Vikings Fire Tice After Victory Over Bears MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Minnesota Vikings became an embarrassment on Mike Tice's watch, with a ticket scalping scandal, the infamous lake cruise and a Whizzinator somewhere in between. There weren't enough wins to cover up the ugliness, and now Tice is out of a job. Owner Zygi Wilf fired Tice after Sunday's victory over Chicago capped a disappointing 9-7 season in which the Vikings, a trendy preseason pick to go to the Super Bowl, missed the playoffs. The news wasn't a surprise, but the timing and manner in which it was delivered stunned the few players remaining in the stadium Sunday. A team executive issued a two-paragraph press release to reporters in the Vikings' locker room after most players had gone home.

 

Pro Bowl kick returner Koren Robinson had to compose himself before commenting, managing a "Whoa, that's crazy," while he read the statement at his locker. In the locker room? Right after a game you just won?" Robinson said. "Give the man respect enough to wait until Monday to enjoy the win at least." Pro Bowl safety Darren Sharper crumpled up the release and threw it on the floor before declining comment and running back Mewelde Moore also tersely declined comment. Tice, who finished his fourth full season with a 32-32 overall record, had already addressed the media before the move was made public. Reporters waited for him long after the game was over, and the coach wore a good-natured smile and showed no bitterness about the way the situation was handled.

 

Note from Tom: I like Mike, and am not pleased, especially given he never had a losing season in his three years as head-coach ... but I do understand it.  BTW: thanks to Joe Sensor for a football season of Monday at 5 PM -- "game-after" commentary on Tom's Place.  He generously offered to do this with no remuneration, and just because he's a great guy and good friend.  Thanks Joe ... and folks ... please dine in any of his three local restaurants!

 

A tiny fish could be a big factor in some development plans Endangered, if not cuddly, a minnow is slowing road projects and there are fears it could interfere with dairy expansion. Can the minnow coexist with the cow? That's a question some people have been asking in the southwestern corner of Minnesota, home of the Topeka shiner. The shiner, the only fish in Minnesota on the federal endangered species list, has delayed road building, slowed permits for water projects and raised hackles among Minnesota county officials. Now, some say, the minnow could block some economic development, including the possibility of a 3,000-cow dairy operation that is being talked about near Adrian, Minn. The shiner "has had major impact, some good, some not so good," said Doug Bos, assistant director of the Rock County Land Management office in Luverne. Lincoln County Commissioner Curt Blumeyer said concern about the minnow "holds up our [road] construction until later in the year."

 

Iran President: Israel Completed Holocaust Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hard-line president who has said the Holocaust was a myth, now has charged that European countries sought to complete the genocide by establishing a Jewish state in the midst of Muslim countries.

"Don't you think that continuation of genocide by expelling Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of Al- Quds (Jerusalem)?" the official Islamic Republic News agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Sunday. "Isn't that an important question?"

Ahmadinejad said Europeans had decided to create a "Jewish camp" as the best means for ridding the continent of Jews. He said the camp, Israel, now enjoyed support from the United States and Europe in the slaughter of Muslims. In October, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

 

'US planning strike against Iran'  The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran. The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike. According to the report, CIA Director Porter Goss, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault. Although Der Spiegel could not say that these plans were concrete, they did note that according to a January 2005 New Yorker report American forces had entered Iran in 2005 in order to mark possible targets for an aerial assault.

 

Jimmy Carter's Psychic Connection (see www.newsmax.com) Former President Jimmy Carter reveals that he once used a psychic in a trance to do what the United States' satellite surveillance system couldn't - find a downed American plane. In an interview for GQ magazine excerpted in The Weekly Standard's Scrapbook section, Carter recalls: "We had a plane go down in the Central African Republic - a twin-engine plane, small plane. And we couldn't find it. "So we oriented satellites that were going around the earth every 90 minutes to fly over that spot where we thought it might be and take photographs. We couldn't find it. "So the director of the CIA (Stansfield Turner) came and told me that he had contacted a woman in California that claimed to have supernatural capabilities. And she went into a trance, and she wrote down latitudes and longitudes, and we sent our satellites over that latitude and longitude, and there was the plane." The Weekly Standard comments: "The Scrapbook figures this woman is probably no longer alive. Otherwise they'd have found bin Laden by now."

 

Note from Tom: The Cater administration is considered one of the least effective presidencies in history.  Still, I intend no disrespect, as Carter is not Clinton.  He's a generally moral, and well-intended man, BUT ... let's be honest; as many have, I've often thought that he's not been well for some time ... though I didn't think it went back that far.

 

Artifacts with links to Bible unearthed JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists, screening tons of rubble scooped out of this ancient city's sacred Temple Mount, have discovered hundreds of artifacts and coins, as well as jewelry, some with biblical links dating back more than three millennia. Most of the stones and earth originally were taken to an organic garbage dump in nearby Bethany, the New Testament town known in Arabic as Al-Azariya, and could not be retrieved. But a substantial portion was diverted to the Valley of Kidron, mentioned in the Old Testament and located just outside the Old City's massive walls. This ambitious archaeological project, known as the Temple Mount Antiquities Operation, was started in November 2004, when Muslims excavated the sector north of Solomon's Stables to build the massive underground Marwani Mosque. Its second season, now under way, will last until February.

