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John Kerry Won!

John Kerry has been working his calculator and has discovered that he actually won the election last November.

"[I]f you add up the popular vote in the battleground states, I won the popular vote in the battleground states by two percentage points. We just didn't distribute it correctly in Ohio." So, said the loser Sunday on "Meet the Press."

He'll have to work his calculator very hard to come up with good news in a recently poll of Bay State residents, 59% of whom would rather not have Kerry represent them in the Senate any more.

He waved off news of a poll conducted by Suffolk University and WHDH, the NBC affiliate in Boston, that found that 59 percent of Massachusetts voters do not want him to run for president again. The polls, he noted, once indicated he had no chance of winning the nomination. "So I think polls are almost irrelevant," Kerry said, "and I just don't pay any attention to them."

Arab Despots Don't Want Democracy

Sunday's election in Iraq gives lie to the claim that Arabs don't want democracy.

The true Iraqi patriots are those who risked their lives to vote, apparently in much larger numbers than anticipated. "I would have crawled here if I had to," 32-year-old Samir Hassan, who lost a leg in a car-bomb blast last year, told Reuters. "I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me." Yesterday's coverage on TV and in print was full of similar comments from Iraqis--which is especially notable since so much of the Western press has been anticipating a much worse outcome.

And, "The new Iraq is born today," declared the Al-Ittihad daily in Abu Dhabi. And the Arab News in Saudi Arabia called the vote "a much needed victory for moderation" and "a very historic moment." U.S. diplomats should now be working overtime to make sure these countries assist the fledgling Iraq assembly as it works to write a constitution and establish its credibility around the world.

No doubt Arab despots composed some of those foreign leaders who wanted John Kerry to win.

How Low Would They Go?

Al Qaida actually used a handicapped child as a suicide bomber to disrupt the Iraqi election Sunday.

“A handicapped child was used to carry out a suicide attack on a polling site,” al-Naqib said. “This is an indication of what horrific actions they are carrying out.”

He gave no other details about the attack, but police at the scene of one the Baghdad blasts said the bomber appeared to have Down’s Syndrome.

Al-Naqib praised an Iraqi citizen who was killed while blocking one suicide bomber from reaching a crowd of people outside at polling station.

These are the people who Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy would have us surrender the country to.

In addition, all of the other suicide bombers were non-Iraqis. So, it certainly seems that, contrary to what Chappaquiddick Ted thinks, Americans are not the foreignere causing the problems.

Another Foreign Leader For Kerry

One of those foreign leaders who was counting on a Kerry victory in November was North Korean despot, Kim Jong Il.

"Bush’s re-election dealt a blow to Kim, 62, who had gambled on a win by John Kerry, the Democratic candidate. Kim used a strategy of divide and delay to drag out nuclear talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea through 2004."

Oops!

And right now, North Korea is hemoraging people, who are fleeing with the assistance of a secret Christian underground in China.

"Yet North Koreans confirmed that they knew that escapers to China should look for buildings displaying a Christian cross and should ask among Korean speakers for people who knew the word of Jesus."

Germany Expunges Genocide From History Books

No, not that genocide, this one. But, if history can be cleansed, can the holocaust be far behind?

You Mean, It Isn't Cow Farts?

On the Saturn's moon Titan, there are seas of liquid methane. The stuff bubbles out of the ground in springs.
But, unlike Earth, it's not the result of animal flatulence.

Drink Your Way To Freedom

A Slovakian man's car was buried in an avalanche. So, he did what anybody would do, he freed himself by drinking beer and peeing his way out of his icy tomb.

Free Speech Forbidden In Sweden

To many liberals, Sweden is the model for socialism and tolerance. And I suppose it is, if you only say that which is allowed to be said.

One Sunday in the summer of 2003, the Rev. Ake Green, a Pentecostal pastor, stepped into the pulpit of his small church in the southern Swedish village of Borgholm. There, the 63-year-old clergyman delivered a sermon denouncing homosexuality as "a deep cancerous tumor in the entire society" and condemning Sweden's plan to allow gays to form legally recognized partnerships.

And for that, Ake Green faces jail.

Religion of Peace Update

"Those who reside in the land of unbelief out of their own choice and desire to be with the people of that land, accepting the way they are regarding their faith, or giving compliments to them, or pleasing them by pointing out something wrong with the Muslims, they become unbelievers and enemies to Allah and his messenger."

"If you do not repent, you are an apostate and you should be killed because you have denied the Koran."

This bit of hateful filth is being distributed in mosques here in the United States by our "allies" the Saudis.

Saudi government literature collected during the past year from American mosques also tells Muslims living in the United States to "behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines," says an 89-page report released by the Human Rights Group Freedom House.

Is it any wonder that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis?

Where Would The World Be If America Didn't Make Men Like This?

And we're going to have to make another one.

"The soldiers had multiple tasks on this day. In addition to hunting insurgents and searching houses, they were to help get out the vote for Sunday's national elections. For the next three hours, soldiers armed with assault rifles and election fliers moved warily through al-Whada's muddy streets, trying to get Iraqis to embrace democracy.

The inherent danger of the mission was driven home at 3:30 p.m. A single shot rang out, and 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe, 27, the popular leader of the 2nd Platoon, C Company, 3rd Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment, fell dead in the street.

"Treat him! Treat him!" screamed Staff Sgt. Steve Siglock, one of his closest friends. The shot that killed Hoe on Saturday was followed within seconds by a blizzard of gunfire aimed at his exposed platoon. It was already too late for Hoe, but his men stepped directly into the gunfire in a desperate attempt to save him while fending off the unseen insurgents."

Lift up a prayer for Hoe and his family. And pray that America continues to produce men like Hoe. Certainly, no other country can.

Charlie Daniels Is Not Going To Bare His Breast?

This year, the NFL is promising to keep it clean.

"The National Football League did not resort to the bland stylings of Up With People to restore the tarnished brand of the Super Bowl, but the league is putting on a show that plays it much safer.
Pop great Paul McCartney is the star of the halftime show; and John Fogerty; the Charlie Daniels Band; Earth, Wind and Fire; and Alicia Keys are among the pre-game entertainers."

