• Number of deaths due to four Florida hurricanes in 2004: 117
  
• Number of deaths due to Aceh earthquake and tsunami in 2004: 120,000+
  
• Homeless due to Florida hurricanes: 11,000
  
• Homeless due to Aceh earthquake/tsunami: 5,000,000
  
• US government aid to help Florida hurricane victims: $2.04 billion
  
• US government aid to help Aceh earthquake/tsunami victims: $35 million
  
• Estimated cost of George Bush's upcoming inaguration celebration, not including security costs: $40 million
  
• US government direct cost, per hour, of the US war in Iraq: $9 million
  
• US per capita government contribution to help earthquake/tsunami victims: $0.12
  
• Jackie Chan's personal contribution to help earthquake/tsunami victims: $200,000

Very Secret: To Divisional and Army Commands Only

Officers and men who speak English are wanted for a special mission. Volunteers selected will join a new unit under the command of Lieut.-Col. Otto Skorzeny, to whose headquarters at Freidenthal application should be made.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wanted: Good doctors to analyze the health of terrorists and foreign leaders. Must pass polygraph and other "security procedures."

To apply, call the CIA.

That's the classified ad running in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, right between an ad calling for an internist in Chicago and another promising "exciting opportunities in geriatric primary care."

Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of Sunday’s devastating tidal wave.

I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction.

But many others were not so fortunate. For hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and an unknown number of foreign tourists, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow.

Among those affected are my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa and holiday bungalow in Kahawa -- both beachfront properties located in areas worst hit. We still don’t know the full extent of damage as both roads and phones have been damaged. Early reports indicate that we have lost most of our diving equipment and boats. Not all our staff members are accounted for -- yet.

This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are all trying to contribute to the relief efforts. We shall keep you informed as we learn more about what happened.

Sincerity has no intristic value. A sincere fool is still a fool, a sincere Inquisitor still a torturer.

The president and the White House have now compared their build-up to the Iraq war with their push to phase out Social Security enough times that it seems worth creating a detailed taxonomy of the Bush White House approach to major policy initiatives in order to predict their efforts over the next two years.

The [Wall Street] Journal said last week ...

The president has yet to lay out specific ideas for changing the entitlement program; he and his aides are focused first on selling the idea of change. "For a while, I think it's important for me to continue to work with members of both parties to explain the problem," he said in a Monday news conference.

This would suggest that we're now in the lying and fear-mongering phase of the campaign, which would be followed of course by a later phase in which a specific policy remedy is brought forward, nominally meant to address the fake problem.

MOSUL, Iraq -- The questions from the troops for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were considerably more friendly on his Christmas Eve visit to Iraq than they were on his previous trip to the region a couple of weeks ago.

"How do we win the war in the media?" asked one soldier in Mosul. Another soldier in Tikrit wondered why there is not more coverage of reconstruction efforts going on in the country.

"I guess what's news has to be bad news to get on the press," Rumsfeld responded to the first question - after supposing, with a big grin, "that does not sound like a question that was planted by the press."

[...]

"We are a great country and we can benefit from having a free press," said Rumsfeld. "From time to time people can be concerned about it, but look where we've come as a country because we do have a free press."

"The purpose of the trip is to thank the troops and wish them a merry Christmas," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters during the 12-hour overnight flight to Iraq from Washington, a trip that aids went to unusual lengths to keep secret. Only a few reporters and one television crew accompanied him.*

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US President George W. Bush is expected to seek authorisation for spending of an additional 80 billion dollars in Iraq, the head of a visiting congressional delegation said.

"In early February, there will be ... a supplemental appropriation in addition to the 2006 budget for defence submitted to Congress," Jim Kolbe, Republican congressman from Arizona, told reporters.

[...]

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was also in Iraq visiting troops, promised Friday that the extra funds would be spent on equipment for ground forces stationed in the country in 2005 and 2006.

[...]

Kolbe was very critical of the pace of spending on reconstruction in Iraq given that 87 billion of supplemental funding for operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan was approved in October 2003 by Congress on the assumption that they were "urgently needed."

