I’m spending time with my family out of town. I should be back by jan 3rd! Thank you for visiting.

Quit idolizing Europe. It was a far larger arms merchant to Saddam than was the United States; it supplied most of Dr. Khan’s nuclear laboratory; it financed much of the Oil-for-Food scandal; and it helped to create and tolerate the Balkans genocide. It has never freed any country or intervened to remove fascism and leave behind democracy — silly American notions that are to be caricatured except when it is a matter of saving Europeans.

* Stop seeing an all-powerful United States behind every global problem. China is on the move and far more likely to disrupt environmental protocols, cheat on trade accords, and bully neighbors. The newly expanded Europe has a larger population and aggregate economy, stronger currency, and far less in trade and budget debts than does the United States — and is already using that economic clout for its own interests, not global freedom from dictators and autocrats.

* Don’t believe much of what the U.N. says anymore. Its secretary general is guilty of either malfeasance or incompetence, its soldiers are often hired thugs who terrorize those they are supposed to protect, and its resolutions are likely to be anti-democratic and anti-Semitic. Its members include dozens of nations whose odious representatives we would not let walk inside the doors of the U.S. Congress. The old idea of a United Nations was inspiring, the current reality chilling.

* Stop seeing socialists and anti-Americans as Democrats. When a Michael Moore compares beheaders to our own Minutemen and laments that too many Democrats were in the World Trade Center, he deserves no platform alongside Wesley Clark or a seat next to Jimmy Carter or praise for his pseudo-dramas from high Democrats. Firebrands like Al Sharpton and Michael Moore are the current leftist equivalents of 1950s right-wing extremists like the John Birchers. They should suffer the same fate of ostracism, not bemused and tacit approval. thanx National Review)

NELSON, B.C. – A monument is actually being built to “honor” draft dodgers in Canada. I read this article on Newsmax in amazement and will place the link here. So Cananda is not only instituting Islamic law, it also honors draft dodgers?? Things are not looking good for our neighbor to the north.

The Bush administration yesterday pledged $15 million to Asian nations hit by a tsunami that has killed more than 22,500 people, although the United Nations’ humanitarian-aid chief called the donation “stingy.”
“The United States, at the president’s direction, will be a leading partner in one of the most significant relief, rescue and recovery challenges that the world has ever known,” said White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy.
But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being “stingy” with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.

By Bill Sammon. Read the full article here)

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. consumer confidence (news – web sites) grew to a five-month high in December, bolstered by improved employment opportunities and cheaper energy, according to a report released on Tuesday. Confidence in the economy was also given a boost earlier on Tuesday with the release of data showing U.S. chain store sales rose for the fourth week in a row in the week ending Dec. 25.

But the big market mover on Tuesday was the surprisingly strong consumer confidence data from The Conference Board (news – web sites), a New York business research group. The index rose to 102.3 in December, the highest level since July. “The continuing economic expansion, combined with job growth, has consumers ending the year on a high note,” said Lynn Franco, director of consumer research at The Conference Board.

Here is a link for those that wish to help the victims of the Asian Tsunami)

NEW YORK — Six Navy SEALs and two of their wives filed a lawsuit against The Associated Press and one of its reporters today for allegedly revealing their identities in photos published in early December, according to a press release from the plaintiffs.

The complaint, filed in California Superior Court, alleges that AP reporter Seth Hettena obtained a photograph in a personal Web site maintained by one of the wives of the Navy SEALs, which contains personal photographs.

None of the plaintiffs are named in the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by E&P. They are represented by attorney James W. Huston of San Diego.

Hettena allegedly removed photos from that site and published them on December 4, 2004, in a story stating that the pictures “could be” the earliest evidence of possible prisoner abuse in Iraq, the plaintiffs contend. The SEALs argue that the pictures “actually depict special warfare operators’ standard procedures during covert operations. The Iraqis shown being captured in the photographs were leaders of anti-coalition attacks and Saddam loyalists.”

AP Director of Corporate Communications Ellen Hale declined to comment immediately to E&P, but said she would look into the matter.

