Here's my brief analysis of who Bush's toughest opponent would be out of the 4 remaining viable Democratic candidates...

#4) Howard Dean: Dean is a tailor made opponent for George Bush. He's gaffe prone, has already famously gotten off on the wrong foot with the South, is stridently anti-war, wants to revoke all of Bush's tax cuts and spend the money, plans to get rid of the Nuclear Missile Defense Shield, and is a strong supporter of civil unions.

While Dean would certainly try to move to the center if he won the nomination, the "yelp heard round the world" has already helped to cement the "angry & unbalanced liberal" meme in the public's mind. Have no doubt that Karl Rove would love nothing better than a Bush Vs. Dean showdown in November.

#3) Wesley Clark: I was tempted to stick Wesley Clark in the #2 spot because he does have a number of pluses that would seem to give him an edge. He's of course a general and a war hero, he's from the South, and I think his tax plan (no taxes for families under 50k and increased taxes on the rich) could resonate.

However, Clark has no dearth of weaknesses either. He's a gaffe prone, raw, political novice who comes across as flaky, inconsistent, and not particularly likable. Moreover, while many Democrats think Clark's status as a general will protect him from charges that he's soft on foreign policy, his 180 degree shift on the war in Iraq & the fact that Kosovo was conducted without UN approval is going to make Clark's current pacifistic stance look very hypocritical. Last but not least, because Clark is perceived as a "Republican in donkey's clothing" by many Democrats, having Clark as the nominee would sap a lot of energy from the base. That's why the general isn't as a good of a candidate as a lot of people seem to think.

#2) John Kerry: The fact that a bland Massachusetts liberal who reminds a lot of people of Michael Dukakis & Ted Kennedy is the second strongest candidate tells you a lot about the strength of the field.

Inexplicably, Democrats seem to believe that Kerry's exceptional service to our country in Vietnam will somehow shield him from charges that he's weak on defense. But, lest anyone forget, George McGovern served our country with distinction in WW2 & Michael Dukakis was in the army during the Korean war. Neither of them got a pass on foreign policy because of their time in the military and Kerry won't be able to dodge charges that he's not serious enough about defending America by invoking Vietnam either.

On the other hand, while Kerry isn't much of a candidate, he is at least less volatile than Clark or Dean, a familiar face to many of the American people, and someone who voted for the war in Iraq. Given the other choices, the Dems could certainly do worse than Kerry.

#1) John Edwards: Edwards is a trial lawyer who hasn't accomplished much in his political career. Furthermore, Edwards is so lightly regarded in his own home state of North Carolina that winning his Senate seat again would have been an uphill climb for him in 2004.

So why is Edwards the most electable Dem running? Well, he's a good looking, fairly likable, guy from the South who's perceived as a moderate. Furthermore, since Edwards hasn't accomplished a lot, he can feel free to adopt whatever positions poll test most strongly for him without having to worry too much about his record contradicting his current positions.

Compared to Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, Edwards is a weak candidate; but, out of the Dems who are left, Edwards is definitely the one who can give Bush the toughest fight.

So I'm reading Michele Catalano's superb blog, A Small Victory, and she's talking about her son being bullied at school. She's obviously upset about it and understandably so given her school's reaction. But then, I come across a throway paragraph that I just could not believe I was reading,

"One of these days my son is going to turn around and clock S. Of course, DJ will be the one to get suspended, be punished, made an example of. The victims are always turned into the perpetrators in these circumstances. Columbine, anyone? Is the school district going to wait for my son to buy an AK 47 off of the black market and walk into school one day and finally have his say, with bullets? Or are they waiting for S. to really explode and physically damage someone before they take action against him?"

First off, I really, truly, hope that Michele wrote that in the heat of the moment and that it doesn't reflect her true feelings because Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were not victims. They were hate filled, cold blooded, mass murderers, who spent a year planning to murder innocent people on Adolf Hitler's 110th birthday. Were they alive today, they'd deserve the death penalty 10 times over for what they did.

Furthermore, contary to what some people may believe, Klebold & Harris were not retaliating for being bullied & they didn't walk around the high school shooting people who had bullied them -- not that they would have been justified in any way, shape, or form if they did. Let me give you a few examples of why I say that...

---

" By 11:25, the boys, who had already shot Rachel Scott dead, ran into the cafeteria shooting children and shooting at the bomb that didn't detonate, in an attempt to detonate it, but to no avail. Had the two cafeteria bombs that Harris and Klebold planted exploded, then all of the four hundred and forty-eight students in the cafeteria would probably have perished.

...The pair had an elaborate plan cooked up for not only the school shooting, but also a massacre in the neighborhood and, if they were unable to escape out of the United States, a planned hijacking of an airplane which the boys would then crash into New York City."

