One of the central tenets of United States' philosophical underpinnings is respect for the individual.   Another is fair treatment for minorities.   We have built into our system all sorts of safeguards for individuals and minority groups so no majority can persecute any minority, even a minority of one.   But that's not enough.   Because people naturally harbor all sorts of prejudices about anything which is not like them, we have been force fed notions of "tolerance" for all people, cultures and lifestyles especially those which are dissimilar to our own.   The result is any quality, culture or lifestyle which is in the majority comes under a withering attack in the name of tolerance and "enlightened thinking."   But for those who engage in this attack, tolerance is just not enough.   They are after much more than that.   They demand absolute acceptance beyond what most human beings are capable.

It came as no surprise when the homosexual romantic fantasy, Brokeback Mountain, became the darling of the artsy crowd and the MSM despite the fact that even many homosexuals said it was not a particularly good flick.   The artistic community serves as a sort of central censor to tell us what is good, right, and appropriately tolerant.   The MSM is their leading partner in the "tolerance" campaign.   But now the MSM has gone too far.   Now their cards are showing.   It just isn't good enough to tolerate homosexuals.   Now they want us to go see their new film.   They're not looking for tolerance.   They demand acceptance.

Today the Associated Press tells us Brokeback Mountain is a commercial success!   They note that the film took in more per theatre than the blockbuster do-over, King Kong.   Yes Kong did open in a few more theatres than Mountain but soon Mountain will be in theatres near you.   And if you really want to be heralded as an "enlightened thinker," if you want to stake your claim to being a card carrying member of the intelligentsia wanna-be society, you simply must see it!

The AP piece tells us the film earned $13,599 per theater!   And this in the "highly unforgiving, competitive, cruel market at this Christmas period."   Wow, that is really impressive.   The piece goes on to tell us it earned an "unprecedented" $109,000 per venue on its opening weekend!   The mitigating factor for this unbridled enthusiasm, however, is that the film opened in an astonishingly low 6 theatres.   That's right, it opened in 6 theatres.   At $8 a pop, that means less than 100,000 people came out to see the opening of the biggest hit of the artistic year.   But never you mind, its exposure is expanding.   The AP tells us "The film expanded to 69 theaters the following week, then to 217 over the holiday weekend, reaching suburban audiences in Portland, Dallas, Denver and Atlanta."

The idea the MSM wishes to plant in all our heads is even heterosexual, suburban, family types will enjoy this wonderful film.   I can see it now.   The mall theatres are packed with people standing in line to see a gay cowboy film.   Right!   I know gay men will go to watch a "chick flick" about some poor woman who is trying desperately to tame some wayward, one-night stand dude but that's because the gay guys identify with the woman.   No honest heterosexual man wants to go watch a gay love affair.   It's bad enough we are subjected to women's romantic fantasies.   Do we have to be subjected to the "all men are latently homosexual" thing?

Yet somehow you just have to know that a bunch of truly enlightened, highly urbane, allegedly sophisticated men will be dragged out to see this rubbish.   You can see it now as the enlightened men rush out of theatres to barf in men's rooms throughout the country just as they turn the cable TV channel from HBO every time there is a homosexual love scene.   Ladies, please don't force your perfectly wonderful partners out to see this film.   If you simply must be the first person in your office to announce she is sufficiently enlightened to see this movie, go with one of your girlfriends.   I suspect not that many heterosexual women will want to see this either but, hey, you never know just how many women are insecure enough to require others' imagined adulation over their supposed sophistication and enlightenment.

As a final thought, it would be extremely surprising if a high percentage of this country's homosexual population did not see the film.   Some estimate that population to be as high as ten percent of the country's nearly 300 million.   A more likely figure is around one percent but that's still 3 million people.   So, if half that population sees the film, that's 1.5 million and at $8, the film should gross at least $10 million.   There are a lot of liberals (though mostly women) out there who will be shamed into going to see this.   I would be shocked if the thing didn't gross closer to $50 million.   But that's it.   It is not going to be the next "Titanic" regardless of any Golden Globes or Oscars.   There is only so much tolerance the rest of us can be force-fed.   And after this is all in the books, I expect the backlash of intolerance will far exceed the level of acceptance.   But hey, you "tolerance folks" are playing with fire when you require us to accept something which generally grosses us out.

The MSM is fond of saying things like bloggers just recycle news they obtain from real news oufits like ... or Bloggers print just about anything without checking the facts.   Well ring one up for the pajama-clad dudes or, more exactly, ring one up against the other dudes.   AP reports that the LA Times printed a totally bogus quote on their front page this week.   The author of the piece had read something on a web site and thought it sounded like it is was true so she put it in her story.   The only problem was it was an April Fools joke the web site didn't think anyone would believe!   Here's the quote:

"In Wyoming, for example, Gov. Dave Freudenthal last April decreed that the Endangered Species Act is no longer in force and that the state 'now considers the wolf as a federal dog,' unworthy of protection."

Pretty authentic sounding, huh?

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

It is only a matter of time.   Iran will get the A-bomb.   The Europeans aren't doing a very good job at even holding reasonable discussions.   They pretend to put pressure on Iran but the country isn't having any of it.   The Russians are making overtures to the country suggesting that maybe they can enrich their uranium in Russia so the world doesn't have to worry about them putting some to use in bombs.   Iran barely acknowledged the Russian suggestion.   They likely won't agree to it unless they can get enough of a guarantee from Russia that some of the material might be able to be diverted.   The UN is completeless toothless on this one because neither China nor Russia will allow the security council to put any kind of pressure on the country.   And at this point, you have to believe that sanctions are an absolute joke.   So what can we do other than just wait to learn that Iran has the bomb?

Well, we could try to figure out what might happen after they get the bomb.   I suppose they could hold onto at as a deterrent against their enemies who potentially threaten to invade them.   But they really don't have any such enemies - not since Saddam was removed from power and it looks like an Iran friendly regime will be in power in Iraq for some time.   So why might they want a bomb?   What might they use such a device for?   The only thing which comes to mind is actual use, and actual use against a particular Jewish state nearby.   So what happens if they send a few missiles at Israel?   I guess Israel fires back.   And what then?   Where will the radioactive fallout spread to?   I imagine much of the Middle East will be a wasteland and then if there are any superpowers left on Earth, we'll have some really ugly wars to try to take over the wasteland under which lots of oil will still lay.

Maybe that's too gloomy of a picture.   Maybe one side or the other will win.   Say the Iranians win and succeed at wiping Israel off the map - their publicly stated goal all along.   How do you suppose the US would react?   I doubt there would be any hesitation to remove Iran from the map of the Middle East.   Most likely we've already got a few hundred missilespointed their way.   We've got the whole country mapped.   We employ thouands of people to calculate where to best hit countries like this with bombs.   It would be over inside on a few minutes once the bombs start to drop.   So Iran's voctory might last a few days at most, perhaps it would just be hours.   But what then?   It is entirely possible some country like Russia or China which has sufficient missiles might strike back.   But this is a big country.   Russia hasn' tested their weapons in years.   Many of their devices would probably end up hitting their own country!   Heck, they might go off in their silos.   I don;t know about China.   Their missiles might launch although they don't have that much success with this sort of thing.   And the US is far ahead of them in terms of keeping an eye on their silos.   We'd probably hit them really hard as soon as they began to launch.   But the problem is there would be all this fallout floating around our atmosphere.   Maybe it's time to pull out those fallout shelter plans we all had in the 1950s & 60s and give them a good updating.

