lawless, irresponsible manner.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Police are not recommending charges against a woman in the death of her 5-month-old son who had been riding on her lap when a suspected drunken driver crashed into a vehicle in which they were passengers.

Milwaukee police Capt. Michael Young said Saturday that the accident report will be turned over to the Milwaukee County district attorney's office over the holiday weekend for review. He said it will be up to the district attorney to decide whether to charge the mother for not having her son in an infant safety seat.

Christian Garcia-Chavez died after being crushed between his mother and the dashboard in the crash early Friday morning in the 3900 block of S. Whitnall Ave. He was pronounced dead at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

An autopsy was done Saturday, but the medical examiner's office declined to release the results.

The boy was riding on his mother's lap in the front passenger seat when a 31-year-old man driving a Chevy pickup truck failed to stop at a blinking red light and slammed into the passenger side of the Ford Ranger.

Police declined to release the name of the mother, 30, or the 36-year-old man who was driving the Ford Ranger, both of whom were injured. A 3-year-old boy in the back seat of the Ranger complained of head pain. It is unknown whether the toddler was properly restrained.

The 31-year-old driver of the Chevy was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving but has not been charged. He remains in police custody.

...Wisconsin law has safety seat requirements for all children younger than 8.

Children younger than 1 or less than 20 pounds must be restrained in a rear-facing child safety seat in the back seat of the vehicle.

A five-month-old baby boy is dead.

Why?

An alleged drunk driver ran a red light.

And, in violation of Wisconsin law, the baby was not properly secured in a safety seat.

Charges are in order, for both the drunk driver and the careless mother.

No one would argue that the driver should be charged.

Some might say that the mother is suffering enough. There's no need to pile on by charging her. She already has received a punishment that she will take to her grave.

I don't mean to be cold-hearted. I assume the mother is grieving over the loss of her son, but I don't think that it serves society to allow people to break the law with impunity.

Why have laws if they aren't enforced? If putting an infant in a car seat is optional, then get rid of the meaningless laws.

Look at this, from Wisconsin's Department of Transportation:

There will be a 6-month grace period in which written warnings may be issued for any child passenger violations (under Wisconsin Statute 347.48(4) ). The grace period ends December 31st, 2006.

Grace period?

Watch video from Today's TMJ4.

From the accompanying story:

One child safety expert said parents should remember to keep young children in car seats. She said the infant's injuries would have likely been far less serious if he had been in one.

"A lot of things are happening this time of year," said Bridget Clementi, Children's Health Education Center. "We really are rushed with all the things for the holidays, and we don't always take a moment to make safety a priority. And we think it's not going to happen to us. (People think) 'I only have to run to the grocery store, we're just running up the block and it's not going to happen.'"

My heart breaks for the dead child and the dead child's mother.

His death probably could have been avoided.

It didn't have to happen.

What a heavy burden that mother has to carry!

There's no question that the alleged drunk driver bears responsibility for getting behind the wheel, blowing through a flashing red light, and causing the crash.

His choice to drink and drive resulted in a death. INEXCUSABLE.

Negligence isn't an accident. It's a choice.

The driver has royally screwed up his life because he played a major role in the baby's death. He was horribly irreponsible, and hopefully he'll pay for what he's done. He's a killer and should not be allowed on the road to kill again.

Then we have the mother.

I would never drive without putting my precious baby in a proper car seat. NEVER. EVER.

Especially at 3:00 am, when drunks are out on the roads, or drivers may be sleepy, how could this mother be so irresponsible?

Bridget Clementi, from the Children's Health Education Center, makes the appropriate point -- that a child must always be in a safety seat.

However, I think her comment about being "rushed with all the things for the holidays" is a bit odd.

I'm sure she's not excusing the 30-year-old mother's actions, but it sounds like Clementi is cutting her a little too much slack.

"It's the holidays. People get rushed. Stuff happens."

Huh?

Being rushed for the holidays is no excuse to fail to care for your baby.

Sure, people are rushed at this time of year. Work piles up. They forget to do things, like pick up dry cleaning; but a parent does NOT forget to put a child in a safety seat.

Because people are rushed as they prepare for the holidays, they don't bother to do all that they should, like take the car in for an oil change on time. A parent does NOT fail to take the time to put a child in a safety seat.

There are things that a responsible person NEVER does.

One NEVER drives drunk.

One NEVER is reckless when it comes to the safety of one's child.

NEVER.

EVER.

Why not?

Death.

Democrat Donovan Riley

The double-voting Wisconsin DEMOCRAT state senate candidate Donovan Riley has received his punishment for his wrongdoing.