---

"Wyant and (Cassie) Bernall were studying alone together in the back of the library. After the gunmen rushed in, the girls crouched beneath a table together, and Cassie began praying aloud: "Dear God. Dear God. Why is this happening? I just want to go home." Dylan Klebold suddenly slammed his hand on the table, yelled "Peekaboo," and looked underneath. He shot Cassie without exchanging a word."

---

From the journal of Eric Harris...

"Sometime in April [1999] me and V will get revenge and will kick natural selection up a few notches," Harris wrote in his journal on April 26, 1998. "If we have figured out the art of time bombs beforehand, we will set hundreds of them around houses, roads, bridges, buildings and gas stations, anything that will cause damage and chaos...It'll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, [video games] Duke [Nukem] and Doom all mixed together...I want to leave a lasting impression on the world."

"...I want to tear a throat out with my own teeth like a pop can. I want to gut someone with my hand, to tear a head off and rip out the heart and lungs from the neck, to stab someone in the gut, shove it up to their heart, and yank the fucking blade out of their rib cage! I want to grab some weak little freshman and just tear them apart like a wolf, show them who is god. Strangle them, squish their head, bite their temples in the skull, rip off their jaw...the lovely sounds of bones cracking and flesh ripping, ahhh...so much to do and so little chances."

---

Klebold and Harris were evil to the core and they should never, ever, be spoken of as victims who had any sort of justification for what they did...

PS: I gave Michele a heads up that I was going to be discussing this subject and after I finished this post, but before I posted it, she sent me the following to better explain her position...

"It's not like I was being sympathetic to the two murderers; I was just saying that letting these things fester and go unpunished is a great way to ensure that you'll have a school shooting in your future. Klebold and Harris aren';t my kid - they had inattentive parents. Another kid in DJ's class might not be as vigilant about their kid and *that's* where you'll get your Columbine from."

Once again, it's time to post some of RWN's hate mail for your amusement. The first piece of hate mail I received was sent because Right Wing News is so neutral, impartial, so, so....fair and balanced, I posted a column called "Five Things Other Conservative Websites Do That Annoy Me". Unfortunately, that didn't sit well with T. Williams who was probably getting foam from his mouth all over the keyboard when he wrote this...

From: FlabucI
Subject: Things that annoy you

T. Williams
Largo Fla

------------

On the other hand, Todd Randall is apparently more worried about conservatives than Al-Qaeda...

From : Todd A. Randall
Subject : please tell me

You suck you right wing piece of filth. You and your right wing friends are the greatest threat to this country.

-----------

Then there's Aaron Geddes who is all upset about patriotism & "wingers" as he calls them...

From: Aaron Geddes
Subject: (none)

Well pal I have a problem with this place and I happily have a problem with you also. I know the rigid mindset of the "winger" only understands military power, blind obedience to authority, and the need to preserve the status quo. This much is obvious. Rah, Rah wave that flag buddy and bury your head in the sand. The US will save you from the boogyman outside your window, just give up a few more rights and we'll finally be safe. If this government is not crooked then why all the secrecy? If they are on the level then why hide in the shadows like a cockroach? Why dodge and hide from real questions? Sounds like a dishonest group of people to me, but then again I use common sense and dont subscribe to this patriotic mumbo-jumbo. Patriotism is just too neat and ready made for you war-mongers. So wave that flag pal and keep pretending that Saddam was the big threat. Pretend we didnt assist Saddam when it benefitted our little war games. Pretend there aren't other countries out there that don't oppress their people just as much as Saddam did. The US only liberates convenient targets for political and financial gain, and thats the REAL truth. And to counter the standard "winger" response, I dont care about Hitler and Germany half a century ago. What we did then does not pertain to today.The US was a different country ran by different people at a different time so you can quit it with that drivel anytime you're ready. I laugh when progressives are called cowards by "wingers" when it's the "wingers" who happily give up their freedom so the government can save them. Sounds like the "wingers" are a bit confused. Oh yeah, and another thing, why is it that the Right is anti-abortion but pro-war????????????"

The American Mars Rover, which NASA said was out of touch with Earth for more than 24 hours, was discovered this afternoon on board the campaign bus of Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean.

NASA mission control today praised the team of scientists and engineers who located the errant Rover.

"We used the classic technique for finding something," said an unnamed NASA engineer. "We asked ourselves 'If I were the Mars Rover, accustomed to an alien atmosphere, out of touch with the people of Earth, where would I be?' And one of our engineers immediately phoned the Dean campaign."

NASA said it would try to get the Rover back on track, but that the mission may have been irreparably crippled by this shocking incident.

