Memo to Word Girl: Perhaps You Should Have Suspected the Fiancee, not the Fiance

Looks like this woman was more Julia Roberts than Lori Hacking:

A Georgia bride-to-be who vanished just days before her wedding turned up in New Mexico and fabricated a tale of abduction before admitting Saturday that she got cold feet and "needed some time alone," police said.

Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody more than 1,420 miles from her home on what was supposed to be her wedding day Saturday.

"It turns out that Miss Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it," said Randy Belcher, the police chief in Duluth, Ga., the Atlanta suburb where Wilbanks lives with her fiance. He said there would be no criminal charges.

Wilbanks had called her fiance, John Mason, from a pay phone late Friday and told him that she had been kidnapped three days earlier while jogging, authorities said. Her family rejoiced that she was safe, telling reporters that the media coverage apparently got to the kidnappers.

Memo to Teflon: You Suck
I said they should focus on him, get all the vitals, if nothing else than to rule him out. 'Member?
So my gut was wrong on this one... Yeah, so? Must be the pollen. My apologies to John Mason. Sorry, dude. I was wrong. You need full, complete unabashed clearance. Especially in light of the wacko airhead you're engaged to. Yikes.
A thousand apologies,
WG

Saving Black Rock from Itself

Hugh Hewitt has challenged bloggers with the following question:

What should CBS do to "fix" the CBS Evening News?

Here are my thoughts:

1. The anchor needs to be fair, young, and unassuming, preferably with equal measures of gravitas and humor. Since CBS News is infected with liberal bias, the man at the top ought personally to be conservative in outlook, and thus an effective bias detector at that organization. I suggest Tony Snow take the top spot.

2. The program needs focus. I suggest dividing the show into three segments. The first, a news roundup. This should get smaller and smaller as it sinks in that the vast majority of the audience knows what the news of the day is already. The second segment should be taking the top news story in depth, including short on-air interviews with smart and savvy leaders on both sides. No talking points or spin, just one or two simple, open-ended questions to lend context to the biggest story of that day. The third segment would be a panel, featuring smart and savvy opinion columnists from the blogosphere and talk radio. For this, I would recommend La Shawn Barber and Hugh Hewitt. For the lefty seat on the panel, I struggle with whom to recommend, since the big liberal bloggers would simply be unsuitable for an evening news broadcast given their tendency to encourage profanity and hate speech. Also, as the MSM is the official propaganda arm of the Left, it might be easier just to pick a smart, telegenic liberal and go with that. Personally, I'd like to see Donna Brazile in this seat---I may not agree with her, but she always says something interesting, and usually with great candor.

3. The major overhaul need at CBS News is to drop the pretense. They should be newsbreakers, not newsmakers, and the anchorman and news director needs to ruthlessly eliminate any producer or on-air personality who doesn't know the difference. The best way to do this is simply to stop chasing "scoops"---focus instead on breaking new angles of stories already on the radar screen. If you see it on the other networks or in the newspapers it is verboten on your precious airtime. Emphasize the "new" in "news". This will encourage unbiased thinking, as the liberal angle will already be out there by the time you go on air.

4. Devote the final 5 minutes to viewer feedback. Select e-mails at random and run them as is. This will make the experience more participatory and expose the staff to public criticism, always a palliative to ego and bias.

Or they could simply undertake the best and most daring reform of all---simply run a Fox News Chanel feed every night at 6:30 pm.

Pandora's Chinese Puzzle Box

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind:

Unquestionably, nationalism is intended to be cool in China these days. Indeed it has become the replacement for communist ideology as the Chinese Communist party seeks to maintain its hold on power while embracing capitalist economics. The government is ritualistic in its fanning of the flames of this nationalism--the "spontaneous" anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities on the first three weekends of April bore the unmistakable marks of Beijing's stage management. As
student protestor Sun Wei told Joseph Kahn of the New York Times, "I felt like a puppet." The rally in Beijing ended when police told the crowds they had "vented their anger" long enough, shuffled them on to busses back to their campus. "It was partly a real protest and partly a political show," Sun declared.

The protests began in the city of Chengdu, in southwest China, April 2, but when they hit Beijing a week later they grew in size and seriousness; they were the biggest to take place in China since 1999, when huge crowds expressed their anger over the inadvertent bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo. That the demonstrations continued into a third weekend is a measure both of the depth of Chinese anti-Japan sentiment and the level of official tolerance of such feelings. In Beijing, units of police and interior ministry troops were mobilized as protection for the Japanese embassy and the Japanese ambassador's residence, but they didn't prevent the crowds from throwing stones and bottles, or from looting Japanese businesses.

The Lioness in Winter

The coming Tory defeat is too much for Lady Thatcher:

BARONESS THATCHER, depressed at the prospect of a third Labour victory in a row, left the country yesterday after failing to take part in a general election campaign for the first time in 70 years.
The former Prime Minister flew to Venice for a short holiday with a close friend and declined to make any comment about the conduct of Michael Howard’s campaign.

A close friend of Lady Thatcher, who is 79, said: “She is frustrated that we are not winning.” The friend added that Lady Thatcher had taken the decision herself not to campaign because of her frailty, but said: “She wants to see a Conservative government again. She is frustrated that is not going to happen, despite the Labour Government’s serious shortcomings and all Tony Blair’s lies.”

