Monday December 24, 2001

Wish our troops a Merry Christmas.

He's Come Undone: There's something quite satisfying about watching Geraldo Rivera having a nervous breakdown. Howard Kurtz captures some of his nearly Oscar Wildean keenings as he tries desperately to dig himself out of a really bad career move by hurling insults at the Baltimore Sun reporter who broke the story of Rivera's phony "hallowed ground" report.

Today's Osama Sighting: This may become a regular item here. For today, the Times of India says he is in Kashmir. But, don't get excited. He's bound to be somewhere else by tomorrow. As a matter of fact, we swear we saw him getting into a cab in front of Bloomingdale's yesterday.

These Boots Were Made for Bombing: A 6'4" 200 pound ponytailed man whose name was either Richard Reid, Tariq Raja or Abdel Raheem was permitted to board a Paris to Miami flight with no luggage, a one way ticket, an iffy passport and a brief history of having been turned away from the same Paris/Miami flight the day before. On board he tries to set fire to the explosives in his shoes, is subdued by passengers and later says he's from Jamaica or Sri Lanka. Trent Lott says this should make us all alert. We say this makes us crazy. Hopefully, this will all get straightened out today. When people start turning themselves into weapons and they all have roughly the same background, racial profiling takes on a whole new meaning.

All Righty, All Rudy: We don't care what Time magazine's reasons were for choosing Rudy Giuliani as Person of The Year. We like it. He doesn't exactly fit their designated requirements as he only became worthy after a historical fact like 911 but who cares? Could we have stood the endless bleating from the media throughout Christmas if they had chosen bin Laden?

Five Finger Discounts: Every Christmas we have another Shoplifting-on-the-rise story. We particularly like this item in the Times' piece on theft. A guard at Toys R Us caught a guy trying to leave the store with a giant stuffed giraffe because the head was sticking up out of his jacket. These guys could find work in security for American Airlines. Maybe.

We are off to clean up the mess from our huge, virtual Ldot party online all weekend. We thank you all for coming. It was a blast! Our trusty hit counter tells us more than 15,000 people were there at some point over the weekend. If you missed it it's because you log on from work and not home. Stop that! Ldot addiction is a seven day a week thing.

-Your Nearly Wrapped LComStaff