Fusion Pics

A car seat is the chair used in automobiles. Most car seats are made from cheap, but durable materials, made to withstand as much beating as possible. The material for these seats is usually used for the back of the seat, as well as the part where one's posterior goes.

A bucket seat is a seat contoured to hold one person, distinct from bench seats which are flat platforms designed to seat multiple people. Bucket seats are standard in fast cars to keep riders in place when making sharp or quick turns.

Dash Covers

The best-known variety of single-seater racing, Formula One, involves an annual World Championship for drivers and constructors of around 18 races a year featuring major international car and engine manufacturers, and independent constructors, such as Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, BMW Sauber, Toyota, Honda, Renault, Red Bull Racing - in an ongoing battle of technology and driver skill and talent.

British Stock car racing is a form of Short Oval Racing. This takes place on shale or tarmac tracks in either clockwise or anti-clockwise direction depending on the class, some of which allow contact. Races are organized by local promoters and all drivers are registered with BRISCA and have their own race number. What classes exist depends on the promoter, so events in Scotland at Cowdenbeath can be very different from an event at Wimbledon Stadium in London.

Racing Schools

WASHINGTON – The U.S. is condemning Cambodia's decision to forcibly deport 20 Muslim asylum-seekers back to China.
The State Department says U.S. ties with Cambodia will suffer as a result.
The department said in a statement Sunday that it was "deeply disturbed" by the move, which may have violated Cambodia's international obligations to asylum-seekers. The U.S. also says its concerned about the welfare of the Uighurs (WEE-gurz). There are fears the Uighurs may be mistreated in China.
Spokesman Gordon Duguid says the incident would affect Cambodia's relationship with the United States and its international standing.
The Uighurs fled China after ethnic rioting in July. China says they are criminals but their role in the rioting remains unclear.

BASRA, Iraq – The top U.S. military officer, arriving in Iraq Friday, said he is confident that the war-torn country will hold elections on March 7 and that the U.S. drawdown will begin on schedule that month.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a group of enlisted troops that the U.S. withdrawal plans are fixed and will come quickly after the election.
"That draw down from 115,000 to 50,000 is going to happen, no doubt in my mind," Mullen said.
The election was postponed from January, but Mullen said that will not change U.S. plans.
Mullen toured U.S. bases in Basra and Talil, and met with an array of Iraqi military and civilian leaders.
In Talil, Mullen saw an Army brigade that is the model for the changing US military role in Iraq. The troops' main job is giving advice and backup to Iraqi forces.
In Basra, near the Iranian border, a Shiite cleric greeted Mullen warmly. Abdul Aziz Moosawi told Mullen he is grateful for U.S. help despite earlier skepticism.
But Moussawi bluntly explained the calculus of life next door to powerful and influential Iran after the admiral said he is worried about Iran's activities abroad.
Iran's influence is inevitable and sometimes works in positive ways, Moosawi said. "But I think we feel the negative impact more," he said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
US editorial pages gave a cool response Sunday to what President Barack Obama called an "unprecedented" 11th-hour, non-binding deal on climate change during talks in Copenhagen.

The Washington Times lambasted what it called "flop" proceedings between world leaders during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in the Danish capital, calling Friday "Obama's cold day in Denmark."

"The promised treaty -- billed with the characteristic understatement of the alarmist community as 'the single most important piece of paper in the world today' -- was an anticlimax," it said.

"The final three-page version was tossed together in the closing hours with little deliberation and wound up saying little.

"The much-ballyhooed treaty promises next to nothing, other than a 100-billion-dollar slush fund for Third World dictators to 'adapt to climate change,' which probably involves buying mansions in southern France."

The Washington Post said the agreement was not bold, noting that many of the details have yet to be set. But it welcomed a commitment by developing countries to a verification regime as "an important step".

"Governments must do better," it added, pointing to a UN report leaked earlier this month that found that pledged emission cuts would likely allow far more warming than the two degrees Celsius (35.6 Fahrenheit) threshold beyond which most scientists say global warming could have disastrous consequences.

The newspaper urged the US Senate to take up climate legislation now stalled in Congress.

"Reducing America's dependence on foreign sources of energy and tackling domestic pollution are strong enough reasons to pass a bill," it added. "Vigorous debate should commence."

