BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES

OK, this is just a short list, but if you wanna add some or give funny quotes, rock on.

Best Christmas Movies, serious or funny.....

10. White Christmas- nothing says Merry Christmas like Bing and Danny singing White Christmas and of course doing the Rosemary Clooney song Sisters. Funny stuff, for vintage movie.

9. Lethal Weapon- it's set during Christmas. Also, Mel Gibson's character, Martin Riggs starts out suicidal during Christmas time and ends on Christmas going to dinner with his partner and best friend. Character recclaims humanity during extraneous circumstances....

8. Christmas Carol- two versions, one with Alistair Sim and a young Patrick MacNee (the Avengers) very good, black and white, 1951. Another, just as good, 1984 TV version with George C Scott as Scrooge, David Warner as Cratchitt, and Edward Woodward (The Equalizer and Churchill The Wilderness Years) as The Ghost of Christmas Present. Who do you think would be a good Scrooge if they tried another retelling? My money's on Anthony Hopkins or Sir Ian McKellan.

7. Trading Places- Dan Akroyd is a commodities trader framed for embezzlement and drug dealing, while Eddie Murphy is a vagrant whom Akroyd wanted arrested for "attempting to rob him." How? Well, two old rich guys(Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) switch Eddie with Dan, and the vagrant is now a rich man, with street smarts, and Akroyd is now the poor man clueless to the blue collar world. It's a bet on an experiment in what will overtake a man, hereditary versus good environment. It's set around Christmas time, and in fact has a hilarious Christmas scene or two. Now vagrant Dan Akroyd is seen staggering to a bus, drunk, and when Eddie yells out to him, he just growls loudly.....Jamie Lee Curtis is in this as Akroyd's lady of the night friend, who albeit a member of the oldest profession, helps Akroyd stay alive and helps he and Eddie get even with the old rich guys, bankrupt them, and take their fortune back. Another scene, Christmas morning, Eddie is being strangled by Akroyd, and he's groaning- "IT was the Dukes! It was the Dukes!"

6. Bad Santa- so wrong, so raunchy, but so funny. Billy Bob Thornton plays the perfect reprehensible Santa, who eventually does some good in his life. John Ritter's last film. See Santa beat a hood kid. See Santa in a hot tub with a chick he just met at the local bar. See Santa and his surly little black midget rob a department store. And see Santa do all other bad things.....

5. Scrooged- Bill Murray, Alfre Woodard, the late Robert Mitchum, John Houseman, and Buddy Hackett (good cameos by the last 3 deceased actors) in a modern and comedic retelling of A Christmas Carol. The ghosts are worth the watch, The Ghost of Christmas Past- wisecracking NYC Cabbie, Christmas Present- a nutcracking sugarplum fairy played by Carol Cane, and Christmas Future- silent and very dark Grim Reaper- provides the film's darker moments and re-awakening of Murray's character to life and all it means. And another plus Bobcat Golthwait going disgruntled during a live telecast at Murray's TV network.

4. The Ref- Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey are taken hostage by burglar Denis Leary. Their family is so dysfunctional and irritating, that Leary contemplates suicide, but works out a hilarious escape, with the help of the bickering husband and wife, Kev and Judy. Leary has great rants, Spacey goes off, and Judy Davis does very well. Funny film, albeit twisted.

3. TIE- Die Hard/Die Hard 2. Die Hard- the first one, still the best. Alan Rickman, great as a terrorist, his first American film, and no doubt an intro to Mr. Rickman's wide array of acting- comedic (if not by accident) to dead serious as Hans, the terrorist. Bruce and his wife are separated, but low and behold what the events bring. Die Hard 2- how can the same sh-t happen to the same guy twice? Good question, too bad the terrorists get wasting in a more gruesome(icesicle to one's eyeball) or spectacular(airport terminal shootout, plane detonated in midair) manner. Yippykayae and Merry Christmas, Misterfarmer(edited version with cheesy voice).

2. It's A Wonderful Life- the classic 1946 Frank Capra masterpiece. Jimmy Stewart as frustrated yet blessed everyman George Bailey. Donna Reed as his devoted wife Mary, and of course let's not forget Clarence the Angel, brother Harry, Uncle Billy, Mister Potter, and Heehaw Sam Wainright. Great film on retrospect, and what if life had not been. Overtly Christian. None will ever be made like this, ever again. Don't any of you hacks dare remake this classic! Colorization was bad enough. Let It's a Wonderful life be.

