Ok, This is sooo cool to be in the company of these fine blogs.
Whoo hoo!!

The UN continues on it's never ending quest to desensitize our children.

"The Three Amigos" -- as the cartoon condoms named Shaft, Stretch and Dick are called -- are pictured in a variety of settings from a spaceship to a soccer field to a casino. Twenty different spots are available in each of the 41 languages varying from 20 to 60 seconds in length. Some spots are blatantly sexual, others more restrained.
The punch line in the spaceship spot says: "No condom, No blastoff. Stop the spread of AIDS." The soccer spot says: "You just can't score without a condom." And the spot focusing on a roulette wheel in a casino says: "Not all gamblers realize the odds stacked against them. Don't gamble with your life. Use a condom. Stop the spread of AIDS."
h/t Beautiful Atrocities via Agenda Bender

UPDATE: OMG! SondraK has the actual cartoon of these three!!



Air America (Remember them? Well, they are still holding on by their claws) frets over the corporate cash sponsoring the inaugural quoting the Washington Post.

"at least 88 companies and trade associations , all with huge stakes in administration policies, funding the $40 million dollar party. This ultimate big-tent corporate event will be a veritable roll call of influence peddlers: Practically all the major donors have benefited from Bush administration policies, especially from corporate and individual tax cuts, deregulation and the new prescription drug benefit that is part of Medicare. Most also stand to boost profits further because of Bush's second-term proposals, which include limiting medical malpractice suits, creating private investment accounts as part of Social Security and making a tax-code revision that is expected to reduce taxes on investments," the Washington Post reports.

Of course that never happened during Clinton's inaugural. It was nothing but a bunch of regular folks from the hills of Arkansas. No companies financed it either, just money from bake sales and a few larger donations from abortionists. No movie stars or movie mogels. No corporate heads. And certainly no one who would later be pardoned by the President.
Yep, those dems have the moral high ground here.

Air America quotes many critics including Republican (yeah right) Texas billionaire Mark Cuban "having called for cancellation of everything but the swearing-in because they find it unseemly to spend $40 million on shrimp, spirits, floats and frivolity while American soldiers must scrape together money for phone cards to call home."

Hey! Here's an idea Mr. Cuban. Why don't you pony up some pocket change of a hundred million or so and buy out all the phone cards from Walmart to the The Dollar Store. It's called 'giving' instead of wondering why the government isn't taking care of it. Try it. It feels good. I promise.

I'm thinking the soldiers probably find it more "unseemly" when Democrats take pictures of themselves holding signs saying "I'm Sorry for invading your country" to Iraq, while they fight to keep Iraqis free.



A lot has been said about Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, talk-show host and newspaper columnist being paid by the Dept. Of Education and a private PR firm to comment and endorse the "No Child Left Behind" policy. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. So far I have not seen or heard of no evidence of anything illegal, although I think there are some some dems calling for an investigation (of course!) So I usually go take a peek at the other side and see if there is anything I should know that would better inform me. So this is how Frank Rich from the New York Times sees what Armstrong did:

"Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, talk-show host and newspaper columnist (for papers like The Washington Times and The Detroit Free Press, among many others, according to his Web site). Thanks to investigative reporting by USA Today, he had just been unmasked as the frontman for a scheme in which $240,000 of taxpayers' money was quietly siphoned to him through the Department of Education and a private p.r. firm so that he would "regularly comment" upon (translation: shill for) the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind policy in various media venues during an election year."

Notice the wording here. "Unmasked as the frontman for a scheme..." and "taxpayers money was quietly siphoned to him." It brings to mind Williams riding in the subway in NY, a man across from him leaves his newspaper and gets off the train. Williams picks up the newspaper, checks to make sure his $250,ooo is there, stuffs it in his briefcase and gets off at the next stop. Come on! I don't like the idea of Armstrong not disclosing that he was being paid, but a PR firm paying a "conservative commentator" to talk about an issue that he already believes in is hardly 'covert.'

