The Unmentionables

2005-06-27T23:08:00.000-08:00

One Positive Note

Among all the crap flying around out there today. Ronald Reagan is (once again) Number One, winning Discovery Channel's Greatest American voting. AbrahamLincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and George W. Bush round out the top six.

Perhaps there's some hope for us yet.

2005-06-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

Bend Over

You have been Borked. The whole country has been Borked.

"Stevens was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing - David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. The bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects that benefit the lower and middle class.

They were joined by Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy in rejecting the conservative principle of individual property rights". [Emphasis mine.]

And just how did "Reagan appointee" Justice Kennedy get on the Supreme Court? Hmmmm? Anyone remember? Kennedy (and that name alone should have set off every alarm you can imagine) was a dismally poor compromise second choice to…

Robert Bork.

The man whose name was transformed into a verb long before anyone thought of "fisking."

And a man with Watergate ties. Bork was Nixon's solicitor general who became acting attorney general during the "Saturday Night Massacre" of then-Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, both of whom resigned rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Bork stepped into the job and carred out Nixon's wishes.

They say elephants never forget. Perhaps. But Asses never stop taking revenge.

Robert Bork believes the courts should interpret the law, not create new ones, and he vocally objected to the Supreme Court's "discovery" of a new "right to privacy" in the Roe v. Wade decision. As he writes: "We are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by an unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committee of lawyers applying no will but their own."

In 1987 Presient Ronald Reagan nominated U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. His disagreement with the court-ordered "right to privacy" was enough to disqualify him in liberal minds. The usual suspects--Judicial Committee Chair Joe Biden and senior member Ted Kennedy, at that time part of the Democrat majority--showed the below-the-belt tactics for which they have become so infamous.

So instead of originalist Robert Bork, we have Anthony Kennedy merrily amputating bits and pieces of the Constituion and Bill of Rights as he sees fit.

"At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

"Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices."

This most recent ruling ignores the difference between public use and public purpose. The public will not have free use of the hotel, health club, and offices New London intends to build on their homesteads. The public will pay through the nose and the private owner/developer will reap the benefits of an almost free gift.

"Critics had feared that would allow a small group of homeowners to stymie rebuilding efforts that benefit the city through added jobs and more tax revenue for social programs."

Oh my. I forgot about the benefits of all those "social programs." Pardon me if I don't believe any of those displaced property owners will benefit one iota.

"New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights..."

The Framers of the Constitution understood there was nothing more important than property rights. They, their fathers and grandfathers had come from Old Europe, where kings had a "divine right" to snatch property whenever it suited them and use it to reward loyal followers. In fact, the framers felt so strongly about property rights, they restricted the right to vote in elections to property owners.

Now we are the subjects of five black-robed "kings" who have given their legal blessing to the rich truly stealing from the poor.

All because, nearly twenty years ago, a Democrat majority refused to confirm Robert Bork.

2005-06-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Dan Rather on Larry King

In the midst of all the lefties' rosy remembrances of their stunning success with Watergate, Dan Rather continues to cling to the Titanic's smokestacks.

"RATHER: […] But the documents were part of a fairly wide array of information we had, that the facts that we presented as -- and some of it new information -- was supported by all kind of things other than the documents. […]

KING: Are you saying the story might be correct?

RATHER: Well, I'm saying a prudent person might take that view.

KING: Do you have that view?

RATHER: Well, I'm saying a prudent person might take that view."

(From the CNN transcript. Scroll half-way down, immediately after the first recorded break.)

2005-06-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

No Hero

Thirty-five years ago the course of this entire country was irrevocably altered, and the face of journalism twisted, by a petty little man who had been passed over for promotion.

Even worse, his family encouraged him to reveal his identity only to cash in, although I can see why they feel they might as well grab some of the millions Woodward and Bernstein have raked in over the years.