"One minute everything is going great, in focus, we think we have a winner," said the engineer. "The next thing you know, it just Goes off. Bam! And we're way behind."

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

I bet you're just dying to hear more obnoxious and wild speculation about Bush's REAL motivation for going to war in Iraq? What...you're not? Too bad, cause Katherine Van Wormer from Counterpunch has a half-baked piece of conjecture that I'm going to share with you anyway =D,

"...Why did Bush have this thing about Saddam? Why the “detour into an unnecessary war in Iraq?” as the U.S.Army War College recently put it.

...What a unique opportunity has fallen George W Bush’s way. The prodigal son can not only prove himself to his father but he can show up his father at his own game. Remember that for his cabinet and key advisers, he chose some of the same men from his father’s regime. He chose people, furthermore, who would be favorable to a return campaign, “a crusade” against Iraq. Given his past history and tendency toward obsessiveness, the temptation to achieve heroism through a re-enactment of his father’s war clearly would have been too much for George Bush Jr. to resist. To accomplish his mission he would have to throw caution and international diplomacy to the winds, lie convincingly to the American people, threaten allies, bully members of the United Nations, but in the end he would be able to dress in full military regalia and declare “mission accomplished.”

Now, I could certainly tear into Von Wormer for this piece of drivel and without question, she'd deserve it. However, I'd like to make a larger point about all these cockamamie theories about Bush's "REAL" motivation for invading Iraq. We've heard it's all about the oil, empire, getting revenge for Saddam's attempt to assassinate W's father, pure politics, etc, etc, etc, they're all completely ridiculous & by their very nature unprovable.

But, what I find to be most notable about all these "motivation theories" is that they require their devotees to be totally ignorant of how the Iraqi invasion actually came about or are hypocrites who are simply pretending to have no idea about what's going on.

I say that because these people act as if they believe that Bush made a decision to go to war and then pressed some sort of magical button that summoned a war machine to do his will. To the contrary, Bush managed to get 80%+ of Republicans, 60%+ of the American people, the overwhelming majority of conservative pundits, a majority of Congress including more than half of the Democratic senators, and the leaders of numerous foreign countries to all support a war in Iraq.

Now, if Bush's motivation was nothing more than "let's get their oil" or "I want revenge for daddy," how in the world did he convince so many other people to go along with him? You can engage in baseless speculation about Bush's "real motivation" all day long, but the reality is that Bush and an army of conservative pundits built support for an invasion of Iraq with solid, real world, arguments that held up so well that a majority of Americans still support the invasion even though we haven't found any WMD yet.

So, why are still seeing speculation about Bush's "real motivation"? It's because the people doing the speculation are for the most part, intellectual cowards with impotent arguments, who know they can't win the debate over the war on terrorism. So instead, rather than fight on in a losing cause, they sit on the sidelines and carp about "Bush's real motivation" instead. It's the equivalent of a kid who gets beaten in a game of dodgeball saying, "I wasn't really trying" and it's the mark of someone who's anti-war, but can't compete in the war of ideas.

Maureen Dowd, who is quite possibly the 2nd least talented columnist in America just behind Mark Morford, had this to say in response to the part of the SOTU where President Bush listed our allies in Iraq,

"You wonder how many votes (Bush) scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.

Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?"

I have a question for Maureen Dowd; the Poles, Aussies, & Brits who risked their lives going into Iraq with us -- are they poodles or lackeys?

It's also notable that Dowd mentioned Denmark, Ukraine, Thailand, Poland, Spain, & Italy since all of those nations have lost men supporting us in Iraq. I wonder if Maureen Dowd thinks those men who died were poodles or lackeys?

Someone should ask her about that...

If Dean loses in New Hampshire next week, don't be surprised to see this...

Vote Dean in New Hampshire! Do it for the kittens!

Thanks to Bike Crazy for the image & IMAO for pointing me there.

I was pleased to get an opportunity to do an email interview with someone of Thomas Sowell's stature. Sowell, who is a former Marine, is a well known economics professor who has written numerous books (including "Basic Economics" & "The Vision of the Anointed") and is syndicated in more than 150 newspapers.

Because of time constraints, Mr. Sowell was only able to respond to 10 of the questions that I submitted to him. So perhaps I'll be able to do a follow-up interview with him sometime in the future. I think you'll enjoy the interview which you can read by clicking here.

As millions of Americans watch the New England Patriots take on the Carolina Panthers, every minute of the game will be scrutinized, from all angles and with action replays. But, amid the cheers of victory and cries of disappointment, you won't hear a whisper of complaint from fans about the players' multi-million dollar salaries--$3.8 million on average for starting quarterbacks, and far more to exceptional players. No one doubts that the players have earned it, that the MVPs are indispensable to their teams, that it is morally proper to reward achievement.