1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation- nothing says Merry Frickin Christmas like Clark Griswold causing brownouts with his lights. Putting a 20 foot high tree in his 10 foot high living room. And of course, an asshole in a bathrobe emptying his chemical toilet into a sewer. Merry Christmas, shitter's full! Oh and let's not forget the neighbors getting jumped by a SWAT Team, Clark commenting on how nipply it is outside, and of course Aunt Bethany reciting grace, I pledge of allegiance, to the flag. However, in the end there's a Christmas star, with flying reindeer, and the sewer exploding from the chemical toilet stuff coming into contact with a match. BOOM! That's a good movie there!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all of you.

Oh, and here's some good Christmas TV Specials.

-Charlie Brown Christmas
-Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
-Family Guy Merry Freakin Christmas Special- Hey wanna lemon sno cone? No thanks guys, the last one you gave me didn't taste like lemon, it tasted like, oh you guys are asses!
-Simpsons Xmas Special- Jingle Bells, Batman Smells
-Saturday Night Live Xmas Past- see Santi-Wrap, Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood with Eddie Murphy (And I am so glad Christmas is the time of giving. And look what Mr. Landlord gave me. It's an eviction notice!), the original ending to It's A Wonderful Life- (take that Potter, you son of a bitch!)
-The Rat Pack Xmas
-Bugs Bunny Christmas
-Mickey's Christmas Carol
-To name a few.....


I'm taking a hiatus from politics for a while.

Hell Froze Over Today!

UT got whooped by A&M today, for the first time in years!

What Faustian pact did Francione sign for this win?

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/boxscore;_ylt=ArhEIcUgD04ok.y6bmSNQn05nYcB?gid=200611240083

Just when you thought the Cold War was over......

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13553599,00.html

Russian KGB/FIS (whatever they are now) poisons ex Russian spy for speaking out on regime. Polonium 210 was found in the dead Russian spy.

And of course, Russia giving Iran an anti-aircraft missile defense, gotta conclude glasnost is over. The bad old days are back in full swing.

THANKSGIVING HUMOR

Dave Letterman, he can still be funny.

Top Ten Things Overheard at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade


10. Watch out! The Amtrak float is heading this way!

9. Look, mom -- two men kissing!

8. Oh my God! Somebody just dropped a can of paint on Willard!

7. Hey, the New York Giant's float is going the wrong way. It's losing yardage.

6. Inflate me.

5. That big purple-faced thing isn't the Barney balloon -- it's Ted Kennedy!

4. Macy's sucks!

3. I'll take two pretzels, Gov. Cuomo.

2. That's not the Dolly Parton balloon -- that's Dolly Parton.

1. That ain't gravy.

Robert Altman Dead, 81

MASH director Robert Altman died today, at age 81. Altman had made such films as Godsford Park, The Player, Short Cuts, among a fiew. Altman was a well regarded and very candid director.

Goodbye Mr. Altman. You will no doubt be missed but remembered.

Kosmo Kramer: The Assman, for real

Michael Richards, aka Kosmo Kramer must be hitting hard times, because recently he went into a really nasty racist tirade. Makes you wonder why Kramer never hung out with anyone but Jerry and George.

Well, here's the link of the latest Hollyweird disgrace. For those of you who came to demand a Mel Gibson lynching, Kramer is now the latest whipping boy. And his rant, well, it makes old apologetic Mel look tame.

http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/

Kosmo Kramer, Assman, indeed.

Casino Royale

OK, I had to go on opening weekend to see 007. Casino Royale is typical of most Bond films, BUT this one promises more grit and intensity in areas. Daniel Craig does a good job as 007. He rarely cracks a grin. There were times when Bond was with a lady and he grinned. Hey, if I was with Eva Green, aka Vesper Lynd character, I'd be all smiles too. However, Craig brings us back to the first Connery outings, where while he is dapper, he was serious and intense. Also, he was NOT AFRAID to fight. And in this film, Bond bleeds, and is tortured, but he lives. I don't wanna say too much more, except that Casino Royale was a worthy intro for Daniel Craig. There's action, there's some romance, and some tragedy. We get to discover all kinds of things:

When 007 made his first kill and how it went.

Why M and 007 are forever butting heads and M has to put her foot down. Judi Dench is back as M and does a great job as the longsuffering MI6 Director.