Mr. Rich goes on to compare the irony of Williams chatting with Vice President Cheney and Cheney's criticisms of the press.

"In that chat, Mr. Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced "cheap shot journalism" in which "the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."
This is a scenario out of "The Manchurian Candidate." Here we find Mr. Cheney criticizing the press for a sin his own government was at that same moment signing up Mr. Williams to commit."

One little problem with this comparison. Williams is, as Rich pointed out, a conservative commentator. Get it? He is openly partisan. He likes the Republicans. He is a Republican. Everyone who listens to him knows this. HE IS NOT A MAINSTREAM JOURNALIST. I don't think Cheney was criticizing Al Franken or Randi Rhodes for their comments. He was referring to ABC, CBS, and NBC. You know, those guys who are SUPPOSE to be objective and report NEWS, NOT COMMENTARY!

I think Mr. Rich is fully aware of this difference. He is just hoping most Americans won't be.

7. "Bloody Hell, I should have just dressed as Che Guevara."

From The Writ of Common Wisdom

Afghanistan and the American Soldier.

Chrenkoff gives us an amazing update on Afghanistan:

Here is President Hamid Karzai, the country's first democratically elected leader:

"Whatever we have achieved in Afghanistan--the peace, the election, the reconstruction, the life that the Afghans are living today in peace, the children going to school, the businesses, the fact that Afghanistan is again a respected member of the international community--is from the help that the United States of America gave us. Without that help Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists--destroyed, poverty-stricken, and without its children going to school or getting an education. We are very, very grateful, to put it in the simple words that we know, to the people of the United States of America for bringing us this day."

As Chrenoff points out, your not going to be seeing this on the front page of the New York Times. The MSM doesn't seem too interested in this story.

This is from a Unicef spokesman remarking on the changes he has witnessed in the 3 years he has been in Afghanistan:

" I still can't think of that day in 2002 - when my Afghan colleagues and I watched the first girls walk back into their schools - without my heart jumping."I have interviewed former child soldiers now learning to be carpenters; I have walked through the foothills of the Hindu Kush to monitor distribution of school supplies; I have visited projects where widows and other women have been able to earn an income in their own right for the first time in a decade; and I have drafted statements applauding Government commitments to key child rights legislation and international conventions, which in some cases set examples for other countries.

"So much progress, so many steps forward have been taken. As another year comes to an end, it seemed an appropriate moment to reflect on how rapidly life has changed for the better for so many Afghan children. Given the history of Afghanistan, a history steeped in conflict and chaos, those changes take on even greater significance."

Liberals don't like to talk about Afghanistan because even they know it was a wonderful victory for Bush. But more importantly it was a wonderful victory for the world. The above statements give us a picture of how history will view this. Generations from now will read about the turning point of democracy in the middle east. It will begin with Afghanistan and God willing, it will continue through Iraq and others.

As our brave warriors continue to fight those in which freedom enrages, we should keep in our hearts the words above. May they soon be true for Iraq as well.

Read all of Chernoff's piece. It will amaze you all that has been done.

And one more thing. Our soldiers do not only fight, as we have seen in the tsunami disaster, but there are so many like this one who choose to personally make a difference.

In addition to official security and reconstruction duties, the troops also find time and inspiration to help the Afghan people of their own initiative. For example, this Iowan soldiers Operation "Shoes for Kids" has proved to be a huge success:

"When Army Staff Sgt. Mark Matteson rode through an Afghan village for the first time, he saw barefoot children everywhere -- not because they didn't want to wear shoes, but because they had none. 'You see the children -- it hits you right in the heart. Or at least that's how it is for me,' said Matteson of the shoeless children who can be seen in nearly every city, town and village throughout Afghanistan..." 'I saw the kids with no shoes, and I wrote back home to tell them what's going on here,' he said about how he started his 'Shoes for Kids' program. Volunteers stateside gather shoes and mail them to him in Afghanistan to donate to the children. To date, Matteson estimates he's received more than 7,000 pairs of shoes from those in his native Iowa. 'It kicked off so big, there will still be shoes coming in after I leave next June,' he said."

