Chucky Comes To Town

Reason # 1,345,569,201 why the Royals are absolutely worthless.

UK Telegraph The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since Sept. 11.

The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America's "confrontational" approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam's strengths.

The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. "I find the language coming from America too confrontational," the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.

Well, tough. Unlike you, Sir, Tony Blair has been a real leader and true ally in the WOT. Chucky can go pound sand.

He's Queer, Jim

A famous Star Trek actor has finally decided to come out of the transporter.

E! Online George Takei has boldly gone where no Star Trek star has gone before: He's come out.

In so many words.

"You know, it's not really coming out," Takei says in the Nov. 22nd issue of the Los Angeles-based gay and lesbian magazine Frontiers (www.FrontiersPublishing.com.) "It's more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen."

In the interview, Takei, forever Mr. Sulu of the U.S.S. Enterprise, notes that he has been "open" about his homosexuality for years-to family, and and to friends. "But I have not talked to the press," he says. "In that sense, maybe that's the opening of another corridor out there."

Well, now I know why he and Checkov always beamed down together. My money was always on Kirk coming out. Set phasers on flaming!

Wired For Sound

Now this would be fun to see used at, say, Gitmo.

SF Gate We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, to make them advance, make them halt. Ground-based pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots.

But manipulating humans?

Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was.

Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japan's top telephone company, says it is devloping the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But even more sinister applications also come to mind.

"Dance for us, insurgent boy! Dance!"

Stupid Fat Man

I am shocked to find out that Michael Moore, champion of the little guy, is in fact nothing but an overfed hypocrite. Shocked, I say!

NY Post PORCINE provocateur Michael Moore likes to portray himself as a working-class man of the people, but a new book exposes him as a "corporate criminal, environmental menace and racist union-hustler."

In "Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Profiles In Liberal Hypocrisy," Peter Schweizer reveals that Moore, who has been vociferous in his criticism of defense contractor Haliburton, has bought and sold hundreds of shares of Haliburton stock-and that of other defense contractors-through his private foundation.

Moore, who has claimed that he doesn't own a "single share" of stock, has also invested heavily in HMOs and pharmaceutical giants, the targest of his next movie, "Sicko."

Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. If you're going to be a hypocrite, at least be an honest one.

In Her Own Words

In case you haven't heard, Harriet Miers has decided that being Bush's crony isn't quite what she thought it would be.

MSNBC.com Dear Mr. President: I write to withdraw as a nominee to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. I have been greatly honored and humbled by the confidence that you have shown in me, and have appreciated immensely your support and the support of many others. However, I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.

There's more. but suffice it to say that she knew she had become radioactive and that being a Bush pal isn't necessarily all that it was cracked up to be. Mr. President, I like you. You've done a pretty good job on most issues. But let's face it-this choice sucked.

Israel To Iran: Bite Me

Well, Iran said it. Well, guess what? Israel's not afraid of you.

Jerusalem Post A day after the Iranian President-in a conference titled "The World Without Zionism"-called to "wipe Israel off the map", Prime Minister Ariel Sharon instructed Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dani Gilerman to take action in order to remove Iran from the international organization.

Sharon was prompted into action by Vice Premier Shimon Peres, who sent a missive in which he wrote, "It is inconceivable that the head of a nation that is a member of the UN would call for genocide. His call stands against the UN charter and constitutes a crime against humanity."

Personally I don't think it'll go that far-there are just too many anti-Semites in the Useless Nations for them to get rid of one of their own. But it does certainly help clear the way for Israel to give the Mullahs the smackdown they so richly deserve.

Finding Ms. Miers

John Fund over at the Wall Street Journal nails the reason why conservatives are so unhappy with the Miers fiasco.

A totally failed White House effort to explain and build support for the nomination. Assuming Ms. Miers was the only potential nominee the White House inner circle could agree on, it is remarkable how poor a job they have done in providing even the most basic information about her. Ms. Miers herself had to make an emergency trip to Dallas to recover basic documents that would normally have been submitted during a vetting process.

And this:

The president also was let down by seven senators in his own party who in May agreed to scuttle plans to end judicial filibusters blocking nominees from ever getting a vote. It wouldn't have been unreasonable for him to think the Senate wasn't in a position to confirm a nominee with a long paper trail.

Translation: Bush chose someone who was lightweight so that he could appease the RINOS. Instead it wound up turning the base against him.

Artists Gone Wild

Who knew that alchoholism could be an art form?

UK Telegraph Critics of a state-funded art show in which the female performer consumes large quantities of beer have branded it a stupid display of binge drinking and have called for it to be banned.

