I'm about to go on my once a year, week long vacation. That means the next update of RWN is going to be on Monday the 1st of December. If it's any consolation, I have some really good stuff planned for the week I get back.

As per usual when I go out of town, I've put up a few websites I like in the daily news section. If I'm not going to be here, maybe I can at least farm out a little traffic to some deserving blogs.

-- I also wanted to give a big thank you to all of RWN's advertisers for helping to make what RWN does possible. So please take a look at...

Delta Star
Electric Venom
Ghost Of A Flea
Lex Libertas
Right Wing Nut
Right Wing Stuff
VitaminUSA
Widgets
DANEgerus Weblog
Neowhig 2004
RightNation
The Sake Of Argument

Furthermore, you may have noticed that there is a new form of advertising on RWN. If you look over the support section you'll see that text ads are now available. You can purchase a text ad for $10 and it runs for a month at a stretch. There are 20 ad spots currently available and up to 10 of them will be randomly placed in the support section at a time. So for example if I manage to sell 14 text ads, 10 of the 14 will show up each time the page is refreshed. If you want to buy the ad, just send me the money via Paypal and email me (johnhawkins-at-rightwingnews.com -- replace the -at- with @) the URL and name of your blog.

That's all for now; have a great turkey day while I'm gone.

***Update #1***: There are currently 2 button ads available. Those ads are 88x31 button and show up in the "support section" of RWN for an entire month. The button ads appear on every page of RWN. If you're interested, send $15 to my Paypal account (which is also located in the support section -- please mention what the money is for in the comments section) and email me your 3kb or smaller button. If you'd like to have a button bigger than that, then contact me and we can negotiate a rate.

Since I'm going to be gone all next week on vacation, I thought I should come up with something big enough to keep you occupied for a while in my absense. Towards that end, I went through all of my posts to the main page of RWN, left out the posts from the humor category and skipped the bigger articles archived on the left like interviews, columns, & ACPOTI and then I took the "best of the rest" and listed them below. For those of you who haven't been consistently reading RWN for the last year and a half or so, I think you'll find a lot of excellent reading listed below...

-- 11 Quick Tips For New Bloggers
-- According To The Guardian, America Is Practically A Dissent Free Zone
-- America, Superman, Liberia, & Magic Buttons
-- Animals, However Wonderful They May Be, Are Not People
-- Battle Of The Klansmen
-- The Christopher Hitchens Democrats
-- The Columbine Massacre Wasn't All Bad? What?
-- A Conversation About Abortion
-- Cutting Away The Chafe -- Why Are We Really Hitting Iraq?
-- Defending America Is Now A Partisan Issue
-- The Difference Between The Liberal And Conservative 'Debate' Over The War On Terrorism
-- Electricity?!? Who Needs Electricity?!?
-- FDR & The Rattlesnakes Of The Ocean
-- Fisking Bob Herbert & Explaining What's Going On In Iraq
-- Five Things Other Conservative Websites Do That Annoy Me
-- I Didn't Forget The 9/11 Celebrations
-- If The Democrats Are So Enlightened, Where Are The Black Democrats Representing White Districts?
-- I'm Not A Fan Of School Breakfast & Lunch Programs
-- Islam Is Not Our Enemy
-- I've Never Heard Of Those Guys
-- Jimmy Carter's Wisdom In Reverse
-- Letting Sleeping Godzillas Lie
-- The Neocon Myth
-- John Hawkins -- Political Gun For Hire Part 4
-- The Laffer Curve & Tax Cuts
-- The Left's Patriotism Persecution Complex
-- More Members Of The VRWC
-- "Moralizers", "Bible Thumpers", & "Social Conservatives"
-- The Non-Existent Anti-Immigrant Agenda
-- The North Korean Twilight Zone
-- Our Tax System -- The Flatter The Better
-- Patrick Henry & The Bookbag Massacre!
-- The Problem With Our Schools Isn't The Money
-- The Real 'Dynamics Of A Blogosphere Story'
-- The Secret Constitutional Clause Exercise
-- Sweet, Sweet Isolationism -- You're So, So Tempting!
-- Squashing The Dissent Of The Dixie Chicks
-- Walmart Vs. The DMV
-- We Can't Beat The Terrorists With Defense
-- The VRWC Commemorative Knives Are In
-- VRWC Spam Letter To Europe
-- Why Democrats Are Losing The South

More material to sort through while I'm away, the best of RWN's humor for 2003!

