ORACULATIONS

OK folks, on the prude scale I’m pretty far down. I watch porn with my lady pals, I do all kinds of weird stuff with them (and they with me) so lot of very moral people think I am a snake dropping; a mosquito breeding swamp thing; human plankton, and you know where plankton ends up. It ends up as Whale shit. Nothing lower than that.

And I’m not changing.

But even I have standards. I care about my kids, other people’s kids, and Right and Wrong in public, as well as in business and personal relationships. I don’t rape women—unless they beg me—or unless I can bribe them into saying they begged me afterwards. I gave up writing bad checks weeks ago, and I never lie unless I think it will work. Having said all this:

Ask yourselves this: suppose as a condition of employment your daughter was required to be filmed performing fellatio upon another actor? Impossible? Oh, no. Entertainment Union hard core pornography is here. It’s called Brown Bunny and it’s coming to a theatre near you. Up until now we could all say that specific sex acts performed on screen for money was just a bunch of crack whores who will eventually die of AIDS and who cares. Not now. Brown Bunny is a Hollywood Union movie that contains a two minute scene of fellatio in full close up. (Link HERE but warning) and there is a link here and no guarantee that they haven’t been shut down, they are porn; at least until now.

Who are these Brown Bunny people? Have we ever heard of them? Well, the male star is a guy named Vincent Gallo. He is an SAG member, a Directors Guild member, and might be a Writers Guild Member. According to his website he has appeared in thirty movies, including Good Fellas and Palookaville. He has directed two features, Buffalo 66 and now Brown Bunny. He has also directed some short films and a Toyota commercial. He has written the music scores for six movies and the screenplays for three others. His is listed as producer of four movies as well.

The lead woman is the barely attractive 30 year old Chloë Sevigny. She is no new comer. According to her website she has appeared in twenty two movies including American Psycho and Boys Don’t Cry. It’s true that most of the movies had homosexual sex and/or violence themes. She did the Lefty praised Sex at 24 Frames Per Second which she wrote, directed and appeared in. She has also crewed (one infers her crew skills are non-union) in many capacities. She is on record as believing her fellatio scene in Brown Bunny will get her a lot of work.

Also appearing in Brown Bunny are Cheryl Tiegs--yes, THAT Cheryl Tiegs---- and a bunch of nobodies. If you’re thinking red state/blue state; liberals vs the rest of us; or values, you could be right. The movie was generally trashed at Cannes but it is garnering good reviews from some of the usual suspects. However some front line Lefties are now praising it too:

“The Brown Bunny seemed to me —- and to almost no other U.S. critic, alas — to be not only the most original feature at Cannes, but also the most convincing.” (Rob Nelson, Cinemascope)

"The Brown Bunny is an art work of sorts, and Gallo himself, though an egomaniac of staggering solemnity, is not a fake ...The movie, in its surly way, casts a spell." (David Denby, The New Yorker)

Variety (the Bible of the Movie Business), which dissed the Cannes version as so much execrable "crotch-gazing" (it was more than two hours long but has been drastically recut) later found this new, re-edited 90-minute release cut to be "an astonishing improvement ...a memorable exercise in personal '70s-style American film making ... that marks Gallo as a distinctive indie talent."

So this is what your children will be expected to do if they are to get jobs as performers in the Hollywood Left movie atmosphere. Will the guilds say anything? Hell no, requiring an actress to perform fellatio is guaranteed by the Constitution. To forbid it would be censorship. If you think the Hollywood Left is disgusting now just wait til Ms.Sevigny, and a horde of similarly talented Left Coast whores, starts telling us how immoral we are during the next election.

Casting Call: must be able to talk with an object the size of a large cucumber in mouth, have vaginal lips that don’t show teeth, and have facial cheeks that can collapse inward when sucking.

Sure sweetie, I’m completely supportive of your acting aspirations.

Those Communists at Berkeley fucked me again. Texas Tech 45-CAL 31. Never, ever trust anyone from CAL Berkeley. They fucked me out of $200.

OK, no proof yet because no money has arrived yet. But I'll bet anything that not only will the UN steal, the NGOs will loot. Will France hold off til they can get themselves an oil deal? How much are they charging for body bags? For water distilling operations? The fuel to transport aid? I hope somebody is watching the store because there's no business like the relief business. See Michael Totten today for more. We are being accused of sabotaging the UN relief effort by Clare Short the former International Development Secretary; turf war anyone. So who is Clare Short? She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that British agents spied on Kofi Annan; she thinks that there should be no protection offered the African countries that are victimized by EU price supports; she is the embodiment of the UN aid business. I have no idea if she has stolen anything.

SRI LANKA: Fucking Jews can take their help and shove it. (Link to AlJazeera) Just the messenger, you know what to do. Also see HERE to see which terrorist gang is getting the aid. I'm donating to the Salvation Army figuring the Islamist pieces of shit won't take anything from them either.

One other note: the secular aid agencies all get paid to help the victims. The religious agencies use volunteers. So all the money that goes to the Red Cross will also go to fund the highly paid executives and other employees before the balance(???) gets to Thailand or whatever. So remember the word fungible. It means that if "relief" org A has a million in the till for "disaster relief" and all of a sudden fifty mil shows up for the same thing they can stick the set aside million into their pet projects, which are often their own pockets.

We're all pissed off at that UN piece of shit, Engeland. Don't let that stop you from giving. We all know the UN and what they stand for. I hope all our aid goes directly to the victims and not to the UN to "disburse" into their pockets. This could be "Bodies for Food" to those UN pricks.

The Army is shutting down some military blogs. Inform Blackfive if any of the sites you know of are suddenly unreachable. Any of us who have been in service will have a first reaction of some colonel going for a ribbon for doing something safe. Think of it; terrorists running amok all over the country and some asshole is spending his time shutting down blogs. Can't get killed doing that, can you?

Just who is Chloë Sevigny, the girl who actually performed fellatio on screen in a movie that was shown at Cannes? Well, she is a very pretty woman who has a history of performing in sexually themed movies, usually homosexual. I guess she doesn't want to be a major star, just somebody who blew somebody on screen and got paid for it. A totally spaced out chick. But she is 30 years old, over the hill for glamor, at the bottom of the mountain as far a career future goes----then there's Paris Hilton---Chloe Hilton???? Anyway she thinks the scene will get her more work. A Kerry voter for sure, if she can vote with her mouth full.

While the press trumpets the stories that American Troops are deserting and going AWOL or refusing to go back to Iraq, Blackfive prints this letter from a Mom in transit over Christmas. Don't hold your breath for MSM to tell you about it.

I am a frequent reader and occasional commenter to your site. I just wanted to relate a story that happened this weekend. I was in New Orleans on Christmas Day, trying to put children on a flight to visit relatives. However, the weather was unusually severe for New Orleans...snow and ice. The airport and the city pretty much shut down. While my husband was in line trying to reschedule the children's flights, my youngest stepson and I noticed a group of soldiers clustered around a payphone, apparently trying to reschedule their flights. We walked over to tell them "Thank you" for serving our country. I also told them that I wasn't flying, but that if I was, I would give up my ticket to them so that they could get home for Christmas. The soldiers smiled, but one of them spoke up, "Thank you ma'am. But we've already been home and now we're fighting to get BACK to Iraq." I was moved to tears...all these travellers, frazzled and exhausted, are just trying to get to their families. And here are these brave, brave men working to make travel arrangements to LEAVE their families so that all these other families can be together safely and in peace. God Bless all our military men and women. Y'all are the greatest!!!

Please link HERE to Blackfive. This soldier is not getting the attention he should. Write anyone you can. I faxed the link to McCain's office in Phoenix.

BTW, according to Healing Iraq (finally back) things are not too cool in Iraq. Nasty bureaucrats, shortages of fuel and electricity and so on.

For the very last time: Page Six Six Six is the only gossip column worth reading....

t seems that Nathan Lane may have been pretending to be like Brian Boitano and do a massive power bottom spread eagle in the bedroom because the actor, currently reprising his role in The Producers on the West End in London, has had to pull out out of his remaining performances after suffering from two slipped discs. Don't you hate it when you have to pull out prematurely?

Take that, Page Six.....

Under the heading of Even a stopped Watch etc., The New York Times does something very right, if true. This story details a retired military man signing over his pension in order to get his wife out of the Phillippines. The loan was made at 56% interest over five years---he borrowed $20K and has to pay back $60K. This is well worth reading since the practice of loaning money on this basis is illegal but our wonderful government has decided that these kinds of loans are merely collateralized loans. The military guy was well aware of the bad situation but apparently his wife was in danger of death and he was desperate to get her out of there. One article worth reading in that rag.

There is an amazing similarity to the press bashing---particularly in the Washington Post--- of Bush's "insensitivity" regarding the Tsunami and the total black out of Israel's aid sent to the region. This is the Left in action. The pond scum at the New York Times said: "President Bush finally roused himself yesterday from his vacation in Crawford, Tex....", In order to get the truth these days you really have to hit the web at least three days per week. Investors Business Daily covers the whole thing best. The tsunami "coverage" has become just another opportunity for the Left Wing of the Democratic Party to attack the president. He's cheap, all Americans want their taxes raised, why ask? The prick was on vacation when he had to know a disaster was about to happen. The "slowness" of the USA when compared to France, Germany, and Spain is horrible. France has flown French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier into the nearby Thai resort island of Phuket bringing aid and a team of psychiatrists to help traumatized families---take that Bush---and they have "pledged" $20 million, compared with Britain $29 million, Germany $27 million, Australia $27.6---but it is the U.S. and Bush who are cheap and insensitive. Just ask Mr. "I feel your pain," the guy who stood by during the genocides in Africa. Late Add via Terps read the Podhoretz piece in the NY Post The Democrats are now attacking our troops directly.

Ouch---Ledeen lasers in on our "buffoonish intelligence "community," which is to say nothing has changed since 9/11. Then.....

The war cannot be won in Iraq alone, because the enemy is based throughout the region and his bases and headquarters are located beyond our current reach. His power is directly proportional to our unwillingness to see the true nature of the war, and our decision to limit the scope of our campaign.

Good but depressing read at NRO.

If Defamer isn't on your list of fun blogs to visit, you are missing a gem. Where else can you read about The Brown Bunny Blowjob Revealed

Nobody is still going to the "Award Nominated" movies. I mean it's a Holiday. Fun. Those movies are total downers.

And a blog called Page SixSixSix and it's twice as funny as The Page Six in the Post. Totally trashes everybody.

Not only has Miss Dubois graciously arranged for us to stay at the ultra-swanky Albion Hotel in South Beach, but she has gone out of her way to help us snag some tix to that much-talked about Lindsay Lohan party and has promised to show us around town tonight! Lexi darling, we cannot thank you enough. You are the shit. And your shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

And this re; Carlin

Comedian and foulmouthed fucker George Carlin announced yesterday that he is a massive drug addict and was going to enter rehab. Pussy!

Get the flavor? Then there's this about Robbie Williams

The singer concedes that his adopted American home offers him limitless quantities of meaningless sex, but deems LA females unable to appreciate true love. He says, "I could have a lot of sex here. But there's no wife, and that's what I want."

Well, maybe if he stopped sucking cock and doing tons of drugs, he might find himself a suitable wife. Dontcha think???

Like I said, no punches pulled.

LA has been terrorized by the notorious 18th Street Gang, the Crips, Bloods, and now the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) Salvadorian gang that is linked to Al Qaeda. Details of a meeting held yesterday between a known Al Qaeda leader and an MS-13 gang leader in El Salvador are HERE.

All this terror goes on while the our local liberals just sit downtown and worry about civil rights for terrorists. LA Lefties are so worried that they passed the now notorious Special Order 40 which guarantees that terrorism will continue til a Left Winger gets killed. Now NYC has used anti-terror legislation to convict a murder by a gang and--------you guessed it----the liberals are upset. They are not out of power til we kick them out. Republican judges are the first step, BUT ONLY THE FIRST.

For SoCal only: a site that has gone from "ekh" to pretty dam good is called Los Angeles Blogs. Gives the locals all the local (very local) blogs. Things that none of you need to know like where guests can park when visiting certain condos, the problems in Los Feliz, and how to fit a six foot surf board into a four foot VW. Lots of nite life, restaurants, and quite a bit of Hollywood Left bullshit. Unfortunately the site don't list places where you can pick up a guaranteed piece of ass, but maybe that's coming. Lots of links are to diaries of typical LA flakes (a ton of them) but there are also links to good poker,a kind of interesting fling into social life called A Socialite's Life, a terrific link to a news cameraman,

I know one minute I was shopping for Christmas presents in a mall in Culver City and in no time at all, I was in Long Beach covering a homicide with at least one person dead. The next day was Christmas Eve and I had a lot on my mind.

There is a link to an anonymous LAPD Wife that is personal and dammed interesting--

I love my husband. But you would think that a narcotics officer who is canny enough to find cleverly concealed illegal substances under high-stress pressures would be able to find his box of checks. In the office. About two inches to the left of where I told him they were. Twice.