The Japanese artist Tomoko Takahashi is quite content with her work, however, After all, it's not every one-time Turner Prize nominee who gets a 5,000 (pounds) grant to down 48 bottles of lager and then try to walk across a balancing beam.

Audiences at the Government-funded Chapter arts centre in Canton, Cardiff, see Miss Takahashi arrive on stage in high heels and a smart black business suit.

For the next three hours, they watch her drink bottle after bottle, periodically lurching towards her beam and seeing how much of it she can negotiate without falling off.


If this is art then Tijuana turns into an art gallery every Spring Break.

Appendecitis On Aisle Five

It's a WalMart world; we just live in it.

Orlando Sentinel Not far from the front-door greeters at an east Orange Wal-Mart Supercenter, you can get your hair cut, buy a new pair of eyeglasses and get that broken arm put in a cast.

Perhaps not in that order, of course.

Customers can see a doctor at the place they shop for "everyday low prices." A new emergency-care walk-n clinic opened recently in the east Colonial Drive store, near Alafaya Trail.

"It's a great concept," said Sherry Sylvain, who visited the clinic Thursday for a flu shot. "Very convenient. And if you're already here, it saves you a trip."

Well, it's nice to know that you may soon be able to get a check-up after you leave the checkout counter. I just hope I won't have to see what a "Rock Bottom Price" surgery looks like.

Power To The People

With polls showing Bush's approval ratings at record lows, it's nice to see that at least one part of his legacy hasn't been totally wasted.

FOX News BAGHDAD, Iraq-Iraq's constitution was adopted by a majority in a fair vote during the Oct. 15 referendum, as Sunni Arab opponents failed to muster enough support to defeat it, election officials said Tuesday. A prominent Sunni politician called the balloting "a farce."

Translation: "Our old boss is on trial and we're out of power. Waaah!"

Follow The Money

While the left are making themselves giddy over the prospect of high-level White House indictments, let's take a look at what happens when a real liar is caught red-handed.

The Independent George Galloway, the British MP, was last night accused of lying by a US Congressional committee when he testified earlier this year that he had not received any United Nations food-for-oil allocations from the deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In a report issued here, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman and his colleagues on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations claim to have evidence showing that Mr. Galloway's political organization and his wife received vouchers worth almost $600,000 from the then Iraqi government.

Ah, Georgie. Look at it this way-getting smokes from your fellow inmates should be easy for a guy with your scam skills.

Interview With The Ressurection

Move over, Lestat. Anne's got a new gig.

MSNBC What's up with her? "For the last six months," she says, "People have been sending me e-mails saying, 'What are you going to do next?'." We'll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches, and-under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure-of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," a novel about the 7-year old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord." It's the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan's "Slow Train Coming" announcing that he'd been born again.

Yeah, but what if the Lord likes novels about gay vampires?

Syria's Swan Song

The Syrian leadership is going down.

FOX NEWS BEIRUT, Lebanon-The son and political heir of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Saturday called for an international tribunal to try his father's killers after a U.N. probe implicated top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials.

Saad Hariri, a Lebanese legislator, made the appeal two days after chief investigator Detlev Mehlis handed his report to the U.N. Security Council on Harir's Feb. 14 assassination in a Beirut car bombing, which also killed 20 other people.

Saad Hariri praised the U.N. investigation, which said there was a clear link between Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials in the bombing.

"The hour of truth has come....The blood of the matyr Rafik Hariri and his colleagues in the march toward freedom, dignity, sovereignity will not have been shed in vain," he said in a teleivised speech from his home in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.

"The culprits who planned this terrorist crime and participated in executing and covering it up will face, God willing, the punishment they deserve," he added.

Syrian Foreign Ministry advisor Riyad Dawoodi, meanwhile, reiterated his country's criticism of the U.N. report, saying it was false, politicized and aimed at targeting Damascus rather than uncovering the truth.

Syria stepped in it big time by killing this guy last winter. From the sound of things, they're unloading truckloads of bricks in their pants in Damascus right now.

The Snubbinator

Pot, meet kettle.

Sacramento Bee LOS ANGELES-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger drew fire Thursday for his "snub" of President Bush's visit to the state.

Democratic leaders said the Republican governor should be pressing Bush for more federal funds instead of worrying about the President's fundraising. And Republican analysts also questioned the governer's and the California republican Party spokeswomaan's criticism of Bush coming to Los Angeles Thursday to raise $1 million for the Republican National Committee.