Gravity = mass1*mass2/distance(squared)

Ted Kennedy has a lot of mass. If Harry Reid permits himself to be drawn into orbit around that mass, the result will be that he'll disappear into the same black hole that swallowed his predecessor.

"Mr. Reid is getting lots of advice from his peers, notably Ted Kennedy. The old liberal chieftain has been giving speeches trying to rally his party's remnants for one more attempt at total, unrelenting opposition to President Bush. For the flavor of his counsel, we suggest readers look at Teddy's January 12 speech to the National Press Club.

His message is that the recent election essentially meant nothing. "We as Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans," declared the man who has four fewer Democratic Senate colleagues than he did before November 2."

Even Hillary Clinton has learned to distance herself from her party's left wing.

Let The Slaughter Begin

Ted Kennedy sobered up long enough yesterday to demand that President Bush withdraw all troops from Iraq.

Just three days before the Iraqi people go to the polls to elect a new government, the Massachusetts Democrat said America must give Iraq back to its people rather than continue an occupation that parallels the failed politics of the Vietnam war.

Of course, Kennedy probably thinks that the war on terror is over now that Illinois elected Osama bin Laden to the senate.

Better They Spend Time On This

Virginia now has an official state bat.

"A flying mammal with freakishly large ears is looking for its place in the sun. The endangered Virginia big-eared bat — Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus — would become the official state bat under a measure that received preliminary approval Monday by a House of Delegates committee."

It's a better use of the legislature's time than raising taxes or controlling guns.

It Didn't Work For Pope Leo Either

Dan Rather was only an appetizer. It's time for the internet to topple some real tyrants.

"Increased access to information through the Internet, which is just one of the many fruits of China's development, is producing a predicament for China's leadership.

China's pragmatic leaders undoubtedly saw allowing widespread access to the Internet as necessary for growth, but hoped to rein in its power by using firewalls to block "unsavory" information. But the Internet has only endowed citizens with a heightened awareness of the amount of information that is being blocked."

Just as Guttenburg's printing press toppled Catholic tyranny 500 years ago, the internet will topple communism in China. Information is power.

Is There A Mystery Voter Living In Your House

Stephan Sharkansky is building an online database of registered Washington voters. This should help us start rooting out Democratic vote fraud (really, is there any other kind?).
One person who checked discovered that a complete stranger was supposed living unnoticed in his house.

"One reader discovered by using the database that a complete stranger is registered at his house. The stranger's name does not even match the name of the couple who previously owned the house and lived there from 1990 to 2002."

And, if you think it was funny that Mary Poppins was registered to vote in Ohio, just remember, "Lovejuice" is a registered King County, Washington voter.

How much would you be willing to bet that old Lovejuice is a registered Democrat? I do know that Chelsea Lovejuice voted absentee, a favorite device for fraudulent voters everywhere.

Kill The Terrorists Where They Live

One of John Kerry's sillier complaints in the last election is that President Bush has not establish air tight security within our own borders.

Here's another reason why it's simply impracticable.

Rand, a nonprofit research firm, studied military-based antimissile technology and concluded that adapting it for commercial airlines would be prohibitively expensive and that the equipment would be too difficult to maintain. The study said there were many unresolved questions about how the technology would operate on commercial airlines, noting that false alarms could be a problem and that terrorists might find ways to fool the systems. The report urged further study of the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles -- known as man-portable air defense systems (Manpads) -- and the systems to defend against attacks.

This is why we need to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to kill the terrorists in their nests.

Another Reason To Keep Your Car

When an environmentalist wacko tells you that we should all junk our cars and rely upon mass transit, remember this.

A fire in a signal room the size of a small studio apartment has crippled the world's longest subway line, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will endure a painfully slow commute for six months.

Sunday's fire, which fire marshals declared was intentionally set, knocked out all service on one Eighth Avenue line -- the C train. It forced the legendary A train (subject of jazzman Billy Strayhorn's "Take the A Train" song) to cut service by more than two-thirds.

The C line carries 110,000 daily riders and the A line shoulders another 470,000 -- together the lines haul about the equivalent of the population of the District (of Columbia) every single day.

Extreme Makeover

Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency has officially begun. Appreciating the extreme leftist views that she has held her entire adult life, Hillary has swung her rhetoric to the right, painting herself as a moderate, even conservative Democrat.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is staking out centrist positions on values issues that helped decide last year's presidential election, positioning herself to the right of her party's base on abortion, faith-based initiatives and immigration.
In the past few weeks, the New York Democrat has embraced the role of religion in addressing social ills, decried abortion as "sad, even tragic" and complained about the influx of illegal aliens -- all stances that run counter to liberal party leaders, but which are popular among voters.

More Than Red And Blue

There is a fundamental difference between the two political parties. It's more than who wants to raise taxes and ban guns. There's something in the very fiber of each that distinguishes them. Can anybody recall Republicans engaging in vote fraud, for example?

Another difference is one of dignity and decorum. Democrats simply do not respect such things, as revealed by the very different responses to nearly identical "scandals."

More Than Red And Blue

There is a fundamental difference between the two political parties. It's more than who wants to raise taxes and ban guns. There's something in the very fiber of each that distinguishes them. Can anybody recall Republicans engaging in vote fraud, for example?

Another difference is one of dignity and decorum. Democrats simply do not respect such things, as revealed by the very different responses to nearly identical "scandals."

Who Needs Science When We Have Intimidation?

Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, has been backtracking and apologizing at full speed for saying what most sensible people know is probably true, that men's and women's brains are wired a little differently.

"[M]ore males than females tend to score in the very top range of maths aptitude tests. Mr Summers also touched on the proposition that there might be a genetic difference between men and women when it came to performance in hard sciences."

As you would expect, the radical feminist community exercised its "nuclear option" and won the argument not with facts, but with bullying - as the Left usually wins.

But now, even Martha Burke's New York Times is seriously considering the possiblity that Summers might be right.

"Researchers who have explored the subject of sex differences from every conceivable angle and organ say that yes, there are a host of discrepancies between men and women - in their average scores on tests of quantitative skills, in their attitudes toward math and science, in the architecture of their brains, in the way they metabolize medications, including those that affect the brain.