For every bad soldier shown on TV from the prison scandal to the AWOL thing, there are thousands and thousands soldiers like Matteson. Good strong brave men and women who not only fight for freedom, but build a better world.

So I say this to the American Soldier:

We offer are hearts full of gratitude to you who risk so much, who stand so strong, who fight so hard. When children of future generations do read about the cost of freedom in the middle east it will be you that wrote those words. It will be you that turned it all around. It will be you that history will remember as changing tyranny to democracy, fear to freedom, and war to peace.

The following is not made up.

Just caught a press conference on C-Span with an organization called "Counter-inaugural.org." What is it about these young leftist where you can spot them a mile away. I didn't even have to see the sign to know they were some left wing group. The women have short short hair with thick black glasses and the men all have beards. Is there a leftie radical official look or something? Their website encourages those who oppose Bush saying:

"..... energy is high to organize visible resistance to another 4 years of Bush through linking the national and even global struggle against the Bush regime..."

It seems they will be using "puppets" to emphasize their points. They described the puppets as being as tall as 15 feet with moving arms and legs. (those who read my post on my experience at a anti-abortion protest will remember a similar 'puppet' I described) What is it with the puppets? Do they realize how ridiculous they look? Maybe the puppets will start blowing each other up like in "Team America."

Now that would be cool.

One of the puppets is a giant spider. The body of the spider represents the 'power' of this administration and the legs represent things like "poverty, exploitation, and war," said one young looney leftie.

This is mainly an anti-war protest. You have to shake your head at the irony that she somehow equates Bush with poverty and exploitation. One wonders what she thinks Saddam was busy doing with those rape rooms and mass graves. The world might not have called it war, but I'm thinking it felt like one to the people who were gassed and thrown in the graves. Since Bush is the one responsible for ending not only the exploitation of those people, but especially the exploitation of the afghan women, you might think they would at least give him credit for that. But no, this is the tunnel vision of the looney left.

Here are some notes from their Nov 18th and Jan 6th meetings:

Discussion on Actions:-Many ideas for actions were discussed.---(inserts are my comments...;-)

---Billionaires for Bush will auction off social security and perhaps The Artic Wildlife Refuge (now that is sooo funny, funny, funny. What a hoot these guys are) They're currentlylooking for a venue to do this and are open to input on when/where might bebest.---Blockade roads, preoccupy police. (Oh that's good. Preoccupy the police during an inaugural for a President fighting a war on TERROR. Perhaps we should let the police keep a look out for that instead of DISTRACTING THEM.)

---Die-in on Pennsylvania Avenue (could there be anything more stupid than people laying on the ground pretending to be dead? Flowers put in butts of guns is even less stupid than that)

---Multiple park march.---Blanket city, billboards, fronts of buildings, etc, with messages countering the Bush Agenda.---Public school walkout.---(Who will be able to tell the difference?)
--- Marches from many different parts of city.---Stop the parade strategically, look for bottlenecks in parade route. (How rude)

---"Turn your back on the President" as his motorcade goes by.(ohhhh, that is gonna hurt)

---Demo on mall whereby message could be spelled with coffins or another demo.(Spelling things with coffins always makes a statement of intelligence, don't cha think?)

---Small actions around city of a few members each.-----Call for action for several hundred volunteers willing to work in smallgroups around city with informative posters, etc.---Lock down before barriers are set up.---Commuter information actions on Friday (January 21?) for federal govtemployees, defense contractors, etc.---Multi-issue women's march coordinated by Code Pink. (one is assuming the celebration of the freedom of afghan women from rape, forced marriage, no music, no school, no work, and having to wear what we call comforters every day, will not be mentioned)

Thank you all, and let's burn one down,~Lacy MacAuley (Burn one down??? Is that the best choice of words?)

