By Debbie Schlussel
Retired Brigadier General Paul Tibbets, Jr.–the heroic American serviceman who did to Hiroshima what we should have already done to Tehran–died, yesterday, at the age of 92 in Ohio.
He saved the Western world and his life had meaning for all of us, even though most do not know his name. And he wasn’t just the pilot–he basically planned the whole mission. And he flew some of the first bombing missions against the Nazis and their allies. He was bright and had just the right amount of bravado to save America.
Sadly, in later life, the State Department treated him with dishonor when India criticized his role in saving the world from Axis forces. And the military apologized to the Japanese after Tibbets re-enacted his important flight. He had it right on America’s schools and distorted history:

American Hero Paul Tibbets After Historic Hiroshima Mission

The new wave of controversy about Hiroshima “got me roused up,” Tibbets told the Palm Beach Post in 2001. “Our young people don’t know anything about what happened because nobody taught them and now their minds are being filled up with things that aren’t true.”

But even after death, he’s got the last laugh. Because he did not want to give left-wing anti-war protestors any opportunities to use his death for their cause, he will have no funeral or headstone and his ashes will be scattered over the North Atlantic.
Here is an inspiring, extensive set of excerpts from the fantastic obit/article about this great American from today’s Los Angeles Times. The first three sentences say it all, and I wish we would heed it about Iran (and perhaps some of the other choice Muslim countries in the Mid-East). We need another Truman in the White House and anothe Paul Tibbets leading the attack. Oh, and by the way, “Enola Gay” was the name of Tibbets’ mother:

