Google Crawls into Bed with Al Gore (Yuck!)

Thank goodness for Google!

It seems Google has teamed up with Algore to make the world safe for everyone.  They have decided to add the ocean floor and Mars to Google Earth.  That’s cool.  I’ll probably poke around a little and try to learn something from this.

But wait!  What was Algore  doing there?  Oh yeah, he was there to show his support for their new ‘Global Warming Add-on’ feature.  It seems they will use mounds and mounds of satellite data (sometimes dating back as far as a decade) to us how we are destroying the Earth.  This is a new low in the shallow-data scientific propaganda that is the favorite weapon of the Greenies.  Maybe, they drove up and down my street last week to get updated maps of how Global Warming was effecting the ice from the storm we had last Wednesday.  I do live in Texas so the effects of Global Warming were pretty apparent the next day on that ice.

They intend to focus on ‘evidence’ that will support their view.  For instance, they will show the melt off of the biggest glacier in Glacier National Park over the last decade.  They probably will not focus on the glaciers that are growing in Norway, the Himalayas, on Mount Logan in Canada, on Mount Shasta and other places.  This would not be good for their agenda.  Just in case, however, people are not able to interpret disaster from the images, Google will provide videos ‘contributed by scientists and organizations around the world.’   By doing so, they will explain how the images support their Global Warming contentions.

I find it irresponsible and disingenuous for Google and a group of people who claim to be scientists (Al Gore and Jimmy Buffett are definitely not scientists) to put this out as if it will educate people about global warming.  There cannot be enough data at Google’s disposal, at this point, to allow anyone, even a scientist to draw a conclusion about Global Warming, Earth warming trends or the possible effects of either.

The clincher was at the end of the FoxNews article where Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “What it really is… is a platform for science and research and literally understanding the future of the world.”  Isn’t that statement a little much?  I buy that having this data as a repository for future study could be beneficial down the road, but a good scientist does not draw a conclusion, or ‘predict the future’ when only 1% of the data is available to study.  Truly, you might as well use the melt off from my lawn last week to predict the future.

I’m Closing Gitmo!

It seemed that the White House doors had barely closed behind him, before Obama was claiming that Gitmo would be shut down, and the military tribunals halted.  There was an immediacy to the reporting that had me questioning, “What are we going to do with the detainees?”  I firmly believe that most, and probably all, of the prisoners there have been put there for a good reason, and that they would be trying to harm the U.S. and its citizens if they were not sitting in Gitmo.

It took one day before I saw another story that said (and I paraphrase), “Gitmo was definitely going to be closed…, by the end of the year.”  Nice, business as usual.

I see a good strategy in this for the Obama camp.  Throw a bone to your supporters claiming to be following up quickly on promises, and then begin to stall the process.  It’s a win-win.  You get to have your supporters actually believe that you are doing what you said you would do, while at the same time not doing it  And in this case you are able to continue to keep America safe from bad guys.  I don’t think we even need to speculate about what would happen to Obama politically if one of the detainees were released, and then was later confirmed to be involved in an attack on the U.S. or its citizens.

The ‘throw them a hollow bone’ ploy seems pretty sound as a political strategy.  It’s hard to find any holes in it.  A year from now when Gitmo is still open, Obama can sympathetically say that he too “does not want this horrible place to stay open”, and that they are shutting it down as quickly as possible.  Then he will say how unfortunate it is that it has to remain open for the time being, and by doing so, will by himself another year.

This idea works for almost anything.  Try this one.  Day one: ”I have ordered the removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.”  Day two:  “A schedule is now in place for the removal of all U.S. troops from the Iraqi theatre.  The joint chiefs have now been tasked to come up with a feasible removal plan for all U.S. troops in Iraq.  This, of course, will be gradual and will be accelerated or slowed down as we monitor the stability within the region.”  Wow.  This stuff sounds great.  Why, I think Obama could even increase the size of the force while appeasing his supporters.  Try this one.  Day one: ”I have ordered the removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.”  Day two:  “In order to facilitate the orderly withdrawal of our troops from the Iraqi theatre, and to promote the continued stability of the democratically elected Iraqi government, we will be committing 60,000 additional support personnel to the region for the next twelve months to augment the withdrawal efforts.”  This stuff almost writes itself!

I’m depressed now.

Obama’s Short Honeymoon

Today’s inauguration went off with pomp and circumstance which has not been seen in the world since the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  Just as when these two were married, the sky seems to be the limit.  How could anything ever go wrong?  Everyone, it seems, is smashing themselves together with the sole aim of showing their support for a new messiah…, I mean president.