Of the estimated 18.3 billion dollars allocated for reconstruction projects in Iraq, through October, roughly one billion dollars had been spent with officials citing security concerns as the main obstacle.

Kolbe also said there has been "little planning" in the way funds are spent as the White House requested earlier this year that more of the money be diverted from infrastructure to the training of Iraqi security forces.

"My subcommittee has raised serious concerns," he said. "All and all, we have been frustrated with the pace of reconstruction."

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to mounting criticism even from fellow Republicans, said on Wednesday he was "truly saddened" anyone could think he was not laboring to protect U.S. combat troops.

It's an ingenious idea. Create a no-win situation for anti-choice protesters — the more picketers who demonstrate outside a Planned Parenthood clinic, the more donations the Planned Parenthood clinic receives.

A number of Planned Parenthood affiliates have created different versions of this scenario. Here's how it works at Planned Parenthood of Central Texas (PPCT) in Waco, where the Pledge-a-Picket program is going strong: Each time a protester shows up at the clinic, a donation is made to PPCT. This campaign makes lemonade out of lemons by allowing Planned Parenthood supporters to pledge between 25 cents and one dollar per protester.

[...]

Once a week, PPCT puts a sign outside its clinic that says, "Even Our Protesters Support Planned Parenthood." To date, the Pledge-a-Picket program has raised $18,000 for PPCT. While not a significant chunk of its overall revenues, Pledge-a-Picket contributes greatly to PPCT's patient assistance fund, which helps clients who don't have resources get the care they need.

Since Pledge-a-Picket was launched in January 2002 the number of supporters who are eager to do something positive for PPCT has increased. A sign indicating the amount of money raised is continually updated, so protesters know how much money they are making for the affiliate every time they show up, some with children who are also counted.

The sixth Harry Potter book will hit the shops on 16 July next year, it has been announced.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be published simultaneously in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

[...]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as Lord Voldemort grows stronger.

Rowling has already revealed that the Half-Blood Prince is neither Harry nor Voldemort.

One of the most important qualifications for being a big-time media pundit is the use of metaphor and her cheaper, whorish cousin, simile. No matter how stale, muleheaded, or just plain wrong your opinion is, you too can get a syndicated column in a major paper or pen for a top-notch weekly rag, if you are able to master the art of couching your baseless hypotheses with some halfway decent imagery. First, it allows you to describe your implausible notions in a friendlier, easy-to-digest way. Second, it allows you to pad your stuff out in order to make the word count. Editors are sticklers for that sort of thing.

Yes, you too can be a Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, or, provided you have sold your soul to Satan in exchange for him helping you move an old couch, Ann Coulter. Use this space to practice your own clever political imagery. Especially good contributions will receive accolades, mojo, and possibly a spot on the New York Times editorial page -- we hear there's an opening.

Listen as Donna [Brazille] and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the ‘new’ language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

[...]

As victims we can't stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can't seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy).

Overall, Americans average about seven hours of sleep a night, little changed over the past decade. But more people today say they don't get enough sleep than said that a decade and a half ago.

Every since the US election I've just been wondering. Now that the Bushites have their "mandate", which of their criminally foolish ambitions were they gonna go after first? Was it gonna be an invasion of Iran or Syria, in open defiance of the fact that they don't have the necessary troops and equipment to do it? Or would they plow ahead domestically with their privatize-Social Security/bankrupt-America plan in plain defiance of economic logic? Looks like it's door #2, which makes sense since it doesn't require coming up with 100,000 new soldiers. When world confidence in America, its leadership and its dollar is close to an all-time low, what could be better than borrowing $2 trillion to finance a scheme to reroute Social Security money through the financial industry? Brilliant, I say! Brilliant!

The first test in nearly two years of a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield failed on Wednesday when the interceptor missile shut down as it prepared to launch in the central Pacific, the Pentagon said.

About 16 minutes earlier, a target missile carrying a mock warhead had been successfully fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska, according to a statement from the Missile Defense Agency.

