As the old year rings out and the New Year rings in, the obvious result is a reflection of all the events in the past year, both a celebration of the good and a hand wringing of the bad.
Boring. Been there done that. The major events of 2006 are so numerous I could never pick out a list to do justice to it. So many others have already, and done so well, I don’t feel remiss.
Suffice to say, the year contained a few very personal things, such as my launching this blog on its own domain name, and the launch of NW Bloggers. It contained joyous moments with family and friends. It also contained some grim reminders of the frailty of life as well, for this is the price we all share for living.
And looking forward 2007 looks to be a huge year on personal levels as my son enters service in the Navy, and in professional levels as I take my blogging to the next level. And that barely tips the iceberg.
So rather then indulge in a list of events, or predictions, I will close the with a list of a few things I am thankful for.
I made the observation that those who support the death penalty should face the consequences of their support. I would not exclude myself from that requirement.
Though I take no joy in viewing it there is a bootleg (looks like a cell phone video to me) video of Saddam’s actual hanging.
Warning! To the best of my knowledge, the following video is not a joke or a hoax, and it contains actual live video of a man dying. If you click the play button below, that is exactly what you will see. Be Warned.
I am showing this here to affirm my belief that his death was both required and necessary, and I accept the results of my belief.
If you disagree, I will happily debate that, but not here, not in this post.
Yea, I suppose my flippant title is off base, but I have a hard time feeling any sorry for the death of the man. After all, he looked at the person responsible every day when he shaved.
Himself.
One of the arguments I used to get into with some liberal friends was that of accountability. While this is not a partisan issue, it does seem that a lot of liberals look to excuse behavior with mitigation. Conservatives generally fall back on personal responsibility, do the crime do the time.
I am sure we will hear this asked many times in the near future: Was Saddam a monster, or some kind of victim? In fact, it has already started.
On the TV tonight I heard stories about how harsh his upraising and how that may have made him what he was.
Fah. He made choices like the rest of us. My choices didn’t make me wealthy at the expense of others, and didn’t cause the death of hundreds of thousands. His did.
Consider this list of the choices he made. A few excerpts:
My initial thought was if you have to devise a strategy to gain their support, that may say something about whether you have conflicting values. But as I read more this became rather interesting.
As Democrats turn toward the 2008 presidential race, a novice evangelical political operative is emerging as a rising star in the party, drawing both applause and alarm for her courtship of theological conservatives in the midterm elections.
Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Exit polls show that Ms. Vanderslice’s candidates did 10 percentage points or so better than Democrats nationally among those voters, who make up about a third of the electorate. As a group, Democrats did little better among those voters than Senator John Kerry’s campaign did in 2004.
10 percent may not sound like much, but it is actually a huge advantage.
An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that Saddam Hussein should hang for crimes against humanity, Iraq’s national security adviser told Reuters.
Under the statute governing the Iraqi High Tribunal, the death sentence must be carried out within the next 30 days.
With all due respect to opponants of capital punishment, if there was a guy who deserved it, it would be him.
Leftist groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have weighed in that they don’t want Saddam put to death. HRW opposes it on the grounds that the death penalty is always wrong especially in cases like Saddam’s where his trial allegedly wasn’t conducted “fairly” and AI opposes the DP because they believe the trial was not free of “political influence.”
‘Bottom line here is that nothing’s off the table,’ says spokesman for incoming speaker of House
It seems absurd on its face but it honestly has the potential to explode.
The certified winner of an office in the U.S. House of Representatives may not be seated with other members of Congress by incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi next week for one reason.
He’s a Republican.
In an extremely close race in Florida’s 13th District, Republican Vern Buchanan defeated Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. But ongoing legal challenges by Democrats are putting Buchanan’s claim to the seat in jeopardy, now that the party in control of the majority has shifted away from the GOP.
I might agree, but on the other hand i have seen a few Democrats win very close elections and get certified and take their offices without interruption.
So why is this different? I cannot answer. The race was certified at the state level, so the matter "should" be done, but it is not.
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one never elected to nationwide office, has died. He was 93.
"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," former first lady Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.
Ford was a very special president in many ways. Entering the vice presidency as a replacement to Spiro Agnew, and then ascending to the presidency when President Nixon resigned, he is the only sitting president who was never elected.
He also stood in a strange dichotomy: Being the last link to the Nixon era, by proxy anyway, he was both the symbol of the failures of corruption and a kind of healing to move forward.
As we sit with family, as I play with my new guitar (pictures tomorrow), and as we all watch the 24 hour Christmas Story Marathon (you knowyou are), here is just another reminder of the reason for the Season as only Linus Van Pelt can give it.
Next, two Christmas wishes from LSU, both frm Pat Benatar. Enjoy.
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