To the end of his days, Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. believed that dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a justifiable means of shortening World War II and preserving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American servicemen who military experts said might have died in a final Allied invasion of Japan.
For Tibbets, the pilot whose bombing run unleashed the devastating explosive force and insidious nuclear radiation that leveled two-thirds of the city and killed at least 80,000 people, there was never any need to apologize.
“I never lost a night’s sleep over it,” Tibbets said of the Aug. 6, 1945, attack.
The Army Air Forces officer died Thursday at his home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 92 and, according to his longtime friend Gerry Newhouse, had been in declining health over the last few years and died of heart failure. . . .
Months after authorizing the attack, President Truman commiserated with Tibbets at the White House about the criticism over dropping the bomb.
“It was my decision,” Truman told him. “You didn’t have a choice.”
On the 60th anniversary of the bombing, Tibbets told the Columbus Dispatch that he knew when he got the assignment “it was going to be an emotional thing.”
“We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left,” Tibbets said. “But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.”
Tibbets was more than just the pilot of the propeller-driven, four-engine bomber that made the historic mission.
Described by his commandant, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, as “the best damned pilot” in the Army Air Forces, Tibbets was hand-picked to lead the mysterious 509th Composite Group, the first military unit formed to wage nuclear war. Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, another plane from the 509th leveled much of Nagasaki with another nuclear bomb, prompting the Japanese surrender.
Tibbets chose the planes that flew those missions — specially reconfigured B-29s, then the largest operational aircraft on Earth, stripped of armament and armor plating to lighten them for their extended journeys.
He selected the combat veterans who manned the bombers. Many of the crewmen were personal friends who had flown missions with him over Nazi-occupied Western Europe and North Africa.
Tibbets picked an isolated air base straddling the Nevada-Utah border where the men of the 509th trained for their ultra-secret mission. And he drove his men hard, weeding out those who fell short or talked too much about what they were doing.
Proud, prickly and a perfectionist, Tibbets never doubted that he was the man for the job.
Born in Quincy, Ill., on Feb. 23, 1915, he moved to Florida with his parents while still a child. His father, a candy distributor, hired popular barnstormer Doug Davis to fly over Hialeah racetrack as a promotional stunt. Davis piloted the Waco biplane while the 12-year-old Tibbets tossed handfuls of Baby Ruth bars to the crowd below.
“From that day on, I knew I had to fly,” Tibbets said.
Tibbets’ father, a believer in discipline, shipped his son off to Western Military Academy in Alton, Ill., the next year. Tibbets liked the military life and despite subsequent premedical studies at the universities of Cincinnati and Florida, he enlisted as a flying cadet in 1937 with the Army Air Corps at Ft. Thomas, Ky.
By late summer 1942 — nine months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that thrust America into World War II against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy — Tibbets was flying some of the first U.S. bombing raids over German-held targets in Western Europe. Two months later, he led the bombing runs supporting the American landings in North Africa.
In early 1943, Tibbets was recalled to the United States to begin testing a new super bomber, the B-29. Within months, he was one of the nation’s most experienced B-29 pilots.
In September 1944, Lt. Col. Tibbets was summoned to a secret military conclave in Colorado, where he was told that he had been selected over dozens of other candidates to head a unit called the 509th Composite Group.
“My job, in brief, was to wage atomic war,” he wrote in his book, “Flight of the Enola Gay” (1989).
Tibbets searched for the perfect airfield to train his men and knew he had found it in Wendover, Utah. “It was remote in the truest sense,” he wrote. “Surrounding the field were miles and miles of salt flats.”
The arriving crewmen were told nothing about their mission, according to “Ruin From the Air,” a 1977 history of the project by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts.
“Don’t ask what the job is,” Tibbets told his men. “Stop being curious. . . . Never mention this base to anybody. That means your wives, girlfriends, sisters, family.”
To everyone’s surprise, Tibbets granted everyone Christmas leave in December 1944. What they didn’t know was that it was a ploy to test security. As the men of the 509th headed home, they were met at the Salt Lake City railroad station by undercover operatives posing as solicitous civilians and friendly servicemen.
Two men from the 509th answered the detailed questions of a friendly “officer” who said he would soon be joining the unit. Within a week, both men had been banished to a remote island off the coast of Alaska.
Crews made hundreds of practice runs over the Mojave Desert and the Salton Sea. The test bombs were full-sized mock-ups of the real thing — the long and slender uranium “Little Boy” that would fall on Hiroshima and the bulbous plutonium “Fat Man” that would hit Nagasaki.
Most of the mock-ups were filled with concrete, but some contained everything but the nuclear components, including large quantities of conventional explosives in the triggering mechanisms.
On one Salton Sea run, a consulting engineer accidentally dropped one of the explosive Fat Man mock-ups too soon. Narrowly missing the town of Calipatria, Calif., the bomb buried itself in a hole 10 feet deep, but somehow failed to explode. Bulldozers were rushed to the scene to erase evidence of the accident. . . .
Outmaneuvering some top officers who sought to take over the bombing mission, Tibbets rallied support from Washington to retain his command of the 509th and announced that he would pilot the plane that dropped the first bomb.
Forcing an unhappy Capt. Robert A. Lewis to accept the secondary role of co-pilot in what had been Lewis’ B-29, Tibbets ordered his mother’s name, Enola Gay, painted on the side of the fuselage.
Several hours before dawn on Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, lumbering under the load of the 9,700-pound bomb, struggled up off a runway on the island of Tinian for the 1,700-mile flight north to Hiroshima. Two other B-29s accompanied the Enola Gay to monitor the event.
Seventeen seconds after 8:15 a.m., from an altitude of 26,000 feet, bombardier Maj. Thomas Ferebee released the bomb. Tibbets, who carried poison pills for the crew in case the B-29 went down, put the plane into a sharp, diving turn to speed away from the imminent explosion.
At 8:16 a.m., 1,890 feet above the center of Hiroshima, the bomb detonated with a core temperature estimated at 50 million degrees.
“My God, what have we done?” Lewis wrote in his logbook.
The shock waves severely shook the retreating plane, but did not damage it.
Staff Sgt. Robert Caron described the view from his seat in the tail gunner’s turret as “a peep into hell.”
Tibbets looked back to see an immense mushroom cloud.
“It had already risen to a height of 45,000 feet, and was still boiling upward like something terribly alive,” he wrote in his book. “Even more fearsome was the sight on the ground below. Fires were springing up everywhere amid a turbulent mass of smoke that had the appearance of bubbling hot tar.”
The flight back to Tinian was uneventful, and Tibbets alighted from the plane to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The medal was added to a collection that included the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Legion of Merit, the Air Medal and a Purple Heart he received for wounds suffered when his bomber was struck by cannon fire over Europe.
Tibbets’ military career would continue for 20 more years. Although most of his assignments involved relatively routine desk jobs, his past sometimes haunted him.
In 1965, then a 50-year-old brigadier general in what had become the U.S. Air Force, he was appointed deputy director of the U.S. Military Supply Mission in India. When the Indian news media called him “the world’s greatest killer,” an embarrassed State Department recalled him and shut down the mission.
A year later, Tibbets retired from the military. For three years, he worked as an aviation advisor in Europe, then returned to the United States and a job with Executive Jet Aviation, an air taxi service in Columbus. He eventually served as board chairman of the firm.
In 1976, Tibbets piloted a restored B-29 that dropped a simulated, miniature atomic bomb at an air show in Texas. The reenactment, complete with a little mushroom cloud, prompted a protest from Japan. Tibbets called the Japanese reaction “ridiculous,” but U.S. government officials apologized.
When Executive Jet changed ownership in 1985, Tibbets quit the business world but remained active, making scores of public appearances, including many on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima in 1995.
The anniversary spawned a new wave of criticism about the attacks.
When the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum displayed part of the Enola Gay in 1995, anti-nuclear demonstrators poured blood and ashes on the fuselage. Veterans groups and some members of Congress took the opposite view, complaining that the exhibit showed too much sympathy toward Japan at the expense of the United States.
The exhibit was scaled down, then removed. The entire plane went back on display in 2003 at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport.
The new wave of controversy about Hiroshima “got me roused up,” Tibbets told the Palm Beach Post in 2001. “Our young people don’t know anything about what happened because nobody taught them and now their minds are being filled up with things that aren’t true.”
He said he wasn’t proud of all the death and destruction at Hiroshima, but he was proud that he did his job well.
Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea; sons Paul III, Gene and James; and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Because he feared giving protesters a place to demonstrate, Tibbets did not want a funeral or headstone, Newhouse said. He requested that his ashes be scattered over the North Atlantic Ocean.

