Merry Christmas folks. Gather the family ’round and watch this awesome video from the 1st Battallion 4th Marines, Bravo Company 3rd Platoon in Fallujah.

I wonder how much good will GM and Chrysler are burning these days? They’ve almost criminally mismanaged their companies and now they’re going to dip into our pockets to cover for their mistakes:

The loans are three-year loans but the money will have to be repaid immediately if the firms do not show themselves to be viable by March 31. It is expected that the companies will have to negotiate new agreements with unions and creditors in order to do so.

During brief remarks at the White House, President Bush said in normal times he would have not been in favor of preventing a bankruptcy of the two companies. But the current state of the economy and credit markets left him no choice but to act.

“Government has a responsibility to safeguard the broader health and stability of our economy,” he said. “If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy and liquidation for the automakers.”

“In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action,” Bush added.

My last two autos have been Fords. They’ve been dependable and solid forcing me to deal with only a single real maintenance issue in eight years. I just made my final payment this month and I’d typically be looking for something new but I plan to hold off for a year or more if my SUV hangs tough. Ford is still in the running for my next purchase because they’re transforming, making progress, and have showed some restraint when it comes to taking our tax dollars. However, they’re still an unlikely recipient of my future business because I don’t see anything really compelling, from a design or feature standpoint, on their lots. At the end of the day it comes down to the relationship between the product and consumer - at least it should.

@senatus broke the story on Twitter but it appears to be a minor event:

A construction crew using torches to work on water pipes on the second level of the 580,000-square-foot center accidentally set fire to insulation shortly after 1 p.m., said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the D.C. fire department.

He described the damage as “negligible” and said the fire did not jeopardize any historical artifacts on display at the $621 million center, which opened Dec. 2 after six years of construction work.

I thought Iraqis were a bit more restrained than this. This is the sort of behavior you’d expect from Keith Olbermann or Helen Thomas.

Bush was, as usual, cool under fire:

Zaidi yelled “Dog, dog!” as he was surrounded by Iraqi security officers, who tackled him and began to beat him. Zaidi was later removed from the ornate room in the heavily fortified Green Zone where the news conference was taking place.

Bush was not injured and joked about the incident minutes later: “If you want the facts, it’s a size 10 shoe that he threw. Thank you for your concern; do not worry about it.”

Zaidi, colleagues said, was kidnapped by Shiite militiamen last year and was later released.

Zaidi would do well to consider this point, made on Twitter, by Cameron Kaiser:

btw, to those snickering over Bush+shoes, remember throwing shoes at Saddam would’ve meant death, and that would’ve been lenient.

There’s really not much I can add to this:

A Korean immigrant who lost his wife, two children and mother-in-law when a Marine Corps jet slammed into the family’s house said Tuesday he did not blame the pilot, who ejected and survived.

“Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident,” a distraught Dong Yun Yoon told reporters gathered near the site of Monday’s crash of an F/A-18D jet in San Diego’s University City community.

“He is one of our treasures for the country,” Yoon said in accented English punctuated by long pauses while he tried to maintain his composure.

“I don’t blame him. I don’t have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could,” said Yoon, flanked by members of San Diego’s Korean community, relatives and members from the family’s church.

I can’t imagine what either of these men must be going through.

Update:
Some are having the opposite reaction:

I haven’t been in the military for some time, but I distinctly remember one of their big things when flying jets was to avoid civilian casualties at all costs. That means two things: first off, that pilot should have done more to make sure that the plane was as far away from that neighborhood as possible. If there was any possibility to control the plane’s trajectory even just a little bit, he should have done everything he could to do it. Even if it meant costing him his own life.

That brings me to my second point. It may just be me but I was a little disturbed when I heard this pilot ejected to leave the jet to its own faculties. A captain is supposed to go down with his ship. I understand that is a little extreme; however, given this circumstance, is it really? If there was any possibility that he could have turned that jet into the ground, the side of a mountain or anything and only his life was taken instead of three civilians, that’s what he should have done. Afterall, he signed up to protect those people.

This is a bit harsh for me. Count me in the group that assumes the pilot did everything in his power to avoid civilian casualties. There will be a thorough investigation, and the details that emerge may change my opinion, but that remains to be seen.