"His motive for tipping off Woodward and Bernstein remains unknown, but the Post suggested in a story Tuesday night that anger over Nixon's decision to pass him over for FBI director after the death of J. Edgar Hoover could have been a factor.

"Felt had expressed reservations in the past about revealing his identity, and about whether his actions were appropriate for an FBI man, his grandson said. His family members thought otherwise. His daughter, Joan, argued that he could "make enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the children's education."

No hero--merely a whiny functionary with thwarted ambitions who left us with a bloody legacy.

"If there is such a thing as kharma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life of the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear." -- Ben Stein, The American Spectator .

2005-05-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

Eddie Albert

Albert was a consumate film actor. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Roman Holiday (notable for introducing Audry Hepburn to filmgoers) and The Heartbreak Kid , and co-starred in the original Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds.

Some might remember him in the '75-'78 TV series Switch with Robert Wagner, but he was most famous for playing Oliver Wendell Douglas in TVs Green Acres .

What you might not know was that Green Acres actually started life as a summer radio show in 1950 titled Granby's Green Acres, and the scripts were transferred almost verbatim to TV.

"Cast: Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as John and Martha Granby, ex-bank teller and wife who moved to the country to become farmers. Louise Erickson as Janice, their daughter. Parley Baer as Eb, the [old] hired hand. Announcer: Bob LeMond; Music: Opie Cates; Writer-Producer-Director: Jay Sommers. Granby's Green Acres grew out of characters played by Gale Gordon and Bea Benadaret on the Lucille Ball series "My Favorite Husband ."

You can listen to four of the programs at the link.

Over the past few weeks I've been rediscovering the old radio shows my parents talked about--everything from Father Knows Best to Abbot and Costello's classic "Who's on First?" As a member of the TV generation, I'm amazed at the number of great shows out there--many of them transferred to television to become equally as popular.

Considering the success of Nick at Night and TVLand , I've been wondering… Why hasn't some enterprising radio programmer started a regular evening line up with a collection of these old shows? It would give "Talk Radio" a whole new meaning.

See--er--listen for yourself.

2005-05-26T13:44:00.000-08:00

R.I.P. SW:ROTS

I deliberately delayed writing about Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith because, well, frankly, there have been enough tragedies to deal with over the past twelve months. As a rabid fan (some might say "geek") of the original who lined up to see Phantom Menace , I feel as if I've watched a dear friend die an agonizing death of a long, wasting disease.

My reluctance also stemmed from having actually been a movie critic during the 80's and 90's (yes, I got paid), making it difficult to see any movie without breaking it down into its component parts. When I first saw Phantom Menace , I was appalled--hated it on the spot. But everyone around me was raving, so I decided perhaps the wee hours viewing plus a very bad cold was affecting my opinion. Two viewings later I decided neither had influenced my original opinion which generally boiled down to something like suffering through the longest video game in history.

I was wrong. In a video game you would have had the option to take out Jar Jar Binks on Level One.

The Star Wars saga is an example of how technological advancement is not always a good thing. The original dazzled because, after a decade of being inundated by naval-gazing films lecturing on the gray area of morality, or the gory glorification of murderous mafioso, we were suddenly being treated to a movie that said there was, after all, an absolute right and wrong. Whatever Lucas' religious beliefs, with the Force he tapped into the simple fact there is a supernatural element in every religion that we had all discarded and forgotten. Whether I agreed with the idea of accessing the Universal Consciousness certainly didn't matter. Lucas seemed to grasp the duality of the human spirit--the simple truth that we will fall into the Dark Side without the influence of a Greater Power of Good.

And he did it within the flimsiest of frameworks.

Lucas claims now it was all in response to Vietnam and the Cold War. Well, fine--he can rewrite his own history if he wants. But the original Star Wars owed much more to the adventures of the late 30's and 40's, when the world was battling the Nazi juggernaut. Sure, the characters were central casting stereotypes. Fortunately they were fleshed out by actors who actually managed to act --and who rioted through the film with a gleam in their eyes that said "we know this is a totally unbelievable space fantasy, but what the hell--we're having fun!"

