Tsunami Help

Instapundit has some links to places you can go to contribute. It's well worth your effort to do whatever you can; the loss of life, devestation of lives and potential for an even greater catastrophe merit efforts on all our parts to help those in need. If you can't send money, please send your prayers.

One final word to the U.N. and the folks criticizing our government's response: Up yours. Everyone in the world could be doing more to help. Wasting time questioning whether people are contributing enough funds is ridiculous, but it's about par for the course for knee-jerk anti-Americanism. It's also asinine and advances a political agenda instead of trying to help those in need. 100,000 people may be dead, and at least that many are displaced. As Geraghty points out, Americans come through for charity in a way that helps affirm one's belief in the fundamental decency of this country. Even the normally lucid Washington Post seems to think we're being stingy. In the end, private aid and government aid will both be crucial to helping the people and regions that are effected, but complaining about donation levels when there are people to help is appalling.

Maybe Later, They'll Roast Marshmallows and Sing Kumbaya

What's truly great about our country? The fact that these people will be doing the same thing in 2008...

The election is long over. A new year is starting, and even most of the more ardent liberals are moving on. But in Louisburg Square this week, one determined group isn't quite ready to let go. About a half dozen supporters of John Kerry are holding vigil in front of his house, still hoping for a Kerry presidency.

The little knot of demonstrators, calling themselves the Coalition Against Election Fraud, stood shivering in the cold yesterday, hoisting signs and pressing fliers into the hands of bewildered passersby. Taxi drivers, neighbors digging cars out of the snow, and Beacon Hill residents who happened to be strolling by were subjected to earnest pleas to join the cause.

''Who knows? Maybe we'll overturn the election," said Sheila Parks, a vigil organizer.

Parks said the group believes the election was fixed and wants to persuade the Massachusetts senator to oppose congressional approval of the electoral college results Jan. 6. That would set in motion the process of questioning George W. Bush's victory in November. Such a challenge has never been successful, and nobody in Washington expects one now.

(hat tip: Polipundit) The picture alone is priceless.

2004 in Review

Maybe, just maybe, I'll craft a year in review column... next year. In the meantime, nothing I draft could be quite as funny as Dave Barry. A few excerpts...

...With more bad news coming from Iraq, and Americans citing terrorism and health care as their major concerns, the news media continue their laser-beam focus on the early 1970s. Dan Rather leads the charge with a report on CBS's "60 Minutes" citing a memo, allegedly written in 1972, suggesting that Bush shirked his National Guard duty. Critics charge that the memo is a fake, pointing out that at one point it specifically mentions the 2003 Outkast hit "Hey Ya."

Just when the public is about to abandon hope in the presidential election, the candidates get together for an actual debate at the University of Miami Convocation Center, which is the only building left standing in Florida. In summary: Bush states that being president is really, really hard, for him, anyway. Kerry states that he is really, really smart and has like 185 specific plans. It is agreed there will be two more debates, although nobody can explain why.

In aviation news, US Airways files for bankruptcy for a second time, only to have a federal judge rule that the airline can't possibly get any more bankrupt than it already is.

On the legal front, a judge drops rape charges against Kobe Bryant on the grounds that "the Scott Peterson trial is hogging all the cable-TV celebrity legal analysts."

In medical news, the popular anti-arthritis drug Vio is pulled from the market after clinical trials show that it may contain carbohydrates. On a more-positive note, former president Bill Clinton experiences chest pains and is rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where, in a five-hour operation, surgeons successfully remove a glazed doughnut the size of a catcher's mitt.

Speaking of the National Pastime, in...

OCTOBER

... the Boston Red Sox, ending an 86-year drought, defeat the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series, defying exit polls that had overwhelmingly picked the Green Bay Packers. The Red Sox get into the Series thanks to the fact that the New York Yankees -- who were leading the American League championships three games to none, and have all-stars at every position, not to mention a payroll larger than the gross national product of Sweden -- chose that particular time to execute the most spectacular choke in all of sports history, an unbelievable Gag-o-Rama, a noxious nosedive, a pathetic gut-check failure of such epic dimensions that every thinking human outside of the New York Metropolitan area experienced a near-orgasmic level of happiness. But there is no need to rub it in.

In entertainment news, Howard Stern signs a five-year, $500 million deal to move his show to satellite radio, where a man can still display a nipple.

On the health front, the big story is a nationwide shortage of flu vaccine, caused by the fact that apparently all the flu vaccine in the world is manufactured by some guy in Wales or someplace with a Bunsen burner. Congress, acting with unusual swiftness, calls on young, healthy Americans to forego getting flu shots this year so that more vaccine will be available for members of Congress.

President Bush notes that additional vaccine "could be hidden somewhere in Iraq."

John Kerry, campaigning in North Carolina, kills a raccoon with a hatchet.

In aviation news, SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded manned rocket, breaks free from its mother plane, soars 62 miles above the earth, swoops gracefully back to earth, rolls to a stop on the Mojave Desert, and files for bankruptcy.

Abroad, Yasser Arafat collapses and is taken to a hospital, where his condition rapidly worsens and continues to worsen until nobody thinks it can get any worse, but somehow it does. "It's really bad," says a hospital spokesperson. "We've never seen anybody achieve this degree of worsening without kicking the actual bucket."

In other international news, Afghanistan's historic first democratic elections go off without a hitch, except for an unexplained 27,500 votes from residents of Palm Beach County, Fla.

Speaking of elections, in...

NOVEMBER

... the 2004 U.S. presidential election campaign, which has been going on since the early stages of the Cher Farewell Tour, finally staggers to the finish line. John Kerry easily sweeps to a 53-state landslide victory in the exit polls and has pretty much picked out his new Cabinet when word begins to leak out that the actual, physical voters have elected George W. Bush. Democrats struggle to understand how this could have happened, and, after undergoing a harsh and unsparing self-examination, conclude that red-state residents are morons. Some Democrats threaten to move to Canada; Republicans, in a gracious gesture of reconciliation, offer to help them pack.

The post-election recriminations and name-calling continue for more than a week, until finally the public, realizing that there are still important issues that affect the entire nation, returns its attention to the Scott Peterson trial, which finally ends with the jury finding Peterson guilty of being just unbelievably irritating. The verdict means sudden unemployment for thousands of cable-news legal analysts, who return to their cave to hang upside down by day and suck cow blood by night until they are called for the next big TV trial.

What's scary is how much of this is close to being true.

Dan Rather Walks Into a Bar...

This is one of the funniest jokes I've ever read. Of course, any joke with Rather, Jennings and a Marine would be funny as hell.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

Vacation

Consider the next three weeks a respite from blogging. There may be occasional posts, but don't count on it. Enjoy the holidays -- I plan to resume this arduous schedule of a few posts per day by January 17th (at the latest).

Best wishes, and Happy New Year!