The Letter of the Day is "W".

"W" is for Welcome, as in "Welcome to blogdom, Clancy!"

Clancy is a long time commenter here and elsewhere and he has launched his own blog called "Clancy's View". Click the welcome link above and go say hi.

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The Letter of the Day is was "V".

"V" is for Vignette. A vignette is a short story or act in a play. This little bit by Harvey qualifies both ways.

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Watch out behind you hunter!

This is a flash game that is a definite time hog. As near as I can figure, it's about an American GI in France.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

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It's Friday and that means that the odds are better than even for a new Cheddar X! This is one of them there fancy cheddars. The mission was to pick an actor (or actress, I presume) and answer the questions using the titles from his (or her, I presume) body of work. Can you guess which actor is my favorite? I guarantee that everybody has heard of him (or her, I presume) and just about everybody has seen some of his (or her, I presu...forget it, that joke's getting old) movies. more...

Posted by: Jim at 04:42 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Miss Kelley has invited you to a blogmeet this coming Saturday. Unfortunately, I'll be unable to attend. This is my first weekend since November where I have zero committments and I'll be spending the days doing fun and interesting things with the boys and the evenings doing fun and interesting things to Lovely Wife. Y'all should go though - at least long enough to snap some pictures for blackmail purposes.

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The East Point (Georgia) Police Department is on the cutting edge of law enforcement with this progressive and budgetary friendly initiative.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

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Rich Bushnell has a new site. His Bowling For Truth site is a fantastic piece of work dedicated to exposing the dirty underside of Michael Moore's award winning travesty. The new site is all about Al Franken and shows us the blatant lies in Franken's latest work of unintentional fiction.

I despise Al Franken and Rich's site goes a goodly way towards showing you why. It's not because of his politics or his opinions, it's because he's a vicious smear artist who has such little respect for his own audience that he'll blatantly lie straight to their faces in order to make his points.

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The Bestofme Symphony is up and in fine fettle at Ilyka Damen's place. Wow, she kicked ass with this one. Go and enjoy the best Monday read in the Blogosphere.

Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission info. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, give Ilyka a round of applause and some link love. I'll thank you, she'll thank you and your readers will thank you. That's a lot of thank yous, you know. Hard to pass up a bargain like that, isn't it?

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, drop me a line at this address. It's not a mailing list, just me sending out friendly little reminders. There'll be one on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

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The Snark are running over at Electric Venom. Better bring some heavy gauge equipment though as it's a sizeable herd this week.

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The Letter of the Day is was "U".

"U" is for Unlawful. Some of the unlawful things that students are getting arrested for include wearing a shirt that is too short and turning off the lights in the bathroom.

A local court official says only 2 percent of students referred to the juvenile justice system had committed a serious offense, such as assaulting a teacher.

So 98% of the things that these kids are getting arrested are for the things I used to get sent to detention for? I guess "U" is also for "Unbelievable".

Also see the Joanne Jacobs post that the CS&W post refers to. The ultimate source is a NYT article and I don't link those because they require registration.

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I pretty much agreed with Trey about this. Although it would have been a pretty stupid manuver for us regular folk, it's a bit different when Steve Irwin is carrying the baby. That was before I thought about it from the animal's point of view.

Animal rights campaigners criticise Steve Irwin baby stunt

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Dopple-G sent me this story today and I almost pissed my pants it's so funny. You have been warned.

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing the oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his little beady eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, “Banzai!” or maybe, “Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!” as the leap was spectacular and he flew over the windshield and impacted me squarely in the chest.

Put your coffee down and read it all here.

UPDATE: Just realized this is also the Letter of the Day. "T" is for Terrifying. What could be more terrifying than traveling 80 mph down a residential street with an enraged squirrel in your helmet?

Posted by: Jim at 08:32 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Trey Givens went patriotic with his redesign, working in a very nice scheme of red, white and blue that only a commie could dislike. Give it a look and let him know what you think.

My favorite aspect of the new look? That sweet stylized "TG" you see at the picture at the top of the site and the lead-in for the post titles. Anybody care to work up a fancy "JP" for me?

And yet something's missing. Trey, if you're serious about "perpetuating the stereotypes that homosexuals battle on a daily basis" then where are the ferns?

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This week's Carnival is being hosted by American Realpolitik. Holiday dropoff is a thing of the past but this Carnival is put together in clean style with excellent post descriptions so it's an easy tour.

Snooze Button Dreams is proud to host the 69th edition (no I didn't finagle that, it just worked out that way) of the Carnival of the Vanities next week. Submissions for the January 14th Carnival should be sent to carnival@jpeacock.net.

On the subject of submissions, get your Bestofme Symphony submissions in to Ilyka for next week's edition. These still get submitted to bestofme@jpeacock.net.

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The Letter of the Day is "S".

"S" is for Sanity. That's what Jack over at The People's Republic of Seabrook is pleading for from what has been an increasingly vehement Democratic party. Unfortunately the majority of positive responses are coming from the right so I don't know if the message is getting through.

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Will this ever get put to rest? Apparently not.

Congress To Investigate Heightened Terror Alert

Critics Say Lack Of An Attack Indicates White House Deception

Ryan's got the scoop. Blogger archive isn't working well but it's just one post down the page (January 02 entry).

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It's been always burnin' since the world's been turnin'. The best we can get is somebody to watch over it and make sure it doesn't get out of control. This week the Bonfire of the Vanities is minded by Boots and Sabres. Feel free to go and warm yourself by the flames. It's safe.

Points: 2 points to the first person to source the title & first line of this post. No googlin', just grey matter searches please.

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Fifteen entries from a dozen participants makes this Symphony a delightfully easy listen read.

The Bestofme Symphony will be going on tour starting next week. The concert schedule is in the sidebar to the right. Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission info. Entries may always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, all I wanted for Christmas was your immortal souls Bestofme Symphony link love. Now is your chance to make my dreams come true without spending a dime!

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, drop me a line at this address. It's not a mailing list, just me sending out friendly little reminders. There'll be one on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday when the new Symphony is posted.

Without further ado, I present the fifth edition of the Bestofme Symphony: more...

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The Carnival of the Vanities 2003 Finale is up at Hypocrisy and Hypotheses. It's a fairly light read this week due to so many bloggers being out and about for the holidays. Light compared to a typical Carnival anyway, it's still a monster compared to the Bestofme Symphony. For now. ;-)

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The Letter of the Day is was "R".

You need to use "R" twice to accurately describe French coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

PARIS - Reporter Alain Hertoghe's book accused the French press of not being objective in its coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. His newspaper fired him.

The book, "La Guerre a Outrances" (The War of Outrages), criticizes the French reporting for continually predicting the war would end badly for the U.S.-led coalition.

"As soon as there were a couple of wounded, of dead, they were talking about Vietnam, Stalingrad," Hertoghe said.

"The French public was so carried away," he said. The journalists, he wrote in the book, "dreamed of an American defeat."

Besides war coverage in La Croix, the book examines that of the independent Le Monde, the conservative Le Figaro, the leftist Liberation and the regional daily Ouest-France, which has the largest circulation in France.

Over three weeks, the five papers carried 29 headlines condemning Saddam's dictatorship and 135 blaming Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

(Hat tip to BigWig)

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