The entire Russian Imperial family was murdered in 1918 at the order of Lenin -- and the remains of the "missing Romanovs" have now been positively identified.

For nine decades after Bolshevik executioners shot Czar Nicholas II and his family, there were no traces of the remains of Crown Prince Aleksei, the hemophiliac heir to RussiaÂ’s throne.

Some said the prince, a delicate 13-year-old, had somehow survived and escaped; others believed he was buried in secret as the country lurched into civil war.

Now an official says DNA tests have solved the mystery by identifying bone shards found in a forest as those of Aleksei and his sister Grand Duchess Maria.

The remains of their parents, Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, and three siblings, including the czarÂ’s youngest daughter, Anastasia, were unearthed in 1991 and reburied in the imperial resting place in St. Petersburg. The Russian Orthodox Church made all seven of them saints in 2000.

The murder of the family was simply one of the many atrocities committed in the name of Communism over the course of many decades, and the family are only a few of the millions of victims of that Satanic ideology. May the closing of the book on this historical question serve as one more pointed reminder of the malignant nature of Communism and the fact that it is antithetical to any valid notion of human rights.

Posted by: Greg at 10:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 240 words, total size 2 kb.

They can't keep their candidates off of FoxNews.

The nationÂ’s top Democrats are suddenly rushing to appear on the Fox News Channel, which they once had shunned as enemy territory as the nemesis of liberal bloggers.

The detente with Fox has provoked a backlash from progressive bloggers, who contend the party’s leaders are turning their backs on the base — and lending credibility and legitimacy to the network liberals love to hate — in a quest for a few swing votes.

In a span of eight days, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean are all taking their seats with the network that calls itself “fair and balanced” but is widely viewed as skewing conservative.

With the partyÂ’s presidential contest reduced to hand-to-hand combat, Democrats are turning to the ratings leader among cable news channels in a clear rebuff to the liberal activists known as the Netroots.

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the leading liberal site Daily Kos, told Politico’s Michael Calderone: "Democrats are being idiotic by going on that network.”

Ari Melber, the Net movement correspondent for The Nation, told Politico by phone that progressive activists and the Netroots are “not happy about it.”

“I don’t think that it is tenable to completely neglect or ignore what your base wants,” Melber said.

Of course, it is absurd for Democrats to stay after the highest rated cable news channel. After all, that is where the viewers -- including a lot of the independents that they claim to be reaching out to. Why cede those voters to the GOP by making Fox a Democrat-free zone?

Besides -- who are the KOSsacks and DUmmies going to vote for this fall in a fit of disapproval of the Fox interviews -- John McCain?

Posted by: Greg at 10:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 310 words, total size 2 kb.

Yes, it is clearly a suicide. Yes, there were plenty of warnings given that she would kill herself. But that won't stop plenty of folks from coming up with conspiracy theories about "who killed the DC Madam."

A woman convicted two weeks ago of being the "D.C. Madam" hanged herself Thursday, apparently making good on her vow never to go to prison for running a high-end Washington prostitution ring.

The body of Deborah Jeane Palfrey was found in a shed near her mother's home about 20 miles northwest of Tampa. Police said the 52-year-old Palfrey left at least two suicide notes and other writings to her family in a notebook, but they did not disclose their contents.

Palfrey apparently hanged herself with nylon rope from the shed's ceiling. Her mother discovered the body.

Officers were outside the mother's white and pink home in the community of mostly retirees.

Of course, the fact that her mother says that Palfrey was not suicidal will fuel the conspiracy theories -- even though a number of other folks claim she had been making comments about killing herself rather than going back to jail for some time.

And I've already seen plenty of members of the mouth-foaming Leftosphere speculating about which Republican/conservative was being protected by the "murder of Deborah Jeane Palfrey".

Even though there wasn't a murder.

And even though the fact that she was so quick to disclose Republican names ought to make one wonder if she might have been holding (Bill Clinton) back (Bill Clinton) on (Bill Clinton) the (Bill Clinton) names (Bill Clinton) of (Bill Clinton) prominent (Bill Clinton) Democrats (Bill Clinton) -- and the threat of disclosure at the height of the Democrat presidential nomination contest serving as grounds for her timely and convenient demise, as has happened so often over the years to those with inconvenient information about a particular wannabe political dynasty.