-- Behind The Scenes In Iraq With Wolf Streisand
-- Cable News Coverage Of The War
-- Collect Call from Carrot-Top Not Accepted
-- Constant 'Joke' Calls From White House Putting Further Strain On Relations Between US And UN
-- Dean Hates Bush More Than Kerry
-- Dont Believe On American Democracy! Is A Farse!! Your People Will Be A American Slave, Like On Porto Rico And Mexico!
-- Financial Advice
-- A Frank Guide to Homeland Security Alert Levels
-- French PM: 'It's Great to Be Collaborating with Germany Again!'
-- I Am A Paecemaker! Peace Is My Gun!
-- In My World: Bush and Chirac Personally Supervise Inspections
-- Iraqi Disarmament Argument (Based On Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" Skit)
-- The Jacques Chirac Apology Song
-- Juan Gato's Handy Dandy Translation Guide For Anti-War Protestors
-- Liberals On The High Seas
-- North Korea -- Vacation Paradise?
-- A Pictorial Guide To The 'Axis Of Weasels'
-- Presidential War Lies
-- Profile: Patton
-- Rumsfeld Sorry for 'Axis of Weasels' Remark
-- RWN's Guide To Raising Your Dog
-- Saddam Is Counting On You!
-- The Theme Song For The Human Shields
-- U.S. Finds Iraq Contractor With No Political Ties
-- What If The Matrix Was Guarded By Homeland Security?

Later in the week that I return from vacation, I'll be releasing the "The Twenty Most Annoying Liberals In The United States For 2003". While I'll be making all the final selections in that article, I am open to suggestions.

So if you have anyone you think should be included, post their names in the comment section along with why you think they should make the list. A snappy quote from them wouldn't hurt either if you happen to have one on hand.

Sometime in December, I'll be releasing the 4th edition of "The Worst People, Places, And Things On The Internet". If you have some suggestions, feel free to post them in the comments section. Do keep in mind that this particular article is NON-POLITICAL.

Here are the other 3 editions...

-- The 1st Annual 20 Worst People, Places, and Things on the Internet For 2000
-- The 2nd Annual 20 Worst People, Places, and Things on the Internet for 2001
-- The 3rd Annual 20 Worst People, Places, And Things On The Internet For 2002

If you've been planning to donate to RWN via Paypal (the button is in the support section) or if you want to buy me something off of my wish list, now is a great time to do it. We're almost into the Christmas buying season and you're going to be spending money like water anyway right? So the way I figure it, RWN is as good a place to drop your cash as any. Come on, you're just going to spend it on fruitcakes no one wants and ugly sweaters for your nephews and nieces that they're going to throw in the backs of their closets. So ya might as well spend the money here. At least I'll appreciate it...

Santa Barbara – Once again CBS bows down to pressure from above over an upcoming mini-series revealing the Reagans. GOP members have managed to block the upcoming biopic “Ronald Reagan at the Neverland Ranch”.

The show stars Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon as President and Mrs. Reagan. It also co-stars Woody Harrelson as the King of Pop. The actors have come together announcing that if the series is dropped by CBS, they will threaten to move from the United States... again (although it is said that this time they really mean it.)

The network released a 15 minute segment of the series during a press conference this afternoon. The Clip shown depicted a touching moment with the Reagans visiting the Neverland Ranch. Michael Jackson was upset over accusations of inappropriate conduct with a young boy. President Reagan stepped in to try and buy the family off with a small arms deal. After a dramatic speech outlining how a family should shut up and be good obedient Americans, Nancy beats the family to death with a shovel. They then all laugh and ride the Ferris Wheel.

