The Corkscrew

Snow and the Hypocrisy of it all

2008-04-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

So, here it is in Seattle. End of March (the 29th to be specific). I am getting married that day. The average low for March to April is between 37 and 41 degrees. But it's snowing, which means it's well below 37 degrees.

Let's skip ahead several weeks to April (the 18th to be specific). I am coming home from work around 5pm. Did I mention it was snowing, again? The average low for April is 41 degrees. But it's snowing, which means it's well below 41 degrees.

Al Gore and the rest of the environazis will tell you the earth is warming up, that it is getting hotter. The averages for the seasons is getting warmer. Ice caps are melting to prove their point. Yet it snowed in March and it snowed in April.

In other words, it's getting colder than it normally is this time of year.

Al Gore et al will tell you the planet is getting warmer and we need to watch our carbon footprint because the increased temperatures are our fault.

Although repeated studies conclude differently. The environazis dismiss these studies because so-called "big oil" is funding them.

Of course no one, especially the pro-green media, is going to tell you that Al is sinking $300 million into a carbon credit businesses (ie, funding them).

More Global Warming Information

2008-03-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

I've said it before and I'll continue to say it: Global warming is a hoax. A myth. The witch hunt of the 21st century. Additional proof comes our way daily (see previous blog post) and now there is even more evidence that our planet is not heating up.

From NPR no less:

The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
by Richard Harris
Morning Edition, March 19, 2008

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it's also possible that something more mysterious is going on.

That becomes clear when you consider what's happening to global sea level. Sea level rises when the oceans get warm because warmer water expands. This accounts for about half of global sea level rise. So with the oceans not warming, you would expect to see less sea level rise. Instead, sea level has risen about half an inch in the past four years. That's a lot.

Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says.

One possibility is that the sea has, in fact, warmed and expanded — and scientists are somehow misinterpreting the data from the diving buoys.

But if the aquatic robots are actually telling the right story, that raises a new question: Where is the extra heat all going?

Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it's probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.
That can't be directly measured at the moment, however.

"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.

It's also possible that some of the heat has gone even deeper into the ocean, he says. Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about. It's an exciting time, though, with all this new data about global sea temperature, sea level and other features of climate.

"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."

Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.

My only concern with this article is the absurd claim that the oceans have risen half and inch in the past 4 years. That is simply not true according to NASA - to the point that they have measured the rate of ocean rise at only 2.09 millimeters (0.081 inches) per year if you take into account all the measured ice melting contributing to the rise in oceans. At that rate, it would take over 6 years to raise the ocean levels to one half inch.

Global Warming is FAKE

2008-02-26T08:31:00.001-08:00

Lifted from the Nation Post:

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age
Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, February 25, 2008

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.

Now I get to post a big "I told you so".

JUSTICE!

2007-01-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

What Christmas Is All About

2006-12-25T21:42:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be as blunt about this as I can, but bear with me:

Non-Christians cannot celebrate Christmas

I'm sorry, but it is as simple that.

Christmas is a Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. End of story.

It's not about all the secular celebrating progressives, atheists, liberals, etc. try to push on us. Christmas is not about what they want it to be.

Because it's not their holiday. It's ours.

Let the non-believers come up with their own holiday. It can even be on the same day as ours and have the same traditions. They call can it anything they want, Winter Holiday, Festivus, anything - but they cannot call it Christmas.

Christmas is the "Mass of Christ", if you don't believe, you cannot partake. Whites cannot do Kwanza. Muslims cannot do Hannuka. Non-believers cannot do Christmas. Period.

You want to celebrate Christmas? Then get saved. Go to church. Live your life according to the Word of God.

Linus explained exactly what Christmas is all about, it's simple and to the point:

There is no other versions of Christmas. Anything else is not Christmas but a pale fascimile.

Debunking the 14 Points of Fascism - Part V

2006-10-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

The left hates the military. Possibly for no other reason than because it is an organization that provides structure and order. These things are poison to liberals. Britt and Despair are no exception to this rule.

4. Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Military service is the ultimate form of public service. In no other way can someone serve their country than to possibly put their lives on the line. The ultimate sacrifice. Additionally, the military does more than defend the country. My brother was in Indonesia (he is a Marine) helping the victims of the earth quake there. When the tsunami hit last year, first on the scene with food, medicine and clean water was the U.S. Navy reaching places no international relief agency could. The military in the form of the National Guard provides essential humanitarian services during domestic disasters such as hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes. It wasn't Mayor Ray Nagin or Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco who were helping the victims of hurricane Katrina (just the opposite, they both failed miserably in their roles of first responders for their city and state) it was the National Guard.

To top it all off, the United States military is an all volunteer force. No one is conscripted into service via a draft. Compare that to many of the liberally progressive countries that do have military conscription, such as:

Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Actually, there are 87 countries world wide that have conscription of one form or another for their military. France is considering reinstating their draft as well.

There is also nothing glamorous about this form of national duty. It's a dirty and dangerous job for little pay and recognition by the civilians they protect. Some join the military for the educational scholarships. Most join because they feel it is their duty.

-Bush slashes domestic programs, boosts defense. Arlen Spector calls it "scandalous"

According to the full article, Bush only made the proposal to Congress. It's up to Congress to work through the proposal and come up with the appropriate legislation. This involves working with those on both sides of the political isle.

Snippets from the article yields that the Pentagon would only get a 4.8% increase, this during a time of war.

The Bush plan would cut discretionary programs outside national security by 0.5 percent.
The administration emphasized it was not cutting Medicare but slowing its annual growth to 7.5 percent from 7.8 percent.

Bush would hold the growth in discretionary spending to 3.2 percent, below the 3.4 percent inflation rate.

Nine of the 15 Cabinet agencies would see cuts, with education down 3.8 percent, justice reduced by 7.2 percent and transportation 9.4 percent lower. Veterans Affairs was given an 8 percent increase, one of the few domestic programs to get a bigger budget.

A handful of domestic programs would get fresh cash. Those include research and development, math and science education, high-tech training and alternative fuel sources.

I would hardly call a 0.5% cut in discretionary spending a "slash" in domestic spending. And when you see exactly where the cuts are, most of it could be attributed to simply "cutting the fat"

-Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House

If you read the news headline above, it sounds like the Bush administration was cutting every program across the board. The fact is, not many programs actually received deep cuts. Some did, but many did not, and in some cases, some programs actually received increases:

The measure, which passed 250-151, contains $142.5 billion in spending under Congress' control for labor, health and education programs. That's essentially a freeze at current levels.

But new demands, including $870 million to administer the new Medicare prescription drug program, have forced cuts in scores of programs.

"We made some tough decisions," said Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, who led the floor effort to get the bill passed. "But when looked at as a whole, this bill provides $142.5 billion to over 500 discretionary programs. It is a lot of money and it does a lot of good."

Regula added that the bill's program terminations and other cuts were used to fund high-priority items such as Pell Grants and the budget to run the Medicare drug program.

In practice, that translates to an 84 percent cut from $300 million down to $47 million in training programs for doctors and nurses, and $806 million in cuts to Bush's No Child Left Behind education initiative, a more than 3 percent drop. Grants for local community-action agencies that help the poor would be cut in half, to $320 million.

The National Institutes of Health, whose budget has doubled in recent years, would be held to a less than 1 percent increase. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would absorb a 5 percent cut from current funding.

It needs to be noted that this was just the House bill that was voted on. The Senate has it's own version of the bill that needs to be reconciled with the House bill. As such, these cuts may not stand as it appears in the House bill.

-Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades

From the full article:

Of the $75 billion for the military, the bulk would go to the Army to support deployed troops, help convert the Army's force structure to smaller "modular" combat brigades, and to begin repairing and replacing battered military equipment. Some of the money would help accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi and Afghan security forces, one official said.

As much as $1 billion would go toward defeating roadside bombs, the official said. The money would be spent on improved intelligence and surveillance, the training of canine detection teams and the development of technology.

These are not new brigades. This is the conversion of exiting Army units into smaller “modular” brigades. This will make them more efficient and effective. In addition, some of the funds will go to the repair or replacement of battered equipment. While liberals typically scream about how Rumsfeld is not providing the troops with the equipment they need, Despair is complaining that the Bush administration is spending funds to do exactly that.

With some of the funds going to equipping and training Iraqi security forces, this means that the United States will be able to pull out of Iraq sooner. Again, this is exactly what the liberals want – except for Despair, apparently.

Additionally, $1 billion has been earmarked towards finding methods to defeat improvised explosive devices, also known as roadside bombs. Here is an example of the Bush administration dedicating funds specifically to protecting our troops in the combat zone.

I keep hearing from liberals that they “support” the troops, but when push comes to shove I find nothing but disdain for the military coming from the left.

-Three cable channels now feed news, information and entertainment about the armed services into millions of living rooms, 24 hours a day, seven days a week: The Military Channel, the Military History Channel and the Pentagon Channel.

There are literally hundreds of cable and satellite channels available across the country and Despair is complaining about three of them being pro-military. Three. I guess it would be fair to point out that out of the hundreds of radio stations available, the left has a liberal talk show that now feeds news, information, entertainment and opinion through hundreds of thousands of radios...

Being that the United States military is an all volunteer force, it is necessary to promote the armed forces in a positive light. Three cable channels are providing just that. I think it also needs to be said that the First Amendment, which guarentees our freedom of speech, not only allows for, but protects these three channels right to exist.

Unless someone wants to point out that liberals don't believe the First Amendment applies to everyone - but that would be fascist.

Debunking the 14 Points of Fascism - Part IV

2006-10-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

Getting back to the 14 Points as laid out by Laurence Britt and the news headline clippings of Our Lord Despair. No, I haven't forgotten about the Washington Post article, but since that is a lengthy article and I've practically been challenged to debunk it - I'll have to go through it thoroughly before I can write about. However, since the original topic at hand was to go through Britt's Point and answer Despair's comments, I will do that first. I understand that the Post article was one of those comments but I want to address it separately.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Britt is drawing from the treatment of the Jews by Hitler during the Second World War. However, again he concludes that such use of scapegoating is used only by extreme right-wing/fascist movements. History has shown us differently, especially in the decades following World War II. Almost every single dictatorship on the planet, extremists on both sides, right and left-wing, have used the tactics of scapegoating in order to unify their people and consolidate a power base. For Britt to claim this is something that is done only against "liberals, communists; socialists" is intellectually dishonest.

Despair is equally as dishonest in his headline snippets:

-Headline: "Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us'"

This was taken from an interview between Sean Hannity and Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y..

However, what Lord Despair fails to mention is this little gem also lifted from the same article. While liberal Democrats immediately jump to attach King, he apparently isnt the only one who believes that a majority of mosques ran in the U.S. are ran by extremists (which is the crux of the quote):

However, in testimony before the U.S. State Department in 1999, Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, affirmed most of the mosques in the U.S. are run by extremists.

"We would like to advise our government, our congressmen, that there is something big going on and people do not understand it," he said. "You have many mosques around the United States ... So the most dangerous things are going on in these mosques that have self appointed leaders throughout the United States. The extremist ideology makes them very active. We can say that they took over 80 per cent of the mosques in the United States ... . This means that the ideology of extremism has been spread to the youth and the new generation."

I find it difficult to hold Bush responsible for creating this scapegoat since he wasn't even president in 1999. There is also a significant difference in creating a scapegoat and pointing out the truth. However, Bush has stated many times that he does not believe all Muslims are evil or dangerous people. In fact the president has always called Islam the "religion of peace". The few that prevert the relgion of Islam, according to Bush, are the ones we need to worry about.

-World history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdales Mohave Middle School was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing Right-wing criticism of the books unbiased portrayal of Islam.

While we are led to believe that the administration was responsible for the pulling of the text books from Scottdale Mohave Middle School, the truth is that the parents were actually active in this event. It was the parents who sent in over 100 e-mails demanding the book be pulled because they disagreed with how Christianity was compared to Islam. Hardly what one would consider "Right-wing" criticism.

Despair also fails to inform anyone that the book in question was in a trial phase. It wasn't necessarily going to used by the school as part of it's normal curiculum. Nor does he explain the parents side of the story. Instead, the book in question is "unbiased" and the parents are "Right-wingers". Fortunately, the full article gives the other side of the story:

Janie White is a Scottsdale parent who complained about the "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" textbook, which was being used on a trial basis at her daughter's school. In a Jan. 25 email to Superintendent John Baracy, she objected to what she believed was "religious bias, dogma, myth and proselytizing."

"I received a significant number of e-mails saying (the book) was Islamic propaganda and we shouldn't use it," said district governing board member Christine Schild. Before the board could take action, the book's publisher requested an end to its trial license with the district in March, and the district quit using the materials.

Nancy Bredin, national sales manager at TCI, insists the publishing company did not pull the license due to the controversy. Instead, she said, the newly-released state standards do not match the textbook's focus.

"We pulled out because it became very clear we did not match the standards," Bredin said. The book is still being tried in schools in other states, she added.

The textbook covers history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century to the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. It devotes 33 pages to Christianity and 42 pages to Islam. Bredin explained the book is meant to serve as the second in a twopart series....

The lessons about Islam are what concern parents such as White. In her complaint to Baracy, she referred to the American Textbook Council, a group that objects to TCI's explanation of concepts such as jihad.

The book defines jihad as "a struggle within each individual to please God, but that may also be a physical struggle for protection against enemies."

David Damrel, a professor at the Arizona State University's Department of Religious Studies, reviewed several chapters of the book at the Tribune's request. He said the passages generally did a good job of describing Muslim attitudes toward jihad in an accurate way.

Complaints about the book started early this year, when White sent a series of e-mails to Baracy demanding the textbook be removed from her daughter's classroom.

The book simply didn't meet state standards. Yes, the parents had complained regarding the contents of the book, this is their right as parents. However, to label the parents as "Right-wing" simply because they didn't go along with Despair's line of thinking is inane. I find it interesting that Despair believes his stance that the book was "unbiased" and therefore his point of view is the correct one - but if anyone disagrees with it, they are immediately biased and subject to ad hominem labeling.

-Rallies planned against 'Islamofacism': Event to 'unify all Americans behind common goal'

One of the biggest debating falicies used by Our Lord Despaire is that he purposely takes an event or comment out of it's context and presents it as something it is not. Despair attempts to tie in the rally with scapegoating. However, the full article paints a different picture:

"The purpose of this rally is to unify all Americans behind a common goal and against an enemy that is seeking to destroy values we all hold dearly," said Jesse Petrilla, head of the organization. "This is not a rally to promote hate, but a rally to promote peace and tolerance and make clear what America stands for," he said, noting Muslims are being encouraged to attend the rallies which, so far, are scheduled in 13 states.