Also this:

National Alliance of Black Panthers- holding events aimed at youth education including poetry slams, art nights and music. (A poetry slam? Someone want to fill me in? It sounds painful)

Pagan cluster- the pagan cluster will host a public ritual the night before the inauguration. (Public ritual? One can only hope it doesn't involve animal sacrifice. Perhaps just a big black boiling pot of eyes of newts, and things like that. If you live in D.C. though you might want to hide your black cat)

Here are the contact numbers on the site to make sure these guys remember to spread the word!!!! Do with it what you will folks...;-)

Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553,senator@boxer.senate.gov
Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152,dick@durbin.senate.gov
Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-323,russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov
Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254,tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov
Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141,Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov
Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543,senator@kennedy.senate.gov
Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242,senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

We may have become the irritating things we hate and swat.

OMG! We have become a lot like flies! This article tells us how sneaky male flies woo their lover flies with "fake" gifts just long enough to have their way with her:

Jan. 11, 2005 — "Females among many insects and animals, including humans, enjoy receiving gifts during courtship, but a new study on flies reveals that males can woo their intendeds with worthless, fake love tokens, even if such cheating is otherwise undocumented for the species.
By the time the female fly realizes her lover is a cheapskate and beats him off with her wings, the male already has mated with her and leaves with his faux present to find another partner.

But let us not put all the blame of such bad behavior on the males. The article goes on:

"The researchers also found a link between the size and quality of a gift and the duration of copulation. Impressively large, real food gifts presented before mating led to the longest copulation periods. Smaller, real gifts were next in line, followed by the big fake token presents and then small, worthless gifts.
If a female fly did not have hold of a gift, she immediately stopped copulation and literally shooed off the male."

Does this sound a little familiar?

How about this with birds:

"Like a human male with an attractive, elegant bedroom, bowerbirds build colorful nests with objects such as bits of shells, stones, and even discarded pens. Some of the birds color-coordinate their home decor, so that the bower, or nest, appears to be all white or all blue. As for many humans, the flashiest pad tends to attract the most mates."

I really don't think I ever took in consideration the color cordination of a guy's apartment on whether to date him or not, so maybe we haven't quite become like birds, but the flies....I think it is downright SPOOKY!!!!

I blogged a bit during Afghan elections on Masooda Jalal, Afghan's new Minister of Women's affairs (and she ran for President as well). I blogged about the truly historic first vote of women ( and men for that matter) in Afghanistan and how the MSM pretty much ignored it for the incredible story it was. The feminists in this country were no where to be found, of course.

Beautiful Atrocities has more on this amazing woman and all that she faced. I love her quotes. Here is my favorite.

On fearlessness- "I have dug a hole & buried all my fears."


Did you hear about Prince Harry's really stupid youthful mistake? Being politically incorrect is one thing. This is quite another.

"Prince Harry was today urged to visit Auschwitz after his apology for wearing a Nazi officer's uniform to a fancy dress party appeared to do little to calm the controversy.

A photograph splashed across the front page of the Sun showed Prince Harry enjoying a drink and a cigarette while dressed as a member of Rommel's Afrika Corps, complete with red swastika armband."

It was a "native and colonial" themed party, held at the country mansion of the Olympic showjumper Richard Meade.

Those Brits have so much fun, don't they?

Back to the Serious.

This from CyberAlert:

" Two network anchors treated as a noble cause, not as an unworthy publicity gimmick without any factual basis, the move by a few far-left cranks in the House and Senate to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote in Ohio in favor of President George W. Bush. ABC's Peter Jennings noted that "the Democrats knew that it was a pretty ceremonial objection," but he stressed how they "regarded it as important." Brian Williams, from Singapore, teased Thursday's NBC Nightly News by assuming facts not in evidence as he presumed there were "problems" in Ohio, "Protesting the vote: Congress forced to interrupt its ceremonial counting of the electoral votes because of problems on Election Day in Ohio." NBC's Chip Reid proceeded to relay, without citing any evidence, how "the objectors cited irregularities in Ohio from alleged intimidation of minority voters to too few voting machines."