I don't feel sorry for the Tories, given that their retreat from Thatcherism is what landed them (and Britain) in this bloody mess in the first place.

With Enemies Like These...

...we must be doing the right thing, says the inimitable Victor Davis Hanson:

The Egyptian autocracy may have received $57 billion in aggregate American aid over the last three decades. But that largess still does not prevent the Mubarak dynasty from damning indigenous democratic reformers by dubbing them American stooges. In differing ways, the Saudi royal family exhibits about the same level of antagonism toward the U.S. as do the Islamic fascists of al Qaeda — both deeply terrified by what is going on in Iraq. Mostly this animus arises because we are distancing ourselves from corrupt grandees, even as we have become despised as incendiary democratizers by the Islamists. Is that risky and dangerous? Yes. Bad? Hardly

At the U.N. it is said that a ruling hierarchy mistrusts the United States and that a culture of anti-Americanism has become endemic within the organization. No wonder — the Americans alone push for more facts about the Oil-for-Food scandal, question Kofi Annan's breaches of ethics, and want investigations about U.N. crimes in Africa. If we are mistrusted for caring about those thousands who are inhumanely treated by a supposedly humane organization, then why in the world should we wish to be liked by such a group?

Wouldn't It Be Nice If They Just Focused on Teaching Kids Reading, History, and Math?

Another stupid Democrat trick:

Clearly, it's in society's interest to discourage teen sex. Teens themselves realize this: According to a Zogby poll, more than 90 percent of them say that society should teach kids to abstain from sex until they have, at least, finished high school. Parents want a stronger message: Almost nine in 10 want schools to teach youth to abstain from sex until they're married or in an adult relationship that is close to marriage.

Given the almost universal popularity of abstinence education, it seems strange that Senator Max Baucus (D., Mont.) soon will introduce legislation that would effectively abolish federal abstinence-education programs. These programs supply nearly all the governmental support for teaching abstinence in U.S. schools.

The Baucus anti-abstinence plan would take federal funds that are devoted to teaching abstinence and turn them over to state public-health bureaucracies to spend as they will. Since these bureaucracies have been wedded for decades to "safe sex" and fiercely opposed to teaching abstinence, the implications of this change are obvious.

Here's the real deal:

If you have a baby as a teenager, odds are you'll be a loyal Democrat the rest of your life as you're far likelier to be poor, alone, and in need of government assistance.

Doing the right thing on teen abstinence means risking the minting of young Republicans, something the DNC cannot countenance.

How Not to Apologize

Courtesy of Jane Fonda:

You may have heard that Jane Fonda apologized to Vietnam veterans in her current book. That's incorrect. She expressed "regret" for one photograph, but remains proud of her Radio Hanoi broadcasts, her efforts to achieve a Communist victory, and her attacks on American servicemen as war criminals. She never uses the word "apology."

Apologies are simple things:

1. Admit your error.
2. Promise it will not happen again.
3. Say you're sorry.
4. Ask for forgiveness.
5. Don't do it again.

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

I don't think this is what Gene Roddenberry meant.

I Can Feel It Coming in the Air Tonight

Can't knock the cheezy goodness that is "Miami Vice".

Those Who Trespass

Here's a novel way to get serious about illegal immigration:

New Ipswich, N.H., a small town by the Massachusetts border, is not where one would imagine a major immigration dispute involving illegals from Central America would begin. The town of fewer than 5,000 residents is roughly 2,300 miles from the Mexican border, and its Hispanic population is less than one percent. Yet it has become a hotbed for border patrol issues thanks to Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain's efforts to get the federal government to do something with the illegal aliens he keeps finding in town.

Last July Chief Chamberlain stopped a black Chevy van for speeding. Inside were nine Ecuadorians who confessed to being in the country illegally. They said they had come through California after paying as much as $10,000 a piece to be smuggled over the border. Some had been in country as long as four years. The chief contacted immigration officials (then the Immigration and Naturalization Service), but they refused to take custody of the aliens.

"They told me they didn't have the resources to take them," Chamberlain told the Union Leader newspaper. "We had to let them go."

A few months later police discovered 11 illegal Mexicans living in the town. This time immigration did take them. Things calmed down after that, but this month they heated up again after police arrested Jorge Ramirez at a traffic stop. Ramirez had a valid Mexican driver's license, but all of his other documents were forgeries. He admitted being in the United States illegally.

Chamberlain charged Ramirez with criminal trespass. Under New Hampshire law, a "person is guilty of criminal trespass if, knowing he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters or remains in any place."

"Mr. Ramirez entered the United States illegally," Chamberlain told the Union Leader. "He was not licensed or privileged to be here."

On Tuesday Ramirez goes to court, where a judge will decide if Chamberlain's application of the trespass statute is legally sound. If it holds up, it would mean any police officer in New Hampshire could arrest any illegal alien simply for being an illegal alien. That is a power only federal authorities have now.

If confined to New Hampshire, this tactic probably would have little effect on Washington. But if law enforcement officers in other states follow Chamberlain's lead, there is the potential to terribly embarrass Department of Homeland Security bureaucrats as well as administration officials.