I, as most good Americans that voted for someone other then Obama (I am not saying you are a bad American I you voted for Obama), will support him as the elected leader of our country, and hope that he leads us well as a nation.  I am struck with the fear that he will appoint several young, liberal Supreme Court justices in his first year, and then follow in Clinton’s footsteps and expand the use of executive orders, thus legislating from the desk (oval office).

As far as the honeymoon goes, I hope Obama is ready.  Of course, the Republicans in Congress will be looking for anything and everything to criticize.  I look back on Clinton’s presidency and remember how ashamed I was when Republicans refused to support the use of force to stop the genocide that was happening in Bosnia.  If Obama looks to the right for support, he will get none.  This, I think, is expected.

What will be unexpected will be that the first shots will come from his own supporters.  In a few months, as he begins to face the reality of what withdrawal from an instable Iraq means to international peace, he will stall the withdrawal, and former supporters like Cindy Sheehan will draw first blood.  This, however, will only be the beginning.

Guantanamo will be another place where former supporters will turn on him.  It cannot be shut down.  Even if we decide to put all the detainees on trial, it will take years perhaps even a decade to hear them all.

The environmental movement will be even worse.  These people have lived their lives blaming the U.S. and lack of government intervention for every problem that they can conceive (and I do mean conceive).  The point is that in these economic times, it will not benefit Obama to hop on board with a bunch of wealth sapping green ideas, and he won’t.  Their expectations will be through the roof, and he will be able to deliver even less than he probably wants to.

Eventually, all of these and other special interest groups will realize that they are getting little more with Obama than they had with Bush, and then they will re-arm themselves with the only real weapon that they have, blame.  Unfortunately, for Obama, the there will be no one else to blame but him.

Top 5 Worst Presidents in U.S. History

1. Jimmy Carter- He is hands-down, the greatest embarrassment to the office in the history of the Presidency.  He was an abysmal failure while in office, who could not even pass legislation with a sympathetic Congress.  His economic policies led the U.S. into one of the greatest recessions in its history, and his foreign policies led to events such as the storming of the U.S. embassy in Teheran.  At least, he did his constituency the service of hiding out in the rose garden during most of his presidency and refusing to be the leader that he was elected to be.

Today, he spends much of his time violating two centuries of Presidential decorum by decrying the work of the men who have succeeded him, and sticking his nose into affairs in which it does not belong, such as working with terrorist organizations like Hamas.  Giving him the Nobel Peace Prize cheapened it, and it has become the sad political tool that it is today.  No amount of house building can make up for the awful way he has dragged the most prestigious office on Earth through the mud.

2. Warren Harding- I tried not to hold the fact that a president died in office against him.  Presidents like William Henry Harrison or James Garfield get an incomplete from me.  They are obviously near the bottom, but as a result of their untimely deaths, did not have the opportunity to do anything truly bad to the office.  However, the Harding administration, though only two years in length was simply packed with Presidential embarrassments.  His administration is generally viewed as the single most corrupt in the history of the U.S., and that includes the Grant administration.  Harding was barely by his own party.  He did poorly in the primaries, was part of a split vote at the RNC, and after a deal was struck for his candidacy in the predawn of a hotel room, it still took ten ballots for him to receive the nomination. 

He won the general election by a landslide, and then had to pay back those to whom promises were made.  This led to the appointment of several corrupt individuals to his administration.  Many of his appointees were personal friends who were completely unqualified for the posts to which they were named.  His nominee to head the Veteran’s Bureau robbed its coffers of $200,000,000 and fled the country.  The Justice Department was accused of taking bribes.  The Attorney General was proven to have illegally profited from allowing alcohol to be taken from government supplies during the middle of prohibition, and corruption was discovered in the office of the Alien Property Custodian.

The most egregious example of corruption in his administration was the Teapot Dome Scandal in which the Secretary of the Interior received $400,000 in bribe from oil companies after leasing oil-rich land to them without any competitive bidding.

This was all bad enough, but Harding’s personal problems were also prominent.  He was married, but he carried on several affairs while he was president.  These eventually came to light adding to the cloud that surrounded his presidency.  Today, there are some theories that he was actually poisoned by his own wife.  In any case, he was dead after serving only two years.