Yet despite the desire for tidy and definitive answers to complex questions, researchers warn that the mere finding of a difference in form does not mean a difference in function or output inevitably follows.

"We can't get anywhere denying that there are neurological and hormonal differences between males and females, because there clearly are," said Virginia Valian, a psychology professor at Hunter College who wrote the 1998 book "Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women." "The trouble we have as scientists is in assessing their significance to real-life performance."

Push The Button

Bill Frist is about to deploy the "nuclear option."

"Democrats call the "nuclear option" to make it sound radical. If the Democrats filibuster again, Mr. Frist would ask for a ruling from the presiding officer that under Senate Rule XXII only a simple majority vote is required to end debate on judicial nominations. Assuming 51 Senators concur, the Senate would then proceed to an up-or-down floor vote on the nominee."

It would seem to me that the Democrats' abuse of the fillibuster on judicial nominees was the first shot in this war.

The Goreification Of The UN

A leading hurricane scientist quit the United Nations Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because the panel had already drawn conclusions based upon politics rather than science.

In a letter he posted on the Internet, Landsea said there was little evidence to justify Kevin Trenberth's assertion in October that in light of current warming trends, "the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."

"It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming," he wrote. "My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy."

Terrorist Haven In Our Own Backyard

Victor Hugo Chavez, the radical presidente of Venezuela was sheltering Columbian terrorists, but Columbia snatched one of the murderers right out from under his nose, and Chavez is pissed.

The incident is deeply embarrassing to Mr. Chavez. The Venezuelan president has been shown to have weak control over his security apparatus, and there is suspicion that some Venezuela officials harbored Mr. Granda. If that doesn't indeed represent an infringement on Colombia's sovereign right to security, it is hard to imagine what does.
Mr. Uribe has responded to Mr. Chavez's accusations by claiming he will deliver to his government the names and addresses of guerrilla members living openly and comfortably in Venezuela. Colombia has long had concerns about the FARC finding refuge in Venezuela. According to a report in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, Colombia has already sent a list of seven guerrillas and their location to Venezuelan authorities. What is known is that Mr. Granda had a Venezuelan ID card, had participated in a high-profile political event the day he was apprehended, has voted in Venezuela and lived with his family in a house with a swimming pool in an exclusive neighborhood.

After we deal with Iran, North Korea and Syria, we might need to do a little weeding in our own backyard.

Please! Somebody Pay Attention To Me!

Poor John Kerry. Discarded by his party like yesterday's Howard Dean, and trying to regain some relevance.

"John Kerry's returned to the Senate to be a voice for the 57 million Americans who voted for a new direction on November 2nd," David Wade said. "Anyone who knows John Kerry understands he's a fighter, and he's fighting with all his energy for the issues that have been his passion for decades, and he won't allow anyone in Washington to retreat from the promise of health care or a foreign policy that makes America safe. I don't envy the Tom DeLay Republicans who stand in his way."

But, of course, the vast right wing conspiracy is still trying to humiliate him.

The Massachusetts senator's prominent perch at the inauguration Thursday, just to the left of President Bush, underscores the difficulty of returning in the glare of Republican domination of Washington.
"It was very awkward," a Democratic aide said of the seat Mr. Kerry was assigned at the front edge of the inaugural balcony. "They wanted to embarrass him."
Mr. Kerry privately expressed discomfort about the location of his seat. He speculated that Republicans wanted to position him so television cameras could easily capture his reaction to Mr. Bush's speech.

Stem Cell Promise

Gee. I guess John Edwards was wrong. I am on my way to walking again, with the help of stem cell research. This miracle is coming about even though John Kerry lost the presidential election.
Even as I type this, little stem cells in my knee are rearranging their metabolism so that they will create cartilage to replace that lost in my severely damaged joint. And the best part is that no unborn babies had to be killed to create this new tissue. I was the source of my own stem cells.
Aside from the war on terror, there is probably no issue in recent years that has inspired more ill informed demagoguery than federal stem cell research funding. Christopher Reeve (spinal paralysis) and Michael J. Fox (Parkinson’s Disease) have all but blamed their conditions on Republican recalcitrance on federal funding for fetal stem cell research. Even though many Democrats delighted in his passing, many tried to pin Ronald Reagan’s death on George W. Bush. Opposition to fetal stem cell research has been framed as an indicator of narrow-minded religious fundamentalism. According to elite opinion, those who oppose such research are troglodytes who heartlessly force the disabled to spend their lives in wheelchairs because God tells them that protecting insignificant little embryos is a moral obligation.
Well, there is a moral issue there. But even for the most cynically pragmatic among us, there are good reasons not to throw money down the embryonic stem cell rat hole. My healing knee proves it. Adult stem cell research, such as that I am now profiting from, shows far more promise and has already benefited uncountable thousands of people.
Even as my knee heals, others are having their hearts rebuilt by stem cells harvested from their own bodies. Recently, a human skull was reconstructed using the injured patients own stem cells. A new jaw was similarly rebuilt.
Curiously, the most cooperative stem cells reside in a tissue that Americans possess in great abundance, adipose tissue. That big tire around our middles and those saddlebags on our hips are reservoirs of stem cells that seem capable of converting themselves into just about any other kind of cell.
It’s too late for Christopher Reeve, but if others confined to wheelchairs by spinal chord injuries stand and walk someday, the damage will probably have been repaired using cells taken from the patient’s own flabby rear end. If a cure for Michael J. Fox’s illness is discovered, it will probably not require the sacrifice of a single unborn baby.
It’s the easiest thing the world to make grand promises based upon fanciful imaginings, particularly when you can provide a script to a few Hollywood celebrities who are practiced at pretending to speak authoritatively.
The zealotry of stem cell research advocates derives from at least two sources. One is the scientists themselves who hope to fuel their careers with federal grant money. The other source is the political cynics who see fetal stem cells as tar to spread over their opposition.
Extramural funding is the mother’s milk of tenure and promotion at research universities. A change in US government policy would make tenure more likely for newly hired assistant professors with expertise in that discipline. Associate professors would see the doors of full professorship opened to them. And the prospect of billions of federal dollars would have research universities bidding up the salaries of full professors.
It’s really no different than when physicists promised “cold fusion” or super-efficient ceramic automobile engines. Perhaps I could get a promotion at WSU if I could convince a good looking, bubble headed actress to promote research into the potential of cheese as a cure for toe nail fungus.
And nobody who reads this page needs to have political opportunism explained. If demagoguery could be burned, we’d never have to import another drop of oil from the Middle East. And Al Gore would actually be good for something.
Elect John Kerry and the disabled will rise from their wheelchairs and walk, little John Edwards promised last fall. It was an empty, cynical vow that lacked foundation in science or morality. The promise was ignorant and cruel, and should not be forgotten.
Adult stem cell research is already fulfullling stem cell promises. And just to prove it, I plan to throw down my crutches and complete another Ironman race.

