Dear Osama,

"[B]urning living beings is forbidden in our religion, even if they be small like the ant, so what of man?!" -- Osama bin Laden in his latest video.

~~~~~

How 'bout women, Osama-baby? Children?

After reading the transcript of your latest video, I really think you've been hitting Daily Kos a bit much.

By the looks of your new "do," you definitely need to get out more, too. Let the professionals take care of your hair coloring. They do so much better a job than those in-cave dye jobs that come in a box.

If your beard looks that bad, (it's a lousy cut, too) I can only imagine how badly the hair on your head turned out. No wonder you're wearing that hat to hide it. Good move, but trust me on this. The Jackie-Kennedy-pillbox style you're wearing went out of fashion 45 years ago.

I know it goes with the bathrobe you're wearing, Osama-baby, but you need ditch that, too. I realize clothes shopping's been difficult for you, but how many times are you going to wear that ol' thing? You were wearing the same one the last time we saw you!

(I know, I know. It's comfortable. I really do understand. I have a bathrobe just like yours, except mine's baby blue.)

I'm sure no one wants to tell you this, Osama-baby, but no matter how many "wives" you have at your beck and call, you're really not "Hef." Just 'cause he runs around his mansion in his pj's 24/7 doesn't mean you should.

He has Bunnies and a mansion! You, a cave! See the difference?

Anyway . . . "write" again soon, Osama-baby.

We've missed you.

Dear Nico,

Thank you for your February 8 email concerning this post. You wrote, "You might see fit to mention this point while commenting on Pelosi's aircraft issues. We've been covering the story all week," and you even included a link to "Hastert Used Military Aircraft To Fly Foley Page Scandal Figure To Washington."

That's just so danged thoughtful of you, especially as busy as you are.

That you even noticed this tiny little blog of mine much less took the time to write to me . . . really, I'm almost speechless. Almost, but not quite.

Consider it mentioned, purple prose headline and all.

<snicker>

The headline of the Think Progress story you, as one of its assistant editors and perhaps the story's author, emailed, makes it clear just how desperately you want to try to distract from "Pelosi's aircraft issues." Why else would <gasp> "Foley Page Scandal" be relevent much less the need for the word (cue the ominous music) "Figure" in the headline.

Such imagery conveyed with only a few words! Like . . . uh, the Runaway Bride, maybe? A towel draped over this mysterious "figure's" head to hide their identity? I commend you, Nico! Such a similarity in tone to a headline I saw at the grocery store the other day: "Space Aliens Ate My Baby's Brain."

Anyway, interestingly enough, as the Think Progress piece noted in regular font but drowned in the surrounding sea of text in BOLD (So that readers would skim by it?), the "Foley Page Scandal Figure" was none other than Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), who happened to be chair of the board overseeing the page program at the time. And like Hastert, <gasp> also IN Illinois.

So, with the Lefty-Loons and media hyping "Foleygate," the military aircraft taking Hastert back to Washington from Illinois, makes a stop at another Air Force Base in Illinois, to pick up the guy in charge of the page program, too.

Can you imagine?

I can imagine how you would have spun it if Shimkus hadn't been in Washington because he was still waiting for a connecting flight: Bush Orders Hastert To Delay Appearance by Page Scandal Witness.

Feel free to email me again, Nico. Any time.

Dear Spammer,

Thank you for stopping by. I enjoyed your visit.

You see, because you had to hand key whatever the coding script was (and I betcha it blew up on you a couple of time like it does for . . . even me) in order to publish your reply, I know it took far more time for you to leave your load of URLs than it did for me to delete it.

I always wonder, too, why spammers like your employer think that their "advertisements" — riddled with spelling errors and bad grammar as they always are — inspire so much confidence in the company you're working for, that people will click on the URLs you so thoughtfully provide, in order to part with their hard-earned rupees dollars for whatever they're shilling .

But, I digress.

Although it's obvious that English is not the first language of whoever wrote the scripts you cut and pasted, I do commend their efforts. It was close.

Did I say scripts? As in more than one?

Why yes, I did!

You see, dear Spammer, you were supposed to select the most appropriate script , then cut and paste that one and that one only.

Not cut and paste ALL of them.

So thank you, dear Spammer, for my perverse laugh of the day.

Dear Scarlett,

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to comment on this post. I've always found it difficult to reply to talking points tossed like muck from a bucket. The hope, I know, is that something . . . anything will hit and while the target is distracted, ya hit ‘em with another bucketful.

So I'm not going to bother trying to untangle your screeds. What I am going to do, however, is pinpoint a few items I've chosen to pull out and address only them.

You wrote:

Bush cut funds that were intended to fix the problems with the levees and diverted that money to the middle east where it ended up in the hands of those at Haliburton which also got a no-bid contract to rebuild NO.

No. But I'm only going to talk about Halliburton's "no-bid" contracts.

The work Halliburton did and is doing in the middle east, and the projects it's currently working on in New Orleans were awarded under the U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. Known as LOGCAP, it is a competitively-awarded umbrella contract for specific items and services. Please see here for a quick overview of the program's history.

Halliburton is NOT rebuilding New Orleans. In Katrina's wake it is repairing the Navy's facilities and piers along the Gulf Coast. The other emergency project was and is repairing the water pumps in New Orleans so that it can be emptied out. (See here and here.)

You wrote:

The Bush administration gave millions in aid to the TALIBAN and members of the Taliban visited Washington and engaged in negotitions with the Bush adm for a pipeline thru Afganistan. Bush promised them a "carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs" for the pipeline.

I'll correct only one thing here. It was the Clinton Administration. In 1997 . . .

"[w]hile Afghanistan became a sanctuary for al Qaeda, the State Department’s interest in Afghanistan remained limited. Initially after the Taliban’s rise, some State diplomats were, as one official said to us, willing to “give the Taliban a chance” because it might be able to bring stability to Afghanistan. A secondary consideration was that stability would allow an oil pipeline to be built through the country, a project to be managed by the Union Oil Company of California, or UNOCAL." -- 9-11 Commission

As for your contention, Scarlett, that Saddam shoulda been left alone 'cause he never hurt or killed nobody in the US . . . Hussein and Terror.

Interesting stuff about the links to Iraq and the attack on the World Trade Center. The one in 1993.

If you're not familiar with that one, google it!

Dear Dr. Steinmetz:

Thank you for your reply of June 1.

Having worked for a physician for several years in a former life, please forgive me for being more than a tad skeptical.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that someone of the renown you claim would bother with this little blog, would refer to themselves as an Md, [emp — ed] would reply so informally and make that many errors doing so.

Although you wrote as "Anonymous" your ISP indicates you are writing from the Michigan area. A google search reveals numerous credentialed individuals with the name Steinmetz — the name you provided in the body of your reply — in that locale but none of them are A.Z. In fact, I can't find an A.Z. Steinmetz anywhere.

Regarding your research, a link to where it's been published will be appreciated since you encourage more of it in order to learn the truth because the information available through law enforcement and media sources is incorrect.

Your statement that 98 percent of sexual offenders are parents is particularly intriguing considering the search criteria you used. Does your mentioning it indicate that to you, the sexual abuse of a child by a stranger is somehow less of a crime?

Further, I'd like to find out more about the services you provide to the 400 sexual offenders you — a Fellow with the American College of Surgeons — treat annually.

I await your reply.