And then he links mainly to really boring LA people who have nothing whatsoever to say other than the usual Hard Left anti-Christian, anti-Christmas, yuupie hippie LA bullshit. Worth visiting once a month but it makes LA, which is the hippest funnest swingingest city west of NY, seem like a private stomping ground for the omphaloskepsis set. Omphaloskepsis is high school dropout speak for "the concentrated study of one's navel." Come to think of it, LA probably is the place where all omphaloskepsik women in the U.S. show up to bitch about their situation and then write a rilly rilly deep fuckin' screenplay about loneliness and one night stands and orgasims at the Senior Prom while leaning against a Coke Machine that vibrated. And after like ten years of working all day to make it perfect those no-talent Hollywood pigs steal all the good characters and dialogue and then send it back. The town can be very dull if you hang in the wrong places.

I think Simon nails it when he compares the Civil Rights movement with the movement to bring Democracy to Iraq, and by extension the entire Middle East. Those of you too young to have been around in those days, let me relay one experience in the Old South. Fresh out of the service and just starting as an actor, four of us were driving down to an airbase in Georgia to do a show. We were in a car with Illinois plates and we got pulled over along with another car with Georgia plates. One of the cops ticketed the other car while the second hung back behind our car, hand on his gun. Once the first car had been ticketed the cop came toward us with his hand on his gun---after the witness pulled off---and he jerked open the driver side front door and demanded to know "what you nawthun pieces of shit are doin' down heah." We told him and he actually pulled out his gun, a revolver that allowed us to see the bullets, and ordered us to drive off the road and into the trees. I immediately said, "fuck you." The second cop came up and they ordered us out of the car at gun point and then they slammed us against the car and over the hood. One of them let us know that people from Illinois ought to be shot on sight and the second cop called another police car which showed up in ten minutes. They then charged us with speeding, reckless driving, suspicioun of drunk driving, resisting arrest, driving with a suspicious registration, impounded the car, and took us to jail in handcuffs. During the ride the cop in my car let us know what was going to happen to "niggah lovahs from up Nawth." When were being booked all of us demanded to talk to a lawyer, one of them punched me in the stomach, hard, and we were all told that this ain't the Nawth, boy. Only a piece of blind luck got us out. When we were late to the airbase the MPs started calling around to see if any police had found us. A super nasty guy came to our cell and let us go to "the commie airbase." When we told everyone what happened, they just shrugged and let is know that somebody should have told you to drive down here with "Virginia plates, at least." People from the North were being murdered, beaten, and jailed just because we might be making trouble----the trouble being voting rights for Blacks. Yes, Zarqawi is worse than the KKK in that mass murder is OK but his purpose is the same as the bad Old South leadership: scare anybody off who tries to change things. Of course we had numbers on our side, numbers that showed up. Iraqis have yet to show up. No matter what you hear, there was nothing romantic about the pre-1970 South.

Have you noticed? Every evaluation of the Iraq War begins with "Bush?" This is not America's War it is Bush's war to all in the media. Everything is now couched in the word, even on FOX. America? What's that? Freedom? You have to be kidding. So it's, this attack is bad for the Bush agenda, these murders bode ill for the Bush Administration, the killing of hundreds in a suicide bombing is characterized--trivialized??--as more bad news for Bush. It's no accident that the "reporting" has taken this turn. Just be aware. Hewitt opines today

Fox News's Roger Ailes was asked what was being taught in journalism school. He replied: "Well I think they get too political from time to time. I think they draw conclusions for students, at least many of the ones that I have talked to. They don't necessarily teach them the simple things of gather all the facts, present all the facts. I think in many cases they have agendas. You know, I was asked by a university to give them some money and I went to the university and I taught a couple of classes and I interviewed a bunch of students and I said: 'I'm not going to give you any money until you can graduate somebody who likes America. It's not a bad country you know. Soon as you get me somebody like that I'll get you some money , but based on what they're learning, you'd think we lived somewhere else."

The real purpose of this war, which nobody in government can realistically say and what nobody in media cares to say, is to split the Arab/Islamic world in half by interjecting a democracy between the East---Iran, Pakistan, a few Thugistans, and the West---Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. Above all a victory in Iraq will segregate Wahabism from the rest. When Iraq becomes a democracy, it will be all but over for the radicals who show more and more that they want a dictatorial Islamic Theocracy and want to crush all democratic forms. The meaning for terrorists is obvious, they are done. Just think of what might happen here if an attack on a restaurant occurred in the same manner as the attack on the mess hall in Mosul. A terrorist simply lathers a pizza with C-4 plastic explosive and walks through the restaurant and explodes it. Who's fault would that be? One guess.

Tsunami time.....I was in a----get ready for this----a two inch tidal wave when I was in the Navy. I could have cared less but I noted all the "old salts" got their gear off the ground by a few inches. When it "hit" all that happened is that suddenly there was about an inch of salt water for a hundred yards or so. It happened in a second. All was dry and then all was wet. Gave me an idea of what a twenty footer might look like.

Daniel Pipes comments today about the WWII internment hysteria and mis-reporting of same. Nobody cares to remember that the Japanese had agents in Hawaii that blended in with the population and they photographed Pearl Harbor for six months before December 7th 1941. Michelle Malkin, in a really courageous book (link to Amazon), analyzes the internment by including all the Germans who were also put in camps, focusing on the fact that the only Japanese interned were those who lived on the Pacific Coast, and that only the Japanese got reparations; no Europeans need apply. This to make the case that we dam well better be looking at Muslims in this country with a very sharp eye. It is they who say that they are not American Muslims, but Muslims living in America.

Instead of following Reynolds links to the usual losers at Carnival of the Capitalists, who is just another of his Nashville hicks pretending to know something and a danger to anyone who listens to the encylopaedia of opinions. Instead, go to people who know something. I have a better track record with actual money than any of Reynold's pals and here is where you go. First read Luskin each time he appears on NRO. His current piece on SS is challenging. After reading it go HERE to Social Security for Dummies and you will see how complex the SS situation is; investors need to familiarize themselves with this topic. Read Kudlow each day; you are not getting his private newsletter which costs in the thousands of dollars but you are getting good stuff; always remember he is a Republican and his Right Wing views do cloud what he says. Problem is that he has been correct for a long time. Subscribe to and follow Investors Business Daily. It is a statistical fact that his CANSLIM system outperforms everyone by fifty or so percent and you won't lose. But you have to WORK on the data at least an hour a day, those of you looking for race track touts for a quick tip deserve to lose. Stay away from these blogger assholes. 11,700 on the Dow is still the call, BUT you will still lose your ass if you are in the wrong stock; a rising tide only lifts boats that are in good condition, the ones with holes in the hulls remain on the bottom. The rising tide analogy is one more moronic bromide. BTW Kaus is a very good guy for explaining things economic when he bothers to comment, particularly HERE. Lots of people who know jack shit about markets and investing tout themselves and their worthless opinions on the web. If they had licenses they'd be fined and face charges. Reynolds just refers. Pay no attention to his stuff. BTW Luskin knows a lot about private accounts with SS and he isn't a nut case. Always remember, there is a major difference between investing and speculating. Most of the web jerks are pseudo speculators with YOUR money, thank you very much.

And in case you've been looking for that classic MasterCard commercial satire, Rodger has it here among others.

If things financial interest you, Kaus has a very understandable post on the Fannie Mae scandal, and believe me it's a SCANDAL. What nobody mentions in the racial component which has left both FannieMae and FreddieMac free from any oversight for decades. Blacks run to HUD, Fannie, and Freddie like lemmings to the sea for preferential treatment when borrowing for homes. There was a time when Blacks had almost no chance of getting loans from the normal places and there was a need for somebody to lend them money. Should you doubt it just when was the last time you dreamed you were Black so you could have the best things in life? Things need to be changed and Kaus opens the door in a simple way so we can all understand. BTW the NYT is doing their best to cover up a Kerry fund raiser who is at the epicenter of the scheme--I'm shocked, shocked etc. That newspaper is simply not worth reading at all.

Holiday with my Left wing family and friends----------

As I’ve related here before, my family and friends are composed mostly of Left to a few hard Left with only four of us Right Wing fascist pigs in the group of forty or so. Political topics have been banned at these gatherings since my son patriotically threatened his hard Left uncle last year and refused to show up this year as a result, which hurt his left wing feminist mother to her heart. So???

Posted on the refrigerator was an anti-God newspaper article from somewhere. And there was one remark made in a conversation regarding Bush, but other than that the conversations remained largely neutral. However a lot of the remarks made at the two parties indicated that many were upset by the anti-Christmas tone of the Holidays, even among a few in the atheist Left. Quite a few had refused to shop at Federated Stores—I tore up my Bloomingdale’s charge card and sent it back—and I was surprised at the almost uniform anger at the schools for banning Christmas. In fact when we sat around singing Christmas songs some remarks were made that the children would be expelled if they sang them at school. I take this to be an indicator that the anti-Christmas movement may be dead, or at least ready to be killed if we all rally to kill it.

I also got the feeling that most have recovered from the Republican victory and are moving on without benefit of therapy and aren’t storing ammunition in their cars just in case. I did have a few private talks with close friends who honestly fear a theocratic take-over of the government. Nobody is afraid of terrorists or Muslims. The other topic that surprised me was that many of the wealthy, all of whom own at least one of the two ton SUVs, thought that conservation had to be done and had only bought new SUVs because the tax code punishes those who “step down” in car price (all deduct vehicles on their taxes); one had purchased a BMW SUV that he doesn’t even like because he had to step up in price. I think this means that a lot of people are ready to downsize, something that is showing up in resale values for SUVs.

Surprising to me was the number of people who have seen quite a few movies since election. People didn’t like the movies they saw other than Neverland and “Riding Giants”, a monster surfing movie that had been seen by most of the young children and their parents. “Million Dollar Baby” has only been in wide release for two days so no one had seen it. A doctor had been stuck somewhere for four hours and saw Alexander and really liked it while acknowledging that he was one of only two people in the theater, knew the story was a fake, but was so intrigued he is going to buy a book about him. The ones who saw “Sideways” hated it, ditto for the one or two who saw “Ray.” Everybody “heard” Closer was awful and surprisingly, had also no intention of seeing “Eternal Sunshine etc.” or Kinsey. All wanted to see “Phantom” and most thought they’d catch “Aviator.”

Other than the above, politics stayed out other than their tastes in movies. Oh, and “Desperate Housewives?” All the men work so staying up late isn’t an option and I didn’t hear the women talk about it. A big movie because there is nothing that parents can take their kids to see is the critically slammed Jim Carey flick LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, a movie in which Jim Carey and Merryl Streep have been branded as “bad” as have both writer and producer. Reviews are “D” but the votes will be in the money collected. The bad news is that the movie cost $190 mil including marketing and it has barely grossed $70mil so far. Don’t kid yourselves by the reports of huge box office. The costs of the failures will run into the billion dollar range. Don’t invest in these companies.

Football was a big topic at the parties; three UCLA grads were outraged by the loss to Wyoming the night before, the USC grads were slightly high on the Trojans beating Oklahoma but a guy who was willing to bet $150 on Oklahoma straight up had no takers, and all were pissed that CAL wasn’t in the Rose Bowl against Texas. No SoCal local is interested in the Rose Bowl and if Texas didn’t travel well attendance would be a serious problem. Anyway, this is still the USA where people other than hard core lefties seem to care more about football and movies than they do about politics.

And, and, gasp....for the first time in 50 years we are going to have rain for the Rose Bowl. It's an El Nino year. Last rain was Rose Bowl of 1955.

Weekend sports commentary....SPORTS CRIMINALS IN PERSPECTIVE

Rush Limbaugh among others, is on a rampage against the NBA choosing to call it the TBA (Thug Basketball Association) and pointing to the loose fitting gang uniforms of the players and the rap music being piped in to all arenas as being an endorsement of criminal behavior. Well folks, there is startling new arrest data.........

Of the approximately 305 active players in the NBA, none were arrested over the Holiday. This shocking statistic was in spite of the hip hop music being played before each and every NBA game, the gangbanger costumes being worn by players, and among the 150,000 or so fans watching the games were the hundreds of drug dealers, convicted felons, deadbeat dads, and prostitutes (some retired and married to NBA owners) none of whom threw stuff at the players.

Of the nearly 18,000 doctors in the Los Angeles County area, more than 15 were arrested for crimes including murder during the same period. Surveys indicate that no rap music was piped into either waiting rooms or surgical suites, doctors were wearing loose fitting green gang attire, and although some of the doctors are pharmaceutical drug dealers it could not be ascertained if any drug dealers were patients. This number does not include the doctors and nurses not arrested when ten or so patients died at Martin Luther King Hospital due to neglect. The lack of prosecution may have something to do with the fact that all doctors, nurses and dead patients are–or were before their demise-- Black.

No NHL Hockey players were arrested because there are no NHL Hockey players at this time. That may be due to the fact that there is no NHL at this time either.

No NFL players were arrested although it is rumored that there were a number of out of court settlements, on the field muggings, and two attempted homosexual rapes during goal line stand pileups.

Out of the roughly 1,000 players in Major League Baseball one player kept the faith by assaulting a judge while at the beach.

In Southern California alone, several nurses have been indicted, and in one case convicted, for mass murders of patients. None were in gang attire or listened to rap music while performing their deeds. Due to the shortage of qualified nurses, all are back on the job.

Three strippers out of the 75,000 employed in various clubs were arrested, one for murder. Rap music was played in the clubs where they worked but none have worn gang attire, or any attire for that matter, while doing their criminal deeds.

Because of the Holidays no stock brokers have been arrested and none will be til after the first of the year but it is well known that many listen to rap music via their I-Pods as they tout worthless stock to customers while at work. Suits worth more than 5K are considered gang attire in Beverly Hills.

