GOP Vixen

Last hours of voting for Conservative Blogress Diva!

GayPatriot is closing the polls at 3 p.m. Pacific time today -- and it's a horserace till the end! For me, it's a horserace to not come in dead last, but I must thank everyone who's rallied for me!

But at this point, I must throw my support behind Sondra K for the Grand Diva title. I predicted last night that Pamela of Atlas Shrugs would throw all she could into the last hours of the race, and push for a surge that could catch Sondra K off-guard. But Sondra K -- as she has ever since taking the lead -- has kept up a strong race, and as I've checked in the past couple of hours the vote gap is getting wider.

Either campaign would crash and burn, though, if P.Diddy was brought on board...

A chip off the ol' commie

It's the Evo Morales World Tour! His first stop? That rosy model for everything red, of course -- Cuba! From the AP:

"Bolivia's socialist president-elect got a greeting reserved for heads of state when he arrived in communist Cuba on Friday: a red carpet, a military band and a smiling Fidel Castro.

... Castro embraced Morales, who has visited the island in the past as one of Latin America's leading protest organizers. The Cuban government has welcomed the election of the nationalist Indian activist as an important triumph over U.S. influence in the region.

'I think that it has moved the world,' Castro told reporters of Morales' electoral victory. 'It's something extraordinary, something historic.'

'The map is changing,' said the Cuban leader."

Excuse me while I hunt for that bottle of Rolaids...

Fidel Castro says, "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!"

Heads and tales

The highlights and lowlights of the headlines for December 31, 2005:

• Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spying Leak, AP -- Good!
• Palestinian Gunmen Storm Gov't Offices, AP -- Job search, Gaza-style.
• Mount St. Helens' Laza Baffles Scientists, AP -- The simplistic headline cracks me up: Lava in a volcano... oooohhhh....
• Judge Grants Hinckley Overnight Visits, AP -- "The goal of the visits is to allow Hinckley to be 'acclimated' to his parents' community and relearn skills, including gardening, cooking and taking out the garbage, Friedman wrote in his opinion." Is taking out the trash a skill?
• Viktor Yushchenko to fly new gorgeous $12 million jetliner, Pravda -- At least it's not orange.
• 2005 ends with political success for Russia, Pravda -- And that would be....?

The secret to Putin's purported success...

Afghanistan to seek compensation for Russian invasion?

Maybe, just maybe! To get the story, one has to filter the nationalism out of Pravda's story (and their generally crappy reporting), but it's an interesting concept. Hmmm... 100,000-troop invasion, 10-year occupation, million Afghans killed, spawned the plot of a "Rambo" sequel... I say cough it up, Putin!

Some of what Pravda had to say:

"... 'The government of Afghanistan is mulling over the issue,' Presidential spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi told a questionnaire while his opinion was sought with regard to demanding war compensation from Moscow.

Such a statement sounds quite paradoxical in the light of the recent friendly statements made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the first session of Afghan National Assembly. Last week Hamid Karzai called for improvement of bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Russia."

Er, Hamid can still be nice to you and seek reparations at the same time.

"Speaking about international relations with neighboring countries such as Pakistan, India, China, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the president said that Afghanistan stands for improvement of bilateral and friendly relations with the Russian Federation and hopes that Russia will help greatly in the reconstruction of the country."

And cold, hard cash (or rubles) is a nice start!

"... Thousands of Afghans have been maimed or killed by landmines strewn in the hundreds of thousands across Afghanistan by Soviet troops fighting the Mujahideen rebels.

This is not the first time that the compensation issue has been raised in Afghanistan, but the government has yet to formally submit a request to Moscow."

Lessee... the country has an average life expectancy of 42 years, 36% literacy rate, 53% of the population below the poverty line, and none of that is attributable to the USSR invasion? Incidentally, the CIA World Factbook also states that Afghanistan owes $8 billion in bilateral debt -- "mostly to Russia."

One week till 'Grandma's Boy' opens

In National Review Online's 2006 predictions posted yesterday, K-Lo included:

"NRO Reader Allen Covert's Grandma's Boy is the only major motion picture whose main character wears an anti-Che shirt. Coincidentally, the pot-laced comedy about the world's oldest video game tester is a hit on Miami college campuses. Covert is the first MTV Movie Award winner to wear a National Review cap during the show (or, well, anytime)."

