According to this article in the Independent, several European nations are in danger of missing their emissions targets under the Kyoto protocols. The commentary here is obvious, so I will refrain from saying anything further.

A couple things working on the digital music front... First, Verizon has announced that it will sell songs over its network to its cell customers. This represents no threat to Apple's dominance, as Verizon is expected to price the songs at $2.00 or $2.50, a price point that will make their service irrelevant in the overall music download biz.

Second, and more important, the major music labels are being investigated for price fixing. Warner and Sony have already received subpoenas, and EMI and Universal are expected to receive their's soon, if they have not already.

The investigation is focusing on the price the labels are charging Apple Computer per song on its iTunes Music Store. There is no indication that Apple is being investigated for price fixing, but this is a story to watch carefully.

Another great post from Daniel Bradley's blog, "Santa Claus: the Untold Story"

Tonight, we will study this Machiavellian figure who lives in the outer reaches of Earth's arctic wasteland, the North Pole. Who was he? What has he done? How does he continue to be so successful? It should be noted Santa refused comment for this investigation, but the stories involved come from those with a knowledge of the man known as Santa Claus.

The story of Santa Claus begins before he was known by his commonly recognized moniker. Originally Sherman McBride, he was a resident of West Bend, Wisc. who was known to go on 12-hour drinking binges. While drunk, he would eventually break into department stores, steal toys and then deliver them to houses in the area. He would do this while wearing a bright red leisure suit, and while it was viewed as being cute for awhile and downright heroic by the children, some townspeople and local merchants soon grew weary of McBride's drunk Robin Hoodian adventures.

...read the rest

The Media Research Center has compiled a list of 2005's worst TV news stories. It's a sad, albeit funny, read. (each story has a link to a video clip from the show)

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas. I managed to severe myself from the 'net for a few days, but now I'm back for a couple days, with several posts waiting in queue. I'll be heading to Tempe for the Fiesta Bowl, from Dec. 30 - Jan. 4, so posting will be light to non-existent. However, I will try to make a couple audioposts, perhaps one from the game itself. GO Irish!!

The Indianapolis city council passed two significant measures this week: one banning discrimination against homosexuals in employment and housing, and the other consolidating the city's police and sheriff departments.

Each measure had been defeated earlier in the year and each required two Republicans to change their positions to support them for passage. This shows that the Democratic mayor, Bart Peterson, and the Democratically controlled city council have finally made an impact on the city after years of Republican control.

Obviously I'm pleased about the inclusion of homosexuals in the city's anti-discrimination code, as this has been long overdue. This should have a positive impact on the city's image and hopefully will be a small cog in maintaining Indy's business resurgence.

The police merger also strikes me as a good thing. It is but one part of mayor Peterson's IndyWorks plan to consolidate functions that are duplicated between city and county departments, with the ultimate goal of making them more efficient and saving taxpayers money. The plan is a significant follow-up to former mayor and Republican Richard Lugar's Unigov plan which brought the entire county under Indianapolis's jurisdiction.

Applauds go to the two Republican city council members who were bold enough to do what was right rather than playing partisan politics to make Bart Peterson look bad.

The United Kingdom is taking another step towards becoming a parental state with its plan to track every single journey every one of its citizens ever makes. Yeah, you read that correctly. God save the Queen!

This is a small step in the right direction.

Of course the Democrats went into their tired play book and claimed the Republicans were harming groups x, y, and z by slimming the budget slightly. Their rhetoric is destructive. Luckily people are beginning to see past it.

Time Magazine named Bono and Melinda & Bill Gates as its "Persons of the Year" for 2005. This is LAME. Bono does a lot of charity work, especially in Africa, but is he one of the most influential individuals of the year? I think his smooth and spiritual conversation (which is also quite vacuous) and his affinity for the media did more for him than any other attribute.

Melinda & Bill Gates are good people who give more to charity than anyone else, and for that they should be applauded. But what did Microsoft do that was so innovative this year? That's right: squat.

If Time's editors had any gumption to them, there are several other more worthy choices for the award. How about the founders of Google? They had an enormous impact on technology. Or perhaps Steve Jobs for revolutionizing music as we know it. Or how about the voters of Iraq, for making history.

Too bad none of them wear flashy sunglasses or merge spirituality with cheesy music.