CBS is worried about a replacement series for the cancelled show. The mini-series originally was a quick replacement for the recently cancelled ‘It’s a Merry Gary Ridgway Christmas’.

If you enjoyed this satire by Steve Tanner, you can read more of his work at Broken Newz.

This is going to be hard for me, very hard indeed. But...sigh...I realized that I was wrong about the war today. We never, ever, should have invaded Iraq.

So why did I back the war for so long? Well, I have to admit that I was seduced by the logical and reasoned arguments for going to war. After all, the only hope we have of preventing future 9/11s and worse, much, much worse, is to go after not only the terrorist groups with global reach, but the rogue states that back them.

By taking out Saddam, we not only struck against an anti-American, mass grave filling thug who either had or would have reconstituted his WMD, but we knocked out a tyrant who had direct ties to Al-Qaeda. It all makes soooooo much sense...until you stop thinking about it logically and just let the pictures speak to you.

What pictures you say? The pictures from the protests in Britain that I got from UK Indymedia. Now I know what you're probably thinking, "Come on Hawkins, those people are a big bunch of 'useful idiots' for Saddam and the terrorists!". Sure, that's true, but you have to set aside logic, facts, and common sense and just look at the pictures. Let me give you some examples. Here are 3 pictures, all followed by what each pic said to me...when I let them into my heart!!!!!!!

So you see? It's like Richard Gere said,

"In a situation like this, of course you identify with everyone who's suffering. (But we must also think about) the terrorists who are creating such horrible future lives for themselves because of the negativity of this karma. It's all of our jobs to keep our minds as expansive as possible. If you can see (the terrorists) as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better."

That's right folks, maybe if we Americans weren't so concerned with building democracies in long suffering countries and stopping terrorists who want to murder all of us, we'd take the time to give a little love to the terrorists and Saddam Hussein. That's what the protestors taught me folks & I hope you can learn from them too.....

NOT!!!!

Like most people, I'm not not the least bit suprised that Michael Jackson has been arrested for child molestation. To the contrary, I can't understand how a guy who has his own private pedophile theme park hasn't already been busted half a dozen times already.

But, to me, the real question is how does Michael Jackson keep getting access to these kids? Keep in mind here that Jackson already paid off one kid to get out of child molestation charges. Then there was the creepy 20/20 episode which apparently featured the kid who is making the charge this time although I haven't seen anyone explicitly make that connection yet (that kid has cancer, this kid has cancer, the kid's friends knew about him being around Jackson, Jackson has been prepping for this case a long time, it all adds up).

Then there's this...

"Three Oslo teenagers have been on a secret private visit to pop idol Michael Jackson at his pleasure park Neverland Ranch in California. After police raided Neverland Tuesday morning with a warrant for Jackson's arrest on suspicion of sexually assaulting a young boy worries have run high in Oslo, newspaper VG reports.

...One of the mothers said she was waiting to hear from her son, and was considering calling Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

VG's sources claim that the Oslo trio's USA holiday is bought and paid by Jackson and was a secret to all but their nearest family members. The trip to Neverland should have lasted a week, but the boys have now been gone nearly four weeks."

So why in the world did the parents of these kids let them hang out Michael Jackson of all people unsupervised? Even if he wasn't a "suspected" child molestor, Jackson is a bizarre freak that no one in their right mind would want around their child.

Now me? I'd say money has more than a little bit to do with it. Notice that the Oslo kids had their trip paid for by Jackson. I can almost guarantee you that wasn't the only cash that flowed from Neverland up to Oslo. Just look at how Jackson got his hands on the kid currently making the molestation charges...

"Jackson paid the family’s medical bills and assisted them financially, even buying them a car and, according to sources, possibly a new house. When the boy’s condition improved, according to a family friend, Jackson brought him to his Neverland Valley Ranch. That is when the alleged inappropriate contact between them is thought to have occurred."