After Arafat, Peace

It's remarkable how everyone's hopes for peace in the Middle East were buoyed by the deathe of Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasir Arafat. I mean, the Nobel Committee couldn't have been wrong about the guy, right?
But now that the little shit is six feet under, it seems that we're seeing a sincere effort to make peace.

"A local group of Palestinian militants announced Saturday it is ready to stop violence, a sign that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas appears to be making some progress in persuading armed factions to halt attacks on Israel.

The announcement by gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a group with ties to Abbas’ ruling Fatah movement, came a day after some 3,000 Palestinian policemen were deployed in the northern Gaza Strip to halt rocket fire on Israeli communities."

Once again, I'm so glad that Arafat is dead. I just hope that the terrorist he nurtured during his dictatorship don't kill Abbas.

Earth First!

Then we'll get our petroleum from Titan.

Take Your Relief And Shove It

Suddenly, international relief organizations are concerned that the US military will be leaving Asia too soon. It seems that all these UN Europussies aren't up to the task and they're afraid of the big meanies that dwell there.

The U.S. announced on Thursday that American forces would begin immediately transferring responsibility for relief operations to the "appropriate host nations and international organizations."

But some aid groups expressed concern that the move came too quickly, as tens of thousands of survivors from the Dec. 26 tsunami that struck a dozen nations were still in need of food aid and shelter.

Too Much God?

Peggy Noonan, of all people, did not like President Bush's inaugural speech.

The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly. "The Author of Liberty." "God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind . . . the longing of the soul."

And, she thinks that the president's stated goal of ending tyranny in the world was too grandiose. I think Peggy Noonan needs to study recent history more closely. In just the last quarter century, billions have been liberated from tyranny. In our hemisphere alone, every nation but one enjoys democracy. None of this would have been achieved if presidents thought small and acted humbly.

Powerline Blows The Whistle On ABC

ABC actively sought out a military funeral to contrast with the celebration of President Bush's inaugural.

Unbiased my ass.

Spanish Inquisition Revisited

Well, I spent the first day after my knee surgery attached to a torture instrument called a "CPM," which stands for continuous passive motion machine. This device flexes and straightens my knee, with each cycle of about a minute.

I did six hours in this thing - that's six hours.

Euroextortionists

While the United Nations singled out the most generous nation on Earth, the United States for criticism regarding its reaction to the tsunami, Europe has been caught trying to force Thailand to buy Airbus's new behemothian passenger plane, the A-380.

Isn't that extortion? No wonder Boeing has been losing market share. To my knowlege, the United States government does no engage in such strong arm tactics.

Don't you just love those generous Frenchmen?

Speaking Truth To Power

Only ideologues and nitwits believe that there are no innate differences between the sexes. It's therefore no surprise that these descriptions apply to such a large proportion of the Harvard faculty.

"Members of a Harvard faculty committee that has examined the recruiting of professors who are women sent a protest letter yesterday to Lawrence H. Summers, the university's president, saying his recent statements about innate differences between the sexes would only make it harder to attract top candidates.

The committee told Mr. Summers that his remarks did not "serve our institution well."

"Indeed," the letter said, "they serve to reinforce an institutional culture at Harvard that erects numerous barriers to improving the representation of women on the faculty, and to impede our current efforts to recruit top women scholars. They also send at best mixed signals to our high-achieving women students in Harvard College and in the graduate and professional schools."

Liberal pat themeselves on the back for "speaking truth to power." Only in this case, it was Lawrence Summers speaking the truth and it is the left that is wielding the power.

Ouch!

In my spare time, I am an Ironman triatlete. But, I have done almost nothing strenuous since June 27, 2004. On that day, I finished the Ironman Coeur d' Alene after a reasonably comfortable race. But that evening, I could not climb stairs to my bedroom.

My knee was shot.

It had been giving warning signs for months, but I chose to ignore them until after the Ironman race. I knew that the doctor would tell me not to race and I didn't want to hear that. And, since I was pain-free during the race, I figured that the problem was minor anyway and would respond to a little rest.

I was wrong. I had completely worn through my cartilage and bone was rubbing on bone. When I finally went to the doctor, he informed me that, untreated, I was about 3 years away from knee replacement surgery. The procedure involves punching little holes (microfractres) in the end of my femur so that blood and marrow leak into the space between the femur and the patella and form a big blood clot. This blood clot forms a matrix upon which chondrocytes (which form from marrow stem cells) will make fresh cartilage.

Before going into the surgery, my orthopedic predicted that I had an 80% chance of a full recovery and a return to Ironman training. But once he got into the knee, he found the damage was more extensive than it had appeared on the MRI and my chances are only about 70% now.

Well, that's better than 0%, which was what I was looking at before the surgery.

Well, yesterday, I had microfracture knee surgery, a procedure pioneered by Dr. Richard Steadman.

The procedure is exquisitely painful and I've been pretty well drugged up since coming out of anaethesia (I really don't see what Rush Limbaugh saw in this stuff). But, hopefully, I can return to full workouts beginning July 18.

Keep me in your prayers or at least wish me luck.

Let's Pray Dubya's Luck Is Better

Michael Barone predicts that President Bush's inaugural speech tomorrow will sound a lot like Woodrow Wilson's in 1916.

John Kerry And Foreign Leaders - Again

Once again, John Kerry has been in secret consultations with European leaders.