I favor immediate deportation, but most Americans are a bit weak-kneed and misty-eyed about such a prospect. I get weak-kneed and misty-eyed about the legitimate immigrants who didn't break American law, who pay taxes and assimilate and who wait interminably to become U.S. citizens and who deserve to have that mean something. I get weak-kneed and misty-eyed when I think about hard-working American citizens donating the wealth earned by the sweat of their brow to a healthcare and educational system strained to the breaking point by squatters.

If you entered and remained in this country illegally, I have no sympathy for your plight. Period. You're taking up a slot that people who respect our laws would give an arm to have.

Burn, Baby, Burn

If you want healthy forests, that is:

We're in the seventh year of drought in the Northern Rockies, with precipitation deficits running about 20% annually. At the same time poor management of the regional national forests has left them brush-choked and bark beetle-ravaged and susceptible to wildfire. The Bush Administration's 2003 "Healthy Forests Initiative" is designed to prevent these conflagrations by streamlining the bureaucratic "analysis paralysis" when processing timber sales. But the scope of the problem is such that these conditions will remain for years to come. In this year, the centenary of the United States Forest Service, the woods are a wreck. How did our national forests get into this predicament?

For a century it's been the policy of the U.S. Forest Service -- simply put -- to fight forest fires. This seems like sound practice, but in the end it has disrupted the natural benefits of small fires -- usually caused by lightning strikes in remote areas -- that are useful to keep brush and ground fuel down. This constant fire suppression over a century has been detrimental to forest health.

Near my home in Cody, Wyoming, is the "Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway," running 52 miles from Cody to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The last twenty miles to the Park are beetle-infested and the dying trees are purple-tinged. Tourists remark on this, thinking the colorful woods are beautiful. In reality, there is nothing for these trees to do but burn, probably the result of one of those errant lightning strikes. It's not a case of "if," but "when."

Thanks to the recent Terri Schiavo case, we've been hearing much in the media about an "out-of-control" federal judiciary, a court system that seems to have usurped the legislative authority plainly spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. The American people (that minority actually paying attention) are appalled by this outrage. But here in the West we're not surprised. Here, environmentalists for the past thirty years have manipulated the courts and relied on activist liberal judges to obstruct the "multiple-use" models on the national forests, such as logging. Say what you want about logging, but for years commercial timber harvest provided firebreaks that checked the spread of wildfire.

And for outside-the-box thinking, why not sell off 50% of national forest acreage to timber companies and other developers?

Social Security would be stabilized overnight and the property would be better managed to boot.

Time To Drop China from the Christmas Card List

Anyone else think this bodes ill?

China is now working with the European multi-national organization that is building Galileo, a GPS competitor that is putting 30 satellites into orbit. Galileo will offer services that GPS does not and, most importantly, will not be under the control of the U.S. Department of Defense. While Galileo can be jammed, and the United States has said it will just that in wartime, the United States can do more than just jam GPS, they can fiddle with it in subtle ways. Or so the Chinese think. While using Galileo instead of GPS will cost the Chinese more (for additional equipment and software) in the long run, there are many benefits. Chinese participation in the project just about guarantees that Galileo will get into service, and provide the Chinese with valuable military technology. This, despite the European embargo on selling weapons to China (because of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.) Galileo is something of a vanity project for European nations. It’s $5 billion cost provides negligible benefit to Europe, but does enable European nations to avoid using the American GPS navigation system.

China's also one of the few nations on earth with anti-satellite combat capability, thanks to Bill Clinton's treasonous technology transfers.

Why Do I Get A Lori Hacking Vibe?

Looks like another jogger has left the entire contents of her purse behind and disappeared.

DULUTH, Ga. -- The fiancé of a missing Georgia woman was to decide whether to take a polygraph test Friday as the search for his bride-to-be continued.
John Mason was set to marry Jennifer Wilbanks on Saturday, but he said she disappeared Tuesday on her nightly jog in their Atlanta suburb.
Authorities are treating the case as a criminal investigation.
Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher told FOX News on Friday that authorities were investigating clothing found during searches. "We found a pair of blue sweatpants, a gray sweatshirt" and the items are being analyzed, Belcher said.
Also Friday, police were inspecting two computers seized from the home Mason and Wilbanks shared to see if the bride-to-be had made contact with people on the Internet.
Her keys, cash, credit cards and identification were found in her home. Mason said she left with only her radio and the clothes she had on.
Mason, who had just returned from a run himself, said Wilbanks prefers to run by herself, but "she doesn't just go and run and hide."
Police gave mixed signals about whether they believe Wilbanks, a hospital nurse, may have gotten cold feet four days before her wedding.
Maj. Don Woodruff said authorities did not believe Wilbanks was a runaway bride. But under questioning from reporters, Belcher later said: "It's a very real possibility she did get cold feet. I mean, how many husbands have gone out for a pack of cigarettes and not come back?"
Belcher told FOX News in an interview Thursday that Mason was the only person who has told them that Wilbanks went jogging.
Before she left, "she talked to her mom ... about the different wedding stuff they had to get done for today," Mason said Wednesday night during an interview on FOX News' "On the Record With Greta Van Susteren."
Mason and Wilbanks were to be married Saturday in what was expected to be a big bash, with 600 invitations sent out and 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen, said Mason's mother, Vicki.
"She was so in love. The wedding is huge. It's the talk of the town. Everybody knows her and was so excited," said Killie McCauley, who went to high school with Wilbanks and joined the search.