Background on Dandy Donovan and his supporters: here and here and here.

The question is: Does Riley's punishment fit his crime?

Waukesha -- Donovan Riley, a disgraced state Senate candidate, is paying a steep price for voting twice in the same election in 2000.

Riley, Democrat, agreed on Thursday to pay a $10,000 fine, surrender his law licenses in Wisconsin and Illinois and not practice law. He must also return campaign contributions to supporters who request refunds in the next 30 days even if it means paying them from his personal funds.

He has 45 days to meet those conditions. In exchange, the single count of election fraud, voting more than once, will be reduced to a misdemeanor. The deal, under which Riley avoids jail time, was reached in a plea bargain with Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, Riley and Riley's attorney, Jeremy P. Levinson.

Riley on Thursday entered a plea of no contest to the felony count, but the guilty finding will be withheld for 45 days. If Riley fails any of the conditions, he will become a felon, Bucher said. If the conditions are satisfied, Riley will be found guilty of a misdemeanor.

"We believe this to be a strong signal to other individuals that there is a price to pay" for voter fraud, Bucher told Reserve Judge Laurence Gram.

Outside the courtroom, Bucher said it was the first time ever in his more than 20 years in the district attorney's office that the maximum fine has been issued.

This is certainly more than a slap on the wrist.

I'm sure it's far more severe than what E. Michael McCann would have agreed to as a fitting penalty.

Levinson told the judge that Riley realizes the "records indicate what they indicate" and "that there really can't be much of an explanation or excuse other than he did something he shouldn't have done."

Duh.

"He understand he needs to pay a meaningful price," Levinson said. "He understands in the course of all this he let down a lot of people who supported his candidacy."

Levinson is talking like Riley is mentally impaired.

I would hope this DEMOCRAT senate candidate criminal would "understand."

Riley did not say much during the proceedings. "Mr. Bucher and my counsel stated it accurately. I concur," Riley told Gram.

Translation: "Yup, I'm a crook."

...Gram accepted the plea agreement, saying the penalty was "substantial and severe" and the "toughest penalty isn't always throwing someone in jail and throwing the key away."

"I regret that a fellow lawyer got himself in this kind of a situation. Oh, we can say a lot about our political system and whatnot. Certainly, one vote here and one vote in Cook County is not going to do much to disturb the political process. But the fact that somebody does it is a serious problem," Gram said.

I really don't like Gram's remarks. He regrets that a fellow lawyer, one of his own, "got himself in this kind of a situation."

What does that mean? It sounds like Gram regrets that Riley got caught.

Gram says, "[O]ne vote here and one vote in Cook County is not going to do much to disturb the political process."

I strongly disagree.

Remember when "Count every vote" was the Dem mantra?

I bet Al Gore will mumble it in his sleep for the rest of his life. It may be etched on his tombstone.

This Judge Gram is a real doofus. Riley did disturb the political process.

It sickens me that Gram would diminish the significance of Riley's crime.

Personally, I think that double-voting DEMOCRAT Riley should have received jail time.

I think he should have been sentenced to report to jail on every election day from the time the polls open until they close.

That would help to assure the integrity of our political process.

Duke DNA

Mike Nifong should just give it up.

His credibility is on a par with the accuser that now suddenly is uncertain as to the details of her alleged rape by Duke lacrosse players, even the most important detail -- whether or not she was raped.

DURHAM, N.C. -- The district attorney dropped rape charges Friday against the three Duke University lacrosse players after the stripper who accused them changed her story again. But the men still face kidnapping and sex charges that could bring more than 30 years in prison.

A lawyer for one of the athletes bitterly demanded that District Attorney Mike Nifong drop the remaining counts, accusing him of offering shifting theories of the crime in an attempt to win the case at any cost.

"It's now the shifting sands again, the shifting factual theory," defense attorney Joseph Cheshire said. He added: "It is the ethical duty of a district attorney not to win a case, not to prosecute all cases, but to see that justice is done."

In dropping the rape charges, Nifong filed court papers that said the accuser told an investigator Thursday that she is no longer certain whether she was penetrated vaginally with the men's penises, as she had claimed earlier. Nifong previously said he could rely on the woman's account because of a lack of DNA evidence against the players.

Lacking any "scientific or other evidence independent of the victim's testimony" to corroborate that aspect of the case, the district attorney said in court papers, "the state is unable to meet its burden of proof with respect to this offense."

Nifong is a disgrace.

He dragged three men through the mud. Their pictures and their names are public.

Now he pulls a "never mind."