Why 007 is close to some women, but decides to keep some at arm's length.

Why and when 007 became more callous/hardened to using violence and seeing death.

When 007 ordered his first vodka martini, as far as the novels go, this was the beginning.

And how 007 got good at gambling, in this case Texas Hold Em, to keep with the recent times.

And 007 and his love hate relationship with autos. Loves some, destroys others, and even destroys vehicles he really liked.

The film earned its PG-13, and was borderline R for a few intense moments of violence. The sex, is implied. Innuendo is there, duh, it's Bond. But this time we see when Bond was truly behaving like a kid with a school boy crush. Then he learned the school of hard knocks.

Casino Royale is good. Although, don't expect Q Branch and off the wall gadgets. Nor do we expect Moneypenny and the usual Bond advances on her. Actually, that's good for this film, as we focus solely on 007 and his second career mission to stop terrorists and fundraising. Casino is intense as Bond does not go through the film, tux or suit intact. Nope, he gets injured or roughed up, his wardrobe shows it. We see where 007 meets and forms a professional relationship with CIA Agent Felix Leiter, played by Jeffrey Wright.

CR may have come in a close 2nd, in the US, to Happy Feet, but it was close. Casino Royale is worth the money for a weekend of intense action and the good old days of 007.

Enjoy.

Pelosi wins then loses

Well, well, well. Nancy Pelosi was elected uninanimously by the Dems as Speaker of the House.

However, her pick for Majority Leader, Jack Murtha, loooooost. 149-86.

Awwww. Back start eh Pelosi?

December 7, 20008?

Link: http://www.therant.us/staff/kraft/10242006.htm

Scary crap, unless you want it to happen.....

HAT TIP: Misha over at The Rott.... aka Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

And if you wanna bitch? Go bitch to Misha, or the columnist, and yes even me, we'll welcome your criticism..... NOT.

December 7, 2008
Terrorism Raymond S. Kraft
October 24, 2006

December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously.

At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.

On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military time.

In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.

President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.

The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.

"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."

At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.

The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By noon, not one of the American advisers and liaisons left behind remained alive. Many had been beheaded as they screamed. Most of their bodies were dumped in the river and never seen again. In the next thirty days more than a million Iraqis died. The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to condemn the violence, and recessed for lunch and martinis. In America, there was no political will to redeploy back to Iraq. And after a few months of rabid bloodletting, the situation in Iraq calmed to a tense simmer of sporadic violence and political jockeying, punctuated by the occasional assassination, while several million refugees fled the country. Only Kurdistan, in the north, which had thrown up a line of its Peshmurga fighters to keep the southern violence away, remained stable and at relative peace.

In the spring of 2008 America began its quadrennial circus of a national election, and in November elected a Democrat, the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as it next president, to the surprise of few. Her running mate, to the surprise of many, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose intelligence, charisma, and reputation as an indefatigable campaigner for gay marriage and the homeless of San Francisco helped solidify Clinton's support among liberal Democrats who only grudgingly forgave her for not openly opposing the Iraq war sooner, and the Clinton-Newsom ticket went to the top with a narrow 50.2% lead over Republican John McCain's 49.8% of the popular vote, despite, or perhaps because of, Clinton's and Newsom's lack of foreign policy and military experience.

America, or a slim voting majority of it, felt it had had all the war it ever wanted to see, and Hillary had led her party to a glorious (if narrow) victory with the unambiguous slogan: "Clinton & Newsom: No More War." Crowds at every whistle stop had cheered and chanted, No more war! No more war! No more war! At victory parties George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were hung and sometimes burned in effigy, enthusiastic crowds chanted "No more war!" many times more, and local bands cranked up the theme from the first Clinton electoral victory, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow . . . yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone . . .," and indeed, it was.

President Bush had been a very lame duck since the 2006 election, and with a Democratic Congress could do little but veto most of the bills it sent him. The Democrats couldn't override his vetoes, so for nearly two years almost nothing important had been accomplished by anyone on the Hill or in the White House. After the 2008 election it was transition time, flocks and herds of thoroughly demoralized Republican staff began leaving Washington in search of greener pastures, Congress adjourned for the Holidays, Democrats came house hunting, and Clinton and Newsom began the briefings they would get from a fully cooperative Bush administration on the state of the nation and the state of the world they would inherit and have to cope with for the next four years, or eight, and in those last weeks of November both Hillary and Gavin seemed to age rather quickly. The exhilaration of the campaign was over, and the weight of a tumultuous world began to settle on their shoulders.

