The BBC has an article on this here.

There are a lot of ways to personally fight spam now. The best is to get a Yahoo or Hotmail account and let them worry about it. I like to use Outlook for email. To cope with spam I have set my rules wizard filter this way: After the message arrives: "where my name is not in the To box permanently delete the message and stop processing more rules." This gets about 90-95% of the spam. I use my Yahoo account as my email account of record.

A Christmas Story is the best Christmas movie. The movie catches a glimpse of life in the 1950-60s in small town America very well. I can almost smell the turkey roasting or the Christmas tree in the living room. The mini-story of the dad's fixation on the Leg Lamp is hilarious and at the same time, very sad. You can find leg lamp replicas on eBay here. I can adapt the line "you'll shoot your eye out" to almost any situation. I had a Red Ryder B-B gun at one time. I didn't shoot my eye out.

You can find information about the film here. Be sure to watch the trailer.

Red Ryder was a character in a famous comic strip that was created by Fred Harman. The museum is in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

There is a good article on Red Ryder and Fred Harman called Red Ryder's Eternal Home on the Range by Mark Yost 12/23/03 WSJ

There are pictures of Harman--a founding member of the Cowboy Artists of America--with celebrities, including John Wayne. The actor was a longtime friend and the couch he slept on while filming the 1972 film "The Cowboys" is now on display in the museum, Harman's son said. "We had a bus full of elderly ladies in here one day, many with walkers and canes," the younger Mr. Harman recalls. "As soon as I told them that, you never saw anybody move so fast to try and sit on that couch."

Enjoy the movie. It is one of my favorites.

From PoliBlog

From John Lemon (retired blogger): Being a huge fan of the photographic arts, one of my must-see weekly websites has been MSNBC.com's "Week in Pictures." Each week readers get to vote on their favorite photo. At the end of the year the editors post top vote getters from readers and then the "critics' picks." Over the past three years I have noticed a definite pattern. On average, the critics' picks tend to draw more upon scenes of tragedy or despair. And on average, the readers favor pictures associated with human achievement, compassion and natural joy. I think this really reflects the divide between the so-called intelligensia (of which I would consider art/photo critics to be part of) and "average folk." And as of last night, I was not surprised to find the two top vote getters were "My Daddy, My Hero" and "Soldier with Child" (my titles for the photos). Both pictures truly represent the best of our military.

Susan Estrich has it right here. A very good column. I couldn't have said it better. But you know that. First Zell Miller and now Estrich. The Democrats are hearing voices but will they listen?

There are a lot of interesting things going on under the Democratic tent. Estrich is might be taking an indirect shot at Dean here. The article can be read from several different angles. Is this part of the anti-Dean campaign within the Democratic Party? Dick Morris has said some interesting things, twice, on Hannity's radio show about the Clinton's maneuverings behind the scenes that are laying the groundwork for Hillary's run in 2008. Estrich, I believe, is a Clinton backer from way back. With Hillary Clinton's buddy, Harold Ickes leading the cheers at the Hate Bush fundraiser/rally in Hollywood, and now this article things are starting to look suspicious. Nothing happens accidently.