Teen With Peanut Allergy Dies After Kiss. This story concerns me, because I have two nephews who suffer from this allergy:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-canada-deadly-kiss,0,5114574.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

SAGUENAY, Quebec -- A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter snack, hospital officials said Monday. Christina Desforges died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss the previous weekend.

Desforges, who lived in Saguenay, about 155 miles north of Quebec City, was almost immediately given a shot of adrenaline, a standard tool for treating the anaphylactic shock brought on by a peanut allergy, officials said.

An autopsy was being performed. Dr. Nina Verreault, an allergist at the Chicoutimi Hospital in Saguenay, declined to comment on the case.

The symptoms of peanut allergy can include hives, plunging blood pressure and swelling of the face and throat, which can block breathing.

Peanut allergies have been rising in recent decades. The reason remains unclear but one study found that baby creams or lotions with peanut oil may cause children to develop allergies later in life.

About 1.5 million Americans are severely allergic to even the smallest trace of peanuts and peanut allergies account for 50 to 100 deaths in the United States each year. Canadian figures were not immediately available.

Was it a good weekend for retailers, or wasn't it? Remember when I said on Black Friday that I couldn't wait to see how the media spun the economic news? I got my wish. Reports on sales during the Thanksgiving weekend vary wildly. The AP says the news is bad:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1352427&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

But Bloomberg says the news is good.

But wait! The New York Times says it's bad. Can't argue with that paper, can we?

But, no, wait! USA Today says that sales are up 22% this year.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the media's self-inflicted confusion.

Fifty babies a year survive abortions in the U.K. Here is a disturbing story from the U.K. Times Online, reporting that the government in England is investigating doctors' reports about botched abortions:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1892696,00.html

The second page of the article is particularly shocking:

Paul Clarke, a neonatal intensive care specialist in Norwich, has treated a boy born at 24 weeks after three failed abortion attempts. The mother decided to keep the child, who is now two years old but is suffering what doctors call “significant ongoing medical problems”.

“The survival of this child was not recorded in any official statistics,” Clarke said. “There is nothing at the moment to force abortion practitioners to account for their failures.”

The issue will be highlighted by Gianna Jessen, 28, who survived an attempt to abort her. She is to speak at a parliamentary meeting on December 6 organised by the Alive and Kicking campaign, which is lobbying for a reduction of the abortion limit to 18 weeks.

Jessen, a musician from Nashville, Tennessee, was left with cerebral palsy but is to run in the London marathon next April to raise funds for fellow sufferers.

“If abortion is about women’s rights, then what were my rights?” she asked.

“If people are going to talk about abortion, then it’s important for them to know that these are babies that can be born alive and survive.”

I'm sure that Jessen is not the only American to survive a botched abortion. How much of this goes on in the United States? The mainstream pro-abortion media will never tell us. But the world needs to know the truth about this.

It's a Black Friday, all right. Shoppers were trampled in Florida and Michigan by other shoppers who rushed into stores at opening time to take advantage of doorbuster sales. Some people needed to be hospitalized. This reminds me of a Who concert from about 25 years ago, where several people were trampled to death in a rush to enter the venue. I hope these Black Friday incidents do not result in fatalities. People need to learn to have respect for others, as well as themselves. Is there really that urgent a need for people to save a few dollars on merchandise? I like to stretch my dollars too, but I don't see the need to become violent over it. The sense of entitlement that many people have is dangerous, not only to themselves but to their fellow citizens. If it comes to the point where shopping bargains are more important than other people's safety, or more important than good old-fashioned civilized behavior, then I would say that our society is in trouble.

I haven't heard about any such incidents in the Philadelphia area, thank God. In fact, the Philadelphia Inquirer is relatively upbeat in its reporting about the day:

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/13256484.htm

In more good news, the AP reports that retailers say crowds are bigger this year. I can't wait to see how liberals spin this as bad economic news.

U.N. confirmed that WMDs were smuggled out of Iraq. Yes, they did -- in June 2004! This story was just brought to my attention today, nearly a year-and-a-half after the fact! The liberal media's ability to bury a story such as this is frightening. Here is a June 2004 article by Rod D. Martin:

http://www.thevanguard.org/thevanguard/columns/040618.shtml?ID=13323

In a report which might alternately be termed “stunning” or “terrifying”, United Nations weapons inspectors confirmed last week not merely that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but that he smuggled them out of his country, before, during and after the war.