"Republicans, Democrats, pacifists, all ethnicities are urged to march on the day of the event and show their true support for the United States of America," he said.

Kind of changes the tone of the quote, doesnt it? Gone are the images of brown shirts burning Muslims in effigy, only to replaced with the reality of a multicultural, bi-partisan, peaceful rally exaulting the virtues of the United States of America.

The reality of the situation is, and I understand no extreme left-wing liberal wants to aknowledge it, is that the United States was attacked by a group of people who claim allegience to the same organization and to a radical Islamic doctrine. Targetting these specific people as self-described enemies to the people and government of the United States is not scapegoating, it's not profiling, it's not anything abhorent in any fashion. It's specifically identifying and targeting those who wish to do us harm.

The difference between what the Nazi's did to the Jews and what the current administration is doing to the radical Islamic Jihadists that are trying to kill us is simple; the Jews never flew a fuel-laden jet airliner into a series of buildings in an attempt to kill as many innocents civilians as possible.

Pointing out a realistic threat to life and liberty is not scapegoating - it's the smart thing to do.

Addendum to Debunking Part III

2006-10-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank the anonymous coward (Slashdot fans will understand the label, conservatives will as well but for a different reason) who pointed out that the Mathaba News Network article about the 9,000 terrorists was in fact a legitimate Washington Post article.

I feel it neccessary to explain that it was an honest, albeit lazy, mistake on my part. I never take the word of any liberal blog as fact. Pretty much why you'll never see me link to DailyKos for evidence! As such, I searched the Washington Post archive database for the news article title (US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention) and came up with nothing.

I figured the Mathaba article was bogus and didn't even bother to read it. Even the top link on the Mathaba site pointing back to the Washington Post article didn't go anywhere but back to Mathaba. Had I bothered to read the article, I would have found the full link at the bottom of the article. It didn't even occur to me that Mathaba News Network would change the original title of the Washington Post article.

As such, my bad, I goofed as anonymous coward has pointed out. Interestingly enough, out of my entire diatribe, that was the only thing he/she/it could complain about.

Needless to say, I will go thru the Washington Post article and respond to it. After all, conservatives don't rewrite history, liberals do!

Debunking the 14 Points of Fascism - Intermission

2006-10-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

The problem with liberals is they take a "drive-by" approach to politics. Hit and run. Make an accusation as quickly as possible. Then, while attempting to debunk the first accusation, they abandon the idea and move on to the next one. Accusations come right after another. There is a meaning to their madness: keep their opponent off balance long enough to score a "hit" in order to "win" the debate. One variation of this tactic is to fire off a mulitple salvo of accusations and falsehoods simultaneously.

The news headlines by Our Lord Despair falls into this category. Unfortunately for him, I am a patient man. While liberals like Despair, who live for politics, think that conservatives don't have the heart to stick it out, there are conservatives like me who live for that sort of tactic.

Unfortunately, this can lead to very long blog posts. While Britt is content with handing off a few talking points (sans any sort of evidence what so ever), Despair unloads with everything he has. While this means that his arguments will quickly run out, it does mean having to answer every one of them. In the liberal world, if a conservative does not, then they lose all credibility.

A real world example of this is the current Foley scandal. The Democrats and the liberal press are sparing no moment reminding the public of the disgusting e-mails and instant messages Foley sent to capitol hill paiges. They've even gone so far as to attack his sexual relationship, with a 21 year old man who used to be one of those paiges. Of course, neglecting to inform anyone that the man was no longer a paige when the affair happened.

The Democrats and their liberal press hounds are hitting the front pages and the primetime airwaves every night, drilling story after story into the public and keeping the Republicans off balance. There is a two-fold reason for this. First, to saturate the public conscience with this scandal so that when the Republicans do finally counter, everyone will be sick of the story and unwilling to listen. The second reason is because the Republicans have some massive ammunition to fire back with, and if they did manage to get some decent airtime, it would completely ruin the Democrats and their chance for regaining control of the House and Senate in November.

But, if the Democrats can keep the Republicans off balance by attacking the Speaker of the House Hastert and the accusations of a party-wide cover up, no one will ever learn that Democrats are hiding some pretty big skeletons in their own closet. That skeleton would be a Democrat by the name of Gerry Studds from Massachusetts.

What makes Studds so different from Foley is that Studds actually had sex with a 17 year old male paige. While this alone is extremely disturbing, what is even more so is that Speaker of the House "Tip" O'Neil lets Studds off with a slap on the hand in the form of a censure. Studds responds publically denouncing the censure claiming that sexual relations between "two consenting adults" was not the business of Congress.

Unfortunately, then representative Newt Gingrich, a Republican, failed to have Studds (and a fellow Republican by the name of Crane for a similar scandal) removed from Congress as Studds not only received a standing ovation in his home district at his first town meeting following his congressional censure, but was was re-elected to five more terms following.

Don't you just love real-world examples of liberal hypocracy?

The next installment will continue debunking Britts 14 Points as well as exposing Our Lord Despairs' attempt at "putting a cap" in the back of the heads of the Republican party.

Debunking the 14 Points of Fascism - Part III

2006-10-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

I continue with another one of Britt's 14 Points. The first one dealt with the preceived threat of unquestioned nationalism. As I go through each one of Britt's Points, I hope you notice a interesting theme occuring. It's pretty obvious but I will explain it in depth later. For now, another Point from Britt and another set of news headlines from Despair.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

I'll attempt to put this as simply as I can: my right to live, outweighs a terrorists' right to a trial. Britt is correct that in many totalitarian regimes, human rights are often swept away. We have seen this with the Nazi's. We have also seen this in North Korea under the Communists. In Viet Nam under Ho Chi Minh. In Cambodia under Pol Pot. China and Mao. Russia under Lenin and Stalin. Iraq and Saddam.

Interestingly enough, a vast majority of those governments listed could hardly be classified as fascist. Britt makes the mistake of thinking that only fascist regimes are capable of violating the basic rights of individuals. As though this was a symptom strictly inherit to the right-wing.

More importantly, we are given the impression by Our Lord Despair that this is exactly what is happening under the current Bush Administration today:

-Bush threatens to veto $442b defense bill if Congress investigates detainee abuses.

As far as I can tell, this is a hoax. The origination appears to be a post on the extreme left-wing liberal blog called the DailyKos. No working links back to the original Reuters/Yahoo news servers are functional. A search of the Yahoo news server yields no results and no major news organization has picked up this story. In other words, this is a flat out lie by the left.

However, since Despair mentioned detainee abuses, I think it's fair to talk about them:

Torture: Turns out turning down the heat and blasting Red Hot Chili Peppers is considered "torture" by the left. In that case, they should be destroying their Chili Pepper albums and unplugging their refrigerators as I write this. Because that is exactly the level of "torture" we've been inflicting on terrorists caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Within days, Zubaydah was being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques — he was stripped, held in an icy room and jarred by earsplittingly loud music.

Sounds like the exact conditions of a modern mosh pit if you ask me. No permanent physical or psychological damage is imparted on the detainee. If you are going to accuse the Bush administration of torture, I want to see electrocuted genitalia, finger nails pulled out by their roots or intestinal tracks ripped to shreds by the forced eating of glass. But don't ever call air conditioning and loud rock music "torture".

Summary Executions: There is no proof of this. Unless you count combat on the open battlefield as "summary executions". However, the Geneva Conventions actually allows for executions, specifically when the enemy is not in uniform - they are considered saboteurs and spies and if captured, are legally eligble for execution without trial.

Assassinations: Are only outlawed against the heads of states. It is not illegal to assassinate a leader of a military group in the middle of a war. Being that Al Qaida has declared war (specifically against civilians in the U.S.) taking out the leadership is well within the bounds of international law. I'd like to point out that former President Bill Clinton admitted to Chris Wallace on Fox News that he had ordered the assassination of bin Laden.

Long Incarcerations: Again, allowed by the Geneva Conventions until (and I quote) "after the cessation of active hostilities" - which means we are legally allowed to hold Al Qaida prisoners of war according to international law until the war is over:

Article 118:

Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.

Later, I will post in great detail, every violation of the Geneva Convention as committed by Al Qiada.

-Guantanamo Judge: I dont care about international law. I dont want to hear the words international law again. We are not concerned with international law.

This quote comes from an unamed president of a U.S. military tribunal who "bursted out" that sentance. Apparently at a terrorist suspect picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan. And he is right. These terrorists were responsible for the attacks on American soil and against American civilians. They were captured by the American military and are being held at an American detention facility. Because the terrorists blatently ignored international law in the form of the Geneva Conventions, they are not subjected to international law but by military tribunal. Considering how the international community has been treating the United States recently, do we need France's, Russia's or China's permission to prosecute these murderers in the way we see legally fit?

-Headline: "Rumsfeld to Approve New Guidelines." They will formalize the administration's policy of imprisoning without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold "ghost detainees."

Holy crap! Despair simply lied in regards to this headline. The actual headline reads as:

NEW YORK, Apr 13 (IPS) - The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's most senior leaders, want Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to approve new guidelines that will formalise the George W. Bush administration's policy of imprisoning so-called enemy combatants without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold ”ghost detainees”, a human rights group is charging.

Rumsfeld was asked by the Joint Chiefs, but Despair rewrote the headline in a blatent attempt to indict Rumsfeld directly.

In addition, if anyone bothered to read the Geneva Conventions, they'd realize that the terrorists are not protected by them. Simply put, Al Qaida violates many provisions of the Conventions, specifically Article 4, Section 2, parts:

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

nope - they blend in with civilians.

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

nope - they conceal weapons in attempts to target civilians.

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

nope - they target civilians specifically.

If the terrorists are going to blatently violate the terms of the Geneva Convention, then they are not allowed it's protection.

-"US preparing to detain terror suspects for life without trial"

again,

Article 118:

Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.

That's the Geneva Conventions again - we are legally within the bounds of international law. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

-U.S. oks evidence gained through torture

This comes from a story by the Associated Press - but the writer, Michael Sniffen, neglected to mention what the torture techniques specifically were. As so far, the only methods that have been used, officially, by the U.S. military and the intelligence agencies have been sleep deprevation, radical shifts in environment (temperature), the use of loud music and "water boarding" (a practice in which the terrorist is made to believe they are drowning when in fact, they are not). While I admit, these techniques are definitely cohersive, they are far from torture. But, hey, at least we are not beheading them on television like Al Qaida did to Nick Berg. I must warn you, if you ever come across the video of the Nick Berg beheading - do not watch it, the sounds of Nick screaming for his life as the terrorists slowly cut his head off with a machete is simply disturbing. I wish I had not watched it and I refuse to pass on the video or any link to it. But, after watching it, I'll never be convinced that Iraq was a mistake or that we need to leave.

-July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries. Why? Because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution.

This is one of the most blantent deceptions put forth by Despair as he only gives half the story. He attempts to paint the United States as the bully and the rest of the world as the victim. In reality, the opposite is true:

Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One that the United States wants the same protections for its troops that the other nations that have signed the treaty currently enjoy.

"The president wants a level playing field, because those other nations that are signatories to the ICC and are participating under its purview have negotiated similar immunities for their personnel," Fleischer said.

Bush simply wants the same protections for our troops as other countries have negotiated with each other. The world isn't the victim here, the United States is. These countries have negotiated treaties with each other that extends special protections for their armed forces indemnifying them against the ICC accords. These same countries then refuse to do the same with the U.S. military. As such, American soldiers are not protected against unjust accusations in front of the ICC.

But what I find equally disturbing is that the United States didn't suspend military aid for all 50 countries as the headline suggests:

As the deadline passed for governments to sign exemption agreements or face the suspension of military aid, President Bush issued waivers for 22 countries.

Almost half the countries that didn't sign exemptions for our military as they did with other countries still ended up receiving military aid, contrary to the news article headline.

-US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention

Liberals would love to have us believe this news headline. It seems that every liberal blog site out there has this story on it. However, they are all linked back to something called the Mathaba News Network which posts this story as an article that supposedly comes from the Washington Post.

However, the Washington Post has this to say about the story.

It doesn't exist. It's a fake article on the Mathaba site. I guess liberals will go to any lengths, including faking news stories, in order to demean the Bush administration.

We shouldn't be surprised. After all, it's not the first time stories have been faked by the liberal press.

Debunking the 14 Points of Fascism - Part II

2006-10-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

Britt has 14 points which he attributes to fascism. However, if Britt had actually bothered to study history, he would realize that these points can be applied to fascist governments and organizations other than just right-wing ones. At the end of this series, I will actually explore the very real posibility that hyper-liberals are themselves, fascist.

Now to Britt's first point:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Actually, this is an example of nationalism, not fascism. I am not going to disagree with this point, but what Britt fails to point out is that it is when nationalism is taken to an extreme can it become dangerous. This is hardly the case in the U.S. where people have actually been banned from flying the Stars and Stripes from their apartment buildings from Washington to New York to Florida or banned from schools or television.

There is a difference between patriotism and nationalism. Especially since the United States is was attacked by terrorists. But if we follow Britt's first point, then this would be an example of fascism and nationalism:

But I guess Britt would consider America's entry into World War II a move towards fascism. Go figure, especially since the entire idea of fighting the Germany and Italy was to combat fascism. But if you believe that using patriotism to rally the public against evil is a bad thing, I suggest you think about this:

But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

-John Stuart Mill

The news headlines posted by Our Lord Despair are even more interesting:

-New Majority Leader: Iraq War May Be The Greatest Gift That We Give Our Grandchildren

No liberal on the face of the planet understands the concept of context. When one reads the above news headline, one would get the impression that the majority leader is a war monger. However, when we read the full quote, we get a completely different meaning:

REP. BOEHNER: Tim, we--we are in Iraq for the right reasons, to help bring democracy to a part of the world that's never known it. Now, we've seen this increasingly instable, or lack of stability, in the Middle East. And if we can build this democracy in Iraq, it will clearly spread. This is a long-term commitment. And helping the Iraqi people learn to govern themselves is not easy. But the effort here is meaningful, worthwhile, and it may not benefit our generation, but for our kids and theirs, this may be the greatest gift that we give them.

Fascism? I think not.