What a loser!

A sign on posted on Nifong's office door read, "No media, please!" But as he left his office, he said, "All the documents have been filed and they speak for themselves."

"No media."

What a joke!

Tell that to the three Duke lacrosse players that have been accused of rape.

Nifong helped to set them up for a trial by the media.

Will they be able to restore their reputations?

If there's justice, Nifong will be the one remembered as an abusive thug.

In an interview Thursday with The New York Times, published late Friday on the newspaper's Web site, Nifong said the "case will go away" if the accuser ever says one of the players she identifed did not attack her.

"I've said I'm not interested in prosecuting somebody that's innocent," Nifong told The Times. "But until she tells me that, until she tells me these are not the right guys, we're prosecuting this case."

Why did Nifong do an interview with The Times on Thursday?

Why did that interview not appear on its website until late on Friday?

This guy was laying the groundwork for damage control.

The Times, of course, obliged.

Nifong and The Times and the accuser are in the same league when it comes to credibility.

...The accuser, a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, has said three men raped her — vaginally, anally and orally — while holding her against her will in a bathroom at a March 13 Duke lacrosse team party where she was hired to perform as a stripper.

The indicted players — Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann — all say they are innocent. Their attorneys have consistently said no sex occurred at the party.

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

Are these three individuals the real victims here?

If all of this turns out to be a pack of lies, will the accuser have her name and face splashed by the media?

She should be named.

In this case, if her accusations are false, identifying her might serve as a deterrent to keep other liars from crying rape.

I don't think rape victims should be named in the press. I do think that people who falsely accuse others of crimes should be.

The men are still charged with kidnapping, for allegedly holding the woman against her will, and sexual offense. Under state law, a rape charge requires vaginal intercourse, while sexual offense covers any sexual act. In dropping the rape charges, Nifong did not specify what sex acts prosecutors now believe occurred.

No surprise there.

Why would Nifong be specific?

Who knows what the accuser will magically claim to recall or forget?

...The defense has complained that the stripper has given authorities at least a dozen different versions of her story. Among other things, she has given conflicting accounts of the number of attackers — anywhere from three to 20 — and the ways in which she was supposedly assaulted. At least one time after the party, she told police she had not been assaulted.

Last week, it was learned that DNA testing arranged by the prosecution at a private laboratory found genetic material from several men on the stripper's underwear and body, but that none of it came from the players.

"The reality is, what else could the DA do?" said Stan Goldman, who teaches criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "Once the DNA evidence came out last week, I can't imagine how they could sustain a rape charge."

Just think of where this case would be if not for DNA testing.

It really is a breakthrough in seeing that justice is done.

For instance, Bill Clinton was able to keep lying until the mess on the big blue dress did him in.

Indeed, DNA is powerful stuff.

I don't understand why the accuser would lie about being raped, knowing that there would be no physical evidence to back up her charge.

Apparently, she didn't think it through.

For the Love of Air America

The people have spoken!

THOUSANDS of people protested the impending death of Air America on Madison radio.

Their voices were heard.

A Festivus miracle occurred.

Air America will not die on January 1, 2007.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Clear Channel Radio has reversed an earlier decision after a backlash in Madison, saying it will keep its Air America affiliate on the air instead of switching the progressive talk format to sports on Jan. 1.

Citing the overwhelming negative reaction to the planned change, the nation's No. 1 operator of radio stations said it would keep The Mic 92.1 FM on the air as a progressive talk station.

The planned change to Fox Sports Radio, announced three days after the Nov. 7 election, sparked outrage in Madison. Clear Channel said the station, WXXM-FM, had struggled to attract advertisers despite high ratings and a sports format would be more profitable.

But thousands of people protested the end of their favorite station through e-mails, phone calls and a signed petition delivered this week. A rally last week drew 500 people, and politicians including Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, denounced the decision.

Wow.

Apparently, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin are diehard Air America fans.

Cieslewicz and Baldwin show more commitment to controlling Madison radio than Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore show to controlling their city's crime problem.

Only in Madison, city of protests, would there be 500 libs on hand to rally for a failed radio station.

..."We are overwhelmed by the recent outpouring of support for our progressive talk format from the public, some of our community leaders and some dedicated local advertisers," said Jeff Tyler, Clear Channel's market manager in Madison. "We deeply appreciate the local business leaders who are pledging their advertising support - they are playing an enormous role in helping to keep progressive talk on the air in our community."

Tyler planned to announce the decision on the airwaves this morning. He said Clear Channel had to end an agreement with Fox Sports Radio to make the deal possible.

