RICH, SPOILED, AMORAL CELEBRITY UPDATE:
Unfortunately, Charlie Sheen and his latest antics seem to fit the mold of a wealthy celebrity who thinks rules don't apply to him, though his wife apparently ignored it all:
"The bad boy image Charlie Sheen earned long before his Christmas Day arrest once seemed little more than a laughing matter to wife Brooke Mueller. Seven months before she dialed 911 to report her firsthand take on the actor’s bad behavior, Mueller explained how she saw Sheen. “It’s hysterical to me that he has this reputation,” Mueller told In Touch Weekly. “Charlie is just amazing.” So amazing, evidently, that the “Two and a Half Men” star’s laundry list of low moments hardly registered with his bride. That’s quite the oversight considering the highlights include a $50,000 call-girl tab, a “no contest” plea to past battery charges and an accidental gunshot wound to short-term fiancée Kelly Preston, just to name a few."
Perhaps Sheen's brand of selfishness and irresponsibility is a good reminder for all of us this holiday season, especially as we approach the celebrations of New Year's.
TERRORISM UPDATE:
National Review Online explains well today why the attempted Christmas Day terror attack is a good reason NOT to close Gitmo:
"On Christmas Day, we got yet another indicator of how reckless this obsession with closing Gitmo is. A well-to-do Nigerian jihadist, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, tried to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying 289 passengers and crew, as it was preparing to land in Detroit after a flight from Amsterdam. The 23-year-old Mutallab attempted to ignite an incendiary chemical bomb, the components of which he assembled in flight after smuggling them onto the aircraft. He reportedly confessed to the FBI that he had been trained and tasked for the operation by al-Qaeda in Yemen. ABC News reported on Monday that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — a merger of the network’s formidable hubs in Yemen and neighboring Saudi Arabia — has claimed responsibility for the attack. Hailing Mutallab as a “hero” and “martyr,” the organization boasted of its success in designing “advanced explosive packages” that can evade U.S. security measures. It promised additional strikes against Americans....What should not wait another day, however, is for President Obama to disavow his plan to shutter Guantanamo Bay. The chieftains of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) currently include at least three Gitmo alumni who have returned with a vengeance to the jihad. Said al Shihri, AQAP’s second in command, is a former Gitmo detainee who is believed to have been behind the 2008 attack on the American embassy in Sanaa. Gitmo veteran Ibrahim Rubaish is the Islamic jurisprudential authority responsible for approving AQAP terrorist operations. Muhammad Attik al-Harbi became an AQAP field commander after being released from Gitmo on the promise that he’d be rehabilitated in the Saudi re-education program — a scheme premised on the dubious notion that terrorists can be wooed away from jihad by immersion in Wahhabist principles. (Al-Harbi is reportedly back in Saudi custody, undergoing re-re-education.) AQAP’s senior operatives also include Anwar al Awlaki, the Muslim cleric with whom Nidal Hassan consulted in the months before carrying out the Fort Hood massacre. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that at least some of the former Gitmo detainees in Yemen are complicit in the Christmas Day attack, and that they are planning similar strikes. It is incredible that the administration would even consider adding to their ranks. Yemen’s record of permitting jihadists (including the bombers of the U.S.S. Cole) to escape from custody and rejoin the fight is appalling."