American Hero Paul Tibbets in 2003
Sadly, they don’t make enough men like Paul Tibbets anymore.
Paul Tibbets, American Hero–One of Our Greatest!— Rest in Peace.
Read More about Paul Tibbets.

By Debbie Schlussel
Who has more free speech in America–you or the Islamic terrorists on our shores? If you think it’s you, you’re sorely mistaken.
In 2002, I represented the University of Michigan Student Zionists when they sued Michigan to stop the Divestment Conference from happening. The keynote speaker was Islamic Jihad founder and convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian. At the time, he was already banned from the campus where he was a professor, the University of South Florida, because he was deemed a safety threat to students and personnel. Previous Divestment Conferences on other campuses resulted in dozens of violent attacks on Jews in the subsequent months. (And after “Annihilate the Jews” was shouted in unison at the Michigan conference, there were many similar violent attacks against Jewish students in Ann Arbor, all by Muslims).

Convicted Islamic Jihad Terrorist Sami Al-Arian: Why Did Michigan Give Him Unfettered Speech Rights, But Not U-M Students?
The thing is, limp-wristed, spineless University of Michigan officials, like University President Mary Sue Coleman, spokeswoman Julie Peterson, and Jewish U-M Regents Andrea Fischer-Newman and Larry Daitch, were constantly shouting, “free speech, free speech, free speech.” They claimed they could not stop the free speech of Sami Al-Arian on campus.
But, not so fast. Ever since then, I’ve compiled a giant file folder documenting how University of Michigan and other public campuses are restricting free speech. But, it’s not the Islamic terrorists’ free speech they’re squelching, it’s yours.
Today, USA Today’s sports section has a lengthy piece on the ways college administrators stifle the free speech of students on campus at sporting events. And guess what? Michigan is in the story. Most of the examples are of universities not allowing students to yell sexually suggestive and profane chants to athletes of opposing teams at sporting events. And Michigan is in the bunch.
The article quotes Michigan assistant athletic director Bruce Madej as complaining that a rule allowing fans to be ejected for offensive language isn’t working:

We’re still working on the language thing.

Not that I approve of profane chants at sporting events, but why is eliminating that more important than eliminating hate speech by terrorists on campus. Why is a sports fan’s free speech not important, but a terrorist’s is?
USA Today reports that the crackdown on “stadium speech” is taking place because college

Administrators want their universities to be viewed positively and students, as well as fans, to act with dignity. Schools also don’t want children hearing foul language, let alone people watching on television.