When The Empire Strikes Back was released, I was writing reviews. I recall taking heat for insisting Vader was lying when he told Luke he was his father (not to mention being royally pissed off at Han Solo being left frozen in cryptonite). To this day I wonder about Lucas' claims that he had the entire story outlined from the beginning. I firmly believed Vader was merely being a manipulative bastard to serve his own--and the Emperor's--ends.

By Return of the Jedi , I decided Lucas was making it up as he went along. He had painted himself into a corner with the "father" line and was in the process of desperately trying to work his way out. The whole story arc felt less like it had been designed from the get-go and more like a jigsaw puzzle Lucas was assembling by pounding round pieces into square slots. As for the Ewoks, their appearance firmly cemented my opinion Lucas had sold out to the Dark Side of Making Millions With Market Tie-Ins.

I was disappointed, yet it didn't stop me from enjoying the film. How could you not enjoy the opening hour at Jabba's palace and the subsequent battle? Yes, at the end Vader's "conversion" was hackneyed, and Luke was a bit too sappy, but it was acceptable within the happily-ever-after framework.

There is no way one can compare the current crop of "Star Wars" films--pandering, preachy, and ponderous in spite of the brilliantly beautiful special effects--with the original trilogy. If Vader's reversion to the Light Side in ROTJ was formulaic, Anakin's descent into the Dark Side is shallow and selfish.

Every artist knows there is a point during creation that you have to stop, step away, and let everything alone. One more word, one more note, one more brushstroke--one more computer-generated light saber battle--and the masterpiece is ruined.

Sadly George Lucas never learned that lesson.

2005-05-20T15:04:00.000-08:00

The Email - Part IV - The Fanatics

Part I. Part II. Part III.

You knew it would eventually come down to…the Jews , didn't you? Oh, it takes her a while--and she begins with Christian-bashing as a smoke-screen--but you know if a certain type of person talks long enough, they eventually sink to the bottom.

Look seriously you can say there are fanatical muslims but what about fanatical christians.

When was the last time "fanatical" Christians (or Jews) rioted and murdered because it was rumored someone threw the Bible or the Torah down a toilet? In fact, when Palestinian terriorists holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, it was "rumored" they used the Bible as toilet paper. Where was the rioting/burning/killing across the American Bible Belt over that incident?

there used to be plenty though now there are considerably less and though they do not commit terrorist acts they aren't any better.

Are you actually attempting to claim that Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell saying something really, really, really stupid on television is the same as Islamic terrorists beheading someone on television? And please--please---detail the "plenty" of murderous, "fanatical" Christians who bludgeon, behead, and burn at the drop of a headscarf.

I mean look at the amish, thre was poor girl in her teens repeatdly raped by her brothers her parents having full knowledge but doing nothing about it saying God will punish him when his DEAD.Not much use to the girl don't you think.

No, it isn't. Since I grew up very near various Amish communities, I also understand the various "orders" within that religion. The abuses have occurred in those considered Old Order--extremely insular--dare I say inbred--communities. It is, in fact, a prime example of what happens to religious sects that cut themselves off from--or attempt to insulate themselves from--general society. Exactly what far too many Muslims themselves do, which is why I could cite the same type of stories from those communities. But they carry it one step further. The strict Islamist father would kill the girl, claiming it was her fault she was molested/raped by her brother.

And don't forget the Jews. They have their fanatics as well who are just as bad as the muslim fanatics. Its just you don't hear much them because their not controversial, not news worthy.

You're kidding, right?

It always comes down to the Jews. That's your real problem, isn't it? What's the matter--did your mother choke on a matzah ball while you were in vitro ?

As far as not being "news worthy"… Do you live in a cave? Not a day passes without the nation of Israel--or Jews of any nationality--being blamed for something . Check that--blamed for everything . Jews (and Christians) are routinely castigated for every ill that befalls the world--including being blamed for nineteen Arab Muslims flying three airplanes into the WTC and Pentagon (and trying with a fourth).

