It comes as no surprise that TIME Magazine named Vladimir Putin their very own “Person of the Year.” After all, they can’t even distinguish between male and female, much less good and evil. The only remaining question is what did Putin do to edge out Ahmadinejad and Chavez? The answer probably has merely to do with their publicity schedules. “TIME’s Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest.” Thanks for clearing that up, but methinks they doth protest too much. Perhaps TIME wouldn’t argue that getting their “Of the Year” cover is an accolade, but in the rest of the world, we view it as such, making their choice an abomination.

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It’s also the last day of Fred Thompson’s campaign. The former Tennessee Senator told a reporter yesterday that he’s “not particularly interested in running for president.” He added that he still thinks he’d be a good president.

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I recently learned that former Bush (Sr.) speechwriter Chriss Winston has written a book along with conservative commentator Myrna Blyth. It’s called How to Raise An American: 1776 Tools, Tips & Activities to Help Your Child Love this Country.

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It’s The Return of the Toast-o-Meter!

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I was musing on what could have made Hicks so special and got him such a lenient sentence for joining al Qaeda so he could kill Americans and American allies, when I remembered that he may have gotten himself some brownie points with the U.S. by also killing Serbs:

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Senator Clinton has taken offense at this comment by Senator Obama: ”It’s that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador’s house, who I had tea with, but understanding the lives of people like my grandmother, who lives in a tiny village in Africa.”   The gentleman from Illinois does have a point, however.  As First Lady, Clinton did spend a lot of time with Earl Grey.  Consider just a few examples: 

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As we snore toward the primaries, PBS offers a pretty interesting show on our seventh president. Not an endorsement, by any stretch. Here’s the beginning of my review:

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First, Arafat “appeared before the United Nations General Assembly with a pistol on his hip, galvanizing that body and initiating a process that culminated with the U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism.” And now former Serbian foreign minister Goran Svilanovic informs us , via Serbianna, of the following:

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At first, I was wary of Mike Huckabee’s foreign policy prowess (or lack of it). Now, I just want to cry. First he didn’t know what the NIE on Iran’s nuclear program was about. Then he thought Pakistan was still under martial law. I mean, turning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto into an illegal-immigration stump was just disastrous: 

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So what’s gonna happen in 2008? I make some semi-brilliant predictions in my Los Angeles Daily News/New York Times News Service column today:

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The Iowa caucus is a peculiar thing:  people vote in public. In primaries and general elections, Americans vote by secret ballot. You go to a polling place, sign in, and then draw that curtain behind you. If you want to vote for the American Communist party, you can do it without your neighbors–or the press–knowing you did.

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Yes. The whole world is watching, frustratedly watching, the American election campaign. Many believe that they should have had the right to participate as the decision is bound to affect their own lives as well as American ones. Some living in democracies believe the Americans are too uncouth to be entrusted with such an important decision while those living in dictatorship are filled with hopeless wonder. Too many in the under developed world believe that America stands between them and an opportunity to made a similar choice. For in these difficult times the presidential candidates do offer Americans a real choice and it is a choice which will be understood by both friend and foe alike.

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The conflict we call the War on Terror still continues at the end of 2007, and all indications are that its battlefields are expected to spread further, and escalate, in the upcoming year. 

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Washington Post Headline: Clinton Library Got Funds From Abroad [End.]

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Clinton urges voters to caucus on wrong day

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From NGO Monitor:

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Atlantic blogger Matthew Yglesias complains that “A remarkable quantity of dumb stuff has been said since Benazir Bhutto’s death” and cites, in particular, this Ipecac Syrup from Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (“”She believed in democracy, freedom and openness - not as slogans but as a way of life. She wasn’t perfect; the corruption charges that enveloped her second term as prime minister were all too real. But she remained the most potent Pakistani voice for liberalism, tolerance and change.”) Whatever else was or was not true about Bhutto, it’s not her guts that are admirable so much as her chutzpah. Think Hillary Clinton, but even more power-mad, scandal-laden - and unbridled by the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution.

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Benazir Bhutto, Harvard Class of ‘73. For what it’s worth.