Ah, now I get it. “Annihilate the Jews,” dignified; F— Michigan State, undignified. An Islamic terrorist who raised money to bomb buses and kill people, positively viewed. Unruly sports fans, not so much. Thanks for the distinction,er . . . the distinction without a difference. If children hear, Death to the Jews, no prob.
The fact is there is one school where they don’t practice selective enforcement of free speech rights for terrorists. That’s Rutgers. When the Divestment Conference was scheduled to be held there, the organizers were told, “no dice.” (The conference had to be held in a private hotel and was poorly attended.)
You see, Rutgers has many Jewish alumni who are donors, and unlike the Jewish alumni donors to Michigan–who have no scruples and shower Michigan with bucks, anyway–Rutgers saw the handwriting on the wall. The school was told by Jewish alums that they would no longer give if the school hosted hate.
Yup, a few schools–at least one–truly are interested in what’s really important regarding their public image. It’s more important to worry about aiding those who want to murder us all than some drunken students a little too caught up in school spirit.
Just remember: You really have less enjoyment of the First Amendment than terrorists like Sami Al-Arian do.
Sad.

Islamic Terrorists Enjoy This More Than You

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s kinda hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out. But that’s what Oprah and her techies are trying to do.
As I’ve noted on this site (here and here), a few weeks ago bad publicity for Jessica Sklar Nederlander Seinfeld, Jerry’s wife, abounded with accusations that she plagiarized her “Deceptively Delicious” book, a book promoted on the Oprah show to best-seller success.
Ironically, the bad publicity began when Oprah viewers began writing about Seinfeld’s theft on the Oprah website message boards. And Oprah can’t have that. After all, Jessica Seinfeld just bought her $20,000 in designer shoes and Jerry gave her a good role in his “Bee Movie,” which debuts in theaters tomorrow.

Oprah Whitewashes Jessica Seinfeld
So Oprah and her crew have erased the comments pointing out Mrs. Seinfeld’s rip-off and criticizing her. If you google Jerry’s missus’ name on Google and go to the top results, they lead to blank pages on “Oprah.com Community”–the pretentious name she’s given her message board. You’ll see the message:

System Error
The specified thread was not found.

But with the magic of google, if you click on the cached links, you’ll see hilariously vicious comments like these:

Jessica Sklar-Nederlander-Seinfeld to write another book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***

I can’t wait to buy it……it is called the Devil Wears Dolce
I know it sounds Just like that other book: the devil Wears Prada but she says any similarities are just a coincidence

***

The Babysitter Diaries by Jessica Seinfeld

***

SHE IS SO GROSS….
LET’S SEE, SHE’S DONE ADULTERY NOW PLAGIARSIM…..WHAT’S NEXT??? ARSON? ARMED ROBBERY???

***

she is truly a VERY ugly person on the inside & out!!!!!

***

This is pure Plagiarism
what is worse being a plagiarist or an adultress?????????????????????????

***

HER BIG TACKY SHOE GIFT TO OPRAH SUMS UP WHAT SHE IS ALL ABOUT

So, if Oprah is so sure Mrs. Seinfeld is in the right, why censor out those who disagree and are exposing the truth? Answer: ‘Cuz that’s the way Oprah is, girlfriend. Don’t forget it.

By Debbie Schlussel
Add high school homecoming dances to the list of victims of the end of courtship and the ratcheting up of hooking up. That’s what my friend, Detroit-based Wall Street Journal columnist and reporter Jeff Zaslow says in his column today. And it’s of interest because it’s a symptom of a larger picture, the upgrade of ho’ing around in America and the downgrade of traditional courtship which has been all but erased for some time.
Why act like humans with minds, when you can act like all the other animals on basic instinct? This great column makes all the necessary points, which Zaslow and his wife experienced through his 16-year-old daughter. If you have teen sons and daughters, he provides some great advice (he was a nationally syndicated advice columnist):