"These cheap shots at the president are ill-timed and ill-advised," said GOP analyst Allan Hoffenblum, a supporter of the governor and his initiatives on the Nov. 8 special election ballot. "It comes at a time when the president is being hit by all sides. It's piling on."

I happen to like Arnold. But he's the last person who should criticize someone else, particularly Bush, about how much fundraising he or she does.

A Tyrant On Trial

Oh, yeah. They've been warming up the fires in Hell for this guy for a long time.

SignOnSanDiego BAGHDAD, Iraq-A defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of murder and torture as his long-awaited trial began Wednesday with the one-time dictator arguing about the legitimacy of the court and scuffling with guards.

The first session of the trial lasted about three hours, and the judge ordered an adjournment until Nov. 28.

Saddam and his seven co-defendents could face the death penalty if convicted for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail. They are being tried in the former headquarters of Saddam's Baath Party.

After presiding judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd, read the defendants their rights and the charges against them-which also included forced expulsions and illegal imprisonment-he asked each for their plea. He started with the 68-year-old ousted dictator, saying, "Mr. Saddam, go ahead. Are you guilty or innocent?"

Saddam-holding a copy of the Quran he brought with him into the session and held throughout-replied quietly, "I said what I said. I am not guilty," referring to his arguments earlier in the session.

Amin read out the plea, "Innocent."

The confrontation then became physical. When a break was called, Saddam stood, smiling, and asked to step out of the room. When two guards tried to grab his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off.

They tried to grab him again, and Saddam struggled to free himself. Saddam and the guards shoved each other and yelled for about a minute.

It ended with Saddam walking independently, with the two guards behind him, out of the room for the break.

Yeah, it's tough being an ex-thug. Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeini will attest to that when Saddam becomes their new roomate.

Awards For Nerds

I guess this is some kind of an accomplishment, but who would want to be known as Top Nerd?

The Guardian He is in his 70s and first became known for his theory of transformational grammer-and now he is top of the thinkers' hit parade. Noam Chomsky, the linguistics professor who has become one of the most outspoken critics of US foreign policy, has won a poll that names him as the world's top public intellectual.

Chomsky, who was underwhelmed by the honour, beat off challenges from Umberto Eco, Richard Dawkins, Vaclav Havel and Christopher Hitchins to win the Prospect/Foreign Policy poll.

He beat out Havel and Hitchins. The pollers mistook having an education for having brains.

Allah Fudd And Dhimmi Duck

I wonder how they'll react when they see Bugs Bunny in a dress?

Gulf Daily News RIYADH: Some 20 years after public screenings of films were banned, the first cinema will open next month in Saudi Arabia, showing only cartoons.

The cinema will open for women and children at a Riyadh hotel during Eid Al Fitr on November 2 or 3, said a source.

The source said the move was made possible following an agreement with Riyadh municipality.

The 1,400-seat cinema will hold three one-hour shows to screen foreign cartoon films dubbed in Arabic every evening, reports said yesterday.

Over the next few decades the Saudis plan to introduce talkies, then color, and then who knows what else?

Beached Whale

I don't know which would be more frightening-getting trapped by the tide or having the Swimmer come to your rescue.

Atlanta Journal Constitution (AP)-U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy attempted to rescue six men who had become trapped by high tide on a jetty off Hyannisport on Sunday.

The Massachussetts Democrat eventually left the rescue to Hyannis firefighters, The Cape Cod Times reported Monday.

Kennedy was walking his two dogs on the shore at 11:15 a.m. when he spotted the men cut off from shore by the rising waters. They had been fishing on a jetty that begins at the tip of the Kennedy compound.

I can only imagine the kind of choice that was going through those guys' heads: "Get saved by Kennedy...drown...get saved by Kennedy...drown..."

When Has-Beens Attack (Again)

Listen up, people! The GTS (Gap-Toothed Slut) says you're going to Hell!

DRUDGE REPORT MADONNA WARNS: ALL WILL GO TO HELL IF DON'T TURN FROM WICKED BEHAVIOR; 'MOST PRIESTS ARE GAY'

**Exclusive Details**

The former Material Girl now believes "the beast is the modern world that we live in!"

"The material world. The physical world. The world of illusion, that which we think is real. We live for it. We're enslaved by it. And it will ultimately be our undoing," Madonna explains in her new documentary film, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU A SECRET.

Well, I'm going to tell you a secret, too, Madonna-nobody gives a rat's behind about you anymore.

Smurf 'Em All

From the You Can't Make This Stuff Up Department:

The Register Here's a poser for you: you're trying to knock together a TV ad highlighting the effects of war on children. What's the plan?