For those of you who've hung around here awhile, you've noticed that I tend to follow things like this. The BTK Killer, Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking, Jessica Lunsford. I dunno' why. Ever since I saw "The Silence of the Lambs" way back when and learned the first thing about forensics and pathology, I've been hooked. I watch all the shows on Discovery, TLC and A&E. Sue me. Someone's got to solve crime. It might as well be me.

First things first. Fair or not, you ALWAYS look at the fiance, boyfriend, lover, poolboy, whatever FIRST, 'kay? Always. This girl is not a runaway bride. NOT. No woman planning a wedding for 600 people would just bolt. With all the deposits paid and the chance to be Cinderella in view if 1200 adoring eyes? Are you kidding me?!

Reports have trickled out that the police are also analyzing a "clump of hair" found on the jogging path... That looks like it was coaxed out by something other than a hairbrush.

And ol' fiance-boy just happened to have returned from a jog himself? Riiiiight. Are they analyzing his clothing? The grit underneath his fingernails? Searching his arms and hands for scratches? They'd better. In order to, if nothing else, rule him out.

UPDATE:
Looks like the search has been called off, pending further evidence. Apparently, the fiance (John Mason) has passed a private lie-detector test and is now faced with the question of whether he will submit to another, administered by either the FBI or Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Mason's lawyer has stipulated that if Mason does take the test, he doesn't want it videotaped. Videotaping is general standard operating procedure (one presumes to gauge body language as well as vitals in order for analysis to be as complete as possible).

And the clump of hair that was found is similar in type and color to Jennifer Willbanks', although reports that it was pulled out were false -- the hair seems to have been cut.

Wilbanks' uncle is offering a $100,000 reward for the capture of anyone connected to her disappearance. Anyone who thinks they may have seen Wilbanks is asked to call the Duluth Police Department at (770) 476-4151.

Sleeping With The Enemy

A military jury sentenced [Hassan Akbar] to death Thursday for a grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that killed two officers and... also wounded 14 fellow members of the Army's 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait...

The sentence will be reviewed by a commanding officer and automatically appealed. If Akbar is executed, it would be by lethal injection.

"I want to apologize for the attack that occurred. I felt that my life was in jeopardy, and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for forgiveness," Akbar told the jury before it deliberated in the sentencing phase.

Akbar, 34, spoke for less than a minute, delivering an unsworn statement that could not be cross-examined. He spoke in such a low voice that even prosecutors sitting nearby had trouble hearing, with one lawyer even cupping his ear.

While the defense contends Akbar was too mentally ill to plan the attack, they have never disputed that he threw grenades into troop tents in the early morning darkness and then fired on soldiers in the ensuing chaos. Army Capt. Chris Seifert, 27, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, were killed.

Prosecutors say Akbar launched the attack at his camp days before the soldiers were to move into Iraq because he was concerned about U.S. troops killing fellow Muslims in the Iraq war.

...Akbar wrote in his diary in 1997, "My life will not be complete unless America is destroyed."

Akbar is the first American since the Vietnam era to be prosecuted on charges of murdering a fellow soldier during wartime...

A defense psychiatrist testified that although Akbar was legally sane and understood the consequences of his attack, he suffered from forms of paranoia and schizophrenia.

Akbar's father, John Akbar, has said his son complained in vain to his superiors about religious and racial harassment before the attack. The defense never introduced any witnesses to testify about any such harassment.

John Akbar was not in the courtroom for the verdict. He emerged from a meeting with his son in tears and declined to comment.

If given a death sentence, Hasan Akbar would join five others on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The last U.S. military execution was in 1961.

If Akbar is indeed sane, "forms of paranoia and schizophrenia" notwithstanding, he is still an enormous threat to America. Period. Could the aforementioned "mental illness" be confused interchangeably with Muslim zealotry? Hmmm? The thoughts and actions of a religious zealot of any stripe tend toward the mentally unstable (David Koresh? Eric Rudolph? Timothy McVeigh? Anyone? Anyone?). What this man did is incontrovertible. Why he did it, is as well. We do America a disservice when we let these acts go unpunished.

They Hate Me

Well, okay, us.

Crazy Like A Fox?

Could the Wendy's finger-in-the-chili hoaxster be something much worse?

Interstate extradition is provided for in the United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2: A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

Thus, the premise of extradition is that the person has "fled" from the State that is seeking to administer justice. Since by definition the entry into the new State has been illicitly conceived as a method to thwart justice, the executive branch of that State effects the removal and delivery, reversing the attempted "fleeing." However, if the person entered the second State at its request, then extradition would not apply. Ayala is not fleeing to California; they are importing her into their domain through the act of extradition.

This means that if she killed a woman in Las Vegas, she will beat the rap. Once safely ensconced in California, she can even tell police where she secreted the balance of the corpse. It would probably be bad mojo to flaunt the fact that she was the killer, but theoretically she could even confess with impunity. They could announce an indictment in Nevada but she could successfully prevent her extradition from California forever.

