Russia has shipped the first two Su-30MK2 multi-role fighters to Venezuela under a contract signed in July 2006, an aircraft manufacturing industry official said Thursday. Russia signed $1-billion contracts on supplies of 24 Su-30MK2 Flanker fighters and 30 helicopters to Venezuela prior to this year's visit to Russia by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, triggering criticism from Washington, which regards the Venezuelan regime as a potential security threat in the region.
"Russia starts supplies of Su-30 fighters to Venezuela," Russian News Information Agency, November 30, 2006 --- http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061130/56213509.html

Buy a house, get a free gun Real estate agent's cure for slow market – Glock
WorldNetDaily, December 10, 2006 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53308
Jensen Comment
This is tailor-made for a new movie by Michael Moore who featured getting free gun while opening a bank account. The trick is to use the glock in order to avoid having to take out a mortgage.

Wal-Mart boasts that its new $4 generic drug program is disrupting the market, attracting new customers to its stores and starting the nation on a road that will ultimately squeeze billions of dollars from prescription drug spending . . . But two months into the program, it is unclear whether in all cases Wal-Mart is meeting its stated goal of making a profit on the $4 drugs. Earlier this week the company disclosed that it had begun charging $9 for some prescriptions in states that have unfair-competition laws against selling products below cost. And as Wal-Mart finds itself off to a disappointing start of the holiday sales season, it is still not clear whether $4 drugs are indeed disrupting drug retailing and helping generate significant new consumer traffic — or instead mainly giving a break to people who are already Wal-Mart customers and can spend their pharmacy savings in the stores’ many other aisles.
Milt Freudenheim, "Side Effects at the Pharmacy," The New York Times, December 2, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/business/30pharmacy.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

We have lost in Iraq. By prescribing placebos, the Iraq Study Group isn’t plotting a way forward but delaying the recognition of our defeat.
Frank Rich, "The Sunshine Boys Can’t Save Iraq," The New York Times, December 10, 2006 --- Click Here

The Time Is Now (to Surrender)
Bob Herbert, "The Time is Now," The New York Times, December 10, 2006 --- Click Here

2006 Update on Wafa Sultan
Then again, she did have strong opinions about Islamic extremism, and she was utterly unafraid to express them. So if Al Jazeera wanted to talk to a wife and mother in Los Angeles about this important subject, sure, why not? Wafa accepted. What no one could have guessed was that she was about to become a controversial new voice in the Islamic world -- and for many moderate Muslims, a model of courage . . . It was Wafa Sultan's second appearance on Al Jazeera, last February, that brought her worldwide notoriety. This time, she debated Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli, an Egyptian cleric, and once again gave no quarter. "The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," she declared. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another that belongs to the 21st century." To Al-Khouli, she added, "You can believe in stones, brother, as long as you don't throw them at me." . . . Wafa has also paid a price within the Muslim community in Los Angeles. Before she became a known activist, she had a busy social life with other Middle Eastern women. Today, few of her old friends remain. "They begged me to stop," she explains of the women in her circle. Some feared for her life; others reviled her message. Wafa summarizes their reaction this way: "You can't make any change, so why are you risking your life?"
Kerry Howley, "Breaking the Silence One woman is risking her life to speak the truth about radical Islam," Readers Digest, December 2006 --- Click Here

Jihadi attempts to procure lethal and destructive weapons are endless. It is especially disturbing when they attempt to experiment with and acquire chemical and biological weapons. One recent post on a jihadi website outlined a user's attempts at mixing chemical components to create deadly substances for terrorist purposes. The post, titled "The War of Poisons," was authored by a user with the pseudonym "Wajeh al-Qamar," who explained how to use different poisons against Americans in order to push them out of the Arabian Peninsula ( http://alsayf.com  , July 30). Al-Qamar instructs fellow jihadis to mix cyanide with any type of body lotion...
Abdul Hameed Bakier, "Jihadi Forum Outlines Use of Poisons for Terrorist Attacks," The Jamestown Foundation, December 7, 2006 --- http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370227