I get a few comments - always from liberals - which wonder why I think the media is biased to the liberal side.   Sometimes these messages cite one specific article which doesn't completely hammer conservatives.   But the central thesis remains intact because the overwhelming weight of the evidence points to a media which is firmly entrenched on the left side of the equation, not left of center, but rather, well to the left.   The New York Times, network news, and the majority of other mainstream media outlets routinely take up the causes of liberals.   At this point of the year, the big piece of the puzzle is the annual Time Magazine year-end issue which includes "Persons of the Year" as well as several articles taking note of the important items of the year gone by.   If you completely dissect the magazine, you can find "balance" in terms of the overall, from 50,000 feet view.   But upon close inspection - which is what I do at this time of year - what is presented is a slanted view of things.   Let me get into some specifics.

Possibly the most telling individual article in this issue is "People Who mattered 2005."   The Republican President and his supposed mentor, guiding-hand Vice President Dick Cheney are number 1 in the list.   But Time quickly points out they "quickly squandered their political capital" and "stumbled and saw their popularity drop."   Number 2 is the new Pope, ho hum.   Number, 3 Condi Rice, but she is "greeted more like a movie star than a diplomat."   That's right, in case you didn't realize it, Condi is a token, not a real member of the team.   But that's OK, she's "more popular than her boss."   Nothing biased with portraying the highest ranking Black woman ever as not all that important but popular.

Next up is Cindy Sheehan.   Right, she really made a difference.   She made all the really far left liberals feel like the sixties might actually be reincarnated but, oh well, that didn't play out like they thought.   Cindy who?   What difference did she make?

Next is Mayor Ray Nagin who Time tells us "embodied the pain and frustration" of New Orleans.   Why liberals are afraid for anyone in the Democratic party to actually take blame is beyond me.   Let's face the facts here.   Ray Nagin did a shitty job.   End of story.

Next is Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.   Need I say anything about this?   What difference did they make?   Plame was a desk jockey but one with enough pull to get a Democrat "under-cover" political discrediting operation underway.   But that one did not have enough legs to stand.   It lasted for long enough and damaged the VP's staff but the notion of Saddam's agents working to promote trade with a country that has nothing to trade, except uranium, loses something in translation.   And nobody ought to care about Plame's outing.   It harmed nobody who didn't knowingly play with fire.   The leak regarding the NSA's eavesdropping on the other hand is a far graver issue.   If we don't get a serious investigation into this one, this country is in serious trouble.

Patrick Fitzgerald is up next but what did he do?   Indict somebody for lying to him - a subject which gets murkier and murkier every day.   Unless or until he can get a conviction, this is just junk.   Patrick Fitzgerald did not "matter" in 2005 any more than thousands of others.   His impact will be judged better in the coming year or two but I suspect when all is said and done, his "impact" on the world will not even reach the footnote stage.

The next big impact is none other than Tom DeLay.   His impact was his "link to a lobbying scandal."   Had nothing been found against him - no indictment, etc., he would not have been important enough for this issue.   Never mind that he headed the majority of one of the most important governmental bodies on the planet at a critical time, his claim to fame is the indictment.

Next up is Steve Jobs followed by Google's founders.   My personal opinion is that Google will fade into obscurity over time but the same is not likely for Jobs' Apple Computer which is beginning to look more and more like the new SONY or IBM.   Nothing against Google, mind you.   I just don't think they have quite as much to offer the world as the hype surrounding their IPO seems to suggest.   These are some bright people but better web searching can eventually be achieved by the next outside-the-box thinkers.   Apple's new "ipod vision," on the other hand, is likely to transform almost every aspect of our lives.   They haven't even got started with this thing yet, only about 20 million have been sold.   But my first interaction with the device tells me that we will be buying music rather differently for some time to come.   Now replace "music" with television programming, movies, etc.   You combine the common everyday ipod with the cell phone, PDA, laptops, television, satellite radio, audio books, and lots of other things, and what you begin to get is a picture of a world which is loads different than the one we live in today.   Picture yourself sharing all sorts of media files with anyone you want by wireless connectivity in a flash.   That's truly where we are going.   Maybe you walk into an interview, pull out your "omnipod" and shoot your interviewer your resume, your college transcript, a paper you wrote for your current employer which answers an interview question, a video of you captaining your high school football team to a last minute comeback for the state championship, or maybe a performance in a high school play, etc., etc.   The possibilities are endless.   If only they could figure out a way for humans to transport themselves or stun somebody using the ipod.

Next up in the Time issue is the new President of Iran.   So what?   Well, he hasn't had all that much impact yet but he is likely to eventually wind up killing millions so he will have an impact in the future.   For now, he is nothing more than a leader of a nation which is likely to cause Republicans lots of heartburn and that's why he is important enough for this issue.

The next characters are, interestingly, John McCain and Harry Reid, followed by Tony Blair, Geena Davis (Time has no shame), Kanye West (He ain't just a golddiggah), and assorted figures from sports and entertainment.   McCain is important, in Time's estimation, because he is left of the administration and anything left of the administration has to be better than anything to the right.   Reid is important because no matter what comes out of Bush's mouth, Reid opposes it and then works to obstruct it.   That's really cool stuff for lefties.   But I suspect history won't be so kind to Harry Reid.   Once he runs unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 2008, he'll fade into obscurity and become history's poster child for obstructionist politics.   Tony Blair gets mentioned in all these sorts of list but mostly because he is unafraid to express his fear about the warming globe. &nmbsp; That's another gimme a break.

Geena Davis is the filler for the empty spot created as "The West Wing" goes off the air.   In case you are one of those who never bothered to watch the West Wing thing, it is art imitating life - liberal life.   It was almost like a liberal sex fantasy in a political setting.   Geena Davis' show is not quite so blatantly liberal but make no mistake, it is intended to set the stage for a Hillary presidency and Condi Rice's potential rise as an opponent doesn't change that.   "Commander-In-Chief" is not about a woman as President.   It is about Hillary as President.   Just as Geena Davis told Oprah that she got chills when she first entered the mock-up of the Oval Office, I get chills just thinking about President Hillary.   As they told me on one of those Disney studio tours, a Facade is a fake front.   read as much double entendre into that as you please.