 

Bush defines intercepts as 'limited' President Bush yesterday defined as "limited" a once-secret program to intercept al Qaeda-linked calls to and from the United States, saying, "This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America, and I repeat -- limited," Mr. Bush told reporters after visiting wounded troops at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. "It seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al Qaeda or an al Qaeda affiliate, and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why," he said. Mr. Bush repeated his view that a president is empowered by the Constitution to authorize such warrantless intercepts, and said there has been judicial and congressional oversight of the top-secret program. "I have a responsibility, obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing," he said. "It's a program that's been reviewed constantly by Justice Department officials, a program to which the Congress has been briefed, and a program that is, in my judgment, necessary to win this war and to protect the American people."

 

 

If you're not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he's the famous erudite scientist who once said: "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen, and replaced by exact duplicates." His mind sees things differently than we do, to our amazement and amusement.

Here are some more of his gems:
1- I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2- Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
3- Half the people you know are below average.
4- 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5- A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
6- If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
7- All those who believe in psychogenesis, raise my hand.
8- The early bird may get the worm, the second mouse gets the cheese.
9- I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
10- OK, so what's the speed of dark?
11- Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
12- When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
13- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to avoid work.
14- Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.
15- I intend to live forever -- so far, so good.
16- Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
17- What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
18- Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
19- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
20- The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

21- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
22- Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.
23- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

24- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

25- My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

DOCTOR VISIT

A man goes to the doctor for his yearly physical.

The nurse starts with certain basics.
"How much do you weigh?"  she asks.
"115," he  says.
The nurse puts him on the scale.  It turns out his weight is 140.
The nurse asks, "Your height?"
"5 foot 8," he says.
The nurse checks and sees that he only measures 5' 5".
She then takes his blood  pressure and tells the man it is very high.

"Of course it's high!" he screams, "When I came in here I was tall and slender! Now I'm short and fat!"

These are REAL notes written by PARENTS in a Tennessee school district...(Spellings have been left intact.)

1-- MY SON IS UNDER A DOCTOR'S CARE AND SHOULD NOT TAKE PE TODAY. PLEASE EXECUTE HIM.
2-- PLEASE EXKUCE LISA FOR BEING ABSENT SHE WAS SICK AND I HAD HER SHOT.
3-- DEAR SCHOOL: PLEASE ECSC's JOHN BEING ABSENT ON JAN. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 AND ALSO 33.
4-- PLEASE EXCUSE ROLAND FROM P.E. FOR A FEW DAYS. YESTERDAY HE FELL OUT OF A TREE AND MISPLACED HIS HIP.
5-- JOHN HAS BEEN ABSENT BECAUSE HE HAD TWO TEETH TAKEN OUT OF HIS FACE.
6-- MEG AN COULD NOT COME TO SCHOOL TODAY BECAUSE SHE HAS BEEN BOTHERED BY VERY CLOSE VEINS.
7-- CHRIS WILL NOT BE IN SCHOOL CUS HE HAS AN ACRE IN HIS SIDE.
8-- PLEASE EXCUSE RAY FRIDAY FROM SCHOOL. HE HAS VERY LOOSE VOWELS.
9-- PLEASE EXCUSE TOMMY FOR BEING ABSENT YESTERDAY. HE HAD DIARRHEA, AND HIS BOOTS LEAK.
10-- PLEASE EXCUSE JIMMY FOR BEING. IT WAS HIS FATHER'S FAULT.
11-- I KEPT BILLIE HOME BECAUSE SHE HAD TO GO CHRISTMAS SHOPPING BECAUSE I DONT KNOW WHAT SIZE SHE WEAR.
12-- PLEASE EXCUSE JENNIFER FOR MISSING SCHOOL YESTERDAY. WE FORGOT TO GET THE SUNDAY PAPER OFF THE ORCH, AND WHEN WE FOUND IT MONDAY. WE THOUGHT IT WAS SUNDAY.
13-- SALLY WON'T BE IN SCHOOL A WEEK FROM FRIDAY. WE HAVE TO ATTEND HER FUNERAL.
14-- GLORIA WAS ABSENT YESTERDAY AS SHE WAS HAVING A GANGOVER.

Former heavyweight wrestler, Corp. CEO & volunteer for Pres. Bush's Faith-Based Initiative, Tom Marsland's the host of Tom's Place from 3-6 PM CST on 95.9 FM & AM 1300 in the Twin Cities, and is now president-elect of the win Cities Republican Association. Tom writes cultural, political & religious commentary for numerous publications, is heard weekly as U.S. correspondent to New Zealand's Nation-wide Radio Rhema & daily on African Public Radio, the only radio option for 100 million English speaking Africans.