Happy New Year! [Click image for larger.]

"God be between you and harm in all the empty places you walk."

-- blessing from the 18th Egyptian Dynasty

Open Thread...

Happy New Year from everyone at C&L.

Somewhere, Rudyard Kipling is spinning in his grave.

Via my good friend J.C. "Fusco Brothers" Duffy, cartoonist extraordinaire:

December 30, 2008 News Corp

BILLO: Impact Segment tonight, a viewer warning, there is a satire called "Barack the Magic Negro" that will offend some people, no doubt about it. But in order for us to report on this, we have to play some of the satire, so be forewarned.

The parody is by Paul Shanklin, who writes comedy material for Rush Limbaugh among others. The problem is that Chip Saltsman, a former Tennessee Republican chairman, has sent Shanklin's satire to some RNC members, and that is causing some concern. Roll the tape ...

Dave N: Yes, it deeply pains BillO to run this tape. After playing it, Larry Elder tries to pretend that liberals say similar things all the time and get away with it (right).

None of the guests seem to remember that as soon as Barack Obama was elected, the airwaves were filled with right-wingers -- from Bill Bennett to Sarah Palin to Michelle Bachmann -- talking about how Obama's election made them feel good about America and themselves because it was such a racial landmark and how it proved racism was now dead in America. Talk about a magic Negro!

One of my friends raised her kids in the Lower Merion School District, in a Philadelphia Main Line community. (Kobe Bryant went there.) She used to tell me horror stories about the "helicopter parents," like the ones who insisted on getting their kids into the other kindergarten class - because more of that teacher's students ended up going to Harvard. (Really.)

But this takes it to a whole new level:

BEIJING - The book spawned a genre, selling more than 2 million copies in China on the premise that any child, with the proper upbringing, could be Ivy League material.

Now, eight years after the publication of "Harvard Girl," bookstore shelves here are laden with copycat titles like "How We Got Our Child Into Yale," "Harvard Family Instruction," and "The Door of the Elite."

Their increasing popularity points to the preoccupation - some might say a single-minded national obsession - of a growing number of middle-class Chinese parents: getting their children into America's premier universities.

Because government policy allows families only one child, many parents in this rapidly developing country feel immense pressure to groom their sons and daughters for success and, in the process, prepare a comfortable retirement for themselves. They fervently mine the expanding volumes of child-rearing manuals - "Stanford's Silver Bullet," "Yale Girl," and "Creed of Harvard" - for tips on producing what the Chinese term "high quality" children.

"Harvard Girl," written by the parents of one of the first Chinese undergraduates to enter the university on a full scholarship, chronicled Liu Yiting's methodical upbringing that instilled the discipline and diligence necessary for academic success. The tome has a place in many urban households with high school-age children, and new parents receive the book as a present from family and friends.

"Going to Harvard means that the way they raised their child was successful," said Yang Kui, publisher of the bestseller. "People are willing to copy and learn how they did it."

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Here's another good award....

Vote for the Wank of the Year, 2008

With the election season---,wanking was at an all time high....

We have our own awards being voted on also....

"The Golden Crookies"

December 30, 2008 CNN

And here we go again. Bush's ineffectiveness in the face of the Gaza attacks will help cultivate yet another generation of Middle Eastern hardliners:

TEHRAN, Iran – Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Five hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive on Monday, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.

In an open letter to Ahmadinjead, the students said "volunteer student suicide groups ... are determined to go to Gaza. You are expected to issue orders to the relevant authorities in order to pave the way for such action." A copy of the letter was made available to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past and the government never responded to their calls. Some hard-liners have claimed previously they succeeded in secretly sending bombers to Israel, but their claims have never been verified, and there has not been any sign of Iranians carrying out suicide attacks in Israel — raising the likelihood the groups' activities are mainly for propaganda purposes.

During April 2007 Senate testimony about his role in the purge of U.S. attorneys, Alberto Gonzales famously explained, "that I don't recall remembering." Now comes word that the former Attorney General is writing a tell-nothing memoir designed to salvage his irreparably damaged reputation. Judging from his interview today in the Wall Street Journal, Gonzales has rediscovered his memory, if not the truth.

Gonzales' self-serving historical revisionism when it comes to rubber-stamping President Bush's illegal NSA domestic surveillance, authorizing the torture of terror detainees and sacking of prosecutors for political purposes begins in jaw-dropping fashion. Complaining to the Journal about the scorn and derision heaped upon him, Gonzales whined:

"What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?"

"For some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

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December 30, 2008 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show