So you see the MO don't you? Jackson finds a kid he likes, lavishes their family with money and then invites the kid to sleep over. The parents don't feel comfortable with it, but hey, are they really going to offend this incredibly wealthy and generous celebrity who's spending so much money on them?

I just have one question for all the parents involved here and that is, "Hey you Judases, how many pieces of silver did Jackson pay you to pimp out your children to him?"

Someone should ask them that...

Citizens of London streamed into the streets, filling the air with cheers and celebratory gunfire as a crowd toppled a statue of the infamous tyrant George Bush.

The exuberant mob gave vent to the long suppressed hopes of a people who had suffered for almost three years without freedom under the iron fist of Mr. Bush and his puppet, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"I can now speak freely," said one Londoner through tears. "It is like a great darkness has been lifted from us."

The search now begins for the British torture chambers and mass graves which the Bush-Blair regime kept full during their reign of terror. The hunt is also on for the two despots who were last seen entering Mr. Blair's underground bunker at No. 10 Downing Street.

And while leaders in the jubilant crowd called for the immediate institution of democracy in England, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged caution.

"We welcome the fall of these tyrants," said Mr. Annan, "but it is a well-known fact that English-speaking peoples are not advanced enough to rule themselves."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

I was in college during the Gulf War and I can still remember the professors in my "War, Peace, Justice and Human Survival" class telling us that we might be drafted to make up for the 100,000 casualties that we could sustain fighting the ferocious, battle hardened Iraqis in what would surely be another Vietnam. Being a dopey college kid, I totally bought into what they were saying and mentally prepared myself to go fight and maybe die in the "big sandy" if my country called on me. However, now that we're more than a decade out from the Gulf War, we all know that the US laid a beatdown for the ages on Iraq that will probably be studied in military academies on the moon 100 years from now.

But, since we're locked in a global war on terror that doesn't look like it will be over anytime soon, we're again hearing hysterical left-wingers claiming that there's going to be another draft. Here's someone named Michael Lenz hitting all the high spots of the paranoid "the BushHitler is going to draft you for his Haliburton oil war" argument...

"(T)he Defense Department has called on volunteers to sit on local draft boards. Could the re-emergence of the draft be just around the corner?

"If President Bush is re-elected, it is likely that he will reinstate the draft. The war on terrorism will not end in Iraq, but instead will proceed into countries like Syria and Iran," said Ellsberg."

Ok, let's run the gauntlet here shall we? First off, contrary to the impression some people are being given, the draft boards aren't doing anything out of the ordinary. According to the National Selective Service office, they're filling open slots like they always do, although there are a few more open positions than usual. So there's nothing to worry about there.

Next, whether we need anymore troops or not is debatable. Over the next few months, most people in the know expect the number of troops in Iraq to drop significantly and there are already large numbers of troops in other parts of the world who will be redeployed elsewhere as we continue to close and move bases around the world. For example, there are 40,000 troops in South Korea right now who are there because they're a security blanket for the South Koreans, not because they're necessarily needed.

But, let's assume that we do decide that we need another few divisions, why would we not simply recruit them? Keep in mind that 8 Army divisions were slashed during the Clinton years, so there's no question that we can field a much larger volunteer force than we already do. Furthermore, the military is currently hitting its recruiting goals, so we have no reason to think that we couldn't add many, many, more volunteers if we decided it was necessary.

Last but not least, you have to understand that a draft would be incredibly unpopular on both sides of the aisle in anything other than the most dire of emergencies. "So what," you say, "that just means President Bush will wait until after he's reelected to call for a draft". Look, it just doesn't work like that with something that would be as unpopular as a draft. If Bush called for a draft in 2005, every Democrat across the country would be running on it in 2006. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that implementing the draft would probably cost the GOP the Senate and quite possibly even the House. You think Bush is going to do that? Fat chance buddy.

So take my advice and don't sweat a draft, it's just not going to happen...

