One Good Reason for Bypassing the UN for Tsunami Aid

THE BELGRAVIA DISPATCH notes this morning that the French seem…. well… vexed at the idea that the US is in the lead role in the Tsunami aid.

But what have they got to bitch about? The French coughed up $135,000,

DRUDGE has a flash up reporting Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi has been arrested in Iraq.

Good news, if true, but there’s been no official announcement as yet.

Update: The WH and the Pentegon are both downplaying this report, saying al-Zarqawi’s more

Ace of Spades HQ notes It’s JRR Tolkein’s Eleventy-Second Birthday

If you have to ask, you won’t understand my telling you either.

Over at the Daily News, Stanley Crouch notes, regarding hip-hop…

The most successful black women’s magazine, Essence, is in the middle of a campaign that could have monumental cultural significance.
Essence is taking on the slut images and verbal

Yahoo! News – Bullock gives one million dollars to tsunami relief operation

AP is reporting : “About 2 feet of snow shut down Interstate 5 at Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles, stranding some travelers, and the California Highway Patrol said the state’s main north-south highway was expected to stay closed there

AP is running an interesting story…

WASHINGTON – President Bush on Monday tapped two former presidents – his father, President George H.W. Bush, and his predecessor, President Clinton – to lead a nationwide, private fund-raising campaign to help victims of

DRUDGE says :

Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor who was President Bush’s first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has written a book that touts the importance of moderates to the future of the Republican Party and

John Hawkins over at Right Wing News has come up with a great list… The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes Of 2004.

Mona Charen quotes Canada’s National Post in a passage I admit I’d missed. Says the Post, regarding the rejection from Muslim governments in he effected areas rejecting the help of the Israeli government:

“”We expect such false attacks on Israel

AP is reporting Shirley Chisholm has died at age 80.

An extreme radical for her time, it is perhaps a measurement of where we are that she would be called “too conservative” by Democrats of today.

I see this morning that one of my favorite Search Engines, AltaVista is doing it’s part. They’ve placed a Tsunami aid Slug on their front page loaded with links to various agencies doing work in the ‘Rim’.

Pay them a

I’ve added a Yahoo News Feed to the CSS here at Bit’sBlog.
We’ll see how it goes. Let me know if you like it, or if there are problems.

Editor’s note: I wrote this a few years ago, possibly for the 2000 or 2001 New Year’s show, and never posted it, because other thoughts came forward. But in re-reading this one, I’ve decided it was too good to simply

Drat. Nothing on the American side, this year. But the rest of the show was fine, despite a rather high wind. The smoke, which usually provide a nice backdrop for the fireworks people to ‘paint’ on held up amazingly well