As I was chatting with Brendan today, he alerted me that espn.com has released the final rankings for it's less-than-prestigious Bottom 10 awards, given to the ten most victoriously-challenged academic institutions this football season.

Coming in at #5 was the Great Communicator, Tyrone Willingham and the Washington Huskies. Sure, the golf game may be suffering from too many rainouts in the Pacific Northwest, but it's nice to see that Ty can still run the table from Sunday thru Friday with the best of them.

Now for the weird part. Brendan pointed out something that two of the teams had in common. I inspected, and found it peculiar. Then I looked again, and found that there was yet another team that shared this attribute. And now I am thinking, this is just downright spooky!

Can you find what it is?

Check out this final exam essay I wrote in May of 2003. In it I wrote of the need for online music stores to become successful. Today, the iTunes Music Store has sold well over 100,000,000 songs. Here is an excerpt:

As the developed world moves into the 21st century, its populace is in the midst of a revolution—not of industry, but of information. With the advent of the internet, digitally encoded information can be transferred between computers anywhere in the world. The potential of this newfound technological ability has been immense. People can communicate, share data, and interact without regard for physical location, greatly enhancing the speed of business and politics. However, the potential for abuse is great as well, as people can choose to share information that they do not own. Clearly, a new digital paradigm has arisen...

Ultimately, a market solution would be most preferable, because it would allow consumers and artists to naturally arrive at a system best fulfilling both their needs. Attempts have been made by the record and technology companies to create online digital music stores that have a per song fee or a per month fee. In large part, these ventures have failed, but critics say that the pricing has been too high and the flexibility on ‘fair use’ much too low, not allowing consumers to transfer the songs around and listen to them at their own leisure. If some of these online ventures find the right formula and maintain a higher quality than free P2P services, then they will attract consumers and keep the creative marketplace vibrant for artists and consumers alike.

Coldplay, "Square One" (certainly at the opposite end of the spectrum of System of a Down...):

You're in control, is there anywhere you wanna go?
You're in control, is there anything you wanna know?
The future's for discovering
The space in which we're travelling
From the top of the first page
To the end of the last day
From the start in your own way
You just want somebody listening to what you say
It doesn't matter who you are
It doesn't matter who you are

Under the surface trying to break through
Deciphering the codes in you
I need a compass, draw me a map
I'm on the top, I can't get back

Whoa whoa

The first line on the first page
To the end of the last page
From the start in your own way
You just want somebody listening to what you say
It doesn't matter who you are
It doesn't matter who you are

You just want
Somebody listening to what you say
Oh, you just want somebody listening to what you say
It doesn't matter who you are
It doesn't matter who you are

Is there anybody out there who
Is lost and hurt and lonely too
Are they bleeding all your colours into one?
and if you come undone
As if you've been run through
Some catapult it fired you
You wonder if your chance will ever come
Or if you're stuck in square one

System of a Down - "Aerials"

Life is a waterfall,
We're one in the river,
And one again after the fall.

Swimming through the void
We hear the word,
We lost ourselves,
But we find it all?

Cause we are the ones that want to play,
Always want to go,
But you never want to stay,

And we are the ones that want to chose,
Always want to play,
But you never want to lose.

Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.

Life is a waterfall,
We drink from the river,
Then we turn around and put up our walls.

Swimming through the void
We hear the word,
We lost ourselves,
But we find it all?

Cause we are the ones that want to play,
Always want to go,
But you never want to stay,

And we are the ones that want to chose,
Always want to play,
But you never want to lose.

Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.
Aerials, so up high,
When you free your eyes,
Eternal prize.
Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.
Aerials, so up high,
When you free your eyes,
Eternal prize.

...

Songs like this make System of a Down seem like the metal version of the Moody Blues...

Not every party can manage to lose elections in foreign countries, but the Democrats pulled it off quite nicely yesterday. How?

"The idea that we are going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong. "
---Howard Dean

"And there is no reason… that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the — of — the historical customs, religious customs. "
--- John Kerry

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home. "
---John Murtha

And yet, estimates are that well over 70% of Iraqis went to the polls yesterday to elect a permanent democratic (note, small "d") government, in the freest election the Arab world has ever seen. The violence was minimal (more bombs probably exploded in Detroit than Baghdad on Thursday), and the partipation was across the ethnic spectrum (Sunni participation was way higher than the past two elections).

