Election news-

Huckabee says Romney is running a dishonest campaign.  He’s quoted as saying “I don’t believe Mr. Romney is going to get (the nomination) because I think Republican voters are looking for somebody who really not just reflected in his recent rhetoric, but actually reflected in his record a Republican record, a conservative record, a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment record and that’s not what they’re going to find if they keep looking.”  Romney and Huckabee are the leading Republican candidates in Iowa at the moment.

Mike Bloomberg is becoming more interested in running an Independant campaign for the presidency.  According to the NY Times “(d)espite public denials, the mayor has privately suggested scenarios in which he might be a viable candidate: for instance, if the opposing major party candidates are poles apart, like Mike Huckabee, a Republican, versus Barack Obama or John Edwards as the Democratic nominee.”

World news-

More evidence, and more confusions of evidence are arrising in the case of Bhutto’s assassination last week.  From Time- “With rumors of government complicity in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination rife throughout Pakistan, the country’s stability may depend on the absolute transparencey of the investigation into the murder. But a constantly evolving and sometimes contradictory explanation of the events by Pakistani investigators has only clouded the issue. Meanwhile, her husband and her supporters are asking for a United Nations-led inquiry into her death, something Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is unlikely to accede to. But even if Musharraf were to agree, there is very little for international forensics experts to investigate.”

North Korea has missed the deadlines for nuclear disclosure.  But that was pretty much expected to happen. 

U.N. officials are taking control in Darfur.  Well, trying to anyway.  Originally the plan was to have 26,000 troops deployed there.  The number they did receive?  9,000, about 1/3 of the desired number.  Speculation runs rampant as to whether the troops will even make a difference there.

News that both breaks your heart and makes you scratch your head-

From USA Today- A 6-year-old girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay falsely claiming her father died in Iraq isn’t going to the show after all.  The contest’s sponsor, a store chain named Club Libby Lu, withdrew the prize Saturday and awarded it to another contestant. It didn’t identify the new winner.  The opening line in the essay was: “My daddy died this year in Iraq.”  The girl’s mother had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl’s father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said. But the mother, Priscilla Ceballos, admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter’s father were untrue.  “We did the essay and that’s what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win,” Ceballos said in an interview Friday with KDFW-TV of Dallas. “But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said ‘No, this essay is not true.’”

I don’t care how hot a ticket Hannah Montana might be, the ridiculous spectacle that is being called “The Beatles” for the current younger generation.  With people going so far as to spend $1,800 on seats.  With governors pulling strings to get their families in.  It’s still just a concert, and to falsify claims like that to get in, is a blatant slap in the face to every family that has felt the sting of losing a loved one to not just the current war, but any war.  This is just me on a soapbox here- but shame on them.  I hope they feel disgusted with themselves.

*ahem*

After all that, I think it’s a good time to roll to a close.

Happy and safe New Years to all.

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There’s understandably a scramble of confusion in Pakistan over the untimely death of Benazir Bhutto. Much like the death of Kennedy in 1963, the country (and world) needs time to catch its breath after her assassination. And also similar to our countries treatment of Kennedy’s assassination, much analysis brews over exactly how she was killed.

A sniper’s bullet to the head? Neck? Chest? Or, maybe she caught shrapnel from the suicide bomber who blew himself up next to her vehicle? Or perhaps it wasn’t any of those means?

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto died from injuries she suffered when hitting her vehicle’s sunroof - not from an assassin’s bullets, it has been claimed.

It was previously announced Ms Bhutto had died after being hit in the neck and chest.

But Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Cheema said all three shots missed her.

Instead, she was killed when she ducked back inside her car and hit her head on sunroof lever, fracturing her skull.

Really? A former aide for Ms. Bhutto calls this explanation of her death a “pack of lies”.

He also denied that shrapnel caused her death, saying Bhutto was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle, and the shock waves from the blast knocked her head into a lever attached to the sunroof, fracturing her skull.

Why is all this important, you ask? Perhaps it lessens the “victory” of her death from whichever terrorist group instigated it. Perhaps the argument over her death is just a way for the country to focus amidst it’s sorrow. Or maybe it’s just that she deserves the truth be told about her.

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Not a story we’ve been following heavily here, but in the past months Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, had been campaigning as the opposition party leader against President Pervez Musharraf.

