If I were the ketchup guy, I'd think twice about mortgaging my house.%
Howard Dean 21
Joe Lieberman 10
Wesley Clark 7
Richard Gephardt 7
Carol Moseley-Braun 6
Al Sharpton 6
John Kerry 4
John Edwards 3
Dennis Kucinich 1
Not sure 34
Q: What would you do to restore relations with our allies?
A: If I win, I'm going to go, before I am inaugurated, on a world tour of the countries we desperately need to repair our relations with. And not just in Europe, but also in Asia and in Latin America. We're talking a little presumptuously here because the votes haven't been cast in one primary yet. But I've thought about this a lot.
Grovel Tour '04! "Hello, Paris. Anyone here tonight think my country sucks? Yeaaaahhhhh!!"Has Jimmy Carter been advising Deano?
CARACAS: Cuban President Fidel Castro will fly to Venezuela tomorrow (ed. note: Monday) to talk co-operation with his biggest regional ally Hugo Chavez at a time when the Venezuelan president is facing a campaign by foes to vote him out of office.I like the old fashioned kind of Santa who doesn't wear fatigues better. Hmm, I wonder if Hugo has been naughty or nice?
Under a three-year-old energy accord, Venezuela sends Cuba up to 53,000 barrels per day of oil – about one third of the island's consumption.And Venezuela isn't getting paid for it. I guess Hugo's been nice.
They are sure to discuss the political situation in Venezuela, where foes of Chavez filed with electoral authorities Saturday more than three million signatures requesting a referendum on his rule next year.Fidel: How many times do I have to explain it, Hugo?
Am I the only one who thinks it’s more than a little weird that TIME Magazine names “The American Soldier” as their “Person of the Year,” only days after publishing a story by a TIME reporter who’s hangin’ out with the mujahideen trying to kill that same “Person of the Year?”And while you are at the Mudville Gazette, check out the related Perky Colon news:
No, I’m not the only one: Mudville Gazette: Dear Time Warner...
Katie Couric about 2 seconds ago (Today, 22 Dec 2003): "Tell me why there's no woman on the cover?"Hmmm, maybe there really is no liberal media bias and what we see is merely arrogant stupidity.
Jim Kelly from Time: " That is a Woman."
Katie: "Oh."
Me: "Idiot".
Now Dean is using the Clinton economic program as his latest doom and gloom target in stump speeches around the country, and Clinton isn't happy about it.More in a similar vein in Slate and Newsday.
Dean has been telling just about any audience listening to him that Clinton's claim that the era of big government is over was in essence a betrayal of basic Democratic values. That Clinton got into bed with Republicans to cut back government, and in turn hurt poor families who needed more of what Dean think government should be giving them.
In classic Dean fashion, he riles up his crowds with those kinds of ideas, then turns around and tells the press that his remarks aren't intended as shots across Clinton's bow, even though Dean has told campaign staffers that Gore, for one, told him that those remarks about the Clinton Gore economy were spot on target, and confirmed Gore's belief that Dean was the straight talker the party needed.
...
According to a Dean staffer in Iowa, Clinton has sent Dean a message through intermediaries to stop using him as a political scratching post on the campaign trail. Dean, though, as late as last Friday was still using Clinton as an example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party.
Their most recent effort, on display Monday in a much-touted Dean foreign-policy speech, is an attempt to transform the candidate from an angry leftist with bad ideas into an angry centrist with no ideas. Mr. Dean's foreign-policy tutor, Ivo Daalder of Brookings, reports that President Bush has set in motion a "revolution" by relying on "the unilateral exercise of American power rather than on international law and institutions," the premise being that America consistently has done otherwise in recent history. Likewise, former Clinton secretary of state Warren Christopher scores the Bush team for slighting the U.N. and presuming that the U.S. does not require "consensus to work its will in the world." There speaks the man who, unable to secure such a consensus for action in Bosnia, dismissed the slaughter there as "a humanitarian crisis a long way from home, in the middle of another continent."It's hard to tell if they don't have a clue or are just lying crapsacks. Actually, it's probably both.
Along with his own experience, what Mr. Christopher seems to have forgotten is that in sidestepping the U.N. on the eve of military action, the Bush team did exactly what its predecessor--and its predecessor and its predecessor--did repeatedly before it. Yet the robotic admonitions to heed the will of the "international community" persist as if nothing has been learned and nothing remembered, even from the past few months. Asked recently what America should do "if international forces don't show up" in Iraq, presidential aspirant John Edwards replied, "Well, I don't accept that premise."
Many politicians seem to think that the answer to every alleged problem is higher taxes. Howard Dean, for instance, has said he would repeal the Bush tax cuts -- even though this would boost the average family’s tax burden by nearly $2,000. This initiative sounds radical, and it is. But some proposals out there are even worse.That's certainly good news. Even better news is that our taxes pay for them to think up this kind of stuff.