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal said the Copenhagen talks offered "a lesson in limits for a White House partial to symbolic gestures and routinely disappointed by reality."

Echoing those sentiments, the San Francisco Chronicle noted the deal was a "face-saving result" and provided "a humbling lesson in complexity, economic rivalries and financial risks."

It urged California to take on the climate change fight and serve as a pioneer in the field.

The Journal called the Copenhagen deal "a pre-emptive dead letter because countries like China, Brazil and India said they were unwilling to accept anything that depressed their economic growth."

Noting that China, the world's biggest polluter, would likely continue to get a "free climate pass," it said "we can't wait to hear Mr Obama tell Americans that he wants them to pay higher taxes so the US can pay China to become more energy efficient and thus more economically competitive."

The White House had earlier sought to rally support for the contentious deal Obama brokered at the UN-backed climate talks by listing prominent Americans who back the plan.

A White House release included quotes from environmentalists, industry leaders and top lawmakers from Obama's Democratic Party praising the "breakthrough" that would "lay the foundation for international action in the years to come."

Michael Eckhart, head of the American Council on Renewable Energy, applauded Obama's "wisdom in achieving an agreement on the aspirational goal."

Nike vice president Hannah Jones praised the president's "sense of urgency and recognition that companies need certainty and a level playing field" to move to a low-carbon economy.

National Wildlife Federation chief Larry Schweiger was more nuanced, noting that although all top polluters have made pledges to cut emissions from the heat-trapping gases, "the deal is incomplete."

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, hailed Obama's "hands-on engagement," saying it "sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the "critical agreement."

Others were not as charitable.

Bill McKibben, founder of the environmentalist group 350.org, said the final declaration reflected "that small and poor countries don't matter, that international civil society doesn't matter and that serious limits on carbon don't matter."

American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard said Friday that his oil and gas industry trade group agrees with Obama "on the importance of addressing global climate change."

But he criticized the leading proposals in Congress on the issue.

DENVER (Billboard) –
What a difference a year makes.

The music-game category raked in $1.4 billion in revenue last year, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, driven largely by sales of "Rock Band 2" and "Guitar Hero World Tour." By the time 2009 comes to a close, Pachter expects the category to make half that -- $700 million -- despite such high-profile releases this fall as "The Beatles: Rock Band," "Guitar Hero 5," "DJ Hero" and "Band Hero," not to mention "Guitar Hero: Van Halen," which is due Tuesday (December 22).

According to data from market analyst NPD Group, sales of these games haven't met expectations. The Beatles game, while selling a respectable 800,000 units of its various versions so far, missed the 1 million mark analysts expected in just the first month after its September 9 debut. "Guitar Hero 5" sold 500,000 units in its first month, compared with the 1.4 million "Guitar Hero III" moved two years ago in its first month.

"DJ Hero," the game that was meant to expand the category into the hip-hop genre, moved 123,000 units in the first few days after its late-October release, and analysts at Cowen & Co. slashed their sales forecast for the game from 1.6 million this year to 600,000.

So what happened to this once-promising category, which so many in the music industry looked to for much-needed revenue? According to Pachter, the answer is: Too many games with too much music in too short a time.

'TOO MUCH VALUE'

"(Game) publishers have probably done themselves a disservice by giving us way too much value for our money with each of these games," Pachter says. "You just get way too much content. The installed base has a lot of music, and they don't really need a lot more. It's sort of like buying more books when you have a stack of books left to read. You just don't."

Pachter points to the disappointing sales of "The Beatles: Rock Band" as proof of this theory.

"There isn't a game that we would expect to have more widespread appeal than that," he says. "And yet with the installed base of music-game owners at around 20 million, it boggles the mind that only 800,000 bought 'Beatles: Rock Band.'"

But this doesn't mean the music-game category is a quickly fading fad with no future. No one expected the same level of record-breaking sales achieved in 2008, and Pachter expects the category will level off at about $500 million-$600 million per year, which he calls a "nice, healthy" genre on par with the "Call of Duty" action-game franchise. That doesn't take into account the revenue earned from in-game music sales, which "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" have yet to report.

Hand in hand with the decline of music-based game sales is a softening of the impact those games have on digital downloads.