Our Lord Despair continues by giving partial headlines:

-Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are "inscribed with Pentagon war-marketing slogans"

Specifically, which "Pentagon war-marketing slogans" is Despair talking about? They are "Operation Enduring Freedom" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" according to the Washington Post:

Families of fallen soldiers and Marines are being told they have the option to have the government-furnished headstones engraved with "Operation Enduring Freedom" or "Operation Iraqi Freedom" at no extra charge, whether the service members are buried in Arlington or elsewhere. A mock-up shown to many families includes the operation names.

The vast majority of military gravestones from other eras are inscribed with just the basic information: name, rank, military branch, date of death and, if applicable, the war and foreign country in which the person served.

Read the Washington Post article and then ask yourself, if in the past, we inscribed the war the soldier served in, why not inscribe the military operation the that todays soldiers are fighting in?

This is a far cry from fascism.

-White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies. This is in despite of the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces.

Keep that in mind when you see this:

-"You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die." -Anonymous White House official

That little quote, by the way, appears no where in any reliable media source. In fact, a Google search of that quote comes up with only discussions regarding Hollywood (definitely not what one would call Conservative) and their twisting of history in regards to the movie "Saving Private Ryan". No White House official, anonymous or otherwise, is responsible for that quote. Our Lord Despair is perpetrating a fraud.

Patriotism is not nationalism. Flying the flag after your country is attacked (Pearl Harbor, 9/11) is patriotism. Flying your flag before your country illegally invades another (Iraq and Kuwait, Germany and Poland) is nationalism. There is a significant difference. Britt's first point has been debunked as the American flag is actually being banned from display all over the country. Hardly something that would be allowed to happen if fascists or nationalist actually wielded absolute power.

The news headlines by Our Lord Despair are misleading at best and outright lies at worst. It will be interesting to determine if Despair posted such misleading news headlines on purpose or if he simply didn't bother reading the contents of the articles he was snipping from. One conclusion is that he is a liar. The other conclusion is that he is incompetent.

We will have to wait until the 14 Points are fully discussed before I make that conclusion.

Debunking the 14 Points of Fascism - Part I

2006-10-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

Like I have promised, I will go thru both Britt's 14 Points and Despair's comments and news headline clippings as well as the liberal claims regarding Britt's qualifications. So, let's start with Britt's qualifications:

Laurence Britt, novelist, political scientist, and CEO of Mobil and Xerox, wrote a treatise on the fourteen links between the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal), Papadopoulos (Greece), Pinochet (Chile), and Suharto (Indonesia)--so basically, most of the renowned fascists of the last era. Here are the fourteen major commonalities between all major fascist regimes. I've also included some news snippets and/or headlines that have relevance to today's world.

Fortunately, Despair didn't make the most common mistake of referring to Britt with the title of doctor as many others who have reposted this drivel have. Mainly because, even Britt has admitted he is not a doctor. But who is to say that liberals get anything right? Even Despair didn't bother researching Britt's credentials before making his post. He towed the line of the liberal party and mindlessly copy/pasted what he read.

After much research, I have found absolutely no evidence that Britt worked for Mobil, let alone was a CEO of the oil giant. I am sure he most likely did work for the company, but at no where near at the management level the liberals paint him to have been at. I base this on the evidence that I did find regarding Britt's employment at Xerox. CEO? Hardly. Try divisional vice-president of finance. Ah, but don't fret, Britt did manage to get a promotion while at Xerox and became a manager of an "out-of-the-box activity". In other words, they stuck him in a basement. Britt's biggest "contribution" to Xerox? His division came up with the 2150, a wide-format reproduction device that replaced the conventional ammonia-based blue printing process used to duplicate engineering and architectural drawings. Don't be impressed. I've used the 2150, it chews through developer if you use anything other than 24"x36" paper.

Evidence of Britt's "resume'" can be found here:

At Xerox, Britt rose to divisional vice president of finance and, later, business manager of an out-of-the-box activity. Titled "Intrapreneurship," the division used small-company techniques to find new ways of doing things.Among his group's achievements was the Xerox 2510, a copy machine that has basically replaced the blueprint process. "It was one of the lowest-cost product-development activities for one of the highest profits we ever had in the company," he says.

What I am saying here is that Britt has little credibility as a politcal scientist or as an author. I think he has one book out based pretty much on the same subject lines as his 14 Points. What I find interesting is that Britt may list these 14 Points, which seem extremely tailored towards the wide-spread beliefs of the liberals in regards towards the Bush administration, but he completely fails to back up anything he claims.

Don't think that has been stopping the liberals. They have been reposting his 14 Points as though they were the Gospels themselves, as proof that Bush himself has completely turned the United States into a fascist country. One thing the hyper-liberals are completely ignore is the fact that Britt himself has pointed out that is that he doesn't believe the U.S. has yet become a fascist state. But like I have pointed out earlier, reality has never stopped liberals before.

Britt is simply a man who has written a single book titled "June, 2004" back in 1997 and a couple of articles for secularhumanism.org - specifically the article in question, Fascism Anyone?

Should we take Britt seriously based on the fact he's only done 200 hours of research on the topic of fascism? I don't think so. I personally prefer to leave that to political and historical scholars who have spent their lives researching the topic instead of someone's hobby.

For someone who might be actually interested in a good explanation on fascism, here is some interesting reading by Umberto Eco, a professor of linguistics at the University of Bologna.

Next week I will continue with both Britt's Points and Despair's news headlines. Trust me, this is going to be fun.

14 Points of Stupidity

2006-09-27T21:44:00.001-07:00

Ok, I'll admit it - I've got a MySpace account. On there, one of my Friends posted a bulletin entitled "While the Administration is distracting you". Apparently one of her Friends (her boyfriend) had originally posted this bulletin and she was simply reposting it.

Needless to say, anything political slamming my president is going to perk my interests.

First, the bulletin was posted originally by a man named Laurence Britt. His points are in bold. My friends' boyfriends comment follow Britt's points in italics.

This is going to be a multipart blog as I respond specifically to each point. For now, the bulletin posted to my MySpace account:

I'm reposting my friend's bulletin, which includes items cut & pasted from many resources. The only improvements we could make on this observation would be listing actual newspapers, TV stations, etc., and dates from which these quotes & observations are derived...
Still, it is a very good start. Pay attention people!!

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------From: Our Lord DespairDate: Sep 12, 2006 6:58 PM

Now, most of you who read my posts will remember that the vast majority of what I put up here are those silly little surveys or other short quips. But, while bored at work, I stumbled on this article:

Laurence Britt, novelist, political scientist, and CEO of Mobil and Xerox, wrote a treatise on the fourteen links between the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal), Papadopoulos (Greece), Pinochet (Chile), and Suharto (Indonesia)--so basically, most of the renowned fascists of the last era. Here are the fourteen major commonalities between all major fascist regimes. I've also included some news snippets and/or headlines that have relevance to today's world.

Some of these may be panic-driven, but if even half of them are true, then, well, I'm scared. Anyway. This is LONG, I warn you.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

-New Majority Leader: Iraq War May Be The Greatest Gift That We Give Our Grandchildren

-Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are "inscribed with Pentagon war-marketing slogans"

-White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies. This is in despite of the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces.

-"You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die." -Anonymous White House official

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

-Bush threatens to veto 442b defense bill if Congress investigates detainee abuses.

-Guantanamo Judge: I dont care about international law. I dont want to hear the words international law again. We are not concerned with international law.

-Headline: "Rumsfeld to Approve New Guidelines." They will formalize the administration's policy of imprisoning without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold "ghost detainees."

-"US preparing to detain terror suspects for life without trial"

-U.S. oks evidence gained through torture

-July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries. Why? Because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution.

-US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

-Headline: "Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us'"

-World history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdales Mohave Middle School was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing Right-wing criticism of the books unbiased portrayal of Islam

-Rallies planned against 'Islamofacism': Event to 'unify all Americans behind common goal'

4. Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

-Bush slashes domestic programs, boosts defense. Arlen Spector calls it "scandalous"

-Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House

-Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades

-Three cable channels now feed news, information and entertainment about the armed services into millions of living rooms, 24 hours a day, seven days a week: The Military Channel, the Military History Channel and the Pentagon Channel.

5.) Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

-It is now actually legal to fire government workers for being gay. True!

-Bush calls for Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages

-Bush refuses to sign U.N proposal on women's sexual rights

-W. David Hager, chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not perform abortions, will not prescribe RU-486, and will not insert IUDs.

-The State Department has awarded an explicitly anti-feminist U.S. group part of a US$10 million grant to train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy.

6.) Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

-Headline: "FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game"

-Report shows U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens. The story gets only 41 mentions in the media.

-Bush's "war on information": US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers

7.) Obsession with National Security: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses

-Bush Aides ADMIT TO "stoking fear" for political gain. An anonymous Bush adviser said the President hopes to use fear to "change the dynamics of the race." The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.

-The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level.

-Cheney explicitly and specifically announces that if Kerry is elected, the USA will suffer a "devastating attack"

-Headline: "Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue in 2006"

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

-Jerry Falwell cleared of charges that he broke federal election law by urging followers to vote for Bush

-North Carolina Congressman proposes law making it acceptable practice to preach politics from the pulpit.

-Headline: "Texas Governor Mobilizes Evangelicals"

-Headline: "Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon." The story goes on to say that this is being pushed at other national parks as well.

9. Corporate Power is Protected: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

-The K Street Project is a project by the Republican party to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions. It is also used to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. It was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist Grover Norquist and House majority leader Tom DeLay.

-American Conservative Magazine: One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag. A U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it before the Iraqis take over.

-There are 6 Congressional Committees investigating the Oil-for-Food (UN) scandal, yet not a single Republican Committee Chairman will call a hearing to investigate the whereabouts of 9 billion dollars missing in Iraq

-Headline: "Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas." Since Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

-Headline: "Labor Department warns unions against using their money politically"

-From an article: "President Bush Attacks Organized Labor: Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding."

-From March, 2001, BEFORE we got so worked up about terrorism: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending.

-Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

-Headline: "Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education"

-Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds.

-A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, have accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes

-A Supreme Court ruling allows censorship of campus publications

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

-From a Congressional session: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'"

-Attorney General Gonzales has been deeply involved in developing "some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation's history," allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time

-From the Supreme Court: "Police officers don not have to give a reason at the time they arrest someone." This is meant to shield officers from false-arrest lawsuits.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

-Headline: "Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush"

-Headline: "Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors"

-The main companies that were awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq have paid more than $300 million in fines since 2000, to resolve allegations of fraud, bid rigging, delivery of faulty military equipment, and environmental damage.

-US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) lost track of $9 billion

-"Contracting in the aftermath of the hurricanes has been marked by waste, corruption and cronyism"

14. Fraudulent Elections: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

-Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings

-Clinton Curtis testifies at the Conyers hearing that he was hired to create hackable voting machines

-The Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers to help a former Bush campaign official. This official has been charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

-No explanation has been given for the machines in Mahoning County that recorded Kerry votes for Bush, the improper purging in Cuyahoga County, the lock down in Warren County, the 99% voter turnout in Miami County, the machine tampering in Hocking County. No explanation has been asked for, either.

-According to international observers: The 2004 election was/had "less accessable than Kazakhstan. Fewer fail-safes than Venezuela. Not as simple Republic of Georgia."

-A picture is what is reportedly to have stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The "citizens" started what was later called "the preppy riot". Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these "outraged citizens" intimidated the polling officials to halt the court-mandated recount. These rioters were actually bussed and flown in at Republican lawmakers' expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay's private plane.

Hmm. Kinda makes you think, doesn't it?

I looked at Our Lord Despair's MySpace account and he has this little comment:

Plus I'm very interested in being a pompous ass. And making fun of Republicans, especially Republicans who are among the 32% that still support Bush. Hee hee!

Needless to say, it's been pretty easy to rip into both Britt comments and Despair's sources. So, stay tuned as I take yet another ignorant and arrogant liberal apart, point by point.

I Don't Trust Your Sources

2006-07-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

okay - so occasionally I get interesting e-mail. In this one case, some nit decided to pick a fight with me about the Bush administration. One of his complaints was about the supposed (as in, didn't happen) Plame outing. This idiot claimed that Rove outed Plame by giving her name to Bob Novak, who in turn released her name in his column.

Well, Novak has been silenced by Fitzgerald, the DoJ goon trying to find out exactly what happened regarding Plame. Until recently, that is. Novak has now been released from silence by Fitzgerald.

So, where does Novak claim he got Plame's name from?

I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in 'Who's Who in America'

Yep. Not Rove.

Read about it here.

When I confronted my e-mail assailant, his reply:

I don't trust your sources.

So, Novak is a good enough source when it comes to potentially burning Bush, but not a reliable source when it comes to saving his ass.

Anyone still think liberals are unbiased?

Get - Out

2006-03-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

Two words, a little suggestion, a hint more or less, to our illegal aliens who are now protesting around America:

Get - Out

Seriously. Get out of my country.

I was born here. You were not. I did not enter this country illegally. You did. I do not flaunt it's laws. You do. And now you have the nerve to protest because our government wants to possibly prosecute you for being here illegally?

This is my government that is debating your legal status. Not yours. You have no right to march in our streets demanding rights that don't belong to you. If you want these rights, demand them in your own country from your own government.

I do not want you here. A vast majority of the legal American population (+70%) do not want you here. We do not even need you here. Don't go talking about taking jobs no American will. The simple fact you walked off your jobs you do have indicates you aren't even willing to work. There are plenty of people in Mexico who are willing to enter in thru a guest working program who can take those jobs.

Here are some disturbing numbers every American citizen needs to be aware of:

One-third of our prison population consists of illegal aliens.

Each year, illegal aliens drain social and welfare services of $65 Billion U.S. dollars.

Each year, illegal aliens drain America's economy of over $200 Million U.S. dollars by exporting that currency back to Mexico - which has become it's second largest revenue source.

There are over 10 million illegal aliens in the United States - which means they are disproportionally represented in our legal system. It can only be explained that if there are so many of them in Federal prisons it means they are commiting a large number of violent crimes. You don't get sent to a federal prison for crossing the border illegally.

There are over 3,000 Mexican nationals being held by Immigration who have been denied re-entry back into Mexico by the Mexican government. If their own country refuses to take them back - why should we hold on to them?

Mexico has some of the toughest anti-immigration laws in the world. It does not tolerate crossings on it's Southern border in the least.