Start reading this blog and follow all the various links if you're really interested in learning.

The point I'm trying to make before you critise the so called enemies look at your friends, they are not any better. The only difference is they'er not as news worhty.Every religion and culture has to go through the cycle of violence. Give it a few more hundred years and it will pass. [Emphasis mine.]

That last is the most idiotic statement I have ever read.

Muslims have been in a cycle of violence since 622 AD--that's one thousand three hundred eight-three years --the longest case of pubescent angst in the history of the universe.

Look at Judaism and Christianity. Though of course you will never fully eliminate fanatics but you shouldn't be so harsh on them it isn't like muslims are the only one with fanatics. Besides fighting doesn't solve anything just keeps the cycle going. There really are no enemies only delusion and misinterpretation. Open your mind. Tunnel vision kills people.

Okay, snuff out the weed, get clean, get sober, and break the damn Joan Baez CD. That meme was old back in the 60's, and I've already lived through that crap.

All you have to do is look through history it is what it's there for to teach people. Just no one wants to learn.

I’m a teacher. I've been a teacher for thirty years. Don't try to lecture me on history, little girl--at least not until you've actually grown up and learned how to read and write properly.

2005-05-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

The Email - Part III - Moral Relativism aka "The Inquisition"

Part I. Part II.

I will never understand why debaters (?) always try to use this argument--as if they think Christians believe the inquisitions were a good thing.

Besides you could say fanatical muslims have caused many problems through the world but what exactly did the inquisition do in the middle ages? I don't think they were very nice people.

This argument is called "moral relativism," in case you were wondering.

Before I go any further, I'd like to offer a free history lesson. Long before the current War on Terror, Winston Churchill described Islam as "that religion which above all others, was founded and propagated by the sword - the tenets and principles of which are incentives to slaughter and which in three continents had produced fighting breeds of men (and) stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism."

As far as inquisitions--well--today they're called "ethnic cleansing," and the Muslims have turned it into an art form. Look at Kosovo where Muslim mobs have burned down about 300 churches and religious facilities aiming to establish an Islamic Theocratic dictatorship. Or perhaps you should visit Sudan and see what Islamic government troops have done to African Christians in Darfur. After that you can move on to Nigeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Armenia, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Russia, the Kashmir, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Technically Muslims caused the infamous Spanish Inquisition--which began almost immediately after they were driven out of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella (yes, the same who commissioned Christopher Columbus) decided to unify Spain under Catholicism after all the wars, division, and strife of the previous centuries. Their way of creating a "strong" country was to drive out all non-Catholics one way or the other. Not a good idea, but they stuck to it.

An "inquisition" was as much a political tool as a religious one. The Romans used it as their empire began to crumble, so it was certainly not the sole province of "Christians." There was a whole shopping list of medieval "inquisitions" from The Knights Templar to Joan of Arc and beyond. Torquemada of Spain, however, was the most infamous Inquisitor and, to their credit, the Catholic Church and the Pope tried to intervene. Unfortunately, having found a convenient political bludgeon, the Spanish rulers ignored them.

So… The Spanish Inquisition lasted from 1478 to 1834. Muslim ethnic-cleansing of anyone who is not Muslim started in 622 and continues to this day. Christians learn from their mistakes. Muslims won't even admit they make any.

And to use Cheneya [I think she means Chechnya] as an example, I think you should know most of those people don't have a choice. Many are forced to partake in these acts of terrorism else their families are killed by the fanatics.

A note about Chechnya. It was long a part of the Muslim empire of Central Asia including Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In 1858 Chechen leader Imam Shamil and his troops (primarily Sunni Muslims) attempted to establish an Islamic state, only to be defeated by Imperial Russia. During WWII the Chechens whole-heartedly joined Hitler's attack against Russia, enthusiastically killing Jews, Gypsies, and other "undesirables" right along with Red Army troops. So the Chechen people have a long history of hatred for Russia and certainly do not need to be "forced" to fight against those they consider their long-term, historic enemies.