"Progressive" appears in this AP article five times.

It's so funny that libs are afraid to admit that they're libs.

The announcement came just as the opponents of the change appeared to give up, staging a mock funeral procession from the Capitol to Clear Channel's local offices on Wednesday to mourn the death of the station.

Valerie Walasek, a 28-year-old listener who organized the protests, said she had shifted her focus to other options, such as trying to buy a new station. She was shocked by the company's last-minute change of heart.

"It's evidence that as people stand up and demand what they want and demand they are going to take back the airwaves, somebody will listen," she said.

What a nut!

A mock funeral procession for Air America?

How weird!

I know that listening to Air America has all the life and excitement of a funeral procession. Was Walasek trying to recreate the Air America listening experience in her planned protest?

The fact that Air America will stay on the air in Madison isn't indicative of the people taking "back the airwaves."

The people already have control of the airwaves.

MILLIONS and MILLIONS choose to listen to conservative talk.

The country overwhelmingly has rejected lib radio.

Madison is completely out of the mainstream.

JS Editorial Board, Like, Gets it Wrong -- Again

I think someone wrote today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial, "Gud 4 u: Time got it right," after the office Christmas (Oops! I meant HOLIDAY) party.

The writer seems to have imbibed with reckless abandon.

There has been a bit of unseemly grousing about Time's Person of the Year.

That person would, according to the magazine, be you. As in you if you blog, chat, surf or otherwise kind of, like, live on the Internet and view it as an indispensable part of your life and persona.

As in folks on YouTube and MySpace. You know, really hip, cool people.

About this grousing. Shhhhh. You know who you are. You're revealing your lack of coolness.

It's just so predictable. Just as hipsters wear their coolness on their sleeves, type it out on their keyboards or share it in streaming video, those of the uncool persuasion like to wear their uncoolness as badges of honor. They disdain the rabble who autobiographisize to the world daily and those who text message to converse.

But these grousers actually use the Internet all the time. For work, they say. And this, too, becomes a badge of honor, worn by the same folks who try to convince us that all they watch on television are the National Geographic and Discovery channels.

Right. Is that a cell phone in your pocket, and what's that sticking out of your ear?

Welcome to the future. Time magazine got it right. The way the Internet - and technology generally - is being used as the world's new community is revolutionary. It is changing the world as it shrinks it, and we've not seen anything yet.

No need for a breathalyzer. Definitely drunk.

Yes, it can seem scary. We know. You are, after all, likely reading this on a newspaper page. Predicting the demise of newspapers is all the rage these days. The assessments are overblown. In case you didn't notice, even we old newspaper fogies have staked out a huge presence on the Web.

Not me. I read it on the Internet for FREE.

It's simple. Time could recognize how the world is changing and focus some attention on who, in the true spirit of egalitarianism, is doing the changing - regular folks - or it could have given us yet another elder statesperson/rock star/do-gooder/do-badder/genius inventor as its Person of the Year.

Maybe we don't have our snoots in the air like a lot of people because some of us are actual repeats for the magazine's top honor. The middle class was named in 1969 and U.S. women in 1975. And young people were the honorees in 1966. (Yes, members of the Editorial Board were once young.)

So we'll pass on this grousing stuff. It's not that we're, like, all that cool. It just doesn't strike us as particularly wise to tell the folks who will be funding Social Security and driving us around when we can't that they're wrong.

Blog on.

And the Editorial Board will blather on.

The Board is right on this count -- "It's not that we're, like, all that cool."

I agree.

Not cool. Not funny. Not right.

Bergermeister Meisterberger

'Tis the season for Christmas TV specials.

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town does not rate as one of my favorites. It's a Rankin/Bass stop motion animated special, the same team that brought us Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I think it's really rather strange and kind of creepy.

Fred Astaire makes for a pleasant enough narrator, but the other characters in the special are weird. Red-haired Kris Kringle and that trampy-looking Jessica and the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger are odd players in the bizarre story of the origins of Santa Claus.


Burgermeister Meisterburger

If you're looking for a story that has a creepy character and a strange plot, you don't need to look to a decades old Christmas special.

New details have been made available in the Sandy Berger "Dox in Sox" affair.

It's not a Christmas story, but it does have Sandy Bergermeister Meisterberger.

And if it weren't so serious -- dealing with national security, obstructing the work of the 9/11 Commission, covering up for the Clinton administration -- it would be a much more entertaining tale than Santa Claus is Comin' to Town and offering many more laughs, too.