I do not like the idea of ammnesty. I believe that president Bush's ammnesty program should only apply to those workers who use it to enter the country legally. It should not be retro-active to those who came in illegally and are here now. Only those who are willing to enter the United States thru the guest worker program should be allowed to come in. Which means illegal aliens need to leave and go home before they can be granted access to America.

I like the idea of a wall. It needs to be built from Coast to Gulf without gaps. This is not any sort of "Berlin Wall", which was designed to keep people in. This is a security wall designed to keep people out.

I like the idea of giving businesses the proper tools to determine if the guest worker is here legally or not. I like the idea of severly punishing both the business and the illegal alien they hire.
The United States has a right to protect it's borders and it's sovereignty. No one has a right to illegally cross the borders to here. It is not tolerated in any other parts of the country and it shouldn't be tolerated here.

Yes, America was built by immigrants. Legal immigrants. This issue is not about legal immigration, it is about illegal border crossings which can lead to security issues in this time of world-wide terrorism. Ahmed Ressam, the so-called "Millenium Bomber" entered into Canada illegally. The Canadian government gave him welfare and ammnesty from his illegal entry. From there he attempted to cross into the United States in order to blow up the Los Angeles airport.

Legal immigrants are a valued asset to this country. Illegal aliens are a burden to our social system, economy and security. I recognize the need for low-skilled workers in this country since the government prohibits farmers to pass on the costs of higher-paid workers to the consumers. But we need to know who is in the country. Right now, there are over 10 million people who do not belong here, who have "cut in line" in front of those trying to enter the United States legally.

I want you out. Now.

Do not think for an instant I am here in the United States because I was lucky to be born here. My father and his family immigrated to this country - and they did so thru the proper legal channels. If he can, so can everyone else who wants to come here.

What part of "border" do you "no comprehenda"?

Harry Reid's History Class

2006-03-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

Liberals are stupid. The 14 or so major left players in today's Democrat party are no exception. Here's some good proof (video included) of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid comparing the amount of time we've been in Iraq to the amount of time we were in World War II:

I think, as we, as Senator Levin has said so many times, we have to get the political structure of Iraq together. America can not do that alone. We've been in Iraq longer than we were in World War II.

Click here and watch Reid make a fool of himself.

Facts anyone?

1) The United States entered WWII shortly after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

2) The United States exited the European theatre with the surrender of Germany in May of 1945.

3) The United States exited the Pacific theatre with the surrender of Japan in September of 1945.

1945-1941 = 4

However, since we are talking the end of 1941 versus the middle of 1945, it is more fair to say that the United States engaged in combat operations against the Axis powers for about 3 1/2 years.

4) The United States and coalition troops began Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 20th, 2003.
5) The Iraqi Military was defeated, and Baghdad fell on April 9th, 2003.

6) President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations, terminating the Ba'ath party's rule and removing Saddam Hussein from power on May 1st, 2003.

March 20th to May 1st is 42 days. Far less than 3 1/2 years for combat operations during WWII.

Ah, but many liberals will spin and say Reid was referring to the insurgency in Iraq today. However, they will conveniently forget that over 1,000 Allied troops were killed in Germany following the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945. Yep, Nazi insurgents.

More importantly, while an Iraqi government is pretty much in place today, liberals will also forget that Japan didn't become self-governing for about 7 years following it's surrender and Germany took about 5 years.

We are only about 3 years into Iraq and already they have made more progress than Japan or Germany did in the same time frame. I will be fair and say that Allied forces didn't have Al-Qaida to deal with. Liberals, of course, will jump on that and say things were much easier after WWII because the Allies didn't have to deal with a fanatical group of terrorists trying to divide the country.

Well, apparently they forgot all about the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall and the Marshall Plan. Things got real hairy for the Allies when the Soviets cut Germany in two and then developed their own atomic bomb.

In fact, every liberal who complains were are "occupiers" in Iraq will again forget - we still have a massive military presence in both Japan and Germany. And that's 60 years after WWII.

Heck, I'm still waiting for Clinton to bring our boys home from what was Yugoslavia. Billy promised us less than a year, have them "home for Christmas" he told us. That was 7 years ago.

The other part of Reid's comment that shows he is completely stuck on stupid was the part on how "America can not do that alone" in reference to getting Iraq on track. Harry apparently forgot about the Marshall Plan in which the United States pretty much on it's own rebuilt Europe following WWII at a cost of over $130 Billion in 2006 U.S. dollars.

Harry must be a product of his own public school system.

Here's Chucky!

2006-03-20T23:04:00.000-08:00

Well, the Dubia Ports World deal fell through. The UAE pulled out at the last minute and pledges to sell their ownership of the operation of the ports to a yet-named American-owned company.

At this point, anyone with enough sense would simply let things be. But not Charles "Chucky" Schumer, Democrat senator from New York. In response to the idea that perhaps he was being a bit anti-Arab or at least xenophobic with his charge against the DPW deal, Chucky simply responded:

“Let’s say skinheads had bought a company to take over our port. I think the outcry would have been the same.”

Oh yes. You read that right. Our tolerant liberal friend just compared the entire Arab population of the planet earth to a bunch of neo-Nazi radicals.

Think long and hard about that. Schumer just compared and condemed an entire race. Whereas one must choose to join the neo-Nazi movement, no one has a choice in being born Arab. In other words, if you were born an Arab, according to Schumer, you are a terrorist. He leaves no room for negotiation.

Schumer might as well have said that we need to intern all the American-born Japanese because the Imperial Navy of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor or that we need to lock up all African-American's because one was involved in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles last month. Yet he immediately forgets that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a white American.

Charles Schumer's comment was nothing less than the highest form of racism.

As a Democrat, like his fellow senator from West Virginia (a former Kleagle in the KKK), expect the main-stream media, liberal bloggers and Air America radio (assuming they are still around) to give him a complete pass.

Dubai Ports World

2006-03-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

Normally I like to blog at least once a week, but since my idea of hunting stupid people has actually caught on - I've been a little busy.

The faltering main-stream media has been keeping me busy with a fresh supply of stupid people. I just can't seem to get out from underneath it all.

First, there was this entire Dubai Ports World deal. Wow. I always said Democrats were racists, but never expected them to actually go in front of the cameras and tell America and the world that the only reason we shouldn't let the folks at DWP manage a couple of lousy terminals in a couple of ports in the United States was because they are Arabs!

Did you get all that? In case you missed it, here's a quick FAQ:

Q: Will DWP run the ports?
A: No. The ports are ran by the cities they are located in. DPW will actually manage a few of the terminals at the ports. There are many terminals at each port, some ran by other countries including Saudi Arabia and China.

Q: But 2 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE (the country Dubai is located in) - shouldn't we prohibit possible terrorists from using our ports?
A: See the first answer above. The majority of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia - should we kick all Saudi's out of the country simply because of the actions of a few of them? All this proves is that no government has complete control of the actions of all of it's citizens all the time. Does Timothy McVeigh ring a bell to you?

Q: But if DPW is running port security, aren't we at risk of terrorist attacks?
A: Who said anything about DPW running port security other than the Democrat demagogues trying to make an issue when there isn't one? Port security will still be ran by the United States Coast Guard, U.S. federal agencies and local law enforcement.

Q: Yeah, but now that DPW will have access to our security measures, they could easily hand them off to someone....
A: So does China and Saudi Arabia - and neither are exactly friendly with us at this moment. However, that doesn't mean our security is compromised. Personally, I'm more worried about China than I ever will about the UAE.

Q: Still, shouldn't an American-owned company be running the ports?
A: They do. It's a few of terminals at the ports that are being managed by foreign-owned companies.

Q: Okay, but shouldn't American-owned companies be managing the terminals at the ports then?
A: They would if they weren't so heavily regulated and taxed out of profitability.

Q: Yes, but what abo*BAM*
A: You are obviously stuck on stupid at this point. I had no choice but to put you out of my misery.

Let's get down to facts here:

1) The UAE is so trusted by the U.S. government (other than anyone running for congressional re-election in 2006) that they house the largest U.S. Navy and Air Force bases outside the continental United States.

2) All issues regarding security of the ports were fielded and answered long before this was even a news story - not one part of the administration or any department that was involved in this deal has any problem with it. The only people that have a problem in it are up for re-election this year (mainly Democrat) and need an issue to run on.

3) The UAE has a bigger "dog in the fight" in regards to the War on Terror than most other Arab countries combined. Making them a nice, fat, juicy target for Al-Qaida. They also have significant troop levels in Iraq. These guys are on our side. Treating them like this just because they are Arabs is simply racist.

4) In reality, the only thing that is really going to change at the terminals is the name of the company on the checks on payday. All other operations will remain as is. DPW has even suggested setting up an American-owned blind-trust to front the operation. In which the trust company does all the work but sends the profits back to DPW.

At this point, if you still have a problem with the so-called "port deal", you're stuck on stupid and I better get a bead on you before someone else bags you.

Next Time, Use a Bigger Gun

2006-02-14T16:52:00.000-08:00

I am totally convinced that many Americans are just plain idiots. On top of that, I am convinced that most of them are news journalists and reporters.

The other weekend, VP Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting buddy of his with his 28 gauge shotgun loaded with bird shot. Typical weapon and round used for hunting little quail birds.

The press was incensed about not being notified for almost 18 hours - likening the event to the Katrina hurricane in which they claimed the president didn't know what was going on until the next day (24 hours).

Questions regarding Cheney's resignation came up as well.

In my opinion - we need hunting licenses for stupid people (or those stuck on stupid). I'm not saying these idiots in the press need hunting licenses so they can go off and bag something. Not at all. I'm saying that normal every day people should be allowed to carry hunting licenses against stupid people. The moment they do or say something stupid - *BAM* - bag 'em right there.

Imagine a White House press event. I'd speculate to say that 15 minutes after the press corp started asking questions, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan probably would bag his limit.

Wisdom From The Gipper

2006-01-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

A quote from Ronald Reagan regarding Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork on October 23rd, 1987:

The framers of our Constitution believed that the judicial branch should be removed from politics and that its only goal should be the fair and impartial administration of justice. But in the last few months, the confirmation of a judicial nominee has become a spectacle of misrepresentation and single-issue politics. To allow this unprecedented practice to become the rule would jeopardize the integrity and independence of the American system of justice.

Well, it aparently became rule as Democrats tried to block John Roberts to the bench as they are now doing with Samuel Alito.

President Reagan followed with:

All Americans have a stake in making sure that the confirmation process is never distorted like this again.

Again, when the Democrats start talking about how President Bush and his administration are dividing the country - just point them back to 1987 and remind them just exactly how long it has been the liberals who have been doing the dividing.

It Takes A Lot To Make A Woman Cry

2006-01-11T23:07:00.000-08:00

Just ask the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee today - during "questioning" of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, the comments made by the small-minded leftists eventually got to Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who left the hearings weeping.

Kennedy, Durbin, Feinstein, Schumer, etc - must all feel proud of themselves - they got a woman to cry.

Won't They Ever Shut Up?

2006-01-10T23:48:00.000-08:00

So, the Senate Confirmation Hearings for Supreme Court nominee Alito have begun. I only wonder; at what point will the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee stop pontificating and actually start asking questions?

It seems all they want to do is spout off for ten or 11 minutes on TV without Alito actually being asked any questions. Grandstanding for the media.

Makes you wonder; if the media wasn't there, would the Democrats shut up?

Don't Do As We Do, Do As We Say...

2005-12-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

In case anyone forgot either the Clinton or Carter administrations, perhaps you need a little reminder:

Bill Clinton signs an order that allows the U.S. Attorney General to do searches without a court order:

Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, theAttorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods ofup to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section.

Think that was new at the time? Ha!

Look at the order signed by Jimmy Carter:

1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire
foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.

And according to former Deputy Attorney General Jamie "Build the Wall Higher" Gorelick, of the Clinton administration, the president has 'an inherent authority to conduct warrentless searches for foreign intelligence purposes'.

And who can forget the searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames without a court order in June and October of 1993 because the CIA believed he was a spy for the Soviet Union?

Thanks to Matt Drudge for pointing out the obvious:

Democrats play by two rule books, one for them and one for the rest of us.

Democrats Finally Show Their True Colors

2005-12-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

Democrats are outraged. Outraged at President Bush.

Why?

Because Bush authorized domestic spying by the NSA.

Democrats are filibustering the Patriot Act renewal in the Senate.

Democrats are screaming violation of civil liberties.

Who's civil liberties are they so concerned with?

Terrorists.

Phone numbers and e-mail address captured on Al Qaida's number three man laptop and cell phone that point to American-based terrorists cells.

There you have it.

Democrats are screaming in rage over the violation of civil liberties of known terrorist suspects directly linked to the Al Qaida network.

Now we for certain who's side the Democrats are on.

Not America's for certain.

An America Worth Defending?

2005-11-28T23:13:00.000-08:00

Let me put this right up front: I have family that served in the U.S. military and I have family that is currently serving in the U.S. military. Specifically, my step-brother got back from Iraq earlier this year serving with the Marines.

I have the upmost respect for our armed services and those who serve. They volunteer to put themselves and their lives in jeapordy so that we can live free and safe. We owe them so much for their service and duty to country.

That being said, the actions of political "cartoonist" Ted Rall is absolutely disgusting:

This is Ted Rall, someone who hates our military with extreme prejudice. He is a loathesome, disgusting, hate-filled individual who neither deserves to live in this country or enjoy the freedoms protected by the members of the U.S. military.

I simply cannot say how much this "man" offends me.

I could say that he is nothing more than an extreme, left-wing, self-loathing, child-sodomizing, cross-dressing, transvestual pedophile who enjoys beastuality with small furry animals shortly before ripping off their skins to make hats that he wears around the house while masturbating to the child pornography he downloads from the Internet.

I could say that - but I won't.

That would be wrong to charactize someone to that degree who so is obviously not any of those things.

Well, maybe the extreme, left-wing and self-loathing descriptions are accurate.

The Fall Of The European Empire

2005-11-07T22:10:00.000-08:00

The Islamic urban terrorists have spread their violence past Paris. In the 12th night of rioting the numbers are staggaring:

1 civilian dead
10 officers shot
31 firefighters wounded, 10 hit by
gunfire
77 police officers wounded, 10 shot
396 arrested
over 5000
cars torched
the violence has spread to over 300 cities in France

To make matters worse, the violence has gone beyond the borders of France to at least two other European cities, Brussels and Berlin.

And yet, French officials don't think things have gotten too far out of hand.