Where the Wobblers Are

Here's a nice roundup of the GOP Senators on the eve of the nuclear option being exercised.

Can't Blame Colin Powell This Time

Condi Rice's State Department gets caught playing games with terrorist attack numbers.

Americans have a right to know the truth. President Bush has been straight with us. Will Condi and Foggy Bottom do the same?

Chinese Democracy

No, the real thing in action, not Axl Rose's pipe dream of a G n' R album:

Jianli returned to his homeland in 1989 to support students in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. When Beijing found out about his involvement, they added him to a list of approximately 50 dissidents who were formally blacklisted and forbidden to return to China. Jianli fled again to America and became a permanent resident under a program which provides citizenship to Tiananmen Square activists.

In the spring of 2002, prohibition notwithstanding, he entered China with a friend's passport so he could visit with political activists and observe labor unrest in the northeastern part of the country. When Chinese officials discovered he was in the country they detained him at Kunming Airport and took him into custody. He spoke with his wife from a hotel; it would be their last contact for more than a year.

Since then, Jianli has been held incommunicado--in solitary confinement, handcuffed, and denied any reading materials or exercise. He has been tortured with electric wands and clamps on his fingers more than 100 times. His family
has not been kept up to date on his whereabouts since the Chinese government prevented him from sending letters home and wouldn't allow Fu to visit him until January 2005.

Most recently, his lawyer says, Jianli was beaten by four prison guards and since he is denied legal counsel (Genser pursues Jianli's case through Fu) he has no way of filing complaints about the abuse. The Chinese government violated their own law when they refused to release Jianli after 37 days, which is required if no warrant is filed.

Funny how the usual suspects so concerned with human rights when Western nations "violate" them don't hit the streets in protest when real abuses perpetrated by their Communist idols occur.

Can't make an omelette without cracking heads, I guess.

As If We Care, But Still

Tom Cruise is dating Katie Holmes, despite a 16-year age difference. Whatever. His ego is bigger than both of them.

Interactive Bitterness: The Kid Dream You Were Denied

Ahhh, childhood. That blissful time when calories didn't matter, pigtails were "in" and hair care consisted of Pert shampoo and a comb. Potbellies were proudly poked out of Super Girl Underoos and a grape mustache was proof positive that summer was here. Your bike was your car and you drove it everywhere. Mom forced you out of the house, and didn't care where you were, as long as you came back before the street lights went on. You were loud and tacky and unashamed.

I am fortunate. Fortunate that I have such childhood memories to hold on to. Fortunate now that I have an 18 month-old niece to relive those memories through. I always try to show her how much fun life can be and I'm jealous for her giggles and squeals and cutie-cute innocence... 'Cuz she'll be smoking before I know it.

She loooooves Elmo. And Pooh. And Dora the Explorer. And virtually any fuzzy animal, real or imagined. All the paraphernalia we rake into my sister's house for the sole enjoyment of this little one got me thinking. About toys.

Toys are the center of the kid universe. They are security, community, entertainment, company, rivalry. But most of all they are fun. As adults, we morph that concept into various other things -- cars, electronics, makeup, clothes, shoes, purses... earrings... the mall... that cute little dress at Ann Taylor that's finally on sale...

Oh, uh, sorry. Where was I? Toys... yeah.

My childhood toy preferences were a nice cross-section of interests. I have a huge bucket of Hot Wheels still lurking in a back closet at my parents' house; still have my He-Man and Skeletor figures that have the "rolling punch" cylinders in the middles of their chests. I also have some original Star Wars figures; Luke, Obi-Wan, R2D2, Leia as the Bounty Hunter, C3PO in pieces (complete with net sack to be heaved by Chewy), and Yoda. I have some She-Ra stuff with Catra and the Horse (what was his name? Spirit or something?); Legos, Barbies, My Little Pony, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake, board games, and the like.

My most treasured items are the dolls my grandmother made for us growing up. At the time, I didn't appreciate them as much as their plastic, mass-produced counterparts (read: inferiors), but today they are priceless -- especially since her passing in 2003.

All in all, I was a well taken-care-of child. We had the basics and some fairly nice perks. I thank my parents that they didn't buy us everything and spoil us beyond repair. Now. When I was a kid, it was a much different story. So allow me to entertain my inner spoiled brat: if I could ask Santa for a list of childhood toys denied, what would it be? (And you do-gooders: This is no time for moral high-horsing. This is called harmless fun, 'kay? You need some, trust me.)

1) The Easy Bake Oven:
Yeah, I've heard it was actually a sub-par toy, but don't flaunt a dessert making factory in front of a fat kid and expect her to take it. Sorry.

2) The Snoopy Snow Cone Machine:
This just looked like way too much fun. And the commercials had me convinced that not only would I have endless access to proported icy sweet fun, but also that I could franchise this little goldmine and make a killing off the rest of the neighborhood kids. Capitalism: get 'em while they're young.

3) The Sit and Spin:
After fourteen underdone, kid-sized chocolate chip cookies and some slushy Kool-Aid ice, who doesn't want to throw up?