3. Andrew Johnson- He was impeached but not convicted on two occasions.  Most historians agree that he did not deserve to be convicted, but his track record in office showed that he did not agree with his party or Lincoln in regards to the position of former slaves in post-Civil War America.  He repeatedly vetoed legislation that was meant to protect the former slaves and allow them to be absorbed into normal American society.  His appointments and policies promoted the establishment of so called ‘black codes’ that allowed southern blacks to be kept in some sort of servitude as second-class persons.  He was instrumental in defeating the 14^th Amendment which eventually made the former slaves actual citizens.  Lincoln was a practical man who would do what it took to eventually get the outcome that he wanted, but his appointment of Johnson was easily his biggest mistake, and one, that with his death, could not be undone.  Johnson’s apparent racism which undermined many of the victories that so much blood was shed for during the Civil War put him high on the list.

4. Ulysses S. Grant- Grant’s two terms as president of the U.S. were notable for their corruption and failed domestic policies.  Waffling on the issue of ‘greenbacks’ and allowing unrestrained speculation in the gold market by Jay Gould and James Fisk led to Black Friday in which the Stock Market shut down.  The Grant administration failed to react by releasing gold early.  This caused the ruin of many investors, and when the administration finally did release its gold reserves, it caused a crash in the gold market that led to more ruin.

Though he was never personally accused of corruption, his administration was involved in several famous instances of corruption.  The most famous of these were the Credit Mobilier swindle and the Whiskey Ring.

Grant may have been a great general, but he was not a great president.  His two terms and his military legacy keep him off the bottom of the list.

5. Richard Nixon- Nixon is an anomaly.  His foreign policy achievements could easily have put him into the top 20 presidents of all time.  The problem was that his own paranoia and character flaws led him to use abuse his power as president and to eventually sanction crimes committed at the expense of his political opposition.  Of all the people on the list, his actions as president were probably the worst, but his extremely effective foreign policy keep him off the bottom of the list.

6. James Buchanan- I added a sixth because he is really the only other bad president.  For the most part, America’s presidents have been good and able men who led the country to the best of their ability.  Some may have been less effective than others, and some served short terms, but the true bottom-dwellers are a short list.  Buchanan’s lack of any attempt to keep the U.S. from devolving into Civil War puts him near the bottom of the list.  He and Nero could have played a duet.

Top 20 United States Presidents

A few years ago I ranked the top 20 presidents in the history of the U.S.  I went back recently, and looked at the list again.  I decided that it just did not look right, so I opened a spreadsheet, and began to rank the presidents on several criteria.  These included: Popularity, Character, Number of Terms, the Issues that they had to deal with, their Legacy, the Legislation that they pushed through, their Effectiveness, and their Leadership, and their Negatives.  I gave more weight to: Issues, Legacy, Legislation and Effectiveness.

In the end, my list looked mostly as it had before, but some things looked much better.  Enjoy.