Developing....................

The attempt by the Left to actually destroy religion in this country (front and center on Meet the Press this AM) is now on the front burner in almost all media. My question still revolves around the cowardice of most Christian churches to defend and proclaim their faith; see my post regarding Flagstaff AZ. God doesn't die until we allow Him to be killed.

E-mailer Bill D links to this Hillary for President 2008 musical number. Pretty funny and pretty scary too.....

Eric Hoffer is one of the great "persons with insights" of the 50s and would be relevent today were it not for the fact that he said things the elites don't want to accept. Terp refers us to Hoffer once again; a working class guy who had a real brain. Take this post as one more referral to a first rate mind. I can only say that his books are now dirt cheap and well worth the read.

A question I have repeatedly asked on this site is whether a society with a long history of despotic rule and acceptance of autocratic rule can embrace democracy. This question is addressed once again by VDH who directs his readers to a book by Natan Sharansky called The Case for Democracy. The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. The more you think about a people to whom democracy is double talk the more you wonder if democracy has a place everywhere on the planet. Freedom is a concept without an audience in lots of places.

Sharansky starts with an analysis of "free" societies and "fear" societies. A society is "free" if it passes the "town square" test: "Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm?" Such societies will be free, if not always just. But those societies that flunk the "town square" test are "fear" societies, unfree and unjust.

Can any Muslim society pass the fear test? To those of you who answer Afghanistan, Turkey, Ukraine (at least 40% Muslim), and now Palestine I say wait. The test for democracy is tough times. Is Afghanistan a miracle, or is it what people really want if given the chance?

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
It's about 3:30AM and I helped my daughter and son-in law set up a computer system for their children. We all sat down and had a libation and turned on the TV. PBS was running a Roy Orbison fund raiser. At 3:30 AM on Christmas morning they want money. Fuck them...... So here's what Christmas used to be about......

1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. 2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) 5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. 8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

This will be marked in history as the year the infant Jesus became a threat to the human race, or at the very least a threat to a large part of the American Left. Some of us don’t care. Most of us wonder WTF? Jesus is a threat? Still? Always remember that Jesus has been a threat since the day he was born. It’s the God thing. You know, that superior prick up in the sky someplace who knows everything. Everything we think, every lie we tell, every crooked thing we do. If only we could get rid of the SOB then we could do anything we want without somebody sticking their nose into our business and “judging” us. Telling us we’re bad just because we ripped off a little extra pussy on the side when the wife was out of town.

See it’s this fucking God thing we need to get rid of, not the baby Jesus. But with all these God people running around claiming Jesus is the son of God, well somebody has to start somewhere. See, God is a threat because if he really exists a lot of us are in deep shit. Cause the MF knows. And if there is anything we can’t stand it’s some nosy prick sticking His nose into our private business. I mean if I want to fuck a twelve year old, who the fuck is anybody to tell me it’s wrong? If I am desperate for a little folding stuff and I have to fudge a little in my business to get it, I certainly don’t want some prick I don’t even know spying on me; it’s a violation of the Constitution; of my Goddam rights. Get a fucking search warrant, God.

God is violating my Rights and I have the right to get rid of Him if I wanna.

But it’s a tough deal. I can’t do it alone. All them Christian assholes singing and chanting slogans and reading from that book make me think. Make me feel like I’m guilty of something. So I got to find friends who also don’t want some dork----who hangs out in Heaven for Chriss sakes---; some dork with a robe and a beard who’s never had a piece of ass in his life; some nutcake whose mother was a virgin telling me what to do. I mean—can you believe it—some loser with a virgin for a mother will spy on us from on High and tell us what to do? So, if we can eliminate every reference to God in every public place we will free ourselves from any guilt for doing things a mob of virgin loving assholes don’t approve of.

If we can kill God we can be free.

So the people who slide by with an adjustable moral code, and who of us doesn’t from time to time, so the people with the "situational ethics" who have no intention of ever being held accountable are made free if God doesn’t show his hairy face. Nobody to judge me means I can do anything I want that ain’t illegal, and if I get myself a sharp lawyer I can even kill people. With a clear conscience.

So we are in conflict. Those of us who have chosen to behave, or try our best to behave, by a code of conduct sent to us via Moses (another asshole) with an accompanying threat of going to a real bad place when we die if we don’t adhere to this code, vs people who need to reject any and all feelings of guilt for what they do. The people to whom “anything goes if you don' get caught” have lined up against the people who say things that don’t pass the Ten Commandments test are guilty and will end up in Hell, and have the chutzpah to sing about it. To celebrate it.

Singing and praying about Jesus, baby or adult, is a violation of my Right to Privacy.

Right now the people who fear the existence of God are winning. They are winning because the rest of us are allowing them to win. We don’t see that we are being tested. The questions on this test include: Are we going to give up making the last buck in order to make time to proclaim our faith, or are we going to lay down, make more money and lose? Are we going to lay down and deny our children the right to proclaim a code of conduct sent to us from God? Or do we just lay down and eat our dog meal?

Do we allow a bunch of “secularists” to tell us that shopping for gifts is bad? Fuck them. We know that the giving of gifts at Christmas is a time when we are empowered to give without expecting something in return. When we allow Santa Claus to give presents to a four year old, that kid can toss it, love it, or tolerate it without having to feel guilty for not liking it, nor does the kid have to be kiss ass grateful to somebody for giving it. The kid never has to say thank you. We never expect the kid to kiss us for Santa’s gift. Did the Wise Men expect the baby Jesus to jump from his crib and kiss them? No. Jesus just laid there and they were happy with that. It's interesting to note that these same people want to ban Santa Claus. They know he represents both the anonymous giver and the receiver who doesn't have to acknowledge the gift. Santa is very spiritual, something the Left secularists know and we have forgotten.

Christmas is the time of year we learn and re-learn what true giving, and receiving, really means. It’s an important time of year. Really important. We have to stand up and fight for that most spiritual of seasons. We cannot lay around and say that is God’s job to handle things.

This Christmas is the wake up call. Hello.

It's Flagstaff, AZ, a place where it's against the law to have Christmas displays. Jona J has emailed me the details, which I have excerpted below. She first describes moving to Flagstaff and what she found there....

At that time the parking lot at Fry’s (a huge discount electronics store in the west) was full of pickup trucks driven by Indians. Today the Indians seldom set foot in town and the parking lots are full of Hummers and top line SUVs. The city council two years back passed resolutions against Christmas decor and was backed up by the retail merchants association. Today driving through town, there is no sign that it is two days until Christmas. Out at the mall there are a few forlorn garlands strung up inside the mall, but no Santa for the kids, and the only store with anything Christmas inside its doorway is Victoria's Secret.

She goes on to describe the “gentrification” of Flagstaff, the sweat class being moved out by trendy rich Liberals who have jacked property costs to the moon. And they have imposed their “secular” value system upon the landscape too....

The town is a pretty forlorn sight, but the well-established Democratic liberal elite thinks it is just fine. Even the big downtown Catholic Church hasn't put up any outside signs of Christmas except for a wreath on its door.

The obvious conclusion is that when Christian institutions become so gutless that they don’t proclaim their faith, it is over. The current situation exists mainly because we who believe have just laid down like dogs, and our institutions (churches) are now but irritating fleas on our lazy sleeping bodies. The lady concludes that my piece on the gentrification of Carmel-by-the-Sea is what has happened to Flagstaff...

As soon as I read your Carmel column, it was clear to me what was happening here as more and more Californians move in, housing becomes scarcer and more costly, and taxes increase for the improvements the Californians want so Flag(staff) will look just like the upscale areas they are leaving.

My Carmel column of a year and a half ago got----and continues to get—huge email response. DO NOT GO THERE UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED FOR A LONG READ. I think she makes a point in that it is the upscale, advanced degreed atheists, with their money, that rules. I will post a couple of columns after the Christmas celebration.

So I am in a store checking out. The clerk says, "Seasons Greetings."

With a smile on my face I I reply, "Merry Christmas."

She gets a very resentful look on her face and sort of snarls, "I'm not a Christian."

"Well, Merry Christmas anyway. It's OK."

And as I turn from the cash register I hear a little voice say, "asshole."

Christmas in LA. No wonder the stores are near empty.

Site Discovery of the Day is Suicide Girls, when you go there just click on the pictures. Check it out, some really kinky single babes that could be worth a one night coffee break stand. The girls look more like Murder Incorporated than suicide babes but some of us get our rocks off by chicks who threaten to kill us. And these chicks can be counted lucky if AIDS is all they have.

Belmont makes a hell of a case that the AP "Journalist" knew of the assassination of the election workers in Baghdad beforehand and was strategically placed so he could get the best angles for the photographs. Sure beginning to look like more than a possibility. And Power Line, via an emailer, says the same thing. I think, and hope, that this thing has legs til the AP comes clean, which will be exactly one day after CBS releases it's Rather investigation.

And Power Line in a different posting suggests that the AP lied before and is, well not exactly lying now, but engaging in pure fabrication regarding Rumsfeld and the up-armoring statement in Kuwiat. There is a subtile distinction between lying and fabricating but I'm too dumb to know what it is.

Winds of Change, always worth reading, has a lot of stuff about North Korea you might want to read.

Hollywood gift giving, known around town as "Swag" is way way down this year probably due to the SEC coming down hard on stealing shareholder money exemplified by the Eisner vs Ovits show trial. Should you think this is a stretch, gifts of Porches, jewelery, and other expensive things (cocaine??) are way way down this year. Reports that multi-multi-mega millionaire Tom Cruise gave his employees---get this---a donation to Scientology in their names. What a thrill. Defamer mentions a few. This year's high end gift is an IPod purchased at discount, looks like a $200 gift, and one that can be given to charity as a write off. You know you're working in the correct Hollywood Left place when a gift in your name is given to a known terrorist org.

The terible carnage at Mosul caused by a Baathist from Syria lets us know once again that we are putting our soldiers at risk while our politicians play games. Syria is like Cambodia or Communist China during the Vietnam era feeding supplies and troops across the border with impunity. What a shitty Christmas present, not only to the families of the soldiers who were killed in that mess hall, but shitty for all our troops. They are sitting ducks with politicians calling the shots once again. There is also photographic evidence---

Iraq has photographs of Syrian officials with guerrillas who have been fighting U.S.-led forces before planned national elections next month, a senior Iraqi diplomat said on Thursday. The Iraqi ambassador to Syria, Hassan Allawi, told Britain’s Times newspaper in an interview his country had photographs that showed Syrian officials with guerrillas who were captured when U.S. and Iraqi forces stormed Falluja last month.

A picture showes a guerrilla, Moayed Ahmed Yasseen, AKA Abu Ahmed, standing next to a senior Syrian official.

Blogging will be light through Christmas.

No movie since "The Deerhunter" has affected me as deeply as "Million Dollar Baby." I only mention it again because I can't get it out of my system. A really affecting movie. And Hillary Swank gives the best performance I can remember; she plays a tough boxer who is as vulnerable as tissue paper, and gentle as the breeze from humming bird's wings. I keep thinking about it and finding more to the story each time, a feeling shared by most people I've spoken with who have seen it. Give yourself a present and see it. See it before you take your young daughters who might want to be actresses too, because with all its sensitivity and tenderness, this is a story set in the boxing arena. Not a wasted frame of film. See it.

Simon link to this FOX report on the paucity of the box office for all the nominated movies. The guy makes a point: who wants to ruin their Christmas Holiday by seeing bummer movies? Especially the morally reprehensible wife spouse swapping, the glorification of a child molester, the great but very sad Million Dollar Baby, the horrid difficulties that a convicted child molester has adjusting to life outside of prison (that's a Hollywood "feel good" story), and all the rest are bombing. Could it be that too many people are bummed out by the Hollywood Left propaganda campaign that Chevy Chase reminded us about again last week? The anti-Christmas campaign is pissing off everybody I know and that could have something to do with it too; the campaign is by liberals--Hollywood is liberal--so it's Hollywood's fault; is that what's going on? Anyway, nobody is going to the movies right now, but after the 24th things may change.

And Kim duToit says this Christmas like it is. I have similar feelings and evidence, but Kim is right on target regarding this Christmas. Many people I speak with are fed up too. He's an athiest, I'm very agnostic and we are both pissed off as can be.

Tim Blair is on a roll today.... Blogging will be light through Christmas.

Donald Luskin calls Paul Krugman of the NYT a liar. At least four times. Using that word instead of hundreds of other phrases and words is very rare. Read his piece. Krugman IS lying.

With all the current BS about Firefox, let me share something with you. For at least half the users Firefox will not work at all if your Symantec Firewall is enabled. This means you must operate the browser with no firewall protection. Mozilla still works fine with firewall running.

Markets: From tomorrow (kids are all out of school) through New Years the markets are lightly traded. Dangerous only because it gives speculators an open field in which to make huge buys and sells and thereby move markets, especially the lightly incompetently regulated commodity markets. Shouldn't be a factor on really good stocks, but if your stocks get hit, obey the sell signals you have set up.

The ACLU would never allow Iraqi elections:

To be eligible to vote, a person must be an Iraqi citizen, entitled to reclaim citizenship or eligible for citizenship. Voters are required to show an ID to prove they were registered on voter rolls

from Chrenkoff. In fact the entire Democratic party would sue. This very long piece on Chrenkoff is a must read, far too long and informative to get the space needed in the MSM. When you have twenty minutes, give it a read. Later add: I finally got the twenty minutes to read it myself. Jesus. Please read it. Just fantastic.