Kanye West?   What did he do?   Rap is just coming to the point where we can count on it disappearing from the face of the Earth.   We don't need any more ungifted non-musically inclined poets claiming some odd sort of artistic soul because they were raised in what passes in these United States for poverty.   Have you actually listened to Kanye West?   Or do you know his name because the media began saying it when he began criticizing the President of the United States?   I remember one woman with whom I had too much contact several years ago.   She was one of those self-fancied intelligentsia liberals who was the rough equivalent of an intellectual style maven.   She jumped on the bandwagon of any sort of philosophical or artistic force called "important" by the MSM.   I remember when "country got cool" for a while and she made sure her kids went to see Garth Brooks.   Then she and the media realized that Country and Western music was decidedly conservative and dropped it.   Rap is cool because it embodies that portion of the liberal mindset which deals with race.   Aside from that, let's face it, it sucks.   It doesn't involve incredible talent or urban poetry.   It just sucks.   But Time says it's important.

Anyways, I seem to have gotten slightly off the main theme which is the MSM tilts way to the left.   Time Magazine is one of the most extreme cases of lefty media bias.   Their choice of a few token conservatives who were conveniently bashable does nothing to offset the inclusion of a majority of lefty people in their most impactful list.   Here's a thought for Time Mag, who in the past ten, maybe 20, years has had a bigger impact on the government of the United States than Rush Limbaugh?   My answer is nobody is even close.   Put that mug on your front cover, liberal media!

It should come as no surprise to anyone that today almost two thirds of all Americans aprove of the NSA's snooping in search of terrorists.   A poll from September 2001 concluded that "nearly half of Californians wouldn't mind if the government snooped on their phone calls and e-mails if it would help catch terrorists."   The current poll, from Rasmussen finds that
Sixty-four percent of all Americans believe the NSA should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terror suspects in other countries and people living in the United States.   23% disagree.   Just 26% believe President Bush is the first to authorize a program like the one currently in the news.   More than half of all Democrats agree with the NSA's formerly clandestine eavesdropping program.   It seems as if the Democrats weekly choice of an accusation to level at the sitting administration was a poor one.   This one didn't have any legs whatsoever.   We have a week off from absurdity but as soon as the boys and girls come back from Christmas recess, we will be treated to a new absurd accusation.   I suspect the next one will simply be something which is harder to disprove like Bush's homeland security agency is doing a poor job.   That one may have a longer half-life than the NSA snooping thing, Plamegate, tax cuts for the rich, Bush's national guard service, Hurricanegate, Cindy Sheehan, WMD, torture, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.

They're no longer in front of you each night but Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel are still huge in the social and professional circles of many in the news media business.   Tim Russert asked each for their opinions about the Iraq War recently and each said they thought Clinton would have done no differently than Bush - he would have gone to war.   Much of the discussion dealt with the underpinnings of Bush's rationale for going to war.   Russert and the gentlemen agreed that nobody questioned the WMD charge upon which Bush hung his hat.   They agreed that even had their been a Democrat administration in place, the same conclusions would have been reached.   No duh!   And they concluded that Clinton would have summoned up the troops and shipped'em off to Iraq.   Well, that conslusion is subject to a little more scrutiny.

Obviously you can conclude that Clinton would have had identical information since most of the intelligence was identical between the two administrations.   It was the Dem.s who first suggested that Saddam had WMD and that he might have transferred some over to terrorist organizations.   But nothing in Clinton's
actions while in office even remotely suggests he would have put significant numbers of troops in harm's way.   War is risky.   Clinton was risk averse unless it was for self-instant-gratification like sex play with interns.   There's not a single instance in his presidency when he took something that wasn't rock solid and ran with it beyond the trial-balloon stage.   Universal health coverage was perhaps "his" boldest move.   But as support for that waned, he pinned it to Hillary's blouse and dropped the issue.

What Bill Clinton would have done is fired some missiles from a ship safely located hundreds of miles from Iraq.   He might even have engaged the air force and navy in some bomb dropping to convince Saddam he was in earnest in an attempt to get the UN inspectors back in.   He might have gotten the French to apply some lip service to the UN sanctions.   But he would never have put troops on the ground in Iraq unless, and this is a big unless, there was absolute unanimity from the security council that Iraq was to be invaded.   And then the U.S. would have been a mere participant - would have made up less than half the force.   And as soon as there was any dissent, the house of cards would have crumbled.   You see, Clinton did in fact read polls.   He was driven by polls.   Clinton was controlled by acquiring power and if there was a way from him to achieve greatness without risking power, that would be fine.   But put risk into the equation and you could count on Clinton cutting and running.   Bill Clinton was, in fact, a holla-back girl.

The pro-liberal media pundits would like to take back all that anti-Bush, "he lied to us," "there's no evidence of WMD" talk.   They don't want any of us to think for even a moment that liberals or Democrats are whimpy when it comes to war, especially necessary war.   They are saying now that some level of victory has appeared on the horizon, "we would have done almost nothing differently."   Monday morning quarterbacks are boring.

I happened across the following web site and found it sufficiently interesting to share with you without much of a comment by me.

SecularIslam.org/articles/armageddon.htm

The site seems to be the work of a group of Muslims who believe "Islamic society has been held back by an unwillingness to subject its beliefs, laws and practices to critical examination, by a lack of respect for the rights of the individual, and by an unwillingness to tolerate alternative viewpoints or to engage in constructive dialogue."   They have much to offer in terms of understanding exactly what religious Islam is all about.   The article to which I have linked is about the ridiculous comments coming from most media religion "experts" who suppose Islam is about peace, love, tolerance, etc.   Take a read through this article and then visit the rest of SecularIslam.org to see what they have to say about a host of subjects.   It is a very interesting read.

The first complete re-enactment since 2001 of General George Washington's historic 1776 crossing to defeat the Hessians at Trenton took place today.   According to the AP there were hundreds of spectators.   I really didn't know about it or we would have made the one hour trip to see it.

Something, I'm not sure what, doesn't sit right with me about this story.   Maybe it's the fact that only a couple hundred people went to watch.   Maybe it's the fact that this gets little or no real attention when it is the single most important event in this nation's history.   Maybe it's the fact that they haven't had a re-enactment in a couple years because water levels and speeds made it unsafe.   Maybe it's the re-enactors' comments which included "Rain doesn't stop us." and "We do these things in all sorts of weather."

As I pointed out the other day in my ?"Christmas Story" posting, the original crossing was done by 2,400 men, many of whom didn't have shoes and who were cold before they climbed aboard those boats in the middle of a snow and sleet storm in the middle of the night.   The paths for those who followed were easy because they were made of the blood of those who went before.   Their bare feet were bleeding all over the place.   While I would never expect a group of re-enactors to brave such conditions, it is almost comical to note that it was a little rainy out today.   The weather didn't matter to Washington's men.   They made their crossing in all kinds of weather and with no shoes on.   But as Washington himself pointed out, the war would have been over and done with had the attack not succeeded.   It was a matter of survival for Washington and the Continental Army.   Perhaps Americans do their best work when things are a matter of survival.