A sampling of the songs included on soundtracks to "Guitar Hero 5," "Band Hero" and "DJ Hero" shows no significant increases in track sales as a result of their inclusion in each respective game, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

The game with the most impact on sales was "Brutal Legend" -- which isn't a music simulation game but an action/adventure title with a strong heavy metal theme and soundtrack. But while songs from acts like Motorhead and Judas Priest saw sales spikes as high as 700 percent, the volumes were too low to make much of a real impact -- in many cases from single-digit or double-digit weekly sales to low triple-digit sales.

To re-create the blockbuster sales of last year, the category needs a new innovation. One idea: Dahni Harrison -- the son of the Beatles' George Harrison, who worked closely on the development of "Beatles: Rock Band" -- told the Chicago Tribune he is working with Harmonix to create a version of "Rock Band" with new controllers that could actually help teach gamers to play guitar rather than just simulating the experience. Such new motion-capture devices as Microsoft's Project Natal may also play a role in evolving the gameplay.

Until these innovations come to fruition, though, the music and video-game industries will have to live with a music-game market that has fallen back to Earth.

(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

Cable transport is a broad mode where vehicles are pulled by cables instead of an internal power source. It is most commonly used at steep gradient; typical solutions include aerial tramway, elevators, escalator and ski lifts; some of these are categorized as conveyor transport.

Spaceflight is transport out of Earth's atmosphere into outer space by means of a spacecraft. While large amounts of research have gone into technology, it is rarely used except to put satelites into orbit, and conduct scientific experiments; man has landed on the moon, and probes have been send to all the planets of the Solar System.

Phoenix Airport Transportation

WASHINGTON – The Pell Grant program for needy college students is facing a massive shortfall as the country's bleak job market drives people back to school.
An administration official told The Associated Press the program will cost $18 billion more than Congress and the White House had anticipated over the next three years. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the budget, spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The administration is working with Congress to fill the gap, and we are committed to making sure the U.S. has an educated work force able to fill the jobs of the 21st century," said the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the budget.
Shortfalls and surpluses are common in the Pell Grant program, which forms the foundation for federal college aid. Anyone who is eligible gets a grant, making it difficult for the government to anticipate how many people will apply. Pell Grants typically go to families earning less than $40,000.
Yet the looming shortfall is the largest in the 36-year history of the program, whose entire budget was about $18 billion last year.
Lawmakers had approved a 13 percent increase in the maximum grant as part of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus law. That boosted this year's Pell Grant by $500 to $5,350. It was a huge increase; the maximum grant has grown on average by less than 6 percent a year.
The chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, California Democratic Rep. George Miller, said lawmakers will work together to make sure the program is funded, "as we do every year."
Miller sees a silver lining in the shortfall.
"In this difficult economy, it is good news that more people are going back to school to get the skills they need for in-demand jobs," he said. "We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to help them in this effort."
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag and Education Secretary Arne Duncan had a meeting with Miller and other committee chairmen about the shortfall last week.
The Pell Grant program faced a smaller shortfall, about $6 billion, last year.

