Get Dick Clark on the phone

Apparently New Years has been delayed. No really, it has...by one second.

Get ready for a minute with 61 seconds. Scientists are delaying the start of 2006 by the first “leap second” in seven years, a timing tweak meant to make up for changes in the Earth’s rotation.

The adjustment will be carried out by sticking an extra second into atomic clocks worldwide at the stroke of midnight Coordinated Universal Time, the widely adopted international standard, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology said this week.

“Enjoy New Year’s Eve a second longer,” the institute said in an explanatory notice. “You can toot your horn an extra second this year.”

Must be all that darned tidal braking. What a pain. And this is after the tsunami sped the earth up, decreasing each day by 2.68 microseconds.

Ah well, a second here, a few microseconds there...we all spend half a year of our lives sitting at traffic lights anyway. As long as somebody informs Dick Clark, and Catherine Zeta Jones so she can steal all that money, we're good to go.

Everybody have a good time ringing in the New Year!

The dumbest story of 2005

I only disagree slightly with Jonah Goldberg on this one, about the worst story for 2005. He nominates the Associated Press crying about website cookies from the White House website.

The discovery and subsequent inquiries by The Associated Press prompted the White House to investigate. David Almacy, the White House's Internet director, said tests conducted since Thursday show that data from the cookie and the bug are not mixed — and thus the 2003 guidelines weren't violated.

"The White House Web site is and always has been consistent with the OMB guidance," Almacy said, adding that the limited tracking is common among Web sites.

Jason Palmer, vice president of products for Portland, Ore.-based WebTrends, said Web browsers are designed to scan preexisting cookies automatically, but he insisted the company doesn't use the information to track visitors to the White House site.

Smith said the White House and WebTrends could have avoided any appearance of a problem by simply renaming the server used at WebTrends.

The Clinton administration first issued the strict rules on cookies in 2000 after its Office of National Drug Control Policy, through a contractor, had used the technology to track computer users viewing its online anti-drug advertising. The rules were updated in 2003 by the Bush administration.

Nonetheless, agencies occasionally violate the rules — inadvertently, they contend. The CIA did in 2002, and the NSA more recently. The NSA disabled the cookies this week and blamed a recent upgrade to software that shipped with cookie settings already on.

I will give him that this is certainly the most hypocritical of the inane stories the AP comes out with, considering that the AP's own website has a cookie policy and tracks visitors.

AP, or third parties on our behalf, may also collect non-personally identifiable information via the use of cookies. Cookies are pieces of information that are transferred to an individual's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies are used to assist you in using site information and content by saving your user preferences. Cookies are also used to collect aggregate information about Web site users on an anonymous basis. AP has contractual relationships with third parties, including without limitation, advertisers and companies to place online advertisements that may place their own cookies on the Web sites displaying our content. In the course of serving these advertisements, such third parties may place or recognize a unique cookie of their own on your browser, and they may or may not collect personally identifiable information. Such third parties’ use of cookies will be guided by their individual privacy policy, which you should review. AP does not control such third party cookies and is not responsible for information gathered by such cookies.

Apparently the AP is not responsible much of anything. How ironic. But they do have time to harrass the White House, the NSA and others for hiring college educated IT people and using current software - probably the same software they use for their server.

Yes, Associated Press, we are laughing at you.

Although, getting back to the point, I disagree with Jonah because that story, hilarious though it is, is not the worst story. The worst story was when the Associated Press staked out Karl Rove's garage and took inventory.

There was no car in the garage. And the stuff left behind turned out not to be much different from what gathers dust inside most American garages.

The inventory, seen from outside:

-Some cardboard file boxes stacked one on top of the other, labeled "Box 6," "Box 4" and what appears to be "Box 7." No sign of boxes 1, 2, 3 and 5.

-What appear to be paint cans stacked alongside a folded, folding chair.

-A rather large wood crate marked "FRAGILE" and painted with arrows indicating which way is up. On top of the crate, two coolers.

-A tall aluminum ladder.

-A snow shovel leaned in front of another cardboard box.

-Wicker baskets inside of wicker baskets on top of a shelf running the length of the rear wall. Transparent plastic storage bins crammed with indiscernible stuff. Another cardboard box.

-In one corner, the rear wheel of a bicycle sticks out, along with what appears to be a helmet.

-Another ladder, this one green, leaning sideways.

Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous? Journalists actually get paid for this.

Hugh Hewitt had an interesting piece up the other day, linking to a call from an editor from the Chicago Reader for a journalist strike. No journalist reporting for a year, to teach the public and bloggers a "lesson".

Today, therefore, I am proposing a yearlong journalism strike. I am urging reporters and editors around the world to put down their notebooks, close their laptops, hang up their phones. Lie down and be counted! Let’s have no reporting, no editing, no application of any human intelligence whatsoever to events public or private till January 1, 2007.

I’m calling it the Year Without Journalism. Let’s all relax, let go, and float blissfully in the information-free state (excuse me, I mean free-information state) that our public awaits so eagerly.

My response: Oh please, do it. Do it now.

It's about time

As everyone has pretty much blogged about already, the DOJ is opening an investigation into the leaks about the NSA eavesdropping program.

I won't recap the details, but I will point out the hypocrisy of the major media outlets. Note the Associated Press' full bore effort to frame the issue as one of government run amok and whistleblowing, instead of what it really is, individuals leaking classified information during wartime for the expressed purpose of changing intelligence policy through the press.

It is unclear whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will recuse himself from the inquiry. He was White House counsel when Bush signed the executive order authorizing the NSA, which is normally confined to overseas operations, to spy on conversations taking place on American soil.

For the past two weeks, Gonzales also has been one of the administration's point men in arguing that the president has the constitutional authority to conduct the spying.

"It's pretty stunning that, rather than focus on whether the president broke his oath of office and broke federal law, they are going after the whistleblowers," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Romero said a special prosecutor from outside the Justice Department needs to be appointed. "This confirms many of the fears about Gonzales' appointment - that he would not be sufficiently independent from the president and that he would play the role of a crony," he said.

Duke University law professor Scott Silliman agreed that the Justice Department is taking the wrong approach.

"Somebody in the government has enough concern about this program that they are talking to reporters," Silliman said. "I don't think that is something the Justice Department should try to prosecute."

Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor, said the Justice probe is the next logical step because the NSA is alleging a violation of a law that prohibits disclosure of classified information.

"The Department of Justice has the general obligation to investigate suspected violations of the law," Kmiec said. "It would be extraordinary for the department not to take up this matter."

The NSA probe likely will result in a repeat of last summer's events in Washington, where reporters were subpoenaed to testify about who in the administration told them about Plame's work at the CIA. New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal her sources.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the Plame investigation was about "political gamesmanship." But, she said, the NSA leak probe is frightening.

"In this case, there is no question that the public needed to know what the New York Times reported," she said. "It's much more of a classic whistleblower situation. The public needs to know when the government is engaged in things that may well be unconstitutional."

Ah yes, the "may well be" argument. Sorry, but that won't hold water, or readers. The top members of Congress were briefed, as was the presiding judge on the FISA court. And the eavesdropping program has overwhelming public support, well over 60%.

No, this will not be a repeat of last summer. Last summer the media cheerleaded for indictments in a story about nothing; now they'll cheerlead for more leaks that are endangering our lives. And they'll print more leaks as well, as their sources try to protect themselves and paint the administration and our country as some sort of police state.

And for the sake of the war and protection against another 9-11, I hope that they fail, and that this investigation goes a long way into stopping the hemorrhaging of our nation's secrets and security measures.

The Case of the Missing Mercedes

Apparently the word "cheeky" is making a comeback. As an insult, if you can believe it. I mean what's wrong with impudent, or insolent?

But when you're the Secretary General of the U.N. I suppose you have to watch your language, even when you're ducking and covering and evading questions at a press conference. Let's face it, Kofi Annan, Nobel laureate that he is, has never been accused of having a spine. He's more of a Dear Abbey for terrorists and dictators. Wasn't he the man who told Saddam to start wearing suits to bolster his image? And it's no secret that the hordes of diplomatic immunocrats at Turtle Bay are more capable of sipping Sherry and taking advantage of their host city than answering questions about their responsibilities and the money that has been entrusted to them.

Still, it's not like reporter James Bone asked Kofi anything outlandish, like, "did the U.N. intend to make a pact with Saddam to enslave his own people while you made billions off the Oil-for-Food program?" No, he asked a fairly reasonable question. "What happened to the Mercedes?"

Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general and Nobel peace laureate, is normally the meekest of diplomats. He is so accommodating he once described Saddam Hussein as a man "I can do business with." These days he spends a good deal of time on the phone with Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Yet he seems to have problem with me.

It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me "cheeky" and belittling me as an "overgrown schoolboy." Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a "serious journalist."

The cause of Mr. Annan's ire was a question I put to him about a Mercedes car that his son Kojo had imported into Ghana (and which cannot, now, be traced). The facts indicate that Kojo had bought the car in his father's name, thereby obtaining a diplomatic discount and a tax exemption totaling more than $20,000. The question about the car--to which Mr. Annan again refused to give a satisfactory answer--is part of the wider probe into his role in the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal. Despite months of investigation, important questions about the integrity of public officials remain unanswered. If we are serious about U.N. reform--as Mr. Annan claims to be--they must be resolved.

And that's just it, why should Annan be serious about reform? Who does he answer to? Who does the U.N. answer to?

If you said no one, you're wrong. The U.N. answers to money, because it is the one thing they need. And either they beg sovereign nations for it, or they figure out some other way. And of course, that is what Oil-for-Food was all about for the U.N. on the whole. It served as that other way. Not only did Oil-for-Food fill individual pockets, it also filled the U.N. coffers with several billion dollars. Reform - cutting the U.N. off from administering to programs like Oil-for-Food, would deprive the organization of funding.

Democrats whine about the war for oil, what about enslavement for oil? Because that's what was going on in the 90s. Saddam had everyone wrapped around his finger, including Mr. Annan, and his son.

This is where the missing Mercedes comes in. The Mercedes was purchased by Kojo Annan in his father's name four days before the Hotel de Crillon meeting [between Kofi, Kojo, and Cotecna]--and about two weeks before Cotecna won the U.N. contract. The use of the U.N. chief's diplomatic status qualified the car for a $6,541 discount on the purchase price and a $14,103 tax exemption when it was imported to his native Ghana. Mr. Volcker's investigators found a memo on the computer of Mr. Annan's personal assistant asking him to authorize a letter to Mercedes. "Sir, Kojo asked me to send the attached letter re: the car he is trying to purchase under your name. The company is requesting a letter be sent from the U.N. Kojo said it could be signed by anyone from your office. May I ask Lamin to sign it?" the assistant wrote.

Neither Kofi Annan, his aide Lamin Sise, nor his assistant, Wagaye Assebe, can recall what happened, and the original documents have disappeared--but somehow the Mercedes was purchased with the diplomatic discount anyway. Abdoulie Janneh, the U.N. official who arranged the tax exemption in Ghana was recently promoted to U.N. under-secretary-general, in charge of the Economic Commission for Africa.

Amid the clutter of unanswered questions, one query has the virtue of simplicity: Where is the car?

Very true. It is a simple question. And yet it elicits enough of an outburst from the Secretary General that one can't help but laugh. Better still, this took place just after Kofi described himself as being "chief diplomat of the world" and that the job requires one to have a "thick skin and a sense of humor".