4) The Barbie Dream House:
Oh, God. Why can't I be Krystle Carrington? Whyyyyy...

5) The Millennium Falcon:
Okay, in my parents' defense, there's a good reason I never got this. Remember how expensive that heap was? Yowsa. Still, the sound effects and the sheer size of the thing made up for it.

6) Talking Electronic Battleship:
Way fun. And it talks.

7) A Chemistry Set:
Can't I pleeeease blow something up? Dissolve something with acid? Something? Please? I'll eat my brussels sprouts and everything. Promise.

8) Remote Control Boat:
Need I elaborate?

So there, I've vented. A lot of good it does me. There is no Santa Claus (much to my fifth grade naivete) and most of these toys are available only on eBay. Besides, I wouldn't want them now. What would I do with a crap slushy machine and a doll house? I can register for a Black and Decker Soft Serve Machine and put it in the real live "dream house" (complete with Ken!) I'll be moving into in October. No contest.

So dear bloggers: Vent. Let it all out. What were you denied? There is no shame, no guilt, only healing. We at MoltenThought are here to help you through your pain. *wink*

Condi! Condi! Condi!

I'm with this guy:

By temperament and intellect, by experience and expertise, Condoleezza Rice is more qualified than anyone in national politics to serve as our next president -- and I say this as a diehard Rudy Giuliani fan. She lacks only a campaign track record, and no one disputes that she's a quick study. Her nomination as the Republican candidate would dissolve the reflexive liberal equation of conservatism and racism and thus drive a stake through the heart of the Democratic Party -- which might pave the way for an intellectually coherent oppositional party. So I reiterate: Condi in 2008 is a natural choice both for Republicans and for America.

FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, from a tactical standpoint, the nomination of Condi should be a no brainer because she'd peel away a substantial portion of the black vote from the Democrats. A recent, unscientific poll conducted by the popular NiaOnline website, the self-described "pre-eminent internet destination for African-American women," found that 41 percent of respondents predicted Rice would do a good job as secretary of state; only 30 percent predicted she wouldn't. Given the animus the majority of blacks feel towards the Bush administration, and given that Bush himself carried less than a tenth of the black vote in 2004, if the NiaOnline numbers have the slightest validity they are nightmarish news for whatever Democratic candidate would oppose Rice in '08 --including Hillary Clinton.

Princess Perky Gets Knocked Off Her Perch

Myrna Blyth on Katie Couric:

But what I think has contributed to Katie's major loss of appeal is that millions of women have finally caught onto the liberal bias in much of her reporting. Katie, like many women in media, just assumed that all women — just because they were women — agreed with them about issues such as gun control and abortion. She has always been at her sharpest, interviewing those with conservative points of view while throwing softballs at her political favorites. And Katie's attitudes and opinions did have considerable influence with women. That's because for years she has come into millions of women's homes on a daily basis, seemingly so concerned about their needs, able to both dish diets and criticize the government's policy in Iraq, swoon over celebrities and swoon over Hillary.

Katie marketed herself like a friend — a sophisticated girlfriend — and women want to agree with their friends — up to a point. In the last election the majority of married women with children, exactly the Today Show's typical viewers, voted for President Bush. Many participants in AOL's chat room yesterday complained about Katie's obvious bias and said they had departed to Fox and Friends, Fox News's morning show, or Good Morning America, where Diane Sawyer shrewdly seems to hide her own opinions behind, in Stanley's words, her "poised, creamy insincerity."

Why We Need John Bolton

The UN Human Rights Commission at work:

On April 5, Fu testified before the commission about, among other things, the imprisonment of Cai Zhuohua. Cai is a Chinese pastor who, in September 2004, was arrested for printing Bibles without permission from the Chinese government. (I reported on his arrest in the January 31 issue of NR.) According to Fu, Cai has been tortured in prison, and the judge presiding over his case has just sent him back to the police for another round of "interrogation." The idea is to make him confess to a crime that carries a long prison sentence.

One of the Chinese police's favorite torture devices — and one that has probably been used repeatedly on Cai Zhuohua — is a kind of electric baton. Bob Fu owns such a baton, smuggled out of a Chinese prison. He took it to Geneva after obtaining permission from the secretary of the UNCHR to conduct a demonstration of it during his testimony. This demonstration consisted of Fu's holding it in the air over his head and turning it on for six seconds.

Predictably, the Chinese delegation went berserk, its members claiming that the demonstration made them feel threatened. (One is left to wonder how they would feel if the baton were actually used against them.) They then demanded that Fu be booted from the proceedings. The commission's chairman, obliging chap that he is, agreed. Fu was escorted from the building and stripped of his U.N. badge. His baton was also seized, and has not been returned.

This is the organization the Democrats put so much stock in?

Well, Duh...

Jacko's Ex Could Reveal Kids' Parentage

Today is supposed to be "D-Day," or "Debbie Day," for the prosecution in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial. Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon has subpoenaed Debbie Rowe, the singer's ex-wife and mother of his two oldest children, because he thinks she will damage Jackson in front of the jury. The worst she can do is answer questions about her children's paternity. If she does, I am told, she will have to concede that Jackson is not the father of Prince, 8, and Paris, 7.