Sandy Berger(meister Meisterberger)

From The Washington Post:

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general concluded in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

After archives officials accused him of taking the documents, Berger told investigators, he "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck." But instead of admitting he had removed them deliberately -- by stuffing them in his suit pockets on multiple occasions -- Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.

Incredible, isn't it?

What was Berger thinking?

The fact that Berger, one of President Bill Clinton's closest aides from 1997 to 2001, illicitly removed the documents is well-known: A federal judge in September 2005 ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine for his actions and forfeit his security clearance for three years.

Right. It is well-known, but the lib media don't seem to have much interest in digging deeper.

There's little investigative reporting on the incident.

Here is some information on the efforts by the Landmark Legal Foundation to find out more details about what the Bergermeister stole from the National Archives.

What Berger did, and the ham-handed and comical methods by which he did it, are freshly detailed in the National Archives report, which the Associated Press obtained first under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Although the report reiterates that Berger's main motive was to prepare himself for testifying before a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, it makes clear that he not only sought to study the documents but also destroyed some copies and -- when initially confronted -- denied he had done so.

It's as though AP obtained the report to make it appear as if it were on top of the story.

I think the intention is really to bury it, a "let's move on" tactic, nothing to see here.

His lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement yesterday that Berger "considers this matter closed, and he is pleased to have moved on."

The matter isn't closed. Naturally, Berger wants it to be closed, but the Landmark Legal Foundation doesn't look at it that way.

...In the statement, Breuer emphasized that the Justice Department concluded that other copies of the documents at issue existed and that they were provided to the Sept. 11 commission. He also said the Justice Department affirmed that Berger had no intent to hide the contents.

Huh?

No intent to hide the contents?

He certainly intended to hide the documents. He went to extreme lengths to sneak out docs, destroy them, and lie about what he did.

Why did Berger stash "highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office"?

Why did he cut up documents with a scissors?

He was doing a lot of sneaking around considering he supposedly had nothing to hide.

...In September and October, Berger was able to sneak papers -- slight variations of a report titled "Millennium Alert After Action Review," which looked at U.S. vulnerabilities to terrorists, as well as the notes he took from other classified documents -- into his pockets, the report said, because an unnamed senior official left the room while Berger made or took phone calls.

Although one archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," Berger told investigators he was merely pulling up his socks, which he said "frequently fall down." He said "this story was absurd and embarrassing."

Can't Berger afford longer, better fitting socks?

What about sock garters?

Berger said that after spending hours at the archives on Oct. 2, he took a walk outside past a construction fence to leave four classified copies of the millennium document beneath a trailer. He later explained that he needed to return to the building for several additional hours of work and was worried that guards would see the documents bulging in his suit.

So Bergermeister, are those classified documents in your suit or are you just happy to see me?

Who puts classified documents beneath a trailer???

UNBELIEVABLE!

Berger got caught partly because suspicious archives employees secretly numbered the millennium document copies they showed him in October. When an official challenged him by telephone on Oct. 4, he turned over two copies of the millennium document that he said he had accidentally kept.

I don't know why Berger isn't in jail.

I bet he wouldn't be bending over to pull up his socks there.

Freedom Tower: 1776 and 2006

(AFP/File/Doug Kanter)

"You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later."

--New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

Alert Nagin!

Progress is being made on repairing that "hole in the ground."


(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

NEW YORK -- The Freedom Tower — the 1,776-foot emblem of ground zero's renaissance — has been so beset by setbacks that it has even had multiple groundbreakings.

But in a visible mark of progress, 25-ton steel columns are at last rising at the site of the soaring skyscraper that will replace the World Trade Center's twin towers.

"Today the steel rises, the Freedom Tower rises from the ashes of Sept. 11, and the people of New York and the people of America can be proud," Gov. George Pataki said on Tuesday, when a massive crane lifted the first column. Painted with an American flag and the words "Freedom Tower," the 31-foot-high column was set over steel bars on the southern edge of the tower's base.

The second column, also raised on Tuesday, bears the signatures of steelworkers and politicians from Virginia, where it spent time at a steel company before being shipped to New York. A third column — covered with signatures of New Yorkers and Sept. 11 victims' relatives, as well as pictures of some firefighters killed in the 2001 attack — will be installed in the coming days.

The images of 9/11 are so vivid in my mind.

When I reflect on that day five years ago, I'm caught off guard by how raw my emotions still are. The feelings I experienced are still so fresh.

How could human beings hijack civilian airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

It happened, but that makes it no less surreal.

Something else is surreal to me.

Given the enormity and brazenness of the 9/11 attacks, I just don't get how the Lefties -- the Dems, the lib media, and assorted outspoken critics of the Bush administration -- can be rooting for the U.S. to suffer defeat in Iraq.