So much for that idea.

Granted, perhaps a Mercedes isn't all that big a deal anymore. Doesn't every high school kid zip around in a CLS55 AMG? I saw one racing a Lancer Evo just the other day. And if he can have one, why not the son of the Secretary General? After all, he did help broker the deal with Cotecna...or, at least is suspected of such. So why not a Mercedes as a reward?

Sure, watching one get Fast and the Furious-ed by a Mitsubishi kinda takes the showroom choir hymn down a notch. But, sarcasm aside, the fact remains, it is one primo car. And the one James Bone was asking about had Kofi's name all over it, and it lies at the heart of the deals between the U.N., Kofi's son, and Cotecna. Laws were broken, and Annan's name is literally all over the paperwork. For now at least.

After December 31st there might not be any more paperwork.

The most urgent implication of Mr. Volcker's incomplete findings is that his huge and expensively assembled archives must be preserved intact well beyond the Dec. 31 deadline by which Mr. Volcker now plans to start disposing of them. Above all, they must not be handed back to the U.N., where too much related to the corrupt Oil for Food program has already vanished--including, to a fascinating extent, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's own powers of recollection. The former head of the program, Benon Sevan, alleged to have taken bribes from Saddam, was allowed to skip town, U.N. pension in hand. Mr. Annan is even now resurrecting, via a new $4 million U.N. program called the Alliance of Civilizations, the career of his former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, who officially retired earlier this year after it came to light that during Mr. Volcker's investigation Mr. Riza had overseen the shredding of three years' worth of documents that might have better illuminated the oil-for-fraud shenanigans of the U.N.'s executive 38th floor.

Kind of makes you wonder if Annan really did lose it at that press conference. Perhaps he isn't worried about anything coming out, perhaps he's just excited because he sees the finish line.

Ah well, at least we know where they'll be getting the confetti for the U.N.'s New Years eve party.

The Pope's Christmas message

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI

"I bring you good news of a great joy … for to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:10-11).

Last night we heard once more the Angel’s message to the shepherds, and we experienced anew the atmosphere of that holy Night, Bethlehem Night, when the Son of God became man, was born in a lowly stable and dwelt among us. On this solemn day, the Angel’s proclamation rings out once again, inviting us, the men and women of the third millennium, to welcome the Saviour. May the people of today’s world not hesitate to let him enter their homes, their cities, their nations, everywhere on earth! In the millennium just past, and especially in the last centuries, immense progress was made in the areas of technology and science. Today we can dispose of vast material resources. But the men and women in our technological age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technical achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart. That is why it is so important for us to open our minds and hearts to the Birth of Christ, this event of salvation which can give new hope to the life of each human being.

Wake up, O man! For your sake God became man" (Saint Augustine, Sermo, 185. Wake up, O men and women of the third millennium!

At Christmas, the Almighty becomes a child and asks for our help and protection. His way of showing that he is God challenges our way of being human. By knocking at our door, he challenges us and our freedom; he calls us to examine how we understand and live our lives. The modern age is often seen as an awakening of reason from its slumbers, humanity’s enlightenment after an age of darkness. Yet without the light of Christ, the light of reason is not sufficient to enlighten humanity and the world. For this reason, the words of the Christmas Gospel: "the true Light that enlightens every man was coming into this world" (Jn 1:9) resound now more than ever as a proclamation of salvation. "It is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). The Church does not tire of repeating this message of hope reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, which concluded forty years ago.

Men and women of today, humanity come of age yet often still so frail in mind and will, let the Child of Bethlehem take you by the hand! Do not fear; put your trust in him! The life-giving power of his light is an incentive for building a new world order based on just ethical and economic relationships. May his love guide every people on earth and strengthen their common consciousness of being a "family" called to foster relationships of trust and mutual support. A united humanity will be able to confront the many troubling problems of the present time: from the menace of terrorism to the humiliating poverty in which millions of human beings live, from the proliferation of weapons to the pandemics and the environmental destruction which threatens the future of our planet.

May the God who became man out of love for humanity strengthen all those in Africa who work for peace, integral development and the prevention of fratricidal conflicts, for the consolidation of the present, still fragile political transitions, and the protection of the most elementary rights of those experiencing tragic humanitarian crises, such as those in Darfur and in other regions of central Africa. May he lead the peoples of Latin America to live in peace and harmony. May he grant courage to people of good will in the Holy Land, in Iraq, in Lebanon, where signs of hope, which are not lacking, need to be confirmed by actions inspired by fairness and wisdom; may he favour the process of dialogue on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere in the countries of Asia, so that, by the settlement of dangerous disputes, consistent and peaceful conclusions can be reached in a spirit of friendship, conclusions which their peoples expectantly await.

At Christmas we contemplate God made man, divine glory hidden beneath the poverty of a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger; the Creator of the Universe reduced to the helplessness of an infant. Once we accept this paradox, we discover the Truth that sets us free and the Love that transforms our lives. On Bethlehem Night, the Redeemer becomes one of us, our companion along the precarious paths of history. Let us take the hand which he stretches out to us: it is a hand which seeks to take nothing from us, but only to give.

With the shepherds let us enter the stable of Bethlehem beneath the loving gaze of Mary, the silent witness of his miraculous birth. May she help us to experience the happiness of Christmas, may she teach us how to treasure in our hearts the mystery of God who for our sake became man; and may she help us to bear witness in our world to his truth, his love and his peace.

The Santa who saved Christmas

So who said Santa was merely a burglar, a thug and a drunk who steals money from banks, exposes himself to crowds and travels along in packs of roving mobs who beats up on people? Santa is not that way!

Oh wait...

DRUNKEN Santas rampaging in New Zealand, robbing in Germany and even flashing in Britain are all giving the big man a naughty name this year.

Reports of "bad Santas" wreaking havoc have been circulating around the globe, but it has been an especially un-festive season in Germany.

Alarm bells rang when a man in a Santa outfit held up a furniture store in the town of Ludwigshafen at gunpoint on Saturday and forced two cashiers to open the safe. Instead of handing out presents, he filled his sack with cash, locked the women in the safe and escaped.

He is still on the loose, but police in Tübingen, with the aid of an infrared camera and helicopter, were able to capture a bank-robbing Santa armed with a machinegun. They found him hiding in a ditch in a forest. "The machine-gun was fake," a police spokesman pointed out, noting that Santa had stuffed 500,000 into his sack in four separate bank robberies.

One Santa was stopped by police for driving at 150kph on a northern German motorway, 50kph over the speed limit. "He said he was in a rush because he still had packages to deliver," said a police spokesman.

Well, at least the machine gun was fake. Otherwise I would have really started to wonder...

No actually I am wondering, what gives? Has the thought of Christmas cheer and screaming kids sitting on his lap driven old Saint Nick from his frozen fortress to the burning gates down below? Or maybe there is something to that poor Santa caught for speeding? Perhaps delivering all those presents to the world has become a task so daunting that even for a man who can get a reindeer to fly it's driven him to drink and take a bit of what he feels he has coming to him. I mean apparently the job is quite stressful and hazardous.

...that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each...Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house...This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound.

The payload on the sleigh...Assuming that each child gets...a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer"...could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount...We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates ENORMOUS air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 7,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

Yes, I know, the incorporation of worm holes and hours of calculations by physicists with way too much time on their hands has reduced Santa's workload, but the point is, it ain't easy for the guy.

And yet still, in spite of all Santa's problems...and subsequent arrests, there comes a story of such courage, spirit, and outright mystification as to make one stop and think that perhaps the spirit of Christmas really is alive and well in the world - though of course it did require Santa to beat the smack out of some street punks.

A town centre Santa has been hailed as a hero after fighting off a gang of thugs with his Christmas tree.

Santa, otherwise known as Malky Watret, was handing out presents to children in Paisley's indoor shopping centre when he was targeted by a small mob.

He was set upon by about seven youths who knocked him down with a shopping trolley in front of horrified shoppers.

But he jumped up and chased them off by wielding an artificial 5ft tree before security guards intervened.
....

"They were calling me a fraud and a fake. If it had happened on the street I might have acted differently - I'd have given them a few choice words, but you can't do that dressed as Santa.

"My bag made quite a good shield, I waved and pointed the tree to keep them at bay."

And Santa is still so upbeat that he's going to hand out the remaining 500 presents to the children. Pretty cool if you ask me. He's certainly a better man than I could ever be.

I would've hooked those thugs up to the sleigh.

Turning back the clock

So have we returned to September 10th America? Is that what's happened? - we've walked in a circle since 9-11, not a steadfast line into the future.

There's plenty going on to suggest we have. As NRO so eloquently puts it:

The signs are all around us: Congress's acting to neuter interrogations of terrorist detainees; the Senate's filibustering the reauthorization of the most important piece of counterterrorism legislation since 9/11, the Patriot Act (Sen. John Sununu, who supports the filibuster, responds to our Friday editorial here); and now the controversy over National Security Agency intercepts of conversations between persons in the United States and suspected al Qaeda operatives overseas.

The New York Times, in their infinite stupidity, has taken it upon themselves, yet again, to out a secret program and compromise our national security. And why? Because Bush is "spying on Americans!" of course. The public should know imediately! Right?

So why did the Times sit on the story for a year? And if the program was set up to spy on al Qaeda, then...were we spying on terrorists? The Times hasn't answered that one yet, but they did put up a lame attempt today to shore up the scandal. As the guys from Powerline sum up:

On rare occasions, the NSA has inadvertently recovered a conversation involving an al Qaeda operative who is normally stationed overseas and uses an international cell phone number, but who has in fact entered the United States. Even the Times should recognize that this circumstance makes it more urgent, not less so, for the al Qaeda operative's communications to be tracked. The idea that this kind of inadvertent intercept renders the program unlawful is risible on its face.

I have scoured the Times' reporting for any argument as to why the NSA program would be illegal, and so far haven't found one, beyond the false insinuation that warrantless searches must be illegal. What the Times has mostly done is quote anonymous sources who express "doubts" and "concerns" about the legality of the program. But doubts and concerns may or may not be well-founded, and a doubt is not an argument. Today's reporting continues to be argument-free.

And as the media firestorm has heated up, it's nice to see the president and vice-president firing back. This exchange between Cheney and reporters should tell you all you need to know about who is serious about fighting the war.

Q: Do you not understand, though, that some Americans are concerned to hear that their government is eavesdropping on these private conversations?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: What private conversations?

Q: The private conversations between Americans and people overseas.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Which people overseas?

Q: You tell me.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's important that you be clear that we're talking about individuals who are al Qaeda or have an association with al Qaeda, who we have reason to believe are part of that terrorist network. There are two requirements, and that's one of them. It's not just random conversations. If you're calling Aunt Sadie in Paris, we're probably not really interested.

Exactly. But for the "Bush lied!" crowd, for the "Halliburton!" crowd, for the paranoid delusional news media, who have already paired Bush with Hitler in their mind, there is no honest motive for this administration. Not now or ever.

So President Clinton's defenders back in 1994 could say this:

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."

"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."

And the press gives them a pass like this:

Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches." The story began, "The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers."

In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. "Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise," Gorelick said. "Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus."

It smacks of hypocrisy. And did you catch that last part? - "for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution." We weren't even at war then.

To put it mildly, the people President Bush is approving these taps for are probably never going to see the inside of a courtroom.