Talking to an online black buddy of mine, it seems that this notion has been planted in the black communities mind that too few voting machines were put in black areas on purpose. That is the intimidation. The scheme being that they would have to wait in line too long. Now we all know that black people don't like to wait in line, right? Therefore they would go home and not vote.

This is outrageous!!! This makes those snarling vicious dogs tearing clothes and skin off black people in the 60's look like nothing!!! Who needs water hoses when you have ......LINES! LORD HAVE MERCY! We Republicans are crafty little suckers, aren't we?

This voting machine myth is being put out there to further the notion that Republicans don't want black people to vote. If there were a shred of evidence of that, I would personally send a check to Jesse Jackson's PUSH organization for $1000.

2. "The worst part was when Diane Sawyer handed me a bunch of pills and said, 'Here Dan, take these, they're cyanide.' Anyway, I took them, and they turned out to be Tic-Tacs. And she just laughed and said, 'Oops, sorry Dan, guess I should have authenticated those pills better.' Long story short, Willie, will you kill Diane Sawyer for me?"

Stolen from The Writ of Wisdom

Wonderduck, Homeric..got anything for me here?
How about...
"Oh good, they do use Heinz ketchup here at Wendys."

My kids thought this was funny. 

Jokes.....

Why do men want to marry virgins?
They can't stand criticism.

Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and good-looking?
Because those men already have boyfriends.

Did you hear about the dyslexic Rabbi?
He walks around saying "Yo."

What's the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo?
A southern zoo has a description of the animal on the front of the cage along with... a recipe.

stolen from Grouchy Old Cripple

Time to Lighten Up.

Do you think this guy from the NY Times read my post about Michael Moore the other day? Heh.

"MICHAEL MOORE did something shocking for the People's Choice Awards show in Los Angeles on Sunday night - he got himself coiffed.
We're not saying for sure that there was product in the hair; but it certainly looked as if "Queer Eye for the Filmmaker Who Wants That Academy Award Really Bad" had made an emergency house call:
The hair had been trimmed and trained in such a way as to head upward; the scruffy beard we saw only last week in New York had become one of those crisp trendy goatees; the guy was wearing a handsome dark suit and a tie."

Not exactly what I said, but close.


This NY Times Article may explain a little bit about bloggers. It's called "The Secret Lives of just about Everybody.":

"The urge to act out an entirely different persona is widely shared across cultures as well, social scientists say, and may be motivated by curiosity, mischief or earnest soul-searching. Certainly, it is a familiar tug in the breast of almost anyone who has stepped out of his or her daily life for a time, whether for vacation, for business or to live in another country."

Or say...maybe to blog? Who knows? Maybe Blackfive is really a dweeby accountant in North Dakota. Maybe Allah is a little old lady in New Jersey. (Yes! He (she?) is back!!) And for all we know SondraK could be Jeff at BA in drag, blogging both sites. I myself could be secretly single pretending to have all these kids to see if I can find a decent guy out there.

There is just no way of truly knowing for sure.


Things you can do with your laundry but probably should not
This is funny. Trust me. My son is trying it as we speak. h/t The Biomes Blog

Can the French pass the smell test?

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Veteran anchorman Dan Rather sent a memo to his CBS News colleagues Tuesday calling for 'a renewed dedication to journalism of the highest quality.' .........*SNORT*

After the serious rant yesterday we are gonna lighten up here today! 

An Open Letter to Southpark Republicans.

Settle in because I have something to say.

A few days back there was a post over at Protein Wisdom about having Kid Rock perform at the inaugural at the White House. Michele Malkin had opened her blog up to comments and many of the religious conservatives were very upset that he was playing because of his nasty lyrics and nasty lifestyle. They felt it wasn't a good message to send to young people. Jeff at PW was sorta put out by that, feeling that the religious conservatives were kinda saying that if you weren't a certain kind of Republican then they didn't want you around. Someone came up with the perfect name imo of the kind of Republican Jeff and many of the conservative bloggers are; Southpark Republicans.

