The end of the year lists

Nobody ever asks who are the dumbest Americans. Unfortunately, most of them serve in the US Senate or the House.

My ten biggest dopes:

1. Barbara Boxer; others abide the question, she is free, in the words (cribbed from somewhere else) of the master P G Wodehouse.

2. Nancy Pelosi: she ran a good race, but Boxer outclassed her.

3. The despicable Carl Levin.

4. Arthur Sulzberger the Third or whatever number he is--apostle of political correctness.

5. Howell Raines, ditto. I hope he has found his true calling as a ditchdigger.

I'm tired now; I'll come up with the rest tomorrow. Nobody is going to read it, anyway.

It was a tough call...

The Nose on Your Face picks the person of the Year.

The irony of Spielberg's film, Munich

The following is the wording of the printed statement that Neville Chamberlain waved as he stepped off the plane on 30 September, 1938 after the Munich Conference had ended the day before: "We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for our two countries and for Europe.
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe." Chamberlain read the above statement in front of 10 Downing St. and said:

"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time...
Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."

And the British slept for another year; then found themselves fighting the re-armed Nazis all alone.

Tht's what Munich means to me.

Nothing new in New Jersey, move along

From a central NJ newspaper:

TRENTON — Departing Attorney General Peter Harvey is mailing law firms and others throughout the state a glossy 56-page report touting his accomplishments.

The first page of the 2003-2004 annual report bears Harvey's picture and greeting, as well as photographs of him in publications talking about how he turned heads in Trenton, demanded respect and was among America's top black lawyers.

The Department of Law and Public Safety, which Harvey heads, paid GraphiColor Corp. of Vineland $7,460 to print 4,000 copies. To date, the state has spent $6,500 in postage to mail 2,700 copies, or $2.44 per report....

Over the past few weeks, crates of the annual reports have been leaving
the Justice Complex in Trenton for dozens of law firms and the Atlantic City casinos, sources said.

The annual report contains six pictures of Harvey — five of them on the first five pages — including three on the opening page....

The annual report is full of newspaper clippings about fighting corruption, prosecuting fraud and protecting consumers.

The report contains none of the voluminous stories written during Harvey's tenure about the questions raised over cases that were not prosecuted or about the fine he paid for giving his wife and friends ringside passes to boxing matches in Atlantic City.

The State Athletic Control Board, informally known as the boxing commission, which Harvey placed directly under his jurisdiction and where he got into trouble over the ringside tickets, is relegated to a brief section on the last page of the report.

Also on the last page, with only one paragraph, is the Executive Commission on Ethical Standards, the ethics agency which fined Harvey $1,500 for the ringside violations. Harvey was the first attorney general ever sanctioned by the commission.

Hat tip to Newjerseyblog.

Learning the hard way

When I graduated from college, I was virtually unemployable, having been an English major, something the business world had never heard of, apparently. At last I got a job at a newspaper as a Junior Nobody. I was So low on the totem pole that I got to go to the local deli to get breakfast for everyone.

We started work at 6 a.m.--it was a morning paper-- and at 9:30 the bulldog edition was finished so people could relax. It was then that the staff gave me their breakfast orders. They were also supposed to give me the money to pay for them. Most of them did.

But there were two or three people who said, "I'll pay you later." Later never came. About the fifth time this happened, I was standing in the newsroom counting my money, and I realized I was paying for these guys' breakfast myself, and that I had no money left.

After that, I demanded cash on the barrelhead. Or no breakfast.

Ten worst Americans?

From All Things Beautiful, a challenge:

As a post Christmas/Hannukah Challenge, I invite the Blogosphere to name 'The Ten Worst Americans' in the last, well it will have to be 230 odd years! Considering most on the Brit list are Aristocrats (including Jack The Ripper, believed to be somehow linked to The Prince of Wales), we may have our job cut out for us.

My ten worst Americans:

Benedict Arnold; Aaron Burr; and Jimmy Carter times seven.

The difference between the English Christmas and ours

according to the reflections of Mark Steyn.

I spent one Christmas in London and it was the most boring day in my life. No restaurants open, no plays, no way to get to them if you wanted to, because no transportation was running. No taxis, no buses, no underground. The movies were closed!

How do the English while away the long, dreary day? They don't, as a rule, attend church. Do they eat a large meal in the middle of the day and then sit around burping? Do they talk to their families incessantly for twelve hours? Do they get drunk?