Here's a message to the President of Iran.   Tonight marks the first day of Hanukkah, the festival of lights commemorating the victory of the Jews over the Hellenist Syrians, the rededication of the Temple, and the miracle which occurred in relighting the Temple lamps with a limited supply of undefiled oil which then burned for 8 days in 165 BCE.   That's right Mr. President, they were there before the 1940s A.D. just in case you missed that particular lesson.

Theresa Farrisi of Myerstown, PA who calls herself a teacher.   She was substituting for a music teacher recently when the class was assigned to read a certain seasonal poem.   The poem was Clement C. Moore's "A Visit from Saint Nicholas."   In the middle of the reading, she paused to inform the children "there was a man named Nickolas of Myrna who died in 343 A.D., upon whom the Santa Claus myth is based."   She notes, "The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable.   It's a story.   I taught it as a story.   There's no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole."   The class Theresa Farrisi was teaching was first grade.

There's no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole?   Wow, you're really an educated person if you know that.   Music teacher, huh?   I'll bet you minored in child psychology and that's where you learned you're really a genius.   I hope one day someone returns the favor to you and your children.   But you won't teach your children about Santa, will you?   No, you'll probably teach them something smart and whitty like about the winter solstice, right?   Well, there are myths your children can be disabused of, like their mother is a human being.

Hey silly lady, you aren't those kids' parent.   You're just a teacher, actually, you're just a freaking substitute, in music no less.   Next time keep your simpleton mouth shut and follow the lesson plan.   The world does not need any more self-appointed geniuses.

American scientists are reporting tremendous successes with stem cells but not the embryonic kind.   The stem cells they have been working with are from hair!   It turns out that scientists have been able to regenerate nerve cells in mice whose nerves have been deliberately cut for experimental purposes.   Looks like Christopher Reeves was barking in the wrong direction.

I told you in July how much I liked the film March of the Penguins.   I thought the film had incredible shots that obviously took a tremendous effort to get.   I noted that the penguins' "procreation is so fragile, the environment in which they exist so extreme, it is a wonder of nature that they have managed to survive at all."   Well it turns out my interpretation of the film is just plain wrong.   The American Film Institute is out with its "2005 Moments of Significance" in film which includes "March."   But AFI praises the film because of "its universal message — the need to be part of a community that cares for each other."

I didn't get that at all.   In fact, to me, there was very little "community" at all in the film.   The only time the "community" came together in any real sense - besides following each other by instinct alone - was when there was a terrible storm and the only way to survive was to band together for warmth.   Never mind the fact that many on the outskirts of the penguin huddle probably perished.

To me, the "March of the Penguins" displayed the folly of "natural selection" at least in the short run.   These creatures have evolved to live in the most inhospitable place on Earth.   They are there by instinct and instinct alone.   Their procreation is, at best, ill-suited to the environment in which they instinctively live.   They would be better suited someplace a little warmer.   If one truly has faith in natural selection, one must conclude that this species must perish by the divine hand of environmental conditions.   And that's my take-away.   I don't see how any other conclusion can be reached.

Reuters disclosed about an hour ago the Bush Administration has conducted even more warrantless "searches."   The "searches" in questions involved monitoring for radiation at Muslim sites around the country!   The article discussed a report by U.S. News and World Report which said "In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program."   Are you going to lose sleep tonight because of these "searches?"   Does not our federal government have a right to monitor for possible radioactive material?   The report quoted The Council on American-Islamic Relations which said the report, coupled with news of the domestic eavesdropping, "could lead to the perception that we are no longer a nation ruled by law, but instead one in which fear trumps constitutional rights."

Give me a break.   Nobody has a right to have radioactive material anywhere, not in ntheir home, not in their business, not in their church.   There is no indication that any other surveillance occurred during these monitoring activities.   This business of monitoring or eavesdropping on calls placed to or from suspected al Qaeda members had absolutely no legs in the public arena.   The truth is the traitors who disclosed it to the NY Times made a dreadful mistake breaching their responsibility to keep a program secret from the outside world.   Now they realize the folly of their decision to make this public and are disappointed it didn't provide a boost for their party.   So now they have this other example of illegal goings on to try to get our attention again.   The freaking gas company comes onto my property without my permission or a warrant to see if there is a gas leak.   The freaking water company comes onto my property without my permission or a warrant to see if there are water leaks.   Why shouldn't the government be allowed to come onto private property to check for radiation?

This one is going to have even less legs than the last one.

The latest news about stem cell research in South Korea has Hwang Woo-suk resigning from the University he worked at over allegations that his breakthroughs in embryonic stem cell research were fabricated.

They're even questioning the validity of his claims that he created the world's first cloned dog.

One only needs to ask a Californian about how much money stem cell researchers stand to earn from government funding. In 2004, California voters passed Proposition 71, which raises $3 billion from the sale of bonds to finance a new state agency that will dole out money to universities and biotech firms. Taxpayers will also have to pay an extra $3 billion on the interest payments.

Politicians around the world are gambling on the notion that embryonic stem cell research will lead to cures for chronic diseases, ranging from cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and the list goes on. They would love for their universities and biotech firms to create these cures because it secures a multi-billion dollar industry for their economies.

Even if researchers don't create cures from embryonic stem cells, the funding will keep them employed for years to come. And if they can demonstrate advances, of any kind, it will encourage more funding.

While no one has accused Hwang Woo-suk of acting in the name of greed, I'm going to go ahead and say it. But I'm not limiting the culprit to just him. I think there were people in the university he worked at, as well as in South Korea's government, that pressured him to produce positive results. And under that pressure, he cracked.

Another sad thing about this, is that Hwang Woo-suk's fabricated research work may have encouraged researchers and politicians in other countries to step up research in their respective labratories. This may have led to allocating more public funds, passing more laws, even raising more taxes.

Things are pretty rough this Christmas.   We've got the heat turned down about 5 degrees compared to last year.   And it has been quite a bit colder than the last couple of years.   Probably that's due to global warming or something else related to human activity.   But we'll "suffer" through it.   At least we're not living like the hurricane victims in the South who are living in tents and trailors this Christmas.

I had to drive all over high heaven just to find a single ipod for a loved one's present.   The stores were in short supply of this "necessity" but I got lucky after a lot of effort and found one.   There were other gifts which were hard to find.   It seems as if a lot of stores are in short supply of a number of items and many things can only be found on the internet.   Even there, many things are backordered and you really had to place your orders early to have anything by Christmas morning.   But what can you do.   Things are tough all over for late shoppers this year.

I look forward to all the Christmas light displays to pick me up and give my holiday spirit a little boost.   But these are in shorter supply this year as everyone cuts back and does there part to reduce the reliance on foreign oil, everyone except Congress.   The Senate filibustered drilling for oil in ANWR yesterday so a couple polar bears could have better views when they look far off from where they usually live.   We all just have to face up to the fact that heating oil and gasoline are in short supply and will cost a lot more this year.   Congress has other, more important work to do.