“There was no need for the AP to publish the faces of the SEALs,” Huston, the Morrison & Foerster partner who is heading the plaintiffs’ legal team, said in a statement. “They added nothing to the value of the story. In fact, the SEALs showed more respect for the insurgents and terrorists that they were apprehending by obscuring their faces than the AP did for the Navy SEALs who were in Iraq risking their lives,” he added.

Since the photos were released, they have been published widely in the Arab Press, including on Al Jazeera, the plaintiffs claim. Read the full article here)

Did anyone notice how the Baltimore Sun covered the Washington State election? (Friday, Dec, 24th, p. 4A) No mention was made of the election fraud that the hedgehog report covered so well. The closest they came to admitting irregularities was to mention that the ballots were “belatedly discovered.” If you think I am exaggerating by using the word fraud, then read David’s excellent coverage of the election on the Hedgehog. The Baltimore Sun has stopped being a legitimate news source a long time ago.

written by Victor Davis Hanson
While the democratic stew brews in Afghanistan and Iraq, expect a number of Bush initiatives that will turn up the heat. The UN, reeling from the Oil for Food scandals, the Secretary-General’s nepotism, and the organization’s tolerance for mass murder in the Sudan, is under enormous pressure to democratize its membership, expand the Security Council, open its books—or face a de facto American disengagement. That is no longer a right-wing pipe dream, not when a majority of Americans now voices no confidence in either the efficacy or morality of such avatars of world governance.

The Palestinians likewise are facing an impending dilemma. Either with American support and aid they embrace real democracy and give up tribal Arafatism to negotiate as a legitimate interlocutor with the Israelis, or they will face a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the completion of a security fence, continued destruction of extremists and the recognition that they will lose their window on the West through Jerusalem, and instead stew in their own juice with their like brethren in Syria and Egypt.

Nor will the Bush administration cease its reexamination of its superpower responsibilities. The American people believes that there is no longer any strategic or political logic in stationing thousands of soldiers in Europe, but plenty of reasons—economic, political, and psychological—to remove the vast majority of them at a time of troops shortages closer to the front. NATO has become as impotent as it is widely praised, especially when it fails to honor commitments in Afghanistan and abhors involvement with Iraq. This obstructionism is in sharp contrast to the prior European desire of American-led military intervention—without UN or Congressional sanction—to remove Slobodan Milosevic. Having learned belatedly the wisdom of talking more quietly while carrying an even bigger stick, America may continue to offer praise for the status quo trans-Atlantic relationship, while unobtrusively promoting wider bilateral relationships—like those with Australia—based on shared commitments to freedom and the need for collective security against statism and totalitarianism in all its many guises. Read the full article here)

Bacon’s Information, the provider of media research, distribution, monitoring, and evaluation services for public relations and corporate communications professionals, has endeavored to light the depths of the Blogosphere. In January, Bacon’s MediaSource will begin sharing with its clients the names of what it considers to be the 250 most reputable blogs, the messages they contain, and the frequency with which client-relevant information appears on them.

Ruth McFarland, senior vice president and publisher for Bacon’s, said she vacillated about the significance of blogs, but was sufficiently convinced this year to assign three of her 56 editors to monitor the Blogosphere. “We’re adjusting our network because no one is accurately monitoring these guys as their influence continues to grow.”

Bacon’s is keeping tight raps on its blog list, which covers technology, politics, business, travel, and religion. The racy Wonkette, the Miami Herald’s Dave Barry, and the Silicon Valley Watcher are three well-known blogs run by “reputable, credible professionals” that McFarland said will be on the list. (thanx Little Green Footballs)

KIEV (Reuters) – West-leaning opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko looked certain on Monday to become Ukraine’s next president, but his opponent, the prime minister, refused to concede defeat in the bitterly fought contest. Yushchenko has promised to end rampant graft and reform the ex-Soviet state’s damaged economy. He wants to align Ukraine with the West, fanning concerns in Russia that it will lose influence over a region where it has held sway for 300 years.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who won a rigged vote last month, angrily rejected conceding defeat in Sunday’s re-run and said he would lodge a challenge in the Supreme Court — the same method used by the opposition to force Sunday’s re-run. International observers gave their blessing to the re-run of the presidential election, saying it had been much fairer than the Nov. 21 poll which the Supreme Court quashed on the grounds of mass fraud.