Not, of course, that I believe for one second that this is anything more than a suicide by a troubled woman. But if the nutroots are going to toss around conspiracy theories, I might as well suggest one just as plausible in order to demonstrate teh absurdity of their efforts.

Posted by: Greg at 10:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 378 words, total size 2 kb.

When we moved in to our current house, all the windows had some pretty standard mini blinds in place -- the kind you buy at the local department store to cut corners on fixing up the house. Over the years they have become rather dilapidated. As summer approaches, I'm thinking that maybe we need to get something different for our windows -- and I am leaning towards these blackout Roman shades to help cool the house during the hot Texas summer – especially since they are both stylish and affordable.

Posted by: Greg at 08:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

And the rest of my fellow MuNuvians as well.

According to our fearless leader Pixy Misa, we got mega-spammed by the usual sort of scumbags who send out unwanted and unrelated comments for porn, drugs, and other assorted crap. The server was slammed down hard, but Pixy got things working for us.

Thanks for all you do!

Posted by: Greg at 12:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.

This is sick.

In 2007, Costa Rican "artist" Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery in Honduras, and starved him to death. For several days, the 'artist' and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful 'masterpiece' based on the dog's agony, until eventually he died. And now the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the 'installation' was actually art, so that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the biennial of 2008.

If you'd like more information and to sign a petition to stop this from happening again:

[Go here and here]

The photos are pretty sickening, even to those of us in the unwanted animal biz who have to see sick, starving and dying animals every day. How anyone could have passed by and not given that poor dog a bowl of water and some food is beyond sick.

Thank you.

I can’t help but echo Jonah Goldberg’s opinion that we should try this with Guillermo Vargas Habacuc instead of some poor animal. But this sort of cruelty makes me wonder if perhaps we’ve found a new line of defense for Austria’s Josef Fritzl. I can hear it in court: “It wasn’t rape, false imprisonment, and unspeakable evil, your honor – it was ART!”

Posted by: Greg at 12:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 234 words, total size 2 kb.

Most folks have heard by now about Susan LeFevre, the San Diego woman arrested after more than three decades on the lam following her escape from prison in Detroit. But did you see the comment her husband. Alan Walsh, made about her?

"Our family is threatened to be destroyed by something that happened to her as a 19-year-old teenager 34 years ago in Michigan," Walsh said.

Excuse me? “Something that happened. . . 34 years ago in Michigan”? Is this guy serious?

Dude – your wife lied to the world for over three decades since she escaped from prison, and to you for the over 23 years that you have been married. Rather than own up to her crimes and do her time, she worked to hide them and avoid the consequences. What may, sadly, destroy your family is her web of dishonesty and criminality dating back to the Ford Administration. Why don’t you meditate on that for a while.

Posted by: Greg at 12:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 168 words, total size 1 kb.

Vanity Fair is about to run a cover featuring teen superstar Miley Cyrus. The photo, shot by glorious photographer Annie Liebovitz, is not pornographic, but it is disturbing nonetheless. The Wall Street Journal notes the reason.

She is also 15. Thus this week's uproar over a seminude photo by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair magazine. The photo – showing Miley draped in a sheet, back bared, hair tousled, with a come-hither smile – upset countless parents who immediately grasped the photo's essential vulgarity.
Such ordinary wisdom apparently escaped every so-called grown-up involved in the photo shoot. The sophisticates at Vanity Fair defended the picture as a "beautiful and natural portrait." Absent sensible adults, Miley herself stepped forward to issue a statement saying that the now-embarrassing photo shoot was supposed to be "artistic."

This isn’t a porno shot – it really does qualify as an art shot. But a (seemingly) naked teenage girl draped in a sheet is a bit too sexual for my taste. Frankly, it is a bit too sexualized in a society in which teenage sexuality is already a source of concern. After all, we’ve just removed hundreds of children from a religious cult over the issue of sexual abuse of girls the same age as Miley Cyrus – aren’t we sending a highly contradictory message when we show her in a seductive pose on the cover of a national magazine?

Posted by: Greg at 10:46 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.