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Earlier this year, I spent 6 months India. Knowing that a former student suggested that I take advantage of my stay to visit Pakistan as well. She has a very well connected family in the country who would be more than happy to host my husband and me. It was a most tempting offer. It would have been a perfect opportunity to take the real measure of the country. We ultimately declined. It would have been too dangerous and we could not see any reason to justify such risk taking. India and Pakistan may have the same DNA as Dr Farrukh Saleem writing from Islamabad notes but democracy found a home only in India and that has made all the difference (do note democracy advocate Benazir Bhutto was the  “chairperson for life” of her PPP party):

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The article bellow was published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, and translated by A. Ignatkin. It describes one aspect of Russia’s backwards march. Russia demands its government owned Gazprom be given unfettered access to Western markets while blocking the access of Western corporations such as Exxon access to its own resources. History demonstrates repeatedly the ultimate failings of such a system. In other words, Russia will probably fall quickly behind other emerging powers such as India and China. In the meantime, of course, richest man in the world, Putin (40 billion) and company will continue to accumulate personal wealth and place it securely outside the reach of their fellow bureaucratic robber barons, in Switzerland.

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Whatever else was or was not true about Benazir Bhutto, she was a human being who refused to be intimidated by terrorists – and for that, the Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister, who was assassinated yesterday, merits admiration. In a piece she wrote in October for The Wall Street Journal after an attempt on her life, she crystallized the dilemma that all nonviolent people face when confronted by terrorism: how to pursue a normal course—and how to encourage others to do the same—when such a course increases the risks of encountering the horrors of terrorism.

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Richard Widmark just celebrated his 93rd birthday. This icon of old Hollywood is the last of his breed, and he has been unjustly deprived of the recognition that he rightly deserves.

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It’s easy: just claim that your company is the target of a conspiracy by nefarious market forces. The technique is used by penny stock companies and by some even larger outfits — in particular, a money-loising Internet retailer called Overstock.com.

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John McCain is back, and I gotta say whodathunkit and that guy is tough. No money and a smashed up organization are generally not a recipe for victory. Nor, is it clear that McCain can pull off New Hampshire. According to the latest Bloomberg/LA Times poll, McCain still lags. Yet, McCain may do it.

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(New York, June 13, 2007) – During recent fighting in the Gaza Strip, armed Palestinian groups have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, in some cases amounting to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

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Apparently, the premature removal of Christmas decorations from a Wal-Mart I visited was specific to that store, since two emails related accounts of other Wal-Marts, which conflicted with my own experience. I assumed that all such decisions and timing were uniform throughout the company, but it seems store managers have some autonomy about scheduling. Here were the two responses in Wal-Mart’s defense:

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Have a look at my essay at NRO, wouldja? (For those who care, I’m up to 147 movies for the year as of 12/26, and my number four picture is now Sweeney Todd, so you can move the old 4-10 to 5-11.)

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Whenever a world leader is assassinated, there are two questions:  1. Who did it?  And 2 (which is related to Question 1).  Who benefits?

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She knew the odds were against her. Too many people wishes her dead. The Islamists promised she will be dead because she promised to fight them. The army disliked her because she was a Sindi (they are mainly Punjabis) and a woman. Last but not least, parts of the Bhutto family may have wanted her dead as they were involved in vicious blood feud.

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It would be very easy, by trying to eliminate every perceived ill in this world, using entirely “rational” logic in the name of progress, to eradicate the very condition upon which the meaningful exercise of reason and logic depends–namely freedom. We must strive to purge pseudo-religious, feel-good, politcally correct thinking from public policy and return to a society based on the principals of individual responsibility, merit, reason (not rationalism) and a total (not partial) body of evidence. 

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John Edward’s “bumper sticker slogan” just reared its maniacal head in Pakistan and assassinated
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. May she rest in peace. May he and his fellow travelers get a clue.

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December 26 is Boxing Day in Canada, Great Britain, and several other countries.  Employers traditionally give gifts to their employees, and charitable donations and gifts are made to those less fortunate.

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Christmas 2006 was a time of great joy for Democrats. They had just won control of both houses of Congress, and the war they reviled appeared to be an unmanageable mess.

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Jerry will be appearing on CNBC’s Kudlow & Company today, December 26th. The show airs at 7:00 PM EST. Be sure to tune in.

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