1. Abraham Lincoln- He had it all: the biggest issue (the Civil War), the best rhetoric, an impeccable character, and was unafraid to take the wheel if it was needed.   He died in office before making any large mistakes.  He tried to choose Lee.  He fired incompetent generals at will, and chose Grant in the end.  He delivered the Gettysburg Address.  He signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  He preferred an easy peace with the South at the end of the war.  On the downside, he did suspend habeas corpus during the war.
2. George Washington- The first.  He was extremely popular.  He was very careful to set proper precedents for the office.  He had been General of the armies during revolution.  He showed his character by refusing to be king.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt- He had the big events: WWII, the Great Depression.  He is and will be the only four “termer.”  He overcame Polio, and he was an excellent orator.
4. Thomas Jefferson- He was the author of Declaration of Independence.  He was a Founding Father, and he made the Louisiana Purchase.  However, he did disband the National Bank, and was a somewhat divisive figure.
5. Theodore Roosevelt II- TR, a true man’s man.  He was a sportsman, and one of the first true American naturalists.  He established many of the National Parks that we have today.  He led the charge up San Juan Hill.  He is a symbol of American Imperialism (“Speak softly and carry a big stick).
6. Ronald Wilson Reagan- He brought America out of a recession.  He proved the greatness of conservative fiscal and social ideals.  He proved the greatness of capitalism using its principals to economically bring down the greatest threat to America in its history.  He is still known as the Great Communicator.  He won 49 0f 50 states.
7. James Monroe- Probably the most popular President ever while in office.  His presidency is still known as “the Era of Good Feelings.”  He instituted the Monroe Doctrine which established the attitude that the U.S. did not support European involvement in the Americas.
8. James Madison- He was president during the war of 1812.  He was a Founding Father, and he was the designer and author of the Constitution.
9. Harry S. Truman- Two termer.  He had the big event (WWII).  He made what may have been the hardest decision ever made by a president, and it was the right one (the atomic bomb).
10. Andrew Jackson- He is a two termer.  He was a war hero.  He stood up to the Supreme Court.  He was very popular.
11. Thomas Woodrow Wilson- He was a two termer who led the U.S. during WWI and started the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations.
12. William Jefferson Clinton- He was very popular.  He was a two termer.  He served during a time of economic growth.  He was fiscally conservative, and was able to get his economic policies passed even though he did not have a sympathetic Congress.  His positives will probably outweigh the negatives caused by his personal problems and impeachment.
13. George Walker Bush-   He has the big events: 911 and the war.  His 911 speech will go down as one of the greatest of any president.  He had a sympathetic congress, and pretty much passes any legislation that he liked during his first two years.  He effectively prosecuted a war against an enemy that could not be easily seen.  He did hot do enough to get his message out there, and as a result, his second term was a failure highlighted by the loss of the Congress, and eventually the Presidency for his party.
14. Dwight David Eisenhower- He was general of the allied armies during WWII.  He was a two termer who served during a very happy time for America, the 50s.
15. James Knox Polk-  He expanded America more than any president except Jefferson.  Took in the Oregon Territory, and the California Territory.  He annexed Texas (this should get him a couple of more points).  He signed The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  He ran on the slogan of 54-40 or Fight.  His policies stalled the Civil War for a few years.  He did not want to be President, and only served because he was asked to.
16. John Adams- One of the most important of the Founding Fathers, he stood on his principles and kept America out of an unnecessary war even though it hurt him politically and probably cost him reelection.  He was disliked politically and arrogant.  Also, he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts which were alter declared unconstitutional.  These things pushed him down the list.
17. John Fitzgerald Kennedy- He was extremely popular.  He faced down the Soviets.  He pushed the Space Program.  He was a good orator.  He was a war hero.  On the downside, there was the Bay of Pigs, the War in Vietnam, and his social life.  Also, his Presidency was cut short. 
18. William McKinley- He was President during the Spanish American War.  He acquired, Guam, The Philippines and Puerto Rico from Spain.  He also advocated annexation of Hawaii.
19. George Herbert Walker Bush- He presided over the fall of Communism and Desert Storm.  He was a war hero.  He was the former head of the CIA and former Ambassador to the UN.  On the downside, “No new Taxes” and only one term.
20. Lyndon B. Johnson- His social policies were largely responsible for the success of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.  However, his welfare state was a big issue.  He got America further involved in Vietnam, and he bowed-out after only one term.

Big Oil Blues 2008

I have had a running argument with a friend regarding the oil industry.  It first needs to be stated that we are both conservatives that believe that economies operate well, for the most part, in a free market system.  I, however, also believing in the ‘depravity of man,’ know that anything involving humans without any regulation will eventually be abused by man often to his own detriment.

In the last year, as the price of oil was rising out of control, I chose to place the blame on several groups that I felt were not playing fairly.  Each had its own interests in mind at the time.  First, there were the speculators.  These included retirement account investors who had decided to drive up the price of oil in order to increase the return on these accounts.  The problem with this type of move is that in the end, it amounts to a tax on the entire country, and as a percentage of income it results in a much larger burden for the poor.  Rampant speculation is always bad for the economy.  There is always a ceiling, and when it is reached, a big fall will always occur.  You can look back through history as it has happened again and again.  And, you do not have to look far.  The stock market is still suffering the effects of recent speculation.  In the housing industry, over the past few years, America was treated to stories ad nauseum about housing prices that were skyrocketing out of control on the east and west coasts.  It was referred to as a ‘bubble,’ and the ramifications of the burst are still being experienced throughout the industry (however, in Dallas, Denver and Houston, cities that for the most part did not did take part in the rampant speculation, housing prices have continued to rise at a reasonable rate).   Before that, we had the S&L scandal in the 1980s.  In all of these instances the economy was negatively impacted by rampant speculation in a particular industry.