In a time when most governments would have called in their equivelant of the National Guard or even their own military, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin stated "We are not at that point, at each step, we will take the necessary measures to re-establish order very quickly throughout France."

The French population is composed of 10% North Africans, many who are Muslims. The riotors have attacked police directly. First with Molitov cocktails (gasoline firebombs) but have elevated the attacks with the use of firearms. French riot police have yet to respond with lethal force. Even as firefighters battle the firestorms that are engulfing France, they too must battle these urban terrorists who now target those who would save the city from burning.

French authorities have yet authorized the use of tactical measures that would protect innocent lives and private property on fears of escalating the violence.

Give me a freaking break!

Escalating the violence? Are these people so dense that they cannot see that simply standing by is escalating the violence as the urban terrorists become more embolden by the lack of action by the French paramilitary riot police? The terrorists are also beginning to use improvised explosive devices (IED's) against French law enforcement.

Are the jokes about the ease at which the French surrender true?

Is the best the French can do is "apply pressure" with the presence of more police officers? March in silence against the violence? Impose curfews?

No, of course not. The French feel really badly for these urban terrorists, really they do. Even French President Jacques Chirac said that France "has not done everything possible for these youths, supported them so they feel understood, heard and respected."

Apparently the French are simply Stuck On Stupid.

Respect is not something that is given. Respect is something that is earned. If these criminals want respect, they shouldn't have started rioting in the first place. Instead, because they were not given what they wanted they feel the need to take it. Or at least take it out on France.

The funny thing is, that for several years many critics of the United States have been foretelling the decline of the U.S. as the worlds only remaining superpower and the rise of either the Japanese or German economic giants, or more recently, the rise of a United European superpower.

Well, we know how well the Japanese economy suffered in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The truth be told, the Japanese economy is just beginning to recover from their deep decade-long recession. German economic growth is barely viable, hanging in at less than 1% while the U.S. grew again at over 3.8% - that may not seem like a lot, but consider we have a $15 trillion dollar economy and then compare that to such socialist-friendly countries such as Germany and France (with their 10%+ unemployment rate - and liberals complain the job picture here is bad?) and you get the idea.

Now, it seems the idea of a united European community is dead before it could even walk. Many countries have begun to reject the idea of membership in the European Union, especially the former Iron Curtain-Eastern European countries and instead are courting the United States. Which may explain why the U.S. military is shifting it's military presence (and bases) away from such Cold War strong points in Germany to new locations in Hungary - which makes easy access to the Middle East in comparison.

The European community is fragmented. Where are the Germans? Are they sending support to France? Then again, I guess the last thing France needs is German soldiers on her soil for a third time in less than a century. Still, there has been little pledges of support from France's allies, if none at all.

France has always seen itself as the next superpower in the world areana. Yet French officials can't even control their own population from buring down Paris. Does anyone actually expect the French to pull off the notion of uniting Europe as a military and economic superpower to rival or surpass that of the United States if they can't get their own house in order?

Much like the suggestion that the United States simply accept the Soviet Union as a permanent placeholder in the world back in the 1970's (before Reagan came by and knock the Kremlin and the Berlin Wall down), the idea that the United States is in decline and that the Europeans, led by France, will take our place as the worlds economic and military superpower is laughable at best.

Let's see how "Old Europe" looks in a couple of weeks from now - will it be burning as Nero Chirac fiddles?

Paris Is Burning

2005-11-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

Thousands of North Africans and Muslims (actually, that's redundant) are have rioted and burned hundreds of automobiles and have destroyed thousands of dollars in property.

This began as two Muslims were accidentely electrocuted while evading police. Now Muslims are rioting because they claim they have been offered very little in French society. In other words, they want opportunities handed to them instead of working for them.

What is so spectacular about this riot is that it has gone unanswered for over 9 days.

Well, not completely unanswered - tody about a thousand Parisians silently marched in protest holding such banners as "Dialog, Not Violence". Apparently it is completely ineffective as Paris still burns as the riots continue to expand.

In a socialist state such as France, they have a high tolerance to such criminal actions. The question now is, how long will Parisian authorities allow this riot to continue unabaded before taking action against the riotors?

The problem is that government is readily accepting of the actions of these urban terrorists. Either unwilling or unable to stop the violence. If allowed to continue, this violence will continue as the Muslims will become embolden by the inaction of the authorities.

Peacefull assembly is one thing. But this violence should never be tolerated and extreme action should result immediately before things got out of hand. Unfortunately for Paris, the French believe that any serious action taken against the Muslim riotors would be politically incorrect and may be a call for further violence.

But this actually goes to prove a point in regards to the War on Terror. It has been stated by the liberals that the war in Iraq has simply created new terrorists - embolden them to attack U.S. troops (although they seem to cause more damage to Iraqi civilians rather than U.S. or coalition troops). The liberals believe if we simply left Iraq, the attacks would cease. If we began a dialog with Al Qaeda they would stop killing U.S. civilians. If we sat down and gave the terrorists what they want, they'd leave us alone.

Doesn't seem to working that way in Paris, does it? The authorities have arrested a small number of Muslim riotors but have not done anything serious to stop these urban terrorists. But the similarities are startling. Be it Muslim fanatic or Muslim urban terrorists, they want the same thing - and they want it handed over to them on a silver platter. The violence has escalated in Paris and seems it will continue without stop. Peaceful marches have done nothing to stem the violence and nothing will until force is used to protect innocent lives and private property.

Inaction, it seems, has done nothing to stop the violence in France. Why would anyone believe that pulling out and to cease the hunting of terrorists will have any different effect in Iraq? The definition of insanity is to continue to do something and expect a different result each time. Cowtowing to violent Muslims either in Paris or the Middle East is the perfect example of such insanity.

After over 9 days of unmitigated rioting and violence I seriously doubt the French authorities will be able to fully reign in the violent activities of the rioting North African Muslim population. Worse than that, the French have allowed the violence to continue and most likely will have embolden the riotors or any of their more radical brethern that French tolerance is never ending.

"Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding ..."
-Ra's Al Ghul (Batman Begins)

This is apparently a lesson the French have yet to learn and unfortunately for them, class is now in session.

What Were the Democrats Hiding From?

2005-11-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the Democrats effectively shut down the Senate from the public by invoking Rule 21 in order to discuss the relationship between Cheney right-hand man Libby and pre-Iraq war intelligence. Forget the fact that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald said specifically there was no relationship. This forces the Senate into secret session and forces the public out. This was initiated by Senator Reid (D - NV) and seconded by Senator Durbin (D - IL). The Republican majority could not stop this.

The question is: what were Democrats hiding from that they needed to talk about Libby in secret? The answer is simple. It made a lot of noise and brought the attention back to the Iraq war - which the liberals think they can hurt Bush.

More importantly, it takes the focus off Supreme Court nominee Alito - which is going to cause Democrats a lot of pain here in the short term future. It was nothing more than a stunt. Pure and simple:

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank: "Democrats Did Not Deny It Was A Stunt: A Brazen Effort To Change The Subject From The Supreme Court Confirmation Of Sam Alito ..." (Dana Milbank, "Mad About You," The Washington Post, 11/2/05)

It's not like Reid hasn't a history of such stuff anyways. I suspect this will only come back and bite the Democrats big time. People are going to start wondering what the Democrats were wanting to hide.

You Should Be Careful What You Wish For...

2005-10-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

You just might get exactly that.

Which is what hit the liberal establishment today on Halloween of all times.

As we all know, Miers withdrew her nomination as a Supreme Court Justice on Friday. Personally, I don't think this was such a bad move. I also think that somehow it was planned by the Bush administration - kind of a way to test the waters with the Democrats in the Senate. Why he chose to nearly alienate his conservative support base is beyond me - but Miers withdrew on Friday citing she didn't want to cause further strife in the Bush administration.

Basically, the conseratives didn't like her. She was too much of an unknown. No experience. Bush promised us a conservative and we wanted exactly that.

Democrats, on the other hand, were divided into two groups. The first group pretty much didn't seem to have a problem with Miers. To me, that is one big red flag. If the Democrats like Chuck Schumer (D-NY) like her, then something ain't kosher.

The other side, the more extreme elements of the Democrat party, accused the Bush administration of cronyism. Miers was Bush's personal legal counsel since he was governor of Texas. So they accuse Bush of putting up a buddy to be a Supreme Court Justice. Don't let anyone else tell you differently - it was the liberals accusing Bush of cronyism. The Republican party, especially the more conservative elements within, were more concerned that Miers wasn't guarenteed to hold up to conservative ideals that were election promises from Bush.

Well, Miers has withdrawn and Bush now has nominated Samuel Alito to the Bench. This guy is great, he's like Roberts on conservative-powered steroids. Over 12 years of experience. Unanimously voted into his current position as a Federal Appealate Court Judge by Senate controlled by Democrats when he was nominated by then-president George H.W. Bush. He comes to the Court with more experience than anyone else in over 70 years.

Alito hates abortion and loves guns. Expect a huge Senate battle over this guy. Also expect to hear more about the "nuclear option" as I predict the liberals will reneg on their promise not to filibuster the confirmation hearings. However, I predict Alito will be confirmed. It will definitely be a "division in America", which will be the accusations of the liberal left; the Republicans will vote unanimously for Alito while the Democrat party will be split down the middle much like the Roberts confirmation vote. Somehow, Democrats think that when they are divided, America is divided. They still don't realize that it's the extreme elements of the Democrat party that isn't in line with mainstream America. And they wonder why they keep losing elections.

Liberals should have been careful what they wished for when they accused Bush of cronyism. Now they have Alito to deal with. They were better off with Miers.

They should have kept their big mouths shut.

Rove, Libby and Liberals - Oh My!

2005-10-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

Things got a bit interesting in the Yahoo! forums regarding Rove/Plame CIA "leak". It's absolutely amazing how little these liberal "yahoos" understand what law Rove is possibly accused of.

I did a couple of posts. I got a couple follow up threads. When I mentioned that this Grand Jury was a bunch of BS and that the liberals were trying to railroad Rove the same way they did Martha Stewart (you know, found guilty of lying about not committing a crime she actually didn't commit) - I had actually had one poster say that Rove was guilty of outing a "covert operative, fool!".

Fool?

The punk, a 22 year old male from God knows where, actually called me a fool. Yet he lacked the basic understanding of the law Rove may be accused of breaking or even lying about...

So let's break it down one last time. I'll go slowly for the logically impaired (liberals):

1) Valerie Plame was outed by her husband Joseph Wilson in an issue of Vanity Fair in early spring of 2003 - before Rove even talked to reporter Robert Novak later that June.

2) Valerie Plame hadn't been overseas or even "covert" since 1997. Since then, she has been assigned as an analyst (aka: desk-jocky). This means she hadn't been "undercover" in over 6 years.

3) The law Rove is accused of breaking specifically states that it is illegal to expose the cover of any operative even if they have not been overseas within the last 5 (five, cinco, funf, f-i-v-e) years.

4) Recently, the FBI interviewed the Wilson/Plame neighbors asking if any of them knew Plame worked for the CIA prior to the Novak article. Some claimed they thought she worked for an energy company and others claimed they knew Plame worked for the CIA.

Okay - so what do we have here?

Wilson outed Plame before Rove spoke to Novak. Plame isn't protected by the the law Rove is accused of breaking because she hadn't been active longer than 5 years. And some of Plame's neighbors already knew she worked for the CIA.

In case anyone is thinking; no, it's not illegal to out a CIA analyst.

The best the liberals can hope for at this point is that Rove perjurs himself from prior grand jury testimony or has obstructed justice. In other words, Rove would have to be found guilty of lying about a crime he actually did not commit.

So one has to ask, where is the justice in that? I can understand if Rove actually did out Plame illegally and lied or deceived about it to keep from being arrested - but how is lying or deceiving about a crime that was not committed illegal? It's one thing to do 45 in a 30 mph traffic zone and lie about to a traffic cop that you were only doing 25. But it's quite another thing to have that cop claim you were doing 45 in a 30 mph traffic zone, lie to the cop about only doing 25 and then have the radar show you were actually only doing 20!

The facts are plain and simple: Rove did 20 in a 30 mph traffic zone and lied to the cops he was doing 25 - either way, he's innocent of any crimes. However, the liberals are simply consumed with the idea he might have lied.

Lied about nothing.

We've Hit 2,000 Casualties in Iraq

2005-10-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

It's sad, but it's true. We've hit the 2,000 mark in U.S. military deaths in Iraq.

But I think we should put it in perspective:

On February 19th, 1945, 70,000 American troops attack the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima during World War II.

There were approximately 22,000 Japanese soldiers entrenched on that island.

By March 16th, 1945, American forces had taken the island. Virtually all Japanese soldiers had been killed.

In the 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 American casualties. Of these, 6,825 were killed in combat against the Japanese. Which means approximately 1 in 3 U.S. troops were either killed or wounded.

We've been in Iraq over 2 years now and have suffered only 2,000 casualties while killing tens of thousands of insurgents in an area larger than Iwo Jima, which measured only 8 square miles.

It's a good thing the liberals like Cindy Sheehan were not around complaining about U.S. troop losses back in WWII or else the West coast would be speaking Japanese and the East coast would be speaking German.

Happy Birthday United Nations

2005-10-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 24th marked the 60th birthday of the United Nations.

The UN started off on the wrong foot when it included the Soviet Union under Stalin on the Security Council and gave it veto power. You remember Stalin - he killed millions of Russians.

Since then, we've had China, Syria, (North) Viet Nam, Sudan, Zimbabwe and even Lybia on the UN Human Rights Commission as members in good standing. Funny considering they have all been huge violators of human rights.

Then we have sexual abuse by UN "peacekeepers" in Haiti, Congo and Sierra Leone.

Let's not forget the infamous Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal that may lead to the very top of the UN - Koffi Anon.

And now another high-ranking official in the UN in a sex scandal.

Just think, in only five more years, we can forceably retire that corrupt group.

Really Stupid Quotes From Really Stupid Liberals

2005-10-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

This stuff writes itself...
deleted
-Howard Dean, Chairman of the DNC commenting on how more blacks died in the wake of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

deleted
-Jesse Jackson, on his view on how to balance the number of deaths of blacks compared to whites in New Orleans following the destruction of New Orleans due to hurricane Katrina

I had to pull the Dean and Jackson quotes as I was unable to verify them...

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,"
-Marion Barry, former Mayor Washington, D.C.

and oddly enough, it is completely illegal to own any personal firearms for your protection in D.C.