Some Date: How Homecoming Is Losing Out to Hanging Out
By Jeff Zaslow

Last month, a boy asked my 16-year-old daughter to his school’s homecoming dance. She agreed to go, bought a new dress and made a hairdresser appointment.
The boy never bought tickets to the dance. Neither did his friends. They decided that attending homecoming wouldn’t be cool, and instead planned to just dress up that night, go out for dinner and then hang out with their dates at someone’s house.
My daughter was disappointed, as were her girlfriends. They would have loved to have been taken to the dance, to show off their dresses, to see and be seen.
At 6 p.m. on the night of the boycotted dance, about a dozen of these girls and their dates gathered in one boy’s backyard so a mob of parents could photograph them. I found it dispiriting. My heart went out to those girls — all dressed up with no place to go. Couldn’t we, as parents, have demanded that the boys take our daughters to the dance? Why did we stand there, clicking our digital cameras, saying nothing?
I live in suburban Detroit, but this phenomenon is playing out elsewhere in the country, too — a telling example of the indifference with which young people today view dating, chivalry and romance.
Studies, of course, show more young people skipping romantic relationships in favor of “hooking up.” As teens socialize in packs, forgo one-on-one dating and trade sex nonchalantly, it is no stretch to find that boys are asking girls to homecoming and not bothering to take them there. But with so many young people ignoring once-sacrosanct dating rites, how can we respond?
At some schools, students are boycotting dances to protest bans on sexually suggestive “freak dancing.” At others, dances are just falling out of favor. Southeast High School in Wichita, Kan., canceled its homecoming dance last February after just 27 tickets were sold, half to members of the homecoming court. At Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield, Pa., class of ’06 homecoming queen Cathy Caramanico never got her big moment at the dance. It was called off due to lack of interest.
Readers, how does dating among today’s teenagers seem different from when you were a teenager? Are there any changes that have taken place for the better? What are the changes for the worse? Share your thoughts.Many teens today prefer to gather in someone’s basement because it’s easier to pair off in dark corners. “There aren’t as many chaperones in basements as at dances,” says Ms. Caramanico.
Meanwhile, 60% of 125 college students in a new study by Michigan State University have had a sexual “friends with benefits” relationship. Nine out of 10 “hookups” didn’t lead to dating relationships, the study found. More ominously, after casual sex, females are more likely than males to show symptoms of depression, according to a study reported last year in the Journal of Sex Research.
“Young women are longing for romance,” says Laura Sessions Stepp, author of “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both.” She interviewed girls who considered it empowering to be dismissive of romance and casual about sex. Later, many were beset with regrets.
Obviously, boys no longer have to call girls on Wednesday for a Saturday date. Now, college boys seeking weekend hookups send girls “U busy?” text messages at 2 or 3 a.m., and girls routinely rouse themselves and go, according to Ms. Stepp’s research. Many girls spend the next day clutching their cellphones, waiting in vain for the boy to call.
While visiting a high school students in McLean, Va., Ms. Stepp was approached by four girls seeking advice. They wanted to start a “dating club.” “These were gorgeous girls,” she says. “I told them to print up T-shirts: ‘Ask me for a date.’ ”
Family advocates say we should ask our daughters, point blank, about hooking up. “Does it make you happy?” And we should explain that it can be helpful for teens to start practicing relationships — learning to listen, to trust, to consider someone’s needs.
My wife and I debated insisting that our daughter’s date take her to homecoming. Our daughter asked us not to do that. The boy, a nice kid, wanted to go to homecoming, she said, but was following his peers. Because there was parental supervision at that night’s gathering, we bit our lips and let it be.
As the father of three daughters, I wish that more parents of sons would talk to their boys about being respectful, and about the thrill that can come from holding hands. Those of us with daughters need to tell them that empowerment is less about sexual freedom and more about recognizing their true feelings.
It is too bad that my daughter and her friends didn’t demand that the boys take them to homecoming. Yes, they risked being dumped for easier girls. But maybe the boys would have gotten the message and, as promised, graciously escorted their dates to the dance.

I think the problem here is that too many parents do not teach their kids the lessons Jeff Zaslow and most of you teach yours. Then, they find themselves in the minority and the object of scorn for having traditional values.
But it’s always good to be different, especially if you are different AND right.

By Debbie Schlussel
I think Detroit Lions quarterback Jon Kitna’s Halloween costume was hilarious. And so do his teammates. But not the Mainstream Media, which is having a hissy fit over it. That’s even though they’ve already secured a sort of apology from him. And it’s not enough. Add him to the Ann Coulter support group for objects of hysterical overreaction.
So what horrible thing did he dress up as, which raised the press hackles? Hitler? A dead Muslim terrorist? An ugly feminist (redundant)? Mark David Chapman? Heather Mills McCartney sans leg, but with English barrister-lawyer strapped to side?