Back in early October, 2006, North Korean President (for life) Kim Jong Il had announced the detonation of a nuclear bomb deep in a tunnel in the stony mountains of North Korea. The seismic signature had been small, and American intelligence at first doubted whether it had been a nuclear explosion at all. Traces of radioactive emissions were detected a few days later, and the intelligence estimate revised to conclude that it had been a failed test that produced perhaps only 10% or less of the expected yield, only 0.5 to 1.5 kilotons, not the 20 kilotons, at least, that Western intelligence had anticipated.

Kim Jong Il gloated. The deception had worked. The Americans were thinking in terms of long range intercontinental ballistic missiles with huge warheads that they could shoot out of the sky with their sophisticated billion-dollar anti-missile defense systems. He was thinking in terms of small warheads carried by small, medium range cruise missiles that could be launched from many places, and infiltrated close enough to slip in under the radar and hit America's coastal cities.

On the evening of December 6, 2008, a junior analyst in the National Security Agency was going over routine satellite photo production of ship movements in the Atlantic and Pacific within a thousand miles of the US coasts. Late in the shift he thought he saw something through a haze of fatigue and caffeine, and called a supervisor over to talk.

"Look," he said, photos up on several computer screens, more printed out and spread across his desk, "See? These boats, not big ships, fishing boats, yachts, they've been moving in along shipping lanes for several days, across from the South Pacific toward the West coast, up from the South Atlantic toward the east. Nothing very unusual, they're all small and slow, and scattered up and down the oceans, it seems, but if you look at the times and courses . . ." and he pulled out a chart he had plotted, "They're approaching so they will all arrive at about the same time, or all be about the same distance off the coast at about the same time . . ," he trailed off.

The supervisor looked a bit quizzical. "Coincidence? Probably. You need more sleep. Too much fun in the night, eh? Let me know if you see something we can do something with." And walked away.

At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about 100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour. The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair, the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry, where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.

The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.

They were small, less than twenty feet long, and only 18 inches in diameter, powered by small, quiet, fuel-efficient, high-bypass turbofans, and painted in a mottled light blue and light gray ghost camouflage. Cruising at 600 knots, just below the speed of sound, they were nearly impossible to see or hear. They came in under the radar until they reached the coast. After that they were lost in the ground clutter. Nobody saw it coming.

At precisely 0753, Hawaii time, 1353 in the District of Columbia, sixty-seven years to the minute after the Pearl Harbor attack began, the first of six missiles to hit the Washington area exploded in a huge white burst of nuclear fire just 500 feet above the White House, which disappeared in a mist of powdered plaster and stone, concrete and steel. President Bush and President-Elect Clinton had been meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Clinton's national security adviser, reviewing the latest National Security Estimate, when they instantaneously turned into a plasma of the atomic elements that had once been human beings. No trace remained.

Alarms immediately began going off all over Washington, and precisely one minute later the second missile exploded just as it struck the Capital dome, instantly turning thousands of tons of granite that had one moment before been the nation's center of government into thousands of tons of granite shrapnel that shredded several square miles of Washington like a leviathan Claymore mine. At precisely one minute intervals, four more 3 kiloton nuclear weapons exploded at an altitude of 500 feet AGL above the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters, the NSA headquarters, the FBI headquarters, all of which were fully staffed in the middle of the day. In five minutes, the government of the United States of America was decapitated, and a quarter million of the people who made the place run were dead, or dying, or had simply disappeared.

Also at 1353 Eastern time, a missile had blown off just above the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City, and thousands of years of collective financial knowledge and experience evaporated in the nuclear flame. In one minute intervals, others had hit the financial centers of Boston and Baltimore, and the Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.

Simultaneously, within the same 10-minute window of hell, nuclear tipped cruise missiles devastated the largest intermodel shipping facility on the West coast at San Pedro harbor, exploded just above the Library Tower in central Los Angeles, and short circuited the computer technology ghetto of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County, big time. One exploded ten feet away from the top of the Bank of America Building in San Francisco and set much of the east slope of the city ablaze. Another giant fireball flared among the phalanx of office towers along the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, instantly obliterating Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state government of California, the largest state economy in the US, the seventh largest economy in the world. Two ripped open the heart of Portland, Oregon, one shattered the financial district of Seattle, and the last one turned the Microsoft campus into a pillar of fire and smoke, wiping from the face of history, in a second, the IT giant that had revolutionized global communications.

