Silly String, The Trip Wire Detector

After some clever soldiers of the British SAS discovered that silly string can be sprayed into booby-trapped rooms to detect trip wires, Army Spc. Todd Shriver asked his mother, Marcelle Shriver, to send more to Iraq. Since then, she has been collecting cases of the stuff through St. Luke's Church in Stratford, NJ.

If you'd like to help, please send donations to:

St. Luke's Church
55 Warwick Rd.
Stratford, NJ 08084

For more information:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usgoo1208,0,1816870.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061206/ap_on_re_us...

http://www.incrediblegifts.com/sistpastpacr.html#troops

http://www.epartyunlimited.com/sillystring.html

More Terrorized Iraqi Children

I don't know how these Kirkuk, Iraq children can stand being terrorized "in the dead of night," according to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). These pictures show them being "terrorized" by apparent unauthorized torture devices constructed from Humvee spare parts by Task Force 2-116 Armor.

Bin Laden Myths

Early news reports this morning are suggesting that the Saudi Secret Service and French Secret Service both believe that Osama bin Laden died in August in Pakistan of tyhpoid. Whether this story is true or not has yet to be determined, but this does remind us of other bin Laden rumours we've all heard over the past decade. Hugh Hewitt had Lawrence Wright, the author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, on this past week, and he had some interesting things to say about bin Laden and the history of al Qaeda. He mentioned two myths that the media has erroneously propagated:                        Bin Laden is 6'4". Wright says this is ridiculous, and bin Laden's true height is actually around 6'0"-6'1". Bin Laden has kidney failure and requires dialysis. Nobody's sure where this originated, but it is false.

More Violence and Murder from the Religion of Peace

Muslims around the world responded with violent protests and murder after the Pope's remarks last week implied that Islam encourages violence and murder. Hmm...

Matt Lauer Grills Bush on Post-9/11 Interrogation Techniques

This is an interesting video. Matt Lauer attempts to trap Bush and get him to admit to the authorization of illegal interrogation techniques, but Bush does a good job defending our methods. He tried to remind Lauer about how the safety of your family is more important than the intricacies of the legality of techniques used in prisons outside of the U.S., but like any good liberal, Lauer didn't like that answer. He preferred to hear about how we're sacrificing the safety of Americans to make sure that the bad guys are not put into situations where they feel like they are drowning.

Can you spot the terrorists?

"In this room are three terrorists..." claims The History Channel narrator from this documentary showing a room full of young Muslim men studying to be good jihadists in 1999.

My wife and I found this video side-splittingly hilarious. If you know why, then you are one of the few that understand what we're facing.

The numbers behind the Islamofascist terrorist attacks

TheReligionOfPeace.com is a great web site to shed the truth on the Islamofascist War. They are keeping tallies of all Islamofascist terrorist attacks around the world since 9/11. To date, there have been 5774 separate attacks in 54 countries that killed 28,981 and wounded another 56,154. I guarantee that you have never heard of the vast majority of these. After all, they would only make Bush look right and the democrats look very, very wrong.

Still think Bush's "unjust war" in the Middle East is the cause of the modern jihad? Most of those 54 countries have never had a single troop in Iraq or Afghanistan and have not aided the U.S. military's interests in the region.

Flipsyde: Happy Birthday

I don't normally promote any type of rap, especially in video form, but Flipsyde has produced a song and video for the ages with a very special message. Use the Amazon button on the right to purchase the CD or check out the video below:

One Enzo Down, 398 to go!

If you're not familiar with the Ferrari Enzo, it's one of the most famous production cars in history. First showcased at the 2002 Paris Auto Show, the entire production run of 399 was sold out almost immediately for a mere $670,000 each! Chump change.

Until the recent debut of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 (1001 HP from a quad-turbo W16 engine) the Enzo was the fastest production car ever to be built. If you ever have a chance of seeing one, congratulate yourself. It doesn't happen. The owners very rarely show these cars to the public, much less driven them on the street. On the street? That brings up an interesting philosophical debate that I'll leave for other blogs: Can you get insurance on a $670,000 car, and would anyone rich enough to purchase one actually buy the insurance?

Darwin Award winners come in many shapes and sizes, some very wealthy. Let me nominate a 2006 candidate...Swedish mobster Stefan Eriksson. You see, Mr. Eriksson thought it would be a lot of fun to try out his 660-HP super-exotic Enzo by racing a nearly-as-fast Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. On the street!