There has been a lot of discussion about torture in the news.   Much of the Senate has been preoccupied with the notion that terrorists deserve the protection of, if not the geneva conventions - they don't act like a conventional army, some parts of the United States Constitution.   We don;t want to make their living conditions substandard so we can't screw around with the temperature of their abodes and we can't leave or boom boxes turned up too loud.   We can't even ask them too many questions about where they plan to kill our civilians next or where their buddies making these plans might be.   That's unconstitutional!

Of yeah, there's also that "domestic eavesdropping" filling the discussions.   I almost forgot about that one.   Can you believe Bush had his minions actually listening in on telephone conversation between suspected terrorists and American citizens or foreigners who are here legally?   I mean these terrorists likely all have family too, right?   Can't they place calls to their loved ones without being spied on, especially when their loved ones happen to be in the good ole US?

There's other fighting going on in Congress who seems about worn out by all this and looking forward to the Christmas break.   But the Senate changed the playing field and made the House come back for a quick vote on the Patriot Act extension.   One representative complained about having to interrupt his Christmas break which had already started several days in advance of the holidays.   But he did, to his credit, manage to come back and vote.   I guess two extra plane rides for the year qualifies as deprivation these days.

It's all very depressing and ruining my Christmas spirit.   But now it's time for me to tell my children a Christmas tale from long ago.

I'm not going to tell the story of Jesus' birth or even the classic "Night Before Christmas" this time.   I can't vouch for the authenticity of the traditional Jesus story, according to several recent TV shows, and they're getting too old for the "Night Before" since they no longer believe in Santa Claus.   So instead I'll tell them a story about someone to whom they are actually related.   I'll tell them the story about my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great uncle (I'll call him "my uncle" from here on out in the interest of brevity) and his Christmas experience in long ago.

My uncle didn't have to worry about finding an ipod, they weren't invented back then.   He didn't have to worry about turning the heat down.   He didn't have any.   And he couldn't even put on extra clothing to stay warm.   He didn't have any.   He didn't even have to worry about Congressional fighting since no real Congress had been established by this particular Christmas.   And he was too busy fighting for the right to establish one to be worried about anything else.   My uncle's Christmas story begins before and ends after the actual Christmas celebration of 1776.

My uncle's Christmas party was a very large affair which involved climbing aboard a bunch of let's call them canoes in the middle of a Snowstorm.   The only thing I can think of that's similar today is what those "Polar Bear" club members will do on New Year's Day.   But those guys leave and return to heated houses when they aren't swimming in the frigid ocean.   My uncle was freezing cold before during and after his Christmas party.   He and about 2,400 other men climbed aboard small boats, paddled across a river and then went on to Trenton to defeat the Hessian mercenaries stationed there in the morning after the Christmas holiday.

The historical record makes it sound like it was an easy party to have organized.   Sure making a military attack in the middle of the night during a snowstorm sounds difficult but the men had easy paths to follow since there was snow on the ground and because those who were lucky enough to have shoes, still bled through them because the shoes were ill-fitting and mostly "broken."   Many had no shoes so their bleeding feet paved the way.   The historical accounts say the soldiers had an easy time following the blood trails through the snow so nobody got lost.   And from what I understand, the only real casualties on this assault were a couple of men who froze to death.   That's not too bad for 2 out of as many as 2,400 to freeze to death.   And walking barefoot on snow for just a couple miles can't be all that bad.   Hey, you want to get a kick, try it.   But before you begin, you need to get yourself cold.   Strip down to a simple pair of pants and one shirt with no shoes and socks.   Now stand in your garage for an hour.   Now walk just a half mile through some snow.   Now go seek medical treatment.

But that Christmas was remarkable because the Continental Army was really getting its butt kicked back then.   They had won no battle to that point.   In fact, they hadn't even comported themselves well in any battle.   They were, after all, not a real army.   They were a bunch of farmers who had picked up arms and joined what only can be called an army in the most humourous meaning of the term.   And Washington needed this win at Trenton because in just a few days, most of these men had completed theis commitment.   They were going to go home and live in somewhat more comfortable circumstances.   Likely the whole darn shootin' match would have been over at that point and the colonies would have remained British.   There would have been no United States, at least not then, and all that effort and debating would never have needed to take place.   That Christmas changed the history of the world in remarkable fashion.   But those men did who walked barefoot through the snow after crossing a frigid river on that Christmas evening didn't know their actions would have any positive effect.   They were just following orders.

After their win at Trenton, these brave men including my uncle, would receive incredible rewards.   They would end up with a "real camp" at Valley Forge where another of my uncles would join his brother to get in on all the fun.   They would still have no shoes for the frigid winter months of January and February but, heck, their deprivation wouldn't last forever and neither would winter.   They would even get some shacks built in which to live although their was little to eat besides the horses who died from the cold and nothing to burn to generate heat.   And the sanitary conditions in the camp were incredibly bad.   Just about everyone would get really, really sick as a result.   On the TV show MASH, one of the main characters describes his plight as including "hot and cold dysentery" but, at Valley Forge in 1777, they only had the cold kind and not enough toilets with which to dispatch it.

But winter ended and there were more battles ahead.   About 7 months after the miraculous victory at Trenton, the soldiers would undergo a different kind of battle.   This time the temperature was in the other direction as the men fought the British regulars in the battle of Monmouth (NJ) Courthouse to a stalemate.

Just when and where the militias and Continental Army won our right to buy ipods, have heated homes, conduct extensive debates in Congress, extend Constitutional rights to terrorists bent on killing us and bringing down our society, etc. is subject to debate but I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it was somewhere near the blood stained snow in Trenton on the day after Christmas in 1776.   So that's the Christmas story I'm going to tell my kids about this year.

Fox News has its top stories of the year online now.   Number 1 is, you guessed it, Katrina.   This story will be the top story throughout the country until ..... there's a worse one.   So how likely is that?   Weeeelllllll, let's consider one thing.   Katrina was a plain vanilla category 3 storm with 125 mph winds when it rolled ashore.   Let me say that a little differently, Katrina was a boring, run of the mill, typical, totally average hurricane under any objective evaluation regardless of the average temperature of our globe.   Heck, a cat 3 could hit Maine, New York City, or anywhere else along the more heavily populated east coast!

One Mississippi resident raised an important point in a recent editorial.   The reader said, "But for those of our fellow citizens still in trailers, or in tents, or with family and friends this Christmas, a category number doesn't matter."   That is very true and it doesn't ease the suffering of those whose lives were destroyed by this storm to know that it was a cat 3 instead of a 4.   But where it does matter is in our collective expectations for the future.   It matters when those officials and residents of New Orleans, Mississippi, or wherever contemplate their actions with the next incoming storm.   Katrina was a 98 pound weakling when compared to what may come next time.

Hooray, drilling in ANWR has been killed.   The polar bears are safe, right?   Abso-^%$&*&^-lutely wrong!

The picture at the right appeared in an article in the children's school publication "Weekly Reader" which began, "The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska is home to polar bears, grizzly bears, and moose.   Musk oxen, wolves, and wolverines live there, too.   So do millions of migratory birds. You can even find more than 100,000 caribou there."

