I first posted this at Unfogged. With apologies to David Letterman, here we go:

Top ten initiatives of President Bloomberg's first 100 days in office

10. Federally limit all hot sauces to a maximum of 50,000 Scoville units. There is simply no legitimate need for anything stronger. (Also, sauce makers will no longer be able to use misleading trade names like "Joe Bob's Ass-Kickin' Death Sauce.")

9. Push through legislation establishing National Fire Drill Day, along with stiff penalties for heads of households whose families don't complete the drill in time. Times will be monitored by repurposed field agents from Homeland Security.

8. Pressure Hollywood to digitally erase all cigarettes, cigars from all films made to date; replace with CGI carrot or celery sticks.

7. A new tax on fast-food companies. Tax revenues will be used to hire government employees to stand at the entrance of every McDonalds nationwide and ask patrons, "Do you really want to eat here?

6. Abortion legal? Heck, in certain cases it'll be mandatory.

5. Building on the success of his NY ban on smoking in bars, a nationwide ban on hitting on women in bars. That sort of thing belongs in the office.

4. ISP's required to automatically terminate all internet connections every 25 minutes, so users will be able to rest their eyes, go outside, and get some goddamn exercise.

3. Historic "Guns or Butter" debate replaced with new, heart-friendly "Guns or I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" debate.

2. Put federal air marshalls on every commercial flight; require them to inspect the entree for trans fats.

1. Count votes in all future elections with Bloomberg's own proprietary, highly-reliable data service, so we know they'll be fair.

This week's photo showed Sen. John Kerry meeting troops in Iraq:


FIRST PLACE: Chad (blog)

Yes sir, I am the highest ranking soldier willing to meet with you in theater.

SECOND PLACE: LarryHeart

Private Edwards shakes hands with a roadside Bomb.

THIRD PLACE: Gridlock

SOLDIER IN BACKGROUND: "I hope Jon Carry will come halp me figger out how two werk dis camra..."

HONORABLE MENTION: RFTR (blog)

"You should have worked harder in school."

WHAT I CAME UP WITH:

"Wow, that's quite a handshake you've got there, soldier! Um, all right now, you don't have to squeeze that hard. Hey, I mean it! Enough! Ow! AAAAIIIEEE!!!"

"You know, if I were in your position, I would have had four hundred and eighty-three Purple Hearts by now."

"Pardon me, but would you have any Grey Poupon?"

"Hey, guys, has anybody seen my hat?"

And that's it for this week's contest. Report for duty on the next one Tuesday.

Trent at TheSimpleDollar.com advises a reader currently earning the minimum wage on how to plan his financial future. Not surprisingly, one of his recommendations is to get a higher-paying job:

If you’re working minimum wage and have a good work record, you can probably move up from where you’re at. Make yourself presentable and look at local stores with a more upscale image; these places often pay significantly more than a minimum wage. For example, my aunt has never worked a day in her life, but she cleaned herself up, walked into Home Depot at age fifty five, and walked out with a $10 an hour job. When you start this job, maintain a good work record and show that you’re capable of handling responsibility every chance you get.

Advocates of raising the minimum wage often overlook the fact that the minimum wage is not meant to be the highest wage someone will ever earn in his or her career. It's a starting point, a floor, not a ceiling. If you're not satisfied earning the minimum wage, well, you're not supposed to be. Grab the want ads and start looking.

You may have notice the Save the Internet ad that's been in the right sidebar for a while now. Save the Internet is a group fighting for "Net Neutrality" — the principle that Internet infrastructure operators shouldn't be able to discriminate among the different websites whose data flows through their pipe. If you surf over to Site A, you should get the same data transmission speed as if you had gone to their competitor, Site B.

Telecom companies don't like net neutrality, because they want to be able to charge companies extra fees for fast data transimission speeds. But this creation of a two-tiered Internet means telecom companies would be able to give special treatment to sites they like, while punishing those they don't. If Verizon, for example, starts a video sharing service, it could send that site's traffic through its high-speed pipes, while banishing competitors (and, one presumes, sites critical of Verizon) to the slow lane. And the potential for unethical shenanigans doesn't stop there. A politician supports giving Verizon some tax breaks or other special treatment? Fast lane. His opponent doesn't? Slow lane.