"Throughout Europe, as I met with European leaders, it's clear that they're prepared to do more, but the [Bush] administration has not put the structure together for people to be able to do it," he said.

Kerry declined to specify which leaders expressed a desire to help more with Iraq, or how. He met separately last week with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Both leaders have been critical of the U.S.-led invasion.

Another reason for us to be thankful that Bush won the election - John Kerry is a very slow learner.

If Momma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

The Rathergate memos were fake, even if CBS can't bring itself to admit the obvious. But, one analyst doesn't need to consider proportional spacing, superscripts or fonts to prove the documents phoniness. He notes that the memo orders Bush to report for duty on Mother's Day.
The National Guard doesn't mess with mom. The base he was supposedly ordered to report to was closed.

Don't Worry, We're From The Government

You too can earn a six figure income working for the federal government. All you need is a PhD. from a diploma mill.

The Dead Vote

Christine Gregoire stole the Washington governor's office in part on the strength of the dead vote.

But, it's not just in Washington where the dead vote. The dead also vote in Romania. No, really!

Go Howard, Go!

At a time when most Americans want more conciliation between the parties, and specifically want the Democrats to yield, the Democrats are on the verge of electing Howard Dean as their party chairman.
Yeeeeaaaagggghhhhhhhh!

Of course, it will be very difficult to heal divisions as long as Democrats keep saying things like this.

Count Every Vote?

Washington Democrats claimed that they wanted to count every vote in the gubernatorial election. But they did all they could to deny the vote to soldiers serving overseas.

Does Cold Weather Make Honkies Horny?

Researchers claim to have discovered a genetic inversion in Europeans that make them amorous - and, it is stimulated by "European environment."

And as an added bonus, the genetic anomoly helps Europeans live longer.

Men And Women Are Different ?!?!

Who'd of thunk it? A lot of feminists can't even imagine the possiblitiy.

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.

Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers' talk, saying later that if she hadn't left, ''I would've either blacked out or thrown up."

One thing about acacemia is that you can create your own reality and live in it - and have someone else to pay your rent.

Our Next President

Even the Washington Post likes Condoleeza Rice.

The Destruction Of The President

Bringing down President Bush was described by disgraced CBS producer Mary Mapes as the "holy grail" of her profession.

Mapes' quest for the grail began in 1999, when she looked into allegations that Bush pere's political connections got Bush into the National Guard despite a waiting list. "Significantly," the report noted, "Mapes indicated in the April 1999 e-mail that she had been informed that there was no waiting list for President Bush's TexANG unit at the time he entered." Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges told her that the Guard was "hurting for pilots at that time."

No waiting list. No story.

But five years later, Mapes had rejoined the crusade. She contacted a Bush-hating blogger, who told her she believed that a retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett had a classified document damaging to Bush. Mapes began courting Burkett, apparently undeterred by that fact that he had a history of changing his story.


Gee, and I always I thought discovering and disseminating the truth was the holy grail of journalism.

Isn't This Good News?

Iraq is the new breeding ground for terrorists, replacing Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

Well, that seems like an improvement to me. Isn't it better to have the terrorists in a place where we have the resources to kill them? I mean, isn't it better to spray fever swamps rather than let the malarial mosquitos breed undisturbed?

Barbarians At The Gate

Colleges and Universities are under siege, from conservatives.

"The number of College Republicans has almost tripled, from 400 or so campus chapters six years ago, to 1,148 today, with 120,000-plus members (compared with the College Democrats' 900 or so chapters and 100,000 members). College Republicans are thriving even on elite campuses. "We've doubled in size over the last few years, to more than 400 students," reports Evan Baehr, the square-jawed future pol heading the Princeton chapter. The number of College Republicans at Penn has also rocketed upward, says chapter president Stephanie Steward, from 25 or so members a couple of years ago to 700 today. Same story at Harvard. These young Republican activists, trudging into battleground states this fall in get-out-the-vote efforts, helped George W. Bush win."

Abolish The Secret Ballot

Republicans are wasting their breath if they believe that they can shame Democrats into yielding a stolen election. Democrats expended an awful lot of public trust to take the governor’s office, and confessing their sins will not restore the public’s faith in them. If they’re going to pay the price anyway, why return stolen property?

And it would be better if the courts did not step into these affairs, except in the most egregious circumstances. Irregularities abound, all in Gregoire’s favor, but they cannot be quantified to prove Dino Rossi the true winner.

But perhaps Republicans can shame, or otherwise embarrass Democrats into supporting electoral reforms that will prevent similar shenanigans.

Dead and imaginary voters turned out in record numbers in 2004. The number changes almost daily, but Democrat leaning counties, King County in particular, counted more ballots than there were voters who could have cast them. King County originally reported over 3500 more votes than voters. Efforts to make the numbers match have driven the disparity down to 1800 or so.

King County also counted at least 348 unverified provisional ballots. Those ballots could be fraudulent in any number of ways.

Additionally, Washington withheld ballots from the United States military personnel so that many were unable to return their ballots in time to have them counted.

Washington was the very last state in the union to mail out absentee ballots to military voters, and then only did so after the United States Department of Justice threatened the state with a lawsuit. King County finally mailed 3055 overseas military ballots on October 10, two days later than the deadline it agreed to with the DOJ to avoid the lawsuit. In any event, the ballots arrived too late to be returned in time to be counted, and a reliably Republican demographic was disenfranchised.

It’s hardly surprising that Washington would snub those who put their lives on the line for us. In 1991, Seattle did its best to deny returning Gulf War veterans a welcome home parade.

A number of so-called reforms in recent years have greatly facilitated electoral fraud. A few well-meaning stoneheads got it into their minds that our democracy is threatened by low voter turnout and instituted changes meant to facilitate participation by the lazy, the indifferent and the uninformed. Each and every one of these so-called reforms has enabled fraud. Electoral slight of hand is a far greater threat to democracy than low voter turnout.

Most cases of electoral fraud could be prevented with one simple reform. Get rid of the secret ballot. There were literally thousands of tainted votes cast in the last election. And, with no way to trace anonymous ballots, the effects of these irregularities cannot be quantified. Votes cast by the no longer breathing are indistinguishable from those cast by the living. If we could trace those ballots, we could deduct them from the count. If we could specifically identify King County’s 1800 imaginary votes, we could chuck them into the recycle bin too.

