I completely missed the Chely Wright controversy over Christmas. If you missed it too, click here for the backstory. (Quick synopsis: A mid-level country singer Chely Wright’s fan club was caught directing people to pose as military and families of military to promote the singer’s pro-military single. But the particulars are fascinating, so read the article.)

So some suspicion was cast on Wright’s motivations. Was she really expressing support for our troops, or was her song, “Bumper of My SUV,” just a cynical attempt to tap into a surge of pro-military sentiment in the country audience? (If you think this kind of thing doesn’t happen, go find John Seabrook’s brilliant New Yorker essay “The Money Note.”)

Now my colleague Michael Goldfarb has some excellent reporting, including extensive quotes from Wright taken from an interview conducted prior to the controversy. It’s still ambiguous, and Goldfarb certainly doesn’t reach any conclusions, but it is very, very interesting.

I was happy to see the Catholic Church respond so quickly to the tsunami–a special collection was taken up for Catholic Relief Services on Sunday, and they’re one of the best organizations around. And I’ve also been heartened by all of the private donations which have been pouring in through normal folks at places like Amazon ($13,244,332 and counting) and rich folks like Sanda Bullock ($1 million all by herself, make sure you go see her next movie).

But scroll down to the end of this story on relief funding. After a delayed response, the U.S. government is finally beginning to do the right thing. That’s good news. The Taiwanese, God bless them, are giving nearly as much ($50 million) as the Chinese ($64 million). That’s also wonderful news. But keep going down the list and you’ll find some very rich countries who are doing next to nothing.

Take, for instance, Saudi Arabia ($10 million), Kuwait ($2 million), and Iran ($627,000). This, for their Muslim brothers and sisters? These are countries for whom wealth flows from the very earth which killed so many. The Saudi princes do not work or create. They shop and harvest. And yet here they stand again–they and the rest of the Middle East–sitting on their hands and expecting the rest of the world to take care of their Islamic brothers. How much is Islamic solidarity worth for Iran? About 16,000 barrels of oil.

That’s fine, so far as it goes. It’s their choice. But remember it the next time you hear a bin Laden tape blaming the West for the destruction of civilization. Remember it the next time you hear an Islamist imam castigating the Jews and infidels for defiling their lands. Remember it the next time you hear an al Jazeera story about how infidels are disrespecting Islam. Remember it the next time you hear how Islamic “solidarity” with other oppressed Muslims is what keeps this or that country from fully joining in on the war on terror.

Remember that, when it counted, it was Japan, America, Britain, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Australia, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and the rest of the West–not to mention the Far East–which opened its arms to help the millions of people–including millions of Muslims–who were struck by this terrible disaster.

Blogger Patterico has sent an email to Power Line. Scott Johnson says, “Patterico seems to think that he has previously asked us to link to his posts.” Patterico’s email reads:

Why am I taking one more stab at getting Power Line to link my L.A. Times Year in Review? It’s all about Lynne Cheney.

See, I come to the defense of Dick Cheney a couple of times in the posts, and I’d like him to know about it. I figure that, if you guys link my review, Lynne Cheney might read it–and maybe she’ll tell her husband about it. It’s a longshot, but it’s worth a try.

So, even though the review was linked by Instapundit, Lucianne.com, Hugh Hewitt, Captain Ed, and others–I’m still not satisfied. I gotta have Lynne Cheney see it! And for that, it’s Power Line or bust. The links are Part One (coverage of the election, including the Times’s misrepresentation of one of Dick Cheney’s remarks), and Part Two (other coverage–including the duck-hunting trip with Dick Cheney and Justice Scalia).

Either way, I promise this is the last e-mail I’ll send you asking for a link for these pieces. . . .

The Onion once ran this memorable headline: “Doritos Celebrates One-Millionth Ingredient.” Of course Doritos does not have anywhere near a million ingredients, but you get the point. So I could not help but be reminded of this when I recently came across a packet of “Zesty Onion Ring Sauce” at Burger King. Its color is vomit-orange and the flavor is similarly a hot acid. I cannot believe Shaquille O’Neal would lend his name to such a product (though he was never seen in the ads actually dipping into the sauce–he merely eats the Whopper and says, “Welcome to the King”). But reading the Zesty sauce’s ingredients is a bit like that Onion parody:

soybean oil, water, prepared horseradish (horseradish, distilled vinegar, water, salt, soybean oil, artificial flavor), corn syrup, egg yolk, distilled vinegar, tomato paste (tomatoes, salt, spices, natural flavors, citric acid), salt, sugar, spice, xantham gum, propylene glycol alginate, lemon juice concentrate, beet powder, natural flavor, extractive of annatto, calcium disodium EDTA added to protect flavor.

Somehow, every time you order onion rings, Burger King insists on giving you this Satanic concoction–one that contains 150 calories per packet (140 of which come from fat). Let it be said that I have always had a passion for fast food and I always will. But I now draw the line on the Zesty sauce. I hope you will too.

Hinderaker has a fantastic post with pictures of the relief effort in Indonesia and this wonderful tidbit from a reader:

“One of the ships helping is the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault vessel carrying U.S. Marines. This is the same ship that [critical phrase deleted] Navy Petty Officer Third Class and darling of the anti-war left, Pablo Paredes, refused to board back in Decemeber because his ship was aiding in the ‘illegal’ war in Irag. This sailor went AWOL back in December and staged a little media party in San Diego back in December.”

Drew Burchett has created an interesting new site called Conservative Friends. It looks like a cross between MeetUp and Free Republic, but with a softer edge. Definitely worth checking out. This is the type of site which will flourish if Republicans really are becoming a majority party.

It only took a few hours into the new year to find prose so terrible that it will find no equal in the next 364 days. Galley Friend J.B. points out this Guardian column, which begins:

“According to the diary of my wife Jill Krementz, the photographer, the young British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie came to our house in Sagaponack, Long Island, for lunch on May 9, 1981.”

It goes downhill from there.

Next month Philip Short’s long-awaited biography, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (Henry Holt), comes out, and from my brief perusal of an advanced copy, the term “nightmare” cannot begin to describe the horrors Pol Pot unleashed on the Cambodian people. Especially disturbing are the passages regarding S-21, the notorious interrogation camp where almost 20,000 prisoners were executed. But as Short explains, “the role of S-21 was not to kill but to extract confessions. Death was the finality, but it was almost incidental.” Incidental or not, the unspeakable acts of torture, murder, and infanticide must not be forgotten. (And those who had shrugged off the threat of the Khmer Rouge must also face up to the terror to which they had once turned a blind eye.) It must have been a dreadful task, assembling such a history. For this, Short should be thanked.