For the past few years, the dictators and terrorists have been gaining ground, and with good reason. The deepening catastrophe in Iraq has distracted the world's sole superpower from its true goals, and weakened the U.S. politically as well as militarily. With new congressional leadership threatening to make the same mistake -- failing to see Iraq as only one piece of a greater puzzle -- it is time to return to the basics of strategic planning. Thirty years as a chess player ingrained in me the importance of never losing sight of the big picture. Paying too much attention to one area of the chessboard can quickly lead to the collapse of your entire position. America and its allies are so focused on Iraq they are ceding territory all over the map. Even the vague goals of President Bush's ambiguous war on terror have been pushed aside by the crisis in Baghdad.
Garry Kasparov, "Chessboard Endgame," The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116502013769838604.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

Mullahs on Monday will open an international conference to examine the veracity of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, which Iran's arab-parast President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has labeled a "myth."
"Mullahs host Jew-haters in Iran," Persian Journal, December 10, 2006 --- http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_19430.shtml

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams

Too bad if 90 percent of it is stupid. That's how creativity works.
Linus Torvalds --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvald

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate you away from those who are still undecided.
Casey Stengel --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Stengel

Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet.
Representative Alcee Hastings as quoted by Kate Phillips after being informed that Nancy Pelosi did not choose him to chair the National Intelligence Chair, "Pelosi to Hastings: No on Intelligence Chair," The New York Times, November 28, 2006 --- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=746

I think we could turn a passive resistance into an active resistance. It seems counter-intuitive. Rather than registering people to vote, why not organize a boycott of the vote? Jesse Jackson has been registering voters for almost 20 years now and it hasn't done anything.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne_Dunbar-Ortiz
As quoted at http://www.reddirtsite.com/bk-outlaw-6-clamor.htm
Jensen Comment
It amazes me how activists make such statements as matter of fact that actually run counter to facts if you study the rise of African Americans to positions of power at the local level (such as black mayors and sheriffs in Mississippi to the powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee). It's absurd to say that voting "hasn't done anything." Such "progressive activism" is all about theatrics and not scholarship.  What, other than voting power, raised Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker of the House of Representatives and an African American senator to being a leading contender for the presidency of the United States?

Journalists don't believe the lies of politicians, but they do repeat them - which is even worse!
Michel Colucci, better known as Coluche (1944-1986) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coluche
He became known for his irreverent attitude towards politics and the “Establishment,” and he incorporated this into much of his material.

The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who "is not who he claimed he was," an Iraqi police captain. Military officials also say they cannot confirm that the incident took place and have asked AP to retract or correct the story, which was repeated by media around the world and cited as a grim example of Shiites taking revenge for a deadly bombing that killed more than 200 people a day before . . . Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he claimed he was.
"AP, U.S. military spar over atrocities report," USA Today, December 1, 2006 ---
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/11/us_military_and.html

Worried by Iran's deepening involvement in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has been working quietly to curtail the Shiite nation's influence and prevent the marginalization of Sunni Muslims in the region's hotspots. Analysts say the tug-of-war between the two Mideast powers signals a new chapter in an uneasy relationship, one that has swung over the years between wariness and - at times - outright confrontation.
Donna Abu-Nasr, "Saudis Work to Curb Iran's Influence," Las Vegas Sun, December 2, 2006 --- http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2006/dec/02/120204338.html

Debunking The 9/11 Myths -Popular Mechanics examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11 --- http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html