My guess is that most kids believed this BS and their parents probably did too.   Most likely the parents and even their kids' teachers know nothing more about ANWR than this report gave them.

The truth is the area for drilling is a tiny speck of the total 19 million acres (larger than the state of Delaware) which make up ANWR.   With modern drilling technology what it is, what we are afraid to do is build a medium sized parking lot in the middle of Delaware because there is wildlife located someplace in the state. &nbs; Theplace we want to drill is actually pristine because nothing lives there.   There's no vegetation to support any sort of animal life.   It is as pristine as a rock.

And what sort of resources are at stake?   In 1980, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the Coastal Plain could contain up to 17 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.   Subsequent work in 1987 upped that estimate by as much as 60%.   Work in 1998 suggested these estimates were too low.

What's more, the Inupiat residents near the area targeted want drilling to go on there if for no other reason than to make survival easier for them.   It's really cold there and while they can use imported oil to heat their homes, they do not get the porkbarrel subsidies people in the New England states get from the federal government.   The people who live there realize that liberal publications like the wiggly weeder, and numerous other publications intended for adult readers have been publishing all these pictures showing pristine landscape with happy-go-lucky wildlife living in utopia.   This is a scenario that is simply a bold-faced lie.   Drilling in ANWR would have zero impact on even a single wild creature.   But the MSM continues to irrresponsibly lie to our faces and promote environmentalism with religious zealotry unparalleled in the history of mankind.   We and our Congress-people are the sorry saps who believe this bunk.

But no matter.   Drilling in ANWR is dead.   Ding dong the witch is dead, the wicked witch, dah dah dah dah.   See you at the pump!

I no longer do that New York City commute thing but I still have all the e-mail setups I had back then.   Why?   I don't know.   They were totally useless then and they are totally useless now.   Moments ago I received my first message about the NYC MTA strike from a government agency.   It reads as follows:

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:54:52 -0500

During the MTA strike, plan to enter/exit New York Penn Station at 8th Ave. and 31st Streets to avoid any delays.

In case you haven't heard, the MTA strike is over.   It ended a couple hours before this e-mail was sent by the agency.

Where is the deity-damned ACLU with their FOIA requests when you need them?   The public of the United States wants and needs a full disclosure of the "Barret Report" which purportedly details the many civil liberty transgressions of the Clinton Administration including using the IRS to harass political opponents.   Never heard of the Barrett Report?   To see background, here are some links:

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/tonysnow/2005/12/09/178552.html

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/22/111526.shtml

http://mikegulf.blogspot.com/2005/12/its-all-hillarys-fault-part-two.html

Now we know why Democrats are so concerneds that a President might trample our rights.   Their last administration, the Hillary and Bill Clinton Kingdom, routinely did so.

The New York Times says it expects earnings to crash by as much as 40% vs. last year which was a really bad year.   As things seem to get worse and worse for the voice of the left, one has to wonder if the company will be a takeover in the near term future.

The Grand Rapids Press has a nice high school learning experience entitled "Students learn plenty with apartheid lesson" which explores some lessons a class of freshmen learned while giving presentations about South African Apartheid.   The article noted teachers wanted students to be exposed to "a system of injustice that has occurred in their lifetimes."   The students presented in front of community members who then were allowed to ask questions of the students.   One such community member was Jack Ogle, a retired Lowell schools history teacher, who challenged the students by asking them to expand the definition of apartheid as "the rule of a minority over a majority," and to question whether apartheid has truly ended in South Africa.   One student noted that Lowell's question caused him to see how "everything is linked to everything else in one way or another."   One issue apparently not addressed by the prject was the manner in which the African National Congress (ANC) kept their movement cohesive.   While Nelson was in jail, his wife was largely charged with the responsiblity of keeping dissent within the movement to a minimum.   This she apparently accomplished with some interesting tactics.   The ANC made a regular routine of handling dissenters by "necklacing" them.   "Necklacing" involves placing a rubber tire filled with gasoline around the neck of suspected dissenters and setting it on fire.   Somehow that item didn't make it into these students' textbooks.   And that is the meaning of liberal bias.

Charles Krauthammer makes a compelling argument today in the Washington Post for not making any long-range plans.   You see it is not just another day in world history on which the President of Iran will stall the EU so he can enrich some Uranium and even the playing field of countries or make a comment about how the Holocaust never happened.   Things are far more along than that.

Krauthammer is a master at pulling together things we already know are factual into a total picture with meaning and purpose.   We know the Iranian President wants to wipe Israel off the map of the Middle East.   We also know Iran is working towards building a nuclear weapon within the next year.   We suspect they'll complete the project soon, if they haven't already.   We know they have missiles sufficient to send those weapons to Israel.   We know the President of Iran is a religious zealot who is certain there will be a violent end to the world and the "Twelfth Imam" will rise up and announce himself as the savior.   We know Islam requires Muslims to prepare the world for the coming of Armageddon.   We also know that the President of Iran says at official meetings that the Twelfth Imam is expected before the end of 2007.

We know that Muhammad al-Baradei and his International Atomic Energy Agency has failed to stop any country from developing nuclear weapons.   We know that the EU has never succeeded in achieving any diplomatic goal it set out for itself.   Yet we sit here expecting somebody to stop Iran from achieving nuclear capability.   We have short unpleasant conversation about Iran but quickly change the subject to other things like the Olympics in London, several years off.   We even discuss saving money for the college education of our grade schoolers 10 years from now.   Maybe that's a waste of time given these developments.   If we don't stop Iran, we won't have to worry about college education, especially for girls.

Please read Krauthammer's column for further analysis.

A few members of Congress and possibly a member or members of the FISA court leaked classified national security secrets in the interest of discrediting George Bush in order to further the agenda of the Democratic party and, hopefully, get their candidates elected in the midterm races for Congress.   So, what can you do?   You can vote against the leakers if their names become known.   You can support defense and intelligence hawks.   You can complain about the situation while perhaps calling for an investigation by another independent counsel.   There is another option I would like to set before you - civil disobedience.

The type of civil disobedience I am about to describe is not cut out or everyone.   In order to make a statement, you sometimes have to go to extremes.   What I am about to discuss may make you a little sick.   But I'm pretty damn mad so here goes.

I am suggesting to you that the vehicle which allowed these secrets to be disclosed and thereby aid the enemy is none other than the New York Times.   For many of us, there are stacks of New York Times sitting each day at news stands and in convenience stories waiting for folks to buy them.   What I am suggesting is to make these unavailable for purchase by the public.   The next time you have to urinate, collect your urine in a bottle or jar as if you were going in for medical testing.   Now, while you are on your way to work and you pass by stands which sell the paper, quietly pour your urine on them making them unsaleable.   If you feel sorry for the innocent guy running the newsstand, throw him some money but do it as a holiday tip - don't pay for the papers.   News companies do not charge distributors for papers they don't sell.   And if the urine thing bothers you, find some different kind of liquid, preferably yellow, preferably smelly with which to make the papers unsaleable.