By Olena Horodetska

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Rescuers scoured the sea for missing tourists and fishermen in Asia Monday and fears of disease grew as emergency services struggled with rotting bodies from a devastating tsunami that killed more than 23,200 people.

The disaster spared no one. Western tourists were killed sunbathing on beaches, poor villagers drowned in homes by the sea and fishermen died in flimsy boats. The 21-year-old grandson of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej was killed on a jet-ski.

Hundreds were buried in mass graves in India while hospitals and morgues in Sri Lanka and Indonesia struggled to cope with injured and bewildered victims and bloated corpses. Sri Lanka was hardest hit by the tsunami — a wall of water triggered by the world’s biggest earthquake in 40 years with a magnitude of 9.0 that erupted off the northern Indonesian coast.

By Chamintha Thilakarathna

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. I have family coming up and will not post much for a few days. I should get back to it full time within a week. Thank you for visiting!

this is from from Rush
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: Everything we do good, no matter whether it’s helping a little kid or building a new school, the public affairs sends out the message that the media doesn’t pick up on. How do we win the propaganda war?

RUMSFELD: That does not sound like a question that was planted by the press. That happens sometimes. (Uproarious Laughter.)

RUSH: And the raucous uproarious laughter and applause continued. When it died down, the secretary answered question.

RUMSFELD: Everything we do here is harder because of television stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia and the constant negative approach. You don’t hear about the schools that are open, and the hospitals that are open, and the clinics that are open, and the fact that the stock market is open and the Iraqi currency is steady and the fact that there have been something like 140,000 refugees coming from other countries back into this country. They’re voting with their feet because they believe this is a country of the future. You don’t read about that. You read about every single negative thing that anyone can find to report. I was talking to a group of congressmen and senators the other day, and there were a couple of them who had negative things to say and they were in the press in five minutes. There were 15 or 20 that had positive things to say about what’s going on in Iraq and they couldn’t get on television. Television just said we’re not interested. That’s just — sorry. So it is, I guess, what’s news has to be bad news.

Remember that left-wing egghead at Claremont McKenna College who vandalized her own car and then cried “hate crime”? Today she got sentenced to a year in the slammer. Kerri Dunn, who is, naturally, a professor of psychology, falsely claimed that her Honda was spray-painted with racist and anti-Semitic slurs.
She had faced up to three years in a California prison for filing a false police report and two felony counts of attempted insurance fraud. from newsmax.

read the full article here. (AP) — At the University of North Carolina, three incoming freshmen sue over a reading assignment they say offends their Christian beliefs. In Colorado and Indiana, a national conservative group publicizes student allegations of left-wing bias by professors. Faculty get hate mail and are pictured in mock “wanted” posters; at least one college says a teacher received a death threat. And at Columbia University in New York, a documentary film alleging that teachers intimidate students who support Israel draws the attention of administrators. The three episodes differ in important ways, but all touch on an issue of growing prominence on college campuses.

At Columbia, anguished debate followed the screening of a film by an advocacy group called The David Project that alleges some faculty violate students’ rights by using the classroom as a platform for anti-Israeli political propaganda (one Israeli student claims a professor taunted him by asking, “How many Palestinians did you kill?”). Administrators responded this month by setting up a new committee to investigate students complaints.

Here is a nice link from operation shoebox. It’s purpose is to encourage citizens to support their fighting men and women deployed overseas in these dangerous times. Check out the web site for information on what to send. It would be nice to remind the men and women fighting overseas that we are still thinking of them back home.