Southpark Republicans (and some libertarians who vote Republican) are conservative in most things politically but either iffy or apathetic on social and cultural issues. They tend to have naughty humor and language on their blogs, and I must admit I enjoy their blogs very much. But they seem to be truly bothered by the Jerry Falwells, James Dobsons, and the like in the Republican party.

There is no doubt in my mind that we really are the big tent party. All you have to do it look at this conservative Catholic blog, to Jeff's naughty Jewish Protein Wisdom blog to atheist BigDog's House blog to gay Republican Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities blog to Protestant religious La Shawn Barber's blog. Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Gay, and Evangelical, we have it all. I like it that way. I think we can all learn a lot from each other. But I think I need to address Jeff's concern about religious conservatives. Many conservative bloggers (and others) who are non religious or marginally so don't seem to understand religious conservatives concerns on social and culture issues. I was trying to figure out how best to explain it and this is what I came up with.

For years and years I have subscribed to 3 magazines. "National Review" in order to retain my sane view of the world, "U.S News and World Report" for a general balanced view of world events, news, and politics, and finally "Vainty Fair." At first I read "Vanity Fair" as a guilty pleasure. It was like a more sophisticated "People Magazine." It has in depth articles on the rich and famous, not only from today, but from the past. It always had very good articles on famous and some not so famous criminal trials as well. It has always been liberal, but the last few years it has become a liberal screech. That is the only way to describe it. I thought this month's issue illustrated well the reason social conservatives are so concerned with our culture and why we feel we have to be so vocal about it in our party.

Flip through the magazine with me, will you?

I'll skip the rants on the war and President Bush that we conservatives all agree that the liberals are way off on , but trust me, they are all there. From the "election fraud" here to the "evil" Gonzales for Attorney General.

The letters to the Editor begins with praise and concern over a previous article on the Italian Lolita whose best selling non-fiction book is all the rage in Europe and coming here as well. It is the diary of a 16 yr old girl into sexual perversions of every kind ( and I mean every kind) with older men and women. This behavior is not considered wrong or deviant. Only the "poetry" of her diary is discussed. The fact that she was a minor is never mentioned.

Next we have an article about the next Star Wars sequel, "Revenge of the Sith." It seems this sequel may have a PG-13 rating. Lucas says in the article that children should be warned, thinking Star Wars is innocent. This one is not. People are cut in half and arms are cut off in this one. Isn't that nice? Make a string of wonderful movies for kids, then make the last sequel that isn't for them. Who believes that small children will not see this movie, much less 9 and 10 yr olds?

Keeping with the anti-American and anti war theme of Vanity Fair, another article describes "new accounts of prisoner abuse in Iraq." I'll keep it simple for you. Our soldiers are bad, evil, sexual perverts, and the poor Iraqi's caught up in our immoral war are victims of the abuse by our soldiers.

Next we have a biography of Bob Guccione, "one of the greatest success stories in magazine history, the cornerstone of a multi million dollar publishing empire." That is until the "Reagan era censorship" made him almost lose it all. They call him a "pioneering pornographer" in founding Penthouse magazine. His "daring and graphic displays of genitalia" were a way of passing up Playboy magazine in sales. He is an "artist whose pornographic imagination came from his repressed Catholic background."
No mention of the women he exploited, used, and drugged, or the sexuality he warped of young boys on his way to fortune and fame.

And finally I bring you the article, "The Gay Divide." Which focuses on gays in television. It begins with Showtime being surprised that one it's episode of "The L Word," a lesbian "Sex In The City" type show, didn't cause the controversy they thought it would.

I know this is going to sound weird, but I cannot type what the episode is about in the way they did. I just can't. So instead of "Christ" I am going to type "a man." Just bear with my sensibilities here please. In this episode "a man" is depicted in an art video performing graphic sex from behind with a fallen woman. As the woman, on all fours, grimaces, the producer of the video says "it's like she's longing for faith."