With only 617 HP and and an extra 700 lbs, and although undoutedly more comfortable as a daily driver, the 200-MPH SLR is no match for the 220-MPH Enzo...in the hands of a competent driver, which is exactly what Mr. Eriksson found out recently.

After topping out over 200 MPH, according to witnesses, the Ferrari skidded out of control and slammed side-ways into a slightly less-expensive telephone pole (which, sadly to say, did not survive the crash). The car split in half, was completely destroyed, but Mr. Eriksson was saved! Woohoo!

As strange as the crash was, the story told to police was even more bizarre. Apparently, according to Mr. Eriksson, he wasn't even driving his own $670,000 Ferrari at 200 mph on the street. Oh no, he was just a passenger. The even less competent, real driver was actually a mysterious German named Dietrich...no last name.

Here's the big shocker: Mr. Eriksson's blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit at .09. Check out the pictures.

Emily

While the rest of us are meandering around in relatively cushy lives complaining non-stop about trivial matters (gas prices are up 20% in 5 years, the market has only increased by 10% over the past 18 months, and the timing of the traffic light closest to your office seems to always be against you when you're late), there are a scattering of very young angels hidden among us that we rarely acknowledge. How much we could learn from them!

Meet Emily. She's a darling 9-year-old whose best friend is a cat named Pippy. She loves America, Christmas, Disney princesses, and Jesus. She's much like my own 6-year-old daughter. Except for one thing: Emily has cancer.

While I'm obsessing over my son's delayed potty-training, my cat's incurable vomitting habbit, and way too many door dings on my beloved car, Emily's attending regular testing and treament sessions. Her parents are experiencing anxiety the likes of which only the unluckiest of us parents every encounter. They're pulling their hair out, can't sleep at night, and are in a permanent state of worry over the future of their little angel.

But Emily takes this all in stride. Such youth and innocence. She probably thinks this is a perfectly normal part of life, something everyone endures. She doesn't even seem bothered that she was dealt such a poor hand. The rest of us are running around with a three-of-a-kind, two pairs, flush, or a full house and envious of the 5-of-a-kind the guy down the street was dealt. Emily's stuck with a 9-high and is putting on what the rest of us would call a "poker face". But for Emily, it's not a show. Her faith in God assures her that everything will be ok. She might not get the 4-0f-a-kind, but she doesn't care. Because she knows that what's important is to just make it to the next hand. And with God's grace...she will.

God bless you Emily.

Gas Prices vs. Home Values

If you remember back in the summer, gas prices increased by about 35% nationwide in the month of August, mostly because of Hurricane Katrina. This was almost unheard of in U.S. history. All the politicians were running around like headless chicken trying to "fix the problem" and satisfy their constituents. As they were busy writing up emergency legislation, discussing price controls, and calling heads of oil companies in front of Congress for price gouging investigations, the prices had already started dropping, all without any government intervention. Millions of dollars of government money was spent trying to figure out how to "solve the problem". And before any government policy shifts could get off the ground, the problem was solving itself.

No, gas prices never returned to 2004 levels, but they are a lot lower now than they were.

The U.S. House of Representatives, the N.Y. Times, and Bill O'Reilly were absolutely hysterical in their wild accusations of price gouging by oil companies...only because prices went up. They had no proof whatsoever, but they were already on the witch-hunt, calling for CEO resignations and emergency law passage. And as prices trickled down, did you hear anything from them? Were they calling for investigations into why prices were dropping?

It's funny how some people go ballistic over a price increase over one commodity, but you don't hear a peep of concern over the much faster growing prices in other commodities, like real estate.

Between 1940 and 2000, the average home value in the U.S. increased by a factor of 40.7.

Between 1940 and 2000, average gas prices increased by a factor of only 8.3.

So real estate prices are increasing nearly 5 times as fast as gasoline prices. Hmm. How could this be? How could it be that so many people are so upset over gas prices, when real estate prices are increasing so much faster?

It's all about what people have a stake in. All the House members, the editorial staff at the N.Y. Times, and Bill O'Reilly all own homes. But very few of them own shares of oil companies. So in essence, they aren't upset that gas prices are going up; they're upset that somebody else is profiting from the higher prices.

I'd like to see a report on how much a full-page ad in the N.Y. Times or a 30-second spot on TV has increased since 1940. Wouldn't you? Hypocrisy knows no bounds.