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In this issue:

• The Politically Incorrect Top Ten People of the Millennium List

Okay, so I took about 9 months off. I've been reminded time and again that the stuff up here is getting a little stale. Sure, I've wanted to get back into it as my desk cleared of other obligations, but the problem is that this crazy world moves so fast that by the time I was outraged enough to decide to commit my thoughts to words and by the time I was ready to post those words, well, the world had moved on to the next scandal.

And it didn't help any that most of the time, I'm dumping my thoughts and opinions on Free Republic and, to a much lesser extent, Lucianne.com, and I didn't want to repeat myself . . . well, not too much.

Ah, but then the thought occurred. What couldn't get away from me before I typed it up. The New Year! That's traditionally at the same time and doesn't change with the phases of the moon. And as long as everyone else is putting out these lists, why shouldn't I do my own as well?

Okay, I'll admit that I'm a year early for the Best of the Millennium or even the Best of the Century, but if I could print a Best of the Year list two weeks before the end of the year, I can do this list a year early. A year from now, if you think it needs to be updated, you can write me and tell me about it. I don't think the list is changing at all.

This list is of the people who in my opinion, though not necessarily my opinion alone, had the most influence on the direction of history for the past 1000 years or so. The selections haven't been sanitized for political correctness, and where possible, any political incorrectness on the subject's part has been noted. The list also represents a matter of research and extreme thought that lasted for upward of 30 minutes. You might think of different individuals during your own lunch hours.

And now the list:

10. Mass Murderers: Hitler, Stalin and all the others

Okay, let's get this over with immediately. History isn't always shaped in a positive way. Sometimes it's shaped by people intent on wiping out entire societies and sometimes succeeding. Obviously, listing Hitler on any Top Ten list that doesn't include the word "evil" in it is politically incorrect, but so does the inclusion of Stalin, whose atrocities are ignored by his followers in favor of Hitler's lesser mass killings.

Stalin's influences in the direction of history continues to this day -- although the Kremlin was been left behind for Hollywood. And the White House of the last seven years.

I also maintain that Adolf Hitler is the bastard father (the Deadbeat Dad, as it were) of the modern-day women's movement of the latter half of the 20th century. Without Hitler, we wouldn't have had Rosie the Riveter. Without Rosie, where would we be?

9. Margaret Sangor

I know, how could this PC woman be on a PI list. Well, I was talking about the women's movement, so naturally that leads to Sangor, mother of planned parenting. To Margaret's credit, she managed to secure more abortions for Negro and Asian women than any other person in history, not because they couldn't afford proper health care, but because Sangor reportedly hated Negroes and Asians and saw to it that fewer would be born.

Sangor is proof that as long as your core belief is one that the mainstream believe in, minor failings, such as overt racism and love of Communists, can be swept under the rug. She practically paved the way from Bill Clinton to be the final U.S. president of the millennium.

8. Betsy Ross

No reason really. First biography I ever read as a kid (I think I was 10 or 11 at the time) was about Betsy Ross. She made a cool looking flag, don't you think? And it's kind of cool to list a woman famous for her needlepoint above an abortion provider, while not listing any other American women on the list at all. I'm sure that will ruffle numerous feathers.

7. William Shakespeare

So what if he didn't actually write all that stuff, or even if William Shakespeare is a nom de plume to begin with. He wrote a lot of stuff that's still read and taught in school today, centuries later.

Note that in its original production, both Romeo and Juliet were played by men, though neither was gay. In fact, women did not perform in any of Shakespeare's plays (and I don't think Othello was played by a black actor).

6. The Maryland 400

Some dead, white men with guns. However, they weren't dead when they became famous. No, they were dying. The Maryland 400 laid down their lives in the Battle of Brooklyn (aka the Battle of Long Island), which gave George Washington and his men time to escape to fight another day.

Note that these men were bad because they were white men with guns who deserved to be shot to death by more white men with more guns.

I don't wish to dwell on the same period of history for half this list, so I'll lump in the Minutemen for the same reason.

5. One Thousand Years of Popes

Let's face it: Popes had power, particularly in the early years of the millennium. They had followers in most of the "known world" -- that is, if they knew about it, they had followers there. And if they didn't have followers there, they sent some there, and then made some more.

The Catholic Church, admittedly, had some problems during this time, and without those, you wouldn't have had Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, which in turn sparked a Counter Reformation that cleaned up most of the church's troubles. (And a couple of Vatican Councils tossed in helped somewhat, too.)

4. Queen Victoria

Hey, I figured I had to include some more prominent non-Americans. How did Victoria affect history? Well for one thing, she prevented World War I from occuring until it did because it's said, "she just wouldn't have stood for it." The War to End All Wars was also known as one of the largest family squabbles in history.

Incorrect because she's royalty.

3. The Founding Fathers

Not only dead, white men with guns, but rich, dead, slave-owning white men with guns. These guys really knew how to put a country together almost as well as Bill Clinton knows how to take one apart.

Note that they are currently reviled for owning slaves and not giving them up until their deaths. But note also that the U.S. was not the first nation to employ slavery, was not the only one to employ it at the time, and was not the last to get rid of it. In fact, some African nations (on the continent where we got ours from) still practice it now. Well, they don't really have to practice it -- they're very good at it.

2. Christopher Columbus

Okay, maybe he didn't "discover" it. Maybe others sailed here before him. Maybe others lived here before him. But he discovered new resources that the mainland Europeans didn't know existed, and after him it was opened up for good. There was no going back.

Columbus was also helpful for high school history exams: the same year he discovered America, 1492, for Spain, Spain also managed to expel the last of the Moors. One date, two events, easy to remember. And, it should be noted, the expulsion of Moors is not politically correct.

1. Gutenberg

Without Gutenberg, there would be no printing press. No printing press, no mass media. No mass media, no Internet. You wouldn't be seeing any of this without his invention paving the way, making him the most important figure of the 2nd millennium. What makes him a politically incorrect?

He printed Bibles.

And there you have it

I had a few honorable mentions, but my quota system had been filled for the latter half of the millennium (whoops! too PC!). They include

Ronald Reagan, whom I wanted to include in there four or five times to tweak the liberals. His influence will be felt well into the next century.

Neil Armstrong, this century's Columbus? Only if we go back to the Moon. If we forget the Moon and someone else returns there in a century or two, they'll be the Columbus and Armstrong and the Appollo astronauts will be forgotten like the Vikings in America.

Copernicus, Gallileo et. al., Naturally they affected the way we think. Unfortunately, that was contrary to official Church teaching. Anything that's contrary to the Church is PC. Ergo, these pioneers had to deleted from the list.

The American Pioneers: speaking of pioneers, those brave folks who opened up this country deserve some sort of mention. More than just the fact that they killed the buffalo which would die of natural causes to feed the Indians.

The American GI of this century is just as important to this century as the Minutemen and the Maryland 400 were to the 18th century.

Feel free to inform me of my errors. I know you will even if I don't tell you to do so.

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