But that spirit of justice disappears by springtime, when corporations file their financial statements. It is then that we learn how much America's CEOs got paid last year. In a ritual now sadly as commonplace as Super Bowl parties, CEOs are annually reviled as overpaid fat-cats. Astonished at pay packages as large as that of Dell Inc.'s Michael Dell--America's third-highest paid CEO in 2003--people ask themselves: "How can the work of a paper-pusher be worth $82 million a year?"

The answer is that successful CEOs are as indispensable to their companies as Super Bowl winning quarterbacks are to their teams. They earn their rewards.

How big an influence can one man have on the fortunes of the entire corporation? Consider the impact of Jack Welch on General Electric. Before his tenure as CEO, the company was a bloated giant, floundering under its own weight. Splintered into dozens of distinct and inefficient business units, GE was scarcely making a profit. Welch turned it around. He streamlined and reorganized the company's operations and implemented a sound business strategy yielding more than $400 billion worth of shareholder wealth.

In business, as in football, success requires long-range thinking. But CEOs must project a game plan in terms not merely of a single game or season, but of years and decades. A biotechnology company, for example, may spend 15 years and billions of dollars developing a new cancer-fighting medicine. Success is impossible without the business acumen of its CEO. For years before a marketable product exists, he must raise sufficient capital to sustain the research. What long-term business model will attract venture capital? Should the company accept partial short-term sponsorship from a large drug manufacturer in exchange for a modest royalty on the drug in the future--or risk going it alone and possibly running out of funds? It is on such decisions that a company's success is made--and lives of cancer patients may depend.

In order to be successful in the long range, the CEO's strategy must encompass countless factors. He must devise a game plan to grow the business in the face of competitors, not only from its own league, but from all the leagues in the world. The CEO calls the plays, but for a team of tens (and sometimes hundreds) of thousands of workers. All of the actions of every employee and every aspect of the business must be coordinated and integrated to produce the cars, computers or CAT scanners that yield profits to the company. It is the CEO who is responsible for that integration.

To successfully steer a corporation across the span of years by integrating its strengths toward the goal of creating wealth, requires from the CEO exceptional thought and judgment. Excellent CEOs are as rare as NFL-caliber quarterbacks. And in the business world, every day is the Super Bowl. There is no off-season or respite from the need to perform at one's peak.

Given the effect a CEO can have on a company's success, we can understand why their compensation packages can be so high. One way employers (like team owners) reward excellence is through bonuses. For many CEOs, bonuses amount to a large portion of their earnings. And as with quarterbacks, the CEO's pay package is calculated with an eye on the competition. Companies pay millions of dollars to a valuable CEO, one who they judge will produce wealth for the shareholders, in part so he will not be hired away by a competitor.

Americans can see with their own eyes the merits of star quarterbacks. Though the efforts of CEOs are not televised on Monday Night Football, their achievements are just as real and have a profound benefit to all our lives. Just as we admire a quarterback's athletic prowess and understand the importance of rewarding him accordingly; so we should learn to appreciate the work of successful CEOs and recognize that they too deserve every penny of their salaries.

Elan Journo is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Send reactions to reaction@aynrand.org

Copyright © 2004 Ayn Rand® Institute

I'm sure you've noticed RWN's text ads on the left hand side of the page in the support section. So far, I haven't made much of an effort to promote them, but as of today, that's going to change.

In order to induce people to buy these text ads on RWN, for February only, I am going to half the price. That's right; you can have a text ad on RWN for only $5! Considering that RWN pulled 183,794 daily uniques & 352,090 pageviews last month, I don't think you're going to find a better advertising deal on the entire internet.

So what do you need to do to get an ad? Send $5 via Paypal and email me at (johnhawkins-at-rightwingnews.com -- replace the -at- with @) the URL and the name of your blog. Remember that there are 20 ad spots currently available and up to 10 of them will be randomly placed in the support section at a time and that the $5 price is a one time deal for February only.

I have to laugh when I hear left-wingers claiming that Bush is some sort of radical who's going to "undo the New Deal". Bush is a big spending, government expanding, RINO on the domestic side. Jonah Goldberg elaborates,

"For more than a year, we've heard one leftist after another complain that President Bush is the most radical president in modern history. I don't just mean in foreign policy — where more than a little radicalism has been long overdue — but here at home as well. Harold Meyerson actually compares George W. Bush to Jefferson Davis, because they both share such a fundamental opposition to progressive government. We're told that Bush has gutted education, health care, and protections for the elderly. He's declared that puppies with thorns in their paws will just have to suffer, and that John Ashcroft plans on confiscating balls of yarn from kittens across America.