Yes, a better term for Covert would be NRO addict. You may recognize this actor/writer/producer best from his very funny turn as the "Thriller" jacket-wearing limo driver Sammy in "The Wedding Singer." And from basically every Adam Sandler film, as he's a partner at Happy Madison. This friend of GOP Vixen can definitely carry a movie and have the audience in stitches. So go see "Grandma's Boy" opening Jan. 6, the tale of the world's oldest video-game tester who has to move back in with his grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two friends (Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight). (Below, Covert and Roberts)

And also check out Comedy Central on New Year's Eve as Covert hosts the "South Park New Year's Rock-a-thon," showing six episodes from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Greenpeace snags greenbacks

All right, so pounds aren't called "greenbacks," but cool headline, eh? Anyway, the Guardian reports that potentially several thousand Greenpeace supporters had two digits added to their direct debit donations, stripping their accounts like environmental foes deforesting the Amazon:

"Greenpeace was left fielding hundreds of calls from worried supporters yesterday after a bank error made some of their direct debit payments a hundred times higher than they should have been.

Some donors, who usually give two or three pounds a month, were alarmed to find that £200-£300 had been taken from their bank accounts after the slip-up added two noughts to their donations. The charity apologised for the mistake and promised to investigate the matter.

... (A Greenpeace spokesman) said that the mistake was not the fault of the Co-Operative Bank, with which the group banks, and the charity would pay any charges arising from the error.

... He added that although it could not be sure exactly how many people had been affected, it was likely to be several thousand.

Ninety per cent of donations to Greenpeace are made by direct debit and the charity has about 200,000 supporters in the UK."

Random musings...

The other night, I gave five bucks to a guy begging for money, and he asked if I needed change. No kidding.

***

I occasionally get special magazine subscription offers for "professional rates." For eons, Newsweek has been offering me a rate of 90% off the cover price: 54 issues for $20. And I still don't want it. Can Newsweek possibly be that unappealing? Yes, it can.

***

Weren't the Muppets the coolest? Loved Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker, and the Swedish Chef. Always thought Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon resembled Muppets. Also wondered how cool it would be to have Arafat and Sharon Muppets as the two old guys in the balcony, Statler and Waldorf...

Heads and tales

The highlights and lowlights of the headlines for December 30, 2005:

• U.S. Teen Runs Off to Iraq by Himself, AP -- For all the kids who ever felt that living with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would be easier than living with mom and dad...
• S.Korea votes to cut its troops in Iraq by a third, Reuters -- I know the left (and Reuters) loves to grab hold of these stories, but at this point in the war I think we'll get by just fine.
• Baby hippo, giant tortoise mark year since adopting each other after tsunami, Canadian Press -- I remember that story. Love is where you find it, eh?
• Killers given chocolates in jail, Sun UK -- Not only did killers and sex offenders get Cadbury for Christmas, but they get to play bingo for cash prizes on New Year's Eve! Prison rocks!
• Palestinian Police Storm Gaza-Egypt Border, AP -- And they didn't do so on any orders, just "taking matters into their own hands." European monitors got freaked and ran off. What a mess.

His legacy of no damn clue how to run a state proudly continues

NRO: 2005's best-worst moments

Thanks to K-Lo over at National Review Online for asking my opinion on the best and worst political moments of 2005, and including my comments in their year-end wrap-up!

Here's mine:

Best: The first election of women to public office in Saudi Arabia, when Lama Al-Sulaiman and Nashwa Taher won two out of 12 seats open on the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry board. Not only did 17 women run in the historic elections, but voter turnout was mostly male, meaning the guys voted the women in — no quotas, no mandates, just good honest campaigning by competent businesswomen.

Worst: Castro/Chavez lackey and coca farmer Evo Morales winning the Bolivian presidency. Not only are crack dealers everywhere doing a happy dance, but South America continues to melt into a pile of Marxist mush.

Go over and read other opinions in the NRO Symposium on 2005 politics!

But most important, what do you guys think?

Last place in diva vote

The Conservative Blogress Diva vote hosted by GayPatriot doesn't end until New Year's Eve, but currently -- out of 14 nominees -- I am in last place! Currently Sondra K is in first place, with Pamela of Atlas Shrugs in second place (anyone see her "thumbs up" controversy as of late?) and Michelle Malkin in third. I will be happy to see Sondra K win, as she's a GOP Vixen blog friend. I realize that active campaigns have been operating in the blogosphere for some of the other candidates while I posted on it once and let it go -- but I believe my task now is to be too big of a diva to care about last place! (Maybe I find myself in this position, though, because I said that I like reading Richard Cohen once too often...)

A friend had an interesting thought over lunch the other day, though: Whereas GayPatriot defined the diva as a strong, talented woman who commands the respect of men, she saw it in the sense of women who expect the world bow at their feet while throwing a temper-tantrum if their dressing room is not equipped with slightly chilled Evian and ample haute couture. And throw hissy fits on "Larry King Live":

UPDATE: I've made it to triple digits -- clutch the pearls!