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
-Hillary Clinton, commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents.

"We"???

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
-Al Gore, former Vice President

"We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
-Al Gore, former Vice President

We got a two-fer out of Al... but at least this time he didn't claim he invented something someone else did...

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
-Bill Clinton, former President

I would suggest a miserable failure there, Bill...

Holy Toledo, Blackman!

2005-10-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

Over the last weekend, Toledo Ohio was rocked by riots perpetrated by black gang violence responding to a Nazi rally.

Yep. This one has it all.

Nazi's rallying. Black gangs rioting.

Basically what this was all about was that Toledo had some major rioting by black gangs. Sure, the Nazi scum were out - but they never got to rally because of the gang violence. Apparently, the Nazi's were there to rally against black gang violence on white people. As a result, the black gangs rioted.

Full circle.

So? What's the point?

The point is that a couple of years ago, Nazi's in Coure D'Alene actually marched. The result? Counter protestors, some booing, pretty boring white stuff. No violence. No attacks. No vandalism. No looting. Yawn.

But in Toledo, the black gangs attacked police, paramedics, vandalized and looted. You should have seen the amount of damage they inflicted on that ambulance! I could have sworn that eventually one of those dozens of bricks tossed at the windshield was going to penetrate and injure somebody. The result was 114 arrested and a female police officer suffering from a concusion.

Kinda reminds me of the differences between how the citizenry reacted in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina vs. the Houston area with hurricane Rita.

In New Orleans you had looting, vandalism, rapes, attacks on hurricane victims and someone taking shots at police at the Superdome. In Houston you had almost no looting (and those that did were arrested) and none of the other violent actions.

So, what the hell is going on?

Simple - lack of family values.

Within the black community, especially those involved in violent gangs, there is a non-existant family structure. Most fathers are absent and a huge number live in broken families. It is a world of the entitled. Living off of government handouts with little or no education.

Bill Cosby was right. Black parents have failed their children for several generations and this is the result. When the generation of the entitlement don't get what they want when they want it, or when law enforcement becomes lax due to natural disasters, the black community in these areas immediately degenerate into violence.

Of course don't expect anything helpful from Jesse Jackson or "Screwy" Louis Farrakhan. Expect more of what they've always done: make the problem worse.

And of course, expect the Nazi vermin to rally because of black gang violence which of course will result in more black gang violence which will cause the Nazi's to rally because of...

well, you get the idea.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

2005-10-16T22:46:00.000-07:00

This crap happening against Karl Rove and the Bush administration in regards to Valarie Plame has got to stop. To put it bluntly, Rove is completely innocent and it doesn't take a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to understand why.

You must remember this bag of crap: Rove and Libby (Vice-President Chenny's man) supposedly outed CIA operative Valarie Plame in an effort to hurt her anti-Bush advocate Joseph Wilson. Timeline here.

According to the law, there are three prerequisites that must all be determined true in order prove someone guilty of outing an undercover operative:

1) The outed operative must have been undercover or in the field
within the last 5 years.

That right there is enough to let Rove and Libby off the hook - simply because Plame hadn't been active in the field for the last 6 years when she was supposedly outed. That's right, Valarie had been a deskjocky, an analyst - not an operative, for 6 years.

2) Blowing the cover of the operative would put their life in jepardy.

Well, sorry. But Plame was a pushing paper in-country for years. In addition, her own disclosure with Wilson in Vanity Fair in early 2003 pretty much proved she wasn't worried about her life being threatened.

3) The United States is threatened by the disclosure of the operatives'
identity.

Somehow I seriously don't believe that disclosing the name of a paper-pusher was a national threat. And it's not illegal to reveal the name of an analyst.

Actually, what I find interesting is that back in April of 2005 during the Senate Confirmation hearings for John Bolton, Democrat Senator John Kerry (loser:2004) disclosed the identity of an actual undercover operative! Press is pretty quiet on that one though. In this case, while Rove has not broken any part of the law protecting undercover operatives, Kerry actually did.

Kerry defends his position that others had mentioned Fulton Armstrong's name before and therefore he should be excused. Well, Rove claims he got Plame's name from the media, specifically columnist Robert Novak.

I guess what is good for Democrats doesn't apply to Republicans.

So why all the hubbub regarding Rove now? Why is the special prosecutor going after Rove, having him "voluntarily" testify in front of a grand jury? Simple, they are trying to "Martha Stewart" Rove. They know Rove is innocent of outing Plame, but if he lied about any part of it in previous testimonies, they can nail him with perjury - exactly the same thing Martha got sent to the big house for.

Typical. The Democrats can't get Bush directly so they are going for his power base. Now that they realize they can't touch Rove on the charges they are concocting against they are hoping he changes his story enough to get him on perjury charges.

Strange, isn't it? Rove may be innocent of the charges against him, but could be sent away for lying about it. Pathetic.

How Do You Kill The Internet?

2005-10-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

You let the UN manage it.

Click here and be afraid, be very afraid.

Did I mention the UN is a bastion of liberalism run amoke?

You remember that the next time you have a craving to vote for Hillary Clinton.

This is something she'd be in favor of.

Right-Wing Wackjob

2005-10-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Recently my boss described me as a "right-wring wackjob" because I am a vocal conservative and very supportive of George W. Bush. Don't get me wrong, he's not perfect. I can name a dozen things that can be improved upon. But that is better than the thousands of things I'd be mentioning if Kerry actually won the election. And Bill, the cigar is for smoking, get it right.

He even ordered me to remove my Bill O'Reily and Ann Coulter books from my shelf at work. I said I would the moment the other worker bees removed their Bill Clinton "My Life" books. That ended that argument.

Still, he insists on call me a "hard core right-winger" and even alluded to my participation in the Nazi party simply because I owned a firearm. Sadly, he doesn't realize that I lost a large number of my family members on my mothers' side to Nazi death camps simply because Hitler didn't like Jews. Needless to say, when people start insisting that I am extremely to the right, I start to wonder.

Then I take political assesment tests.

The results? That left-wing nutcases out there can bite me. It's pretty apparent they are so friggin' to the left that their idea of "center" is to put me to the extreme right.

Here's my test results:

I'm a CENTRIST. Specifically, the numbers say I am a Social (36% permissive) and Economic (60% permissive) Conservative. That I "exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and a believe (should be spelled 'belief') in economic fairness".

So, unless those left-wing weirdos out there start taking the tests and publishing them, they should shut the hell up when it comes to calling conservatives names.

Like I told him, "I'm not a right-wing wacko. You take the test."

Now I have proof. I can only imagine what my bosses' chart looks like...

Those Intolerant Liberals

2005-10-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

The thing about liberals that they always like to exclaim about themselves is how tolerant they are in regards to other peoples ideas. Liberals also claim the opposite is true about Conservatives. Hence, you get the rantings from the left that the Republican party wants to use the Patriot Act to take away your Civil Liberties, such as the First Amendment Right to the freedom of speech/press/assembly, etc.

However, like I posted last time, liberal themselves are usually the ones who are extremely intolerant to anyone elses ideas that do not conform to their own. Hence, the typical reception a member of the Young Republicans gets on any U.S. college campus these days.

During the election campaign of 2004, it was pretty painfully obvious by the high numbers of anti-Bush vandalism and the relatively low numbers of anit-Kerry vandalism throughout the country who was actually the less tolerant of the two political parties.

And it still happens today. Except now to every day citizens and patriots. They and their property are being targetted by the looney left who attempt to silence their rights to free speech.

A perfect example was found in the Northern Seattle neighborhood of Shoreline (Jim McDermott's stomping grounds, I believe) - where Ken Potts, a 3-tour Viet Nam veteran and member of the 101st Airborne, has repeatedly had his house vandalized with anti-Bush propaganda.

Why? Simply because someone doesn't agree with what Ken has to say. Ken says it with American flags, the 101st Airborne banner, his Bush-Chenney placard and his collection of Republican campaign signs.

The liberals tell Ken how they feel with eggs, spraypaint and permanent markers emblazing Nazi swastikas. They have also blown up his mailbox several time (a federal charge if convicted) and ripped up his flags.

Well, we sure can tell how patriotic the liberals are if they are going to destroy the American flag and attempt to silence anyone who doesn't go along with their anti-Bush/anti-American ideals!

A complete story with exact details can be found here.

So, the next time you hear a self-induldgent, arrogant liberal exclaim how virtuous they are compared to conservatives, you simply remember Ken Potts and how they tried to bestow their virtues on him.

You might want to mention Ken to that liberal as well...

If Al Only Knew What He Meant

2005-10-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

A quote from former veep Al Gore at the Media Conference on Wednesday in New York:

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public
discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in
the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an
alternate universe"?

The full text can be read here.

I wonder - does Al Gore mean that he's actually visited our nations college campuses and discovered that free speech has practically been banned in order to fall in line with Political Correctness?

Go ahead, go on to any campus in the U.S. during any even they have. Try and set up a booth, like many of the ones you will find there, even a political booth. Of course you will have many such booths up during this time, but try putting up one that eschews conservative ideas and see what happens.

They'll yell at you. Throw things at you. Destroy your booth. Threaten you with physical harm. It's amazing how intolerant the so-called tolerant liberals really are.

Personally, I find their lack of tolerance - disturbing.

Oh, something else from that same speech of Al's:

I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having here today.

First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.

Well, considering he claimed he invented the Internet, I guess we only have Al to blame for that...

But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.

Apparently Al hasn't caught on to the growing number of talk-radio and Internet-based news and blog sites out there that are quickly replacing television (aka Mainstream Media, or MSM) as the dominant form of information and communication. The reason why? The same reason Fox News Channel has beatten out CNN as the dominant cables news channel: they approach the news as reporters, not as editorialists. If I want someones opinion, I'll read the Editorial section of the newspaper. If I want the facts, I'll watch Fox News. If I want biased, left-leaning, editorialized infomercials posing as news reporting, I'll watch CNN or MSNBC.

Guess which one I watch when I want relevant and factual information?

The truth is, the MSM is a dying breed. Al knows it, he's just trying to prop it up for a bit longer. Liberals need the MSM, it's the only way they can force their partisan political beliefs down your throat. When you use the Internet or talk-radio, you end up being able to check your facts because they both allow for a two-way open dialog. By why bother with facts when you can have the liberal-controlled MSM tell you what to think?

Well, Dan Rather found out the hard way why you need to check your facts. It's called Fair and Balanced for a reason, Dan...

Who's Really Afraid Of Harriet Miers?

2005-10-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

The liberals at Slate (MSN) have already started their attacks on president Bush's Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. You can read Let-Down Lady here. Read the piece, it's definitely not balanced reporting. Sure they mention why both Republicans and Democrats have problems with Miers and even compare Miers to outgoing Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Conner.

But that is exactly the problem. President Bush is determined to put on the Bench the type of person he wants as Associate Justice. He wants someone, if you listened to his speech this morning, who is a constructionist, not willing to liberally interpret the Constitution. This is exactly what the liberals fear most.

What the left was hoping for was a more moderate justice like O'Conner. Someone who won't shift the balance of power on the Court further to the right. This is especially true for abortion rights activists who fear that a born-again evangelical Christian like Miers will strike down Roe v. Wade.

This is exactly the message Slate was trying to get across, after all, look at the title of the article:

Let-Down LadyHarriet Miers isn't just no John Roberts. She's no Sandra Day O'Connor

Yeah, really?

Good.

And Ruth Bader Ginsburg was no Bryon White. You can read about that here. Now, personally, I don't know much about Miers. But I am willing to wait for solid information to come out before I make my decision.

The liberals seem to be constantly reminded that they are no longer calling the shots these days. The conservatives are in power. When it was their turn, liberals had no problems doing whatever they felt like, such as putting a pro-pediphile on the U.S. Supreme Court or tossing a small Cuban boy out of the country at gun-point.

Still, uber-liberal Senator Kennedy is already wanting to go further than they did during the Roberts confirmation hearings by demanding documents written by Miers in service to the president during his term as governor as Texas and even as president of the United States.

Of course, that would probably break attorney-client privileges - so good luck there Senator Kennedy. Tell you what though, I'm sure the Republicans would be willing to show you that if you would be willing to show us what your attorney knows about that night at Chappaquiddick and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

C'mon Teddy, you show us yours and we'll show you ours.

Until then liberals, turn off the lights - the party is over.

You 'Git The Sheriff, I'll Round Up The Posse

2005-10-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I don't make this stuff up. The liberal population in Seattle really is stuck on stupid. The following conversations I had today occured as I was getting my lunch from a nearby deli. Some liberal started bashing Bush about Katrina and how the federal government did little to help people in New Orleans.

"Posse Comitatus", I said.

"Bush left those 20,000 in that arena...", he began.

"Posse Comitatus", I repeated, "Do you know what that is?"

"That FEMA guy of his was just an appointee...", the man tried to cut me off.

"Stop", I said, "It's a 'yes' or 'no' question. Do you know what Posse Comitatus is?"

I was going to get an answer from this guy. Not that I already didn't know what his answer was going to be, I wanted him to say it out loud in front of the half dozen or so people now in the store listening to our debate.

"Yeah", he answered, "It's about deputizing people..."

I swear, I am not making this up. That was his answer. I expected at best a "No" reply, but this was even better. I had always said liberals are nothing more than arrogance combined with a healthy does of ignorance. Well, this guy was extremely ignorant. Not only was it time for the crowd to learn that, it was time he learned it as well.

I wanted to say something smartass, but I decided not to start acting like Cowboy Bob running after the town sheriff when the local bank was robbed. "You 'git the sheriff, I'll round up the posse!"

Instead, I decided to simply lay him flat on the gound.

"No", I came in for the kill, "It's not about deputizing people."

I then explained how it's illegal under Posse Comitatus for the president to order the military into action on U.S. soil, without direct consent from the governor. Blanco [Louisiana's governor] refused to declare a state of emergency which would had envoked the Posse Comitatus law allowing Bush to send in the military into New Orleans. Until Blanco asks for federal help, Bush had his hands tied.

Bam! Right between the eyes. He felt it to. He paused for a second. Then turned to face me directly. He got angier and louder. Ann Coulter is right, you aren't doing your job unless you can enrage liberals.

"Yeah, what about the huge deficit, the war in Iraq and all that oil that was supposed to pay for it?", he shouted.

"You're changing the subject", I stated with a coy smile, "We're talking about Katrina and Bush's response here."