If you want to see a perfect example of how far out of the mainstream many of the Democrats on the far left are, you need look no further than Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Here are some of his comments from earlier today...

On Afghanistan

"...Asked if he still considered the outcome of U.S. military action in Afghanistan to be a disaster and a nightmare, he said: "I see the Taliban regaining strength and all these conflicts with warlords. The question is: What have we won? Where's the victory?"

"The government of Afghanistan itself didn't attack us. That's the thinking. That is a major point here in terms of the community of nations."

On Iraq

He quoted Dean as saying recently that he would keep at least 75,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and added, "If I'm successful in this, I won't keep a single troop in Iraq."

"I say we can't get out fast enough, but it has to be a stabilizing transition with the help of the U.N.," Kucinich said."

On America

"...Asked in what ways today the United States was a positive force in the world, Kucinich paused for 15 seconds before answering.

"I think the mythic dimensions of America that speak to freedom and an open society and a kind of optimism are part of an ever-present awareness that occurs around the world," he said. "There's a lot of pain associated with the world seeing America being disconnected from its policies."

Let's see...

-- Kucinich is such a pacifist that he doesn't even think we should have bombed Afghanistan.

-- For all intents and purposes he favors giving the UN a veto over how we use our troops.

-- He'd yank our troops out of Iraq and let the UN wimps who've already run for the hills handle things which would practically guarantee a nightmare scenario.

-- He can't even think of something good to say about the United States.

Dennis Kucinich shouldn't be a Congressman who's running for President. Instead he should be doing something that's a better fit for a person with his kooky beliefs...like, you know --picking up trash on Greenpeace boats or making "No War For Oil" Signs for ANSWER. But at least Kucinich is proof that anybody really can grow up and at least run for President in the United States.

The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) today announced it would pay half of the legal fees for the defense of Scott Peterson, who is accused of killing his wife and unborn son. Mr. Peterson was bound over for trial in California yesterday after an 11-day preliminary hearing.

"We don't know whether Mr. Peterson is guilty of killing his wife," said NARAL President Kate Michelman. "But no matter what he did to the fetus, it's okay because the fetus is not a human. It's an outrage that the court is putting Scott Peterson on trial for something that America's fine abortion doctors do legally hundreds of times every day."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Here's Allah imagining what Thomas Friedman's newest peace plan for the Middle-East will look like,

"...(T)here are only two possible solutions. Solution one: The Arab world could recognize Israel's right to exist, offer it full diplomatic relations and normalized trade, and then make a concerted effort to decontaminate its population of anti-Semitism through a combination of political, educational, and religious reform. In return, it would realize the untapped potential of its female citizens, witness an economic and industrial boom the likes of which it can scarcely imagine, and eliminate the deep suspicion with which the other 3.7 billion people on earth presently regard Islam. Unfortunately, this solution requires a modicum of simple, human decency.

Solution 2, then: Israelis could volantarily walk, en masse, into the Mediterranean Sea. Arabs would then fulfill one of their greatest dreams -- the destruction of the Jewish State and its replacement with a Palestinian one -- without the need for militants to forcibly depopulate the land with weapons of mass destruction. Israelis, meanwhile, would go down in history as willing martyrs to the cause of peace, a modern day Mosada the final chapter in their magnificent legacy. I envision Ariel Sharon walking into the surf and heroically giving the thumbs-up sign as the water rises above his head, like the Terminator did at the end of "T2".

Laugh now, but we're already seeing more and more lefties calling for the Palestinians and Israelis to occupy a single state, which is really just a roundabout way of calling for genocide. The Israelis could no more survive as a nation after being demographically overwhelmed by terror worshipping, anti-semitic Palestinians than the US could after absorbing 300 million Taliban fanatics. But then the safety and survival of Israelis isn't exactly a priority for most of the anti-Israel lefties out there is it?