The second group that obvious benefitted from the aberrant rise in the price of oil last year was the oil companies themselves.  They cried crocodile tears about how awful it was that ‘demand’ had driven oil to such high prices.  At the same time, because their profit on a barrel of oil was based on a percentage of the price, their actual profits went through the roof.  During this time, my friend and I had argument after argument.  I could not get over the percentage of profit built into the oil companies’ prices.  To me this showed that the oil companies were not attempting to exist in a competitive market.  As the price of a barrel of oil was driven up, and the oil companies’ profit went along for the ride, they simply got filthy rich.  I used the Wal-Mart as an example.  If the cost of a particular item went up for Wal-Mart, they would do their best to keep their costs low, and the affect on the consumer end would only be seen up to the amount of the increase in the cost to Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart does not have a percentage of profit built in to its system.  It works on the concept of economies of scale.  No industry could employ the idea of economies of scale better than the oil industry, but there is simply no incentive to do so.  They exist in a perpetual state of mute collusion in which everyone benefits when the price goes up because people are still going to buy gas, and the entire oil industry can reap the profits.

They claim the price was demand driven, but that is a lie that has been proven at this point.  The price was driven by speculation, and as an industry, big oil had no incentive to keep this from happening, quite the opposite.

Until recently they were still blaming demand for the rise in oil prices.  I called B.S. on this.  The price of oil was about a quarter of what it had been six months ago.  So, if the price of oil were actually driven by demand, this would mean that America (and the world) would be using about 25% of the oil that it was 6 months ago.  This idea is just ridiculous.  This was all underscored even more today as news that OPEC’s largest cuts in production in its history were met with…, the price of oil going down again.  This proves that the price was not being driven by demand, but rather by speculation.  Demand and price have a positive correlation (when demand goes up, prices goes up), and supply and price have an inverse correlation (when supply goes down, prices go up).  Today’s announcement simply underscores how much out-of-whack the oil industry was this summer, because now, prices are continuing to fall regardless of the restriction of the supply.

Finally, the suppliers in the Middle East benefitted from the unrestrained speculation in the oil market.  Again, as with the oil companies, they had only to gain.  The negative impact to the economy here was huge.  It is never good to send large amounts of your wealth to another country, but as the price of oil went up, that is exactly what we did, and the dollar took a pounding as a result.  Today, the dollar is actually stronger than it was six months ago.  Interesting.

Check out this story.  I found the graph especially interesting.

Illinios Governor makes the state look like old-time Tammany Hall!

Seriously, this is much more important than the Fran Drescher post.  While I was on CNN.com today, I read a story that made me think I was back in the 1800’s and reading about Tammany Hall.

It seems that a sitting governor in the state of Illinois has seen fit to put up the seat of a United States Senator, no less, (that was recently vacated by the President-elect of our country) for sale to the highest bidder.  Amazing.  There is a little voice in the back of my head that keeps saying, “What else did you expect to come out of the most corrupt political machine in the country?”  But there is a bigger voice that screams back “Weren’t you listening?  A sitting governor in the state of Illinois has seen fit to put up the seat of a United States Senator (that was recently vacated by the President-elect of our country) for sale to the highest bidder!”  This is huge!

The language used by the US Attorney over the case is just as amazing.  I quote from the article:

“The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement. “They allege that Blagojevich put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism.”

According to the statement, Blagojevich is alleged to have discussed obtaining:

1.  a substantial salary for himself at either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;

2.  a spot for his wife on paid corporate boards, where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;

3.  promises of campaign funds — including cash up front;

4.  a Cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself

Wow.

The political implications go deep.  Who turned him in?  If he was seeking a Cabinet post or ambassadorship, was Obama involved?  Did Obama turn him in?  I doubt that.

Is he going to step down immediately, or is he going to fight the charges and remain governor?  If he does, will he still be allowed to appoint Obama’s replacement in the Senate with this cloud hanging over him?  Will he allow the seat to go unfilled until his situation is resolved?  If he steps down, does the state have a provision for someone other that the actual elected governor to be able to make the appointment?  Assuming he steps down, will the replacement have to be put on hold until a special election for governor is completed?  Will they simply have to wait until Obama’s seat comes back up for reelection to fill the seat?  There are many juicy scenarios, and I love them all.

Remember, it was the Media that refused to pursue the allegations of corruption in the Chicago political machine during the elections.  If these chickens come home to roost now, the media will be guilty abdicating its responsibility in favor of pushing its own agenda, again.

Fran Drescher as Political Apocalypse or Simply a Goat with a Goose Caught in its Throat?

So, I turn over to CNN and see a headline that stops me in my tracks.  I try to keep a list of the things that frighten me the most so I’ll know when to pack it in.   For example, the polar bear scares me more than any other land animal.  I live in Texas, so I feel pretty safe as far as polar bears go, but I know that if I were ever to come into contact with one, I simply go fetal and hope he would end it quickly.