King County also counted at least 348 unverified “provisional” ballots. Those could have been cast by unregistered voters, or illegal aliens. Because we insist upon casting secret ballots, we’ll never know.

Fully 70% of King County precinct 1823 registered voters listed 500 Fourth Avenue as their home address. Nearly all of those voters were registered within the last year. Fraud? There’s a simple way to find out. Match the ballots to the voter.

Scores of convicted felons got to vote. Who did they vote for? Democrats generally own the convict vote. But with secret ballots, we can’t be sure.

Republican could achieve this by doing what the Democrats could not after the 2000 presidential election. Hold Democrats accountable for stealing the election. Paint them as the party of electoral fraud. The Democrats failed to tar Republicans after the 2000 Florida fiasco because it was clear that it was the Democrats who were fiddling with a close, flawed, but honest election. That’s not the case here. Most voters agree that Gregoire’s election was illegitimate. Make Democrats prove their commitment to democracy, by forcing them to surrender their tools of deceit. Even if they don’t feel genuine shame, they’ll yield to pragmatism.

And it would be a nice gesture to those who are fighting for democracy if Washington would permit them to participate.

Failing Upward

Do not mourn for those sacrificed in honor of Dan Rather. Ann Coulter predicts a bright future for them.

"If CNN doesn't hire them, Dan Rather and his producers can always get a job teaching at the Columbia School of Journalism. The Columbia Journalism Review recently defended the CBS report on George Bush using forged National Guard documents with the Tawana Brawley excuse: The documents might be "fake but accurate."

They Law Ain't Exactly What Our Ex-Attorney General Says It Is

Actual Washington state law meant little to Christine Gregoire when she was the state's top law enforcement official. So, it should come as no surprise that she's wrong when she says that her election cannot be overturned by the courts.
Interestingly, from a legal standpoint, Chritine Gregoire's inauguration, "This doesn’t matter a whit, according to the law. Don’t let anyone tell you different."

In summary, click here.

Hat tip, "The Shark."

Betting On A Better Future

Listen up Andrew! There's a large classification of people who don't believe that the Middle East is sinking down a hell hole. They're people who put their money where their mouth is - investors.

The Shark Circles

Much of what has been learned about electoral irregularities in Washington state was discovered, not by the mainstream press, but by a blogger.

Should the mainstream press be worried that their reporters are so far behind the stories? They should.

If It Quacks Like A Duck, Then It Must Be A Dove

CBS's finding that it's news division is non-partisan provoked a storm of snorts from most observers.

Jay Bryant wonders why it is that Republicans are so hesitant to find the obvious when the consequences carry potential hazards.

"Dick Thornburgh thereby joins the growing fraternity of establishment Republican report writers who have proven themselves unwilling to rake any real muck, call a spade a spade, a liberal a liberal or a bucket of hogwash a bucket of hogwash.

Other notables in this group include Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission and John Danforth, author of the official report on the Branch Dravidian disaster. Frankly, Ken Starr belongs in the wimp club, too, and I don't care what it says in Bill Clinton's library."

Cheaters Never Prosper

The Wall Street Journal remarks the obvious - that Christine Gregoire stole the Washington gubernatorial election through vote fraud. The Journal also opines that, it will be in the best interest of democracy if, for now, she gets to keep her stolen prize.

"Consider, first, the problem of moral hazard. There are dozens of extremely close elections in the U.S. at every level of government, elections in which--like this one--the "real" outcome can never be known. What should determine which of these merits a revote? The judgment of a court? An opinion poll? Either of these is a recipe not for more perfect democracy, but for the destruction of democracy."

I agree. Most Washingtonians, including a considerable portion of Gregoire voters, believe that Dino Rossi is the legitimate winner of the vote. Use that belief to make Democrats pay for their subversion of democracy. The next legislative election is just two years away.

The Final Word

Of course, reaction CBS's memogate scandal could never be complete until Scrappleface weighs in.

Example: Veteran CBS News anchor Dan Rather greeted today's release of the 224-page report on the 60 Minutes 'memogate' scandal by saying, "Our long national nightmare is over. Now is the time, in fact, it is past time to move on."

The report showed that Mr. Rather, and at least four colleagues, suffered from a condition called 'myopic zeal,' which is apparently terminal in four-out-of-five cases.

"Usually, the buck stops here," said Mr. Rather. "But in this case, the buck stopped over there. So, now I return to the seat of trust, behind the desk of integrity at CBS."

Scrappleface offers CBS a solution, turn CBS News into a "reality gameshow."

CBS Evening News with Dan Rather will be re-launched on March 10 as Myopic Zeal: The CBS Evening News Gameshow.

CBS News Gone Within Five Years?

"We have no juice," the staff member said. "We're a dying business, and this didn't help us. Some people feel like CBS News could be out of business in five years."

That's the evaluation of one CBS News employee in the wake of the memogate fiasco.

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

The King County election board has been caught in yet another lie. King County was very, very late in sending out its overseas military ballots. In fact, they were the last in the entire nation to send out ballots. So late, that the US Department of Justice threatened to sue King County. King County negotiated with DOJ and promised to have the ballots in the mail by October 8. They didn't. The ballots were mailed out on October 10.

"Yesterday was the second time in two days that King County elections officials corrected a factual error. They changed the county's election Web site Sunday to correct the date when absentee ballots were sent to 3,055 military and overseas voters. The county initially reported the ballots were mailed Oct. 10, two days after a deadline negotiated with the federal government.

The online fact sheet now says ballots were mailed Oct. 7."

The Seattle Times story neglects to identify the person who caught King County in the lie. Of course, it was a blogger, and not a reporter.

Sacrificed On The Alter Of Dan

Okay, four bigwigs go down at CBS for the memogate fiasco, but CBS absolves itself of partisanship and lets the biggest wig of all swim away with his "reputation" intact.

Snubbing Those Who Bleed

Way back 1991, cities around the nation were giving parades to soldiers returning from the first Gulf War. A notable exception was Seattle, which resisted honoring the evil military.
Finally, the city relented, but with restrictions, and a very insipid parade ensued.
Seattle still has no use for the military, particularly military voters.