WASHINGTON – A California congressman is dropping his effort to honor Tiger Woods with a Congressional Gold Medal.
Democratic Rep. Joe Baca proposed legislation in March that called for the golfer to be recognized for promoting good sportsmanship and breaking down barriers in the sport.
Baca said in a statement Wednesday that "in light of the recent developments surrounding Tiger Woods and his family," he won't pursue legislation this session to give him the award.
Woods' recent car accident has led to a media firestorm surrounding his personal life. The world's No. 1 golfer hit a hydrant and a tree on Nov. 27, and he was cited for careless driving and fined $164.
The accident — and Woods' refusal to answer questions about it — fueled speculation about a possible dispute between him and his wife, Elin.
Woods has been out of the public eye since the crash and subsequent allegations of extramarital affairs.
Last week, Woods issued a statement saying he had let his family down with unspecified "transgressions" that he regrets with "all of my heart."
The medal is the highest award Congress has to honor civilians for achievements and contributions to society.
The Hill newspaper first reported Baca's decision to drop the effort.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A new government report examining whether increased biofuels use could pinch the nation's water resources says farmers in the Northern Plains use considerably more water to produce a gallon of corn ethanol than growers in other parts of the country.
An ethanol industry group says the report offers little new insight and the vast majority of ethanol is produced from rain-fed corn.
The November study from the Government Accountability Office quotes Argonne National Laboratory data saying that farmers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas use, on average, 323.6 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol from corn, with all but 3 of those gallons used for irrigation.
The GAO said that's 20 to 30 times the amount of water used in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's two other main corn producing regions, where rainfall is more plentiful.
Region 5, which includes Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Missouri, uses 10 gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol, while the region encompassing Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan uses 16.8 gallons of water.
"As demand for water from various sectors increases and places additional stress on already constrained supplies, the effects of expanded biofuel production may need to be considered," the GAO noted in its report.
Geoff Cooper, vice president of research for the Renewable Fuels Association, said it's disingenuous to suggest that increased ethanol production is somehow driving irrigated corn acreage. He quotes a National Renewable Energy Laboratory article that says that 96 percent of corn used for ethanol production is not irrigated.
"We've always irrigated about 12 or 13 percent of the corn crop and we expect that to continue, with or without ethanol production," Cooper said.
Cooper said the report also failed to put ethanol's water profile in context with other energy sources and didn't note the marked improvement in biofuels plants' water usage over the years. Biorefineries use 3 gallons of water or less to produce a gallon of ethanol, he said.
"Just 10 years ago, the average would have been closer to 4 1/2 or 5 gallons," Cooper said.
The GAO report, prepared for the House committee on science and technology, noted that cellulosic ethanol produced from next-generation feedstocks such as corn stover and perennial grasses could do a better job conserving water, but more study is needed.
Cooper said advancements are also being made in the way corn uses water as seed companies develop more drought tolerant hybrids that require less water.

Cowboy Boots

* 1 History
* 2 Design
* 3 Fitting
* 4 See also
* 5 References

Boot hooks are often required to put on a new pair of boots until they soften in the arch and break in. A boot jack is recommended for removal, though care must be taken not to damage the heel of the boot when using a jack.

Pre-Christian Germanic, Celtic and other central and northern European tribes were often heavily tattooed, according to surviving accounts. The Picts were famously tattooed (or scarified) with elaborate dark blue woad (or possibly copper for the blue tone) designs. Julius Caesar described these tattoos in Book V of his Gallic Wars (54 BC).

Tattooing in the Western world today has its origins in Polynesia, and in the discovery of tatau by eighteenth century explorers. The Polynesian practice became popular among European sailors, before spreading to Western societies generally.[5

South Florida Tattoo Removal

Who wouldn't love to receive a beautiful gift basket from us? We deliver so much more [The Duet] than ordinary gifts! Stylish and sophisticated, "The Mediterranean" is an upscale fusion of Jordan Almonds, pistachios, wine & cheese biscuits, Dolcetto cookies, Dagoba chocolate, olive oils, salmon, truffles and more, all perfectly presented in a linen and leather magazine bin. [The Mediterranean] It's the perfect gift basket for any occasion.

Also, our always popular Deluxe Fruit Gift Baskets arrive picture-perfect and overflowing with market-fresh fruits and gourmet gifts. Our unique and stylish designs are exclusive to us and can't be found anywhere else. Always perfectly thought out and presented in keepsake boxes that will be kept for many years, our recently re-designed superior-quality Wine Gift Boxes, make a perfect alternative to gift baskets. Our customers return to us again and again for holiday gift baskets for Thanksgiving, Christmas gift baskets, Easter, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, and other special occasions such as Engagements, Weddings, Birthdays and Anniversaries throughout the year.

Wine Gift Baskets

Salon Equipment

Facials stimulate the skin, relax the client, energize the face and restore the skin to top condition after daily exposure to the elements. Manicure refers to a treatment for the hands, incorporating the fingernails and cuticles and often involving the application of nail polish.

Pedicure refers to a treatment for the feet, incorporating the toenails and the softening or removal of calluses. A hair salon (also called 'Hairdresser' and 'Hair Parlour') is a place where one goes to get the hair cut, as well as styled, highlighted or coloured.