The aborted $85 million test appeared likely to set back plans for activation of a rudimentary bulwark against long-range ballistic missiles that could be fired by countries like North Korea.

The Koufax Awards are named for Sandy Koufax, one of the greatest left handed pitchers of all time. They are intended to honor the best of the left of blogtopia. At its core, the Koufax Awards are meant to be an opportunity to say nice things about your favorite bloggers and to provide a bit of recognition for the folks who provide us with information, insight, and entertainment usually for little or no renumeration. The awards are supposed to be fun for us and fun for you.

[...]

[There are] twelve categories. If you think we should add another or restore one that has been eliminated, don't be shy, just leave a comment and we will consider it.

In response to one or more indecency complaints, the Federal Communications Commission has asked NBC to send it tapes of its coverage of the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Athens, the network confirmed late yesterday.

Ironically, the night before, NBC's Summer Games coverage was named the family-friendliest special of 2004 during WB's broadcast of the sixth annual Family Television Awards.

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC's crackdown on indecency. "It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio," said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists' advocacy group.

PTC officials disagree.

"I wish we had that much power," said Lara Mahaney, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles-based group.

But we are not the federal Bureau of Indecency. We do not watch or listen to programs hoping to catch purveyors of dirty broadcasts. Instead, we rely on public complaints to point out potentially indecent shows. Advocacy groups do generate many complaints, as our critics note, but that's not unusual in today's Internet world. We are very familiar with organized protests when it comes to media issues, but that fact does not minimize the merits of the groups' concerns.

And what struck me odd about this was those of us who have employees, we all have meetings with them and we all let them blow off steam, but we do it in private. . . . You just don't see that kind of near insubordination among rank and file military to the secretary of defense.

I don't care who it is, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Constitution Party in the White House; no Defense Secretary and certainly no President sends our troops into harms' way without the best weaponry and armor available. Period. And if I'm the President, the day I hear my Defense Secretary effectively say to the troops "I don't care if you're dying and losing limbs and suffering brain injuries because we didn't give you adequate armor to do the job" is the day I hold a press conference and fire his ass in front of the entire world.

I think I finally understand Bush's "leadership style" that proved so popular with so many Americans. He leads by platitude, not by example. Saying the right thing is so much easier than doing the right thing. Which is a very sorry statement indeed about the world's leading exporter of democracy.

One soldier, identified by The Associated Press as Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, a Tennessee National Guard outfit, asked Rumsfeld why more military combat vehicles were not reinforced for battle conditions.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked.

[...]

"It's essentially a matter of physics, not a matter of money," Rumsfeld said. "It's a matter of production and the capability of doing it."

[...]

"As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want," Rumsfeld said.

He added, "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank, and it can [still] be blown up."

The latest complaints put the administration further on the defensive. Bush had rejected charges from Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in the campaign for last month's election that military forces in Iraq did not have sufficient protection.

[...]

California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader in the House of Representatives, said Rumsfeld should be fired.

She said the Iraq war "began 21 months ago and Secretary Rumsfeld has still not done what is necessary, which is his highest duty, to protect our troops to the greatest degree possible. No CEO in America would retain a manager with so clear a record of failure and neither should President Bush."

Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.

[...]

Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today.

"We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month," Mecredy said in the interview. "I've told the customer that and I stand ready to do that."

President Bush said on Thursday U.S. troop concerns about inadequate equipment for Iraq combat are being addressed and he did not blame soldiers for raising the issue with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In another example, a military assistant to a Pentagon employee gambled away part of a $40,000 grant issued to help coach an Iraqi sports team, the report found.

[I want to make] sure that every infuriating policy proposal and absurd pork project gets stuffed so far down the GOP's throat that it bursts out, Alien-like, onto the floor in a mass of goo and gore, leaving the wrecked husk of conservatism to topple over, a grotesque mass of corporate cronyism and sickening power-lust.