Late last week, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) briefed the Security Council on Saddam's lightning-fast dismantling of missile and WMD sites before and during the war. UNMOVIC executive chairman Demetrius Perricos detailed not only the export of thousands of tons of missile components, nuclear reactor vessels and fermenters for chemical and biological warheads, but also the discovery of many (but not most) of these items - with UN inspection tags still on them -- as far afield as Jordan, Turkey and even Holland.

Notably absent from that list is Iraq's western neighbor Syria, ruled by its own Baath Party just like Saddam's and closed to even the thought of an UNMOVIC inspection. Israeli intelligence has been reporting the large-scale smuggling of Saddam's WMD program across the Syrian border since at least two months before the war. Syria has long been the world's foremost state-sponsor of terrorism.

Perricos highlighted the proliferation danger to the Security Council, as well he should: UNMOVIC has no idea where most of the WMD material is today, just that it exists and it's gone; and anything in Syria is likely to be in Jerusalem or New York tomorrow.

This is the biggest news story of 2004 so far. Yet you haven't heard about it, have you?

You probably haven't heard about Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin either -- a socialist and no friend of America. Addressing a group of 700 university researchers and business leaders in Montreal last month, Martin stated bluntly that terrorists have acquired WMDs from Saddam. “The fact is that there is now, we know well, a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and that many weapons that Saddam Huseein had, we don't know where they are…. [T]errorists have access to all of them,” the Canadian premier warned.

The tip of this terrorist sword was scarcely deflected on April 26th, when Jordanian intelligence broke up an al Qaeda conspiracy to detonate a large chemical device in the capital city of Amman. Directed by al Qaeda terrorist leader Abu al-Zarqawi -- the same man who personally beheaded American Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month -- the plotters sought to use a massive explosion to spread a “toxic cloud”, meant to wipe out the U.S. embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office, the Jordanian intelligence headquarters, and at least 20,000 civilians (by contrast, only 3,000 died on 9/11). Over twenty tons of chemical weapons were seized from the conspirators, who were just days away from carrying out their plot.

One wonders where CNN and USA Today think twenty tons of nerve gas and sarin came from: Chemical Weapons-Mart? Yet their coverage, like most major media outlets, mentioned not a word about Saddam's smuggled WMDs, which -- according to liberal dogma -- “don't exist.”
Even though the UN says they do exist, now spread around the world.

It's not just the UN. Bill Clinton says they exist, even after the war: in a July 2003 interview with Larry King, the ex-president uncharacteristically defended George Bush, saying “it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there [was]…a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for” in Iraq. Every intelligence agency in the world -- French, British, German, Russian, Czech, you name it -- agreed before the war; Jordanian intelligence can certainly confirm their opinion today.

So what's the deal? Why the relentless pretence that “Bush lied” when even the UN and Bill Clinton say he didn't? Why the absolute silence about “inconvenient” parts of various UN reports, such as the discovery of chemical and biological weapons plans, recipes and equipment; of bio-weapons agents in an Iraqi scientist's house; of a prison lab for testing bio weapons on humans; of complexes for manufacturing fuel for prohibited long-range missiles; of artillery rounds containing enough sarin to kill thousands of people, of similar shells containing mustard gas, two (but far from the only) of which were used in a terrorist attack against U.S. forces just weeks ago?

America cannot afford the answer to this “why”: that many on the left consider George W. Bush's defeat more urgent than al Qaeda's, his political death more essential than the possible physical death of millions of Americans.

The character of our foreign enemies has never been in doubt. The character of the enemy within -- from Dan Rather to Michael Moore -- has never been clearer. And the stakes are the highest they've ever been.

The PA legislative pay raise has been repealed. For once, lawmakers had their pay raises rolled back by popular demand. On July 7th, this 16% pay raise for Pennsylvania legislators passed quickly and easily through the state senate, and was signed into law the next day by Gov. Ed Rendell (D). After a four-month public outcry, the pay raise has been terminated. Rendell signed the legislation yesterday, and said:

"I urge the legislature to return to the people's business and hope that by signing this bill, we can channel the great interest and energy that was focused on this issue for the good of the citizens we serve."

Senate Majority Leader David Brightbill (R) said:

"We are here to correct a mistake. As one of the people who exercised poor judgment, I would like to apologize."