And that's all before Bush went into reelection mode. Read Tuesday's lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and you'll find that this is the spendiest (yes, that's right, "spendiest") president in American history, second only to LBJ."

You want me to sum it up for you? When it comes to domestic policy....

Clinton + tax cuts & conservative judges - an opposition party restraining his spending = George W. Bush.

If you want to see the very concerns conservatives have had about the international criminal court unfolding before your eyes, then you need look no further than a Reuters article called "UK cluster bombs may be war crime". It starts off like so,

"British use of cluster bombs in the Iraq war could count as a war crime and justifies further investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in the Hague, a group of international lawyers say."

The use of cluster bombs could be a war crime you say? Well gee, what other country used cluster bombs in Iraq, in much greater numbers than the Brits? No, it's not the Poles. The Canadians? Are you daft? They weren't even in Iraq & with their infinitesimal military budget they probably couldn't afford cluster bombs anyway. Yes, there you go, now you've got it...the US used cluster bombs in Iraq. But fortunately, as one of the international lawyers in the article points out,

"The U.S. cannot be tried before the court because it refuses to sign up to it. The UK did."

Exactly. And you can be absolutely certain that if we had signed up for the ICC, we'd have groups of international lawyers falling all over themselves to find a way to put a member of the Bush Administration into a cell. Can you imagine how jubilant they'd be if they could put Rumsfeld or Tommy Franks into a cell next to Milosevic? Oh they'd be drinking champagne in France that night....well, until we bombed the Hague and rescued them.

Now, I know the standard answer to these concerns is, "Well, these lawyers can ask the ICC to prosecute the Brits, but that doesn't mean they will. This will never get to court". I must admit that Tony Blair probably isn't going to end up in front of the ICC. But, I think you'll find one person's explanation of "WHY" the Brits aren't going to be in front of the court to be very instructive,

"Instinctively, it seems probable that political pressure will be bought to bear to prevent this going to the ICC," barrister Hugo Charlton told Reuters.

If political pressure can be put on the ICC not to try a case, then it also stands to reason that political pressure can be used to influence the ICC to take a case as well. Now, why in the world would we want to put US citizens in front of a court composed of non-Americans who can be influenced by "political pressure," especially given that we already prosecute our own citizens for war crimes if we think it's appropriate?

Here are a few thoughts on Bush's State of the Union Address...

-- This was an important line,

"Our greatest responsibility is the active defense of the American people. Twenty-eight months have passed since September 11th, 2001 -- over two years without an attack on American soil -- and it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting -- and false."

I'm glad to see Bush reminding the American people that the danger hasn't passed.

-- Here's something else people need to be reminded of, especially anti-war liberals,

"Inside the United States, where the war began..."

-- This was great too,

President Bush: "Key provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire next year..."

Democrats: (Applause)...

President Bush: "The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule."

Face Job!

-- Here's another key point W. hit on,

"As part of the offensive against terror, we are also confronting the regimes that harbor and support terrorists, and could supply them with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons."

Bush has been saying that since 9 days after 9/11 although the anti-war left insists on ignoring it...

-- These numbers aren't bad,

"We are tracking al-Qaida around the world -- and nearly two-thirds of their known leaders have now been captured or killed...Of the top 55 officials of the former (Iraqi) regime, we have captured or killed 45."

-- I loved this,

"I know that some people question if America is really in a war at all. They view terrorism more as a crime -- a problem to be solved mainly with law enforcement and indictments. After the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993, some of the guilty were indicted, tried, convicted, and sent to prison. But the matter was not settled. The terrorists were still training and plotting in other nations, and drawing up more ambitious plans. After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States -- and war is what they got."

Oh hell yah, tell 'em W.!

-- This is such a great counter to lefties who claim we're in Iraq without allies,

"Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq. As we debate at home, we must never ignore the vital contributions of our international partners, or dismiss their sacrifices."

-- Listen up John Kerry, Wesley Clark, & Howard Dean, he's talking to you...

" There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people."

-- Make sure to repeat this number back to the people who claim we aren't spending enough on education,

"We are providing more funding for our schools -- a 36 percent increase since 2001."

-- The Democrats ended up applauding this line, but I think they were aiming for the death tax...

"Unless you act, Americans face a tax increase."

-- This sounds good, more details please...

"Our agenda for jobs and growth must help small business owners and employees with relief from needless Federal regulation, and protect them from junk and frivolous lawsuits."

-- The oddest part of the speech was the focus on steroids,

"So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now."

What? Who stuck this in the speech?

-- Can't Charles Rangel at least stay awake through the whole SOTU?