The death knell for the Right?
Are we kidding dot com..... Get ready for this. Proof that Conservatism is dying. A conservative women 2005 calendar. And who do we get to stare at for a year? An aging but at least an "Oldie but Goodie" Bo Derek? A steel mill furnace hot Rachel Marsden? The cure for erectile dysfunction, the masterbation inducing Rachel Hunter?---go there, she is too hot. Hell no. We will be given a calendar containing--keep your hand in your jacket pocket, no sense ejaculating on your computer screen---Ann Coulter, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Phyllis Schlafly, Michelle Malkin, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick, and others. Be still my heart. Dramamine might help while looking at those women, but I doubt it.

Tim Blair has moved HERE

Unless you really want to be pissed off don't go here, to Kim duToit, and link. Second amendment and the whole Bill of Rights stomped on by Spokane cops.

And La Shawn, the cute rotweiller, really clues everybody in to Kwaanza, just in case you forgot. I actually had forgotten so this was a reminder.

Smart but......I have a grown daughter with an IQ that is literally off the charts; graduated from the Sorbonne with the highest grades you can think of and could barely speak French just to give you an idea. So she buys her eight year old daughter an IPod. When I told her the songs cost .99 each she had a heart attack. She always had a disconnect between brain and reality.

These stats from Hammorabi, dated today:

Two Americans killed by Zarqawi group in Iraq. One of them worked as an adviser to GWB according to Al-Arabyiah TV.

Another American kidnapped and his fate unknown according to the US Embassy in Baghdad.

Ten Iraqis workers with a US firm have been kidnapped and shown in Al-Arabyiah TV with masked terrorists who threatened to kill them.

More than 10 Iraqi National Guards have been killed by terrorists and their leader beheaded south of Baghdad. The trucks that they suppose to Guards have been set in fires and the content of the other looted.

The ING were on their way to Jordan and just before the border they received a call from Baghdad HQ asking them to come back for security reason. Just 30 miles from Baghdad they have been surrounded by the terrorists who used 30 cars!

Three Iraqis killed by a bomb in Baghdad today.

The daughter of the 1967 President of Iraq (Abd-Alrahman Aref) and her Husband have been killed in Baghdad and their son 21 years old kidnapped!

A polling station has been attacked by rockets in Baghdad.

A car blast in Karbala early this afternoon near Imam Hussein Shrine killed and wounded several people.

Three Iraqis working for the Election Organization Committee have been killed in an ambush central Baghdad.

Just now at least 40 killed and 80 wounded in a car blast in Najaf.

I don't understand how anyone can say "we re winning."

UCLA being sued by white woman who wanted to write her PhD thesis about white women.

Student Sues UCLA, Claiming Discrimination
Suit Alleges That Faculty Ridiculed Student's Thesis Project On White Women

LOS ANGELES -- UCLA was sued Friday by a white graduate student who claims she was discriminated against when she wanted to write her thesis about white women. Social Sciences and Comparative Education student Dori Kozloff filed the lawsuit in federal court against the university and the head of its Center for the Study of Women, Sandra Harding, whom the suit identifies as the adviser for Kozloff's thesis project.

According to the lawsuit, when Kozloff asked to do her paper on the "limited whiteness of white women," the adviser said writing such a paper would be "academic suicide." Faculty members ridiculed the idea and even accused her of being a racist, according to the suit.
In addition to discrimination, Kozloff also alleges civil rights violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress, intentional interference with prospective advantage, creation of a hostile environment, and negligence.

Harding labels herself a feminist philosopher. Check her website, a total leftist nutcase.

Social Security-------Investing is something I know more than a little bit about so here are my two cents on this one. Actually $2. I am a free market guy, but not some moron who just got off the boat. I know that most companies I’ve ever worked for were corrupt. We were always told to sell poor product to existing customers, say anything to move product, and in every case the people promoted to management were those that told the most lies to get the best results. Ethics are for other people. Especially in the financial markets.

So here’s how I view the Social Security “crisis.” There are two unassailable premises. Premise one is that we must do “something” or SS will be broke in ten to fifteen years. Second premise: there is no second premise.

The Left wants to do nothing other than raise taxes on the young and the Right wants people to be allowed to invest a tiny portion of their SS payroll tax so they all end up with a lot more money. The investment solution has not been examined in depth and I am going to take the opportunity to do so now.

Keep in mind there is always what is known as systemic risk with any investment. This means that factors inside our system like inflation, deflation, economic collapse, and a few other things will always affect results. I’ll cover below that part of our “system.” The proposed solutions from the Left are: raise the amount younger people contribute, which is a formula for revolt; raise the retirement age, which means people are going to have to work into senility; reduce the amount seniors are entitled to collect, a politically impossible solution; and use other tax money (income, sales, taxes on corporations) to keep on giving benefits, which means a huge tax increase on everyone.

The Right says they have a better idea. What is on the front burner now as a “solution” is that each of us be allowed to put a tiny amount (2-1/2%) of our monthly SS deductions into private savings accounts IF WE WANT TO. This means that if your SS contributions are $10 per month you will be permitted to put twenty five cents of that amount into a private account. This will solve everything.

We are supposed to believe that if we put twenty five cents each month into the bank on a CD or something like that with prevailing rates of returns at the time we contribute, the returns compounded and rolled over (re-invested) will mean the resulting cash over a thirty to forty year period will be enormous. This, in Ivy League lingo, is total bullshit. Any trip to the compound interest calculator will paint an entirely different picture. If your SS tax is $10 per month your contribution to your savings account (2-1/2%) is .25 cents per month. After thirty years at five percent interest you will have around $350—in 2030 dollars. If your SS tax is $100 per month and you are “allowed” to put $2.50 per month in the account for 30 years you will have nearly $2,000.

So a normal person will end up with $2,000. Jesus Christ, what are people thinking? You can live one month in poverty with that. You will have to live the rest of your life on even less SS than had you not invested. In order to end up with $100,000, which is less than ten years living barely above poverty you would have to cough up $125 per month for thirty years. The last time I looked $125 is two and a half percent of $5,000. Who the hell pays $5,000 per MONTH in SS taxes? I'll marry her in a nano second. Next, suppose the bank fails and the FDIC has to bail you out? FDIC is broke right now and could be broke once again. There is always an inflation risk (interest rates at 4% and inflation at 5%). Bank accounts are not risk free. Right now SS recipients are paid more money each year when inflation rises. I think this throws out a bank account.

Next “solution” is to be really smart and put your money in higher yield government bonds. Government bonds are risk free. That is only correct in theory and theories have a way of being very wrong. In theory a bumble bee cannot fly. What happens when demand as expressed in massive SS retirement fund buying hits small new supply? Bond prices would soar and interest rates plummet, not good for everyone. Remember that we are talking about eighty or ninety million people buying bonds. People who are unfamiliar with bonds (meaning 90% of the population) don’t understand that the bonds can always be “bought back” by the Government (or any issuer) and then re-issued at a lower current rate. How many people are bond traders? Next, where do you draw the line on the type of bonds people are allowed to buy. Municipal Bonds are risky as hell but their yields are very large. Huge funds--- like the now out of control CALPERS--- can suddenly decide something based on politics. There is risk in bonds aside from the inflation risk.

The next solution is to allow us to invest in an “Index Fund,” which is a stock fund that simply invests in either Dow stocks or S&P 500 stocks and in theory your money will ride the long historic bull market. The story goes that if you invest and roll the money over in markets during any 30 year cycle you’ll always be ahead by many hundreds of percent, implying that you will have a fortune. But you aren’t going to invest a large amount. You are going to be investing a tiny amount each and every week or month which means that every month or week you start a new---and shorter---cycle with a part of your money. This means that you will be dealing with a fifteen year two month cycle with a portion or a thirteen year forty week cycle and so on depending on where in the thirty year cycle you invest. And here is where the hair grows on the egg. We will require a very honest mathematician to crunch the numbers because while it’s true that had you invested ALL your money in 1930 at the depression depth and started pulling it out in 1960 you would have been more than OK. What would have happened had you invested fifty cents per week every week from 1930 to 1960? When fifty cents became seventy five? When seventy five became three dollars? What about the cycle from 1944 to 1974? This question cannot be answered until an analysis can be done. You will not garner the same return between 1955 to 1960 (the years just before retirement) that you did between 1930 and 1960. In order for us to see what might happen every week through YOUR thirty years the entire time span for each starting date must be calculated. Nothing else will give you the true picture of the Stock Investment result.

Not to belabor this point but had you invested in the 1954-1984 period you would have been involved in one of the worst crashes ever—the Watergate crash of the 70s—and I doubt that your total return would have been very good because your continuing investment in a bear market would have taken a toll.

Keep in mind that I have not included dividend roll-over which can be so substantial that there is no period of time, no matter how calculated, that wouldn’t be OK. So it’s time to think and listen. It is unfortunate that the attacks from the Left are already dishonest because the Left MUST have business failing in order to establish socialism. We are in for a real war here.

There is one more “solution,” one that allows each individual to invest on their own. This is madness. I’ve been a broker in one capacity or another since 1982 and all I can say is that this is a very corrupt business. You cannot trust these markets with everything you have. Suffice to say that all brokerages view your money as their money and they will take it. Commissions rule. Always. The phone scams for Regulation D offerings are among the worst in the sales field and unsophisticated people will be robbed. Thank you again, SEC.

I’m summing it up here. There is no magic pain free way to “save” Social Security other than raising contributions FROM OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN. This is what the American Association of Rapacious Pricks (AARP) wants for their no longer contributing members. This is what the AFL/CIO wants for their members. This is what the Democratic Party advocates. The result of this policy will be a generation war that could end in armed people in the streets. We cannot continue to rape the young so the old farts can have $100,000 per month drug treatments, borderline living conditions, and endless benefits they haven’t earned.

I honestly think that when these solutions are examined we will find that nothing will work other than increased contributions AND a reduction of benefits. This is a really tough deal and the foolishly optimistic and rosy views from the Right are as wrong as the attacks from the Left.

Late add due to several emails We are currently being nailed by FICA for 12-1/2% of our gross income for SS---Half paid by you and me, the other half by our employer. All calculations include both contributions. Taking a 50K gross, the FICA is $6,250 per (your payment is actually $3,135 per), and 2-1/2% of the $6,250 is $156. Making 26 weekly contributions of $6.01(156/26) gives us a whopping $11K at the end of 30 years. So you can live a year on it. The Democrats have this great idea to have employers contribute more, which would mean the employer cost per hire, currently estimated at 15K, would rise to a point where they would have to be even more desperate to put on new hires than they are right now. Another way to raise unemployment and get elected. What's 30 years times 156, the amount of money equal to the 2-1/2 percent? $4680, which means that you end up with more than twice as much with the interest. The "investment" plan only makes sense if we put a hell of a lot more into it.

Stay tuned.

The American “heart is frozen, their society cold, their empire cruel.”
It is a country of “32 religions and only one dish … and even that [is] inedible

Sure the quotes are from Frogville, but the first was said in 1749 and the second in around 1790. Demarche has an interesting post up after being down for a couple of days. The French have a long history disliking us.

I stopped reading Andrew Sullivan six months ago when I found it obvious that he has only one agenda, his homosexuality. Nothing else matters. Kaus has an interesting hit on him today for those interested, but his time has long past. I think I stopped reading Sullivan when he did an edless post on feces and defication. A really deviant guy.

Surf rats in mourning. No big waves hit California. None expected. Life is over.

Things are really getting bad in Iraq, this from Hammorabi once an optomistic blogger and now ready to toss it in. The carnage cannot be allowed to continue.

Merry Christmas I am, at the very least, an agnostic. But an agnostic who doesn't believe that I have the right to stop Christians from celebrating Christian Holidays, as long as Christians allow me to celebrate too and so long as the Jesus lovers give me presents. I find myself really pissed at the secularization that includes eliminating Christmas from any public display. So this year I am saying "Merry Christmas" to everyone I meet hoping to piss them off. Then, and get this because it's really in the spirit of the Season, I wait for them to say "Seasons Greetings" as a response. When they fall into my trap I reply, "What Season, is that?", hoping to see the bastards squirm. If they respond to my yuletide evil greeting with "Happy Holidays" I again inquire as to what holiday they might mean. If they just pass me by I just start humming Silent Night or O Little Town of Bethlehem.

And fuck you if you refuse to become involved with that.

So it's Merry Christmas, assholes and may the baby Satin grace your home.

I say all this because we have to have Christmas. The baby Jesus represents new life to ALL of us. A new life that is the future. A future that doesn't know that "you can't do it," and does know that everything is possible. We all need to celebrate a future that includes the assurance and hope that all babies born everywhere every year will make the world better, just because they can.

So when I say Merry Christmas it's for all the children being born this year with the hope all of them will make things better.

The persecuted innocent: Kofi Annan; Scott Peterson; John Gotti; Yassir Arafat.

"Million Dollar Baby" is a movie for both Red and Blue. There is actually a real live story–and what a story--- without the usual PC feminism, Lefty attacks on Republicans, ridicule of the sweat class, and filthy sex scenes. Worse, it doesn't ridicule religion. It actually praises it. So naturally......