I suggest you engage in this act of civil disobedience in order to compel the New York Times into giving us an unequivocal apology for disclosing national security secrets.   I am suggesting more than a one time event.   I am suggesting that you do this as often as your conscience permits and right up until we get an apology and a full accounting of the persons who leaked state secrets to the Times.

If you disagree that the Times did anything wrong, I'm not sure why you are reading this blog.   If you think what Bush's NSA did was wrong, I sincerely hope the next attack - an inevitability - comes your way rather than mine.

Let fury have the hour
Anger can be power
    The Clash

The New York Times says in its big "disclosure" article published on the 16th, "Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight."   The article also says, "According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters."

Now this thing is no longer classified - the Times made sure of that.   So let's hear the names.   All things seem to indicate that the program is perfectly legal.   The same cannot be said for the actions of "nearly a dozen current and former officials," John D. Rockefeller IV, and the judge.   So let's have it.   Who told the Times what.   This is now a criminal matter, if not a matter of treason which it very well may be, so the Times aided and abetted involved a criminal act.   As a registered voter, I want to see an investigation.   In fact, I demand it.   Somebody trusted with critical intelligence information has disclosed it to an improper other person or persons.   Let's find out who and prosecute them now.

This is only a drill.   The decision is up to you.   Here are the essential facts.   There are no other facts at your disposal.   OK, go.

Troops set boots on the ground in Afghanistan two weeks ago and are now actively in combat against the Taliban and al Qaeda.   A man who seems to be a mid-level al Qaeda guy has some information which indicates there is likely to be a series of 5 - 10 explosions aboard a New Jersey Transit train to New York City the week of July 13.   The initial indications are that persons living in Paterson, New Jersey (population approx. 150,000) are the sleeper cells which will be activated to pull off this attack.   You have no idea which trains of the thousands running that week will be targeted.   You trace this man to a rural village of perhaps 500 homes in the hills in a tough to reach area which is currently under Taliban control.   You monitor communications going in and out of that approximate area.   Suddenly at a time of day which would be a little after midnight back in the states, the amount of traffic rises sharply including 16 phone calls to 6 distinct phone numbers in Paterson, New Jersey.   Additionally numerous e-mails are sent to destinations which appear at first glance to be US-based addresses, possibly for persons in Paterson.

That is the sum total of facts you have back in the states where it is now 1:30 am.   Commuters will begin the trek from the bedroom communities of New Jersey to the Manhattan in four and one half hours.   What do you do?   Do you listen to these calls and read these e-mails?   The clock is ticking.   You have thirty minutes to decide.   What will you do?   What would you have others decide in order to protect you?

John Schmidt, associate attorney general of the United States under Clinton from 1994 to 1997 says today in the Chicago Tribune, the President had legal authority to OK wiretaps.   Specifically, he said, "President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents."

If you do nothing else today, take the time to read and understand this.

I'm a hard person to buy a Christmas gift for.   Don't ask me what I want or I'll tell you.   There's nothing I want or need.   And so it is for loads of folks.   But what do I do when I'm the one buying the gift?   This year there's a person for whom I feel I really, really need to buy a gift.   But I'm at a loss to figure what they could possibly use.   My answer finally came when someone gave me an early present of a "gift card" to a local steak place.   Now that's a gift I will surely use.

More and more Americans are buying gift cards to a variety of retail stores and service providers.   According to the Associated Press, gift card sales will total nearly $18.5 billion this year which represents an almost 7 percent growth over last year.   Also according to the Associated Press, there is a hidden "evil" in the ever-more-popular gift card business.   They don't last forever!

Gift cards are essentially a contract of prepayment for goods or services.   You pay now and get a transferable credit for future purchase.   Sometimes, perhaps frequently, gift cards don't get used.   I know I have lost a number of them over the years and often they are for places I'll never go.   Maybe somebody who doesn't know me well might have seen me on the beach and realized immediately that I could use a pedicure.   Sorry but I'm too embarrassed to take off my shoes in front of some cute twenty something and display my ugly toes.   That one will go unused.   Or maybe that new Vegan restaurant is a cute idea.   Sorry but I while I do love salad and well-prepared vegetables, I'm morally opposed to the Vegan lifestyle and have no desire to set foot inside a one of their establishments.   It is almost a guarantee that many of the cards which make up the almost 20 billion purchased this year will lay unused in somebody's clutter drawer.   But what is the result when this happens?

There is a concept in business which stems from the days when there were no inheritance laws.   The Lord of the Manor owned everything and to the extent that somebody else had claim to some property, when they died, the property reverted back to the Lord.   In modern parlance, this concept is expressed in the area of law known as "escheat."   There is some controversy about how the word is said with some saying it like cheat (as in S-cheat) and others saying it like skeet (as in S-keet).   But no matter how you say it, the legal concept involves what businesses are supposed to do with "abandoned property."

When you buy a gift card, the company gets the cash but they also carry an obligation on their books.   They don't make a sale until they transfer some goods or services for money and really a gift card or certificate is simply a pre-payment.   The business is obligated to provide goods or services upon tender of the gift card the same way they would if someone were paying cash.   It's kind of like a deposit.   And if that certain somebody who holds a gift card never shows up, the property which was used to buy it is essentially abandoned.   State laws generally require businesses to at least to give back the property to its rightful owner.   If they are unable to locate the owner, they are required to remit the sum to the Lord of the Manor, in our case, state government.

Not everybody realizes what commerce and commercial record keeping is all about.   Let's just say that while you write a check which might cost you a few pennies, businesses pay a bit more to maintain their records and to cut checks.   I was shocked when a large corporation for whom I worked conducted a study which determined that generating a single check cost the company something like $35 a pop.   That sounds a little far-fetched but I have read in other business literature that generating a hard copy check is definitely an expensive thing, even if $35 is a bit exaggerated.   Similarly, these gift cards require a good deal of record keeping.   You've got to set up an account for the process.   You've got to assign serial numbers and then track them.   Every month or quarter you've got to reconcile the account.   And you need to build all kinds of fraud controls over this very vulnerable part of your business.   And if, after a certain period of time, the thing goes unredeemed, the letter of the law requires you to keep a database of purchasers and then try to contact them via the mail system.   That alone would be fairly expensive when conducted on a large scale but there are even more requirements.   Once a business has determined that it can't find you, perhaps 7 or more years after you make your purchase, they are required to take an additional step.   They are required to publish your name in certain types of newspapers and announce to the world that they cannot find you but they have some of your property.   Then after all efforts are exhausted, businesses are required to prepare what amounts to a tax return and remit the amount to the state.   If they screw up one of the steps or do not keep good records, they get fined.

Many businesses make the mistake of ignoring escheat law,   They figure they can simply bury the "abandoned property" they hold and take it into revenue.   One magazine company I worked for had this situation.   Normally a magazine subscription is pretty much like clock-work.   Books are printed, labeled and shipped off to the post office and delivered.   But if a person moves and forgets to change that subscription for a magazine they no longer care about which only has six months to go anyways, the post office stops delivery as soon as they learn the intended recipient is no longer there.   This results in what is called a "stop and hold."   The post office stops the subscription and holds it pending a new, valid address for the subscriber.   Stop and holds are a big part of the magazine business amounting to millions of dollars for a single large publisher.   Most magazine companies are run loosy-goosy and abandoned subscriptions are usually brought into income after some period of time rather than remitted to the Lord.