-- I can almost hear Andrew Sullivan screaming from here...

"Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."

I'm glad to see that Bush is supporting a Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage. Not only do I support it, I think it's a great election year issue...

-- On the whole, I think Bush did an outstanding job of defending his foreign policy. On the domestic side, I'm just pleased that Bush didn't propose any really, scary new domestic programs like giving solid gold walkers to seniors, making Mexico a state, or building a bridge to the moon out of hundred dollar bills. It wasn't a knock-out speech, but it'll do.

PS: I don't think anybody watching Nancy Pelosi, her bug-eyed stare, wooden delivery, and her "America must be a light to the world, not just a missile" line, is going to be reassured that the Democrats are serious about protecting America.

Apparently, this email has been floating around the net because a friend of mine sent it to me yesterday...

You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, a dangerous looking man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife, and charges. You are carrying a Glock .40, and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do?

Southerner's Answer: BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! rackety-click...(sounds of reloading). Wife: "Hun, he looks like he's still moving, whadda y'all kids think?" Son: "Mama's right Daddy, I saw it, too." BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! click. daughter: "Nice group, Daddy! Were those the Winchester Silver Tips?"

Now, if you've been reading RWN for a while, that email may seem familiar to you. That's probably because someone put this together after modifying a post I originally wrote back in Sept of 2002. To have this post still being sent back and forth more than a year after I wrote it is flattering indeed...

I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger if I didn't weigh in on the topic du jour, Howard Dean's disappointing 3rd place finish in Iowa. In my opinion, Dean nosedived in Iowa because,

1) He go so far out ahead of the pack after the Gore endorsement that the other Democratic candidates who obviously wanted to win, party insiders who feared a Dean candidacy, the media that wanted a more competitive race, and the GOP, myself included who thought Dean was almost a lock, all started mercilessly savaging Mr. Judith Steinberg Dean.

2) As the piranhas started to school around Dean, he collapsed under the weight of all that attention and pressure and started making a lot of significant gaffes. In particular, I believe Dean's comments on religion were damaging. One of Dean's advisers should have informed him that very few people are going to buy into the idea that a guy who quit the Episcopalian church over a bikepath and who has no problem with his children being raised Jewish is terribly serious about his Christian faith. Add to that Dean's embarrassing confusion about Job and his claim that "there was a religious aspect to my decision to support civil unions" and doc Dean really came off like a phony who was talking about religion for no other reason than because he thought it would help him pull in a few votes.

3) Because of #1 & #2, a lot of Iowa voters probably had "buyer's remorse". Did they really want to nominate an angry, anti-war candidate who was running on raising taxes? Would Democrats have to write off the South if Dean was the candidate? Why wasn't Dean's wife campaigning with him? Is Dean too angry to appeal to the average voter? Apparently, a lot of Iowa Dems asked questions like that, didn't like the answers, and decided Edwards or Kerry could better represent the Party in November.

Despite all of that, Dean's Iowa meltdown doesn't mean he's out of the hunt by any means, although it's now a 5 man race (I'm being charitable and including Lieberman) instead of a Dean cakewalk. That may be bad for Dean and heck, maybe even bad for the GOP since the weakest top tier candidate may not win, but on the upside, it'll make the Democratic primaries a lot more fun =D

With the characteristic charm that earned him the love and respect of roughly 18 percent of Iowa Democrats, presidential candidate Howard Dean bid the state farewell as he stepped onto his private jet tonight.

"Shut up, you gun-toting, God-fearing homophobes," Mr. Dean said to a cheering crowd of Iowa Democrats. "Your caucus is a meaningless exercise dominated by extremist special interests just like I said on Canadian TV years ago."

Mr. Dean's aides said their candidate plans to "ride the wave" of his third-place Iowa finish on to "a decent showing" in New Hampshire.

"We're just so relieved to be out from under the burden of that 'frontrunner' label," said an unnamed Dean aide.

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

Bill Gates, one time CEO of Microsoft Corporation (MSN) and one of the wealthiest men in the world, announced today that a recent research scheme backfired, rendering him penniless and his company destroyed.

Two weeks ago, Gates made the following offer to the world:

"For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque"

“I didn’t expect the amazing reaction I got,” Gates admitted on the steps of the King County Courthouse in Seattle, where he was filing for both personal and corporate bankruptcy today. “I thought three, maybe four people would do it.”

In reality, after only ten cycles of excited e-mail users forwarding the message on to their friends, the total expense for Gates came to $355,588,042,130,960,000.

“I probably should have listened when my high school teachers talked about exponents,” said Gates. “Math is actually valuable! Who knew?”