For those brave enough, Victor Davis Hanson takes the liberals to task for their defeatism. Watch out for Sulla references! (Only Brendan will get that). Money quote:

"Dean, Kerry, and Murtha are bright and good men who rightly worry that more Americans will die in a far-off place for a cause that they think is now hopeless. But to follow their apparently popular advice would lead to an abject national disaster as well as calamity for their own party. In short, they have become metaphors of why even Democrats are uneasy about voting for Democrats. "

And for Rep. Murtha in particular, from one Marine to another, heed the words of Major Ben Connable. Semper Fi!

"We can fail only if the false imagery of quagmire takes hold and our national political will is broken. In that event, both the Iraqi people and the American troops will pay a long-term price for our shortsighted delusion."

And for the rest of you nay-sayers so invested in our defeat, well, the Iraqi people just gave you the finger. Again.

This is a way-funny read.

[underlying hat-tip to Mike Romano]

Guest-post by Michael Manning

Before I start, let me just say that burning a church is blasphemy, slavery is oppression, and genocide is persecution. Taking a PC hatchet to Christmas? Not even close.

The un-Christing of Christmas has drawn the ire of many conservative organizations over the past few years. The mere mention of Christmas, they claim, is being removed from the public square, both by government and the private sector, at the behest of secular forces whose PC sentimentalities insist that we offend the least number of people. Furthermore, they claim, Christmas is targeted exclusively because it is a Christian holiday and would not be such a target if it were a holiday of any other religion.

There is some truth to this. I am old enough to remember a nativity scene in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse when I was growing up but it must have been 15 years ago or so. Not having been in public school for the past five years, I don't know how they are or aren't celebrating Christmas. Stores obviously do large Christmas business, but the decorations and toys are always in the department labeled "seasonal." And naturally, Christmas is the easiest target for PC sanitation, being the most widely recognized holiday of the largest organized religion in the US.

However, the idea of Christmas being held hostage by political correctness is a joke. As Chris said, 82% of Americans are Christians, and obviously there are some who observe Christmas as merely a civil holiday, so the number of people celebrating Christmas is probably 90% or higher. Every year, stores do their biggest sales from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve (Black Friday anyone?). The un-Christing of Christmas has had no impact on how many people celebrate it. In this light, the idea of an oppressed, victimized majority is laughable; people are still celebrating Christmas regardless of what it’s called.

(By the way, our country has had a varied history with Christmas. It has only been a national holiday since 1870. The first day of the first session of Congress was December 25, 1789. Cotton Mather called the celebration "fit for not but a Saturn or Bacchus." The Puritans actually criminalized Christmas celebrations, finding them too lavish for such a holy day. To say Christmas is in our national heritage, while true, is an oversimplification.)

But this leads to a more troubling phenomenon, the merging of one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar with the height of consumerism. I find it incredibly ironic that Christians are being encouraged to boycott certain retailers because they choose to not call Christmas Christmas. The message it sends (at least to me) is that buying presents is a can't-do-without part of Christmas. Chris was on to something in his post when he said, "I plan on...attending Christmas Mass on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ." Who cares how Wal-Mart and Sears celebrate Christmas, I doubt their butts will be in the pews on the 24th or 25th of December. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, retailers celebrate making money; we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking the two are related.

So celebrate Christmas. First thing that has to go is the tree. Germanic and Scandinavian traditions actually sacrificed humans during the Yule celebration by suspending them from trees. Mistletoe is out; it was actually used to kill the god Baldur (so watch out whom you kiss!) and by using it in burnt Yule offerings, the hope was that Baldur would be resurrected. Can't have ham either; pigs were also sacrificed during Yule, specifically to the Norse god Freyr. Gift-giving and feasting in general are iffy; gift-giving could be the gifts of the Magi or sacrifices to any pagan pantheon during a solstice celebration, and Yule feasts were usually associated with sacrifice for a bountiful spring to come. So for a real Christmas celebration, no tree, no feast, no gifts. Yes it's barebones, but we can console ourselves with the notion that extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice.