Educated at Oxford and Harvard, she became the first female prime minister of a Muslim country when she took the helm in Pakistan in 1988, only to lose office and flee Pakistan for most of a decade in the face of accusations she was corrupt.

When she finally returned from self-imposed exile in October 2007 to marshal the opposition against President Pervez Musharraf, her homecoming parade in Karachi was targeted by a suicide attacker. More than 140 people were killed in the attack, but the 54-year-old Bhutto escaped injury and threw herself into the campaign.

Her father had founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and served as President and then Prime Minister from 71-77, at which time a military coup removed him from office.  In 79 he was executed.  Prior to his execution he sent his daughter, Benazir, to Harvard followed by Oxford to study politics, and upon her return to Pakistan following his death she became leader of the PPP, before being exiled to England in 1984.  In 86 she returned and in 88 was elected Prime Minister.  After charges of corruption, she was removed, reinstated, and removed again from power from 1990-96.  In 99 she was sentenced to 5 years in jail along with her husband, but the conviction was overturned.  She chose to stay outside of Pakistan at this time, and continued the self-imposed exile until 2006. 

In 2006 she joined an Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy with her arch-rival Sharif, but the two disagreed over strategy for dealing with military president Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto decided it was better to negotiate with Musharraf, while Sharif refused to have any dealings with the general.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007 from eight years of self-imposed exile after Musharraf, with whom she had been negotiating over Pakistan’s transition to civilian-led democracy, granted her protection from prosecution in old corruption cases.

The attacker struck shortly after Bhutto addressed supporters in Rawalpindi, 8 miles south of Islamabad. She received gunshot wounds to the chest and neck, and after firing, the attacker blew himself up. 

After her death was announced, Bhutto’s supporters at the hospital exploded in anger, smashing the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit. Others burst into tears. One man with a flag of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party tied around his head was beating his chest.

“I saw her with my own eyes sitting in a vehicle after addressing the rally. Then, I heard an explosion,” Tahir Mahmood, 55, said sobbing. “I am in shock. I cannot believe that she is dead.”

Many chanted slogans against Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in her killing.

Musharraf, who announced three days of mourning for Bhutto, urged calm.

“I want to appeal to the nation to remain peaceful and exercise restraint,” he said.

Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister and leader of a rival opposition party had the following to say:

“Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death,” he said. “Don’t feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers.”

He rebutted suggestions that he could gain political capital from her demise, announcing his Muslim League-N party would boycott the elections and demanding that Musharraf resign.

“The holding of fair and free elections is not possible in the presence of Pervez Musharraf,” he said. “Musharraf is the cause of all the problems. The federation of Pakistan cannot remain intact in the presence of President Musharraf,” he told a news conference.

“After the killing of Benazir Bhutto, I announce that the Pakistan Muslim League-N will boycott the elections,” Sharif said. “I demand that Musharraf should quit immediately.”

What will come of the looming elections remains to be seen, but it is clear that the volatile situation in Pakistan is far from resolved.

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2007 was bad for our troops (though there’s been some improvements some places so I’ve read)

but 2007 was even worse for the other uniformed defenders of the peace, our police officers.

With a preliminary count of 186 cops killed in the line of duty nationwide, 2007 is the deadliest year for law enforcement in nearly two decades.

…2007 has been the deadliest year for cops nationwide since 1989, but for the second time in the past two years, traffic deaths have accounted for more fatalities than gunfire. Eighty-one officers died in car crashes, surpassing the record of 78 set in 2000. Shooting deaths this year increased from 52 to 69, a rise of about 33 percent.

“Most of us don’t realize that an officer is being killed in America on average every other day,” said Craig W. Floyd, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Texas led the nation with 22 fatalities followed by Florida, 16, New York, 12, and California, 11. The average age of officers who died in 2007 was 39, with 11 years on the job.

It’s important to remember the men and women in blue.  They often get more shit than they deserve, and everyday they put on that uniform- it’s a risk to their lives.  Just sayin’.

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Will Smith and the Hitler Quandary

Fanatical media reports are everywhere, I suppose:

Hollywood superstar Will Smith told Scottish newspaper The Daily Record recently that he was convinced Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler did not fully understand the extent of the pain and suffering his actions would cause during his time in power in the 1930s and ’40s.

What was Will Smith really trying to say? Here’s a part of the interview they have since removed from the article on Ynet:

Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.

Isn’t this what we’re all supposed to believe?  But throw in the “H” word and all logic goes to the wind. 

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