He hated that. He got louder.

Unfortunately, I was getting hungry and my lunch was getting cold. I turned to leave the deli.

"Your kids are going to have to pay for it!", he shouted at me as the door was closing behind me.

Still smiling I turned to him and waved. He really didn't want to continue this debate. If he did, he would have learned how the deficit was calculated. I already nailed him on his Katrina talking points and I was ready to nail him on the deficit, the War on Terror in Iraq, Iraqi oil, anything he wanted. It would have been easy. The simple fact he brought up the deficit only a week after the Wall Street Journal released an article on how the Bush tax cuts were working told me how much he really understood economics.

But my tamales were getting cold and my Vanilla Coke was getting warm.

Divided We Fall...

2005-10-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

Earlier I had posted regarding the Roberts nomination confirmation hearings in the Senate. I had stated that until the Bush administration, the Senate pretty much felt obligated to confirm whomever the president had nominated for the Supreme Court. The idea being that it's the presidents decision because he was the one elected into office. This is the way it has always been.

Even back during the Clinton administration when uber-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nominated in 1993 to replace retiring moderate Bryce White. The Republicans controlled the Senate but let Ginsburg in with a 96 to 3 vote with 1 not voting (Riegle [D-MI]). Forget the fact she was pro-abortion, which flew in the face of the mainstream conservative. The Republicans understood that Clinton had earned the right as president to place whomever he wanted on the Court.

The Ginsburg vote can be found here.

Then W appeared on the scene. All of a sudden any previous rules were tossed out the window. No longer did the Democrats feel it neccessary to abide by the same rules that had governed the Senate all these decades. We should be thankful that the Republicans still hold the Senate by 55 seats. But the Democrats, specifically the extreme left Democrats, were determined to make a mockery of the confirmation hearings and the vote itself.

When Ginsburg went thru her confirmation hearings, many questions were asked specifically regarding abortion. She refused to answer on the grounds that she may have to rule on abortion someday. This became known as the Ginsburg Rule. The questions were dropped and she was confirmed by a large majority of the Senate.

One would think that when Roberts went thru his confirmation hearings he would have been afforded the same luxury. Nope. Leave it to the Democrats to continue to hound him on his stance on abortion. The Ginsburg Rule was cited but still they did not relent. The Democrats demanded private memos from Roberts previous court appointment - something that was unprecented. All attempts were made by this liberal wing of the Democrat party to stall the Roberts hearings or even disrupt the process thru the unprecented use of a filibuster. Things got so nasty that the Republicans were forced into a corner and threatened to use their majority to change the filibuster rules to allow a Roberts confirmation vote to occur. This became known as the Nuclear Option.

The Democrats, of course, screamed bloody murder. How dare the Republicans their majority to change the traditional rules of the Senate! The liberal hypocrites didn't stop for a second and think that is exactly what they were doing with the Roberts confirmation hearings themselves!

With all of the flak the Republicans have been taking lately from the Democrats about "dividing the country", I'd like to point out that the actions of these same Democrats is exactly what has been dividing the country. In a pathetic attempt to maintain whatever power they have remaining, the Democrats have gone to all extremes to make as much noise as possible in order to embarrass or even as go as far as libel/slander their Republican collegues. The Democrats hope that they can bully their way into power since they have been losing at the polls in all levels of government across the nation.

So, here is a list of those Democrats who have been using this bullying tactic. These are the ones directly responsible for dividing the nation and causing the polarization that plagues the United States government and it's people today. When given the chance to confirm Roberts, they chose to use the vote as a platform of political statement, something that has never been done in the Senate before:

The record of the vote found here.

Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)

There you have it, the extremely vocal leaders of the ultra-left, liberal wing of the Democrat party. These people will do everything and anything they can to cause as much damage as possible dividing the country all so they can grab as much power as they can for themselves.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

2005-10-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Like the summary says above, liberals say and do stupid things. Liberal bloggers are no different. I came across this little ditty on Blogspot.com the other day:

http://norcalprogressive.blogspot.com/2005/09/ashcroft-gifts-from-god-in-yuba-city.html

There are a couple of things he said I'd like to point out:

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft preaching
from the bully pulpit in Yuba City this week. From the Marysville Appeal-Democrat:

"(Ashcroft) told a capacity crowd at Calvary Temple that the
freedom Americans enjoy is a gift from God that the country's founders
recognized." - Marysville Appeal-Democrat

Freedom is a gift of God.
Looks like the urge to mix politics and religion got the best of Ashcroft this
week.

I'd like to point out a little early American history lesson to our liberal "progressive" friend in Northern California:

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration_transcript.html

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note that Creator is capitalized - indicating a formal name. This is clearly a reference to God. So, yes, freedom is a gift from God.

Remember, the founding fathers firmly believed that all rights decended from God - because no man could revoke those rights. What government giveth, government can taketh away. But what God giveth, only God can taketh away.

Now you know why so many "progressive" liberals fear God. He interfers in their quest to remove your civil liberties. Think I'm kidding? Try and express your First Amendment rights (Freedom of Speech) on any college campus these days and watch how fast these fascist liberal goon squads shut you down.

The other part of the blog that disturbed me was this:

This is the freedom-lover that ushered in
the Patriot Act during Bush's first term. The anti-terrorism law was, and
continues today, to be the right wing's initial assault on this country's civil
liberties. And Ashcroft was right there in the beginning.

uh-huh.

Strangely enough, I am going to keep this one short compared to my previous posts. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a couple of pics:

In case you forgot, that is little Elian Gonzales being arrested by a INS
officer wielding a fully automatic assualt rifile by orders of then-Attorney
General Janet Reno.

Clearly, Elian doesn't want to go back to Cuba.

But the INS appears to be determined to follow the
orders of Janet Reno.

Whereas the liberal left are screaming over the detainment of terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, citing the violation of their civil liberties, they were strangely quiet when Elian was arrested and deported back to the brutal, socialist regime of Castro's Cuba. In fact, when they did speak, they cited international law as a reason to send him back.

Whereas George W. Bush had to send over the U.S. military to Afghanistan to capture gun-toating, bomb-making terrorists bent on killing as many people as possible that disagreed with the Taliban way of life, Bill Clinton-appointed Janet Reno simply had to send the INS into Miami to arrest a small boy.

Whereas the terrorists arrested and detained at Gitmo' were done so because they were targetting innocent civilians and U.S. military personnel. They had all violated the the Geneva Conventions and were deemed "enemy combatants". Many were released only to be arrested during combat in the field and brought back to Gitmo.

Elian Gonzales' only crime was that his mother died while they tried to escape a totalitarian dictatorship and make their way to safety in the United States.

So, exactly WHO has been violating American civil rights again?

I Don't Know Nuthin' About No Readin'

2005-10-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

The U.S. educational system is failing. That's no surprise. It's been failing for many decades. It's just not failing our children, it's failing our country as a whole.

There used to be a time when the United States led the world in education. Now I don't think we even rate in the top 5. If I remember correctly, we are still in the top 10 but near the bottom.

This should be a serious concern to everyone here with the exception of those in charge apparently. Let's take a look at the National Education Association, also known as the teachers union. Read their web site:

http://www.nea.org

Looks all fine and dandy at the front, but dig in a bit and we find the following:

http://www.nea.org/esea/index.html

1) When it comes to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act signed into law by president Bush in 2001, the NEA clearly is against it. They continue to cite studies and comments on how schools are failing - but it's not the fault of the schools or teachers.

uh-huh.

Excuse me, but if I take my car into the mechanic and it comes out running worse than when it went in, it's clearly the fault of the mechanic. The same applies to our schools. We trust our school system to educate our children. Granted, we are supposed to take a good part in our childrens learning process as well, but the reason we send our kids to school is to learn.

If our children are graduating to the next grade level and they still don't meet minimum standards in reading and writing - that is as much fault of the teachers as it ours as parents. Of course we can say "Johnny can't read" and blame the schools. In return they can come back and say "You should have helped him with his homework". Fair enough but the schools shouldn't have sent illiterate Johnny to the next grade.

And this is exactly what they are doing.

The gripe that the NEA has with NCLB is that they are basically caught with their pants down. Take a look at some of the articles in the above link and you have such titles as:

NCLB Researcher Says 'Fail Now or Fail Later'
Studies Find Growing Discontent with NCLB
Study Predicts High Failure Rate Under NCLB

The NEA even has this to say about NCLB:

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (the latest revision of ESEA) presents real obstacles to helping students and strengthening public schools because it focuses on:
punishments rather than assistance rigid, unfunded mandates rather than support for proven practices bureaucracy and standardized testing rather than teacher-led, classroom focused solutions.

Yeah, it's called accountability.

Let's face facts here. For decades the teaching methods used by schools around the country just haven't been working. It's gotten to the point that the federal government has had to step in and establish the NCLB to hold these failing teaching methods accountable. The NEA doesn't like having the blame shifted on to them. If the NEA were correct and there were "proven practices", then we wouldn't have the need for the NCLB in the first place.

Now read what the government says about the NCLB:

http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/parents/parentfacts.html

I think there are several thing here that the NEA doesn't like:

Accountability: No Child Left Behind holds schools and school districts accountable for results. Schools are responsible for making sure your child is learning.

Remember the primary purpose of any union: protect it's membership. If a school is failing it's students by not providing them with a proper education, you think the NEA is going to want it's teachers to be held responsible for that? Of course not! If teachers could be held responsible for not doing their jobs, they'd probably end up - losing them!

School District Report Cards: No Child Left Behind gives parents report cards so they can see which schools in their district are succeeding and why. With this information, No Child Left Behind gives parents, community leaders, teachers, principals, and elected leaders the information they need to improve schools.

Same goes for school districts.

Public School Choice: No Child Left Behind may let you transfer your child to another public school if the state says that your child's school is "in need of improvement." Your school district may pay for transportation for your child. Contact your child's school district to find out if your child has this opportunity.

Funding for schools has always been on a per student basis. The more students you have in any one particular school, the more funding it gets. The opposite is true as well. A shrinking school means less funding. It also means less teacher employment.

Parental Involvement: No Child Left Behind requires schools to develop ways to get parents more involved in their child's education and in improving the school. Contact your child's school to find out how you can get involved.

Remember what I said about the need parents needing to take a larger part in their childrens' education? This is paramount, especially when you find out the crap they are teaching kids these days. Unfortunately, it's not limited to K-12 grades. I've been finding out that what is being taught at the college level is either historically inaccurate or just plain incorrect. The sad thing is that kids simply soak it up like a sponge believing every word they hear from their college instructors and not even bothering to verify the information for themselves.

Parents! Get involved with your childrens' school work - even if they are in high school!

Scientifically Based Research: No Child Left Behind focuses on teaching methods that have been proven by research to work. There will be no more experimenting on children with educational fads.

Two words here: THANK and GOD!

One of the biggest trends that went around was making students feel good about themselves even if they got the wrong answer. What is the point of making Johnny "feel good" about trying to solve 2+2 if he got the wrong answer? I can see it now:

"Johnny, please stand and tell the class what is 2+2"

In which Johnny stands up and thinks for a moment before replying with "5!"

The instructor would then come back with "Oh, that is a nice try, Johnny. I can see how hard you worked to answer that question. You should be proud of yourself for trying so hard."

Yeah, fine. Johnny is still an idiot who won't be able to count his change at the supermarket. But, at least he'll feel good about it!

The NEA claims that the NCLB is underfunded. However, Congress has allocated more to schools under NCLB than ever before. Billions more are being spent due to NCLB than under previous presidential administrations.

This is because the educational system is not working as it was before the NCLB. You need proof? Here you go:

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=202975&GT1=6955

Yep, even an "American Idol" can't read. And Fantasia got her 'learnin' under the Clinton administration (so you can't default to "blame Bush" on that one...)

But the NEA just isn't against accountability for it's own teachers' union, it's also against programs that would help students by allowing parents to place their children in schools that work.

2) Let's face it, private schools do a much better job than public schools. Children who go to private schools get better grades when using their states minimum educational standards. They are more likely to go to college and get better jobs.

Of course, that flys in the face of the NEA. It takes away their power base. The last thing they would want is for the federal or state governments to allow the parents to take whatever tax dollars would have gone to public schools and divert them to the tuition costs of a private school. This is called a school voucher. How it works is simple. If a public school gets $5,000 a year for a student, the parents can take that money away from the public school their child was attending and use it to cover all/part of the tuition at a private school.

Did I mention that most teachers at private schools are not unionized in the NEA?

Thus, replies the NEA:

http://www.nea.org/vouchers/index.html

It's an interesting read - citing legal, social and educational reasons why vouchers shouldn't be allowed. But it can all be rebutted with a single reply:

You've had your chance and you've continued to screw up - now it's up to the parents to decide.

Trust me, the NEA doesn't want your involvement. If it did, your child would be able to bring their textbooks home with them at night for you to look thru instead of being locked up inside the classroom. Granted, some schools simply don't have the money to provide enough books for every student. But some do. My daughter is in the first grade. There are enough books for every child in her classroom. She's not allowed to bring the book home. I am a bit curious as to why. Needless to say, I am going to request to see the books. It'll be interesting what happens because I know the NEA/WEA (Washington Education Association) now has a strangle-hold on the Marysville School District ever since Superintendent Whitehead was ran out of office.

The biggest problem is that it's who runs these teachers unions. It isn't the conservatives. Liberal Democrats have been in charge of the educational system and teachers unions for decades, right about the time the educational system started to decline. It's time to remove the power from the teacher unions. It's time teachers and schools were held accountable. It's time Johnny started to learn to read before being passed to the next grade.

It's more important than you think. According to recent federal studies, over 70% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate. The studies further show that over the years, as the illiteracy rate has increased in the United States so it has the prison population grown. As children can't read or write, they turn to crime.

Want to reduce crime? Want smaller state prisons? Want to reduce the prison population? Want a more productive society? Want a larger taxable population base? Then hold teachers ans schools accountable. Stop letting the NEA protect them.

It's not good for our children and it's definitely not good for the future of the country.

Charity Begins At Home

2005-10-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is going to sound kind of harsh at first - but please bear with me as I try to explain my thoughts on this.

Now, unless you are in the Information Technology field as I am, this story may have slipped beneath your radar. Needless to say, I found the web site in which generated the stories on many tech-based web sites.

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

It is about how MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) wants to develop these really cheap and really portable laptops and distribute them to children of Third World nations. Sounds pretty good, right?