However, every human being with a working brain has a choice. Those without a working conscience are another story.

I can't say, at this moment, what I'd do. But as a Christian, I certainly hope if I had to choose between saving hundreds of innocent children or my family…I hope I'd have the guts to save the the kids.

2005-05-19T15:47:00.000-08:00

The Email - Part II - Dracula Redux

Part I.

Somehow I never thought of using the non compos mentis defense for Dracula.

Also to say Vald Dracul knew what he was doing is absurd. You are talking about a guy who cut open his mistress's stomach just to find out if she was pregnant. The man for god's sake ran away as soon as he heard the turks were coming. It was just lucky the Turks got scared shitless by the thousansa of kebabed people Dracul had surrounding his castle for his own personal pleasure.

Ironically it wasn't just Vlad Dracul who battled the Muslim enemy. Timur the Mongol (or Tamerlane-- Christopher Marlowe's play Tamburlaine recounts his conquests) claimed--falsely--to be a descendant of Genghis Khan. Even more ironic--he was a Muslim who slaughtered his way though most of the Muslim Middle East, conquering Persia, several Russian states, the Crimea, Dehli, Georgia, Aleppo, and Baghdad.

At the time (1402) his campaigns saved Constantinople. His army wiped out the forces of Islam and divided the Ottoman Empire among several princes, reducing it to a state of vassalage. When he died, however, the Ottoman's were back in business, intent on expanding their empire into the Balkans.

Long into the 15^th century the Ottoman Empire never ceased their attempt to take Christian Europe, focusing particularly on the Balkans and Constantinople, heart of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was only three years before Vlad Dracul took power that the siege and conquest of Constantinople took place. The city had lasted two months again Mohammed II, but, after a bloody conflict that killed Emperor Constantine XII, Contantinople fell. There followed wholesale slaughter--as was to be expected from Muslim conquerors. It was reported Mohammed II rode over the piles of corpses into the Church of St. Sophia, entered it on horseback, and declared it a mosque.

This is the history Prince Vlad Dracul knew--along with the fall of the Balkan Orthodox states of Bulgaria and Serbia--when the Muslim hordes turned their attention toward Romania. Ergo--he knew exactly what to expect and what he was doing. Whether or not he took pleasure in impaling his enemies and displaying them across the landscape as far as the eye could see, I have no idea. But it wasn't me who listed him in reports as one of the "Christian princes" who led the resistance against the Ottomans.

Romanian prices led Christian resistance against the Ottomans for centuries. They included Mircea the Elder in Wallachia (1386-1418); Ioan Corvin of Hunedoara, Duke of Transylvania (1438-1456), afterwards regent of Hungary; Vlad the Impaler in Wallachia (1456-1463); Stephen the Great and Holy in Moldavia (1456-1504),…and Michael the Brave of Wallachia (1593-1601), who for the first time united the three Romanian Principalities into a single state in 1600, and has since remained a symbol of unity for the Romanian People."

Prince Vlad died fighting the Muslim hordes. His head was chopped off (sound familiar?) and carried back to Constantinople where it was displayed on a stake. Thanks to Bram Stoker, however, no one remembers that footnote of history. And, thanks to the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu claiming Dracula was his idol, many are loathe to consider Vlad Tepes might, in some way, be a hero.

2005-05-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

The Email - Part I - The Crusades

Apparently a girl in Australia (I'm guessing from her email addy and I won't use her name without permission) read a lot of what I've written over time--God know why. Anyway, she felt strongly enough--or had been so conditioned by the pc police--to write me at length. At such length, in fact, it will take a few posts to respond to all her misconceptions.