The United Nations, for instance, wants to create an International Tax Organization (ITO) that would have the power to interfere with national tax policies.
This idea first surfaced two years ago in a report from the world body’s “High-Level Panel on Financing for Development.” Since then, the U.N. has been working to turn it into reality. For instance, U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan recently called for the creation of a global tax commission. But no matter what it's called, an international bureaucracy with power over tax policy would be an assault on American sovereignty.
An international tax organization, of course, would mean higher taxes and bigger government. Indeed, U.N. officials have been quite open about their intentions. The chairman of the U.N. panel that first endorsed the creation of an ITO said that it would “take a lead role in restraining tax competition.” According to this mentality, it's unfair for America to have lower taxes than places such as France and Germany, especially if it means that jobs and investment flee Europe's welfare states and come to America.
The U.N. also wants the power to levy its own taxes. The original report looked at two options, a tax on currency transactions and a tax on energy consumption. Both of these proposals would hit America hardest. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In the past, the U.N. has endorsed new taxes on the Internet, including a tax on e-mail. Again, the U.S. economy would pay the lion’s share if this reckless idea took effect.I know, I know - they spend all their time thinking up annoying stuff like this.
But the prize for the worst U.N. idea probably belongs to the proposal to give governments permanent taxing rights over emigrants. You see, the U.N. thinks it’s unfair when talented people leave high-tax socialist nations and move to places such as America. But since even the U.N. realizes it would be unacceptable to prohibit emigration, the bureaucrats are instead proposing to let governments tax income earned in other nations.
This scheme is a direct attack on American interests because of our high levels of immigration -- particularly the well-educated portion of the immigrant population. For instance, if a doctor from the Caribbean moves to America, his home government would get to tax income he earns here. If a Chinese entrepreneur moves to Silicon Valley, the Chinese government would get to tax his U.S. income.
There is an understandable temptation to dismiss these U.N. proposals as silly. After all, the United States can veto any bad initiatives. But this passive approach is a mistake. What would happen, say, if Howard Dean were president when the U.N. was voting whether to create an International Tax Organization? Could we trust him to veto this nutty scheme?Could we trust any Donk to veto it?
Fortunately, some members of Congress are trying to address this. For example, Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., has introduced legislation that would end U.S. funding of these bureaucracies if they insist on pursuing policies that undermine America.How about ending all their funding regardless?
Bring back the real men! New York women are sick of competing with - and dating - men who fuss over their hair, skin, nails, teeth, clothes and cuisine.Ruh Oh!
"I can't stand metrosexuals!" cries 23-year-old saleswoman Lauren Levin, who has written "metrosexuals need not apply" on her friendster.com profile. "I want to get manicures with my girlfriends, not my boyfriend."
If there was a buzzword of 2003, it was "metrosexual" - used to describe the alarming amount of straight men who delight in traditionally female pursuits like yoga, pedicures, facials and sample sales.
The backlash has begun.
Levin recently went on a date with Alexander Vorgias, a chiseled 23-year-old commercial real estate agent. Within minutes she knew that he was not for her.Just damn!
"First," she begins, "he ordered plum wine. He wore so much gel in his hair. His tan was perfect. His suit was Armani."
After he asked about her breasts ("Are they real or fake?" is how Levin recalls it) he confessed he was surprised she went out with him, since, when they first met, he wasn't immaculately dressed.
"You're such a metrosexual!" she blurted.Bwahaha!
"I haven't been tanning in three weeks!" he shot back. He did, however, admit to using concealer to cover a bruise he got while playing paintball.I hope they were tall ones.
She ordered two more sakes.
Vorgias, a born-and-raised New Yorker, is still confused by Levin's reaction. "Maybe it's a byproduct of urban Manhattan life, but suddenly I'm being called a metrosexual," he says. "I care about how I look. I tan every few weeks. I buy Aramis creams and under-eye lotions. But the word 'metrosexual' is not manly."Much more by following the link. There's also a photo of these two.
Theresa D'Amato, a 25-year-old legal assistant, recently dated her metro guy, an entertainment industry exec, for a month. "He was so soap-opera good-looking - he had perfect hair, skin and clothes," she says. "But he bought more beauty products than I did."
After the break up, she swore off metrosexuals. Now, she's dating a tattoo-covered cop.
"He's built. He can fix my car. I have to beg him to shave sometimes. Who would have thought I'd love to lounge on a La-Z-Boy and watch the game on TV?" she asks. "But I do!"
"Why didn't you fight?" one Governing Council member asked Hussein as their meeting ended. Hussein gestured toward the U.S. soldiers guarding him and asked his own question: "Would you fight them?"Indeed.