I am hoping that the reason the episode didn't generate controversy is because no one saw it. Because if there is a case of more extreme religious bigotry, I am not aware of it.

So this is what I have to say to my Southpark Republican friends. Let me give you a little perspective if faith is not a part of your life. Imagine that someone you love more than anything in this world; your child, is constantly being depicted in a gross or perverted manner in print, TV, and movies. Imagine a show that depicts your child, calling him by the name you have given him, being sexually raped or molested with no hint that there is anything wrong with that. I would think you would be enraged. You would scream from the roof top.

That is the way religious conservatives feel about this culture. We feel that what we love is being put on display for ridicule and that we are having to raise our children in a culture than not only disrespects the faith we are trying to pass on to our children, but denigrates it in every way that it can from music, to TV, to movies. Every moral value that we convey to our children from pro-life issues to sexual issues to religious issues are considered "judgmental" or "prudish." We honestly feel our children are breathing in the venom our society puts out there and we feel helpless.

Many adults with young children are under the grand illusion that you can somehow protect your children from the nasty and perverted. It is impossible. Especially with the Internet. Unless you follow your child around 24 hrs a day until he is 12, he will see and hear things you would never want him to hear or see by the time he is 7. For every parent who watches carefully there are 200 who do not. And your child will be exposed to them. There is no getting around it.

We did not have cable in our house for 13 yrs until they came out with the V chip so I could block channels. My brother told me once, "you can't keep them innocent forever." I asked him, "Can I keep them innocent until they are 10??? Is that possible? Is that OK?"

So maybe you Southpark Republicans can be a little more understanding of those of us who rant against the sexualization of our kids, the crudeness of our public airwaves, and the anger and sadness we feel fighting the Golaith of our society who seems to only care about what adults want and not what kid's need.

We want what you want, a better society. Whenever I look at an issue I don't only look at who is for it, I look at who is against it. That tells me a lot about it. Yall might think about that as well next time you disagree with a religious conservative. Look around you and see who is against us as well.

You might not like the company.

Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor-In-Chief of U.S. News and World Report has a list of some funny or interesting quotes from the year. Here are some of my favorites:

Republican Dennis Hastert on Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi:
"She has all the qualities of leadership, except followers."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the death of Yasser Arafat:
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it."

A French book reviewer on Bill Clinton's autobiography, MY LIFE:
"In France, the public life of a president starts from the waist up."

My Personal Favorite-

Donald Rumsfeld on the valor of American Forces in Iraq:
"For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste that the protected will never know."

Yes, those are my feet. Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities has his own "FOOT FETISHIST'S GUIDE TO THE BLOGOSPHERE." Unlike so many bloggers, I don't have time to go run take a picture of my feet in shoes. So when Jeff asked for a pic of my feet all I could find was a picture of me at the beach. So there it is. What can I say? I am a barefoot kind of girl.

Mudville gives us this from Centcom:

THREE OF FOUR KEY TALHA LEADERS CAPTURED IN MOSUL
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Multi-National Forces detained a key leader of the al Qaida-linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist network in Mosul on Dec. 22.
Following a thorough investigation, the individual detained was positively identified as Abdul Aziz Sa'dun Ahmed Hamduni, aka Abu Ahmed.
Abu Ahmed served as a deputy to the emir of Mosul, Abu Talha, and assumed command of terrorist operations in Mosul in Abu Talha's absence. Abu Ahmed admitted to receiving money and weapons from Abu Talha as well as coordinating and conducting terrorist attacks in Mosul.
"The capture of Abu Ahmed, and the subsequent capture of Abu Marwan on 23 December, show significant progress in the inevitable destruction of the Abu Talha-led Al-Queda-Zarqawi terrorist network in Mosul," said Brig. Gen. Erwin F. Lessel III, spokesman for Multi-National Forces-Iraq.

Mudville thinks this is where the Zarqawi captured rumors came from.