It was 0803, Hawaii time. Ten minutes.

Three million Americans dead. And not a trace of the assault fleet remained on the surface of any ocean.

Vice-President Elect Gavin Newsom was in his bedroom at home in Pacific Heights, his window overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin bluffs. He thought he heard an oddly loud crack of thunder and saw a flash reflected on the hills across the inlet, but it was a clear day and nothing else seemed out of place. He continued packing for the return trip to Washington, his second since the election, to continue his transition briefings and begin organizing his staff. His nomination as Hillary's running mate had come as a huge surprise, and he was elated.

Someone rapped on the door, loudly, twice, and without waiting for a reply the senior Secret Service officer on his detail opened it and stepped quickly in. "Come with me, now," he said. Gavin was startled. "I need to finish packing," he replied.

"No time, sir. Something has happened. Very big. I fear. No details yet. We have to get you out of here, NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO! GO! GO!" He grabbed Newsom's arm, swung him around, and pushed him out the door, where two other Secret Service agents flanked him down the stairs and out to a running black Suburban waiting in the garage. They pushed him into the back seat, jumped in, and the driver gunned the engine, out the drive, down the street, tires squealing. Nobody spoke until they were headed over the Bridge, northbound at seventy-five miles an hour, weaving through the traffic which wasn't yet the gridlock it would soon become.

"What the hell's going on?" he finally demanded.

"Okay. This is what I know," the officer said. "The US has apparently sustained multiple nuclear attacks in the last fifteen minutes, including Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Financial district. We're not sure how many, at least ten, maybe twenty. Lots of dead. Got the White House, the Capital, the Pentagon. Our job is to get you on an airplane at the nearest functioning airport, that'll be Novato, and get you to a safe place. Prestissimo."

"Where?" Newsom asked. Things were moving way too fast now.

"Don't know yet. We'll get orders."

The Air Force Learjet had been airborne for two minutes when a cell phone buzzed, and the Secret Service captain answered it and handed it off to the Vice President Elect. "It's Mr. Cheney, sir," he said.

"Gavin?" Dick Cheney asked. "Yes, sir," Newsom replied, subdued, for the events of the last hour had sobered up his elated mood considerably.

"Okay, Gavin. I don't know what you know, so I'll tell you what I can. There have been approximately 20 nuclear strikes on government and financial targets in the US, about an hour ago. No real damage estimate yet, except that it's awful. A hundred times 9/11, maybe a thousand times. I happened to be at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and have moved into Cheyenne Mountain to set up a temporary HQ, until we get things sorted out. As you know Cheyenne was vacated by NORAD a few years ago, so we have plenty of space. You will be flown here, nonstop."

"I know you haven't a lot of national and international experience." Cheney had thought of saying that Newsom had none, but Newsom would be too painfully aware of that. He didn't need reminding. "The President is missing and presumed dead. So is Mrs. Clinton. So you may become the next president, in about six weeks. I don't know. he Constitution says the Vice President succeeds a president who is dead or disabled, but it doesn't say what happens if the President Elect dies before being inaugurated. I suppose the Court will have to answer that, if we can cobble one together by then. In the meantime, I will assume you will be inaugurated. You'll have a steep learning curve, a real steep curve. All presidents do, under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances."

The next day a hard winter storm roared down the West coast from Alaska, pelting rescue workers in bombed out city centers with hard, cold rain, that did not let up for a week. People alive but injured or trapped in the wreckage died of hypothermia before they were found. Two days later, a cold front out of Canada brought heavy snow to the Northeast. Millions were already without electricity, and in a week of subzero weather hundreds of thousands more died. More than four million, altogether. More than one of every one hundred Americans.

Al Qaeda had picked December 7 because it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and because, just before Christmas, the Infidel holiday, it would destroy the Christmas shopping season so important to so many retailers, driving another nail into the national economy of the Great Satan. And it would destroy the festive spirit of the season for millions of Americans, perhaps for all. The perfect psyop. Psychological warfare. And the weather forecasters had predicted severe winter storms on both coasts during the week immediately after disaster.

