We’ve had Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle-Me Elmos. What is the gift of the 2004 Christmas shopping season?
Apparently, it’s poker.
Is there any freakin’ kind of store out there that isn’t carrying casino-style chips and Texas Hold’em sets? Heck, even Bed, Bath & Beyond has a selection. Cool game, but this craze really needs to tone down already.
No offense intended to the Fat Guy and his obsession.
It was a bloodier-than-usual day in Iraq as the terrorists desperately work to stave off the pending elections.
Suicide car bombers struck Iraq’s two main Shi’ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala yesterday, killing at least 62 people and wounding nearly 130, six weeks before a historic election.
Both bombs, which went off about two hours apart, exploded near crowded bus stations in a seemingly co-ordinated attempt to cause as much bloodshed as possible among Shi’ites, a long-oppressed majority expected to dominate the January 30 vote.
Earlier in Baghdad, gunmen killed three Electoral Commission employees after hauling them from a car on a busy street.
In Najaf, the suicide bomber detonated his vehicle about 300 metres from the Imam Ali shrine, near crowds of people queuing for buses and taxis and not far from busy offices.
Medical officials said there were at least 48 dead and 90 wounded in the blast. Police imposed a curfew in Najaf’s old city.
In Karbala, where a suicide bomber stuck about two hours earlier, the main hospital said 14 people were killed and 39 wounded. A hospital official said all appeared to be civilians with many women and children among them.
In an unrelated occurrence, I’ve just about finished my Christmas shopping.
A little over a week ago, I announced the problem I was facing with the pending closing of my hosting service and lack of control of the domain targetcentermass.com. Because of the positive feedback to that post, along with the fact that I’m not yet tired of telling y’all what I think, I’ve decided to move to a new host and a somewhat new domain.
I’d like to announce the new site targetcentermass.net is going live starting … now. Yeah, there’s still some problems to be worked out and more issues are expected, but time is running out on me. I will continue to face these issues as they arise and as I am able, but all posts from now on will be cross-posted on both sites until targetcentermass.com goes away (expected to be Jan. 1, 2005).
I would ask that any who have done me the honor of linking or blogrolling me be so kind as to update my listing to targetcentermass.net. I would also like to thank my new hosting service, Total Choice Hosting, for their receptiveness and responsiveness to date.