WASHINGTON – Faced with sluggish progress in its foreclosure-prevention effort, the Obama administration will spend the coming weeks cracking down on mortgage companies that aren't doing enough to help borrowers at risk of losing their homes.
Treasury Department officials said Monday they will step up pressure on the 71 companies participating in the government's $75 billion effort to stem the foreclosure crisis. The will start this week by sending three person "SWAT teams" to monitor the eight largest companies' work and requesting twice-daily reports on their progress.
The mortgage companies, also known as loan servicers, have had a hard time getting borrowers to complete the needed paperwork for the administration's loan modification program. Nearly 60 percent of the 375,000 borrowers who qualify to have their loan modifications completed by year-end have either submitted incomplete paperwork or none at all.
"Borrowers must understand the urgency of getting their completed paperwork in so they do not miss out on the opportunity for more affordable mortgage payments," said Phyllis Caldwell, who recently was named to lead the Treasury Department's homeownership preservation office.
The program, announced by President Barack Obama in February, allows homeowners to have their mortgage interest rate reduced to as low as 2 percent for five years.
The administration is feeling intense pressure from lawmakers and consumer advocates to speed up progress. As of early September, only about 1,700 homeowners had finished all the paperwork and received a new permanent loan. About one-third of borrowers who have submitted complete applications are still waiting for a decision.
In an effort to shame the companies into doing a better job, Treasury will publish a list next week of the mortgage companies that are lagging. While big lenders like Citigroup and Wells Fargo have made double-digit gains in the percentage of eligible borrowers they have signed up for trial modifications, other companies like Ocwen Financial and American Home Mortgage Servicing have only increased their borrower participation by 6 percentage points or less since July.
Paul Koches, executive vice president of Ocwen, said his company had already saved 90,000 of its roughly 370,000 distressed homeowners from foreclosure before the government program began. As of October, Ocwen had started trial modifications for 11 percent of its borrowers, up from 5 percent in July.
At American Home, spokeswoman Christine Sullivan said the company has a "large, dedicated team" working on the Obama plan, but also noted that the company modified more than 60,000 loans outside the Obama plan over the past year.
"We are addressing the needs of distressed borrowers and are confident that we are doing all that we can reasonably do to avoid foreclosure," she said in an e-mail.
Some companies have barely made any inroads. HomEq Servicing, a division of Barclays Capital, only signed up in August. As of October, it had only started 91 trial modifications out of a pool of nearly 41,000 eligible homeowners.
"We have solicited thousands of borrowers for the financial information and documentation necessary ... and expect the number of trial modifications to increase substantially in the coming weeks," company spokesman Brandon Ashcraft said, noting that the company has modified 45,000 loans outside the government program over the past two years.
The participating mortgage companies signed contracts earlier this year that give the government the right to withhold incentive payments or end their contracts with Treasury. But mortgage companies don't receive those payments until they make a modification permanent, so there is little leverage over companies that aren't performing well.
That difficulty, consumer advocates say, highlights the program's key flaw: Since participation was voluntary, the government has little it can do besides shaming the industry into doing better.
"There's no meaningful accountability," said Diane Thompson, counsel at the National Consumer Law Center. "If you just aren't doing the loan mods, so what?"
And then there's lender limbo. About one-third of borrowers have submitted complete applications but haven't received a decision.
"In our judgment, servicers to date have not done a good enough job" of making the modifications permanent, said Michael Barr, an assistant Treasury secretary. Companies, he said, "that don't meet their obligations under the program are going to suffer consequences."
Industry executives acknowledge there have been problems.

"The documents were confusing. Borrowers did not understand the process wasn't closed until the documents came in," Sanjiv Das, chief executive of Citigroup's mortgage unit, said earlier this month. "Even when the documents came in, they were not always complete."

Mortgage finance company Freddie Mac has hired an outside company, Titanium Solutions Inc., to send real estate agents around the country to knock on borrowers' doors and help them complete the paperwork.

"It can be a little bit intimidating," said Patrick Carey, Titanium's chief executive. "They don't, in many cases, understand exactly what is being asked of them."

Analysts, meanwhile, say the foreclosure crisis is likely to persist well into next year as rising unemployment pushes more people out of their homes.

About 14 percent of homeowners with mortgages were either behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of September, a record level for the ninth straight quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Homeowners who may be eligible for assistance can call 888-995-HOPE, or visit http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov.