So if there's no feast, no gifts, and no tree, how do we celebrate? Let's start by loving our neighbors. Make a specific point to tell your friends and family what they mean to you and how much you care about them. Make a plate of cookies for the lonely widow that lives down the hall. Put every last red cent you have in your pockets into every Salvation Army bucket you stumble across. Take some canned goods to the local food bank. "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

So does it really matter whether a decorated tree in a town square is a holiday tree or a Christmas tree, or how a card is worded? No. What matters is how we choose to celebrate this holiday season, with kindness and generosity toward others, especially to the less fortunate among us. Despite the best of intentions, entering the name game only generates quarrelling and division; by focusing on what we call Christmas, we lose sight of its meaning. "That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell just as sweet." No matter its name, Christmas only comes once a year; let's spend the season actually celebrating it.

When it comes to identifying racism, twin evils exist: one is the failure to identify acts of racism that are occurring, while the other is the making of false charges of racism.

The usage of the term 'racism' matters. Fail to spot real acts of racism and the term's utility is minimized. Just because we as a society have made great strides in reducing incidents of racism, we cannot be lulled into a false sense of security that it never happens.

On the other hand, in our well-meaning scrutiny, we must not charge racism when it in fact has not occurred. Doing so dilutes the meaning of the term and thus is also quite harmful.

On this regard, I provide two examples. The first is Kanye West's charges of racism regarding President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina. According to this article, "Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans."

Will Kanye make a public apology to President Bush? If not, he's a coward.

The second example is the movie King Kong. Newsday's Jim Pinkerton writes, "Any movie that features white people sailing off to the Third World to capture a giant ape and carry it back to the West for exploitation is going to be seen as a metaphor for colonialism and racism." He underscores that point several times in the column.

But anybody who watches Jackson's King Kong leaves the theater with the undeniable feeling that the Americans' encounter with Skull Island and their capture of King Kong is a BAD thing. The movie's ending is tragic, not celebratory.

Now that it's apparent that Iran is led by a certifiable madman--this idiot has called for Israel to move to Europe or Alaska and he has denied that the Holocaust ever happened--Iran is positioned more than ever for conflict with Israel and perhaps the U.S.

Luckily, one of my friends discovered the key to successful peace negotiation between George W. Bush and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What follows are a couple key exerpts, but read the whole thing!

.....

After years of bickering between the United States and Iran, it finally appeared nuclear war would soon erupt between the two countries in June 2007. Fearing the end of the world and wanting to make one last effort to not be the man who let the planet explode, George W. Bush scheduled a meeting with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The meeting did not begin well...

Cheney ran back toward the Oval Office with the Air Supply cd. He hoped he wasn't too late. Fortunately, he could still hear Ahmadinejad's screaming voice through the door. After taking a cd player and hooking it up to the speakers that run into the Oval Office, Cheney pressed play. And hoped.

Ahmadinejad: DEATH TO AMERICA! DEATH TO AMERICA! DEATH TO AMERICA! DEATH TO AMERI...

I, I was the lonely one
Wondering what went wrong
Why love had gone
And left me lonely

Ahmadinejad: Oh my goodness...

.....

As I said, read the whole thing, especially if you want to read the shocking conclusion.

China has ambitions (and a plan) to put a man on the moon by 2017.

Yeah, we've already done that, but what have we done since? Hopefully the Chinese space advancements will spur us into a new version of the "space race." This time we have our eyes on Mars, and it'd be nice to one-up China's moon program.

See the complete list here...

Best Picture (drama) nods for the following: Brokeback Mountain, The Constant Gardener, Good Night, and Good Luck, A History of Violence, Match Point.

I've seen A History of Violence and while I liked it, I am surprised to see it get a nod. Goodnight, and Good Luck definitely deserveds one... I haven't even heard of Match Point.

It's 3:40 a.m. and I just got home from the midnight showing of King Kong, and I'm left pondering the question: why am I not tired? Two law finals in the last 40 hours, a sleep deficit, and a 3+ hour-long movie, and I'm sitting here cheerily chirping away at my keyboard.

But alas I must give sleep a chance, and thus my review of the movie must wait till mid-day. No setting the alarm clock tonight...errr, this morning.

Review:

With his version of King Kong, director Peter Jackson solidifies himself as the world's best fantasy filmmaker. His unceasing attention to detail and realism quickly make the viewer forget she is even watching special effects, similar to his accomplishment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But this movie was about more than tremendous special effects. Indeed, Kong did the unthinkable for a movie of its pedigree: it captured my emotions. Strong acting across the board and a clever and catchy script that went beyond skin-deep imbued each of the characters with a memorable personality and the movie with a story I genuinely cared about.

