[CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/rssclick/?section=cnn_topstories:)

From Afghanistan to Indonesia, tens of thousands of Muslims around the world have launched a series of new protests — some violent — over cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. Provincial authorities in Lagman, Afghanistan, said one protester died in a protest there after clashes broke out between demonstrators and police.

Question: Don’t these guys get that they are validating the whole point of the cartoons?

Simply ignoring the cartoons would have gone a long way to debunking that whole point of view.

[Sci Fi Wire](http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/:) “SCI FI Channel announced that Lucy Lawless has joined the cast of its original series Battlestar Galactica in the upcoming third season.”

Yet another reason to watch next season (besides the obvious reason that the show just plain ROCKS!).

If you ever get the chance, you MUST play this course. It’ll be one of the best golfing experiences you’ll ever have. The course is the Highland Links in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The picture below is the tee shot at the 7th hole, Killercrankie (which means “a long narrow pass”… and it is!).

The greatness of Highlands Links is directly attributable to a brilliant routing that takes full advantage of the inherent landscape’s natural potential for golf. Every hole simply runs an obvious course suggested by the native terrain, prompting some to assume little thought went into it, when in fact, the opposite has occurred. The result is a wildly diverse collection of holes, including two sets of back-to-back par 5s at six and seven, fifteen and sixteen that clearly suggest Thompson laid the course out without a single preconceived notion.

[CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/rssclick/?section=cnn_topstories:) “A female former employee opened fire at a 24-hour postal service sorting facility in Goleta, California, killing six people and critically wounding another, before turning the gun on herself, authorities said early today. SWAT teams found seven people dead inside the building where about 40 to 50 people had been working, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Jim Anderson said.”

I know EXACTLY where that is!!! I went to [[UCSB]] and lived right down the street from there while at school. I hope I didn’t know anybody that was killed (not likely I know… but wow that hits close to home!).

[CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/rssclick/?section=cnn_topstories:) “Exxon Mobil Corp. set U.S. records for annual and quarterly profits Monday as it easily topped fourth-quarter earnings forecasts.”

But remember… there was no price gouging after the hurricanes. Right?

At least at some level. Take this for instance:

The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the “world’s largest encyclopedia,” The Sun has learned.

The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month.

Unbelievable. Why are these guys afraid of having their actual record available easily to the public? Because they are all corrupt.

[CNET News.com](http://news.com.com/:) “As acting CIO is named, governor’s spokesman says commonwealth is ‘on track’ to use OpenDocument-based software next year.”

Go Mitt!!!

[CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/rssclick/?section=cnn_topstories:) “Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.”

Why do these evangelical conservative religio-fascists have to think that their god is is a vengeful god? I thought Jesus got rid of all that nonsense.

Prime Minister Sharon had a stroke because he’s old and a blood clot formed in an artery in his brain. ‘Nuff said.

From [ZDNet](http://news.zdnet.co.uk:) “A US-based ISP has been awarded $11.2bn (£6.38bn) in a judgement against a Florida spammer who sent millions of unsolicited emails to its users.”

It’s about time there’s a reasonable fine against these vermin! Maybe if a few more of these types of awards happen, I won’t get 100 spams a day!

For the first time ever, the family wasn’t together for the entire holiday season. Right after Christmas, the kids and I headed to Florida to visit my mother, and Danae went to help out with my brother Scott and his wife Kristin.

Danae has had quite a bit of fun watching our nephew Ryan (no, Danae, we can’t have another kid!).

[[Christmas 2005|show_thumbnail=no]]