On the other hand, instead of trying to explain the whole thing, I should just show you Save the Internet's latest video:


Visit their site for more information.

This week's contest looks at Iraq:

U.S. Senator John Kerry (L) is greeted by Private First Class Derrick Edwards (R) at the Basrah Air Station in southern Iraq in this undated handout photograph released by the Ministry of Defence on December 16, 2006. REUTERS/Cpl Russ Nolan RLC/MoD

Submit your best caption, but don't get stuck. I'll post the winners on Friday, as usual.

Not only is Barack Obama's middle name "Hussein", but apparently, based on the following two eyewitness accounts, he's also a shapeshifter:

Obama’s Kenyan heritage shows in his build. He is not very tall.

Obama is quite tall and quite thin, with closely shorn hair above high cheekbones and a brilliant smile.

I look for the Republicans to run on an anti-mutant platform.

Sen. Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein.

Sadly, reports the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Steve Favela, one of the officers in President Bush's motorcade, has died from injuries suffered when he crashed his motorcycle during Bush's recent visit to Hawaii.

You'd think there'd be nothing to do now but lament Officer Favela's untimely death and extend condolences to his family. But you'd be wrong. Some commenters on Crooks and Liars are desperately trying to spin this tragic accident into an Evil Republican Conspiracy.

Like this one:

Did someone try to kill the President? Is there a cover-up to hide what the Hell happened? Within hours, the Presidents Daughter Barbara, down on her "Run to Paraguay, gotta buy a 98,500 acre rach for to Daddy to hide out in after he's convicted of genocide" mission, was robbed and her guard was BEAT-UP!

Wake the Hell up.

And this one:

I hate to say it, but the first thing that sprang to my mind was 'What did he know/hear/see?'.

Sorry, this one don't taste right.

And this one:

I'd like to know how it happened, if only because they're so obviously not telling....

And this one:

I don't believe in accidents where W is concerned. No president is that unlucky. There has to be a scientific explaination [sic]. Maybe Bush radiates waves of failure that make it impossible for anyone nearby to do their jobs correctly.

I've never seen so stark and ridiculous an expression of the "everything-is-Bush's-fault" mentality. Of course, motorcycle crashes can happen in the absence of any nefarious scheme, even to very experienced riders. I wonder what these moonbats would say if they found out this wasn't even the first motorcycle crash in Bush's motorcade...

It's hardly surprising that the GOP suffered massive losses in last week's midterm elections. While the economy is surprisingly strong, the party has lost its focus on many of the key principles that lead people to vote Republican. Instead, it's come to be defined by extreme support for the religious right, including "faith-based" initiatives and the "defense of marriage" that at best, do nothing to make America better, and at worst, alienate many voters. And, ultimately, Bush simply hasn't made enough progress on the key issue that led many people to support him in 2004: Iraq.

That said, it's far from clear that a new wave of Democratic leadership will solve our problems. On terrorism, let's remember that the first attack on the World Trade Center, the bombings of US embassies in the Middle East, and the attack on the USS Cole, all happened under a Democratic president, before we invaded Iraq. There's no reason to believe that the people who hated us will suddenly start loving us. And on fiscal responsibility at home, excessive spending by Democrats is no better than excessive spending by Republicans. Still, if losing control of Congress to the Democrats is what it takes to get the Republican party back on track, it will all be for the best.

Fox News reporter Steve Harrigan underwent waterboarding on camera to see what it's all about. Hot Air has the video here (via Instapundit, with more discussion at the Belmont Club).

Reupblicans will like this segment because Harrigan concludes that waterboarding is an "efficient", essentially psychological interrogation technique with no physical aftereffects.

Democrats will like it because, hey, it's a Fox News guy getting waterboarded.

Breaking news. The Associated Press reports:

Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted "God is great!"