At a little over 3 hours, the movie was a bit too long, and some gratuitous cheesy action sequences on Skull Island could have been shortened or even eliminated altogether. To his credit, Jackson manages to creep me more than once with some of the oversized creatures on the island, but I would have preferred to see more footage of Kong's captivity and treatment in NYC before his escape. That could have deepened the meaning of the film.

Jack Black's version of Carl Denham, the struggling filmmaker who sought to make a movie on the undiscovered Skull Island, is complicated and apparently more dark than the 1933 movie's version of Denham. Black's Denham epitomizes the movie's central themes: the clash of the developed world with native cultures, the reckless attempt to capture and control great forces, and the destruction of things and people we love. Is Denham purely selfish or is he sincere in his stated goal to show the wonders of the world to New Yorkers for the mere 25 cent price of an admission ticket? The choice of Black for the character was a gamble by Jackson, but one which mostly pays off.

The highlight of the movie, by far, is the relationship between Ann Darrow (played by Naomi Watts) and King Kong. Watts nails Darrow's transition from terrified damsel to an emboldened woman with sympathy and love for Kong. As for the brute, he absolutely shines in this movie. Kong's terrifying power is swayed by Darrow's beauty and he changes from an oversized ape with a playful side to a zealously protective beast with a near human sense of affection. Jackson's obvious study of the behavior of real-life apes combined with Andy Serkis's acting behind Kong produce movie magic.



I will not give away the exact nature of the movie's end, but I can say that it was the perfect cap.

Read this tidbit, which was somewhat buried in this News.com article, but is very interesting:

Google was among the companies that attended a meeting last month at IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., of the Open Document Foundation, a group formed to agree on freely available formats for word processing, spreadsheets and other office documents; the idea is to come up with alternatives to Microsoft's proprietary Office formats. And for the last few months, Google has talked with Wyse Technology, a maker of so-called thin-client computers--machines without hard drives.

The discussions are focused on a $200 Google-branded machine that would likely be marketed in cooperation with telecommunications companies in markets like China and India, where home PCs are less common, said John Kish, chief executive of Wyse. "Google is on a path to developing a stack of software in competition with the Microsoft desktop, and one that is much more network-centric, more an Internet service," Kish said. "And this fits right into that."

Cheap computers without hard drives, eh? Imagine it now: super-cheap computers that access Google services online for their applications, documents, and file storage. This could be the largest challenge to the current desktop computer model ever.

I can't think of a practical reason for these iPod underwear, on sale for $20+, but they must be cool because they involve the iPod, right? Right.



[hat-tip Wired News' Cult of the Mac blog]

but if you don't count criminally-acquitted-but-civilly-liable-double-murderers (and I really don't think we should), Notre Dame still has the lead in Heisman Trophies.

Besides, USC only has one year to enjoy the tie. Live it up, ass-hats.

...Indiana became the 19th U.S. state.

My prediction for the Notre Dame-Ohio State game: too close to call.

Sorry folks, but I'm not touching this one with a 10-ft pole, but I will provide a few remarks. Ohio State gave Texas a heck of a game but they also barely beat Michigan, a team that ND looked easily superior to despite the close score of their game. Performances against other mutual opponents between ND and OSU do not yield any clear weight to prefer either team in this game.

I think Ohio State's defense might be the best ND has faced all year, and if it wasn't for Weis's brilliant play-calling ability and one month to prepare, I'd be worried that the Buckeyes would shut down our offense. As it is, I think we'll be able to do some stuff against them, but it's not going to come easy or consistent.

On the other side of the ball, ND's liability is as it has been for quite some time: pass defense. I do not think that we'll be able to force Ohio State to the running game, and our pass rush has also been poor, so my hope is that we can force a turnover.

Finally, against almost any other opponent, I'd give the coaching edge to Charlie Weis. But Jim Tressel has a knack for winning big football games and pulling it out in close situations. I'm not saying that I think Tressel is better than Weis (because I don't think that, and Weis only has one year under his belt), but Tressel's strength combined with OSU's more frequent bowl experience lately might make them a tough opponent if it comes down to the wire.

That said, ND played with amazing composure in the last minute against USC and against Stanford. In short, I can't wait to see this game...