Seriously, the Los Angeles Times Has Been Strategically Trying to Discourage the U.S. Military in Iraq
Al Qaeda is winning the media war and this is why!
. . .  there were no airstrikes in Ramadi that day, while the L.A. Times stringer claimed there had been an airstrike. When I checked into it, the weight of the evidence indicated that the soldier was right and the L.A. Times was wrong. The military flatly denies that there was an airstrike — a denial that the L.A. Times has failed to report to this day. Several other media reports state that civilians died from small-arms fire and tank fire, and not an airstrike.  . . . The [L.A. Times article] is an example of why you simply cannot believe most media reports coming out of Iraq. The LA Time[s] reporter, Solomon Moore, is not in Ramadi. He relies on an Iraqi stringer here who has ties to insurgents. In this article, Moore repeats almost verbatim, insurgent propaganda we have intercepted. The fighting in question occurred in my battle space within Ramadi and I was personally and intimately involved . . . Every target engaged was well within what our restrictive rules of engagement authorize. I am disgusted by the editorial slant of this article, by what passes from journalistic integrity at the LA Times, and by their complicity with our mortal enemies. My Soldiers fight with great precision and skill on a very difficult urban battlefield. The LA Times dishonors them and give aid and comfort to my enemies.
A soldier in Iraq uncovered a propaganda fabrication by Al Qaeda reported as fact by the Los Angeles Times --- Click Here

A record 7 million people - or one in every 32 American adults - were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 per cent over the previous year, according to a report. More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more. Men still far outnumber women in prisons and jails, but the female population is growing faster.
"1 in every 32 U.S. adults behind bars, on probation or on parole in 2005," Daily Mail, November 30, 2006 --- Click Here

Asked by a reporter about how “President Bush today blamed the surge of violence in Iraq on al Qaeda,” incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded with a disjointed answer about how “the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the President is resorting to it again." Though al-Qaeda is clearly in Iraq and responsible for deadly bombings, and the 9/11 Commission conclusion was about links before September 11th, on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News reporter David Gregory treated Pelosi's off-base retort as credible and relevant. Without suggesting any miscue by her, Gregory segued to Pelosi's soundbite with a bewildering set up of his own about how “incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disagreed, warning that such rhetoric about al Qaeda will make it harder for Democrats to work with the White House."
Brent Baker, "Gregory Ignores Pelosi's Flub, Treats Retort to Bush on al-Qaeda in Iraq as Credible," NewsBuster,s November 28, 2006 --- http://newsbusters.org/node/9314

We will need grace to get through this time: through the discussion of the Baker-Hamilton report, through debate on the war, through a harmonious transfer of legislative power in January, through the beginning of the post-Bush era. People often speak of an absence of civility in Washington, but that's not quite the problem. Faking civility is a primary operating style: "My esteemed colleague." What is needed is grace--sensitivity, mercy, generosity of spirit, a courtesy so deep it amounts to beauty. We will have to summon it. And the dreadful thing is you can't really fake it.
Peggy Noonan, "Grace Under Pressure:  Difficult times call for less-contentious politics," The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110009321

Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter vetoed plans to commission the Makin Island, the Navy's newest and most powerful warship, in San Francisco in 2008 because of a perception that the city is anti-military . . . One of the factors that turned the Pentagon against San Francisco, he said, was widely quoted anti-military remarks made by various city politicians. Some of the remarks got considerable attention, especially ones made by Gerardo Sandoval, a member of the Board of Supervisors, who was quoted on national television as saying national defense should be left to "the cops and the Coast Guard.''
Carl Nolte, "Navy scuttles plan to commission warship here, citing local politics," San Francisco Chronicle, December 2, 2006 --- Click Here

The military considers them (AWOL) criminals, and many Americans call them traitors. But during an anti-war event Saturday in San Francisco, Anderson and others like him got a standing ovation.
Cecilia M. Vega, "SAN FRANCISCO:  Troops opposed to Iraq war get show of support:  Rallies in S.F., nationwide hear those who went AWOL speak on refusal to return to combat," San Francisco Chronicle, December 10, 2006 --- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/10/BAGJGMSTAS1.DTL
Jensen Comment
Anti-military San Francisco Supervisors are frustrated by the plunge in U.S. military desertion rates since 9/11. In 1971 during the Viet Nam war, the desertion rate hit a high of 3.4% of an Army that included many unhappy draftees. In 2005 the desertion rate plunged to 0.24% of the all-volunteer Army of 1.4 million men and women --- http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-07-deserters_x.htm 

