Laura Lee from The Wide Awake Cafe tagged me with this meme. Almost everyone I would have tagged with it has been tagged already. The Anchoress did hers here. I think Sissy Willis was tagged twice. I don’t think Lady Jane‘s been tagged yet so I’ll tag her.

1. Laura Lee spoke of her high school drama experience so I’ll speak of mine. I had the same drama teacher as Gary Sinise (he graduated three years before I got there – now you can figure out how old I am…~). Mrs. Barbara Patterson was a terrific drama teacher. She was short, blonde, and stood in first postion (ballet) most of the time. She wore black a lot.

2. For a friend’s directing class (Mrs. Patterson taught that too) I did Linda Loman’s speech to Willy’s grave from Death of a Salesman.

3. I was one of 100 students chosen to apply and one of 12 students chosen to participate for a new program in high school called Experience Based Education. As a result, my senior year first semester classes were dance, drawing and family living 2nd semester classes were dance, drawing and painting. My afternoons were spent interning at different businesses in the area. I worked at a graphic design firm, a company that made videos and slideshows, a local radio station, a pre-school, and a public school with a deaf education program. My senior year of high school was great.

4. I love to cook. I make stuff up all the time. When I joined the Army, my test scores revealed that I could do anything but Combat Arms (not a man) and cook. I believe it is because my test scores revealed that I wouldn’t follow the recipes to the letter. I mostly use recipes as a guideline.

5. I will be going for an MBA once I receive my bachelor’s in business, eBusiness in the spring.

Zombie was there and has more pictures.

I guess that the many stencils spray painted all over San Francisco last summer just weren’t enough.

h/t: Hot Air

Betsy has a quite a bit to say about Nancy Pelosi’s rise to Speaker of the House and I agree with what she has said. Betsy quotes from a Washington Times article about Nancy’s Wednesday evening festivities:

She expanded on that with her actual acceptance speech.

I must say that I really don’t think that “we” have been waiting 200 years for a female Speaker. The 19^th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1920 even though some states had already given women the right to vote. That’s less than 100 years ago if you do the math. Point of fact, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives (Jeannette Rankin, R-MT) served from 1917 to 1919 – before the Constitution was amended. She was elected in 1916 – 90 years ago.

Since then, more women have decided to run for office and more have been elected to serve in both the House and the Senate. A woman being elected to any leadership post in the House or Senate was just a matter of time. Nancy accomplished this when she was elected minority leader. She is now Speaker mainly because her party gained a slim majority for the 110^th Congress.

“For our daughters and granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them.” Only just now? Only the sky? Women have been elected Head of State in other countries (as Betsy reminds us of Margaret Thatcher). Women have headed up major corporations. Women have gone into space (a bit further than the sky…)

Listening yesterday to speech I was hoping for the theme music to queue up like at the Academy Awards® telling the winner to stop thanking people…

Betsy says

She’s sooo excited about being Speaker of the House and yet I don’t hear her, or her supporters, talking about the women around the world who aren’t free. Those who can’t even leave the house without a male escort. Those that still don’t have the right to vote. Women who can be beaten and killed for wearing the wrong clothing items.

Oh yeah, it’s their “culture”. We have to respect their “culture”.

Rusty has video of 4 American hostages being held by a Shi’ite outfit calling itself the “Mujahideen of Jerusalem Company”.

This outfit is calling for the release of prisoners in American and British jails.

Please keep John Young of Kansas City, Missouri, John Cote of Buffalo, New York, Paul Johnson Reuben of Buffalo, Minnesota, Josh Munz of Redding, California, and Bert Nussbaumer from Austria in your prayers.

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

Slobodan Milosevic was representing himself at his international tribunal. He had a fool for a client but there may have been just a hint of method to his madness. He did expire before the trial did. He wasn’t convicted and he wasn’t executed.

Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, had plenty of representation, was convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was appealed and the appeal was denied. His day of reckoning has arrived.

Two genocidal dictators. One didn’t outlast his trial. The other didn’t outlast the second trial. Neither one is walking this earth anymore.

May God have mercy on their souls.

With faith in Jesus Christ we receive the body of our brother Gerald for burial. Let us pray with confidence to God, the giver of life, that He will raise him to perfection in the company of the saints. Deliver your servant Gerald O sovereign Lord Christ from all evil. Set him free from every bond that he may rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Let us also pray for all who mourn, that they may cast their care on God and know the consolation of His love. Almighty God, look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants for whom we pray. Remember them, Lord, with mercy, nourish them with patience, comfort them with a sense of Your goodness, lift up Your countenance upon them and give them peace through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Update: Added video:

Welcome Gateway Pundit readers. Have a look around.

Transcript of Stewart Varney interview General Wesley Clark on Your World this afternoon.

Stewart Varney: They’re lining up in Iraq to be Saddam’s hangman. Hundreds of Iraqis applying for that job. It could happen any time within the next 28 days, in fact, it could be happening at this very moment. Saddam will reportedly be led to the gallows in an orange prison uniform, his head covered in a cone shaped black hood. But General Wesley Clark says when it does happen, get ready for more violence and he’s the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and he testified at the mass murder trial of another dictator, Slobodan Milosevic.

General, it’s not our call whether or not we hang this man, execute him or not, but if it was, if it was your call, strategically, would you execute him or put him in prison for life?

Wesley Clark: Well I think the decision’s been made on that. I think it’s too late to go back and review that kind of decision. He’s been brought to trial, the constitution calls for the death penalty, he’s going to be executed and there’s nothing at this point that can be done or should be done.

Varney: Would you do it real soon? Do it real soon?

Clark: Well, I always like to see the full outcome of justice. There were a lot of other people who were injured by Milosevic [ed note: he said Milosevic here – he’s getting his genocidal dictators mixed up.] and there’s another trial underway. But apparently the customary procedure in Iraq is this trial, this sentence, carry it out, and I guess it’s going to get carried out. And I think you know it’s important for us not [ed note: emphasis Clark’s] to be seen as the people behind this. This is the Iraqi people themselves, this is their sense of justice.

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Some of those that were lost in 2006.

There were statesmen, dictators, celebrities, activists

Those that were lost were both young and in the prime of life, and older, having lived full lives.

Some will be missed by a few, some will be missed by many, but all will be missed.

This list was culled from the list at IMDb. All links lead back to the IMDb profile.

Hilarious eCard from a law firm. via Point of Law.