In its coverage of President Bush's year-end news conference, the Associated Press gleefully reports on setbacks in Iraq and an embattled American president.

WASHINGTON -- The president opened the question-and-answer session by conceding the obvious — things haven't gone well in Iraq, where the United States has lost more than 2,900 troops in almost four years of war, without quelling the insurgency.

"The enemies of liberty ... carried out a deliberate strategy to foment sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shia. And over the course of the year they had success," he said.

"Their success hurt our efforts to help the Iraqis rebuild their country. They set back reconciliation and kept Iraq's unity government and our coalition from establishing security and stability throughout the country."

Bush also explained a striking shift in position — his statement on Tuesday that the United States is neither winning nor losing in Iraq, contrasted with his insistence at a recent news conference that it was "absolutely winning."

He said his earlier comments were meant to say that, "I believe that we're going to win, I believe that ... My comments yesterday reflected the fact that we're not succeeding nearly as fast as I had wanted."

So much is being made of this "striking shift."

Bush still insists that we are going to win. If Bush were to say that we're going to lose, that would be a striking shift in position.

Looking ahead, Bush said a decision on whether to send more U.S. troops to Iraq rests on whether a specific, achievable mission can be defined. Top generals worry that a troop surge could strain the military overall and might be ineffective unless accompanied by political and economic changes in Iraq.

The Baker-Hamilton Commission said a quick buildup of troops could be helpful if the military commanders on the ground thought it would be effective in arresting what it called a "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq.

White House officials had earlier said the president intended to address the nation before year's end to set out a revised plan for Iraq. That speech has been put off until after the holidays.

The lib media do all they can to make Bush appear weak.

What's important about the assessment by the Iraq Study Group (now renamed the Baker-Hamilton Commission because it sounds a bit less lame) is that defeat would be catastrophic for us.

The recommendation is NOT retreat.

As far as Bush's speech being put off until after Christmas, who cares?

If Kerry were president (Gag!) and he delayed an address, the lib media would no doubt praise him for taking the time to weigh his options.

When Bush does it, he's depicted as floundering and breaking a promise.

Bush was asked whether he was like Lyndon Johnson, who had difficulty sleeping during the difficult days of the Vietnam War.

In response, the president said it was difficult knowing that "my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives." And yet, he said, the United States must prevail in the global war on terror — and will.

The media will not rest until they get President Bush to say that Iraq is Vietnam, that he's a liar and a failure, that we've lost the war, that it's over.

The AP account asserts with disgust that although American service members have died in war, Bush won't retreat.

Imagine Terence Hunt, AP White House Correspondent and writer of this article, reporting on FDR during World War II.

Would Hunt write this?

In response, the president said it was difficult knowing that "my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives." And yet, he said, the United States must prevail in the global war on Nazism and Fascism — and will.

Who knows?

Maybe he would have wanted to retreat. Maybe he would have portrayed FDR as callous and uncaring about the fatalities. Maybe he would have worked to undermine the U.S. war effort.

I think it's beyond irresponsible for the lib media and the Dems and spineless Republicans to be serving as propagandists for the enemy.

That's not to say that it's wrong to acknowledge the reality of war and confront the difficulties and tremendous costs of the struggle.

I just don't get how they can be cheering for the U.S. to lose.

If Hunt had been around during Christmas 1776, would he have reported that George Washington was losing and it was time to give up?

Perhaps.

Bottom line:

IRAQ IS NOT VIETNAM.

The war in Vietnam didn't impact the freedom of Americans.

The outcome of the war in Iraq will impact our freedom. An admission of defeat will encourage our enemies to continue on their quest to bring the West to its knees.

Iraq is a battle in the War on Terror that we can't lose.

The Wild, Wild Midwest

Milwaukee is living up to its title as one of the nation's violent crime hubs.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, John Diedrich writes:

Two people were killed, a third was shot but survived and police officers exchanged gunfire with robbers in a spasm of violence on Milwaukee's streets overnight, police said.

At 9 p.m., police found a 17-year-old male dead with a wound to the head in 2900 block of N. 22nd St. Police aren't sure if he was shot, stabbed or beaten.

...Just after midnight, a man, 21, was found shot to death in the 2700 block of N. 54th St. Police were not releasing any information on a motive or suspect.

At 8 p.m., a 42-year-old man was shot in the buttocks in the 6300 block of W. Kaul Ave. He is expected to survive. Police are looking for a known suspect.