US distributors of the film Merchant of Venice, which premiered in London this week, have asked the director to cut out a background fresco by a Venetian old master so it is fit for American television viewers.

[...]

Distributors regularly ask for cuts in films so that they can be shown on US television and by airlines. The request to "paint-box the wallpaper" -- cover over the fresco -- was contained in a letter from the US distributors, Sony, to Michael Radford.

[...]

[A]ccording to Mr Radford, there was "a very curious request which said 'Could you please paint-box out the wallpaper?'. I said wallpaper, what wallpaper? This is the 16th century, people didn't have wall-paper."

When he examined the scenes, he realised the letter was referring to frescoes by Paolo Veronese, the acclaimed Venetian 16th-century artist, which, when examined closely, showed a naked cupid.

"A billion dollars worth of Veronese great master's frescoes they want paint-boxed out because of this cupid's willy. It is absolutely absurd," he said.

The director said he would resist the effort to cut out the fresco...

The agency has increased penalties significantly, recognizing that they must be large enough for billion-dollar media companies to stop treating fines as a minor cost of doing business.

Some have also questioned why the commission is unwilling to issue rulings before a broadcast, as was the case with the recent network showing of "Saving Private Ryan," a film the commission had previously held was not indecent. While ABC and its affiliates understandably would have liked to know the program was in bounds before proceeding, the precedent of submitting programming or scripts for government review borders dangerously on censorship. The Communications Act expressly forbids the F.C.C. from banning a program before broadcast, and any such effort might very well run afoul of the First Amendment. This is a step I do not want to take.

But we are not the federal Bureau of Indecency. We do not watch or listen to programs hoping to catch purveyors of dirty broadcasts. Instead, we rely on public complaints to point out potentially indecent shows. Advocacy groups do generate many complaints, as our critics note, but that's not unusual in today's Internet world. We are very familiar with organized protests when it comes to media issues, but that fact does not minimize the merits of the groups' concerns.

If one slices through the rhetoric, you'll find that most opponents of the agency's strong enforcement efforts believe that the government simply should not impose any decency standard at all. Berating citizens who believe in values and reasonable limits is insulting and polarizing and distracts from the legitimate issues of this policy debate.

In October 1968 CBS executives began to prescreen all of Smothers Brothers their [sic] programs. After several tumultuous seasons, the program was canceled (the Smothers Brothers called it being "Fired") and left the air in June of 1969. The CBS network justified their cancellation by referring to network policy that "Prohibits appeals for active support of any cause" (even if it was "peace").

On FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Coulter said that Canadians "better hope the United States doesn't roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent." On CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Carlson stated: "Without the U.S., Canada is essentially Honduras, but colder and much less interesting"; he went on to say that instead of following politics, "the average Canadian is busy dogsledding." And on Crossfire, Carlson referred to the "limpid, flaccid nature of Canadian society."

According to a written explanation from CBS, the United Church of Christ is being denied network access because its ad implies acceptance of gay and lesbian couples -- among other minority constituencies -- and is, therefore, too "controversial."

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."

[...]

The debut 30-second commercial features two muscle-bound "bouncers" standing guard outside a symbolic, picturesque church and selecting which persons are permitted to attend Sunday services. Written text interrupts the scene, announcing, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." A narrator then proclaims the United Church of Christ's commitment to Jesus' extravagant welcome: "No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here." (The ad can be viewed online at www.stillspeaking.com.)

"We find it disturbing that the networks in question seem to have no problem exploiting gay persons through mindless comedies or titillating dramas, but when it comes to a church's loving welcome of committed gay couples, that's where they draw the line," says the Rev. Robert Chase, director of the UCC's communication ministry.

CBS and NBC's refusal to air the ad "recalls the censorship of the 1950s and 1960s, when television station WLBT in Jackson, Miss., refused to show people of color on TV," says Ron Buford, coordinator for the United Church of Christ identity campaign. Buford, of African-American heritage, says, "In the 1960s, the issue was the mixing of the races. Today, the issue appears to be sexual orientation. In both cases, it's about exclusion."