In a related story, Neiman Marcus today filed a class action suit against 364,889 e-mail users for releasing the retailer’s $250 chocolate chip cookie recipe without proper authorization.

If you enjoyed this satire by Russell Lutz, you can read more of his work at the The Skeptician.

Marc Miyake from Amaravati: Abode Of Amritas alerted me to the existence of a Yahoo group with over 4000 members called "amputee-by-choice".

Now, I know that right now you're probably thinking, "Hawkins, please, please, please, tell me there aren't a bunch of sickos out there who want to chop off their own bodyparts". Sorry folks, not only do they exist, but they're getting together on Yahoo and trying to convince each other that they're not crazy. But, that's what the internet is all about, right? Bringing people together?

Prepare yourself for some of the highlights/lowlights/scary weirdness that I ran across in the latest episode of ACPOTI (Anyone can post on the internet)....

t8_de: "i have amputated my little toes years ago. now i want to stimulate the old nerves for some sensation. i tried to apply high voltage by an electro shocker to the stump. i felt the stump, but nothing from the lost toe. does any of you have any idea how to get a sensation from the toe?"

wavesurfin: "if a person uses a rubber band on a finger or toe-how long would it take to render the appendage damaged beyond repair therefore necessitating amputation?"

internet2world: "Jenn, please post video of you wiggling your stumps! Will you amputate your right toes also?"

snowbladebum: "Well, I can't ignore it any more. My right leg bk has to go. It has been driving me absolutely nuts. Whenever I am not at work I think about it non stop. When I am at work, I think about it. Even when I sleep, I have dreams of the "new" me living my daily life without this d@mn leg. I have thought through every situation; how my life would be, what are they down sides, every single detail. It wouldn't really affect me at all once I got used to it, as long as I kept my knee. Also, if I could get a good prosthetic, I could still ski as hard as I do. I have to say, mentally I am ready. I dunno how long the down time would be, and I don't want to miss out this winter, so I might do it come spring time. The problem though, is how. I have to make it look like an innocent accident. I live in an area where there is plenty of hiking and big boulders. Maybe if I could find one that's not too stable, and maybe with my buddy, get him to push it to pin my leg, or roll over it. Another thing I have thought of is dropping something very heavy out of the bed of my truck, which just happened to knock me over and land on my leg. My most logical one though, so I don't risk injuring the rest of myself (too bad), is maybe park my truck on a steep hill, facing up hill, a few feet away from a cement wall or something behind it. My buddy lets off the brakes while I am in the back and my leg didn't get out of the way from between the object and rear bumper fast enough. Hey, I was just getting into the back to unload something, and the truck just "slipped out of gear", I guess I forgot to set the e-brake, and just didn't get out of the way in time :) Anyway, I don't know how much it would take. I want this to be a one time deal, not just break my leg and go through hell for a couple months waiting for it to heal, and end up no better off than before. I don't know if you know of anyone with a leg amputation, or know the procedure, but I am curious to know how much time I would be spending in the hospital, how long till I could wear the "temporary" prosthetic they give you, etc. This is basically the anticipated "down time" I would have until I could get back to work. If you have any info/advise/comments, etc., I would greatly appreciate them. Thanks,"

cchaffie: "Does anyone know a surgeon or how to get a surgeon to amputate healthy toes? I will pay good money to have 4 of my toes removed. Any ideas are appreciated."

Radiologist: "I have tried to amputate my fourth toe (the one next to my little toe) on my left foot since 1980.

Someday I might change my mind and decide to let a doctor amputate it after all, or maybe I'll find a satisfactory way of amputating it myself, but for now I'm satisfied knowing that I've screwed up my toe pretty good, and that makes me proud."

How often have we heard stories like this?

"A 17-year-old boy who said voices told him to kill was charged with stabbing his father to death and slashing his younger brother with a butcher knife Sunday, authorities said.
Jordan Michael Carter, of Edinboro, was arrested and charged with homicide, attempted homicide and aggravated assault.

He told the person answering the phone that the voices "never used to be this loud," the criminal complaint stated. Carter also said his mother and twin sisters were out shopping, according to the complaint."

Here's an important hint; just because you hear a voice in your head doesn't mean you have to do what they say. In fact, if you're hearing voices in your head, I'd say it's pretty safe NOT to do what they're telling you. I mean how many times have you heard someone say, "I gave $100 to charity because the voice in my head told me to do it" or "The voice in my head demanded that I get off of welfare and get a job, so I had to obey"? The only person I can ever think of who actually did something postive because of the voices in her head was Joan of Arc and in the end she was burned at the stake and ended up saving France of all places, so it wasn't like it was all wine & roses for her either.

So take it from someone who has a degree in psychology; don't listen to the voices!