Is this troubling? Heck yes. War is troubling. But these are the choices we are faced with, and we need to get our heads in the game. For four years the media has tap-danced around with niceties like "one man's terrorist..." and other such certifiable nonsense, and the only result is we have lost our ability to define our enemy. And that contributes to the disconnected outrage we are seeing right now from the American left. They're looking at warm and fuzzy terrorists, and attempting to ascribe them more rights than you or I have. It's insane.

As Cheney said, who the heck cares about Aunt Sadie? No one is sitting around listening to her. This is battle. The intelligence services are engaged in battle. Terrorists are weapons. A terrorist is not harmless by himself, he is the weapon. And that phone call is "arming the bomb", so to speak. The president has every Constitutional authority to act, with the full force and arsenel of the U.S. government at his disposal. FISA cannot get in the way of his Constitutional powers or duty. As the Wall Street Journal explains:

In proposing FISA to Congress in 1978, the Carter administration specifically stated that passage of the new law would not necessarily preclude the president from "using his powers granted under the Constitution to carry out foreign policy and intelligence activities," according to Griffin B. Bell, the attorney general when the law was drafted and enacted. There was a "tacit agreement that FISA was not intended to displace the president's authority," Mr. Bell told me earlier this week.

Citing that authority, the Bush administration disclosed the NSA intercept program at its inception to congressional leaders, the FISA court and NSA's inspector general. In addition, Mr. Bush set up a Justice Department review process, which retroactively examines the intercepts to ensure that the program is being carried out according to the terms of the president's authorization. Yet some of those same congressional leaders who were briefed on the program, like Sen. Harry Reid, now castigate the president for disregarding the Constitution.

Yes, Harry "I bragged about killing the Patriot Act" Reid is serious about protecting this country. Right. Protecting it from "evil" Republicans maybe. Not from terrorists.

And such is the political climate in Washington. Look at the utterly laughable performance of Senator Rockefeller, and his "I don't like it" letter that he locked away in his safe, so he could cover his ass with it one day. Is this the action of an honorable man? Is this the action of someone who had true, immediate concerns over civil liberties? Or is this the action of a man who had all but determined the future political wind, exposing the motives of a party who were never serious on security to begin with? As Senator Pat Roberts said of Rockefeller:

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., pushed back Tuesday, saying that if Rockefeller had concerns about the program, he could have used the tools he has to wield influence, such as requesting committee or legislative action. "Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools," Roberts said.

No kidding. And I have to admit I got a pretty good laugh out of that too.

Though getting back to the point. From the WSJ article:

But a quick glance at the history of the USA Patriot Act is instructive. Often mischaracterized, the legislation is simply an effort to update existing law to keep up with technology and give the FBI the same powers in terrorism cases that it already has in cases targeting drug traffickers, spies and Mafia figures. Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can obtain authorization to wiretap a terrorist in a national security investigation no matter what phone he uses. Previously, the FBI had to obtain new authorization each time a terrorist used a new pay phone, disposable cell phone or fax machine. By the time the FBI obtained nearly a dozen signatures on a wiretap application and the approval of a FISA judge, the terrorist had usually changed phones.

This should not be a controversial measure. Yet the American Civil Liberties Union and like-minded groups have whipped librarians into hysteria, claiming that the FBI can now use "sneak and peek" tactics in libraries to probe the reading habits of sinless grandmothers without informing the targets until after a search. The FBI has no interest in people's reading habits; the Patriot Act is simply a tool to prevent terrorism. In any case, more than four years after enactment of the Patriot Act, the FBI has conducted no searches at libraries using the controversial business records provision of the act.

Given this situation, and the fact that the Senate has allowed key provisions of the Patriot Act to expire at the end of this year, the president rightly chose the course of defending the country over risking a fruitless battle with Congress. What people do not understand about George Bush is that he is not interested in short-term popularity or media approval. Given a choice between avoiding the wrath of the media and congressional critics and preventing an attack that could kill millions, this president will take the latter course every time.

And that is why Americans trust the president on national security. He's not in it for the media "atta boy", or the glory, he's in it to save lives.

Whenever the media tries to whip up another scandal (what's it been, one a month?) I always think back to the movie Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks character, leading his team through the French countryside, encounters a Nazi radio and machine gun nest. And a heated discussion ensues over what to do. Some want to leave it alone, but Hanks' character says they can't leave the danger and let some other unsuspecting soldiers get killed. The discussion continues, and then Hanks ends it with one statement.

Private Reiben: I'm just saying, this seems like an unnecessary risk considering our objective, sir.

Captain Miller: Our objective is to win the war.

And so they did win that war. Because that was their overiding objective.

So what is our objective? Do we want to go back to September 10th? Or do we want to soldier on and win the war?

The media wants to go back, and apparently the Democratic party never left that mentality. So now it just comes down to those who want the president to continue fighting the war as he has been.

If we want to go back, then Congress will probably find that Bush acted unlawfully. And if the Democrats take back the House or the Senate, watch for them to try to impeach the president. They are already hinting at it and preparing their base.

If we don't want to go back, then we need to get past the antics of the New York Times, put a plug in these leaks, and move forward with the knowledge that the world has changed. If we want to win, we have to be able to adapt, not give in to Democrat hysterics, or faked outrage, or the siren song of an insipid and agenda driven press.

The Associated Press throws a fit

Exhibiting symptoms of full blown Bush Derangement Syndrome, the Associated Press is seething mad that President Bush struck back at his critics.

"What? What does he think he's doing?! He defending himself...How dare he defend himself?! How dare he?!"

And so, in the most laughable display of child-like tantrum-esque reporting I've ever seen, the Associated Press strikes back, with an unsigned article no less, highlighting the fact that President Bush cited a few favorable Iraq poll numbers during his speech the other night.

It seems the president chose to highlight some of the more optimistic poll numbers over the bad ones. And of course, that stands to reason, especially since that was the purpose of the speech, because all we've been hearing 24/7 is how Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, a calamity of epic proportions, a reason for shame and disgrace, etc., etc...

A bit of good news, such as the elections, such as highlighting progress and strategy, and (shocker!) drawing attention to the encouraging poll numbers, might be just that ray of sunshine people have been looking for. But we can't have that! So the Associated Press has to inform us of the bad news, by claiming that the President refuses to tell us the bad news.

That's it. That's what they wrote about. They wrote an entire article, the gist of which is "ummm! - I'm telling! You cited poll numbers, but you didn't use all of them--ummm!"

Now here it is, the full article. I ask you to read it, and note its tone, I mean really read this and realize that it was written as a hard news story. This is not an editorial. This is not breaking news. This article was written as a response to the president's optimism, to slap down any attempt by the president to highlight good news in Iraq, and to admonish him for even trying.

Bush Leaves Out the Bad News in Iraqi Poll
Mon Dec 19, 6:57 PM ET

WASHINGTON - President Bush is making selective use of an opinion poll when he tells people that Iraqis are increasingly upbeat.

The same poll that indicated a majority of Iraqis believe their lives are going well also found a majority expressing opposition to the presence of U.S. forces, and less than half saying Iraq is better off now than before the war.

Bush frequently talks in general terms about millions of Iraqis "looking forward to a future with hope and optimism," as he put it in a news conference Monday. The previous evening, he was more specific in his televised address when he declared, "Seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well — and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead."

He was referring to an ABC News poll conducted with Time magazine and other media partners before the Iraqi general elections last week. Bush is dismissive of polls that reflect on his own performance, claiming not to pay attention to them.

Among the findings:

_More than two-thirds of Iraqis surveyed face-to-face opposed the U.S. presence, but only one-quarter of respondents wanted American troops to leave right away.

_44 percent said their country is better off than before the war.

_More than six in 10 said they feel safe in their neighborhoods, up from four in 10 in June 2004.

_Half said the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was wrong, up from 39 percent in February 2004.

_More than two-thirds said they expect things to get better in the coming months.

Now I have highlighted the sections that the president chose to mention in the speech. Notice how the president did not even say "more than two-thirds", he said "nearly", though he did round up the "more than 6 in 10" to "7 in 10".

Gosh...that's just so evil of him...

Notice also, the last line in their discussion before the poll results, about how the president is "dismissive" of polls about his own performance. This reads like some attempt by the AP to say "how dare he" cite polls when he won't do what ours tell him. But what the president has actually conveyed is that he does not govern by polls. Nor should he. His directive to govern comes from the election, and his duty under the Constitution. Asking Iraqis how they feel is just a tad different.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Associated Press is a very sick organization. This goes beyond pettiness and a general dislike of the administration. You can feel the heat coming off this article. They are furious that the president is turning this thing around. And I for one think Bush needs to keep swinging for the fence. Don't let up, keep fighting back.

Oh, and for the Associated Press, and others who care about polls, Bush's numbers are on the rise - mostly because the truth about the economy and Iraq is finally making it to the public. Fancy that.

The politics of defeatism

Reaction to President Bush's speech last night has been pretty favorable. I liked it too. Apparently there was an election in Iraq the other day (I know, who knew? Was it reported?) and it went very well. And the president once again told us his three point plan for victory, and while he was at it he smacked the Democrats around for their defeatism. I liked that part the best. Here's a small excerpt:

In all three aspects of our strategy - security, democracy, and reconstruction -— we have learned from our experiences, and fixed what has not worked. We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission. Yet there is a difference between honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope. For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed. And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq -— we are winning the war in Iraq.

Yeah, we are winning the war. And that's what makes it so sad that the Democrats and most of the national media are so dead set on destroying that victory.

Note the Associated Press's defeatism just in their article about the speech.

Struggling to build confidence in his policy, the president held out hopes for withdrawing American forces as Iraqi troops gain strength and experience. "As these achievements come, it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission."

The president spoke from the Oval Office, where in March, 2003, he announced the U.S.-led invasion. Nearly three years later, more than 2,150 U.S. soldiers have died, Bush's popularity has plummeted and about half of Americans think the war was a mistake. Yet a strong majority oppose an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Notice how the AP puts our time in Iraq in terms of troop deaths, Bush's poll numbers, and that the war was a mistake. This is pure contempt folks. What about mentioning that Saddam is on trial?--that Iraqis are voting?--that they want us to finish the mission?--that the terrorists are getting slaughtered by our forces?

Oh wait, the AP does quote another figure:

Bush said last week's voting for parliament will not bring an end to the violence in Iraq, where he has estimated that 30,000 civilians have died. But he said Iraq's election, 6,000 miles away, "means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror."

That's not true. That's not what the president said. Here is what the president said, from his speech and Q&A session on December 12th.

Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.

THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

Note how the Associated Press conveniently morphs Iraqi military and the insurgent deaths into civilian deaths. And this falsity has been parroted by publications around the globe for the past few days. And that is how the media launders facts into falsities, and back into "facts". It's quite cunning, actually. Because what Democrats and the media have been quite successful at is removing all context of the reason for dying, and our objectives and motives for staying. As Thomas Sowell writes:

Neither our troops nor the terrorists are in Iraq just to be killed. Both have objectives. But any objectives we achieve get short shrift in the mainstream media, if they are mentioned at all.

Our troops can kill ten times as many of the enemy as they kill and it just isn't news worth featuring, if it is mentioned at all, in much of the media. No matter how many towns are wrested from the control of the terrorists by American or Iraqi troops, it just isn't front-page news like the casualty reports or even the doom-saying of some politicians.