At 7:30 p.m., officers were near W. Capitol and N. Teutonia avenues investigating a sandwich store robbery when another robbery occurred at a nearby Walgreens, police said.

The officers spotted the robber and there was an exchange of gunfire with one officer and the robber firing, police said. Apparently, no one was hit. The robber escaped.

Another night, more bloodshed and death in Milwaukee.

Same old, same old.

I suppose Mayor Tom Barrett is outraged. That's his plan -- to hold news conferences and say he's angry and the violence has to stop.

I wonder how Police Chief Nan Hegerty's crime study group is going.

It's Christmastime in the city.

Peace on Earth?

Ayman al-Zawahri has surfaced just in time to deliver a Christmas greeting.

He said he wants the children of the wartorn Middle East to grow up without hate in their hearts. He hopes that by teaching them to show respect and tolerance, peace can finally be achieved.


Not really. He didn't say that.

Al-Zawahri doesn't want peace. He doesn't want democracy. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want Islamic children to live in peace, side by side with people of different faiths.

He wants jihad. And like many in the U.S. House and Senate, and like former President Jimmy Carter, al-Zawahri wants the West to be defeated.

DUBAI (Reuters) -- Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video tape aired on Wednesday that Palestinian elections would not free Palestinian land and would deal a blow to holy war against Israeli occupation.

"Those who are trying to free Islamic land through elections that are based on secular constitutions ... will not free a grain of Palestinian sand, but will choke jihad," he said in the tape broadcast by Al Jazeera television.

It was not clear when the recording, only excerpts of which were aired, was made.

...Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Saturday for early elections to break a deadlock between his Fatah faction and Hamas, which has accused him of a "coup" against its elected government.

"Retreating in the face of the West will not satisfy it, no matter how adept we are at maneuvering and negotiations," Egyptian militant leader Zawahri said.

"Any path other than jihad will only lead us to loss and defeat," he added.

...Al Qaeda regards the United States as its chief enemy and argues that Washington's Middle East policies further the interests of Israel at the expense of Muslims.

The tape is the first by Zawahri since September 29 when he appeared in a video posted on the Internet in which he called President Bush a lying failure for talking of progress in the war on terrorism.

Oh, Reuters.

Even when the news outlet reports on a message from al Qaeda's number two man, it has to tack on a slam at President Bush.

In other words, be upset with al-Zawahri; but be upset with the "lying failure" George W. Bush, too.

Reuters' anti-Bush, pro-terrorist propaganda is a joke. It's so unfair and so unbalanced.

The news here is the content of al-Zawahri's most recent message, not what the TERRORIST said two and a half months ago about the American President.

Bush and al-Zawahri are not on the same moral plane.

Oxymoron of the Day

I think it's going to be a long Christmas vacation.

Mary: What were you thinking? Did you think it was permanent?

Mary's kid: Umm...Permanent for a while.

Permanent for a while isn't permanent!!!

The Noble Mission of David Zucker

Brilliant filmmaker and Wisconsin son David Zucker has been tapping his talents to raise consciousness.

He's on a noble mission.

Zucker created an ad to bring attention to the consequences of the weak on terror appeaser Madeleine Albright's relationship with the North Koreans, a little history lesson.

He gave his take on the frightening future for taxpayers with Dems in control of Congress, a warning that American voters didn't heed on Election Day 2006.

Now, Zucker offers his analysis of the Iraq Study Group's recommendation to talk with Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Watch, laugh, and LEARN.



Funny?

Yes.

Scary?

Very.

Laura Bush Cover Up

The lib media are a selfish, miserable lot.

When reporting on a story involving the health of Laura Bush, the issue should be her condition, not a supposed cover up.

WASHINGTON -- First lady Laura Bush had a skin cancer tumor removed from her right shin in early November but decided it was a private matter and did not reveal it publicly.

The White House acknowledged the procedure Monday night after Mrs. Bush was noticed with a bandage below her right knee.

The cancer was a squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common form of skin cancer, said Susan Whitson, her press secretary.

...Explaining why the procedure was not disclosed until now, Whitson said, "This medical procedure was a private matter for Mrs. Bush, but when asked by the media today, we answered the question."

Question: When George W. Bush took the oath of office, did Laura Bush take an oath to give up her privacy?

...Monday's revelation was the second case this year of a belated White House announcement. In February, the White House waited almost a day before disclosing that Vice President Dick Cheney had shot a fellow hunter during a quail-hunting trip.

Oooh! It's the second case in 2006 of a belated announcement from the White House.

THAT IS SO LAME!