Million Dollar Baby, a movie that didn’t win the “prestigious” NY and LA Critics award and was nominated for five awards by the fake Golden Globes, will easily get the approval of the only people that count: us. The Left press, always afraid of being excluded from the Red State avalanche, have suddenly discovered this terrific, but very simple movie. A lean and rock hard story that you can liken to a wide receiver with two percent body fat who can still fool everybody at the age of 40 using simple moves that don’t even look like moves anymore. No computerized armies, no fake chases or fights, no rapid fire intercutting to disguise lack of story, Million Dollar Baby just lays it out there. The story seems to be as simple as a first grade reader until you try to retell it to your friends, it’s then you realize just how layered it really is and that you've just seen a hell of movie, a great story done to perfection by the perfect cast and a director who is the pro of pros. The first grade reader cast of Dick and Jane are played by Clint Eastwood and Hillary Swank (only sensational), their friend Fred is played by Morgan Freeman, and to top it off Million Dollar Baby is directed by Clint Eastwood, who also wrote most of the music.

Oh and by the way, Eastwood also produced.

I don’t know if this story will appeal to people under the age of 40, but I hope so. We are basically confronted by two old guys---Eastwood and Freeman--- who have been screwed more times than a twenty five year old street whore and, like that washed up street walker who hides her looks and her hurt in the deep shadows, they have become hard and indifferent to everything. Nobody is going to cheat them again and each has built up huge barriers to protect themselves from any more of Life. Nobody is going to screw with them again. Damage them again.

But in steps an over the hill thirty year old woman (Swank), faced with a nothing future, at the bottom of her barrel, with nothing left but a crazy idea and desperation looking for these two hard cases to help her.

As they always say, “It’s the Journey, not the Destination” but the real magic of this movie lies in the fact that Eastwood steers us to a complete surprise Destination without one extra reaction shot or stupid cutaway. Violence? You bet, this is a boxing movie in which the girl is the boxer, and she gets whacked in scenes with no music to hide the violence; all we hear are the slamming of fists on bodies. Bad language? What do you expect from people like this? The actual story was written by the late former boxer Jerry Boyd, and the movie is filled with dialogue that can only come from somebody who knows the underside of club boxing, stinking gyms, and the guys who still hang around long after their time has past. This is another movie that Left Hollywood refused to finance; supposedly they wanted the 75 year old Eastwood to do "Dirty Harry Kicks Medicare's Ass" or no money. Warners only gave Eastwood enough money for the domestic rights, so he got most of his money from a company called Lakeshore Entertainment Group that is located on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles across the street from Paramount. Their CEO is a guy named Tom Rosenberg, and the company is privately held , which means no stockholders. Look for Tom Rosenberg to be the next Hollywood “miracle millionaire.”

This truly is your basic “must see” movie---not a film and certainly not cinema—one that does everything a movie is supposed to do when they free themselves from trendy political statements and millionaire stars with their publicity teams. And Hillary Swank gives the best performance I've seen in years and years.

It's just a movie. Just go.

For those of you who don't visit LFG, please go HERE and read this account of heroism that will never see the light of day in the MSM. You will remember the name, Peralta.

Hammorabi has a vastly different take on the Osama binLaden tape and what is going down in Saudiville. Take a read.

Iraq the Model has now stooped to a meaningless pissing contest with another blogger, neither of whom has a readership that would load a row boat. Hey, Model. We don't read you for any reason other than your take on Iraq. Certain parts of the web are becoming just like an MSM club.

Larry Kudlow, a really good economist, thinks the dollar downslide is over and that Bush wants it that way. The rising rates, the liquidity being sucked out of the economy all indicate a rising currency. For now. Were I a currency speculator I'd listen up. This means that people holding stocks with cheap dollars are going to make a major score and those foreigners who have been on the sidelines are going to jump in. Big time bullish for stocks.

I've been in several companies that suddenly saw their sales slump. What was the first thing they did? Improve their product? Check their marketing and sales pitches? Check out the competition to see where they could improve? Hell no. They put in a new dress code. Both The Washington Times and Michelle What's Her Name writing for Town Hall has the goods on our "dress code" security mavens.

AND EVERYBODY better take a look at the San Francesspool "nobody can own a gun law" to go into effect in 2006. This is a Second Ammendment in a coffin law and we cannot allow this to happen.

And for video of the 60 foot waves hitting the surfing contest in Hawaii go here SoCal is alive with anticipation of these suckers hitting Mavericks in NoCal (guys are heading up there this AM) and the waves in SoCal will be a modest thirty feet. This video is terrific but you MUST USE EXPLORER and they have a fucking commercial before you can see it. Worth it though. And for Mavericks a couple of weeks ago, HERE. And for Mavericks LIVE you go HERE, but as I am writing this no waves have appeared YET. This will be killer, everybody hopes. This is the place where Mark Foo was killed by a storied 100 FOOT wave. So these maniacs are out there hoping for a 110 footer. Live and in color.

Hammorabi is very pessimistic about Iraq. He says the killings and beheadings are widespread and he and his buds are afraid to go out. This is a big turnaround for one of the more positive voices from Iraq. Iraq at a Glance paints a similarly gloomy picture: no gas, no food, and violence. Things ain't good folks and it sure looks like all the guys who called for at least 250,000 troops before the war--- and got fired for saying so--- were right.

The French/UN are now accusing the U.S. of stealing Iraq oil money.

UN watchdog finds irregularities in US-administered Iraqi oil sales (15/12/2004)

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) A UN oversight board found irregularities in Iraq's oil export sales under US-led authorities between May 2003 and June 2004, including inadequate controls of extraction, use of non-competitive bidding and of barter transactions. In its report released Tuesday, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq (IAMB) said it had also met delays in separate audits on sole-sourced contracts from the US Defense Contract Audit Agency. The board said it had requested the "special audits" after finding that "some contracts using DFI (Development Fund for Iraq) funds had been awarded to a Halliburton subsidiary without competitive bidding." Since the US-led war on Iraq in March 2003, Halliburton the US oil services giant once run by US Vice President Dick Cheney, has won some 10 billion dollars in contracts to restore Iraqi oil, feed, house and care for US troops in Iraq, but has been accused of accounting problems and overcharging.

French back off on the Turkey Genocide demand....BUT...their threat is to raise the issue at any time. Not so fast Red Rider----The Turkish papers are reporting something completely different;

To reassure voters, the president has already undertaken to change the country's constitution so that all future applications to the EU -- including Turkey's -- would have to be approved by a national referendum in France.

He and Barnier have also said that talks with Turkey may result in a "privileged partnership" rather than full-scale membership -- though they insists this is France's desired objective.

This is the new Iraq for France. Their duplicity has no boundaries. They are playing a dangerous game hoping Turkish anger will be directed at Iraq. We'll see.

We are to believe that the KGB poisoned Viktor Yushchenko with Dioxin. This is absurd on its face once you actually look up Dioxin and see what it can do. Killing somebody with it is only believed by the Environmental whackos, and even the most whacked out Greenie, Carol Browner of the Clinton Administration, fought not to have the presence of dioxin a factor in closing an industrial plant. No way to kill anybody. Slate has an understandable piece on it today. So Viktor was either planting it on himself, or some idiot tried to knock him off.

For a very learned and detailed comment on this piece, GO HERE

We've got the wrong vehicles in Iraq, stupid. As a former car and light truck salesman who actually had to go to school in order to be allowed to sell light trucks to customers, let me clue you in. The weight you intend to carry in any truck is crucial, not only for the engine specs, but especially for the transmission and rear end. That weight includes anything you want to haul too; trailer, boat, and so on. What the Pentagon is doing to the Humvees in Iraq guarantees breakdowns. Loading more than a ton of extra weight on vehicles not designed for the weight will assure serious breakdowns and engine blow outs. This means that the soldiers in the stalled Humvees will be sitting ducks. We have all had our cars malfunction and overheat. How long did it take before you could get the car going again? An hour? More? How about with people shooting at you? A rear end gives a little warning but an overheated transmission without gages to warn you about overheating will disable your vehicle instantly. So when summer rolls around and the temps get to 130 degrees we are going to have terrible losses. Terrible.

What we need are completely different vehicles with different engines, rear ends, and transmissions designed to carry the extra armor tonnage. Don't hold your breath.

Rather than refer you to a chain of referrals, allow me to guide you to today's Daily Demarche. A terrific site run, once again, by secret operatives from the State Department.

A free spam filter that actually works? I've been using Thunderbird for about two weeks. It has a device whereby you can "teach" the system to recognize spam and block it. It works. Spam is deposited in a junk folder so you can be sure it's not deleting the wrong stuff and it takes a couple of weeks to "teach" it. Good as Outlook Express? There are some trade offs but I like it, if Outlook switched and had the spam blocker I'd go back to it. Late add Today I received less than ten emails, all from people I want to mail me. I was getting more than 90.

For a comprehensive over view of the Oil for Food scandal that everyone can "get", read the U.S. News Op-Ed piece by Mort Zuckerman, also editor/publisher of the New York Daily News. He gives Rosett full credit too. He lays out all the details in one place. Referred by Larry Kudlow.

France asks Turkey to admit genocide

From Expatica. Late late add: France modified their demands
BRUSSELS, Dec 13 (AFP) - France wants Turkey to acknowledge the World War One massacre of Armenians during negotiations on its membership of the European Union, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said Monday.

This is another reptilian diplomatic move by France, one that is designed to keep Turkey out of the EU. France hasn't suddenly fallen in love with the Armenians although there is a large Armenian population in France that forced France to condem the genocide back in 2001. What makes this doubly tricky is that the Turks didn't kill most of the Armenians, they bribed the Kurds to do it; and---ready for this---Russia has provided the proof. It is in the form of a document that is on display in the Armenian Genocide Memorial museum they built in Yerevan, the ancient capital of Armenia. This document, signed by the Talaat Pasha, orders the elimination--by whatever means necessary--of Armenians from Turkish lands. But in reality Turkey subcontracted the genocide to the Kurds. And peeling that onion once again; admitting to the genocide means billions in reparations and Turkey ain't paying. The Kurds will never admit to anything. France has played an Ace of trumps to keep Turkey out of the EU.

Now what? Turkey may well shift 180 degrees and join with the Islamists, and that will be a direct threat to both Iraq and the U.S. forces in Iraq. (see my old post) This is very very serious.

Reservists court martialled for stealing equipment and parts. This is a story that won't go away. As I commented in an earlier post, when I was overseas it was actually my job to somehow get what we needed, no matter what. I forged emergency requests, found wrecked planes and vehicles, anything to get the parts. Read this, I think Rumsfeld is going to hear about this stuff forever.

A movie that can only be categorized as pornography of triviality is taking all the critics awards . THE movie of movies for the Left elite. The critics rave. Best Picture awards from all the Blue State snobs. Oscars for sure. You think?

Pick a subject for a Blue State Elite “film.” Let’s see, the plight of the homeless, wife swapping, the evils of all religions other than Islam, filthy Republicans, how whites abuse minorities, art, wine, homosexuals......

Wine? A movie about wine? You think? Could be OK, if we throw in a lot of really raunchy sex, frontal nudity, mid-life crises. I like getting bombed out of my gourd on wine. Everybody does. But no filthy workers or others who sweat while they bust their asses. No fucking fags, that is what killed Troy and Alexander. And put in lots of really foul language; that might work . If we bring it in cheap.

So we have “Sideways” the latest Blue State elite movie that is gathering all the praise from the Blue State critics. If it is to appeal to Blue Staters there can be no blue collar morons on the screen–-not to worry---, no real men---again not to worry, tons of totally dirty sex---really not to worry, foul “masculine” language--a positive kornacopia of fucking shit language, and the Blue State craze of crazes: frontal nudity. So what can we have the lead characters do to earn money? Art dealers? How about newspaper reporters at The New York Times? Harvard professors? No, let’s make the two characters a writer and an actor. Even better, a school teacher who writes plus an actor. Real exciting show biz types with a touch of humanity. People love actors and writers.

So this is what is “Best” this year. A funny movie about wine tasting and middle age men with a problem, and more than enough of the other stuff so it will fly. Lots of LA types think this movie is sooo hysterical. Even soooo fucking hysterical. And deep, man. Rilly Rilly deep, yuh dig? But trust me, there ain’t even a hint of a story here. If you want to spend ten bucks on a movie about wine tasting and middle age sex it’s your call. Frontal nudity? Shower while looking in the mirror. Filthy sex? Why don’t you and your wife start screwing in the garbage? And foul language? Go to the symphony and listen to the hookers in the lobby.

What is truly wrong here is the pornography of triviality this picture represents. A stupid movie about wine tasting is declared "best picture" by our salons in New York in Los Angeles. Wine tasting? Mid life crises? That's the best? Like it or not, Fahrenheit 9/11 was about something; Passion of the Christ was about more than something; Mean Girls had plenty to say to teen girls; maybe one or two others said something above Sponge Bob but the list of movies for 2004 is an indictment of the dominant Left culture both for what isn't made as well as what is made. Especially what isn't made. Not a single movie about the most important subject of our age; Islamofascism, terrorism, and whether civilization can handle it or not. Not that our effite upper class cares to think about it. Look what happened to that Dutch asshole for making something about something. Fuck that.

Hate to tell you, Hollysuck, but it takes real guts to make a movie that is really about something. But that might not make enough money for the Ferrari.

Rated R because of foul language, sex, no story, and no guts.