Wrong.

Now, I know what you are thinking - "Dude, how can you be so harsh? Don't you have a heart? These kids need whatever help we can give them?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are right. They do need the help, no denying that there.

However, think about this for a moment, and try to do so rationally:

The U.S. government supports MIT with federal tax dollars, or as we conservatives like to refer to it, our paychecks.

MIT wants to develop these laptops, and with the help of Third World governments, distribute these devices to the children of these developing countries.

In other words, we will help fund technology so poor kids in bad parts of the world can get a leg up on their education.

Ok, so far, so good.

However, the following needs to be pointed out:

1) Even with the suggestions by MIT to reduce the cost of the laptop (use a small foot print of Linux instead of the bloated and expensive Microsoft Windows operating system) - the reality is that there is no way a laptop is ever going to reach $100. Think I am kidding? Go out and price 1GB of RAM, the spec'd memory in the MIT laptop. That alone will top $100 or more. Now price out the cost of a small LCD screen. Again that is going to cost about $50 or more. Keyboard is going to run about $30. Bluetooth adapter is going to be $25. WiFi card is going to be about another $20 to $30. Processor (CPU) is going to be $25 to $50.

Trust me, as someone who has been in this business for a very long time, there is no possible way to get computer, let alone a laptop, to the $100 price range. Desktop computers are cheaper than laptop computers and the cheapest desktop computer I've ever seen was about $200 and that was without a display monitor. LCD displays are also more expensive than glass tube monitors.

I'm sorry MIT, but a laptop sold to Third World nations at $100 a pop isn't going to happen...

unless it's subsidized by the U.S. government.

2) MIT has created a non-profit called One Laptop per Child (OLPC) to distribute these devices to make sure this project gets off the ground.

Specifically American ground.

Nicholas Negroponte, Lab chairman and co-founder was asked a few questions and here is one that really got to me:

Q:Why do children in developing nations need laptops?
A:Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to "learn learning" through independent interaction and exploration.

Okay, so I have a followup question for Mr. Negroponte:

Q:What about American children in the Inner cities and distant rural communities that currently have extremely limited or no access to technology?

I won't hold my breath for an answer.

I don't think Negroponte really took a step back and looked at the big picture here.

We have hundreds of thousands of kids in failing schools. These schools are failing not because they don't try, but because the lack of technological infrastructure. Children in the Inner cities such as Detroit, Oakland, Harlem, etc. have little or no resources in which to work with. Children in the middle of "fly over" America, who's parents can't afford expensive technology because of the lower standard of living, are in the same predictiment. Sure, the United States is a rich country compared to most, but there is extreme poverty even here.

A Dell laptop may cost under $1,000 which makes it affordable to most Americans. However, Dell does not adjust it's product prices to fall within the standard of living in different parts of the country. A $1,000 is mere pocket change for the 90210 area code, but it's worth a lot more and goes a lot further in Bode, Iowa where the per capita income for the city is only $16,014 a year.

So, we are supposed to give children in developing nations a boost but ignore the plight of our own?

What about the children displaced by natural disasters who can no longer attend school in their local communities? I am sure the victims of hurricane Katrina would love to have their kids wirelessly access the Internet from another part of the country and maintain their school curriculum. These laptops would be perfect for such an event. Living in Houston now? No problem, access your New Orleans school work with that wireless connection!

How about using these devices to completely replace expensive text books used in schools today? Already several schools in the United States cannot send children home with text books because the school district cannot afford each child their own set of books. In my own city in Washington state this is exactly the case. I also find it interesting that in all the cities in Washington, the school district my daughter attends has the highest wages for teachers anywhere in the state.

In addition to saving money on the costs of books, the other advantages include the fact that all information is available only online from the Internet. This would allow publishers to immediately correct any errors in their text and have updated content available to the students the next time they log into the school networks. This would save the schools money by not having to purchase updated copies of the books. It would also save on the need to recycle the paper used to produce the books. In turn, this only help the environment because it would save the need for trees to be cut down to make pulp for the paper in the books.

More importantly, this will give an opportunity for our own children to experience that window into the world. Currently, where the U.S. educational system no longer rates first in the world, where American Idol champions admit to being illiterate (yep, Fantasia can't read or write) it is the upmost importance that we do whatever we can as American citizens to help our children succeed.

Why? Because if our children are successful in school they will most likely be successful in life. The tax burden to support welfare will drop. Tax revenues brought in by functional, literate and employeed adults will increase. This will give the United States a better chance to help those developing countries financially.

When I first mentioned this to a very liberal co-worker of mine (incidently, not the one who thinks gun ownership should be outlawed), he claimed that was a very "liberal mindset" I had. I corrected him. It's a very conservative mindset to want to protect the American way of life. It's been eroding for decades ever since the liberal establishment has garnered control of our school system. That is a topic for another post.

But we have to begin at home first. If America is stronger, we can do more good in the world.

The last thing we need to do is increase the separation of educational skills and proficiencies than we have right now. Already many U.S.-based corporations are outsourcing their work to foreign nations because they claim they can't find qualified American workers who are skilled in math and technology. Our educational system is quickly declining - I don't think we are even in the top 10 in the world anymore. We need to close this gap and bring the jobs back to America.

Charity is a wonderful thing and the United States is the largest donator of money and goods compared to any nation on the planet. No one country has a civilian population that donates at the same percentage level that we do.

But like the old saying goes, charity begins at home.

Balance of Power

2005-09-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Chief Justice Roberts!

Sucks to be a liberal Democrat today, don't it?

All the whooping and yelling and other "zoo noises" coming from the left over the last few weeks all because they want to maintain the balance of power in the Supreme Court.

They want to maintain what?

Yep. Maintain the balance of power. You know, like Clinton did when he appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Court to replace Justice Byron White...

uh, wait a minute.

White wasn't a hard core liberal like Ginsburg is. He was actually fairly moderate. He is probably known most for dissenting on Roe vs. Wade and Miranda vs. Arizona. But he was definitely no Ginsburg. The former ACLU General Council is best know for (get this) wanting to lower the Age of Consent to 12 years old. While Justice White was best known for standing against abortion "rights", Ginsburg is best known for pedophilia (that's Latin for "sex with children").

So, where was the balance of power when Clinton put this child-rapping wanna-be on the bench? Of course, if you compare White to Ginsburg, White comes out looking pretty conservative! There was no balance maintained. It moved decidedly to the left... way left.

Ginsburg is also known for claiming authority to consult foreign legal decisions when deciding cases. Hello? France is allowed to set precedence to U.S. law?

But the liberal left screams when Bush wants to put another conservative in place to replace Reinquist.

Sounds to me like the left is simply pissed that they lost the 2004 election and are trying to maintain any level of power they think they can grab ahold of. The term "Sore Loser" comes to mind too.

Actually, a second term comes to mind: Hypocrites

Why? Because Ginsburg was appointed with a vast majority of the Senate voting for her - over 95 senators voted to confirm Ginsburg. Roberts had 55 Republicans and 23 Democrats vote to confirm him where as a few Democrats refused to vote (John Kerry - was he even there? Dang, that man is never around when work has to be done) a large number of left-leaning Democrats voted "Nay" on Roberts - including...

Hillary Clinton

Now who exactly does this woman think she is? Her husband gets his nomination thru with nearly 100% confirmation. Why? Because as president of the United States, it's his choice who he puts on the Supreme Court. The confirmation process is nothing really more than a formality. It always has been and it always will be.

Except under Bush. There, all the rules change. Now it becomes a matter of principle with liberals. So, when did Hillary all of a sudden develop principles? When it was convenient for her to do so. Kerry at least had a reason not to vote - because he understood that it's Bush's term and Bush's nominee. Kerry also understood that he had to either vote "Yeah" or distain and not vote at all. A "Nay" vote would have made him look like a sore looser like the rest of his liberal cohorts. A "Yeah" vote would put him out of favor with the extreme left in this country and he's counting on them for support in 2008 when he makes another stab at the White House. So, of course, Kerry plays neutral. What a fine Commander-in-Chief this wussy would have made, too afraid to make the tough decisions.

But Hillary doesn't see it that way. She doesn't see this as the presidents' right to place in his nominee to the Bench. Hillary see's it like nearly 20 other Democrat senators did that day. She believes that when Democrats are in charge, the rules work one way (Ginsburg) and when they have lost the White House, the Senate and the House, the rules work another way (Roberts). In both cases, the rules are to be made to benefit THEM.

How convenient. But not surprising. Liberals have always believed this. It's the "what is mine is mine and what is ours is mine" attitude they are born with. A good example - the New York Times.

There was a time when the Democrats held the Senate. During that time Republicans tried to filibuster a bill. What did the editors of the Times do? Publish an editorial blasting the Republicans for being "sore loosers". Seriously.

Fast forward a couple of elections when Roberts is being filibustered by the Democrats. Republicans threaten to change the filibuster rules to push the Roberts nomination through (the "Nuclear Option" is was dubbed). What does the same Times editorial staff write this time? How DARE the Republicans attempt to dismantle the filibuster - a "time honored tradition" used in the Senate.

Yep. Balance of Power. It's all about the balance. It's all about the power. The left is losing it and they are desparately trying to hold on to as much as they can get. But it gets better. Justice O'Conner is retiring. She's a wild card on the Court. Never can tell which way she is going to lean on any decision. She'll be leaving the Bench soon to spend time with her ailing husband.

Which leaves another slot open for President Bush to fill.

The so-called "balance" is tipping to the right.

Sucks to be a liberal Democrat these days.

Well, that didn't take long!

2005-09-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

It simply amazes me the complete and total lack of U.S. history and understanding of the U.S. Constitution by most people. It's like they almost never read the Federalist Papers. In truth, I doubt too many people have read the Papers.

But it goes without saying. Today I really wanted to chortle a co-worker and yell at him:

Don't get stuck on stupid!

Why? Well first let me explain that I firmly believe that mainstream liberalism is a result of ignorance paired up with a nice healthy does of arrogance. My co-worker proved me right on this one.

We started with a nice conversation about Henry Ford rolling over in his grave after listening to the ramblings of some other co-workers in the lunch room. Somehow that transitioned to a discussion of our basic civil rights (ie: The Bill of Rights) and how far an employer can go to infringe upon them.

Specifically, our Second Amendment rights. Where I work, it's against company policy to bring a firearm to work. Well, it is their building, so I guess they have that right. After all, it's not the government telling me I can't have a gun at work. My company, however, goes a bit further than that: no guns in your car either.

Wait a second - I don't park on company property! Yet, believe it or not, I cannot bring a gun to work in my car. Well, at least they don't think I bring a gun to work in my car. As far as I am concerned, it's my car and my gun and it's not on their property - I can take it any damn place I feel like at that point.

My co-worker disagrees. Not about having the firearm in the car but more so about gun ownership in general.

"Guns are dangerous" he says.

Duh.

Ever hear of a gun that made its' target happy when on the receiving end? Neither have I.

Still, I didn't want to be sarcastic (which is highly against my nature as Heidi will tell you). So I simply replied "Guns aren't dangerous, it's the people who use them incorrectly that are dangerous."

Which is true. I mean, you never hear of a gun lying in the middle of the floor that decided to get up and go to the local water tower to start picking off civilians as they walked by, did you?

But my co-worker went farther. He doesn't believe people, any people, should own guns. Ever.

That's when I asked him if he remembers the British occupation of Boston. Being that he's from the East coast, I figure he'd see the light on that comment.

"Yes", he replies, "I remember the Revolutionary War. But these are different times."

Boy, was I wrong about that light.

My jaw nearly hit the ground - for two reasons.

Revolutionary War??? Sparky, only socialist speaks in terms like revolution. This was a War of Independence! But it was the second part of his comment that made me realize how little my co-worker understood the reason for the Second Amendment.

Like most liberals (okay, all of them) he was convinced that there is no longer a need for the Second Amendment because the "government, police and military will protect us from foreign invaders". You can almost hear the repetitive bleating of the rest of the sheep in the background, can't you?

Uh, sparky, who exactly do you think the Colonists were fighting? I'll give you a hint: they were not foreign invaders.

If anyone wonders, the Colonists thought of themselves as British citizens living in a British colony. They didn't think so much as themselves as Americans as we define ourselves today. More importantly, because of that notion, the Colonists were not fighting foreign invaders as much as they were fighting their own repressive government.

*ding*

I think a light went off for many people reading this post. That's right, the Second Amendment was put in place not for civilians to fight off a foreign invading army but to fight off a repressive government of their own. Read up on the British armys' occupation of Boston, the Boston Massacre and you'll understand what I am getting at.

The War of Independence was not Americans civilians fighting British soldiers, that won't happen until 1812. It was British civilians (in the American colonies) fighting British soldiers sent there by King George (the repressive government).

It's all about representative government (think: Boston Tea Party and all that).

My co-worker doesn't get it. Governments today can be just as repressive as governments back in the 18th century were - more so. Take a look at the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Communist China, Communist North Korea, Communist Cuba, Communist Viet Nam, Rwanda, Saddams' Iraq, the Taliban's Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

But he honestly thinks that "times are different"? Boy, in a day in which the loony left are complaining that Bush and company are "stealing" our rights, they themselves want to remove your legal right to own a firearm to protect yourself. Protect yourself not only from the typical home invasion (fact: it takes the average police officer about 3 to 5 minutes to respond to a 911 call) but from a repressive government invasion as well.

Maybe they are simply waiting for the Democrats to be in charge before they launch the invasion - who knows.

Oh, by the way, in that list of countries I put up there above. In every single instance, the dictators of those countries did exactly what my co-worker wants to do: they disarmed the civilian population.

Welcome

2005-09-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hello World!

Well, this is obviously one of those "ain't liberals stupid because..." sort of blogs. It's primarily a way I get to rant and rave over all the assanine things liberals do and say. I'm kinda lucky in that I work in downtown Seattle - so there is no shortage of ignorance and arrogance to work with around here!

Not only will I post the typical national stuff (I'm sure Nancy Pelosi has said something stupid, it's only Wednesday for God's sake!) but the local scene as well. We all know Jim McDermott can't keep his mouth shut.

But for real fun, I am going to post the "man on the street" comments I hear at work and around town. You'll get a real good idea of what is going on in the minds (or lack thereof) of mainstream liberals.

You'll probably be saying "There must be something in the water" when you read some of the things here. Which is probably true. I recently learned that there is a significant amount of lead in the drinking water of the Seattle Public School district.

Go figure.