Update: Fine. Under pressure in the comments to commit to a prediction, I'll make one. Ohio State wins in a close one. Level of confidence: 20%

There are few liberal concepts I despise as much as the concept of political correctness. My hate is most vivid around Christmastime, or if you prefer, the Holidays. It is bad enough that I am not supposed to call my little sister retarded in public, or that I am no longer grammatically correct in referring to members of Congress as Congressmen. I will not even go into my feelings on the Indigenous Peoples of the United States and the mascots of major league baseball teams who are not allowed to carry around rubber hatchets and pretend to scalp other mascots anymore. Those were the days.

The real or perceived attempts to impose limits on the acceptable language and terms used in public discussion have gone too far when they begin removing Christ from Christmas. Brothers (and sisters), the debate over the designation of Jesus’ birth is more than annoying; it borders on blasphemy.

Christians, representing 82% of the American people, believe in a God who is offended at the mere mention of His name without reason. Still, in America, Christmas has long been more than a Christian holiday. Because a majority of Americans are Christians, practicality dictates that Christmas be a national holiday. It was inevitable that the holiday would one day be celebrated by non-Christians in a non-religious context. Still, I am not offended.

But when Americans, Christian or otherwise, begin taking Christ out of Christmas, our sin is greater than the taking of the name of the Lord, our God, in vain. We have acted in vain of His very existence. That is not tolerance, it is cowardice.

President and Mrs. Bush, in their annual Christmas card, wish us “a holiday season full of hope and happiness,” but they were not afraid to include a passage from the Bible, Psalms 28:7 to be exact.

Wal-Mart recently made a statement claiming that “Christmas was a composite of ancient traditions, made up of elements such as Siberian shamanism, Celt and Goth customs, and the worship of Baal.” No mention of Jolly ‘Ole St. Nick.

The American Family Association announced that several retailers have joined in the push to ban the use of "Christmas" in their in-store promotions and retail advertising. So far, the list includes Kmart, Sears, Kohl's, Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, JC Penney, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Office Max, Walgreen’s, Staples, BJ's, and Dell. (Follow the link to the AFA if you wish to express your disapproval to the retailers listed above.)

Zenit.org reports that in schools, Christmas trees are now commonly referred to as friendship trees, giving trees, or holiday trees. Some have banned the use of red and green in their ‘winter parties.’ In 2001, school authorities in Plano, TX, prohibited students from writing "Merry Christmas" on the cards they gave to fellow students.

Zenit points out that Christianity is the only religion under attack: “Celebrations of Jewish, Hindu or Muslim feasts are not regarded as a threat, but as a welcome sign of cultural diversity. By contrast, any public display of Christian symbols or feasts is held to be culpable of excluding other groups, or imposing beliefs.”

Cultural diversity be (God) damned. I plan on writing Merry Christmas in my Christmas cards, exchanging Christmas gifts at Christmas parties, and attending Christmas Mass on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. For once, I am not alone.

An apparent backlash against those who would steal Christ from Christmas has convinced Boston city officials to rename their holiday tree a Christmas tree. It has provided the political capitol for Denny Hastert to rename the tree on the West Lawn of the Capitol the "Capitol Christmas Tree." Walgreen’s has assured next year’s advertising will better incorporate ‘Christmas,’ and next year’s trees will be called Christmas trees. Lowe's, too, has removed all ‘Holiday Tree’ signs and replaced them with ‘Christmas Tree’ signs.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

I second the holiday greetings offered by Fr. Lou Guntzelman:

“May Jewish people be as proud, and firm, and expressive of their religious beliefs as we Christians are. May Muslims joyfully speak out and celebrate their own ways of praising Allah. May atheists and agnostics be tolerant enough to forbear the songs we sing, the beliefs we hold, and the variance between people of all religions.”

And may all your Christmases be bright.

“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather, it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.” (John F. Kennedy: Roman Catholic, and President of the United States of America)

Dave White, a gay columnist for MSNBC, has a great column up giving straight guys advice on how to watch the new gay cowboy movie, Brokeback Mountain.

Here are the first few 'graphs:

You are a heterosexual man. And you have no personal beef with gay people. You’re educated and fairly socially liberal and occasionally listen to NPR and you don’t like to see anyone bashed or discriminated against. You’re no homophobe. You’re proud of yourself.