I was pleased to have a chance to get together with Robert Spencer for a phone interview on Monday. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, Spencer has spent 20 years studying Islam and is the author of "Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith" & "Onward Muslim Solder -- How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West". I found Spencer's insights into the thinking of the Islamic World to be invaluable and I believe you'll agree with me after you read the interview. (Cont)

There's a strange little hiccup in the thinking of the left when it comes to Democrats who've served in the military. Their theory, while seldom explicitly spelled out, goes like so....A Democrat who has served in the military is automatically presumed to be competent when it comes to matters of national defense no matter what their positions on national defense ACTUALLY ARE. If a Republican actually questions that competence, then that's an attack on the patriotism of the candidate whose views are being questioned. So for example, if a Democratic veteran who won medals in Vietnam suggested that we replace the entire air force with solar-powered toy planes that fired foamy, Nerf rockets covered with peace symbols and flowers, any Republican who complained would be making a dastardly attack on their patriotism.

Joan Vennochi, thinking along these lines, tries to rehabilitate George McGovern's reputation & brings up the myth of the attack on Max Cleland's patriotism in her latest column. Here's part of what she had to say,

Nixon portrayed McGovern as a wimp, McGovern didn't dispute the characterization, and the public bought it. But what if during that long ago presidential campaign McGovern had showcased his own brave service to the country?

Republicans are infamous for their willingness to question the patriotism of Democrats like McGovern and Max Cleland, a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam. Cleland lost his Georgia Senate seat to a Republican challenger who accused him of being soft on national defense because he did not back the Bush administration position on creating a homeland security department."

I know this is going to be hard for some people on the left to accept, especially since the Democratic party is more the party of McGovern than the party of FDR or JFK these days, but George McGovern was a HUGE WIMP on national defense. Does that mean he was unpatriotic? Not at all. In fact, George McGovern is a patriotic man and his brave service to our country should be applauded.

However, having a distinguished service record in combat DOES NOT make you a foreign policy genius. Take Wesley Clark & John Kerry, for example. Both of them should certainly be congratulated for their patriotism & excellent service to our country in the military. However, neither of them comes across as serious about fighting terrorism and neither of them can be counted on to do what it takes to defend America if they become President. That's not questioning their patriotism, it's questioning their judgement, even if the left seems unwilling to make that distinction.

This may shock some of you, but it seems that there's a spot of trouble in the "special relationship" between Britain and the US. No, I'm not referring to the loons out protesting in the street, I'm referring to the shrew who's married to Tony Blair. Yes, during a visit to Britain that many Bush partisans would have rather he skipped all together because of security concerns and protests by rabid, anti-war lefties, Blair's wife Cherie Booth of all people is taking the opportunity to publicly chide Bush over the ICC. Here's some of what she had to say...

"It seems inconceivable that a state committed to the rule of law, such as the US, would refuse to investigate and prosecute its nationals should there be reliable evidence that they had been involved in international crimes."

"The absence of the United States means we all stand to lose."

We all stand to lose what exactly? The opportunity to put Americans on the dock and prosecute them in an anti-American kangaroo court? Of course, people like Booth always swear up and down that's not what they intend to do, but when you watch the way Europe tends to react to events in the world, it's very apparent that there's a double standard when it comes to Israel and the United States. All of us know how it works even if there are a lot of people on the left who refuse to admit it.

You know, Palestinians blowing themselves up on a school bus full of women and kids, "certainly should be condemned, BUT..." as opposed to shrieks of "war crime, war crime, war crime" when Israel defends themselves by killing terrorists who have nothing less than genocide as a goal.

In our case, we'd end up with someone like Donald Rumsfeld being prosecuted because we used depleted uranium shells in Iraq while murderous thugs like Robert Mugabe and Bashar al-Assad would still be welcome at French cocktail parties.

Furthermore, can you just imagine the gleeful way people like Jacques Chirac & Gerhard Schroeder would manipulate the ICC behind the scenes? "Oh, this filthy war in Iraq, it is a WAR CRIME! The Americans should be forced to answer in the international criminal court for their illegal invasion! How do you like "Old Europe" now you stupid American cowboys! Ha, Ha, Ha!"