___

AP Real Estate Writer Adrian Sainz contributed to this report.

Creators Syndicate –
CBS "news anchor" Katie Couric recently whipped out her "reporter's notebook" and closed her newscast with a pro-"health care reform" poem:

"Twas just weeks before Christmas, and what do you know? Senate Democrats are once again praying for Snowe.

"They won 60 votes to start the debate, but they're back to square one ... and they just have to wait.

"Wait for blue dogs like Nelson and Lincoln ... who say a public option would mean the economy sinkin'.

"Wait for Joe Lieberman ... who says it won't pass ... and hope Mary Landrieu can change her mind fast.

"The Republican votes right now total zero ... but a trigger could make one woman a hero.

"The moderate who hails from the land way up north ... could save Harry Reid's Christmas with a deal she brought forth ... urging government plans for when private ones fail.

"To think: both sides happy? Can both sides prevail?

"At this point no compromise looms within sight ... that means after Thanksgiving ... it's on with the fight.

"Enjoy your turkey and know we'll be here ... to help make this tough topic ... just a little more clear."

Good grief! What a relief that we have nonpartisan "journalists" like Couric to help us navigate this "tough topic."

Couric's "poem" explicitly supports "health care reform." She clearly wants the sides to come together and produce something . She never questions the presumed need for "reform," much less suggests it wrong — indeed unconstitutional — for the federal government to take money from taxpayer A and give it to B (who may or may not be a taxpayer or, for that matter, even a citizen) because B lacks health insurance.

President Barack Obama promises to reject any health care "reform" that "adds one dime" to the federal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan and generally respected by both sides of the aisle, estimates that the health care plan now under debate in the Senate would, indeed, achieve this objective.

In the classic Mel Brooks comedy "Blazing Saddles," the hero warns an alcoholic gunslinger, played by Gene Wilder, that if he continues to drink, he will die. To this, Wilder replies, "When?" As to the alleged "budget neutrality" and the CBO's corroborating estimate, one needs only ask, "When?"

The CBO looks at the cost of ObamaCare in the first decade . What's the problem? The spending begins in 2013. But the ObamaCare "revenue" — from taxes and supposed cuts in Medicare — begins right away. So for four years, money comes in and builds up, with none going out. For the next six years, "revenues" continue, but then payouts begin.

By limiting the cost estimate of ObamaCare to only its first decade, we — voila! — achieve Obama's objective of not adding a "dime" to the deficit. The following decade and the decades beyond are when ObamaCare blasts off toward deficit-exploding costs, not even remotely "paid for."

Today the number of viewers watching nightly network news shows continues to decline, but Couric's "CBS Evening News" broadcast still attracts some 6 million daily viewers. And CBS works very closely with the influential New York Times. What appears on the front page of the Times often finds its way into the CBS newscast that evening. The two organizations even do joint polling. While the Times considers itself a nonpartisan conveyer of news, its editorial page inevitably sides with liberal, pro-Democratic Party positions on virtually every issue of significance.

President Barack Obama owes his election, in no small part, to the major media's cheerleading on his behalf. "Reporters" favor government-provided universal health care, Big Government and the corresponding belief that government exists to "redistribute" money and goods to the "deserving" — in essence portraying Americans as insufficiently charitable to take care of the needy without government (although this was the intention of the Founding Fathers).

The mainstream media not only are "pro-choice" on abortion but also believe that it is backed by a constitutionally protected right. Notwithstanding the election of the first black president of the United States, who defeated an odds-on favorite female contender for the nomination, the major media still believe racism and sexism remain big problems. They support "racial and ethnic and gender diversity" — and government's use of power to achieve it. They consider peace the absence of war — especially if the war began during a Republican administration. They have a naive trust in diplomacy even as our enemies grow more aggressive, a reluctance to recognize evil, and a respect for "world opinion" above our own national security. They consider Republicans and conservatives not just wrong but sinister.

As we "journalists" like to say, that's a wrap.

Larry Elder is a syndicated radio talk show host and best-selling author. His latest book, "What's Race Got to Do with It?" is available now. To find out more about Larry Elder, visit his Web page at www.LarryElder.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 LAURENCE A. ELDER

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