I hope this encourages voters to make their voices heard more often. If we stand up to politicians and make it clear that they work for us, and that they can lose their office if they put their interests ahead of ours, perhaps they will think twice before abusing their privileges. Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer said this:

Anger over the pay raises, which upped base legislative salaries 16 percent, to $81,050, brought together voters from both ends of the political spectrum and ushered in an era of activism among an electorate better known for its apathy.

"Better known for its apathy"? Are they talking about Pennsylvanians? Perhaps we should continue to send messages that we will not be so apathetic in the future.

The Inquirer article:
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/13186830.htm

Are New York Times columnists necessary? Are Men Necessary, the much-publicized new book by leftist NYT columnist Maureen Dowd, is bombing. It sold just over 10,000 copies in its first week. But Dowd's publisher, Putnam, is spinning it as a success, saying that the book's sales are "on target". Whatever. If a conservative columnist wrote a heavily publicized book and it only shifted 10,000 units its first week, liberals would be merrily dancing on its grave.

U.S. Has Detained 83,000 in War on Terror. Great headline, isn't it? I love reading the first four paragraphs of this article:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/16/D8DTOTT00.html

The United States has detained more than 83,000 foreigners in the four years of the war on terror, enough to nearly fill the NFL's largest stadium. The administration defends the practice of holding detainees in prisons from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay as a critical tool to stop the insurgency in Iraq, maintain stability in Afghanistan and get known and suspected terrorists off the streets.

Roughly 14,500 detainees remain in U.S. custody, primarily in Iraq.

The number has steadily grown since the first CIA paramilitary officers touched down in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, setting up more than 20 facilities including the "Salt Pit," an abandoned factory outside Kabul used for CIA detention and interrogation.

In Iraq, the number in military custody hit a peak on Nov. 1, according to military figures. Nearly 13,900 suspects were in U.S. custody there that day _ partly because U.S. offensives in western Iraq put pressure on insurgents before the October constitutional referendum and December parliamentary elections.

Good! Who says we are not winning the war on terror? The rest of this article loses me, because it talks about "complaints from Congress and human-rights groups about how the detainees -- often Arab and male -- are treated." Am I supposed to have sympathy for terrorists? I think they actually are treated too well, especially the ones at Gitmo. I've heard that soldiers at Gitmo are not allowed to walk down the corridors during the prisoners' prayer time, because the sound of their boots is distracting. Are you even that courteous to your neighbors? I'm fed up with hearing senators and "human-rights" groups claim that terrorists are treated so cruelly. Surely they are aware of the incidents in Jordan and in France these past weeks. Islamic terrorists are not only killing Westerners; they are also killing other Arabs who disagree with them, like they did in Jordan (and, in case you haven't been noticing, like they have been doing in Iraq). And what did France gain from appeasing terrorists? Absolutely nothing. The recent "rioting" in France suggests that terrorists view it as a weak country. The world needs to wake up and realize how barbaric our enemies are. The last thing we should do is give them aid and comfort.

Philly Kindergartner Found With Heroin. A disturbing Philly story that is getting national media attention:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/16/D8DTNJF0A.html

A kindergarten teacher found eight bags of heroin in a 5-year-old student's pocket, police said.

The matter was under investigation and the boy's mother could be charged, police Inspector William Colarulo said.

The heroin was discovered Oct. 25. On Tuesday, the school sent a letter home to parents. The letter did not explain why the school waited three weeks to tell parents. It was sent home after a story about the incident aired on WCAU-TV.

Neither the child nor his classmates at Richmond Elementary School were harmed, a schools spokesman said.

"We are shocked and saddened, outraged" that a parent or parents could place a child in such danger, said spokesman Fernando Galliard.

The boy and his three siblings have been turned over to the city's Department of Human Services and placed in temporary custody, spokesman Ted Qualli said. The agency was looking for relatives who could eventually take care of the children.

Democrats said there were WMD in Iraq. I thought I would share this e-mail I received recently from The Federalist Patriot. This information is certainly not being reported in the mainstream press, so it bears mentioning, and repeating, especially considering the current antics of the Democrats.

On the heels of the "White House -- CIA leak" investigation, which concluded that no laws were broken (but charged one administration staffer with perjury), liberals are attempting to parlay that non-starter into a much bigger political brawl. Their charges have no substance, and are completely contrived to keep Republicans off balance through next year's midterm elections.
Sens. Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin have accused President George Bush of lying about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, insisting he "lied us into war." They are even floating the suggestion that he be impeached.