Well, you could go down the traditional route of earnest voice-over accompanying footage of said kids miserably waiting for a better life or, on the other hand, you could arm up a squadron of attack aircraft and go and raze a Smurf village to the ground. Let's face it, it's a toughie.

Not for Unicef Belgium, though, which earlier this week reduced an enchanted Smurf hamlet to smouldering rubble-much to the horror of some TV viewers across the Channel-when it aired a 25-second burst of animated warnography on the country's TV screens.

The offending cartoon, created with the full approval of the family of the Smurf's departed creator Peyo, the Daily Telegraph notes, sees the cuddly blue creatures kicking off the action by dancing hand-in-hand round the campfire while singing the catchy Smurf song we all know and love.

Death then begins to rain down from the sky as bombs spread fiery death through Smurfdom leaving just a "scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs," as the Telegraph puts it. The end caption reads: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."

Obviously this is the fault of Papa Smurf for supporting the illegal and immoral war against Gargamel.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Don't laugh. It could actually happen.

USNews.com Is Al Gore coming back? If allies we talked to have their way, the former veep will be the next president. "It's Gore Time," says a political strategist and fundraiser who is opening a bid to get Gore into the race. Gore friends see his recent political and business moves as proof he's preparing to run. Allies say that in speeches, Gore has found his voice to address domestic and world issues. And in raising money for his Current TV network, which targets the critical youth market, Big Al has built an issue base and doner network that's competitive with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's. Our source--a top aide in the previous Bush administration--is planning meetings with Gore's team to push an early entry while Clinton runs for re-election in New York. It doesn't end there: The Gorebots want him to pick Sen. Barack Obama, the youthful Illinois African-American, as his No. 2.

After his former boss, Al has the biggest ego in his party. It will be intersting to see if he will become another unexplained victim of Arcancide...

The Truth Hurts

Bubba can blast Louis Freeh all he wants. The Bent One is still a treasonous slug.

NewsMax Ex-president Clinton's decision to ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah for a high-dollar donation to his presidential library came just months after Saudi leaders rebuffed his request to take custody of Osama bin Laden-when officials in Sudan, where the al Qaeda chief was then living, offered him to the U.S.

Former FBI director Louis Freeg revealed on Thursday that Clinton personally put the touch on Abdullah after failing to get the Saudi leader's cooperation in the probe of the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which-according to the 9/11 commission-was a joint Al Qaida-Hezbollah operation.

The Godfather once said, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." But the Don had nothing on the 'Toon when it came to criminal behavior.

Catching Up Is Hard To Do

Well, I'm back (sort of.) My hard drive crashed, so unfortunately updates will be few and far between until I can get my computer fixed (hopefully sometime this coming week.) More details and a ton of stuff then.

Warrior Moon

What, no Joxer?

ABC The astronomers who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the solar system have another intriguing announcement: It has a moon.

While observing the new, so-called planet from Hawaii last month, a team of astronomers led by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology spotted a faint object trailing next to it. Because it was moving, astronomers ruled it was a moon and not a background star, which is stationary.

The moon discovery is important because it can help scientists determine the new planet's mass. In July, Brown announced the discovery of an icry, rocky object larger than Pluto in the Kupier Belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune. Brown labled the object a planet and nicknamed it Xena after the lead character in the former TV series "Xena: Warrior Princess." The moon was nicknamed Gabrielle, after Xena's faithful travelling sidekick.

Personally, I liked Gabrielle better when she had long hair.

What Price Victory

Sixty years after the fact, one of the Second World War's greatest diplomatic errors gets revisited.

CNN MAASTRICHT, The Netherlands (Reuters)-Grandsons of the three World War II allied leaders who attended the 1945 Yalta conference met for the first time on Saturday and defended the talks which some have blamed for triggering the Cold War.

With the German army in retreat and Hitler's vision of a Nazi-controlled continent in tatters, Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met at the Black Sea resort to decide how to occupy Germany and reoranize Europe into spheres of influence.

At the grandsons' first meeting, the trio countered the view that the U.S. and British leaders underestimated Stalin's cunning and abandoned central and eastern Europe to five decades of Soviet oppression, starting the Cold War.

"People imagine that Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin arrived in Yalta with a blank sheet of paper to decide the fate of Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth," Winston Churchill, 64, told Reuters.

"The fate of Europe had been decided several months before with the Red Army sweeping westwards and rolling back the German Wehrmacht...it was that which led to the enslavement of some 200 million peoples," he added.

Yes, and it was also Roosevelt's shortsightedness (most likely increased by his illness) which allowed the Soviets to stay.