To live peacefully with Muslims and Jews, Christians must put aside the notion that their faith requires the creation of a Christian kingdom on Earth, a Lipscomb University theologian told an interfaith gathering at the university. "We are not going to get very far in our relationship with Jews or Muslims if we do not let go of this idea," Lipscomb professor Lee Camp said at Tuesday's conference. The unusual gathering of several dozen clergy and lay people was devoted to resolving religious conflict in Nashville and around the world. "We need to forsake the Christendom model," Camp said.
Anita Wadhwani, "Christians must 'let go' some beliefs for sake of peace, theologian says," Tennessean, November 29, 2006 --- http://www.thetennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061129/NEWS06/611290429

Thank you for contacting the ACLU and sharing your thoughtful comments about the ACLU, Christmas and religion. Ours is one of the most devout nations in the world, and it is at the same time the most religiously diverse. The U. S. has more than 1,500 different religious bodies and sects - including 75 divisions of Baptists alone. This country also has 360,000 churches, mosques and synagogues, all coexisting in relative harmony. The ACLU is committed to defending the religious freedom of all Americans and keeping our national tradition of religious diversity alive and well. To protect religious liberty for everyone in America, however, the ACLU is often in the position of defending the minority from the will of the majority. In some instances, this involves challenging nativity displays or the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property. We are a nation founded on religious freedom. As such, the ACLU believes our society should be particularly sensitive to the legitimate complaints that government-sponsored displays and other actions that promote religion are offensive and inappropriate to those who belong to minority faiths and to non-believers. The ACLU believes that no person should be made to feel like an outsider by his or her own government.
ACLU, November 29, 2006 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
On this issue the ACLU makes some good points.

On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union and its nearly 600,000 members, we write to express our grave concern with the removal and subsequent detention of six Muslim imams from a United Airlines flight in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 20, 2006. The imams were attempting to return home from a meeting of the North American Federation of Imams, where one of the scheduled themes of discussion was how to “dispel misconceptions” about Islam. These religious leaders were deemed a threat to security merely because they had, in accordance with their faith, conducted their evening prayers in Arabic shortly before boarding the flight.
ACLU, "ACLU Letter to Senator Joseph Lieberman," November 28, 2006 --- http://www.aclu.org/racialjustice/racialprofiling/27550leg20061128.html
Jensen Comment
On this issue the ACLU is aiding a fraud conspiracy. How much do ACLU lawyers hired by the imams stand to gain in the settlement?

A group of Muslim imams is seeking an out-of-court settlement with US Airways, saying they should not have been removed from a Minnesota-to-Phoenix flight last month and were not behaving suspiciously. Five of the six Islamic religious leaders have retained the Council on American-Islamic Relations for legal representation and are seeking a "mutually agreeable" resolution, said Nihad Awad, CAIR executive director. US Airways scheduled a meeting with the imams on Dec. 4 to discuss the incident, but the men canceled it and hired the activist group to act as legal counsel.
Audrey Hudson, "Imams seek to settle with airline," The Washington Times, December 11, 2006 --- http://washingtontimes.com/national/20061211-124608-1061r.htm
Jensen Comment
The imams made their point in the media. Why do they want to get rich as well? If there ever was a set up in a get rich conspiracy this was it! We can only hope that the imams successfully boycott the airline industry as well. Do you suppose the 600,000 members of the ACLU will honor the imam boycott and cease flying because of this? Or do you suppose ACLU members will intentionally frighten passengers while allegedly praying in tongues so that they too can get rich in court?