Slate Magazine gives us these interesting items:

Food and Drug Administration
Outlets: Washington Post, Dec. 27; Associated Press, Dec. 28

Gist: The FDA has approved a study to see whether Ecstasy can help terminally ill cancer patients mellow out, connect with their families, and find spiritual transcendence. Another study is testing Ecstasy on post-traumatic stress disorder. Two others are testing psilocybin ("magic mushrooms") on obsessive-compulsive disorder and terminal cancer.

Then Slate asked this question:

"Maybe we're finally admitting it's OK to get high."

WHAT?????????!!!! *shakes head* This may be a liberal online magazine, but there are adults there? Right? I mean they aren't really 17 yr olds running the place over there, are they?

But then again, that would explain a lot.

Then there is this as well:

Item: More adult women are having unprotected intercourse.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
Outlet: Washington Post, Jan. 4

Gist: From 1995 to 2002, the percentage of sexually active adult women not using contraception rose from 5.2 to 7.4. This could increase unintended pregnancies by more than 20 percent.

Liberal spin: This is the tragic result of insufficient sex education, too much abstinence-only curriculum.

What world are these guys living in? Insufficient sex education??????
COULD WE HAVE ANY MORE SEX EDUCATION????? Have you seen the condom commercials on MTV? They have Trojan Man for God's sake. I am not kidding. Celebrities do PSA's, The public schools practically THROW the condoms at the kids. Every show on TV or movie has the romantic love scene starting with "honey, (they say that because they aren't sure of the other person's name) You have protection, right?"

Hey! Liberal Idiots over at Slate, maybe more adult women are having unprotected sex because of the tragic result OF THE WOMEN BEING SLUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe since Slate thinks we are finally admitting it's OK to get high, maybe the women think it is finally OK to be bed hopping skanks.

Don't you just love liberalism? They BLAME the precise thing that would STOP unprotected sex as the REASON we have it. Guess what? Abstinence works EVERY time it is tried! That's right!!! No unplanned pregnancies, no abortions, no STD's, no AIDS, No feeling used, no being a man ho or slut.
If your married, then unprotected sex doesn't have all those things to worry about.

But their response to that is that we are animals and cannot control ourselves enough to wait until we are married. Well, that's not exactly what they say, but close enough.

Well, we are not animals, we are humans. We have the ability to show restraint. Some of us waited for marriage and never had to sweat over a cold sink wondering if the little stick was going to turn pink and turn our world upside down. It was a simple decision and some of us made the right one. I believe others can too.

Unlike Slate Magazine.

If anyone cares here are "The People's Choice Awards" for this year. Scroll down to see every category.

Check out the pic of Michael Moore. "Queer Eye for the Idiot Fat Guy" must have gotten ahold of him.

In the Food for Oil Scandal, this is a shock.

The Guardian's article title about the confirmation process for Gonzales is "Bush nominee faces torture questions." Torturous questions might have been more like it.

Oh look, The readers of the Guardian unlimited are having their own political blog awards! Last year's winner was "The Gay Vote," whose title pretty much describes itself. There is a conservative blog in the lot, Conservative Commentary. (Not real creative with their blog names those brits)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quotes The Reverend Sharpton regarding the gay marriage issue in the campaign:

"I think George Bush manipulated a lot of religious feelings about marriage when the president has little or nothing to do with marriage," Sharpton said after giving a sermon at Atlanta's Butler Street CME Church .."

The article goes on to say:

"Sharpton said Bush also used the gay marriage issue to draw attention from charges that he botched the Iraq war.."

Right...... Bush just went on and on about gay marriage. I mean every time he spoke it was gay marriage this and gay marriage that. The Iraqi war was hardly even brought up..... Can someone please shut this guy up?

Where is that angel in the Bible who muted Sarah's husband when you need him?

But there is one interesting little tidbit he did say:

"You know in Georgia I got more votes than Howard Dean, who is running for chair," said Sharpton

So now Sharpton is eyeing the DNC chair. Now that would be a something. That would be entertainment.