That's doom-saying coupled with scandal-mongering. Look at this past week for example.

The New York Times, after sitting on a story for a year, did a drive-by on the administration by outing a secret NSA program designed to eavesdrop on terrorist conversations. Did Bush break the law? Was he violating our rights as citizens for four years while this program went on? Well, gee, if he was it sure was negligant of the Times to sit on the story for so long.

In fact, Bush wasn't violating our rights. And more to the point, Congress knew about the program. And further still, so did the FISA court. And, above and beyond that, there's this little nugget from Mark Levin about how the NSA has operated for years:

Under the ECHELON program, the NSA and certain foreign intelligence agencies throw an extremely wide net over virtually all electronic communications world-wide. There are no warrants. No probable cause requirements. No FISA court. And information is intercepted that is communicated solely between U.S. citizens within the U.S., which may not be the purpose of the program but, nonetheless, is a consequence of the program. ECHELON has been around for some time. The media and members of Congress didn't accuse Bill Clinton, under whose administration the program apparently moved into full swing, of "domestic spying" or violating the Constitution. Is ECHELON constitutional? Congress hasn't defunded it. So, it seems to me this entire current debate, unleashed by the New York Times last week, about expanding the NSA's eavesdropping authority (exactly what is expanded and how, we still aren't certain) is, well, disconnected from reality.

No kidding. And note that he said foreign intelligence agencies too. In addressing this, the president has come out swinging, especially during today's press conference.

In opening news conference remarks, Bush said the warrantless spying, conducted by the National Security Agency, was an essential element in the war on terror.

"It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy," he said.

The existence of the program was disclosed last week, triggering an outpouring of criticism in Congress, but an unflinching defense from Bush and senior officials of his administration.

The president spoke not long after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Congress had given Bush authority to spy on suspected terrorists in this country in legislation passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush and other officials have said the program involved monitoring phone calls and e-mails of individuals in this country believed to be plotting with terrorists overseas.

Normally, no wiretapping is permitted in the United States without a court warrant. But Bush said he approved the action without such orders "because it enables us to move faster and quicker. We've got to be fast on our feet.

"It is legal to do so. I swore to uphold the laws. Legal authority is derived from the Constitution," he added.

For his next trick I suggest the the president call for an investigation into the leaks. Watch the Democrats and the media back off like crazy. The administration is already on record saying they dotted every 'i' and crossed every 't' with this NSA program, and briefed select members of Congress for the expressed purpose of avoiding any miscommunication or even the hint of impropriety. Bush is ready to go to war over this, and I think he should.

As John McIntyre muses:

...I have no doubt that the President's use of this extraordinary authority was solely an attempt to deter terrorist attacks on Americans and our allies. Let the facts and the truth come out, but the White House'’s initial response is a pretty powerful signal that they aren'’t afraid of where this is heading.

More grounded Democrats may be thinking twice about the change in the political dialogue these past three weeks. Harry Reid had to reiterate twice on FOX News Sunday that the he is "opposed to evil terrorists."” That is about as loud of a warning bell as you can get. The public may not like all or even the majority of what President Bush is doing, but they have no doubt about his stance toward the "“evil-doers."

With the resounding success of last week'’s election, it will become harder for the press and the Democrats to frame Iraq as an unmitigated disaster. You could see the mainstream media walking back the negativity in their coverage of Iraq this past week and, while I have no doubt the negative reporting will return, at some point the facts start to win out - just as has happened with the economy. Ironically, one benefit to the Bush administration from the consistently negative reporting on Iraq is that expectations have now been set so low the odds are better than 50-50 that 2006 will be viewed by the public as having seen significant progress in Iraq.

Exactly. Last week's election was the turning tide. They were an unprecedented success, with huge voter turnout. Even the Sunni insurgents want to work with America now (First link to Pajamas media!). And not just where they guarded the polling stations - that was last week. No this is something new, and helped because of the huge voting success.

The truce resulted from weeks of negotiations between U.S. officials and insurgents. Sunni religious leader Sheik Abed al-Latif Hemaiym told The [Washington] Times in an interview in Amman that Sunnis were prepared to work with the United States.

"We now believe we must get on good terms with the Americans," Hemaiym said. "As Arab Sunnis, we believe that within this hot area of Iraq, facing challenges from neighboring nations who want to swallow us, especially the Iranians, we feel we have no alternative."

So go ahead Democrats, you tell me again how we're not winning this war.

Poverty was the defining issue of 2005

What? Didn't you know? According to Time Magazine, it is. Sure there were natural disasters galore, lives lost, thousands uprooted, billions in damages, terrorism and war across the globe, France burning to the ground - oh, not to mention three democratic revolutions (one of which caused the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon), the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the historic votes (three of them) that took place in Iraq. Yet... Time magazine says poverty is where it's at.

Time magazine has named Bill and Melinda Gates and rock star Bono its "Persons of the Year," citing their charitable work and activism aimed at reducing global poverty and improving world health.

The magazine said 2005 was a year of extraordinary charity in which people donated record amounts in response to extreme natural disasters, from the tsunami in South Asia to Hurricane Katrina.

"Natural disasters are terrible things, but there is a different kind of ongoing calamity in poverty and nobody is doing a better job in addressing it in different ways than Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono," said Jim Kelly, Time's managing editor.

Now I'll admit, Bono is okay. The guy is a total lefty, but he does do good things in the world. And I don't harbor any ill will towards Bill or Melinda Gates either. I think it's great that they've set up their new charity fund, worth billions. It's quite cool. But, Person's of the Year?

"For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time's Persons of the Year," the magazine said.

Time praised the Gateses for building the world's largest charity - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has a $29 billion endowment - and for "giving more money away faster than anyone ever has" in 2005.

That's funny, I thought Congress had that distinction. What was the payout for Katrina? How evil was George Bush for not giving away more?

Time said Bono's campaign to make rich countries address the debt of poorer ones has had an equally impressive impact on the world.

In 2005, "Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest," the magazine said.

Bono has earned a remarkable number of political allies around the world and in Washington, where he has courted politicians from both major parties, Time said.

Like I said, Bono is cool. Honestly I'd rather have seen him win the Peace Prize over somebody like El Baradei. But once again, I think Time is on the wrong page as the rest of the world. In fact, they're reading the wrong book, it seems.

Poverty is there, it is a major problem. But poverty alone did nothing to drive world events in 2005. It was not what we obsessed about, what drove markets, what consumed news time, or the resources of the free world's governments. And nothing Time's three award recipients did had that huge of an impact either.

No one denies they did tremendous work. But, taking Bill Gates for example, even if the man gave away all of his money right now, focused anywhere, it would pale in comparison to the world-driving force that is Microsoft Windows. His ingenuity, not his wallet, has changed the world. And you can say he ripped off the Apple GUI, and the mouse, and marketed himself better around the globe, but the guy got results, and his software is the basis for nearly every productive day in the world's workforce. And that means something. Because throwing money at poverty is not really the solution. It's jobs, and progress, and trade; growth and innovation, and not just charity, is what ultimately destroys poverty.

Bono is a slightly different story. The man is inspiring in that he is driven to a cause.

"Bono's great gift is to take what has made him famous - charm, clarity of voice, an ability to touch people in their secret heart -— combine those traits with a keen grasp of the political game and obsessive attention to detail, and channel it all toward getting everyone, from world leaders to music lovers, to engage with something overwhelming in its complexity," it said.

Even archconservative former Sen. Jesse Helms had praise for the Irish singer.

"I knew as soon as I met Bono that he was genuine," Helms, who has allied with Bono on AIDS awareness, told Time.

Raising awareness is important, and Bono's successes in the political arena should be celebrated. As I said, I think the guy is more deserving of a Nobel Prize than anything else. Perhaps an award for music - I hear he dabbles.

But, to take Africa for example - the poverty, the disease, the mass killings, they are the symptoms of a larger sickness. And nothing Bono does is going to fix that, not while the U.N. continues to deny calling genocide a genocide, or their aid workers are caught furthering the sex trade, or the world powers are otherwise pre-occupied.

And what is pre-occupying their time? Terrorism, war, dictatorships, Islamic uprisings, natural disasters, the growth of fledgling democracies, the arms trade, and the ultimate chess game between the world powers. In other words, the real issues of our times.

How ironic, and sad, for Time magazine.

Would you like a diamond necklace with that beer?

Ah yes, a night out with the guys. Beer, pizza, some more beer, the game on a huge widescreen TV, maybe throw in a few Playboy playmates...all while shopping for your wife's Christmas present.

You think I'm kidding? Not at all.

Mike Galaska does not like to shop. He doesn't like the crowds or spending money. It's for women, he says. But pizza and beer? He can handle that.

Galaska, 48, of Bellevue, Neb., was among the hundreds of men who came out for men's night at Omaha jewelry store Borsheim's this week, which uses free pizza and beer to counteract the otherwise intimidating notion of buying jewelry.

And that's not all they're doing. It seems that the store has taken to hosting a ladies' night the week before, where women can fill out wishlists for their husbands to pick things from.

Galaska's wife filled out her wishlist the previous week at Borsheim's ladies' night. All Galaska had to do this week was say her name, and clerks began to bring out what his wife wanted.

"Whatever she brings, I'm going to buy," Galaska said of the salesclerk.

And buy he did - a silver chain necklace - before getting more pizza and beer.

For five years now, men have been attending the night geared exclusively to them at Borsheim's. After the success of the first year, organizers decided to hold a ladies' night the previous week so women could make their lists, said Susan Jacques, CEO of the company, owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

On a recent weeknight, about 1,200 women filled the 45,000-square-foot Borsheim's to drink wine and Perrier, eat pint-size pastries and fill out their holiday wishlists.

Apparently, jewelry stores are learning that the more comfortable a man is, the more likely he is to loosen his wallet.

But wait...haven't casinos known this for years? Walk up to a dice table or play some blackjack, even the slots, and in no time a pretty young woman wearing not much at all is offering you free drinks. And as long as you're playing, the drinks keep coming. It seems that retailers are finally coming around to this strategy, and not a moment too soon.

Men will buy an estimated $49 billion in apparel this year, a 5 percent rise from last year, said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group Inc., a market research company based in Port Washington, N.Y. Men now buy 70 percent of their own clothing, up from 25 percent in 1985, so stores are doing what they can to attract these often reluctant shoppers, he said.

That is especially evident around the holidays.....Saks Fifth Avenue brought in Playboy centerfolds to act as men's personal shoppers earlier this month in New York.

Granted, for stores like Saks, just a tad more uptown than a smoke-filled poker room, their foray into hiring Playboy playmates seems a big step - or possibly a dive, depending on how you look at it. But according to the research, the stores that do strive to go all out with a "party" atmosphere, certainly can, and do, expect big payoffs.

Designer Nicole Miller's 18 boutiques across the country have been holding their own men's nights for years, featuring cocktails and modelesque saleswomen in evening wear who often know the men's wives and what they want. It originally borrowed the idea from jewelry stores, said Bud Konheim, CEO of Nicole Miller Ltd.

Sales can increase as much as tenfold when a men's night is held and morale among salespeople stays high for weeks afterward, Konheim said.

"It's a very easy atmosphere for a guy to get lulled into having a good time and spending a lot of dough," he said.