How do they get through the day without going to the movies?

The only gadget that

Instapundit doesn't own. Could it be true?

Query letter

Nice Jewish boy apologizes:

Being an Israeli (American) writer & director (and thus, a Jew), let me first apologize up front for belonging to a media-strong ethnic minority. Please don’t hold it against me.

Read the whole thing. It will take your mind off your lack of a New Year's Eve date.

Information wants to be free; so does misinformation

The UMass Dartmouth student's report of being investigated by Homeland Security was a hoax.

Unfortunately, this sort of bubbamiesa (Yiddish for old wives' tales) has a long shelf life. Some people will always believe it. Tin hat wearers are walking around the country who firmly believe that the Dan Rather story about Bush was accurate though fake.

That plastic turkey Bush was supposed to have served the troops is still flying around. There's plenty of life in that old bird. The last sighting was by Tim Blair, seventeen months after its first appearance.

One of a kind hats

My slogan suggestion has been scorned

There's a contest on to provide a new slogan for New Jersey.

My first suggestion: New Jersey, we're too dumb to pump gas, has been rejected, but got me some interesting (but obscene) comments from the Garden State. I can't say it's made me a lot fo friends, though. My second suggestion, New Jersey: Home of baked ziti, also got a cool reception. So I am wracking my brain to come up with something more acceptable. How about: New Jersey: RefineriesRUS? or New Jersey, Home of big hair?; or New Jersey, Land of Tollbooths.

New Jersey? Why not?

New Jersey--whadda ya got to lose?

Anybody got any better ideas?

Want to be someone's friend?

Complete and submit this survey.

A novel idea for a Christmas present

Sean Gleeson has the ideal present for moonbats.

I'm not bitching or complaining for a change.

Something nice happened to me today. A first.

I left an envelope in the mailbox for our mail carrier--I don't even know his name. And I received a Thank You note! The first thank you I've ever received from a mailman.

He had written a few personal words on the pre-printed card: To the _____ family:
Have a great 2006. May God bless you and yours. Good luck in your new house.

As I say, nice.

A great kerfuffle is being made over the whole Merry Christmas thing. I'm Jewish, and so are my kids. But not very observant. As a kid, I had qualms about singing carols in school, especially when they mentioned Jesus. But I love to sing and I like christmas carols, so I sang with the rest of the class.

We have Christian friends and relations, so we celebrate Christmas and Chanukah. I think the whole thing about the concerted attack on Christmas is a crock. Who cares? It's one fo those things that maybe Michael Newdow cares about, but he's a schmuck.

I get Christmas cards and Chanukah cards. I enjoy getting them all. I send both. I like the hustle and bustle surrounding Christmas. The decorations. The excitement. I especially love New York at Christmastime.

Anyone can say Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah or Happy Holidays to me. I appreciate whatever they say, because they mean it kindly. If they said "F*** you or "dirty Jew"! I would resent it. But people are trying to be nice, and isn't that nice?

Hunger strike by prisoners in Iran

The high school "popular girl" loses her appeal

Revenge of the not so popular:
Every day, I check the obits in the town I grew up in.....
Today, I pop over to the newspaper online site to check the obits whilst having coffee this afternoon.

Lo and behold, there's this...person on the front page....

The realization hits me that I know a particular person pictured in one of the two pictures.

OMFG!

My next thought after that sinks in....

"OMFG! While it may be vain of me to think this because I'm a short, fat and frumpy size twelve, I look WAY better than she does and she was such a bitch in high school!"...

I'm also still married to the same man I started out with. (She has been married at least twice and at least two of those times was to the same man, which I'm not sure how that counts.)

I can also honestly say that my chest looks better in a sweatshirt than hers does and this is after having children and breastfeeding. (She looks pretty shapeless now.)

She was such a bitch in high school, a total snob and just not very nice in general except to a very select few people.

Persecuting the terrorists

Some retreads from the archives:

Trend: the volunteer employee
I've been bussing my own tray in fast food restaurants for so long now it seems quite normal. Ditto feeding myself vile concoctions in preparation for a colonoscopy.

I also notice that the powers that be no longer clean up highways; There are proud signs at the side of the road proclaiming that the care of this highway is being undertaken by some organization: the American Nazi Party, the Marxist Collective, the League of Child Molesters; the Ku Klux Klan. Appparently no group is so depraved that they are unfit to clean up a highway, saving the proper authorities from having to perform such a menial task.