Rowe has suffered for years by perpetuating the lie that they were conceived in a conventional manner. The truth, according to my sources, is that she acted as a surrogate twice and was artificially inseminated — and not with Jackson's sperm. This open secret was revealed in a London tabloid last year, and Rowe has verified it to friends.

My sources say Jackson has a well-constructed fantasy about this truth, much like his claim that a 20-year-old boy who lives at Neverland, Omar Bhatti, was his son. That proved untrue as well, as this column reported exclusively last year...

For one thing, Rowe admits that the couple married because she was pregnant with Prince. She admits to not spending her wedding night with Jackson and not visiting Neverland very often at all. She also says that if she had been asked at the time of the marriage, she would have said she had no physical attraction to Jackson. Drew asks — and it's hard to believe this would have been a sanctioned question — "Did you have sex to make [Prince]?"

Rowe responded evasively but strongly, "That is extremely inappropriate to ask. My answer is: That is an extremely inappropriate question. So let's not go there. Thank you."

Rowe, by the way, had to get permission from both her attorney and Jackson's to do the interview so she wouldn't break the confidentiality agreement she signed with the singer.

After the interview aired, she received not even a thank-you from Jackson and never saw her children again, despite having a visitation schedule.

Jackson, according to sources, never even returned her phone calls.

I don't know if y'all've noticed, but um... those kids ain't black. Not even mixed. Those kids are 100% glow-in-the-dark Caucasian. They don't even tan. And I know he's had a lot done to his face, but I still don't think there's an operation that reconstructs your DNA.

My money? It's always been on Jackson hiring a beard to make him some legal babies that would be harder for the cops to take out of his bed, and then paying her to vamoos, complete with gag order.

But what do I know?

Random Recipe: Sweet Banana Breakfast

As you may be aware, I have put myself in training mode for *The Wedding* (as it has affectionately been deemed) and would like to look a little better in the photos... and the dress... on the honeymoon night... you know, stuff like that. I'm not going hard core or anything (only water, only meat, only soup, only grapefruit, etc.) because that is setting oneself up for total failure.

My "plan" consists basically of keeping my calories at my "maintenance" rate and then exercising to burn additionals. This creates a deficit of about 350 calories a day. Translated into pounds, that means I'll be losing about a pound every 10 days (3500 calories = 1 pound). The wedding is in mid-October. Today is April 27th. That means (*crunch numbers* *crunch numbers*) I'll be 14 pounds lighter by my wedding date, give or take. (Want to know your maintenance level? Go to calorie king.com. Under"tools", click "weight maintenance calories" and fill out the appropriate fields. Tah-dah!)

Did I lose anyone?

Well, then skip the first two paragraphs. Let me start over: For those of you who are trying to shed a few pounds to look better in summer clothes, I have a sweet little breakfast recipe too good not to share. I just invented this one morning and I keep going back to it. It's yuuuummy. But a caveat: it's not for the faint of heart. If you like sweets, this is the breakfast for you.

Grab yourself some low calorie, high fiber wheat bread ("Nature's Own Double Fiber" or "Nature's Own Lite Wheat" are favorites), two largish bananas, some Lite Cool Whip, sugar free pancake syrup, salt and ground cinnamon.

Toast the bread. While the bread is still warm, slice the bananas over the top of it. Drown in 1/4 cup of the syrup. Sprinkle with a teeny bit of salt (to replace the butter taste we love but can't always afford) and about a teaspoon of cinnamon. Top with two dollops of Lite Cool Whip.

Beautiful. And at roughly 370 calories, you will be too.

Mediocrity in Black: The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Story

Edward Whelan exposes the silliness and incompetence of the Clintonista Supreme Court Justice:

In attacking originalism as "frozen in time," Ginsburg slights the genius of the Framers in setting up a system in which the people, through their elected representatives and within the broad bounds established by the Constitution, adapt the laws to changing times. She claims that judges "honor the Framers' intent 'to create [sic] a more perfect Union'" when they rewrite the Constitution to comport with their own understandings of the needs of the day. But it is "We the People of the United States," not judges, to whom the Constitution looks to "form a more perfect Union."

The second basic flaw in Ginsburg's speech is signaled by her elusive subtitle. What exactly does a "comparative perspective" in constitutional adjudication mean, and what is its value? Addressing a group of international lawyers, Ginsburg resorts to kindergarten talk — "we can learn from others," "we can join hands with others," we should "share our experience" — but never even attempts to explain how a foreign court's decision on how a foreign law measures up to a foreign charter can or should have analytical value in construing our Constitution. She emphasizes that she does not regard foreign decisions as "controlling authorities." Could those foreign decisions be the tipping factor in a particular case? Ginsburg doesn't expressly say so, but she gives no reason why that couldn't happen. Nor does she offer any principle to determine what weight they should have. In short, she has no response to Scalia's criticism: "To invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignore it otherwise, is not reasoned decisionmaking, but sophistry."

When Ginsburg's position is clear, her understanding is muddled. Ginsburg points out that the Framers understood that the United States "would be bound by 'the Law of Nations,' today called international law." But the Constitution's conferral of power on Congress "[t]o define and punish . . . Offenses against the Law of Nations" makes clear that it is up to Congress, not judges, to determine which obligations under international law should apply domestically.