So the more promising raw material for the "War on Christmas" lament is stores like Best Buy, Sears and Crate & Barrel (and, until recently, poor old Wal-Mart, which, constantly attacked from both left and right, has caved to the right on this particular issue) which avoid the use of the word "Christmas" in advertisements, or encourage employees to wish customers "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." From Bill O'Reilly to William Donohue to John Gibson to the American Family Association, the nutters are forcefully mobilized against these outrages.
"Merry Christmas, Bill O'Reilly!" The Nation, November 29, 2006 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20061129/cm_thenation/15144009

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

In praise of markets, freedom, and Milton Friedman
As for Milton Friedman's supposed espousal of big business, the truth was exactly the opposite. For him, the separation between government and business was as important as the separation between church and state. He understood that businesses prefer for governments to bend the rules in their favor rather than compete, and he wanted the little guy -- that is, the consumer, and not the legislator and his cronies in big business -- to determine success and failure in the marketplace. The expression "free to choose" said it all. In those countries where Friedman's ideas triumphed, workers became shareowners, tenants in housing projects became proprietors, kids without college degrees became entrepreneurs and many a corporate giant came tumbling down, unable to withstand the daily choices of the common folk empowered by the separation between state and business.
Alvaro Vargas LLosa, "A Man of Ideas," The Washington Post via The Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2006 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
Please do not associate Milton Friedman with George W. Bush economics. George Bush has been the most reckless government spender in the history of the United States ---  an economic disaster really!

Damnation of markets, freedom, and Milton Friedman
Friedman's free-market faith produced a bastardized system of interest-group politics that favors sectors of citizens at the expense of many others.
William Greider, "Friedman's Cruel Legacy," The Nation, December 11, 2006 ---
http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20061211&s=greider
Jensen Comment
No mention is made of how China and Chile are finding a market based economy that lifts millions out of poverty. Naive analysts always associate Friedman with huge multinational oligopoly economies. Friedman was in fact against Exxon and AT&T oligopolies and greatly favored small business entrepreneurial and competitive economies (see the Llosa quotation above). Surely a liberal intellectual magazine can find a better thinker than Greider. Greider's a naive throwback to Lenin who advocates a complete break down of a market based economy in favor of the "liberal-progressive" free Big Brother handouts communism.

A coherent alternative agenda that will fulfill these principles does not yet exist. Nor will a liberal-progressive program emerge miraculously if the Democratic Party should somehow regain power in the next few years, since many Democrats in Congress have internalized the market ideology and collaborate with the right. But elements of that alternative agenda are already ripe for discussion.
William Greider, "The Future Is Now," The Nation, June 26, 2006 --- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060626/greider

Was Milton Friedman an "archliberal?"
Friedman sought to minimize government and maximize individual freedom. As he noted in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, “the right and proper label” for this orientation, for “the doctrines pertaining to the free man,” is liberalism. But in the United States during the 20th century, that term “came to be associated with a readiness to rely primarily on the state rather than on private voluntary arrangements to achieve objectives regarded as desirable.” . . . Like Hayek and the novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand, Friedman resisted the solution of calling himself a conservative. “The nineteenth century liberal was a radical, both in the etymological sense of going to the root of the matter, and in the political sense of favoring major changes in social institutions,” he wrote. “So too must be his modern heir.”
Jacob Sullum, "Milton Friedman, Archliberal: Why the great free market economist was no conservative," Reason Magazine, November 22, 2006 --- http://www.reasonmag.com/news/show/116855.html
Also see "Milton Friedman, 1912-2006:  Reason writers remember the iconic libertarian economist," by Brian Doherty, Reason Magazine, November 16, 2006 --- http://www.reasonmag.com/news/show/116778.html

Market forces can accomplish wonderful things, he realized, but they cannot ensure a distribution of income that enables all citizens to meet basic economic needs. His proposal, which he called the negative income tax, was to replace the multiplicity of existing welfare programs with a single cash transfer — say, $6,000 — to every citizen. A family of four with no market income would thus receive an annual payment from the I.R.S. of $24,000. For each dollar the family then earned, this payment would be reduced by some fraction — perhaps 50 percent. A family of four earning $12,000 a year, for example, would receive a net supplement of $18,000 (the initial $24,000 less the $6,000 tax on its earnings). Mr. Friedman’s proposal was undoubtedly motivated in part by his concern for the welfare of the least fortunate. But he was above all a pragmatist, and he emphasized the superiority of the negative income tax over conventional welfare programs on purely practical grounds. If the main problem of the poor is that they have too little money, he reasoned, the simplest and cheapest solution is to give them some more. He saw no advantage in hiring armies of bureaucrats to dispense food stamps, energy stamps, day care stamps and rent subsidies.
Robert H. Frank, "The Other Milton Friedman: A Conservative With a Social Welfare Program," The New York Times, November 21, 2006 --- Click Here