Oh yeah, sign us up for that right now.

Even if the ICC were completely fair, there would still be no reason for us to get on board with it. I say that because I see no reason why any American should ever have to stand in front of a non-American judge at the ICC and try to convince him that he didn't commit a war crime. That's a matter that should be decided by Americans and no one else.

"Dah! I am governor now! I am Ah-nuld!"

"Yeah, congratulations on getting inaugurated and everything," President Bush said, "I was so afraid I was going to screw up my own inauguration and not get to be president."

"What are doing here, puny president man? Don't you have work to do?"

"I'm just hang'n; see’n how you're doing," Bush answered, "I have lots of smart people back in Washington to keep things under control."

* * * *

"Now that Bush is gone," Rumsfeld stated, "Let's start nuking things. Let's start with Syria."

"Only if we can nuke Finland," Condi added.

"Deal. Does the U.N. advisor approve?"

Chomps barked in approval, causing his blue helmet to slip over his eyes, which indubitably made him angry.

"Now, I don't want to question the wisdom of the Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and a psychotic rottweiler," Collin Powell stated, "but I think going nuclear is a bit rash, and should be contemplated a bit longer."

Rumsfeld stared at Powell a moment. "Let's just cut to the chase: how much do you want to be b*tch-slapped?"

* * * *

"I must improve the economy!" Arnold shouted, "It is too puny! And the debt is too big! I must make it puny!" Arnold then grabbed a write up of the economy and held it vigorously. "You improve economy, or I crush you! Dah!" Arnold then ripped the folder in two and started stabbing it with a ballpoint pen.

"Now, they don't let me in most of the meeting about the economy," Bush told him, "but I don't think that's how it works."

"How do you improve the economy then?" Arnold asked, "Tell me, or I will crush you!"

"Well, you reduce taxes."

"And what if that doesn't work?"

Bush thought some. "Reduce taxes again."

"And if that doesn't work?"

Bush thought long and hard. "Reduce taxes again."

"But I also need money to reduce the debt! I am Ah-nuld!"

"Money, eh," Bush mused aloud, "We could do a daring bank robbery... or, better yet, we could go to Vegas and rob a casino. We'll first need to hang out there and look inconspicuous as we case the joint."

"Your ideas are puny!" Arnold shouted, "I will crush them! Don't you have any good ideas for making money?"

"Well, you could always invade a country and steal its oil," Bush answered, "But you'll need a army for that..."

Arnold took out an M-60 from behind his desk. "I will do it myself. I am Ah-nuld!"

* * * *

"So governor of California is invading us, eh?"

"Yeah, what's that all aboot, eh?"

"I dunno, but he just blew up the local gas station, eh."

"Maybe we should do something, eh?"

"I think we should hide... I’m so scared right now I'm almost forgot to say 'eh'."

* * * *

"So is it true that Governor Schwarzenegger has gone on a violent rampage at the advice of the president?"

"It's not that uncommon for a new governor to do a rampage of some sort," White House Press Secretary Scott Mclellan answered.

"Yes it is," the reporter responded.

Scott paused for a moment. "Okay, I got nothing on this one. Anyone want to talk about Iraq?"

"Actually, my question is why did we nuke Syria," said another reporter.

"And you're not curious about why we nuked Finland?" Scott responded.

The reporter thought about that. "No, not really."

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J., you can read more of his work at IMAO.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, had this to say on the eve of President Bush's visit to Britain,

"I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen. The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction."

So the man in charge of the city that survived Hitler's blitz thinks Bush is the, "greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen?" Here is a man who looks at monsters like Stalin and Hitler and sees them as less of a threat than George Bush who's fighting to defend civilization from terrorists who'd undoubtedly celebrate for days if they were able to blow up half of London with a nuclear bomb. Is that not ironic? (Cont)

Oftentimes, we political junkies forget that not everybody shares our interest in politics. To the contrary, a lot of Americans, probably most Americans, couldn't care less about what the latest hot political topic is. If you want proof of that, you need look no further than this Gallup Poll.