Al Qaeda leaders had calculated, correctly, that by turning up the violence in Iraq during the weeks before the 2006 election it could achieve an anti-war Democratic Congress that would vote to end America's wars in the Middle East, and then by turning down the violence in Iraq after the election of an anti-war Democratic Congress, it could lull America into a false sense of safety and security in anticipation of the "peace in our time" that America's new ruling party had promised would follow from what Al Qaeda perceived, correctly, as America's retreat before the unstoppable determination of the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad. America did not call it that, of course. The Americans thought they were just ending a bad and illegal war ginned up by George W. Bush to depose Saddam Hussein who had proven not to have WMDs after all, the ones the Americans had never found, the ones buried in Syria. Al Qaeda saw more clearly. It was a capitulation, a de facto surrender of the Middle East to the coming Islamic Caliphate that would someday rule the world. The martyrs of Islam had beaten the Great Satan to its knees. In time they would cut off its head.

By Christmas, the American economy had imploded. Inflation soared, unemployment soared, businesses closed, cities that had suffered direct hits became ghost towns. Tax revenues evaporated, leaving state governments without funds to pay unemployment benefits or teachers' salaries. With the New York Stock Exchange gone, stock trading ended, and values plummeted. Retirement assets and pension funds disappeared in a wink. Nobody knew what to expect. Real estate crashed, and major banks filed for bankruptcy. With the collapse of the American economy, the largest on earth, the most productive country on earth, with just 5% of the global population producing one third of the global economic output, the rest of the global economy fell into chaos. Oil shipments stopped, food shipments stopped, and in that winter millions of people in third world countries starved to death.

The America era was over.


"In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to dominate the earth. France, the low countries, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and much of Poland had been overrun by the Germans. All of Europe, save neutral Sweden and Switzerland, was in the hands of Hitler's friends and allies: dictators or monarchs who ruled fascist Italy, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Portugal, the Balkan countries, Finland, and above all the Soviet Union."

"A single German division under General Erwin Rommel, sent to rescue beleaguered Italians in Libya, drove Britain's Middle Eastern armies flying and threatened the Suez lifeline; while in Iraq a coup d'etat by the pro-German Rashid Ali cut the land road to India. In Asia, Germany's ally, Japan, was coiled to strike, ready to take Southeast Asia and invade India. No need to involve the United States; by seizing the Indies, Japan could break the American embargo and obtain all the oil needed for the Axis Powers to pursue their war aims.

"Hitler should have sent the bulk of his armies to serve under Rommel, who would have done what Alexander did and Bonaparte failed to do: He would have taken the Middle East and led his armies to India. There he would have linked up with the Japanese. Europe, Asia, and Africa, would have belonged to the coalition of dictators and militarists."

"The Nazi-Soviet-Japanese alliance commanded armed forces and resources that utterly dwarfed the military resources that the holdouts, Britain (with its empire), and the United States, could field. The English-speaking countries would have been isolated in a hostile world and would have had no realistic option but to make their peace with the enemy, retaining some autonomy for a time, perhaps, but doomed ultimately to succumb. Nazi Germany, as leader of the coalition, would have ruled the world."

"Only Hitler's astonishing blunder in betraying and invading his Soviet ally kept it from happening." - David Frompkin, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University, writing in What If: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Putnam 1999) pp. 308, 309.


History is made, wars are won and lost, cultures and nations and civilizations come and go, rise and fall, as much by blunders as by victories.

"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."

Raymond S. Kraft is an attorney and writer in northern California.

End Life Unworthy of Living, says Anglican Bishop

Well, now we've seen full circle. It appears that the Nazis weren't all killed off, they just took over the Church of England and advocate killing crippled and deformed babies straight off.....

Read it and weep.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=416003&in_page_id=1770

There's much much more.

Doctors pushed this measure, advocating death. Nice to know Joseph Mengele had some bastards to carry on his fine work.

England is in the abyss, they're done for.

True Colors

OK, lemme digress from the news for a while and review a decent above average movie I bought for $5 at Wal Mart. It's called True Colors, made back in 1991.

The film begins with Senator Peter Burton (John Cusack) running in a nasty Connecticutt Congressional Race. Burton is on the edge of his seat and his buddy and campaign manager, Tim Gerrity (James Spader) is watching a wall clock nervously. Why is he doing that?