Government spending exceeds 50 percent of the GDP in France and Sweden and more than 45 percent in Germany and Italy, compared to U.S. federal, state and local spending of just under 36 percent. Government spending encourages people to rely on handouts rather than individual initiative, and the higher taxes to finance the handouts reduce incentives to work, save and invest. The European results shouldn't surprise anyone. U.S. per capita output in 2003 was $39,700, almost 40 percent higher than the average of $28,700 for European nations,.
Walter E. Williams, "Should We Copy Europe?" Human Events, November 22, 2006 --- http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18143
Jensen Comment
Yeah Right! What economic group does not rely on government handouts and Congressional favors in the U.S.? Farmers, oil companies, and every other group you can think is on the dole in the U.S. The difference is that the U.S. wastes more on lobbies and influence peddling in Washington DC.

Brushing past months of unflattering headlines about a federal corruption investigation, Representative William J. Jefferson was elected to a ninth term on Saturday, with a decisive runoff victory that again emphasized this city’s sharp racial divisions.
Adam Nositter, "Embattled Louisiana Legislator Prevails," The New York Times, December 10, 2006 --- Click Here

Nancy Pelosi’s much touted “Culture of Corruption” was originally conceived as a lily-white, Republicans only club that Democrats could point to with self-righteous indignation while claiming moral and ethical superiority. Unfortunately for Pelosi, the real poster child for corruption is an African-American Democrat named William J. Jefferson. For those who may have lost track, Jefferson is the U.S. Representative from Louisiana who was apparently caught on video accepting $100,000 in bribes, most of which allegedly ended up in Jefferson’s freezer.
John Lillpop --- http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/12/10/dear-nancy-pelosi-guess-who-is-coming-back-to-the-us-house/

Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson (D-La.) has taken to the airwaves to unequivocally deny the allegations that have plagued him for months. "I have never taken a bribe from anyone," he asserts in a new campaign ad. Jefferson is running for re-election despite being at the center of a federal bribery investigation.
Avni Patel, "Cold Cash Congressman Says He Has 'Never Taken a Bribe' in New Campaign Ad," ABC News, December 1, 2006 --- http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/cold_cash_congr.html
Jensen Comment
I think William Jefferson hired the same semantics expert who advised William Clinton to proclaim "I never had sex" with Monica. Clinton's semen on her blue dress does not constitute sex in a very literal sense or the semen would've . . . well you know!. That cash in William Jefferson's freezer was for bowel roughage --- not for otherwise spending. If you launder it real well. cash constitutes one of the food groups in Louisiana. Of course in corrupt Louisiana he won the runoff election and will be returning to embarrass the Democratic Party. I doubt that Pelosi appoints him to Chair the House Ethics Committee, but he's well qualified to chair the House Banking Committee. He will, however, probably be given more power by restoring his position on the House Ways and Means Committee. Now that's a "chilling thought."

Democrats are calling on House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi to return him (Jefferson) to his slot on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Pelosi, a California Democrat, led a successful effort last spring to strip Jefferson, D-New Orleans, from the tax-writing panel after the Justice Department revealed that its agents, as part of an ongoing corruption investigation, had discovered $90,000 in the freezer of his Washington, D.C., home during a raid in August 2005.
Bruce Alpert, The Times-Picayune, December 11, 2006 --- Click Here