A health issue concerning the First Lady is a completely different matter from a hunting accident involving the Vice President.

Notice the AP account fails to mention that it was an ACCIDENT. It states that Cheney shot a hunter. Read that sentence and one is left wondering if the shooting was an assassination attempt.

The lib media still haven't recovered from not being told immediately about the hunting mishap.

GET OVER IT!

Good grief.

I don't think Mrs. Bush should be criticized for keeping her medical matters private.

She's not an elected official. She's not required to inform the world about the status of her health.

It's despicable that the lib media are exploiting Mrs. Bush's health to create an impression that the White House is shrouded in secrecy, drawing parallels with Cheney's hunting ACCIDENT ten months ago.

Mrs. Bush's health is her business.

I thought the libs care about protecting privacy and don't want anyone prying into people's lives. Isn't that why Russ Feingold fights for the rights of terrorists?

If libs are consistent, they can't cry foul when Mrs. Bush chooses to guard her medical privacy.

Mrs. Bush should be receiving prayers and best wishes from Americans, not criticism.

McGee Recall

Eight hundred signatures supporting the recall of Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee Jackson Jr. have been tossed out, but challenger ViAnna Jordan still has more than enough at this point.

McGee is fighting it. It's possible that he'll manage to have more signatures ruled invalid, but Jordan isn't just going to go away quietly. That's certain.

She's a brave woman for taking on McGee. I really question his stability. Like father, like son.

It's mind boggling to me that the people of McGee's high crime district would be satisfied with an alderman that calls for community leader Leon Todd to be "hung straight up" just for supporting the recall.

Why do the residents of the 6th district settle for someone like McGee as their representative?

Isn't there someone with integrity and with at least a little more class than McGee to serve as alderman?

There is -- ViAnna Jordan.

Milwaukee Study Group

Milwaukee continues to rack up shootings.

Mayor Tom Barrett can brag about the homicide being down, but the number of non-fatal shootings are increasing.

This past weekend was riddled with shootings.

Capt. Gregory Habeck of the Milwaukee Police Department told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that police were investigatings four shootings.

A 17-year-old Milwaukee boy was shot in the neck in the 2200 block of N. 41st St. after he and another male left a house party about 12:49 a.m. Sunday. The shot came from a passenger in a passing vehicle. The victim fled to a nearby tavern where his mother was bartending and was taken to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, where he was in serious condition.

In the other shootings:

Two Milwaukee men, ages 22 and 23, each were shot once in the arm about 2:19 a.m. Sunday as they left a bar in the 9200 block of W. Appleton Ave. The shots came from a group arguing in a parking lot. Both men were treated at a hospital and released.

A 24-year-old man was shot in the shoulder after he confronted two men at a house party in the 200 block of E. Chambers St. about 11:55 p.m. Saturday. One of the two fired several shots as they fled on foot. He was treated at a hospital and released.

Obviously, fewer murders don't indicate that the city is safer. The fact is crime is becoming dramatically more commonplace in Milwaukee, bucking the national trend.

In fact, Milwaukee has the terrible distinction of leading the nation in assault and robbery increases among cities of comparable size.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

New preliminary crime numbers released by the FBI on Monday show the surge in violence affecting Milwaukee is happening in cities across the nation, though to a lesser degree.

Translation: Crime in other cities is not increasing like it is in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee's percentage increases in assaults and robberies were tops among the 10 cities closest to it in population, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of the FBI figures.

...Although homicides in Milwaukee are down (101 as of Monday, compared with 118 on that date last year), officials say non-fatal shootings are increasing. Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa expects to treat 34% more gunshot victims this year than last, and such cases are up 38% at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Experts say that the total number of shootings - not just the fatal ones - is a better measurement of gun violence.

...Police Chief Nannette Hegerty has formed a group to study police responses and consider changes as the department struggles with the surge in violence. One option being considered is whether to continue sending officers to certain lower-priority calls, perhaps handling such calls over the phone or by computer.

Wisconsin's largest city is a mess!

There isn't just a perception of crime. There is increasing crime.

The growing violence is not a media creation, a distortion formed due to the "if it bleeds, it leads" rule.

Crime doesn't just appear to be on the increase. Figures show that crime in the city actually is as bad as it seems.

So much is being said about Hegerty's "Milwaukee Study Group."

Is that supposed to satisfy residents?

The existence of the study group isn't stopping the violence.

Suggestions and recommendations aren't enough. Immediate action is needed.

Leadership is needed.

That's the bottom line: Milwaukee needs effective, competent leaders to deal with the crisis.

Milwaukee needs a new police chief and a new mayor.