Wind back about 10 years. Peter and Tim meet by accident at law school, both back into eachother and Peter about picks a fight with Tim. They talk and Peter does it to focus attention off himself to the other guy, but later admitted fault. Nice lawyer traits, eh? We learn Tim, from a well-off New England Family, is going out with Diana Stiles, daughter of a Senator Stiles (old Brahman of politicians and bureaucrats Richard Widmark) and Tim invites Pete up for New Years Eve. Pete talks about Xmas in London, etc. Peter is later found out to be ashamed of being very very blue collar. However, Tim writes that off, and is still his friend. For now.

The two work in DC, interns. Tim as Department of Justice. Peter with Senator Stiles. Coincidental eh? Tim likes his internship, and wants to go back to law school so he can be a DOJ prosecutor. Peter LOVES his Senate job and wants to drop law school and be part of the K Street feeding frenzy. Pete and Tim go to dinner, see a Senator Steubens who votes against Stiles measures, with someone who isn't his wife, and young enough to be that Senator's grand daughter.... Dirty old guys, DC, younger available women, no frickin way! Peter finds Steubens car, slashes the tire, and then his own. He's then 'helping Steubens' with a spare tire, and sees Senator S with the girl. Tim sees every last bit of this, shocked, but no longer suprised at Peter's behavior. The Senator is embarassed and recognizes Peter as Stiles staff member. The Senator, not wanting to risk bad press or gossip, decides to vote on a measure he'd been blocking Stiles on for months. Tim hears this, and goes his separate ways. Tim to DOJ which makes Diana leave him(she'd be living off cop pay), and Peter up the Stiles staff ladder, and into Diana's bedroom.

Pete and Tim ski, Pete is injured after confessing his affair to Tim who almost lets him ski off a cliff to certain death. Pete and Diana marry. Tim and Pete are on the mends, but Peter is helping a lobbyist and very crooked developer (Mandy Patinkin) up in Connecticutt. The developer drops a competitor's name as being crooked in a federal deal. Pete tells Tim, Tim seeks indictments, but the company is NOT guilty. They lose the contract and developer's company WINS contract. Tim finds out Pete used him and he's upset. Tim was also suspended from DOJ and he now wants his pound of flesh. First, his fiancee, then his friendship, and now his job. That tears it, Tim 'volunteers' as Peter's new staff helper.

Pete wants to run for Congress. Father in law disapproves. Pete knows Stiles Sr. has Alzheimers and could go public. Stiles endorses Peter, begrudgingly, but tells Diana, who is now revolted with her busband. Tim, now campaign manager is also revolted by all of this. Peter is campaigning, is upset at the slums. Promises to be tough. He finds out Patinkin runs the slums and gets quiet.

Election Night, Tim is with Peter who is about to win the Congressional Seat. He wins, by a narrow margin. Pete and Tim hug. Diana wishes Peter good luck in DC, but is divorcing Peter. Apparently blood is thicker than bling at this time. Tim lets her know, so she can leave before the FBI arrests Peter for his helping the crooked developer. Peter gives his speech, half-heartedly confesses his sins, but then says he is being framed and will fight for his seat.

We go forward a year or so. Peter and Tim meet in DC. Tim is still in DOJ. Peter is now a private citizen, and was given immunity for testifying against Patinkin. The two exchange a smile or two. No happy ending, no nice resolution.

Thus like life.....

Good film, I recommend it. It's not Mr. Smith Goes to Washington nor is it The Contender but it's good. Another good once, Advise and Consent.

Political films, some are worth a watch.

Pledge Banned for Campus by Students?

Oh check this out, I'm sure the veterans love the fact they bled for this country to have some little Che Guevera Demon Seeds defecate all over it....

Take you BP pills before you read this....

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-11-10T021338Z_01_N09494500_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-PLEDGE.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

And get this little Trotskyite.....

"That ('under God') part is sort of offensive to me," student trustee Jason Bell, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. "I am an atheist and a socialist, and if you know your history, you know that 'under God' was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology."

Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn't want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their meetings. "Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge," he said.



Is anyone picking up on the fact that Jason here, other than being a selfish little putz, is a pompous one at that? I mean, he declares his beliefs more important than the majority of his campus or the country. Freedom of speech? Only if it agrees with Joe Stalin's little talking points. An atheist and socialist and he doesn't like it here.

Well, do what my grandad says, 'If you don't like it, move to Russia.' Seriously, Jason, move, leave the US. You and your kind are poison. And despite you last part being somewhat correct that the government must earn trust, the country and pledge are for more than the country, you little wank. Also, subverting the pledge doesn't work as many more will still do it.