As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"

Um, well, yes, that's the general idea.

Plenty of people are saying the verdict was timed to help the Republicans in the midterm elections. So what if it was? Others will ask if sentencing Saddam was "worth it", implying that it wasn't. Still others will blame America for "creating" Saddam in the first place, as if he were some product of a secret neo-con bioengineering lab.

What these people cannot deny, however — indeed, what no one can — is that holding Saddam accountable for his crimes is a good thing, and a major accomplishment that would not have happened without the U.S. invasion.

Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn):

Growing up, we had a simple rule in my house: if you woke up on Sunday, you went to church. Even my friends who spent Saturday night with us would have to go to church. Christian, Jewish or Muslim, it did not matter; my parents took them all to Sunday service.

Stephen Colbert:

I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Muslim, or Jewish. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Stephen Colbert plays a Republican on TV. Ford is an actual Democrat.

Condi Rice seems to have met Ben Stiller on her way to Tokyo:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Tokyo

Cameron Diaz in "There's Something About Mary"

Let the hair gel jokes begin.

Understanding of the need to assassinate President Bush, that is. CNN reports that the tiny minority of Muslims bent on global Jihad is at it again, with a new videogame:

A video game that prompts players to kill characters that look like President Bush has been posted on a number of Islamist Web sites.

The game is called "Quest for Bush," or "The Night of Bush Capturing."

Players are prompted to advance through six missions against soldiers who look like Bush, followed by a seventh mission against a character that looks like the president that takes place in a desert-like region. During the game, jihadist songs are played in the background.

The video game says it is produced by the Global Islamic Media Front, which is described by the SITE Institute as "a jihadist mouthpiece organization."

Of course, the game is merely a clever bit of satire, and shouldn't get anybody angry. You know, just like those Mohammed cartoons from earlier this year.

A year ago, I blogged about how in the four years after 9-11, America had not been hit again by terrorists.

Well, now it's five years. Another year, another total absence of terror attacks against America. (Of course, when September 11th rolled around last year, Al Qaeda warned that it had another attack in the works. Uh-huh. Apparently, it's being planned by the same team that's been developing Windows Vista.)

After 9-11, stopping another terror attack has been George W. Bush's primary task. And regardless of whatever else his administration has done or failed to do, at this he must be deemed a success. Here's hoping I'll be able to post a similar update next year.

Inspired by this comment on this Unfogged post, I added the following response:

"righteous lefto-troll" sounds like an oxymoron.

I hereby coin the word "lefteous", defined as "marked by or exhibiting a sense of moral superiority on the basis of one's stridently leftist views."

I encourage readers to use "lefteous" (pronounced "LEFF-chuss") in their comments on other blogs — let's get a meme going, people. Examples of proper usage:

"Her theory that vegan diets could solve the world's problems was merely naïve, but her presentation was insufferably lefteous."

"His suggestion on DailyKos that raising the minimum wage would hurt the poor drew a wave of lefteous comments"

"Buying a car instead of an SUV won't bring peace to the Middle East, but it may help you feel more lefteous."

So, get out there and spread the word!

"Charles Krauthammer, George W. Bush, and Bill Maher" may sound like the set-up to a Johnny Carson-style Carnac the Magnificent routine. But it's no joke: All three men recently declared their approval of Israel's current actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon. And what's even more amazing is that Maher, the increasingly left-wing TV host, made his remarks in support of President Bush's statement on the matter. Via Instapundit and NewsBusters, Maher wrote the following on the Huffington Post:

And I hope this doesn't ruin your birthday, but I have to say, watching George Bush talk about Israel the last week has reminded me of a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long I forgot what it felt like: the feeling of pride when your president says what you want your president to say, especially in a matter that chokes you up a bit. I surrender my credentials as Bush exposer — from the very beginning — to no man, but on Israel, I love it that a U.S. president doesn't pretend Arab-Israeli conflict is an even-steven proposition.