You can really tell that Wesley Clark is Bill Clinton's boy by watching him handle his big flip-flop on the war. Incredibly, Clark is still claiming,

"I was against the war then, I'm against the war now. It was a strategic mistake for America."

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Clark was an ultra-hawk like Richard Perle, Don Rumsfeld, or me for that matter. But, on the other hand, Clark came across more like Colin Powell than he did Howard Dean, and that was even AFTER the war was over.

For example, here are some quotes from Clark on Al-Qaeda & WMD that I think are worth noting...

"(Saddam) retains his chemical and biological warfare capabilities and is actively pursuing nuclear capabilities. Were he to acquire such capabilities, we and our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks. Saddam might use such weapons as a deterrent while launching attacks against Israel or his neighbors, he might threaten American forces in the region, he might strike directly against Israel, or Israel, weighing the possibilities of nuclear blackmail or aggression, might feel compelled to strike Iraq first." -- Wesley Clark

"Certainly there’s a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they would be talking to Al Qaeda, that there would be some Al Qaeda there or that Saddam Hussein might even be, you know, discussing gee, I wonder since I don’t have any scuds and since the Americans are coming at me, I wonder if I could take advantage of Al Qaeda? How would I do it? Is it worth the risk? What could they do for me?" -- Wesley Clark

Then, after the war ended, Clark wrote a column of note for the Times Online. While Clark did not espouse unequivocal support for everything Bush did in the lead-up to war, the column was on balance pro-war. Here are a few key quotes...

"Can anything be more moving than the joyous throngs swarming the streets of Baghdad? Memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Milosevic in Belgrade flood back. Statues and images of Saddam are smashed and defiled. Liberation is at hand. Liberation — the powerful balm that justifies painful sacrifice, erases lingering doubt and reinforces bold actions. Already the scent of victory is in the air. Yet a bit more work and some careful reckoning need to be done before we take our triumph."

"As for the political leaders themselves, President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt. And especially Mr Blair, who skillfully managed tough internal politics, an incredibly powerful and sometimes almost irrationally resolute ally, and concerns within Europe. Their opponents, those who questioned the necessity or wisdom of the operation, are temporarily silent, but probably unconvinced. And more tough questions remain to be answered."

"Let’s have those parades on the Mall and down Constitution Avenue — but don’t demobilize yet. There’s a lot yet to be done, and not only by the diplomats."

To top all of this off, Clark not just once, but at least TWICE said that he would have voted for the war resolution,

"Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark said Wednesday he supports a congressional resolution that would give President Bush authority to use military force against Iraq, although he has reservations about the country's move toward war. Clark...endorsed Democrat Katrina Swett in the 2nd District race. He said if she were in Congress this week, he would advise her to vote for the resolution, but only after vigorous debate." -- The Associated Press, 10/9/02

"At the time, I probably would have voted (to give Bush authorization to go to war), but I think that's too simple a question." -- Wesley Clark on the opening day of his campaign, 9/19/ 2003.

Now given all of that, how can Clark and his supporters credibly claim that he has been anti-war all along? The answer is; they can't. Dean and Lieberman are right, Clark is lying through his teeth about his "consistent" position on the war. In actuality, Clark changed his position 180% one day after his campaign to become the Democratic nominee began. I think that say a lot about Clark's character and about how seriously his attacks on the Bush administration's handling of the war should be taken.

A Democrat in California's state assembly said she has 24 co-sponsors for a bill she described as "fresh, outside the box thinking" to deal with that state's $15 billion budget deficit.

"The basic idea is pretty radical for Democrats," said Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, "The bill calls for raising taxes on high-income earners to pay for some of the state's overspending."

Ms. Chan said it was a "long slog" convincing her fellow Democrats to boost the personal income tax rate by 7.5 to 18 percent on top earners.

"A lot of my fellow Democrats just stared at me in confusion," she said. "At first they didn't understand what I was saying. I had to explain that the state can increase the tax rate, which would bring more money into the government and reduce the need for uncomfortable spending cuts."

A spokesman for the Democrat National Committee (DNC) said legislators across the nation would "keep a watchful eye on California to see how the radical tax-hiking strategy works."

"California has always been on the cutting edge," said the unnamed DNC spokesman. "But this technique goes into uncharted waters for us, and we're quite cautious about anything that takes more money from taxpayers, rather than reducing government expenditures."

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

I am a big fan of David Horowitz's work. Not only have I interviewed him, but I can honestly say that his book "Radical Son," was one of the most fascinating things I've ever read.

So with that in mind, I decided to pour through his columns from last year so I could compile a list of Horowitz's best quotes. I hope you enjoy Horowitz's furious attacks on the left as much I do...(Cont)