Well, I'm not sure about the "lulled" part. It's tough to imagine that just providing beer and pizza is going to close the deal on a couple thousand in jewelry. I'd say their best idea is the whole wishlist thing, because with this the guy shows up ready to spend money - and he knows he's buying the right thing. But, as the stores say, it appears all their strategies are working. And many stores are expanding even further.

The Alfred Dunhill store in London features classic motorcycles, model planes and a humidor, while an Armani store in Milan has video games in the basement.

I don't know, the video games may be a bit off the mark, but maybe that's just me. What it's really about though is making the male shopping experience less like...well, shopping, and more like a sports bar. And I think stores are catching on.

And then of course there's Saks, hiring the centerfolds...as personal shoppers. Riiight...

Quick, create a diversion!

Somebody needs to refill the New York Times scandal vending machine. This weeks choices were "Democrats have no plan, but dang it Bush should" and "Bush authorizes wiretaps". Apparently wiretaps has a nutty center, much like the Times, and heck it even got the Associate Press to salivate.

President Bush refused to say whether the National Security Agency eavesdropped without warrants on people inside the United States but leaders of Congress condemned the practice on Friday and promised to look into what the administration has done. "There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said there would be hearings early next year and that they would have "a very, very high priority." He wasn't alone in reacting harshly to the report. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the story, first reported in Friday's New York Times, was troubling.

I'm not sure what Arlen Spector or John McCain are looking for, aside from a headline, for as the New York Times was forced to admit:

Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.

So I guess it wasn't all that secret, if members of Congress knew. It's all linked to the Patriot Act anyway, that was the real reason for the New York Times hit piece, to stop that vote from going forward. It's so encouraging to see senators damning the President now that classified information has been leaked... Amazing what trumps duty and national security these days.

al Qaeda, are you taking notes? Oh, nevermind, the New York Times is taking them for you.

Of course, if one wanted to write an article about a security leak, it might start like this:

The New York Times refused to discuss why it released classified information, during wartime, about the existence of a surveillance program the NSA enacted to gather intelligence about the enemy. The "paper of record" did not answer charges by critics as to what prompted the release of the information, nearly a year after they learned of it, and so close to the book release date of James Risen, a NYT reporter.

Many have suggested that the actions of the paper constitute treason, since the paper itself admitted that ongoing intelligence operations were compromised. However, they did insist that they considered pleas by the government to remove certain sections of the report that would alert terrorists. Though one wonders about the real victims in all of this, the agents who now have their lives upside down, themselves in danger, the American soldier, who's enemy has gained more knowledge and hope, and of course, that other victim, the taxpayer, who's countless dollars of funding have so readily been flushed down the drain.

Yeah, so I wrote that. See, it's easy to write this stuff, it's just the context that matters, how you want to attack the issue. And the New York Times does it because they think they already know the truth. Patriot Act = Bad. Must show that, because it must be true.

That's not to say there are not topics for review and discussion, heck or even scrutiny and changes for the program. But we are not having a serious debate in this country. From the same AP article:

"This is Big Brother run amok," declared Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., called it a "shocking revelation" that "ought to send a chill down the spine of every senator and every American."

Big Brother huh? I don't see anybody shutting you up, Ted. And the only chill I'm feeling is from the "Global Warming induced" freezing rain that is smacking against my office window.

To his credit, President Bush is firing back at his critics.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said in a radio address delivered live from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.

Angry members of Congress have demanded an explanation of the program, first revealed in Friday's New York Times and whether the monitoring by the National Security Agency violates civil liberties.

Defending the program, Bush said in his address that it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al- Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

He said the program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews by the Justice Department, White House counsel and others, and information from previous activities under the program.

Without identifying specific lawmakers, Bush said congressional leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times on the program's activities.

See, once again, from the media and the critics, it's the show about nothing. All this indignant righteousness, all this moral outrage, all this drama...over things anybody who's read a spy novel could surmise were taking place. Except now we know all the classified details about the NSA recording phone calls of suspected terrorists.

Think about it - kids at the mall get a new cell phone every month because there's a new color and a better camera on it. Just imagine how often your local terrorist, who's life depends on it, would change out his phone. But yet, somehow Bush has committed the great evil again, authorizing wire taps for investigations...during a war.

This is not a college course or some philosophical debate on the slippery slope of curtailed liberties (I'll bet you never even gave a thought to this "outrage" when you made your phone calls today, that the government might be listening). Everybody knows this is not the birth of Big Brother. The most well oiled system of the government is the Social Security check delivery system, not the spy agencies. For Pete's sake, we can't even police our own borders. Controlling every aspect of your daily life is not going to happen anytime soon, nor was it the intent of the NSA program.

But what is happening to our media, right now, is symptomatic of a very real problem. We have forsaken the truth of our reality, that terrorists are not nice, that they cannot be reasoned with, and that their insidiousness and ability to slip under the radar in our open society is very real, and traded it for the phoniness of the "tolerant war", and even worse, the "war of choice". Tolerance is pleasant, and so is choice. I'd chose not to have a war as well. Too bad our enemies haven't signed on to those ideas.

Besides, why should they? They're in it to win it. Are we?

War is not a novel that you read from beginning to end, it is not pre-written, not even for the United States. Think about WWII. No one questions WWII. We were attacked by Japan. Yet we went to war with Germany. Sound familiar? How many of Bush's critics have said, "We were attacked by Osama bin Laden, yet we're in Iraq!!" "I hate Saddam, but removing him was not our job!"

I don't think removing Hitler was our job either. Yet we did it. We didn't have to liberate Europe. We could have let England fall too. Hitler would have accepted our "peace", for a while at least. It would have made it easier for him to take Russia. We got our butts handed to us in North Africa, we nearly lost the Atlantic too. All of this while we fought another war in the Pacific. Who says we can't walk and chew gum at the same time? Intelligence failures were a nightmare, and don't even get me started about the draconian measures FDR took when it came to national security. False rationing? Massive public deception about war strategy? Internment?

But wait, you say--Germany was linked with Japan! It was the same war! Really? You mean that two nations that had nothing to do with one another's culture or language, general history, or even goals for world domination teamed up?

Huh...interesting. So I wonder, could there have been a link, even a small one, between Osama bin Laden and Saddam? I don't know. There might be something to that.

That history aside though, the reality of the situation in front of us is what matters most. Our enemy today, now, they fly planes into buildings, saw people's heads off, and employ suicide bombers to blow up innocent civilians. They believe in the righteousness of their cause and they are willing to die for it. What are we going to do about it? There is no negotiation with a terrorist, because the West will always have more to lose than the terrorist. That is, until democracy rises in the Middle East. And it is rising, or at least trying to stand, in Iraq. Heck, even Kofi Annan admitted the vote went spectacularly well this week.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told President Bush Friday that he was pleased with the vote in Iraq as they discussed ways in which the international community could provide help in Iraq, the White House said. Annan told Bush that violence in Iraq was low, voter turnout was high and that the Iraqi people had cleared another hurdle "on the road to democracy," said Federick Jones, spokesman for the National Security Council.

So nice try, New York Times. You played for a draw this time. The vote on the Patriot Act was delayed, but those darned Iraqis wouldn't stop voting.

The good news is, I think the Iraqis are going to make it. If they'll risk bombers and bullets to go vote in record numbers, they'll survive the media blackout. Now if only we could train weak senators not to retreat or faint at the sight of a bold font news headline from a bitter old newspaper.

No no no really, the Holocaust never happened

At least according to Iran's president anyway. The guy is at it again. This time he's apparently even shocked the Associated Press. Look at how they lead into the article.

Iran's hard-line president lashed out with a new outburst at Israel on Wednesday, calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth" used as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments drew quick condemnations from Israel, the United States and Europe, which warned he is hurting Iran's position in talks aimed at resolving suspicions about his regime's nuclear program.

At least the AP is stating definitively that it happened. Last week they had to couch the existence of the Holocaust behind a preponderence of evidence by "historians".

There really isn't much more to say here. Iran is a crisis rapidly moving towards the point of no return. If Europe decides that they can live with a nuclear Iran - and for the most part they already have - then either the United States or Israel will be forced to either take military action or sit back and watch as terrorists gain nuclear weapons.

Oh, and before all the "Bush Lied!!!" people start saying "we should have dealt with Iran before Iraq!" or some other such nonsense, I'll say this. First of all, they never would have supported an invasion of Iran, or North Korea for that matter. And second, remember that it was the CIA, that said that Iran was about a decade off from the bomb, whereas Iraq already had plenty of WMD and would have had the bomb in just a few years (on top of the fact that Saddam was actively attacking the U.S. across no-fly zones, and it was a war that had really never ended). Though I guess we all know now that the CIA is in deep crisis. In fact I think the only thing they've proven themselves to be good at is undermining the Bush administration.

Oh for Pete's sake...

Here is the AP headline: Bob Novak Says President Knows Leak Source

Novak said that "I'd be amazed" if the president didn't know the source's identity and that the public should "bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is."

How about - Bob Novak knows the CIA leak source. And that's not all he knows.

Novak apparently is cooperating with the criminal investigation of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, though the journalist has never said so.

The prosecutor has aggressively pursued contempt of court orders against reporters who have refused to cooperate and Novak is not among those who have become embroiled in court battles in the probe.

So let's recap. Novak got Plame's name from a couple sources in the Administration. Yet, aside from saying they were no partisan gunslingers, he won't say who they are. But, he's apparently cooperating with the Special Prosecutor. So that means Patrick Fitzgerald knows who his sources were. And if Fitzgerald knows, then he's obviously going to indict/convict/ oh heck, maybe even impeach the president!! *insert Howard Dean scream here*

Puh-lease... Fitzgerald indicted Scooter Libby for having statements that didn't match up with journalists, not for what he may or may not have said about Valerie Plame to those journalists. Karl Rove was not indicted. No secrecy laws, or identity protection laws appear to have been violated. And why?

Because in all likelihood, Valerie Plame was probably not covert, and the information that the Bush administration talked about with journalists was only in response to questions the journalists kept asking because of Joe Wilson's lies in the New York Times. And yes, they were lies. Cheney never sent Joe Wilson to Africa, nor did Cheney ever receive a written report about said exploits.

And on top of that, when Novak went to publish his article, he asked the CIA about Plame. And they said...nothing.

There is no story here, no crime, no vendetta against anybody...except maybe by the media against the White House.

Possibly the best quote of the year

The Political Pitt Bull links to Special Report with Brit Hume on Fox, where Iraqi voter Betty Dawisha had this to say about the liberation of Iraq:

"Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America has done, and President Bush, let them go to hell!"

I love it.


The Political Teen has the video.

God has the best poll numbers

A whopping 94% of Americans believe in the existence of God, according to a new Gallup poll.

A new Gallup survey released today finds that four decades after the "God Is Dead" controversy was first noted, Americans retain a strong belief in a higher power. Some 94% think God exists.

Only 5% feel God "does not exist" -- and even most of them "are not sure" of that. Exactly 1% are certain there is no God.

But how strongly do the believers believe? Nearly 8 in 10, in fact, say they are "convinced" God exists, although Gallup does not ask them why that is.

Interesting how only 1% of Americans are "certain" there is no God. Makes one wonder exactly who the ACLU is fighting for in their quest to ban Nativity scenes and Christmas displays.

Though hilariously enough, in other 1% news, that is the exact percentage of French people who want Chirac re-elected.