But your girlfriend/wife/common-law/female or whoever loves that adorable Jake Gyllenhaal has already stated her intentions. When it’s her turn to pick the Saturday night date-movie, you’re seeing “Brokeback Mountain.”

“But I am a heterosexual man,” you’re thinking, “very, very, very, very straight.” And you’re kind of freaking out as the release date quickly approaches — and even the expression “release date” is making you kind of jittery. You’re hoping to remind your female life partner that, while you feel gay people are very wonderful, colorful, witty additions to the human population and that Ellen sure is fun to watch dance in the credit card commercial and that Tom Hanks really deserved that Academy Award for whatever that movie was where he died at the end, that you are very, very, very, very straight and that it should exempt you from seeing Adorable Jake...um... do “it” with Heath Ledger.

Anyways, the rest of the column is really funny, so read it.

Nick Denton scores again by filling yet another blog niche with The Consumerist. Check it out for advice on your holiday purchasing.

I just sent in my application for tickets to the Fiesta Bowl--priority mail, of course, so it would get there in time--and I'm seriously jacked about going. My last visit to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona was in 2000 when Notre Dame got creamed by Oregon State.

I know I can speak for the entire Notre Dame fan base in saying that I want the Fighting Irish to bring the righteous hammer of God down onto the Ohio State Buckeyes. It's been too long since we've had a bowl victory.



And remember to check out Kelly Green for your latest ND football news and game analysis, including this post on getting to know Ohio State. Chris, at Musings of a Domer, also has a good post on football good and evil.

This is what Ohio State's fans will look like when Brady Quinn and the Catholics of Notre Dame are through with the the pagans of Ohio State...


...photos from Irish Round Table

David Carradine: (the law professor)

Now, when it comes to you and us.
I have a few unanswered questions.
So, before this tale of bloody revenge reaches its climax
I'm gonna ask you some questions, and I want you to tell me the truth.
However, there in lies a dilemma
Because when it comes to the subject of me
I believe you are truly and utterly incapable of telling the truth.
Especially to me, and least of all, to yourself.
And when it comes to the subject of me,
I am truly and utterly incapable of believing anything you say

Uma Thurman: (the law student)

How do you suppose we solve this dilemma?


David Carradine:

Well, it just so happens I have solution.

Wendy's new commercials are stupid. They feature a set of hamburgers in front of a white background, and the hamburgers change number of patties so that they mimic a simple graphic equalizer. All this is done to a supposedly hip techno beat, while a voiceover brags about how you can order your hamburger at Wendys just the way you want it.

BIG DEAL!

Every burger joint lets you add or remove fixings. This is nothing new and certainly nothing worth advertising.

If Wendy's didn't have the Frosty...

There's been a lot of commentators falling all over themselves to congratulate the BCS for finally "doing what it what it always promised to do: pit #1 against #2". Personally, I don't think there's anything to be celebratory about.

Yes, it worked. USC and Texas will play each other for the championship. Here's a cookie, BCS: a 2nd grader could've picked that match-up. A blind, schizophrenic, semi-retarded 2nd grader from Nepal who has never even heard of college football could have done as well. Why do we need two human polls and a handful of computers to tell us this?

If the BCS didn't work this year, it should've been taken out back and given the "Old Yeller" treatment. So please, don't get excited, bowl officials. Sure, the BCS can match up #1 and #2, but can it tell us who really deserves to be #1 and #2? Or if #3 maybe also deserves a shot?

By claiming that the system is just doing the only thing it was designed to do, pit 1 vs. 2, the BCS is all but outright admitting that the other games are just crapshoots as far as who goes. Can anyone honestly tell me that Florida State deserves to be there? Or even West Virginia, for that matter?

I know. I'm biting that hand that fed me $14.5 million. But I'm still dumbstruck that college football clings to a system that no other collegiate sport, from womens lacrosse to synchronized swimming, would ever think to use for its post-season.

And no, I didn't forget about Oregon. Here you go, Ducks.

Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the 21st Amendment which repealed prohibition. [Wikipedia -->]

Less known to most people, however, is that it also gave states more power to control the sale and transport of alcohol than they have with other products--giving rise to the so-called "blue laws."

I graduated from Notre Dame with a BA in psychology. By definition, I therefore believe that I am an expert in the subject. So, I do not normally put too much stock in these new and promising internet psychology surveys. You know, 'What sex is my brain?' 'What are my morals?' 'If I were a Lord of the Rings character, which Lord of the Rings character would I be?' However, I have had The Color Quiz bookmarked for over a year now, and I am astounded every time I take it.