Jon Kitna & Wife in Their “Offensive” Halloween Costumes
Nope. Instead, he dressed up as Detroit Lions Assistant Coach Joe Cullen, who, last year, drove drunk and completely naked to a Dearbornistan Wendy’s drive-thru to order a late night snack. He pleaded guilty and got counseling.
Kitna donned a t-shirt and pants that were airbrushed to look like a fat man’s sagging naked body with a G-string painted on . . . to a Halloween charity bowling event, Monday Night. His wife dressed as a Wendy’s drive-thru employee.
I think that’s pretty clever. But the Detroit media–and reportedly, “The Naked Coach”–don’t like it. And they’ve created something of a mini-controversy over this huge problem facing crime-infested, drop-out ridden Detroit. Several media outlets are making a big deal of Kitna’s devout Christian beliefs. But, who says devout Christians can’t have a witty sense of humor? His costume’s probably not good for on-the-job morale, but that’s another story entirely. Plus, Cullen is the Defensive Line Coach, which has nothing to do with quarterback Kitna’s position.
And here’s a tip: If you don’t want to be made fun of . . . don’t drive naked (and drunk) to a Wendy’s drive-thru at Midnight. That’s not exactly Christian, either. I may be Jewish, but I think I’m on solid ground in that pronouncement.
Any questions?
Watch the news video at Detroit’s FOX 2 News, a station that not only criticizes such hazards as football players’ Halloween costumes, but also panders to Islamofascists. Guh-reat combo.

By Debbie Schlussel
This is something I wish my dad lived to see. Today, our friend, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, was acquitted on all charges–Trumped Up Charges!–contained in a politically-motivated, baseless, and terrorist-pandering federal indictment against him. Readers of this site know I’ve been writing about Rick and his fight against Islamic terrorism (and the Justice Department that loves Islamofascism) since 2003, when I first wrote of his situation in a New York Post column. And I’ve been writing about the Federal attempt to mob-lynch him, ever since.
In yet another deserved defeat for the “Justice” Department and FOUR(!) years of wasted time and resources and hurt lives (Convertino’s, his family’s, his co-defendant Ray Smith’s, etc.), the jury took little time after beginning jury deliberations today to acquit Convertino. It’s an incredible loss for the government, a huge win for America.

American Patriot Rick Convertino
Victorious Over Evil Islamo-Pandering Justice Department
Sadly, he was put on trial, instead of the Al-Qaeda terrorists he convicted and which the justice department overturned. If only the government pursued terrorists with the zeal and resources they spent the last four years using against Convertino for actually pursuing and convicting Al-Qaeda terrorists.
And they tried to keep the truth out. Justice Department lawyers asked jurors if they read this site and nixed those who did. But they couldn’t block the sunshine. Truth gets out eventually, and sometimes good does win over evil, as it definitely, finally, did today.
Convertino won, if only after tremendous expense to and persecution of himself, his wife, and his five children. This is a huge victory for the forces of good and right, and a huge loss for the forces of political correctness that dominate every level of “counterterrorism pursuit” at the Justice Department.
Rick Convertino must now rebuild his life and begin the process of getting his reputation back. For those of us who know and love him and knew the truth about this valiant counterterrorist, he never lost it in the first place.
There is so much more on this, and I was in the process of writing a column on the trial, when the good news came in. I have some blockbuster info on it that should shock you. Sometimes–too many times–officials of our federal government think they’re mobsters and act like it.
And not just on Halloween.
Well, the witches and ghouls lost one today. And Rick Convertino won yet another fight in his righteous cause.
My father was disgusted at the four-year ordeal they put Convertino through and how they took the terrorists’ side. And I know he’s smiling from up above at the events of today.
Still, we Americans lost a great federal servant in this honest, decent, brilliant prosecutor, because the evil that dominates the Justice Department drove him out.
Now, he’s representing the defense. Way to go, Ashcronzales.
Next question: Just how many millions of our tax money did the Justice Dept. waste in going after this good man?
Another question: Since the Islamo-pandering Detroit media crucified Convertino for four years on their front pages, will they run full-length stories about his acquittal as prominently?
Don’t bet on it.
Congratulations, Rick! You beat the bastards down.

By Debbie Schlussel
This one is a certifiable ROFLMAO video. The one person in Europe with the good sense to hate soccer goes to bars with his remote and turns off soccer matches in the middle of the games, to the outrage of drunken, smelly, European soccer fans. Will definitely cheer you up:

http://view.break.com/387953 – Watch more free videos

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Video Added, Below. SCROLL DOWN. ****
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a lengthy front-page piece on sculptor Patrick Moser and his very interesting medium–pumpkins . . . pumpkins which weigh up to almost 2,000 pounds apiece. And the detail and results of his artistry make even the most ornate jack-o-lantern pumpkins look like nursery school stuff. Moser calls them Grumpkins (check out his site).
Here is an excerpt of what he does, along with a few of my favorite Grumpkins by this cool artisan:

Muffled inside the 10-inch-thick walls of a 908-pound pumpkin, Patrick Moser’s voice was an echoing blur.