Only one percent of French people want President Jacques Chirac to stand for a third term at the Elysee palace in elections due in May 2007, according to an opinion poll Sunday.

I guess this means the French have not yet created heaven on earth.

Yes, but are they a match for Dragon?

Scientists with nothing better to do have apparently decided to implant human brain cells into mice.

Add another creation to the strange scientific menagerie where animal species are being mixed together in ever more exotic combinations.

Scientists announced Monday that they had created mice with small amounts of human brain cells in an effort to make realistic models of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

Led by Fred Gage of the Salk Institute in San Diego, the researchers created the mice by injecting about 100,000 human embryonic stem cells per mouse into the brains of 14-day-old rodent embryos.

Those mice were each born with about 0.1 percent of human cells in each of their heads, a trace amount that doesn't remotely come close to "humanizing" the rodents.

"This illustrate that injecting human stem cells into mouse brains doesn't restructure the brain," Gage said.

Still, the work adds to the growing ethical concerns of mixing human and animal cells when it comes to stem cell and cloning research. After all, mice are 97.5 percent genetically identical to humans.

"The worry is if you humanize them too much you cross certain boundaries," said David Magnus, director of the Stanford Medical Center for Biomedical Ethics. "But I don't think this research comes even close to that."

Researchers are nevertheless beginning to bump up against what bioethicists call the "yuck factor."

Yes, well, "yuck factor" aside, something tells me the Rats of NIMH would also be unimpressed.

John Bolton tells the truth

Strange, isn't it, that this is what constitutes progress in our world - an ambassador at the United Nations, speaking the truth, and admonishing the Security Council for not doing the same.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton issued a statement Tuesday unequivocally condemning the bomb attack in the Israeli town of Netanya that killed at least five people. The unusual action came after a U.S. attempt to have the statement issued by the Security Council was rejected.

Diplomats attending the meeting say several Council members raised concerns about language in the U.S.-drafted document. Ambassador Bolton, however, blamed Algeria for quashing the measure by objecting to a passage urging Syria to close offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims responsibility for the attack. "Other governments had questions about particular language. We were perfectly prepared to engage in discussions about constructive suggestions, but Algeria categorically refused to name Syria and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," he said.

The U.S. envoy later read the text of the statement to reporters, and lashed out at the Council for what he called "failing to speak the truth".

He said "you have to speak up in response to these terrorist attacks. It's a great shame that the Security Council couldn't speak to this terrorist attack in Netanya, but if the Council won't speak, the United States will."

Is Bolton not the coolest ambassador ever? I mean not only did he read the statement that the Security Council rejected - a statement most anybody in their right mind would have been in favor of - he then schooled the international community on what it means to be a world power.

Senator Voinovich can go sit in the corner and cry all he wants. John Bolton is the man for the job. He arrived not a moment too soon, and, according to James Taranto of OpinionJournal, it seems that he has no intention of stopping either.

At a dinner last night (no link; we were there), Bolton told the Zionist Organization of America to expect more such unilateral veracity. He singled out for criticism a recent U.N. conference at which Israel was literally wiped off the map (well, wiped off a literal map anyway). U.N. watchdog Anne Bayefsky has a photo of the map of "Palestine" that was used in last month's annual U.N. Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People.

Bayefsky has a photo of Kofi Annan on the dais with the map in the background. The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a press release Friday in which it "condemns the participation" of the secretary-general in a conference that denies the existence of a U.N. member state.

We would like to know where the 43 senators--42 Democrats plus the lachrymose George Voinovich--who blocked a vote on Bolton's confirmation, forcing President Bush into a recess appointment--stand on all this. One could wave away such outrages, and indeed we're inclined to do so, on the ground that the U.N. is a hopelessly corrupt and worthless institution whose expressions count for nothing. But that is an awkward position for Bolton's detractors to take, since they claim to believe in the U.N.

They don't really believe in the U.N., of course. As we noted in April, in 1991 many of them voted to defy the U.N.'s request for troops to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They are "pro-U.N.," it seems clear, only when the U.N. is anti-U.S. But again, if the U.N. has "moral authority" when it takes Saddam Hussein's side over ours, how about when it seeks the obliteration of Israel?

Come on, James, you're thinking too much. Being a good Democrat is easy. Just cry on cue, let Israel go, don't worry about the truth...and "support the troops"!

Terminated

Well it appears that Ahhhnold is living up to his movie namesake. The AP is reporting that Stanley "Tookie" Williams is going to be executed on schedule. The governor will not issue a stay.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited execution early Tuesday in a case that stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row. Williams, 51, is set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison after midnight for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups.

Honestly, I had my doubts Schwarzenegger would do it. He's been off his game lately, to the point where some said he was looking for an excuse to stay the execution.

I have my doubts about the death penalty, I'll admit. I would submit that if carried out in a speedy manner, such as in the form of a Nuremburg trial type of setting, the death penalty would be a huge deterrent to crime. Criminals tend to think in the moment, not twenty years hence. But the latter, not the former, is how our justice system operates. And so murderer after murderer only see their kind sitting on death row, with a whole host of Hollywood celebrities taking to their cause...

Among the celebrities who took up Williams' cause were Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip; Sister Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in "Dead Man Walking"; Bianca Jagger; and former "M A S H" star Mike Farrell. During Williams' 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.

"If Stanley Williams does not merit clemency," defense attorney Peter Fleming Jr. asked, "what meaning does clemency retain in this state?"

...instead of seeing murderers being executed. And because of this I have my doubts about its full effectiveness. Really, the Nobel Prize stuff takes the cake. But then again, they did give one to Arafat...

That said, I do support it (the death penalty, not the Peace Prize). And I think that Governor Schwarzenegger made the right decision, and that is to let the justice system take it's course.

Tookie has been on death row for 24 years. And that's 24 years more than his victims had. Who will stand for them, if not the justice system?

Not Hollywood celebrites and human rights activists, that's for sure.

According to the AP, Tookie has been executed.

Who's Obnoxious?

John Hawkins, of Right Wing News, a man with a lot of patience, has compiled the Top 40 list of Obnoxious Quotes for 2005. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll pull your hair out. Go. Now. Read them all. And then report back here of course.

Here are a few of them:

37) "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for..." -- Howard Dean

35) "As a matter of fact, I was talking to my friend Laura, who sings on the record, and we're both getting to the point where we want to start families. We're convinced that if we have children, we're going to do everything in our power to make them gay. Like maybe drinking a lot of extra soy milk while she's pregnant, or anything that would work to make that happen. I'd just rather have a really sharp, interesting, smart gay son than some big dumb hetero meathead." -- Moby

33) "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is one more liar." -- Helen Thomas

30) "And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not ... Iraqis should be doing that." -- John Kerry slams the troops again

27) "The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about." -- U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)

22) "We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it's something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child. It certainly was drilled into mine at that age. And you really can't be responsible when you are a kid for what adults put into your head." -- Bill Maher

20) "Until your daddy learns that it's not 'fun' to kill, keep your doggies and kitties away from him. He's so hooked on killing defenseless animals that they could be next!" -- From a PETA booklet called "Your Daddy Kills Animals," which was designed to be handed out to children

16) "[My new dog] Gudrun is named after the infamous Gudrun Ensslin who was the female leader of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, an art terrorist group from the 70s. Terrorism was different then. It had a chicness to it, which made it seem less like a dangerous menace and more like fashion. -- Margaret Cho

14) "They’ve had a very very direct, aggressive attack on the, on the media, and the way it’s handled. Probably the most flagrant example of that is the way they set up Dan Rather. Now, I mean, I have my own beliefs about how that happened: it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers." -- Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), explains how Karl Rove was really behind Memogate

11) "(The) idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." -- Howard Dean

7) "George Bush doesn't care about black people...They're giving the Army permission to go down and shoot us." -- Kayne West on the rescue efforts in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina

4) "A spoiled child (Bush) is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little b*stard. [audio of gun being cocked]." -- A "humor bit" from the Randi Rhodes show

2) "If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!" -- Democratic Talk Radio's Stephen Crockett

1) "Real freedom will come when [U.S.] soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors." -- Warren County Community College adjunct English professor, John Daly

Read them all. And no, conservatives don't escape the list either.

The only country Iran fears...

... is Israel.

Probably because Israel is the only country ready to blow them to smitherines. And Iran knows this. That's why the oil-rich nation - who wants only to make expensive, dirty, radioactive, nuclear fuel, and costly reactors, so that it's people, who live somewhere at or below the poverty line, can power their multitudes of electronic gadgets and homes - wants to go into business with...The United States.

Iran opened the door Sunday for U.S. help in building a nuclear power plant - a move designed to ease American suspicions that Tehran is using its nuclear program as a cover to build atomic weapons.

The offer, which did not seem likely to win acceptance in Washington, was issued as Israel said it had not ruled out a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"America can take part in international bidding for the construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a news conference.

Asefi was apparently talking about a 360-megawatt light water nuclear power plant that the head of the country's atomic organization said Saturday would be built in southwestern Iran.

Iran also wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by building nuclear power plants with foreign help in southern Iran.

In Washington, neither the State Department nor the White House issued any comment on the proposal.

I'm sure that's because they haven't stopped laughing yet.

Actually, I've got a better idea. Britain, France and Germany had the idea to let Russia enrich the Uranium and then ship it to Iran. I say let's go one further. In exchange for oil, which Iran apparently doesn't want, the U.S. will build a nuclear reactor in Russia. We'll build it, staff it, run it, and maintain it, and run power lines into Iran. That way Iran won't have to worry about anything. They can get free power (because obviously their oil is worthless), and we'll do all the work. Sounds good right?

Let's get serious. As even the AP is forced to admit, Iran does not expect this offer to get much play. And why?

The Iranian offer comes at a time when Iran is facing a barrage of criticism over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent remarks, first that Israel should be wiped off the map and later that the Jewish state should be moved to Europe.

On Sunday, Israel denied a British newspaper report it has plans to attack Iran in March, but officials said they would not rule out a military strike if Iran makes advances in building nuclear weapons. The report appeared in the Sunday Times.

Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, said attention was now focused on an international solution over the Iranian program but added, "It isn't correct to say that a country that is threatened should deny that it will ever consider a different option."

Israel Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the country would never accept a nuclear-armed Iran.

"Israel can't live in a situation in which Iran has the atomic bomb," he said.

Iranian political analyst Saeed Leilaz said Tehran's offer was somewhat genuine but also politically motivated.

"Iran made the offer seriously to show the United States that it won't produce a bomb and ease its concern," Leilaz said. "And partly, Iran made the offer because it's almost sure the United States won't accept it."

Exactly. The United States will not accept it. And Israel will not accept a nuclear armed Iran. They can't. It would mean the end of Israel.

It's a rather sad situation. The coming chaos is fully avertable. Iran does not have the bomb yet. And a united Europe, United States, and - most importantly - international media, saying no to Iran, would get the ball rolling on stopping this.

Yet this won't happen. Europe is more interested in ferreting out the U.S. terror prisons - prisons, by the way that they fully signed off on and are internationally legal - and criticizing the U.S. for following adopted practices that they too followed for decades as Cold War allies. The media is more interested in talking about old testimony in the Plame matter, in running cover for Democrats, and in criticizing Bush for not abandoning Iraq. Democrats...well, they're too pathetic to even mention really. Suffice to say they surrendered to the god of political opportunism a long time ago, and it's sad to see them sacrifice the United States and the truth at the alter of their failed ideology.