The test is simple, but the site promises that the test is "based on decades of research by color psychologists around the world." The entire test takes less than five minutes, but it has flawlessly reported to me exactly what I have been feeling every time I take it.

I initially suspected it was a series of stock spiels, or fake sketches written by psychologists that most people would accept as reasonable descriptions of themselves. But I am now convinced that the results are simply too accurate to have been faked. Please, someone let me know if there is a gimmick or trick involved that I have not yet figured out.

If I ever follow through on an education in psychology, you can bet this is the first thing I am going to offer my clients.

I have already opined on the much-anticipated gay cowboy flick, Brokeback Mountain [see the EW article on it], but there are some other buzzworthy movies on the horizon.

Peter Jackson's King Kong is said to be simply spectacular--defining excellence for the genre. The story and special effects will inevitably be out of this world, but I suspect Kong will show an uncanny warmth of personality. Expect some Oscar nods (not Best Picture, but effects and the like).

Finally, Steven Spielberg's Munich is garnering plenty of Oscar talk despite the fact that critics have yet to even see the film. Associates close to Spielberg have said that it could be his best film ever, but I'll write that off as clever studio "non" marketing. Munich begins with the 1972 Olympics where Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes, and it proceeds to tell the story of the Mossad agents who were tasked with hunting down the terrorists and killing them one-by-one. The film promises to present a complicated and compelling challenge of morality, and if Spielberg pulls it off, the result would be Best Picture.

I read a great deal of what Ann Coulter writes, if only because she consistently makes me laugh. Rarely do I find anything worth passing on. But in her column last week, she reviews U.S. progress in Iraq since we began waging war in early 2003.

Reading it reminded me not only of all the harping and complaining liberals and Democrats have done in the last two years, but also of my own misgivings about our motives and chances of success in this war. There was a time when I did not know what success would look like.

I believe I am finally confident in saying this is what success looks like, no matter what our motivation:

In the Iraq war so far, the U.S. military has deposed a dictator who had already used weapons of mass destruction and would have used them again. As we now know, Saddam Hussein was working with al-Qaida and was trying to acquire long-range missiles from North Korea and enriched uranium from Niger.

Saddam is on trial. His psychopath sons are dead. We've captured or killed scores of foreign terrorists in Baghdad. Rape rooms and torture chambers are back in R. Kelly's Miami Beach mansion where they belong.

The Iraqi people have voted in two free, democratic elections this year. In a rash and unconsidered move, they even gave women the right to vote.

Iraqis have ratified a constitution and will vote for a National Assembly next month. The long-suffering Kurds are free and no longer require 24/7 protection by U.S. fighter jets.

Libya's Moammar Gadhafi has voluntarily dismantled his weapons of mass destruction, Syria has withdrawn from Lebanon, and the Palestinians are holding elections.

(Last but certainly not least, the Marsh Arabs' wetlands ecosystem in central Iraq that Saddam drained is being restored, so even the Democrats' war goals in Iraq are being met.)

The American military has accomplished all this with just over 2,000 deaths. These deaths are especially painful because they fall on our greatest Americans. Still, look at what the military has done and compare the cost to 600,000 deaths in the Civil War, 400,000 deaths in World War II and 60,000 deaths in Vietnam (before Walter Cronkite finally threw in the towel and declared victory for North Vietnam).

She uses the rest of the column to call Democrats everywhere “gutless traitors,” but I’m going to end it here and add that while President George W. Bush has made many mistakes during his time in office, we have done exactly what he promised we would do in Iraq.

In a season where it seems that the Coach of the Year award will go to a man who is clinically dead, here's an honor that Weis can also take pride in: Sportsman of the Year.

Sure, there are teams with better records. The Pete Carroll's and JoePa's of college football will be mentioned far more than Charlie Weis when it comes down to the COTY award. But the greatest "Sportsman"? Clearly, there is no other choice.

Whether it was "pass right", "nasty", "the locker-room visit", or even just the great season and renewed faith in Notre Dame football, at a time when Our Lady needed it most, Charlie Weis delivered with integrity, class, and true grit. He's more than just a coach; he's a good sport.

But of course, Weis won't be content until he's a champion. And thank God for that!