“It’s beautiful in here,” he shouted. “It’s like Carlsbad Caverns.”
As a giant-pumpkin carver, Mr. Moser regularly ventures where no man has gone before. Carving the behemoths isn’t just an art, he says, it’s a personal odyssey. And this month, his journey has brought him to Pumpkinville, a rustic pumpkin farm tucked into a valley of the Allegheny Mountains, where he has been commissioned to sculpt a hulking pale orange specimen harvested by a nearby grower.
Cross-breeding and better growing techniques have created a new variety of monster pumpkins called Atlantic Giant. . . . These are gargantuan, gnarly and lopsided freaks of nature with shells up to a foot thick in places, and cavities big enough to contain a grown man. Transforming them into organic sculpture takes chisels, power tools and perseverance. . . .

Many giant carvers compare what they do to working in stone or wood. But they face one problem other sculptors don’t: Their artwork can rot before they even finish it. . . .To preserve his work as long as possible — for weeks and sometimes months — [Moser] has developed an “embalming” process in which he bathes his finished sculpture in antibacterial soap, bleach and Tilex bathroom cleaner.
“Most people have no idea what goes into carving a giant pumpkin,” notes the 40-year-old carver from Jamestown, N.Y. Before he can begin to carve at Pumpkinville, a farm that invites the public in every fall to stroll the grounds, sip hot cider and pick out pumpkins for Halloween, Mr. Moser must first examine the pumpkin from the inside.
Earlier this month a tractor lifted one atop a sturdy wood frame. Then, lying on his back below the fruit, Mr. Moser took nearly an hour to hack his way in. Shards of orange pumpkin flesh flew through the air, clotting his hair and sticking to his brow as he hewed a large manhole in the bottom using first a kitchen knife, then a large handsaw, and finally a crowbar.
It’s dangerous work, he explained, grunting and panting as he heaved on the crowbar to dislodge a large piece: “One slip, and you could have a 200-pound chunk-o’-pumpkin comin’ at you from four feet overhead.” . . .
Mr. Moser’s trademark is the “Grumpkin” — the great pumpkin personality he finds trapped inside every giant. He selects colorful names for his Grumpkins characters. . . . Mr. Moser set out his briefcase of carving tools: chisels and clay-sculpting loops, lemon zesters and super-sharp Microplane graters. For his Grumpkin face, he then removed all the pumpkin skin and shaped smooth bulging eyes accented by a big nose and a broad, toothy grin.

So, when are the Bill and Hillary and Rosie O’Donnell Grumpkins coming?
Read more about Grumpkins here and here.
**** UPDATE: This video is not a Grumpkin video, but it’s pretty darn close and short and funny, too:

By Debbie Schlussel
My dad had this hanging on the wall of his personal office, and I think it’s so very appropriate for today . . . or any other day. It is from a subscription form for either The American Spectator or The Weekly Standard, to both of which my Dad subscribed for many years. He added the smiley face sticker.

Like “Ministry” sang in the ’80s, “Every Day is Halloween,” at least for some people . . . like our future Presidentatrix. . . .

They lyrics are great, if only they applied to our fight with the extremist Muslims within:

Well, I live with snakes and lizards;
And other things that go bump in the night;
‘Cuz to me everyday is Halloween;
I have given up hiding and started to fight;
I have started to fight.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Meant to link to this related piece I wrote on Oprah using her show and influence to change laws, an idea which she thankfully neglected. It’s a companion piece to this VLog. ****
Thanks to all of you who watched and commented on yesterday’s debut of Debbie Does Video. Yesterday’s video ranked as the 54th Most-Linked-To News & Politics Video on YouTube, with 820 links and at least 1,244 views at the time I wrote this. Not bad for a debut.
Here’s the next one (also shot last week, so, sorry, no Halloween theme). Still no teleprompter, but workin’ on it, and I like this one better than yesterday’s. Same excessive make-up (shot three videos at one sitting). But will improve over time. Thanks again to “Big T” for producing. Question: As a conservative who’s for smaller government, why do I think Oprah should be regulated? And how does she differ with Rush Limbaugh, besides being a bad influence on America (he’s a good influence)? Watch & Find Out:

As with yesterday, I welcome your comments and (constructive) criticisms.