Any Supreme Court Justice too stupid to understand that the Constitution of the United States is the law of the land for Americans, the highest authority short of God Himself (whoops, sorry to startle you like that, Judge Ginsburg), should be impeached forthwith.

If the British use of Continental mercenaries on our land was sufficient provocation to throw old King George out of America, one presumes that kowtowing to the laws of foreign despots ought to provoke the impeachment of those black-robed idiots so inclined.

Is it really too much to expect of our Supreme Court that it stick to interpreting the U.S. Constitution? After all, these fools seem to have a lot of difficulty reading and comprehending one plainly-written document---could they handle anything else?

Colinoscopy

Ed Lasky utterly destroys the carefully-cultivated cult of personality around Colin Powell:

While President Reagan enjoyed a reputation as the “Teflon President,” able to prevail against critics determined to besmirch his reputation, one figure handily eclipses him in his ability to avert any criticism by the mainstream media: Colin Powell.

Knowledgeable insiders have long characterized Powell’s meteoric rise from colonel to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as based on exceptional skills at bureaucratic infighting and deft wielding of the press leak stiletto. But the general public sees only the picture of high-minded public servant. In the wake of the disclosure that he is attempting to use his wiles to torpedo the nomination of John Bolton as the US Ambassador to the United Nations, it is high time to break out the kryptonite and honestly appraise the record and actions of Colin Powell.

I'm not excerpting a word more. Read the whole thing.

The Gods Must Really Be Crazy

Peter Wood on American anthropologists' latest obsession, the Quest for Gay Marriage:

So offering reckless distortions of the ethnographic record in support of gay marriage may indeed feed into the national debate. Neither the Washington Post nor Nightline is likely to factcheck East African marriage customs. And I would not be much surprised to see the Minangkabau matrifocal family cropping up in future mainstream-media pronouncements to the effect that "marriage" is just one of a myriad of cultural forms, and is of no essential significance. Some tribes shrink heads; some drink reindeer milk; some marry. All is flux.

In her article, Evelyn Blackwood takes a moment to congratulate John Borneman for using "insights from queer theory to destabilize the dualism of married-unmarried." This is the typically obtuse jargon of contemporary anthropology, but surely Blackwood has it right. Borneman aims to knock (heterosexual) marriage out of its "privileged place in the replication of our present social order." But he is one among many anthropologists engaged in this ideologically motivated demolition disguised as social science.

The difficulty they face is that the factual record is overwhelmingly against them. That is why Blackman, among others, are straining after ethnographic gnats and propounding tendentious interpretations of gnat anatomy.

I don't know whether the editors of the American Ethnologist (published by the AAA) or the AAA's executive board really think that "The results of more than a century of anthropological research...provide no support whatsoever" for the importance of marriage as "an exclusively heterosexual institution." Maybe they are so trapped in contemporary ideology that this strange assertion seems plausible to them; or maybe this is just an attempt to throw dust in the eyes of opponents of gay marriage who might think (correctly) that the anthropological record does lend support to the view that heterosexual marriage is very likely a foundational human institution. Perhaps it is best to assume good faith, even though that implies dismal scholarship.

In any case, what the anthropological record really shows is that a society's decisions about marriage are among its most consequential. Political regimes and economic systems are, deep down, the results of particular ways of organizing families. Until Scandinavia and the Low Countries, Canada, and Massachusetts began their experiments with gay marriage, humanity appears to have steered away from this particular option. Possibly gay marriage will be a step forward for humanity; but it is a step into the dark. Civilization as we have known it, even on the western coast of Sumatra, has depended until now on exclusive heterosexual marriage.

Rush Pounds Al

Byron York on the extremely satisfying (i.e. weak and pathetic) ratings for Air America:

Between the hours of 10 A.M. and 3 P.M., the period that includes Al Franken's program, Air America drew a 1.4-percent share of the New York audience aged 25 to 54 in Winter 2005. That number is the latest in a nearly year-long decline. In Spring of 2004, Air America's first quarter on the air, it drew a 2.2-percent share of the audience. That rose to 2.3 percent in the Summer of 2004, then fell to 1.6 percent in the Fall of 2004, and is now 1.4 percent — Air America's lowest-ever quarterly rating in that time and demographic slot.

The ratings also show WABC radio, which airs Rush Limbaugh, consistently beating Air America in New York City even though Franken had at one time claimed to be beating the conservative host there. In the 10 a.m. to 3 P.M. period in the Winter of 2005, WABC (and Limbaugh) won 2.7 percent of the audience to Air America's 1.4 percent. In Spring 2004, WABC beat Air America 2.7 percent to 2.2 percent. In Summer 2004, WABC won 2.7 percent to 2.3 percent. In Fall 2004, WABC won 3.6 percent to 1.6 percent.

That last number surprised some observers because it showed Air America faltering in October and November 2004, the period when the presidential election was reaching its finish and political passions were presumably at their highest. But even then, Air America's decline continued. And now, it has fallen even farther.

Perhaps liberals are the Deaf Majority.

How Soon Democrats Forget