Lots of ethnic peoples, probably most, have at one time or another lost some territory; nobody's ever completely happy with their borders; people move and get moved, which is why the 20th century saw the movement of tens if not hundreds of millions of refugees in countries around the world. There was no entity of Arabs called "Palestine" before Israel made the desert bloom. If those 600,000 original Palestinian refugees had been handled with maturity by their Arab brethren, who had nothing but space to put them, they could have moved on — the way Germans, Czechs, Poles, Chinese and everybody else has, including, of course, the Jews.

But I digress. I really wanted to say that, for all those who accuse the likes of myself... of being unpatriotic, or hating America first, the feeling I've had watching Israel defend herself and a US president defend Israel (a country that is held to a standard for "restraint" that no other country ever is asked to meet, but that's another story) just reminds me how wrong that is. I LOVE being on the side of my president, and mouthing "You go, boy" when he gets it right. He just, outside of this, almost never does.

Of course Maher is half-Jewish, so it's probably just the tribal bias talking.

Chinese reporter Li Yuanlong was recently sentenced to two years in prison for criticizing China's government in essays he posted on the Internet. The Washington Post reported:

Li Yuanlong, a reporter for the newspaper Bijie Daily in the southern city of Bijie, was detained in September after posting essays on foreign Web sites.

Li was convicted by the Bijie Intermediate People's Court of "inciting subversion" and sentenced to two years, said his lawyer, Li Jianqiang, who is no relation.

What did Li actually write? ESWN provides a translation of one of his essays, titled, "On Becoming an American in Spirit". It includes the following passage:

When a Chinese used a hunting rifle to shoot at birds on a university campus, he shot a hole in the Communist's red diaper cloth [the Chinese flag] by accident. As a result, he was sentenced to 20 years in jail. In America, "publicly" burning the American flag on the street is regarded an expression of thought and an exercise of freedom of speech, and is constitutionally protected.

The day that I can burn the Chinese national flag at Tiananmen Square will be the day when mainland China becomes an "America" with democracy and economic wealth — a beautiful, good and wealthy country.

Li's words should be emailed to every US senator who recently voted in favor of adding a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution.

No, he's not perfect. His emphasis on "faith" is unsettling. Some of his policies have upset and concerned me. But every now and then, George W. Bush reminds me why I liked him in the first place. The New York Times reports:

President Bush took his toughest line yet with Syria and Hezbollah during a joint appearance with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in a suburb outside St. Petersburg, where they were preparing for the Group of 8 meeting. In a break from his past statements, he did not call upon Israel to show restraint.

"In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place," Bush said. "And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel, and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. That's why we have violence."

Singling out Syria for its support of Hezbollah, he called upon its leadership to intercede to stop the violence. "The best way to stop the violence is for Hezbollah to lay down its arms, and to stop attacking," Bush said.

Simple, straightforward, and true. I get the feeling that the reason some people don't like Bush is because their attempts to obfuscate matters don't work on him.

FOLLOW-UP:
Buah may be straightforward, but he's not necessarily statesmanlike — especially when he's having a private conversation not meant to be overheard. Expect lots of MSM and "reality-based community" outrage over Bush's remark, but none at all over the Hezbollah attacks that prompted it.

Mutantfrog emailed me a link to this Taipei Times story about Taiwanese bikers demanding the freedom to ride the country's roads:

More than 1,500 motorcycle owners from across the nation yesterday took to the streets of Taipei on their bikes yesterday, demanding that the government establish a clear timetable for opening more highways for bikers.

The demonstrators rode their motorcycles to Taipei City Hall and the Legislative Yuan, while chanting "Return our road rights" and "Bikers aren't criminals" in front of the two buildings, led by the spokesman for more than 68 motorcycle dealerships across the country, Chen Feng-yun (陳豐運).

The demonstration was the 12th major public event organized by motorcycle dealerships since the country's first motorcycle protest — also led by Chen — in 2003.

Motorcycles with an engine capacity of more than 150cc did not become legal until Taiwan joined the WTO four years ago, but the right to drive them on various highways has been granted grudgingly.

Read the whole thing. It's just another example of bikers getting involved in the political process when their rights are threatened.