I imagine many businesses operate loosy-goosy when it comes to abandoned property.   Many states also figure most businesses have abandoned property and don't know what to do with it.   That's why they are conducting more and more frequent audits of businesses.   And whereas a company's responsibility to collect sales taxes is dependent upon connections it has with a state under the Commerce Clause of ths U. S. Constitution, escheat laws have a far lower threshold under the Due Process Clause.   If "Bill's Christmas Emporium," conveniently located to be accessible from four different states advertises in those states, it has to comply with the escheat laws of all four states.   That can be overwhelming but it is their legal responsibility.   They must establish a system of recording and tracking and then returning any abandoned property they might have.   The states recognize that it is nearly impossible for many businesses to comply with their escheat laws and they also see abandoned property as a means of gathering up revenue without the stigma of increasing taxes - collection of escheatable property is not a tax.   Once they have the property you abandoned, they keep a list with your name on it but most of it will never be collected, it becomes usable funds for the state.

Businesses which want to avoid the costly and time-consuming job of maintaining abandoned property records have one weapon in their arsenal.   If you want to avoid abandoned property, make your contracts and policies with customers give them the responsibility of timely redeeming credits.   This can be accomplished by establishing fees for non-redemption of things like gift cards.   The fees have to be reasonable and the process has to be part of the contract with someone who tenders cash but there are many highly paid attorneys out there who specialize in this and it can be accomplished in a manner which satisfies the law and minimizes the amount of abandoned property a business has to deal with.   Most large, complex businesses have developed plans to deal with abandoned property in reaction to being audited by the states under escheat laws.

The Associated Press article I read about the hidden "evil" of gift cards failed to mention the history behind escheat laws and business tactics to deal with what is a real and costly problem.   It simply said businesses have found another way to rip off their customers.   It also noted that "more than five states have laws on the books prohibiting the use of gift card expiration dates, fees or both" and "most retailers have dropped expiration dates and fees in the name of good customer service."   The point of the article comes at the end when the AP says "bills seeking to limit use of expiration dates and fees on gift cards were introduced in Congress in 2004 and this year but have not seen any action."   Yes, again the answer is federal control over business.

When you make a purchase in these United States, you probably do so under a "Uniform Commercial Code" although if you live in Louisiana, maybe not.   That is because your state adopted the UCC.   Most purchases are typically made under state law.   Escheat laws are also established by states.   The methods businesses have developed to deal with escheat laws are similarly crafted under state law.   that's the way our system works.   A federal solution to abandoned property defenses is not what we need.   All we really need is for people who receive gift cards or certificates to use them.

I do have a suggestion for those of you who get brain pain from my analysis.   You may wish to do what I chose for my garbage man a few years back.   I gave him "universal gift certificates" which never expire.   You can get these at any bank and most retail stores which have cash machines.   The universal gift certificate is cold, hard cash, preferably purchased in twenty dollar denominations.

And now you know the whole story!

Newsmax reports, the FISA court did review Bush's warrantless wiretaps and approved it on Constitutional grounds.   "In Re: Sealed Case," (2002) the FISA appeals court decision cited a previous case which "held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."   The court went on to say, "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."   Newsmax also says, "The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about the Bush surveillance program."

If you've got a subscription, you've really got to read the original article as published in the Wall Street Journal as it gets into far more depth than the free Newsmax.com brief.

Click here for more.

Weather scientists acknowledge that if today, someone waters their lawn in Australia, tomorrow it may rain in Southern California.   While the two events may seem completely independent, the planet's climate and weather systems are so impossibly complex that any tiny action may be amplified throughout interaction with seemingly unrelated phenomenon and cause something to happen thousands of miles away.   This theory (and, yes, it is a theory) is called "Chaos Theory" and describes what happens when tremendously complex volatile systems experience slight change.   This is not to be confused with the statement often repeated in the media that "human emissions of greenhouse gases cause global temperatures to rise" since this precise connection has not been studied enough to prove causality.   But it does say something about certain activities in one place having important ramifications in another.   Today Wyoming has announced funding for a plan to seed clouds in order to increase the snow pack in its mountains and thereby provide for greater water resources as the pack melts.   If Wyoming were to damn a river to supply water to its populace while cutting off flow to another state which relied on water from the river, we would put a quick stop to it.   Yet that's exactly what will happen here if the state's cloud seeding program proves successful.   All of the snow which will fall on Wyoming mountains will not fall elsewhere just as surely as the water from the theoretically damned river would not make it to the other state which relies on it.   It should not be allowed to happen.

Here is a piece you shouldn't miss by William Kristol about Bush use of wiretaps in the war on terror:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121901027.html

Mohammed Ali Hamadi is a Lebanese terororist who, in 1985, hijacked TWA flight 847 (from Athens, Greece to Rome) to Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers beat then killed U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23.   Hamadi was arrested at a German airport in 1987, when officials discovered liquid explosives in his luggage.   Hamadi was serving a "life sentence" for the hijacking.   According to the Associated Press, "A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Martin Jaeger, said there was no connection between Hamadi's release and the recent freeing of former hostage Susanne Osthoff, a German woman released over the weekend after spending more than three weeks as a captive in Iraq."

Life sentence?   How many people's lives span 18 years?   I suppose that is the expected lifespan of a Muslim terrorist and that's why Germany let him go after such a short time.   Germany would never do such a weak thing as let a terrorist go to secure the freedom of one of its citizens, would it?

As I said a couple days ago, Harry Reid tried to duck the question about whether he had been briefed about the administrations eavesdropping on communications between people in the United States and certain foreign phone numbers.   He emphasized that while he had been briefed, it was just a few months ago while this has been an ongoing program for four years.   Now other Democrats who were briefed are hard at work covering their butts.

The Chicago Tribune reports Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) produced a copy of a letter in which he raised questions about the program.   He was told he couldn't discuss it with anyone, not even his legal staff.   So he simply wrote out a letter raising his concerns and put it away so he could conveniently bring it out when the lid was popped off this bad boy.   that's just the sort of thing a good steward of the public's trust would do - cover his own ass and forget about the matter.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said he was only briefed about an effort to intercept foreign communications channeled through U.S. equipment.   And that was years ago when he was the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Panel.   Are Afghanistan to Congo communications channeled through U.S. equipment?   Didn't it occur to him to ask what the origins and destinatiuons of calls channeled through U.S. equipment might be?

Whose gonna be up next since apparently numerous Democrat members of Congress were notified.   What will his or her excuse be.   Are these people for real?

Who was notified when Clinton did this to obtain economic intelligence?

According to the Houston Chronicle, they eat out of cans, wash their undergarments in b