(from the Baltimore Sun) Maryland’s Employment growth rate was 2 percent the last year, compared to the average of 1.6 percent nationally. The unemployment rate remained low at 3.9 percent. What I find interesting is the lack of any credit to Ehrlich and his fiscal policies for this fact. Did you notice the articles linking Bush to the economic outlook of the country when there was a downturn, but no mention of him now? The same with our gov.! No wonder he believes the Baltimore Sun is biased.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie has attacked Tony Blair’s planned London meeting on Palestinian reform, saying what was really needed was a peace conference. Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Mahmoud Abbas, frontrunner to succeed Arafat, on Wednesday welcomed Blair’s proposal to host a conference on Palestinian reform next year. Qurie said he rejected Blair’s suggestion that Palestinians needed reform before there could be progress on the peace process. “We reject these remarks. They are unacceptable and we are capable and have the means and expertise for peace and negotiations,” Qurie told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Why do they, not just Palestine, but the Arab World in general need reform? One, I agree with Bush is that Democracies do not fight each other and are more peaceful and stable then dictatorships. There is also more economic growth. Third, repression breeds hate, but the dictators have distracted the public with some propaganda that is actually worse then anything by Gobbels. Let me give you some incredible examples from from LGF.

In the Saudi government daily Al-Watan, an article from Brussels written by Fakhriya Ahmad charges that, based on alleged secret European military reports, the U.S. military in Iraq is harvesting and selling human organs. The following day, the story was also published in the Iranian daily Jomhouri-ye Islami, as well as the Syrian daily Teshreen.

Next, Iran’s Sahar 1 TV station is currently airing a weekly series titled “For You, Palestine,” or “Zahra’s Blue Eyes.” The series premiered on December 13, and is set in Israel and the West Bank. It broadcasts every Monday, and was filmed in Persian but subsequently dubbed into Arabic. The story follows an Israeli candidate for Prime Minister, Yitzhak Cohen, who is also the military commander of the West Bank. The opening sequence of the show contains graphic scenes of surgery, and images of a Palestinian girl in a hospital whose eyes have been removed, with bandages covering the sockets.

In Episode 1, Yitzhak Cohen lectures at a medical conference on the advances being made by Israeli medicine regarding organ transplants. Later in the episode, Israelis disguised as UN workers visit a Palestinian school, ostensibly to examine the children’s eyes for diseases, but in reality to select which children’s eyes to steal to be used for transplants. In Episode 2, the audience learns that the Israeli president is being kept alive by organs stolen from Palestinian children, and an Israeli military commander is seen kidnapping UN employees and Palestinians.

Does it not occur to anyone that this, more then any of our policies, helps breed terrorism?!!!

Personal Savings Accounts Key to Social Security Reform

By Dylan Glenn. Dylan Glenn is a Senior Fellow with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. the whole article is found here

The major problem with the current system is structural. Designed as a “pay-as-you-go” system more than 65 years ago (meaning today’s workers contribute to support today’s retirees), demographic changes have made this an increasingly obsolete model. For example, at the time of the adoption of the Social Security Act, the payroll taxes of roughly 42 workers supported the benefits of one single retiree. Today, there are only three workers contributing per retiree. By 2030, the ratio will shrink to two workers to one retiree. This reality suggests a demographic time bomb set to explode on future generations of workers. Additionally, consider Americans’ increasing longevity. When Social Security was established, the life expectancy for the average citizen was 61 years. Today the average life expectancy has risen to 77.4 years. This “graying of America” amounts to a serious challenge forcing benefits to be paid out over longer periods, which, obviously, places greater strain on the system in terms of costs Social Security at its creation was never envisioned as more than a retirement supplement. The challenges to the program create an imperative for action. Restoring the program to a sound footing requires more than strong economic growth of the overall economy; its future rests in innovation and reform.

Clearly, with the explosion of new forms of investment (i.e. mutual funds, which enable small savers to “pool” their investments over a range of equities and bonds) any Social Security reform needs to include Personal Savings Accounts (PSAs). The Investment Company Institute reports that there are more than 90 million individuals, representing 52 percent of all U.S. households, who own mutual funds today. The groundwork for working Americans to build their own retirements in the markets has already been laid. PSAs would offer workers the opportunity to voluntarily divert a portion of payroll taxes into individual investment accounts. That would generate a greater return on investment. Today, the return on investment for retirees amounts to less than 2 percent; conservatively managed PSAs could garner 5 percent or better. And unlike today’s system, those PSAs could be passed along to heirs.

I do not have the space to print the entire article here, but I encourage everyone to try the link and read the whole page.