Heating Oil prices have droped from $1.60 to $1.23. How good is that? Consider that when I traded for twenty years the price was around forty to fifty cents with occasional spikes into both the thirties and near sixty. So instead of paying four times the "normal" price people will be paying three times historical price. No fun for a commodity most people on the East Coast must have or die. The only similar situation would be medicine for the sick. Is there an alternative? Simple answer: No. Are we Americans getting shafted by our own companies? Simple answer: Yes, oil companies have been selling their heating oil output to Europe because the price is higher over there, while leaving American consumers to pay up or die. That's life in the era of the multi-national corporations who are loyal only to the bottom line. Food will be next as farmers are forced out of business and the entire industry is taken over by the multi-nationals who will not only sell to the highest bidder but "arrange" prices.

Be sure you read AcePilots today. The Oil for Food scandal becomes increasingly the French rake off scandal approved by all members of the UN. Too much hard data to extrapolate.

EU strikes, again. Apparently Iran is conducting high-energy neutron experiments. I think this is bad. On Free Republic via Regime Change in Iran. According to my secret sources, High Energy Neutron experiments are:

A systematic analysis of the response of dichlorodifluoromethane superheated drop detectors was performed in the 46-133 MeV energy range. Experiments with quasi-monoenergetic neutron beams were performed at the Université Catholique de Leuvain-la-Neuve, Belgium and the Svedberg Laboratory, Sweden, while tests in a broad field were performed at CERN. To determine the response of the detectors to the high-energy beams, the spectra of incident neutrons were folded over functions modelled after the cross sections for the production of heavy ions from the detector elements. The cross sections for fluorine and chlorine were produced in this work by means of the Monte Carlo high-energy transport code HADRON based on the cascade exciton model of nuclear interactions. The new response data permit the interpretation of measurements at high-energy accelerators and on high-altitude commercial flights, where a 30-50% under-response had been consistently recorded with respect to neutron dose equivalent. The introduction of a 1 cm lead shell around the detectors effectively compensates most of the response defect.

Clear? The facts seem to be that these experiments are aimed mostly at peaceful uses when conducted in free societies: medical, communications, radiation shields, and so on. The fear seems to be that

fast neutron experiments can have three applications: to study research reactors which also can use beryllium shields, to study fusion or to develop energy reflectors for atomic bombs.

The best link seems to be here, but it is really a stretch to say that high etc is an atomic bomb trigger without hard evidence. There are plenty of other ways to trigger a bomb. When looking at this "debate" you better consider the agendas of the people involved. Remember EVERYBODY thought Iraq had WMDs.

Money seems to be the only motivation in sports. However there is a story at a high school that bears reading. This guy was a coach at one of the snootier private schools in the area, a place where he was being paid a hell of a lot of money, decided to leave,---and get this---coach at a public school that hadn't won anything in forty (40) years and do it for far less money. The results are quite amazing: two LA Division AAAA city championships and four playoff appearances in four years. And this week his team out hit and out played a team that has sent forty guys to the NFL.

Read his story for a one of those feel good moments.

Bush hugs it up with Annan: OK, here's the deal. Condi Rice, who unlike Powell, is very Machiavellian (in the best sense of the term) figures that if we let that crook off the hook---as all the other crooks in the UN want---Annan will have no choice but to suddenly back the elections in Iraq, put in UN people, and re-open the UN office. Make no mistake---Rice is a black Margaret Thatcher----she will change the way we approach other countries.

I don't know if she is interested in being president, but she has a real chance to build a super resume while Hillary does everything she can to sabotage both her and the U.S.

HUMVEE FACTS: Hundred Percenter has given us the absolute facts about Humvees in Iraq and what level one, two, and three armor is.

"Up-armored humvees... is a vehicle that is produced in a factory back in the United States and it essentially gives you protection, both glass and on the armament on the side, front, rear, sides, top and bottom. If you'll think of a protection in a bubble, that's kind of what the level-one up-armored humvee gives you."

There are about 6,000 of them in Iraq and they are adding another 2,000. There is a serious price to pay for this armor: What happens to the engines during the summer temps of 100 plus degrees when the vehicles carry an extra ton of metal? Take a look. Just the facts ma'am.

What seems to be the real story: the unit that Rummy was addressing was a National Guard Unit (the 278th RCT) in Kuwait, not Iraq. It is not clear right now if this unit served in Iraq or was heading that way, something that is very important. The unit is freshly arrived in Kuwait and has NEVER BEEN IN IRAQ. They had just been assigned to carry needed supplies north of Baghdad where everyone is being killed. All transportation efforts of this kind are accompanied by armor and air cover. War is riskly. The reporter "planted" both question and questioner but from the reaction of the troops the question was one they didn't have the courage to ask but was on their minds, because of what they have heard not from their experience. The lack of armor is not that much of a deal anymore, it was top priority six months ago. None of the trucks that carry supplies are armored.

If the embed reporter had been in action with the guys and saw guys getting blown away in under-armored Humvees, he did what I would have done. If, which now seem likely, he was going along for the ride and had heard just rumors and set this up it is another matter entirely.

Bottom line: there hasn't been an army in history that had everything it needed and we always cannibalized other equipment. I was put in charge of stealing stuff, figuring out where parts were and then making out phony requisitions for them, as well as stripping planes for what we needed. It's called war. There is a difference between not having enough of something and not having any. Cannibalizing trash and so on to make your unit better is what armies have done since the beginning.

It just seems to me that this problem has been talked about on the web, like forever dude. And it sure has taken a long time to fix, but the guys cheering have never seen Iraq except on TV..

This is not the first public news for this unit. Back in August rape charges were filed against an officer. The woman filing the charges refused to report for duty because the 278th kept the rapist on duty.

Kerik, the former police super of NY did not withdraw as Homeland Chief because of a nanny problem. He had some serious ethical problems in how he handled his job. On at least two occasions he used on duty police "squads" to conduct his personal business. He deployed an "elite" homicide squad to track down a cell phone owned by his book publisher and he was fined for using police detectives to research his book.

Too bad, he looked perfect for the job, but Mother Theresa he ain't. As competent as he is, the ACLU would have killed him. I'm sure that the two reported abuses are just two of a dozen or so, and a guy who dispatches elite units on personal business cannot be head of Homeland Security.

What American Health Association? You know, that group that is supposedly sponsoring the psychiatric help to Kerry voters in Florida. A Google search yields no group by that name, no group by AHA or anything close. Ask Jeeves shows an AHA in Pennsylvania but it is one of those discount medical plans.

What my experience has taught me is that these phony psychologists will move heaven and Hell to get some “disease” registered some way so that they can collect big insurance money for treating people. The problem with the Left voters in Florida is an invented disorder somebody (the guy who is treating them) has labeled Post Election Selection Trauma. According to a post on the web:

The insurance companies dare not deny claims lest they find themselves besieged by trial lawyers, who have an amazing ability to transmute trauma into treasure and had paydays cut short by a few votes more than a load in Ohio.

The "disease" has no record of existance before Election Day. The hustler who has started treating patients is still planning on how to treat this brand new disease. Ask Jeeves does direct people to the AHA website that peculiarly has a name: American Health Foundation (AHF) which has a mission statement having to do with the treatment of aging

The American Health Foundation is a unique non-profit organization designed to help you approach aging in a new and better way. We encourage you to take charge of your health protocol by taking proactive, preventative steps, combining the best of East/West therapies in a healthier model. We aim to improve the quality and longevity of life.

So methinks that this entire PEST thing is an insurance hustle which we all pay for through higher health insurance premiums.

What else did you expect from Liberals? That they'd pay for their own fake disease? Hillary Care squared. Even when we Righties win we lose SOMEWHERE.

Blackfive publishes this note that nobody in MSM has bothered with. It tells of Bush's visit to Camp Pendleton and after speaking with the troops he went to another area that was fenced off from both press and visitors and met with 170 families of slain soldiers and marines. Something else our propaganda machine won't tell us.

..we had the lead for the POTUS visit and I was privileged to spend much of the day with him. Let me tell you something that was, very deliberately, not in the news. President Bush came here for two reasons. To thank the Marines and sailors of Camp Pendleton for all they do, and to meet with the families of our fallen warriors. The first part was public. The second - and I believe far more important - was to meet privately with 170 family members who had lost a loved one. He forbade the press corps from viewing or photographing any of it.

The Plt Sgt Mitchell Paige Fieldhouse (a brand new $12.5m facility) has two basketball courts. One was curtained off and decks covered where he met with them together. Then, he met with the family members of each fallen Marine in the other gym individually. Having had the duty of a Casualty Assistance and Notification Officer many times in the past, I know how emotionally draining it is to talk to even one family at a time. When we put the President back on Marine One some three hours later, he was as somber and drained as I've ever seen him. It took an emotional toll on everyone involved.

Mudville prints the ENTIRE soldier Rumsfeld exchange. Looks like everyone INCLUDING FOX edited the tape.

MSM is just not ready for the truth.

# posted by Howard : 12/10/2004 06:01:39 AM   

According to 2Slick (A soldier to the core) that GI rant at Rumsfeld is bogus:

....all vehicles that drive north into Iraq are required to have "level 3" armor protection. If a vehicle does not meet this standard, it will not be driven up north- it will be carried on a flatbed truck. Once in Iraq, armored vehicles are used for driving off post, and unarmored vehicles are used for driving around on post.

What I don't understand is the huge round of applause the guy got for saying something that isn't true. He has a lot of other commentary on this subject. Go read.....

It seems that all reports of Humvees in Iraq back up the soldier. At the most only 25% are fully armored and at least 30% o the vehicles are naked. Further, the plant making the upgraded Humvees is not operating to capacity. This is old old news to those of us who get our news from the web and not MSM. My opinion is that 2Slick is Regular Army, a volunteer, and he knew what he was getting into. The National Guard and Reserves are a different matter and they expect to have the best equipment available.

I understand that almost all of the limb damaged vets at Walter Reed are there because an IED exploded under their Humvees.

Don't wake the MSM, but the dollar has gotten very strong over the past week.

The lazy French are going back to the 40 hour week. Of course the unions will strike and pose in the streets, but even the French can't put up with England having half their unemployment rate. Story is here. The 35 hour week was intended to increase employment, then the French cut back on Welfare, then they tried to exclude as many non-French products as they could. Nothing worked and unemployment stayed at 10%. Their real problem is a society that looks down on small business; their communist heritage encourages war against the bourgeoisie and contempt for middle class culture. What would work over there is National Socialism.

But, but Howard, isn't that Nazism? Yeah but they liked it when they had it before. No job? It's the Jews, shut up and dig them graves.

The "questioning" of Rumsfeld only shocked the MSM who never read the web. The lack of Humvee armor, the horrid flack jackets, the sub-par scopes on sniper rifles has been written about endlessly on Military Blogs and on many of us right wing Hitler Lovers since the war was three months old. Rumsfeld's answer to the GI was typical of Washington D.C. brass who could give a fat fuck about the guys on the ground. It was like this in WWII, Korea, and VietNam and it will be like this forever. Many blogs have raised money for armor, scopes, and other equipment the Pentagon refused to supply. I haven't read much lately, but at one point the Military blogs were saying that half the dead soldiers died because their body armor was defective. I always thought that if the Democrats had run to the Right of Bush they'd have slaughtered him, but they are Left. Rumsfeld is just another arrogant Washington prick who sent guys into battle with shit equipment, but he has nothing on the genius assholes of WWII who sent paper tanks (designed by Patton for speed) against the Germans, B-17s in daylight raids with no fighter support, or the Island hopping strategy in the Pacific that resulted in half a million dead. He's the same asshole that sent the first troops into Korea with no ammo and let them die, and then sent in 100,000 troops to fight in a sub zero winter with no boots, underwear, or gloves and let everyone get frost bite or freeze to death. The same prick who sent our guys into VietNam jungles with 50 poound back packs, guns that rotted, and no intention of winning. Let Rumsfeld ride around in Humvees til everybody has armor, let him see how it feels. If he gets it with an IED he deserves it.

The "Separation of Church and State" appears nowhere in either the Bill of Rights or the Constitution and Hanson has a great essay on a subject that deserves a slow reading. I won't quote any part here because this is one of those documents that can be distorted by careless extrapolation. Needless to say that every great document in our history from the speeches of George Washington, the writings of Madison, etc., etc, etc., places faith in God as the bedrock of our system. The liberals want to replace that spiritual God with environmentalism, trendy diversity, and secularism. A great read.

Then you have to read the Noonan piece on Hillary. Really really good, without all the cornball patriotic shit. Tactics like this fit Hillary to a "Tee"

Always remember what Bill Clinton did after he lost re-election to the governorship in 1980. He joined the choir in the only local church whose services were broadcast on television throughout Arkansas every Sunday morning. You could turn in every Sunday and see him in his robe, with his music book, singing spirituals.

There is a St. Hillary in our futures.

DEPARTMENT OF GREED (OURS) If you sold the 4.60 Feb Gold calls for around $30 last week I'd seriously consider buying them back today for around 8.0. A $2,200 profit per position in less than a week is a lot of money and you need to bail. At least sell half your positions. Remember, in New York you don't necessarily get out of options til they feel like letting you out. So you simply excercise to a short futures and set very tight stops. They are crooks there. Remember that. To those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry, you are probably better off.