"Less than a month before the November election, the U.S. Department of Justice threatened to sue Washington state because it was moving too slowly in mailing military ballots overseas.

At that point Washington was the only state that hadn't mailed its overseas ballots."

What Global Warming?

Doesn't this data contradict everything the Algore wing of the environmentalist wacko movement have been claiming?

Stolen Fair and Square

John Fund has a must-read piece in today's Wall Street Journal about the stolen election in Washington State.

"The new media--talk radio, bloggers and independent watchdog groups--have followed up their success in exposing Dan Rather's use of phony memos by showcasing another scandal: Washington state's bizarre race for governor, which features a vote count so close and compromised it allows Florida to retire the crown for electoral incompetence. "

The 2004 Kozmo Awards

My goodness! Has there ever been a more challenging year for the Kozmo judges? The Kozmos, you will recall, recognize the dumbest, weirdest, most pompous and altogether most ridiculous pontifications and deeds of those who imagine themselves worthy of telling us what to think and how to live.
We all knew that 2004 would shape up as a lively year when the tin foil beanie wing of the Democratic Party seized total control and jerked the Democrats into the Middle Earth of make believe.
The year started with Howard Dean, then the Democratic frontrunner for the presidential nomination (yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhh!!!!!!!!!), hinting darkly that the Bush Administration may have had a hand in, or at the very least, prior knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Soon thereafter, every Democrat of consequence genuflected before Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11. Not since “Triumph of the Will,” has a movie so defined a political party. Shortly thereafter, Moore compared Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his band of merry beheaders to the Minutemen of the American Revolution. Further, Moore predicted they would triumph.
For all this, Michael Moore was awarded a seat in the VIP section at the Democratic National Convention, where he parked his prodigious posterior next to former president Jimmy Carter.
My gosh! When one realizes that an entire political party has lost its mind and there are only so many Kozmos to award, what’s one to do? Well, for one thing, one stops wasting precious column space. And, away we go with the 2004 Kozmo awards.
The Excellence in Jurnalizm Kozmo goes to the recently fired (oops, I mean voluntarily retired) CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather. The ever-vigilant-and-unbiased Rather broke a story proving that ,as a young lieutenant in the Air National Guard, President George Bush was derelict in his duty, and received special treatment due to family connections.
And to get the maximum mileage out of this “story,” Dan Rather’s producer coordinated with the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party, which cooperated by producing a campaign commercial for release after the “story” aired.
The story fell to pieces when it was proven that the documents Rather used to buttress his story were obviously composed using Microsoft Word®, which was not even a gleam in Bill Gates’ eye in the early 1970’s.
Perhaps Dan should have gotten the Exploding Cigar Kozmo.
Instead, that prize had to be shared by two even more deserving recipients. One half goes to the United Kingdom’s newspaper, “The Guardian.” A hero of the Left, former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi got what he wished for in 2004, a retirement package in the form of a hellfire missile fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter.
"We will all die one day," he philosophized just weeks before receiving his own gold watch. "Nothing will change. If by Apache or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache."
In his obituary, the Guardian described Rantissi, a pediatrician, as a "man who loved the Palestinian children so much that he admitted openly that he was prepared to slaughter Israeli infants to guarantee the future of their Palestinian counterparts."
Such a compassionate man. I’m sure Francois Mitterand shed a tear at his passing.
Considering the Arafat precedent, I’m surprised Rantissi wasn’t nominated for a Nobel Prize.
And speaking of the Nobel Prize Committee, they earned the other half of the Exploding Cigar. One year removed from embarrassing itself by awarding a Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter (I’m still waiting for someone to name one square inch of the earth made more peaceful by his pontifications), and about a decade removed from the indignity of giving the award to Yasir Arafat, the committee saw fit to recognize the efforts of Wangari Maathai, for her role as administrator of a tree planting program meant to combat deforestation. But, she earned considerable notice earlier by blaming western scientists for AIDS.
Kenya’s East Africa Standard newspaper quoted her as saying, "Do not be naive. AIDS is not a curse from God to Africans or the black people. It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists, but we may not know who particularly did [it].
Nothing serves the cause of peace more than inflaming antiwestern passions, does it?

The Dr. Jack Kervokian Democracy Kozmo goes to the New York Times. According to the Times, the Spanish elections last year were “ a healthy exercise in democracy.”
An interesting perspective, considering that the outcome turned at the last moment on a terrorist attack that killed over two hundred Spaniards. The bombing was blamed on Muslim terrorists who openly declared their intention to drive Spain out of Iraq – a goal they achieved when enough Spaniards were frightened into voting for the anti-war Socialists.
Fortunately, our democracy is not yet as healthy as Spain’s.
The Mostly Honest Kozmo goes to the United Nations’ Oil-For-Food administrator Benon Sevan. When the scandal first broke, he casually admitted "that as much as 10 percent" of Iraq’s oil revenue had been, “ripped off.”
No big deal: "Even if 10 percent of the revenue was stolen, 90 percent got to the people it was intended for. Why does nobody report that?"
The Gratuitous “Vietnam Veteran” Reference Kozmo goes to John Kerry. Fearful that Americans might forget that he served in Vietnam, John Kerry managed to slip reminders into just about every speech early in his campaign.
Perhaps his most absurd reference occurred on a campaign swing through the Bayou State. While inspecting coastal erosion (a big issue last fall, as you surely recall) from the bow of a fishing boat, he remarked, "I looked out at the shoreline and I commented that parts of it looked a lot like the rivers and coastline that I went through in Vietnam," and that he had, spent a lot of time, "in a habitat that looked a little like this."
Of course, he’s spent a lot more time in habitat that looks like Beacon Hill, Massachusetts and Sun Valley, Idaho. But somehow, that never made it into a speech.
CBS news anchor Dan Rather is a double winner this year, taking home the Head-in-the-Sand Kozmo. After it had been proved to everyone else in the world that Rather had used forged documents in his “fortunate son” attack on President Bush, Rather declared his open-mindedness on the subject.
"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story. Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'" Earth to Dan. That story was broken. And you were the last one to understand it.
The New York Times wins itself a second Kozmo, with a Why Pay Attention To Us, We Don’t Kozmo. On consecutive days, the Times published quite contradictory statements. On the editorial page on October 7, the Times opined that: "Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, written by President Bush's handpicked investigator. . . . As the war continues to bog down, the power of nonviolent international sanctions looks more muscular every day."
In a news story on October 8, readers found this line: "The report suggests that Mr. Hussein was justified when, speaking at a gathering of leaders of the Iraqi armed forces in January 2000, he boasted that despite efforts by the United States and the United Nations to isolate Iraq, he would still be able to buy just about whatever he wanted."
Darn it! Somehow, the Times is going to have to find a way to force the facts to conform with its opinions.
Which, in fact, the Times made a rather respectable stab at during the Dan Rather-Memogate affair. The Times was clearly in sympathy with the thrust of Dan Rather’s fairy tale, but there was that problem with those forged documents. With John Kerry behind in the polls, this story seemed like the last best chance to beat Bush. But those darned memos were so obviously forged that only Dan Rather couldn’t figure it out.
So, the Times interviewed the secretary of Bush’s commanding officer and came up with this memorable headline, “Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate, Typist Says.”
My gosh! Does it get any better than that?

