Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.





"I Hate The War" -- Most requested feature of the week. C.I.'s entry on how a buffoon being portrayed as such is nothing but parody.





"Relaxing in the Kitchen" -- We all enjoyed that but apparently those who cooked or have ever cooked a large dinner enjoyed it more instantly because they applauded Trina's decision to do a simple post and added things like, "After cooking for about sixty people, the last thing I'd want to do is discuss food as well."





"The uglies: CODESTINK and Jane Fonda" -- CODESTINK wants money. Strangely Jane Fonda wants you to give. We say 'strangely' because Jane could write the check. As C.I. points out, in 2001, she wient back on her promised millions to that college back east so she should have plenty of pennies to roll for CODESTINK. [Starve the beast and, yes, we include I-Need-Attention Benjamin under the heading "beast."]





"Eartha Kitt" and "Eartha Mae Kitt, 1927-2008" -- wrote Christmas Day about the passing of actress, activist, singer and pioneer Eartha Kitt. If you're one of the few who've never heard of Eartha, the next day Marcia's "Cher and Eartha Kitt videos" offered a clip of Eartha performing "Love For Sale" and a clip of Eartha in her most famous TV role: Catwoman.





"THIS JUST IN! CONFUSED BARACK" & "Holes in Barack's education" -- And speaking of Christmas, Wally and Cedric explain the Christmas story to Barack.



"christmas" and "Barney" -- found Rebecca and Mike offering their best loved Christmas presents from childhood.



"Pardons and Christmas" -- is Mike's Christmas Day post where he explains that a pardon, once offered, should not be retracted and where he observes the rush to end Christmas before the day's even over.





"melissa etheridge & trophy wife, shut the hell up," "Another British refugee from Hitler,"
"More s**t from Arianna's cesspool," "Ruth Hassell-Thompson for the US Senate,"
"Richard Cohen, holidays and more," "Richard Wright and other dirty things," "THIS JUST IN! STUPIDITY ON ALL SIDES!" & "Pope Melissa and other stupidities" -- sometimes themes are planned. Mike or Ruth will think of a theme and toss it out to everyone to see if they like it. Other times, themes just emerge. The latter was the case for the above by Rebecca, Ruth, Kat, Ruth, Stan, Mike, Wally and Cedric.



Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Princess Brat Campaigns" -- Isaiah's continued coverage of the Entitled Princess stamping her feet for a Senate seat. You should also see Kat's "And people made fun of Sarah Palin" and Elaine's "Caroline."





"Matt Dillon: Eye Candy" -- Now who would've guessed Ruth for a movie star crush? And on Matt Dillon at that? (Rebecca adds, "Good taste, Ruth!")





"Margaret Kimberley weclomes the homophobes" -- In last week's "Roundtable," Betty and Marcia made a point to support and praise Stan's "Margret Kimberley, The Black Apologist." And for any who doubted how right Stan was, do like Marcia did for this post, check out the comments at Kimberley's post and realize how welcomed she's made homophobes feel with her excuses. Homophobia runs free in the comment thread and that's a direct result of the crap Margaret Kimberley tossed out.



"James Bond" -- Stan's Friday movie post and this one deals with the James Bond films.





"Chatty post" -- Elaine also offers some movie thoughts here and two more things on this. We found a truest nominee in Elaine's post and, while we were writing this, Ty hollered we'd missed another in the same post. Ty, Ava and C.I. felt Elaine wrote a truest. All but Elaine quickly agreed when Ty was filling us in so we have two truests this week. Elaine says, "If C.I. would do the feature I wrote about in that post, we'd also have a short post and be done except for the editorial."



Elisabeth Bumiller's "Trying to Redefine Role of U.S. Military in Iraq" (New York Times) and Alissa J. Rubin's "Political Power Plays Unsettle Iraq" (New York Times) -- No, they aren't community members but each woman was a truest nominee and with our two truest picked, they may not get noted elsewhere. Ty passed on C.I. was asking if we could highlight Bumiller and Rubin's piece in this? Not only will we do so, will write something about it which we probably should have done last week instead of just depending upon C.I.'s snapshots to cover them. Bumiller showed up Monday morning with one of the most honest and in-depth analysis of what's coming for the US military in Iraq. If you missed it, you need to go read it right away. Because it's Bumiller, she may still have a shot at truest. We could do three truests but that's pushing it and we've never done more than that. 'Because it's Bumiller'? Rebecca, "We can all hear C.I. pointing out we've been more than happy over the years to call her out so when she's earned praise, we should be willing to give it to her just as quickly." So Bumiller has a shot at still being a truest. Alissa J. Rubin? C.I. covers Rubin and Mike's written of Rubin. Otherwise, she never appears at community sites except in the snapshot repostings. (We're not even sure she's been singled out for praise or negative criticism here at Third.) So she probably doesn't stand a chance at a truest now. But on Friday she offered an analysis of Iraq that offered more truths than you'd expect from any outlet. She sketched out the possibilities, the rumors and the fears. Both pieces are must reads. So go read them!



As the byline notes, we write this piece. It's our space and we can do whatever we want, Elaine just pointed out. Her point? There were several readers e-mailing to nominate various passages by C.I. for truest. The one that we all voted for (and C.I. nixed) was this from Friday's "Iraq snapshot:"





Marjorie Cohn, Naomi Wolf and all the others who embarrassed themselves by public slobbering over Barack Obama and insisting he would 'save' the Constitution, when do you plan to get [off]your lazy asses and call the above out? Now the Gitmo attorneys made fools out of themselves as well but they've already been publicly punked and no longer rush to assure how dreamy Barack is. But let's see some of these 'brave voices' for the Constitution step up to the damn plate. They could be counted on to DELUDE themselves and schill for Barack. Can they now try standing up for the Constitution of the United States of America or is that too damn hard? Bill Clinton could not -- at any time during his eight years in office -- have gotten away witha d omestic intelligence agency (currently against the law) but Barack might be able to because so many 'leaders' are chicken s**t when it comes to calling him out. So come on Marj, you could distort reality to attack Hillary and advance Barack. Let's see you address the Constitution, big girl, let's see you protect it. Naomi, you made an utter fool out of yourself. Your racism in Fire With Fire was nothing compared to what you did in 2008. So if you're not zonked out on drugs or 'love,' how about you step up to the damn plate and call out this attack on the Consitution?And those are only two of the many public fools -- idiots who damn well should have known better but felt running a fan club was more important than protecting the Constitution and our civil liberties.





"why aren't greens fighting for appointed seats?" -- Rebecca raises a very important point and Greens need to be asking why they're not demanding consideration for seats? (One group of voters is proposing that Ralph Nader be in the consideration for New York senator.)



"Robert Parry is an ASS" -- Ruth's truest. :D We love this piece. We especially love that Ruth emphasized ass by using all caps.


"Develop a sense of perspective" -- Kat's post was needed and that may be the saddest thing this month. Six months after Hillary dropped out of the race for the presidential nomination from her party, the EZ bake writers still need to attack her and make her more evil than participatings in Iran-Contra and a host of other crimes.