As for pumping gas: you must do it yourself in most States. The chap inside the store who takes your money will no longer even show you how. Some male motorist eventually takes pity on me and demonstrates the technique.

The reason I haven't mastered this quite simple task is that I live in New Jersey, where it is illegal for the motorist to pump his own gas. Our State motto should read: "New Jersey: we're too dumb to pump gas."

It suits me just fine. Every time I do pump gas I end up with gasoline on my shoes. I stink for hours.

At one motel in Massachusetts, I asked when the rooms would be cleaned. The proprietress suggested that some people prefer to clean their own rooms. I don't. I also don't like to re-use my dirty towels and sheets in order to save the planet.

Let the planet take care of itself. I'm already doing enough volunteer work.

The Democrats are like lemmings going over a cliff...

and the result will be the same: suicide.

Not recognizing the political ground had shifted beneath their feet, Democrats continued to press forward with their offensive against the President. They’ve now foolishly climbed out on a limb that Rove and Bush have the real potential to chop off. One would think that after the political miscalculations the Democrats made during the 2002 and 2004 campaigns they would not make the same mistake a third time, but it is beginning to look a lot like Charlie Brown and the football again.

First, the Democrats still do not grasp that foreign affairs and national security issues are their vulnerabilities, not their strengths. All of the drumbeat about Iraq, spying, and torture that the left thinks is so damaging to the White House are actually positives for the President and Republicans. Apparently, Democrats still have not fully grasped that the public has profound and long-standing concerns about their ability to defend the nation. As long as national security related issues are front page news, the Democrats are operating at a structural political disadvantage. Perhaps the intensity of their left wing base and the overwhelmingly liberal press corps produces a disorientation among Democratic politicians and prevents a more realistic analysis of where the country’s true pulse lies on these issues.

With their publicly defeatist language, John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean reinforce these “soft on security” steroretypes, a weakness that more sober-minded Democrats have been trying to mitigate since the late 60’s and 70’s. Unfortunately, this mentality dominates the Democrats’ political base and more accurately represents where the heart and soul of the modern Democratic party lies than the very tiny sliver of Joe Lieberman Democrats. The Party of FDR, Truman and John Kennedy -- at least on foreign policy -- is clearly no more....

And while 9/11 has certainly faded in the consciousness for most in Washington these days (and for many in the country as a whole), for average Joe American security is still a critically important issue. And the bottom line is that average Americans’ sympathies are not with terrorists trying to kill innocents, but rather with our troops and security agents who are trying to combat these jihadists.

The public resents the overkill from Abu Ghraib and the hand-wringing over whether captured terrorists down in Gitmo may have been mistreated. They want Kahlid Mohamed, one of the master minds of 9/11 and a top bin Laden lieutanent, to be water-boarded if our agents on the ground think that is what necessary to get the intel we need. They want the CIA to be aggressively rounding up potential terrorists worldwide and keeping them in “black sites” in Romania or Poland or wherever, because the public would rather have suspected terrorists locked away in secret prisons in Bulgaria than plotting to kill Americans in Florida or California or New York.

The public also has the wisdom to understand that when you are at war mistakes will be made. You can’t expect 100% perfection. So while individuals like Kahled Masri may have been mistakenly imprisoned, that is the cost of choosing to aggressively fight this enemy. Everyone understands that innocents were killed and imprisoned mistakenly in World War II. Had we prosecuted WWII with the same concern for the enemy’s “rights” the outcome very well might have been different. One of the major problems working against Democrats is many on their side appear to be rooting for failure in Iraq and publicly ridicule the idea that we actually might win. When this impression is put in context of the debate over eavesdropping or the Patriot Act, Democrats run the significant risk of being perceived to be more concerned with the enemy’s rights than protecting ordinary Americans. This is a loser for Democrats.

If Democrats want to make this spying “outrage” a page one story they are fools walking right into a trap. Now that this story is out and the security damage is already done, let’s have a full investigation into exactly who the President spied on and why. ...

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

With the resounding success of last week’s election, it will become harder for the press and the Democrats to frame Iraq as an unmitigated disaster....

The media may be writing stories about Bush “in a bubble” but they are two months late to that theme. Just like the spring and summer of 2004 when the conventional beltway wisdom said that Bush’s sub-50% job approval made him a political goner, there is a distinct sense this president is being misunderestimated again.

Hat tip to cartago delenda.