Now This Is Stingy

Arab oil states are floating in money. But, they can't seem to find any for their fellow muslims in Indonesia.

Saudi Arabia's ruling royal family, stung by criticism of the kingdom's relatively low aid commitments to tsunami-stricken nations, has ordered a telethon on state-controlled television today to raise money for the victims.
Phone numbers will be provided on-screen, in what looks like an effort to counter the impression that oil-rich Arab states throughout the Persian Gulf have been parsimonious about this tragedy, despite its terrible effects on the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia.

Of course, their imams have given them cover: "One factor holding back donations appears to be a widespread belief that vacationers were swept away as a form of divine retribution for their un-Islamic or immoral lifestyles. That argument was heard in televised Friday prayers across the Arab world.
"We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant," one cleric, Sheik Fawzan Al-Fawzan, was quoted as saying. "The fact that it happened at this particular time is a sign from Allah."

Considering the squalor that most Islamic nations exist in, they must have really pissed off Allah pretty badly to earn centuries of punishment.

When we give money, we are accused of either not giving enough, or if we do give enough, of trying to "buy" the goodwill of muslims.

Hug A Terrorists Today

Democrats want to make treatment of terrorists a political issue. We're not being nice enough to them.
Bring it on.

And, I'd like to hear the Democrats explain why an enemy who is not a signatory to the Geneva convention and does not follow its scrictures should be permitted its protections.

Scumbags

The election won't be overturned, but Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire's obviously fraudulent victory over Republican Dino Rossi has forced into the daylight the sleazy depths Democrats will sink to in order to win elections.
See here, here, here and here.

To summarize, Democratic leaning counties recorded 8,500 more ballot than there were voters to cast those ballots. Unverified provisional ballots were counted. During the first recount, King County officials were observed to be altering ballots. And only Democrats were permitted to essentially resubmit their rejected provisional ballots.

Peggy Noonan Has Advice For Democrats

Okay, it's old advice. But, Peggy Noonan is brilliant at making it more soothing.

Grow up. Lose the looney left. Engage policy debates intellectually and don't just be the party of "no." And choose a national chairman who won't embarass the party.

There's no danger that they'll do any this. Harry Reid has already started the childish act. Moveon.org claims to "own" the Democratic Party and nobody has spoken up to debate the point. Democrats have yet to exhibit a thought process other than reflexively saying no. And, Democrats want 4 more years of Terry McAwful.

Punish Your Rubber

Consumers Union has just published the results it condom tests.

"[R]esults showed that the top brand, able to take the most punishment, was the Durex Extra Sensitive Lubricated Latex, according to the report."

Other top-performers include the Durex Performax Lubricated, Lifestyles Classic Collection Ultra Sensitive Lubricated and TheyFit Lubricated."

But of particular interest was the worst rubber on the market.

"A melon-colored model distributed by Planned Parenthood performed the worst, bursting during a test in which the latex condoms were filled with air."

Four More Years

Considering how poorly the fortunes of the Democratic Party fared during his leadership, why would anybody want Terry McAwful back?

While a number of Democrats are campaigning to replace him, "Some Democrats continue to talk about trying to entice McAuliffe to extend his tenure, particularly if no current candidate catches fire."

Perhaps it's the prospect of having Howard Dean take over that has them scared.

Burn It Down

It's sad that an organization that was formed with the intention of making the world a better place has had just the opposite effect.

In fact, Jonah Goldberg summons the jury and the UN is found "odious."

Future Economic Powerhouse

Check your rear view mirror. Here comes Estonia.

Dead Enders

Some people just don't know when to give up.

One voter didn’t see any signs of fraud on Election Day but was suspicious of the results. Another was surprised by long lines in her suburban city, where voting was always quick in the past.

Yep, those are always good reason to overturn a presidential election.

Ducking The Question

Islamic countries tend to be awash in cash - especially since the price of oil surged in recent months. So, what are they doing to help?

Q: Mr. Secretary-General, two questions. How do you evaluate the Islamic world response to the disaster? My second question is, how much is the latest figure of children who are victims and have disappeared in the earthquake?

SG: I don't have the details of that. I will ask Jan if he has the details to answer your question.

Mr. Egeland: We see one third of the victims being children. This is going through the dead, the wounded and also those affected. Actually, it would be more than a third of those who are affected in general. But of the casualties, it is around one third.

And the Islamic world is coming really to the relief of the tsunami victims. What is in this list – I am just going through the latest list of recorded contributions – it is page after page after page of countries, some traditional and very many untraditional. It is Latin American countries. It is Arab countries. It is Eastern European countries. And it is, more than anything, also Asian countries, neighbours. Some of the things we also heard and the Secretary-General was hearing of this morning, from India and Malaysia, has not yet entered our lists even.

The UN is quick to call the US stingy. What about countries who have more money than they can possibly spend living their lives of luxury?
Ah, but there are all those suicide bombers to be underwritten.