So what to do about Iran? Without unity, not much. Because until the free world decides that it's had enough, the enemies of freedom will see no reason to abate in their quests, or change their behavior, or stop playing one side of the Atlantic against the other.

There is no bargain for evil, no appeasement that it understands or accepts. And why? Because why should those bent on power give one inch to those who are so divided and so willing to give it up in liu of a fight? And that's why Iran fears Israel. Because Israel seems to be the only country left right now that's not backing down from that fight. And whereas the free world together could end this, possibly without war, leaving Israel alone to handle this virtually gaurantees one.

Is the CIA a hopeless cause?

So now that El Baradei and the IAEA have accepted their Nobel Prize, it's now been revealed that Iran is merely months away from building a nuclear weapon.

Is anyone alarmed by this?

Whatever happened to the predictions by the CIA that Iran was years, perhaps a decade away from the bomb? Does anyone in the press remember this? No. They're too busy running cover for defeatist Democrats who were stupid enough to go on the record in public appearances where they showed the world how, well, defeatist they really are. It's good for us to know how they really feel - and their words should be shouted from the rooftops, as the Republicans are doing now with their new commercial. But what of Iran? What of the CIA's assessment?

Is this just another in a long line of intelligence screw ups? Or is it something more?

Jack Kelly, of the Post-Gazette, thinks it's the latter, and he lays out a case in his latest editorial.

On Aug. 2, Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post reported that "a major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years."

On Dec. 5, the Jerusalem Post reported that Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "confirmed Israel's assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb."

My, how time flies. It hasn't seemed as if 10 years have elapsed since last summer.

The CIA could be right, and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and the IAEA could be wrong. But given the CIA's forecasting record -- it missed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the warning signs of 9/11 and Saddam's WMD -- that's not the way to bet.

Intelligence analysis isn't the only thing the CIA does sloppily. The Bush administration suffered major embarrassment when it was disclosed that the United States was holding top al-Qaida suspects in "secret prisons" in eastern Europe and North Africa.

A Swedish journalist who prepared one of the first stories on the CIA flights that transported al-Qaida captives told Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun the CIA did a poor job of covering its tracks.

"I would say they didn't give a damn," Fredrik Laurin told Mr. Gerstein. "If I was an American taxpayer, I'd be upset."

For a show broadcast in May of last year, Mr. Laurin traced the tail number of a Gulfstream jet used to transport captives to a clearly phony company in Massachusetts.

"You weren't able to trace the name to any living individual," Mr. Laurin said. "They were all living in post office boxes in Virginia.

"If that's all the imagination they can drum up at Langley, I'd fire the bunch," Mr. Laurin added.

But if the CIA hasn't been very good at ferreting out the secrets of our enemies, or keeping our own, it has shown a talent for playing politics.

"The CIA's war against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years," wrote lawyer and Web logger John Hinderaker in The Weekly Standard.

And it will continue to be a great untold story, because the media are not interested. In fact, this is the only war they are enthusiastic about, because it's the one that provides them with all the security leaks they need.

The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the Bush administration by former Democratic officeholders, and permitted a serving analyst, Michael Scheuer, to publish and promote a book bashing the president.

The principal CIA weapon has been the leak. Reporters for ABC, The New York Times and The Washington Post didn't have to do even the minimal legwork Mr. Laurin did to out the CIA's clandestine "rendition" program. It was handed to them by "current and former intelligence officials."

"So the CIA established policies that it knew would be controversial and would damage American interests if revealed, and then leaked the existence of those policies to The Washington Post for the purpose of damaging the Bush administration," Mr. Hinderaker wrote.

A rogue CIA that subverts American democracy has long been a staple of moonbat mythology. How ironic that the rogues in the CIA should turn out to be leftists who harm America to benefit Democrats.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative in the Middle East, sees little hope the agency can be reformed:

The CIA's "muscle-bound bureaucratization, combined with the failure of the press to accurately represent to the public the Agency's actual problems ... holds out little hope that we will see the innovation needed to combat bin-Ladenism," he wrote last year.

"For almost a decade now the CIA put a low priority on recruiting human sources abroad," agreed Robert Baer, another former CIA Middle East operative and author of "See No Evil." "The CIA was more concerned about being politically correct."

"The problem with the CIA is that the senior executives responsible for production of intelligence just aren't good enough," said Herbert Meyer, assistant to legendary CIA Director William Casey.

In the 1990s, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed abolishing the CIA. That seemed far out then. It doesn't seem so far out now. It might be easier to start from scratch than to clean up the mess the CIA has become.

"The CIA is in deep crisis," Mr. Hinderaker said. "It is not at all clear that its survival is in the national interest."

I disagree with abolishing the agency. I do think it can be salvaged. But Congress needs to get involved, and quickly. Only then can the agency's mandate be evaluated, assessed, and re-tuned.

Because what are we faced with now? We have the EU cracking down on our allies in a ridiculous show of hypocrisy and terrorist sympathy. We have millions of dollars down the drain in blown airlines and prisons. We have real agents in danger. We have a serious problem with losing allies if we can't be trusted to keep the conditions of their help a secret. We have lost intelligence from the lack of prisoner interrogations.

And now we have Iran...months away from the bomb. Does anyone realize what will happen once they get one? They're not part of the Axis of Evil for nothing.

The poison of Original Sin

An amazing bit of homily from Pope Benedict, deftly noted by Amy Welborn.

What is the picture placed before us in this page? Man did not trust God. He harboured the suspect that God, at the end of the day, was taking something from his life, that God was a competitor who limits our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have put him aside; all in all, that only in this way can we fully realize our freedom. Man lives in the suspicion that the love of God creates a dependency and that it is necessary to get rid of this dependency to be fully oneself. Man does not want to receive his existence and fullness of life from God. He wants to be the one to draw from the tree of knowledge the power to mould the world, to make himself god, raising himself to His level, and to win over death and darkness. He does not want to count on love which does not seem trustworthy to him; he counts only on knowledge in that it confers power upon him. Rather than love, he aims for power with which he wants to take his own life in his hands, to be autonomous. And in doing so, he places his trust in deceit rather than in truth and thus, he sinks with his life into a void, into death. Love is not dependence but a gift which gives us life. The freedom of mankind is the freedom to be a creature with limitations and that is therefore a limitation in itself. We can possess it only as a shared freedom, in the communion of freedom; only if we live in the right way with each other and for each other can freedom develop. However, we live in the right way if we live according to the truth of our being and that is, according to the will of God. For God’s will for man is not a law imposed from outside which forces him, but an intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure which is inscribed in him, making him in the image of God, therefore a free creature. If we live against love and against truth – against God – then we destroy each other and we destroy the world. Then we will no longer find life, but we will serve the interests of death. All this is narrated with immortal images in the story of original sin and the banishment of man from the earthly Paradise.

Dear brothers and sisters! If we reflect sincerely about ourselves and our history, we must say that this account describes not only the beginning of history but history throughout the ages, and that we all carry inside us a drop of poison of that way of thinking illustrated in the images of the Book of Genesis. This drop of poison is called original sin. Even on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the suspect emerges in us that a person who does not sin at all is really boring; that something is missing in his life: the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say no is part of truly being men, the descent into the darkness of sin and to do as one pleases; that only then will one be able to exploit completely the vastness and depth of being men, of being truly ourselves; that we must put this liberty to the test even against God to become in reality fully ourselves. In a word, we think that really evil is good, at least a little, we need to experiment the fullness of being. We think that Mephistopheles – the tempter – was right when he said he was the strength “which always wants evil and always does good” (J.W. v. Goethe, Faust I, 3). We think that bargaining a little with evil, reserving some freedom against God, is good, perhaps even necessary.

However, looking at the world around us, we can see it is not like this, that evil always poisons, it does not elevate man, it degrades and humiliates him, it does not make him bigger, more pure or rich; it damages him and makes him smaller. Rather, we must learn this on the day of the Immaculate Conception: the man who abandons himself completely in the hands of God does not become God’s puppet, an annoying, conscientious person; he does not lose his freedom. Only the man who entrusts himself totally to God finds true freedom, the great and creative vastness of the freedom of good. The man who turns towards God does not become smaller, but bigger, because thanks to God and together with Him, he becomes large, divine, he becomes truly himself. The man who puts himself in God’s hands does not distance himself from others, withdrawing into his own private salvation; on the contrary, only then his heart will be truly awakened and he can become a sensitive person, hence benevolent and open.

...Jeopardize yourself with God then you will see that thus, your life will become larger and illuminated, not boring, but full of infinite surprises, because the infinite goodness of God is never exhausted!

Quite an amazing way of putting it. More analysis on this later. For now, enjoy your Saturday.

The Spirit of Christmas

No, I'm not seeking to capitalize on the title of a short film about Jesus fighting Santa Claus, from 1995, that started the careers of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and gave us South Park evermore. I'm just ripping it off for a catchy post name.

And the purpose of this post? Merely to highlight the hilarity that has ensued over the blindfolded, hanging Santa Claus that some idiot put up.

A large blindfolded Santa hanging from a noose from a high tree in a man's yard has angered homeowners in a Florida neighborhood, according to a Local 6 News report.

The Santa doll, which neighborhood children can easily see, was put up by homeowner Ron Stroia at his home located on 555 West 50th Street in Miami Beach, the report said.

"It's just wrong, I mean who would want their children to see this, and it reminds adults of lynching," neighbor Estelle Farnsworth said. "It's just nasty, there is no spirit of Christmas in this."

The Santa also has his hands and legs bound by some type of wire.

"Now the kids are sad with that, you know, because they say it's not fair with Santa," neighbor Tanira Giacian said. "Santa should be around bringing their gifts, looking for the gifts, and not hanging on a tree. They're just kind of scared of that."

Since the display was put in the tree, neighbors have called police to get it removed, but officers said there is nothing they can do because the homeowner is protected under the First Amendment, Local 6 News reported.

Stroia would not talk with reporters, but did say by telephone that it's his right to display the Santa whether neighbors like it or not.

Let the guy display it, I have no problem. My response is to ask every person in the United States to mail this guy a lump of coal. No I'm not kidding. Maybe parents should send their kid's Santa letters to this guy, since he's obviously got Santa wrapped up at the moment.

I say fight inanity and mean-spiritedness with the best medicine there is. Let's make fun of the guy. I don't want to limit his speech, I just want to embarrass the smack out of him and make him so seething mad that he glows red just like Rudolph's nose.

Because really, don't we need to get back to the real spirit of Christmas? Like store displays that feature Santa Claus and scantily clad Victoria's Secret models, or obsessed fans making Christmas lawn shrines to Paris Hilton. I mean that's what Christmas is all about right?

Look, this poor guy even made a poster of Paris's chihuahua, Tinkerbell.

Passersby get an eyeful of Hilton sporting a tiny pink top hiding little of her chest, or wearing knee-high boots and a sultry pout or holding a finger to her lips. Even Hilton's faithful Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, is celebrated in a colorful portrait.

"If it's offending anyone, I apologize," Moretti said in a telephone interview Thursday.

"That's not the intent. The intent is to be different and to be creative and let them see a little bit of Hollywood or New York - bring it to Cranston," Moretti explained.

A number of cars slowed or came to a complete stop on the busy road as they passed Moretti's house Thursday afternoon, the better to ogle a life-sized shot of Hilton with high boots, legs spread and eyes partly closed.