Sometimes, however, things we never could have foreseen come along and scare us in ways we could never have imagined.  This was the case today when I saw that Fran Drescher had “throw her name out” for consideration to replace Hillary Clinton as Senator from New York.  Just typing this send shivers down my spine, and leaves my legs quaking.

The thought of having to hear that horrible, horrible voice on weekly political programs for the next four years is hard to fathom.

As a republican, I would take four Bill Clintons as senator before I would want one of her.  If I were opposing a bill that she threatened to filibuster, I would simply ask for the name of the bill that I would now be voting for.  Surely this will not really happen

One last question, Don’t people usually get asked to fill these positions?  I do not remember another person up to this point suggesting himself (or herself) as a replacement for a vacant seat.  If that is all it takes, then I through my own hat in the ring, and I don’t even speak through my nose. 

The Prank to End All Pranks…, Literally

I love a good prank, and have been a party to some good ones in my life.  Physical pranks can be funny, but the mental prank that leads a person to believe something that is not true for a certain amount of time is better.  There are several elements that go into making a prank great:

1. Intricacy- For the most part, the more complicated the prank is, the better it is.

2. Difficulty- You definitely receive points for difficulty.

3. Effectiveness- If no one believes the prank, it is not very good.  So, the greatness of the prank is often measured in terms of how much the ‘prank-ee’ believes the premise of the prank.

4. Dismount- Style points are awarded for how artfully the ‘prank-ee’ is allowed off the hook.

5. Effect- This aspect is a little more tricky.  If you fool someone into wearing a tuxedo to an informal dinner, the effect is funny, and it is a great prank.  However, if the greatness of your prank ends up with someone losing their job or heaven forbid, someone ends up dead, then your prank may not be that great.

This all being said, I was perplexed when I read about what arguably may have been the greatest prank in history.  Last week, during the horrible attacks on the Indian province of Mumbai, a person called the president of Pakistan in Islamabad, and purported himself to be the foreign minister from India.  He then proceeded to verbally berate the president of Pakistan which resulted in him putting his air force on alert against a possible attack by India.

This prank was so effective that no one knew it had actually occurred until Secretary Rice confronted the Indian Foreign Minister and asked in why he had done such a thing.  Genius.

As far as rating the prank goes, he scores great in the intricacy and difficulty areas of the prank.  Also, the effectiveness of the prank is off-the-charts (anytime you have the president of a country scrambling his air force, I’d say that’s pretty effective).  He loses points in the area of dismount, because he never really let them off the hook, and if he had admitted what he did, they probably would shoot him (assuming they will not find him and shoot him anyway).

Finally, he loses major points in the area of ‘effect.’  First, the extreme tastelessness which goes along with combining a prank with a terrorist attack is simply bad (to the point of evil).  Second, it is probably a little irresponsible to play around in such a manner with two governments that legendarily hate each other, but at the same time have nuclear weapons.  I think it’s safe to say that if it starts a war (especially a nuclear war) it is no longer a prank.

In the end, I have to say that this is not a good prank, and no one should attempt to repeat anything like it in the future.

There is Nothing Wrong with ‘Xmas’

I remember when I was a child how offended my mother would get when she saw the word ‘Xmas’ on a commercial or at a store.  She would really become angry saying, “There they go again trying to take Christ out of Christmas.”  On some level, I can understand her unhappiness.  Today, with the ACLU and the court system actually trying to remove any reference to Christmas, it is understandable that Christians would be on the defensive.  Almost daily we are faced with stories about long-time traditional festivals that are replacing the word “Christmas” with “Holiday” or “Festival.”  Seinfeld sublimely underscored many of these attitudes with the famous “Festivus for the Rest of Us” episode.

However, Christians who become offended at the word Xmas, simply have not studied what the word actually connotes.  In early Christianty, the X was actually a Greek letter pronounced “Chi” or “Kai.”  It was the first letter in the Greek word for Christ.

Due to persecution, early Christians would use the X as a symbol meaning Christ and denoting themselves as Christians.  The familiar Fish symbol seen on many cars goes back to this tradition.  The symbols that look like IXOYE (pronounced ‘ixthus’ or ‘icthus’), are really a Greek acronym denoting: Jesus, Christ, of God, Son, Savior.  The Greek word is actually an acrostic that spells out ‘fish.’

So, you see, when you spell Christmas with an ‘X,’ you are just paying homage to 2000 years of Christian tradition.  You can even use it as a tool to teach others when you hear them asking, “Why is Christmas spelled with an “X”?