Thirty years on, we can see the results of Hayek's prediction. Despite government revenues above 50% of GNP in the Nordic countries supporting an extensive social welfare state, those countries are vibrant democracies with open, competitive, and high-income economies and low rates of poverty. That is precisely the point of my Scientific American piece and a longer scholarly paper that Prof. Easterly wrongly attacks. He actually makes my point for me by pointing out that the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom ranks Finland, Sweden and Denmark as "free economies," with Denmark ranked ahead of the United States, despite the fact of their extremely high rates of taxation and social welfare spending. Similarly, the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum puts these three countries at ranks two, three and four in global competitiveness, ahead of the United States at rank six.
Jeffrey D. Sachs, "Vibrant Economies With High Taxes and High Social Welfare Spending," The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2006; Page A13 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116459861144333273.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Jensen Comment
If Professor Sachs holds Norway up as a social welfare model, why not hold Kuwait even higher? We can hardly compare small nations with lots of a valuable resource to export with those who do not have the per capita resource wealth. Where would Norway be without oil? My grandparents emigrated an impoverished Norway with little hope before the days of oil. The other Scandinavian nations are so uniquely small and homogeneous that they can hardly be compared to the United States. Scholars should know better. If the social welfare model is so highly successful, why are the Scandinavian countries cutting back on social welfare and privatizing? Why isn't the social welfare soaring to great heights in Germany and France?

James Comer, the Yale University child psychiatry expert, will today be named winner of the 2007 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Education. Comer was honored for his book Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today’s Youth for Tomorrow’s World (Yale University Press), which argues that federal mandates of the sort associated with the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” law are poorly designed and in fact leave many behind.
Inside Higher Ed, November 30, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/30/qt

Some difficult people are merely minor irritants: Others learn to avoid them as much as possible, and the overall working environment is not badly compromised. But a person who targets others, makes threats (direct or indirect), insists on his or her own way all the time, or has such a hair-trigger temper that colleagues walk on eggshells to avoid setting it off, can paralyze a department. In the worst cases, this conduct can create massive dysfunction as the department finds itself unable to hold meetings, make hiring decisions, recruit new members, or retain valued ones. When I first got involved in helping department heads cope with such people, my colleagues and I used concepts and approaches we gleaned from studies of bullies.
C.K. Gunsalus, "Dealing With Bullies," Inside Higher Ed, November 30, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/11/30/gunsalus

The nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese said today it has agreed to pay $60 million to settle 45 lawsuits alleging sex abuse by priests. The deal is the most significant step to date toward resolving extensive litigation against the archdiocese that has dragged on for years.
"Church to pay $60M in sex suits," Albuqeruqee Tribune, December 1, 2006 ---
http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/dec/01/church-pay-60m-sex-suits/ 

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ball player will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.
Mickey Mantle --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mantle

Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.
Ted Williams --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Williams

I don't think either team is capable of winning.
Warren Brown (in the 1945 Tiger-Cubs series) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Brown_%28Sportswriter%29

Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.
Yogi Berra --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra

You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn't enough, in the second half, you have to give what is left.
Yogi Berra --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra

You better make it four. I don't think I could eat eight.
Yogi Berra (when a waiter asked how many slices to cut in Yogi's pizza)

How you play the game is for college ball. When you're playing for money, winning is the only thing that matters.
Leo Durocher --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Durocher
Jensen Comment
Sort of makes me thankful that college professors are not really part of the real world.

Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there can be little doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but the organisation has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent. In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heat waves and storms.
Richard Gray, "UN downgrades man's impact on the climate," Sunday Telegraph, December 10, 2006 --- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nclimate10.xml

GERMANY’S European commissioner, Günter Verheugen, faced calls to resign this weekend after photographs showing him naked on a beach with his chief of staff were obtained by a magazine. The 62-year-old commissioner had already become embroiled in accusations of favouritism and a conflict of interest after he appointed Petra Erler, 48, to her £94,000-a-year job amid reports of a close friendship. He has denied that they are having an affair.
Nicola Smith and Michael Woodhead, "There's nothing between us, insists the naked EU chief," London Times, December 10, 2006 --- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2089-2496216%2C00.html
Jensen Comment
Britney Spear's momentary no-panties upskirt flash  was a big deal in the U.S., but it's hardly worth mentioning in Europe.