The point is, people are going to put up what they want to put up. You can't stop them. That's what the ACLU is doing, trying to get Nativity scenes removed, and crosses taken down, and the Ten Commandments banned.

We can't do that to the hanging santa guy. Don't make him a martyr by suing or getting legal on his butt. Make him a laughingstock, and then watch how fast that display changes.

Though where Paris is concerned, I hear she's looking for her next big project. Maybe marketing a line of approved Christmas lawn shrines could help her image?

Okay, so maybe not. Maybe she should just make a video game. Or build a theme park.

Reuters tap-dances around Ahmadinejad

Gotta love the delicate touch Reuters puts on this story. Apparently, the "news" service is reporting that the IRNA, Iran's official news agency (that's code for state run propaganda machine), has released remarks by the new prez saying that he doesn't think the Holocaust occurred...but that he wish it would.

Well, not exactly. He said that last part a month ago.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt that the Holocaust occurred and suggested Israel be moved to Europe.

His comments, reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency from a news conference he gave in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map", which sparked widespread international condemnation.

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" he said.

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe -- like in Germany, Austria or other countries -- to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it."

Historians say six million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust. Ahmadinejad's remarks drew swift rebukes from Israel and Washington.

But the sad part is even Reuters can't say the Holocaust happened. They have to write "historians say" instead. I suppose we should be thankful at least they didn't write "historians", or "six million", or "Israel". I'm not even making a joke, one really never knows with Reuters exactly what they find to be an acceptable descriptive label and one that they have to qualify as "another man's freedom fighter".

Now Ahmadinejad's statement about moving Israel to Europe...I found that curious. I have to wonder what he's up to. My only thought is that he's fairly confident he'll have the bomb pretty soon. The guy has been reading off discarded Howard Dean speeches for the past few months. They've had the IAEA in their pocket for some time now. Europe is impotent. And they know that the U.S. has no working plan for taking them out.

But Israel does.

Don't get me wrong, it would probably be the last military action by Israel. Invading Iran, destroying the nuclear sites and taking out the government, it would take everything she has. I don't think Israel could defend from Syria or Egypt. She'd have to rely on the U.S. for protection. The death toll would be unbelievable, and beyond horrific if any nuclear weapons were used. But what choice does Israel have?

Iran is most certainly going to really start throwing it's weight around once it gets the bomb. All the major Arab nations will rush their own programs through. Unable to count the U.S. for total protection, in the event of an oil shortage, countries like Japan would start making their own. And if the U.S. is not well on it's way to developing ANWR by the time this all happens (and we won't probably) then fuel is going to be a major problem. Because you can just guess which side Chavez will take up for.

So what is Iran doing? Giving Israel real options? No. They are setting the stage for Israel's destruction. So that they can say they were concerned and tried every way to avoid conflict.

It sounds loony, I know. But then again, the Iranian mullahs did put a former terrorist in place as President.

Who can you trust?

Apparently, not journalists.

Media review links to this Editor&Publisher article highlighting a new Gallup poll that shows the ethical standings of certain professionals with the public.

The annual Gallup Poll asking Americans to rate, on a scale of one to five, the honesty and ethical standards of those in 21 professions again placed nurses at the very top with an 82% favorite score. Journalists, U.S. senators and congressmen trailed badly.

In fact, the senators and congressmen, near the very bottom of the list, should heed this call: They finished behind lawyers and building contractors.

Those in advertising finished below congressmen but managed to beat out car salesmen and telemarketers.

Receiving the highest ethical scores in order were nurses, pharmacists , medical doctors, high school teachers, policemen, and clergy, with journalists trailing badly.

Give it some time, I'm sure journalists will claim the prize eventually. They haven't finished yet in their efforts at losing the Iraq war and turning the world against America.

Here's the full list.

Nurses 82
Druggists/Pharmacists 67
Medical doctors 65
High school teachers 64
Policemen 61
Clergy 54
Funeral directors 44
Bankers 41
Accountants 39
Journalists 28
Real estate agents 20
Building contractors 20
Lawyers 18
Labor union leaders 16
Senators 16
Business executives 16
Stockbrokers 16
Congressmen 14
Advertising practitioners 11
Car salesmen 8
Telemarketers 7

I'm rather glad nurses rate highly. Anybody sticking me with a needle, I need to trust them.

I had to laugh that senators and congressmen are polling below journalists (who themselves are polling below President Bush! Hah ha!), though essentially tying with business executives - the same people they have been trying to vilify for the high gas prices and...well, the free market in general.

To be honest I'm not sure why funeral directors need to be on this list. Who cares? Why not engineers? Why are they not represented? Actually, I've never seen engineers represented in a list like this before. It's one of the forgotten professions.

That's actually fine with me though. It's a form of flattery I think. Nobody thinks about the bridge they're driving over, or the plane they're sitting in, or the car they're driving, or how the gas got to the pump. They just assume it will all work, perfectly. Some might see that as people just taking things for granted. Maybe in some respects. But in a way it's a compliment as well. Sort of like for a special effects artist on a Hollywood movie - it's the greatest compliment to them when people say "what special effects?"

It's got me thinking though how bad it is that we basically don't trust anybody anymore. That's what the list really shows. Only six professions on there rated above 50%. And of the ones polling lowest, such as journalists (the supposed people's voice) and elected representatives (the supposed...well why the heck did we elect them if we don't trust them? It's rhetorical...but you need to think about it), they have the power to shape our world and our future the most.

It's pretty sad.

Terrorist is the new Genghis Khan

Self-confessed war criminal John Kerry, who also moonlights as a billionaire playboy and senator from Massachusetts - along with that other senator who had an uncannily close proximity to a drowning victim - was on CBS's "Face the Nation" this weekend.

In the midst of the segment, Kerry pre-empted host Bob Schieffer with a anti-Bush screed and attempted to portray the actions of U.S. soldiers as terrorists. No really.

Sen. KERRY: Let me--I--first of all, there is so much more that unites Democrats than divides us. And Democrats have much more in common with each other than they do with George Bush's policy right now. Now Joe Lieberman, I believe, also voted for the resolution which said the president needs to make more clear what he's doing and set out benchmarks, and that the policy hasn't been working. We all believe him when you say, `Stay the course.' That's the president's policy, which hasn't been changing, which is a policy of failure. I don't agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is you've got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment. You've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis. And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not...

SCHIEFFER: Yeah.

Sen. KERRY: ...Iraqis should be doing that. And after all of these two and a half years, with all of the talk of 210,000 people trained, there just is no excuse for not transferring more of that authority.

So after saying that U.S. troops are terrorizing the Iraqis, he then tries to say Iraqis should be terrorizing Iraqis.

Now a lot of people have been up in arms saying that he is slandering the honor of American soldiers again (come to think of it, Iraqi soldiers too). But you know, if you analyze this a little deeper, with a little more nuance and a touch of relativism, maybe Kerry really meant "terrorist", not terrorist. Maybe Kerry had a Reuters dictionary with him and he was referring to the U.S. soldiers as freedom fighters. That has to be it.

If Reuters calls them "terrorists" because others may think of them as freedom fighters, then John Kerry must be one of those 'others' - because U.S. soldiers are fighting for the freedom of Iraq. It makes perfect sense. That's what Kerry meant. Right?

Riiiiight...

Yes, but is it riot proof?

Apparently, Peugeot has a new vehicle. I know, I didn't realize they still designed cars either. This one is affectionately called the Hoggar. They say it can conquer a mountain.

The Hoggar is far from being your normal concept car, being in the image of the extraordinary, wild and spectacular desert in southern Algeria which it is named after.

The Hoggar has free-flowing lines, a sober interior and hi-tech fittings, and offers a spectacular level of power and efficiency.

With its twin HDi engine with particle filters, offering 360 hp, this concept car is particularly environmentally friendly, as well as having advanced suspension and road holding that is optimised for extreme obstacle-crossing capacity.

With visible mechanical components that look like the drawing of powerful musculature, the Hoggar combines a compact volume with low-slung proportions, accentuating the impression it gives of a wild animal ready to leap.

But the real question is, will it resist fires, rioters, and otherwise not burst into flame when you turn it on?

Are we there yet?

You've heard it before, or perhaps been the one saying it. Are we there yet?

Parent, child, large child, Democrat...all of us have experienced the annoyance. But it is true, who doesn't want to be there yet? Who doesn't want the Iraq war to be over? But unfortunately the reality is a little bit different.

First of all, as the situation implies, it's a war. Yet the Democrats are treating it like the car ride to Grandmother's house.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Huh huh huh? Are we?

Recent calls by Democrats have focused on "the date", our timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. President Bush reponded to carping Democrats the other day with the administration's strategy for victory in Iraq. Here is a relevant portion from the executive summary.

* Victory Will Take Time

o Our strategy is working: Much has been accomplished in Iraq, including the removal of Saddam's tyranny, negotiation of an interim constitution, restoration of full sovereignty, holding of free national elections, formation of an elected government, drafting of a permanent constitution, ratification of that constitution, introduction of a sound currency, gradual restoration of neglected infrastructure, the ongoing training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, and the increasing capability of those forces to take on the terrorists and secure their nation.

o Yet many challenges remain: Iraq is overcoming decades of a vicious tyranny, where governmental authority stemmed solely from fear, terror, and brutality.

+ It is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies and peacefully reconcile generational grievances, to be in place less than three years after Saddam was finally removed from power.

o Our comprehensive strategy will help Iraqis overcome remaining challenges, but defeating the multi-headed enemy in Iraq -- and ensuring that it cannot threaten Iraq's democratic gains once we leave -- requires persistent effort across many fronts.


* Our Victory Strategy Is (and Must Be) Conditions Based

o With resolve, victory will be achieved, although not by a date certain.

+ No war has ever been won on a timetable and neither will this one.

o But lack of a timetable does not mean our posture in Iraq (both military and civilian) will remain static over time. As conditions change, our posture will change.

+ We expect, but cannot guarantee, that our force posture will change over the next year, as the political process advances and Iraqi security forces grow and gain experience.

+ While our military presence may become less visible, it will remain lethal and decisive, able to confront the enemy wherever it may organize.

+ Our mission in Iraq is to win the war. Our troops will return home when that mission is complete.

Worth the read. But I doubt the Democrats will bother. They are continuing with their same line - tell us when we're going to get there, and we'll support the war. That's basically what they're saying. Yet such a request is impossible, and wholly disingenuous.

And why?

Because we're not driving towards a stationary goal. We're driving tanks and humvees in Iraq, rooting out terrorists, thwarting Iran and Syria, escorting politicians and schoolchildren, and providing protection and training for that nascent Iraqi military. Perhaps an Iraqi child's grandmother's house is along the way - but alas, such journeys are never reported by the press.

The situation is fluid, alive, active, and hot. And when you are actively engaging the enemy, especially one so crafty and intelligent as the Islamofascist entity, the game is never won by calling the day for victory. As the guys from Powerline note:

As for "when we're going to get there," that's simply not knowable. Bush can no more tell us when our involvement in this conflict will end than any president in any substantial past conflict has been able to. The Democratic party -- part pacifist, part opportunist, part bureaucratic, part clueless -- is attempting to make the existence of a date certain for victory a condition for supporting war. This is a recipe for impotence.

No kidding.