Before I show you these numbers, I want you to think about Al Franken and Ann Coulter. Both of them are huge names in political circles right? Franken & Coulter have had top selling books, both are going to be familiar names to every person reading RWN...and yet, a lot of Americans have NO CLUE who they are. Want to see some numbers? According to Gallup, 49% of Americans have never heard of Al Franken and 69% have never heard of Ann Coulter. Keep those numbers in mind the next time you start to get antsy about how some scandal is perceived or why some big news isn't resonating with the public. The truth is that most people just aren't paying attention...

There are some ideas that are so ridiculous that only an eggheaded, liberal college professor could come up them. One of those ideas is that the "state" censored "The Reagans" miniseries. Now obviously, that isn't what happened at all. There were no threats towards CBS whatsoever from any government officials over "The Reagans". Yet, Edward Wasserman, a Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University writes the following in an op/ed...

"If it happened in a dictatorship, we'd see it clearly. A supposedly independent TV network makes a movie about a former leader whom the current rulers extol as their inspiration.

It's full of fabrications, just like all such movies. But here the ruling party deems some unacceptable. There are denunciations and threats. The network revises the movie, yanks it off a widely viewed channel and relegates it to one that reaches only a tiny fraction of the population. In our country, the state can't silence the media. But of course it just did."

Of course, most people are probably scratching their heads trying to figure out what the heck Wasserman is talking about. Here's his logic...

"...The instruments of suppression here -- the Republican National Committee and a coven of political hacks and journalistic mouth-breathers allied with the party's rightmost wing -- are only a quarter-step removed from the White House and from the full might of the state.

If this were Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we wouldn't quibble that the disapproval came not from the Interior Ministry but from the Ba'ath Party. We'd recognize it for what it was: official censorship."

The irony here is so thick that you couldn't ram through it with the left side of Wasserman's pointy head. Not only was there absolutely no "withering regulatory scrutiny, antitrust hamstringing and legislative lunacy that the government could inflict on Viacom" being discussed or even implied that I know of, but if conservatives were so inclined to do that, they wouldn't need the excuse of "The Reagans" miniseries as a reason. That's because most of "the Republican National Committee and a coven of political hacks and journalistic mouth-breathers allied with the party's rightmost wing" as Wasserman calls us, ALREADY know and understand that we're not going to get a fair shake from CBS. It didn't take a smear job of a miniseries to convince us of that.

So why did CBS pull "The Reagans"? It's so simple that anyone should be able to understand it. CBS is in the business of making money and they didn't want outrage a significant chunk of their viewers by running what would have been perceived as a vicious hit piece against a revered former President who can't even defend himself because of his Alzheimer's disease. That's why the mini-series was yanked, not because of a "state" threat that only exists in Wasser's mind....

Thanks to Kevin Holtsberry of A Nickel's Worth Of Free Advice for finding this one.

A new survey of Britons indicates that a majority believes that U.S. President George Bush is a "stupid evil genius."

"The results indicate that Brits don't think Bush is smart enough to put his right boot on his right foot," said a spokesman for the polling company. "And he's so clever that he tricked the entire U.N. Security Council into thinking Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who sponsored terror. He's a stupid evil genius."

According to the poll, people in the United Kingdom now fear that "Mr. Bush will accidentally trick Prime Minister Tony Blair into doing something even more ingeniously moronic in Iraq."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Dick Morris doesn't always provide the snappiest quotes and when it comes to political parties, he seems to be just as happy working for a Democrat as a Republican. However, Morris is a brilliant political operator. People like Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, and Jonah Goldberg may stand head and shoulders above Morris when it comes to talking about issues conservatives care about, but IMO, nobody, and I mean nobody writing columns today, has a better understanding of how to run and win elections than Dick Morris. That's why I wanted to put together a year's worth of Morris quotes. Read 'em and enjoy! (Cont)