Free kibbles

Organizations face fines for political speech. Thank McCain/Feingold, congress, President Bush, and the Supreme Court for dismantling the First Amendment.

Kofi Annan to deliver blistering criticism of Bush in farewell address. I wonder if Annan has his job from Iran in his hand already. Or France.

Story of Secret Service bugging of Princess Diana grows. This is going to be big.

Border webcams overwhelming success. Anybody who is surprised is seriously out of touch with mainstream America, like our so-called representatives in Washington.

OPEC and Russia shun dollars. We have to switch to the FairTax, produce our own oil in the short term, and switch to alternative fuels in the slightly longer term.

Iran opens travesty of a conference on the Holocaust. Tehran is hiding behind free speech platitudes to attack Jews.

Barack-O-mania is heating up.

Hillary reiterates her socialist position that it "It takes a village." This is code for "taking away parents' freedom to raise their children as they see fit."

Four Germans exposed to polonium-210.

China's war on dogs. As bad as China is, and despite being over three times our population, the U.S. imprisons 4.67 times as many people as communist China. Thanks to the war on drugs.

The overwhelming evidence that the war on drugs is devastating America much worse than drugs themselves continues to increase. Trust Milton Friedman.

While the war on drugs is devastating America and the world, the U.S. has decided to also declare war on cigarettes and fat too. In 20 years we'll be railing against the millions of people in jail for smoking cigarettes and eating Twinkies, and prohibitionists will be pushing their agenda on those few people not imprisoned. What part of "land of the free" don't people get?

Why has it taken so long for France to deploy UAVs over Lebanon?

Cows hurt environment more than cars. How long until we hear the calls for bans on beef?

David Warren asks what comes after retreat. The answer is defeat. He points out that to the American people's credit, they are not buying into the retreat and defeat strategy despite being subjected to the mainstream media's 24/7 promotion of it. Best yet, this essay comes from Canada.

Lisa Beyer exposes the Big Lie of the Middle East.

Paul Greenberg says if we abandon Iraq, we will show the world "it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but it is fatal to be her friend." This is definitely the lesson the world would take away, but it's too simplistic because it assumes the current Iraqi government is our friend. Prime Minister Maliki is supported by Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi army, which is the dominant force in the sectarian violence in Baghdad. The heads of competing militias are ministers in the government. None of these people are our friends, and because of them, neither is the Iraqi government. This is not Vietnam.

Iraq spends less than 20% of it's budget. They won't spend the money to rebuild their own country.

Neille Ilel illustrates how grass roots volunteer charities significantly outperform government and even large institutionalized charity in response to hurricane Katrina. This is libertarianism in action and shows what can be accomplished when government is not in way. “The FEMA people said, ‘You can’t do this—it’s not in the manual,’ but we got away with it.”

Boortz highlights that the people of New Orleans reelected congressman William Jefferson despite the $90,000 bribe discovered in his freezer.

An entertaining and ironic year in review from George Will.