Kofi Annan receives standing ovation at the UN from 191 countries. The ovation lasted over a minute. There is only one way to interpret this, a slap at the U.S. and our concerns over the looting of the Oil for Food program.

I think both the Left and the Right in this country have seriously misread what the rest of the world actually is. They made money off Saddam, they make money off of everything the UN does, and they like it. No changes. We are alone in a world of financial criminals who have no ethic beyond their financial or geo-political gain.

We better all rethink what we are doing. It's pretty scary being an American in this ocean. We have UN workers raping women, NGOs stealing food and selling it, UN standing by while France regains their colonies, and so on.

Not a pretty picture.

Get ready: according to the current French press attacks the demonstrators in the Ukraine are clearly CIA driven; the movement is another American adventure. In addition, the new elected president of Afghanistan is nothing but a U.S. puppet and will remain so until they prove their independence by attacking the U.S. Start HERE and read the several paragraphs at No Pasaran.

Gold DOWN $15. Too late now, but I tole ja last week.......... You should have written options at $455; it's down $25 from there......

BASEBALL PLAYERS UNION AGREES TO DRUG TEST---
Satire
DRUG TESTS FOR BASEBALL PLAYERS
CIRCLE AT LEAST ONE

The dangers of steroid use are:
Hitting .422
Hitting in 123 straight games
Becoming a national idol with all the babes I want.

Mixing steroids with Viagra can result in:
An erect penis that can lift 150 pounds
Ejaculations so explosive they can give women brain concussions
An insatiable desire to fuck management out of millions.

You use your girl friend’s urine to pass your urine test. It tests positive for cocaine, methamphetamines, and birth control substance. You could be:
Suspended for a week
Denied access to Scores for a month
Lose your endorsement contract for Yale University

You are 23 years old and hit 77 home runs last year, but your penis is now 2 inches long. You want to break Barry Bond’s home run record of 2,120 within five years. You continue your nutritional supplement program but resign yourself to:
Dating dwarfs
Joining a pedophile dating group
Buying condoms at maternity shops (Baby bottle nipples are 99% safe)

ESSAY QUESTIONS—TWENTY WORDS OR LESS

1. Using steroids can cause a man to go into violent rages for no reason. The downside is:

2. It is Mother’s Day and you have just hit your 35th home run in 38 games, which are thirty more than you hit in the past two years combined. Reporters are questioning your nutrition. You tell them:

3. A scummy reporter reveals that your salary has now quadrupled to $4 million per season and one of your ex-wives is demanding that your child support payments be doubled (to $150 per month). What do you tell the press?

TRUE OR FALSE---CIRCLE ONE

1. Steroids make you see better at night.
True False

2. The Major Leage Baseball drug policy can be purchased from your insurance agent.
True False

3. Women who carry syringes in their purses are most likely nurses.
True False

The World' biggest terrorist gang operates with impunity and encouragement in much of the U.S.

While all the liberals pose for Holy Pictures because they bravely passed the new Intel Reform Bill, they are stone cold liars when they pretend they really did something (more Democrats voted to pass the bill than Republicans). They know that their pals in local cities and towns have passed ordinances and laws that completely negate any Intel Law they pass. Consider this provision in local cities across the country. In LA it’s called Special Order 40 and here’s what this Left Wing order does, this quote from Heather Mac Donald writing in the LA Times (believe it or not):

Dozens of gang members from Mara Salvatrucha, a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang, for example, have sneaked back into LA after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country after deportation is a felony. Yet if an LAPD officer arrests an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is the officer who will be treated as a criminal for violating an LAPD rule.

That rule, Special Order 40, prohibits officers from questioning or apprehending someone only for an immigration violation or from notifying the immigration service (now known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement) about an illegal alien. Only if the person has been booked for a non immigration felony or multiple misdemeanors may officers even inquire about his immigration status.

This order was passed by the totally liberal establishment in Los Angeles and has resulted in a crime wave that can only be called a terrorist assault on minority sections of the city. Police say that 95% of the 1,200 outstanding warrants for homicide in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of the 17,000 fugitive felony warrants are also for illegal aliens. The leadership of the Columbia Li'l Cycos gang, which has used murder and racketeering to control the drug market around MacArthur Park, was about 60% illegal aliens in 2002, says a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted them in 2002.

This “Special Order” doesn’t just exist in LA, but the statistics are kept better in Los Angeles. For another disgusting example:

60% of the 20,000-strong 18th Street gang in southern California was composed of illegal aliens. That gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia on drug distribution schemes, extortion and drive-by assassinations

The 18th Street Gang has committed more than 500 murders over the past several years and literally controls vast minority areas of LA County. 18th Street gang members are now active in almost all the western states,central and northern California, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Georgia, and on Indian reservations.

This gang also collects "taxes" or protection with impunity. Typically, in an area that is claimed as territory by 18th Street, gang members will collect a tax from any business, legitimate or criminal. The potential taxpayers include street vendors, shop owners, prostitutes, and drug dealers, as well as the businesses which exist in the neighborhood. Members of 18th Street then threaten to kill any individual who refuses to pay the tax. In 1994 alone, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office prosecuted 30 murders that were the result of hits made by 18th Street gang members for failure to pay taxes. But in no case were police permitted to ask for citizenship until AFTER they were convicted of the crimes. For a map of the murders committed in just LA county go HERE.

This poisonous ordinance has spread to cities like Denver, Boulder, New York and many others.

Boulder, Colorado practices the same 'sanctuary' policy for illegal aliens. In Boulder the mayor openly encourages illegal aliens by making sure the police chief does not arrest illegals. Some of Boulder's immigration lawyers were so bold as to offer publicly announced classes for illegal aliens on how to avoid arrest, detention and deportation by immigration agents.

New York's Mayor Bloomberg supports illegal alien crime by maintaining a 'sanctuary policy' in that city. Last year, four illegals raped and killed a New York jogger. Our “Right Wing Pal,” the famous Rudy Guiliani, also practiced the Special Order even though no such ordinance exists in New York. Not to worry, Special Order 40 continues full force in protecting the estimated 10 million illegal aliens in our country.

No free Lunch: over 400,000 deportees continue walking around free in our country. The ones that commit crimes and are caught make up a full 29% of our prison populations. They cost American taxpayers nearly $1 billion annually to feed, house and care for them in our prisons. And, yet, Special Order 40, continues as if it was a fig leaf for welcoming hardened alien criminals. So when our elected reps refuse to deal with our borders and further refuse to “interfere” with outlaw havens like Los Angeles, we have no security at all.

Crude Oil CRASHED through major support this morning, now trading at $41.75. The close is what is most important but I think next stop is $38. Unleaded gasoline is in freefall this AM with no real tech support til around $1. This is great news for the economy IF these prices hold. I think you will find as much speculation on the downside as there was on the upside. Gasoline high was $1.45 and now at $1.09; a seven week crash. Watch for Congress to call hearings.

Attn Cigar smokers: if you've never heard of Fuente's Humidor Bag go here and check it out. Three different sized baggies with a thing inside that keeps a 70% RH for six months once pak is opened. I'm using one for my pot supply. Works great and is cheap, available at most of the usual places too.

Today is December 7th and all the Asians took the day off....

Blogger is down again and won't post so if this one gets on it will be a miracle. BLOGGER is useless.

I know this will be a long read and it is in PDF but it will serve as a textbook of Hard Left infiltration of faculty and courses around the country. The writers point out that any disagreement with the professorial propaganda results in a really bad grade in a required course. IMO it's about time the conservatives mounted demonstrations on campus, but that takes balls and physical risk for a bunch that seem to be a bunch of wussies. It's like Iraq, if the affected people don't want to fight, fuck them.

Read their long post in PDF only. Link from Front Page.

And Sour Grape French Wineries (and grape growers) want a subsidy. Take that to your next AA Meeting. The U.S. boycott may be only partly responsible for their economic misery.

Hammorabi agrees with the NYT which published the contents of a "classified" cable that states Iraq is in free fall. Hammy gives a scenario of total street gang ownership of the neighborhoods in Iraq. While Simon trashes the entire NYT article, I think one must consider that the paper is dead on a lot of the time and this may be one of the times.

Mudville is terrific today..........

Let’s face it: college Republicans are a bunch of Declaration of Independence huggers, Constitution lickers, and Iraq avoiding wimps.

They are continually bullied and intimidated on campus by a bunch of scrawny ugly women, skinny little Arabs, and homosexuals with attitudes. Every time they set up one of their tables these vicious thugs attack them by yelling, jumping up and down, and displaying nasty signs like: “Republican Women’s breasts are so small they can’t breast feed flies,” “Republican men have shit in their underwear,” “If Cheney dies Bush will have no dick,” and so on that insult the GOP youth wherever they go. We are to believe that they are defenseless.

What they apparently do have is David Horowitz’s unlisted phone number, World Net Daily’s secret email address, and relatives inside the Weekly Standard. This means that every so-called attack gets immediate distribution on the web and in the print media. “Republicans can’t speak up in class,” screams a headline. Conservative kids insulted and embarrassed at a Big Game pep rally when a woman professor stands up and screams, “suck my dick you Right Wing anti-feminist vagina faces.”

Afraid of a moth attack, leery of spiders and lady bugs, these Young Republicans better not be the future of conservatism or Red State will mean a condition that happens when you stay out in the sun too long. Where is their muscle? Are they all a bunch of pansies? Do these guys show their manhood by working out with the Special Olympic teams? Develop their street cred by playing one on one basketball with dwarfs? Do they sneak into the library and bench press two issues of National Review twice a week? Let's face it: Campus Conservatives are a bunch of skinny guys who wouldn’t go to Iraq unless the terrorists carried signs that didn’t hurt their feelings.

So what do they do besides set themselves up for attacks? What is their purpose AFTER the bake sales? Do we seriously think this bunch has the balls to debate at a MEChA meeting? Go face to face with Black Nationalists? Do anything other than whine to Right Wing media?

Why are we adults identifying with these total wussies? Could it be...??? No. How can the party that controls the entire government become a victim group? Could happen, I guess. Tigers are on the endangered species list, the GOP may be next.

Hey, guys, who wants to volunteer for Iraq?

Lots of you have been kind enough to email me that you are "voting" for me in the Best Blog Contest. Please don't bother. It's total bullshit, and the voting is positively Ukrainian Soviet. My view is exactly the same as Kim du Toit's, except that I advocate bomb ownership and he advocates gun ownership. Plus anyone who "wins" ought to be embarrassed.

Hillary Care is exposed in today's WSJ as the horror it really is in Tennessee. The piece uses facts instead of an abstract idea or fear of the unknown. I'm surprised Reynolds hasn't written more about it; both he and Hobbs will probably comment on it. As a person who once had to rely on county services for health care I can tell you that once the Left Wing lawyers get at health care Tennessee is what will happen. Hobbs has only commented on the political backbiting, and expense of the TennCare program, no specifics. Keep in mind that we have a huge portion of the Left that doesn't want to pay for anything ever. TennCare now pays for every drug known to man including asprin, over the counter cold meds, and you name it.

As you can see from my masthead, I'm defending Christmas. Roger "The Terp" Schwantz has posted a Christmas song list here, but you won't hear your kids singing them at school. I live in a big city and the near hysterical hate directed toward Christianity in the work place, in movie lines, at almost any gathering would rival KKK, Nazis, and Muslims anywhere. We are talking hate. And it is accepted. It's like the Old South toward Blacks.

No Pasaran links to actual French News sources blaming Israel (Jews) for shooting the civilians in the Ivory Coast.

"Israel mercenaries assisting the Ivory Coast army operated unmanned aircraft that aided aerial bombings of a French base in the country," claimed French television station TF1 on Wednesday morning.
Le Monde newspaper also reported Wednesday that a group of 46 Israeli advisors operated an eavesdropping and intelligence center for the Ivory Coast military.

To quote Dashell Hammet: "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." Fits the Jacques and the French like a tailored prison uni. Pasaran has other goodies up too if you haven't been there lately.

Leaving Kofi Annan in office to clean up the UN is like keeping John Gotti out of jail so he could clean up the Mafia.

The whole Reagan Thatcher sex thing apparently started HERE

Oliver Stone to make biopic on Thatcher:

[Hollywood News]: Los Angeles, Dec 4 : After "Alexander", Oscar winning director Oliver Stone intends to make a film about the life of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

And then like the game we used to play as kids where we whisper a saying through a chain of our friends and find the original saying completely distorted, THIS is what is being said now:

She was one of the world's most powerful political figures and her life has been as colourful as any superstar. He could have fun casting Reagan - and scripting the 'were they, weren't they lovers?' storyline."

So naturally the blogosphere and everyone else is talking about Reagan and Thatcher "possibly" having an affair. Me? I smell publicity to cover the Alexander fiasco, and really sloppy reporting. But I always keep in mind that the Left would love to smear both Thatcher and Reagan and would cough up the $200 million or so to do it. Their hatred of both has no boundaries.

All the things all of us can do to stop the ACLU war against the Boy Scouts are here. I'm doing two of them. Make no mistake, the ACLU is assaulting anything and everything Christian.

After watching the Theo van Gough movie, all I can say is that it is a piece of shit, just propaganda, and if anybody can be killed for making this nothing film then Islam is a philosophical cess pool. A poor student film by any standard and a film nobody anywhere would have bothered to watch had van Gough lived. Watch it HERE. Link via LGF

David Pryce Jones, author of The Closed Circle a great view of Islam, has an essay HERE

“Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization with important post-Enlightenment/secular elements to . . . a secular Muslim transitional society with its traditional Judeo-Christian mores rapidly disappearing.” This evolving entity is called “Eurabia.”

