Month: November 2006

After Quasimodo’s death, the bishop of the Cathedral of Notre Dame sent word through the streets of Paris that a new bell ringer was needed. The bishop decided that he would conduct the interviews personally and went up into the belfry to begin the screening process.

After observing several applicants demonstrate their skills, he had decided to call it a day when an armless man approached him and announced that he was there to apply for the bell ringer’s job.

The bishop was incredulous: ‘You have no arms!’

‘No matter.’ said the man, ‘Observe!’ And he began striking the bells with his face, producing a beautiful melody on the carillon.

The bishop listened in astonishment, convinced he had finally found a suitable replacement for Quasimodo. But suddenly, rushing forward to strike a bell, the armless man tripped and plunged headlong out of the belfry window to his death in the street below. The stunned bishop rushed to his side.

When he reached the street, a crowd had gathered around the fallen figure, drawn by the beautiful music they had heard only moments before. As they silently parted to let the bishop through, one of them asked, ‘Bishop, who was this man?’

‘I don’t know his name,’ the bishop sadly replied, ‘but his face rings a bell.’

Bill Allowing More Drilling Along Coasts Appears Dead.

Just a few months ago House Republicans and representatives of the energy industry were poised to rewrite a quarter-century of national energy policy and open the seas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling, which environmentalists had fervently resisted.

But Tuesday’s Democratic victory in midterm elections has changed the legislative landscape, obliterating the chances that anything close to the aggressive drilling bill passed by the House of Representatives will be enacted for years to come.

Democrats say will push for Iraq withdrawal.

Democrats, who won control of the U.S. Congress, said on Sunday they will push to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq in the next few months but the White House cautioned against fixing timetables.

Democrats to ‘revisit’ law creating border fence.

Democrats will look again at the legislation mandating 698 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and might seek to scrap the plan altogether when they take control of Congress next year.

Now that it’s over and the lunatics will be running the asylum one thing is clear, from now on Al Qaeda gets to set the agenda. There is no doubt that Osama Bin Laden will be releasing a tape to address this victory.

With a win for the Democrats, get ready for a repeal of the Patriot Act, or an attempt at it. The Democrats will move to defund the operations in Iraq by a certain date to force a phased redeployment. This will play right into Bin Laden’s game plan.

Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran with the CIA who created and served as the chief of the agency’s Osama bin Laden unit at the Counter Terrorist Center counts this as another victory for Bin Laden.

“If Americans vote for what sounds like sweet reason from the Democrats, bin Laden and company will rejoice. What they will hear is the death knell for any prospect of effective U.S. military resistance to militant Islam. With the Republicans out, the Islamists will be confident that Democrats will deliver the best of both worlds: less emphasis on military force and a rigid maintenance of U.S. foreign policies that are hated with passion and near-unanimity by 1.3 billion Muslims. If Osama approved of music, he would be whistling “Happy Days Are Here Again!”