Your godless brand of socialism worked so well in Russia, it only killed 50 million plus people. China, just as many if not more. The Killing Fields of Cambodia, just 30% of that country. Funny thing, socialism and communism are falling. God still remains. Odd how that works, Jason.

Twerp.

Yes vets, you fought and bled even for this chode.

Good luck America.

Veterans Day is Tomorrow

OK, tomorrow is November 11, 2006, Veterans' Day. The day started to remember our troops who served and died in combat. It coincided with the Armistice of WWI, signed at Compeigne. It started back in the 1920s, the holiday, shortly before the worst war ever.....

So, if you see a vet, thank em. Bye em a drink or lunch, but let em know their service is appreciated no matter how long ago or how recent.....

Later!

IN CASE YOU FORGOT....

In case you forgot, those who did not vote, or those who are hungover with victory (it's 2 years til next election) there is still a war on Terror going on.

And yes, you who want to make peace with Hamas, read this.....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228086,00.html

Hamas urges Muslims around world to wage war on U.S. ........

What does the new Congress intend to do about this?

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, VOTE....

OK, if you haven't done early or absentee ballot voting, vote today.

You snooze, you may lose.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Good luck America......

STUK N IRAK

Durh, I think Pumpkinhead was right..... Lez give em a 21 gun salut to da FACE!

http://www.drudgereport.com/irak.jpg

KERRY'S OKTOBER SURPIZE

Alright, let's get a few things straight. First, Kerry owes all of our troops, former troops, and all their families an apology...... Here is why.....

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

OK, where in that sentence is Bush mentioned? Where is the Administration mentioned. Anyone with half a brain could read that as, if you get good grades or cheat hard enough, you can get to college. If not, you go to Iraq for being trailer trash or too stupid not to go to Harvard like John Flip Flop did. Also, interestingly, he's had a history of bashing the troops. In 1971, he said 'they committed atrocities in a manner like Genghis Khan,' and in 2005 'our troops have no business going to Iraqi homes and terrorizing men women and children searching for insurgents......' and so on...... Where is Bush mentioned there?????

Nowhere. He trashed the troops. Now, to answer the uneducated remark read this.....

Kerry’s troop-bashing remarks belie the truth about the educational level of U.S. troops. According to figures readily available on the Internet, 99.9 percent of the enlisted forces have at least a high school education, 73.3 percent have some college, 16.2 percent have an associate’s degree or equivalent semester hours, and 4.7 have a bachelor’s degree.
What’s more, over 85 percent of field grade officers have advanced degrees – 70.7 percent have master’s degrees, 12.1 percent have professional degrees and 2.5 percent have doctorate degrees.

That's pretty good for a bunch of trailer trash and tenament dwellers, eh? Right? Come on Kerry, are you at a loss for words for once?

Here's his version of an apology......

"I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and his broken policy," Kerry told reporters in a press conference in Seattle. "My statement yesterday, and the White House knows this full-well, was a botched joke about the president and the president's people and not about the troops."

"If anyone thinks that a veteran, someone like me, who's been fighting my entire career to provide for veterans, to fight for their benefits, to help honor what their service is, if anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops serving in Iraq and not the president and his people who put them there, they're crazy,"

Veteran? There he goes with his Purple Hearts allusion, again. Tennis elbow and a skinned knee don't count, Pumpkinhead. Also, someone who voted against our troops in Iraq, the $87 billion, and back in the 1980s voted against everything from Titan Missiles, Stealth Bombers, tanks, all the way down to uniforms and toilet paper is in no position to say what a vets batter he is........

Kerry proves himself to be a liability to the US and our troops. And the stupid remark may cost a few lives. I suggest any families who lose troops since the terrorists may think they're stupid, and uneducated, ought to charge Kerry for any medical or funeral costs.

I'd think everyone is going to say, thanks for the October Suprise, oddly it's a DNC gaffe, not a GOP one. However, slamming the troops this close to Veterans Day is sickening. Anyone who thought Kerry should have been President, ought to read this moron's past speeches and know he is not a trooper supporter, rather a back stabber. Kerry claims to be red white and blue, but he's more just a red than anything.

Kerry's quip may have cost the election for some, but he may also be costing lives...... aid and comfort to the enemy, like his pals Ted Kennedy, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden and the other 60's rejects.