Here are their accusations:

"The Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence to justify a war that America should never have fought." --Ted Kennedy

"We all know the Vice President's office was the nerve center of an operation designed to sell the war and discredit those who challenged it. ... The manipulation of intelligence to sell the war in Iraq...the Vice President is behind that." --Harry Reid

"I seconded the motion Sen. Harry Reid made last week. Republicans in Congress have refused, despite repeated promises, to investigate the Bush administration's misuse of pre-war intelligence, so Senate Democrats are standing up and demanding the truth." -- Dick Durbin, who recently compared U.S. troops to the Nazis and Pol Pot.

Naturally, the Democrat's media lemmings are reporting these charges as de facto truth, but there is considerable evidence that these Demo-gogues and their colleagues believed Iraq had WMD long before President George Bush came to Washington. Here is a small sample of that evidence from the Clinton years:

Bill Clinton: "If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

Madeleine Albright, Clinton Secretary of State: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."

Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Advisor and Classified Document Thief: "[Saddam will] use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has ten times since 1983."

Harry Reid: "The problem is not nuclear testing; it is nuclear weapons. ... The number of Third World countries with nuclear capabilities seems to grow daily. Saddam Hussein's near success with developing a nuclear weapon should be an eye-opener for us all."

Dick Durbin: "One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that...Iraq...may acquire or develop nuclear weapons."

John Kerry: "If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me."

John Edwards: "Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons."

Nancy Pelosi: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons-inspection process."

Sens. Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry in a letter to Bill Clinton: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

After President Bush was sworn into office in 2001, his administration was handed eight years worth of intelligence analysis and policy positions from the Clinton years -- you know, the years of appeasement when Saddam was tolerated, when opportunities to take out Osama bin Ladin were ignored, as was the presence of an al-Qa'ida terrorist cell in the U.S. -- which reared its head on 9/11.

In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq, Democrats, who had access to the same intelligence used by the Bush administration (much of which was compiled under the Clinton administration), were clear about the threat of Iraq's WMD capability.

Ted Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

John Kerry: "I will be voting to give the president of the U.S. the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security. ... Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein."

Hillary Clinton: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile-delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including al-Qa'ida members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

Carl Levin: "We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein...is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

Al Gore: "We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Bob Graham: "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has and has had for a number of years a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."

For the record: Here's a partial list of what didn't make it out of Iraq before the OIF invasion: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium, 1,700 gallons of chemical-weapon agents, chemical warheads containing the nerve agent cyclosarin, radioactive materials in powdered form designed for dispersal over population centers, artillery projectiles loaded with binary chemical agents, etc. Assuming Irag had no WMD because only small caches were recovered after Operation Iraqi Freedom began is perilously flawed logic. That, in no way, affirms what he spirited out through Iran and Syria before OIF.

So, ask Ted, Dick and Harry, what is their real agenda?

One might fairly conclude that they are willing to reduce U.S. national security to political fodder by accusing the President of the United States of "lying." Problem is, the President had no political motive for Operation Iraqi Freedom -- only a legitimate desire to fulfill the highest obligation of his office -- to defend our liberty against all threats.

Ted, Dick and Harry, on the other hand, have plenty of political motivation for their most recent antics -- and all of America should look upon these disgraceful Demo-gogues, and anyone who supports this dangerous folly, as traitorous louts.

On Veterans Day, President Bush noted: "Today our nation pays tribute to our veterans -- 25 million vets.... At this hour, a new generation of Americans is defending our flag and our freedom in the first war of this century. This war came to our shores on the morning of September 11, 2001. ... We know that they want to strike again and our nation has made a clear choice. We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire or rest until the War on Terror is won. ... [I]t is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. ... We will never back down. We will never give in. We will never accept anything less than complete victory."

"Deeply irresponsible"? He is too kind.

Semper Vigilo, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, The Patriot

(Circulation of this Alert is sponsored by The Federalist Patriot, the most widely read conservative e-journal in America. If you have not already joined the ranks of Patriots receiving this highly acclaimed digest of news, policy and opinion, link to http://FederalistPatriot.US/subscribe/alert0503.asp for your FREE e-mail subscription. (If you don't have Web access, send a blank e-mail to: subscribe@FederalistPatriot.US and you will be subscribed automatically.)

Founder's Quote: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --John Stuart Mill