He equates current Islam, with all its front organizations, fellow travelers, and useful fools to the Communist movement in the decades prior to the Hungarian uprising. He's a great writer and this is a thought provoking piece.

Late sports add: USC should have lost to UCLA. I don't see how a team that clearly benefitted by two horrible calls AND should have lost to CAL should be ranked #1. UCLA, not a bad team mind you, stuffed them.

There is an unlinkable editorial in IBD that attacks the twin deficit theory. Lots of economists are not upset at all with the "cheap" dollar and here are a few exerpts:

The U.S. budget deficit is 3.7 percent of GDP, the same as Germany's and France's. Japan's budget deficit exceeded 6 percent of GDP for the past five years and is now above 7 percent. If budget deficits explained trade deficits or interest rates, Japan would have the largest trade deficit and highest interest rates.

The U.S. dollar has declined as much against the Australian dollar as against the euro, yet Australia's current account deficit is larger than ours. Besides, current account deficits are unrelated to budget deficits here or there. The U.S. current account deficit was 0.8 percent of GDP in 1992, when the budget deficit was 4.7 percent of GDP. After the budget moved into surplus, the current account ballooned to 2.3 percent of GDP in 1998, 3.1 percent in 1999 and 4.2 percent in 2000.

What about the alleged threat of foreigners rushing to sell dollar assets, driving U.S. interest rates sky-high? If foreigners as a group tried to sell their dollar assets, they would have to sell them to Americans, which would have to be a good deal for us or we wouldn't do it.

Foreigners aren't going to run on the dollar because foreigners hold only $1.7 trillion of our $7.3 trillion national debt.

Also no worries about people switching to the Euro because European interest rates are lower than ours. They'd lose more by switching.

The blah blah over inflation is just air. Over the past year, however, consumer prices were flat in Japan, up 2.4 percent in the Euro area and up 3.2 percent in the United States. That suggests monetary policy should be tightened in the United States, but not in Europe or Japan. If that happened, the dollar would likely rise. The budget deficit is irrelevant.

IBD is read by everyone who is anyone and this article is causing plenty of talk.

It's being called "post birth abortion" and the American Left is sniffing at the bait like sharks circling for the kill. The Nazi solution to rid society of "defectives" moves through first trimester to partial birth and now just plain killing of babies, starting in the Netherlands. The culture clash couldn't be more clear.

While Putin rants at us and our media slobbers all over his remarks, this remark is buried:

Russia May Launch Anti-Terror Strikes--By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Russia may use cruise missiles and strategic bombers in preventive strikes against terrorists outside its borders, the commander of Russia's air force said Friday.

Russian leaders have claimed a right to pre-emptive strikes before, for example threatening neighboring Georgia that it would pursue Chechen rebels allegedly sheltering on its territory.

But Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov's comments to the ITAR-Tass news agency aired on Friday were the most direct yet in Russia's rising rhetoric on attacking terrorists abroad. Mikhailov did not specify what targets the air force could potentially go after.

We are dictatorial, they are democratic. Entire story at Yahoo here.

I only read MEMRI about once a week and I missed this one, link courtesy of VDH. This is a POV from the Arab world that lets all of us know what we are up against. I don't think people appreciate how focused Islam is on the destruction of the West, and America in particular. It's the weekend so set aside twenty minutes and read it.

IRAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENT: Another "Don't Ask Don't Tell" agreement between the gutless EU kleptos and the Mafia Mullahs. Is it really integrity vs corruption? Notice that all the usual suspects signed on to the bogus agreement. How many of them buy oil from Iran? How many are involved in corruption? How about the latest UN vote where Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, China and dozens of other countries openly backed the beleaguered Kofi--so they could keep on stealing. We better face reality: the rest of the world sees nothing wrong with stealing from the poor, so naturally they gang up on anyone who disagrees: the bad old USA. What is even more upsetting is that the American Left is siding with the crooks too. The Democratic Party has truly lost its soul and is wandering on the barren plain in the dark trying to find the light.

Those horrible people at FOX are reporting on the French slaughter of civilians and not being nice about it. The French have intervened in Africa 34 times in the past 35 years and nobody reports about it. They still control their colonial "investments" and won't tolerate any interference.

To find out what happens to French investigators who actually try to investigate, just look here.

Crude: there is major resistance at $42. My feeling is that the resistance will break pretty fast. The $38 range looks good. I'd look for a major congressional investigation into the crude futures speculation that forced this market up. The NYMEX is not an honest exchange, they don't enforce their margin requirements equally, and position limits seem to mean nothing to them. Specs pushed oil to $55. The CFTC sat on its ass. Again.

To explain this more clearly for those of you unfamiliar with futures markets. They are supposed to operate for "hedgers" which are the companies who actually own the crude oil. The speculators add liquidity to the market. Each futures contract is for 1,000 barrels, a tiny amount of oil when you consider what is produced. There are supposed to be strict "position limits" for specs so the market can't be cornered. Hedgers can only hedge what they actually own. The talk for the past three months was that position limits were being ignored, sham buyers were created, and margin---the amoount of money that has to be put up for each contract---had been reduced for certain large specs. But it is in "side markets" or off exchange trading where a ton of the speculation was done. It's obvious that several million barrels per day cannot be hedged in the futures markets so "hedging" was done in private.

A hedge, is simply a risk reduction strategy whereby you buy a futures contract at $40 and sell later for $50 when you take delivery of the crude that is selling for $50, thus the $50 price is absorbed at $40---for a while. Congress must look into this because the talk has been around for months and I believe it was reported in Barron's. Rarely is there talk like this when nothing is happening. The NYMEX is notorious among traders and many won't trade there at all.

The CFTC is a part of the problem, much as the sonambulent SEC was a part of Enron etc. for their refusal to supervise.

Jobs number:much weaker than most expected. Look for the Fed to raise rates RIGHT NOW--December 14-- even though it's in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. Look for Gold to drop, the dollar rise, and oil to drop further.

MSM does a good job. What? Them? At least ABC is going after Marc Rich and, predictably, the Left is screming Clinton smear. This guy is the albatross around Hillary's neck (albatross? what the shit is that?), OK an anvil around her neck. ABC broke it first:

Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq's suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News.

I think Front Page is on this too.

I don't often peruse Town Hall but George Will's Nov 28th column is up on that site and is worth reading. He is much too smart for me so I have to read him real real slow. I think he's talking about what happens when we meet with people we agree with and come to a consensus that is at the extreme of our views. Applied to Academia it makes for good reading....but the movie will be total shit; ugly college profs; ugly dykes, and people who have to cuddle up with a book at night because nobody will sleep with them. My two cents on academic diversity: conservatives will not put up with the university teaching system. We demand merit pay, merit promotion, and limitless income potential. Almost none of us will put in the useless time necessary to become a tenured professor.

Gambling Tip: start writing call options on gold. You need to know what you are doing but I'd keep writing all the way down. It's going to drop at least $30 and maybe more. Why not futures? Because nobody in their right mind plays the New York markets. Their fills are the worst and if the CFTC was doing their job they'd close the COMEX metals down.

Bombshell or just a fart in a windstorm? Alberto Gonzales, Dubya's appointed AG may be a member of one of the most racist groups in America, La Raza, and if he is he is out out out. I have posted many times on this site about MEChA and the assorted anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-freedom groups under various "Hispanic" flags. La Shawn Barber has a detailed account together with link after link. Make no mistake, La Raza is racist as Hamas. I never accept one source so I'm checking this out. So should you. I've blogrolled her. Tip to La Shawn from Bad Hair Day. She also points out on her main page that the new AG, if he's La Raza, will have as a top priority open border with Mexico. Read her Home Page one time and you'll be addicted. One point: both she and Malkin are on this immigration big time, and it is well to consider that Mexican immigration threatens Black jobs while reading both of them. Both Malkin and La Shawn are top talents. Top.

Is Jaques being Sacked? Looks like Frenchie is on the way out, quietly but out. The French remain blissfully ignorant of his corruption but it looks like his fish is beginning to stink too much for the ruling party. Remember, Charic got in because he claimed he was running against a Nazi and got 80% of the vote. In the next election the Left will once again rear its ugly head. France could even vote against the EU constitution.

Nannygate and how a story is killed: A former nanny who worked for Don Imus has sued the radio and television personality, claiming he wrongfully fired her, chased her off his New Mexico ranch in the middle of the night and then trashed her on his radio show. Not a word about this since 12/1. Why? Because Imus has powerhouse lawyers, he has threatened to sue everyone, and has a track record of doing same. You can bet the Nanny got paid off big time and she deserves it. It's Imus's wife is the the main heavy in this.

Say, there's a black woman standing next to President Bush ... who is that?

Never mind! It's probably somebody he's arresting!

Coulter in pretty good form today

A Collection of Thoughts is in rare form today. A ton of stuff, some of it too long, but she posts stuff that's from the heart. A great site from the military.

Get Republicans fired at your workplace, or fire them yourself if you can – In the belief that all activism starts with the grass roots, do us all a favor, and fire your Republican employees this week. There are legitimate reasons to fire virtually any employee, so avail yourself of them. Not only will it quit the gloating you’re hearing around the office, it’ll stop those donation checks they are getting ready to write. Might also teach them a bit of humility regarding the poor and the disadvantaged. They can be the “Pioneers” of “Unemployment Window A”----Michelle Malkin links to Right Wing News which has a list of Democrat Undergound and other places and their plots. Jesus, what a bunch of sick bastards. She has links too, but I don't have time to read everything.

Unleaded gasoline is down hard and headed down more; thirty cents since end of October. Of course here in LA prices drop ever so slowly; eleven cents off their highs.

Take a look at Daily Demarche, another blog by some very smart Foreign Service guys working undercover. You'll learn something there. Like this

I just read here that Congress included in the most recent omnibus appropriations bill a provision that would dock countries’ foreign aid based on the amount of traffic fines their UN delegates rack up. According to the article, 110% of the amount of unpaid traffic fines from the period spanning April 1997 through September 2004 would be garnished from offending countries.

Enough to make me vote Republican.

Another site I haven't seen before is called Expatica and they headline their lead story:

Troops shot in self-defence in Ivory Coast, says France.....French peacekeepers who shot and killed around 20 people during anti-French violence in Ivory Coast early last month were acting out of self-defence, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has said.

And Abu Graib got forty days and forty nights in MSM while the murder of unarmed civilians by their French pals gets maybe one day on page 33. There's also this view of the great French unwashed: Bush triumph stirs up French bile. I think bile means something like, "I'm so pissed I could scream." Looks like the French consider us morons,,,,

"It was all a manipulation," a young waiter, who gave his first name as Matthieu, said Thursday as he tended tables in a city cafe.

More shit like that is availableHERE. .

Sensitive Politically Correct Scott Peterson jury debates grounding Scott Peterson. Hung up on TV privileges......Developing

Movie Blue State crap: "Finding Neverland" gets the first pre-Oscar award from the "prestigious" New York National Board of Review. Check the grosses on another bio about a good guy child molester. Love Johnny Depp, and like most of you I was entertained by Peter Pan as a kid, but this is another New York attempt to tell us that homosexuals who molest kids are OK if they are great artists. BTW the "reviewers" also ignored Passion of the Christ for its "perceived anti-Semitism" and if you believe that I've got some great shit imported from Iceland I'll sell you for $500 per ounce. Anything that favors Christ, Christianity, or religion ain't getting anything but the middle digit from our elites.

I'm feeling totally left out. When I was a kid no older babes ever tried to seduce me. My only experience with it was when I was twelve or so and I tried to screw my Aunt. She smacked me and called me a "dirty little communist." I never got over the rejection. Latest one is here.

Man Arrested for Sex With Mom's Dog! Bob Reno does it again.

Ya gotta love it--or hypocrisy on the Right...

When Reynolds, NRO, LGF, Weekly Standard, WSJ and every other Right Wing blog and rag gives "advice" to the Democratic Party you just have to know they are sincere. Spare me the bullshit, all of you know this is just gloating under a false flag. I suggest it's time to stop this crap and focus on the future, which is what this election was supposed to be about.

The Economy: How about the dollar? The MSM is driving the screams of pain about the dollar fall, and this includes the WSJ editorial board. The Fed will raise rates at both the January and February meetings and this will end the fall. The Fed has also leaned on the money supply, which means that dollars will be repatriated to the FED.

However you will note that we are exporting more than we ever have and that we are beginning to run a trade surplus in everything but oil. The current liberal whine about savings misses the point: the current PRIVATE wealth in the US is estimated to be between 50 and 75 TRILLION. Count it up. Stocks, bonds, real estate, cash, private business value, etc. Last quarter GDP was 3.9%, a huge number, especially compared to Europe. China is somewhere around 20% but 20% of nothing ain't that hot either. S&P is up 50% from the post 9/11 bottom (as is the Wilshire).

Our exports TO China and India grow each month, inflation is the lowest since 1960, and if you look at commodity prices other than energy, gold, and copper, they are down and down big. The caveat there is the El Nino developing in SA. Those torrential rains in Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia are the tipoff to a worse El Nino than expected. I still think that when interest rates hit 2.5% you will see a dollar rally, especially since the EU seems paralyzed.