The crusades were never about religion

It was indeed about strong religious beliefs, especially when the European Christians learned how the Islamicists were harassing Christian pilgrims and teachers in Jerusalem, and attempting to destroy the Eastern Orthodox Church. Read the letters written during that time if you're really interested in "learning history."

and it was the christians who started it.

Wrong. It was the Muslims who started it--by invading Christian Europe, then attempting to push Christians out of Jerusalem after they had lived there for over 1,000 years. In case you can't figure it out on your own, Islam was created by Mohammed 622 years after Jesus was crucified and at least 3,000 years or more after the Israelites settled the area.

For the first ten years of Islam, Mohammed spent his time solidifying his base in Medina and gathering his forces to take Mecca. He died two years after that event and the Koran was compiled a year later. The over the next 100 years, the leaders who followed Mohammed expanded their conquest across the Middle East, pushing into France, where they were finally defeated at Tours by Charles Martel in 732 AD. During this period the Muslims conquered Syria, Palestine, Persia, North Africa, Spain, and Egypt--where they destroyed the famous library and bookcopying industry of Alexandria because no book aside from the Koran was to be read. They had also pushed as far east as India and managed inroads in Sicily within the next fifty years. Christian Europe was very aware of the "personality" and intentions of the Muslims.

The European kings, dukes and othe aristocrates had too many sons and couldn't divide their wealth amoung them after their death. So the father's told the son they least liked to go to the middle east, kill a few people and get your own land and wealth. It took many years before people were fighting for religion.

Wrong again. For your edification, modern movies are not a good way to learn history. Unfortunately a number of peasant groups did leave before the official start of the First Crusades, all of them engaging in various forms of villainy, from massacring Jews to looting and raping.

The nobles themselves who led the Crusades did so out of a desire to restore the Holy Land to Christian control. Philip I of France, William II of England, and Henry IV of Germany, led the First Crusade--probably to get back into the good graces of the Pope--but they led it nevertheless.

A partial list of other participants in the successful First Crusade includes Count Stephen of Blois and Chartes; Bohemond of Taranto, Count of the Normans; Godfrey, Duke de Bouillon of Lorraine; Raymond of Toulouse, Count of St. Gilles (?), Hugh (the Great?) of Vermandois, brother of the King of France; Baldwin of Boulogne; Robert, Count of Flanders; and Robert, Count of Normandy.

Others involved over the years:

Second Crusade - Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France led it and Louis' wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, accompanied him.

Third Crusades started when Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187. Philip Augustus of France, Frederick Barbarosa of Germany and Richard the Lionhearted of England led the armies.

Although some kings and many, many vassal nobles took part in the next half dozen Crusades (Emperor Frederick II - Sixth Crusade; Louis IX of France - Seventh Crusade; Louis IX and Prince Edward of England - Eighth Crusade) the bottom line was: with the exception of the Knights Templar (who were rumored to have found the treasures of Solomon's Temple) neither wealth nor lands were acquired by anyone, rich or poor.

2005-05-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

Back for a While

I haven't been blogging for a couple of reasons. First because I've been dealing with a host of personal issues and did not want to become a whiny, navel-gazing blogger endlessly rehashing my problems. If they touch mainstream issues (such as Social Security) I might make a comment now and then, but no one needs to be bored with endless alarms and depressions.

Second, I frankly got bored with saying the same thing about the same outrages over and over and over and over again. There are certain givens--biased media, perdifious Democrats, liberal Hollywood, etc. etc.--that don't seem to ever go away.

Now I'll settle for small victories--like calling the local radio news show, raising hell with the on-air "Voice" until the news director gets on the line, then convincing them to stop announcing the Republicans intended to "change tradition" over the judicial filibuster. Hey, it worked. And the misinformation sent out over the wire services to the local affiliates was edited--out.

One thing, however, has spurred me back on line. I recently received an email commenting on a number of issues I've discussed. Rarely does one have the opportunity to read so much ignorance in one place.

There is so much, in fact, I'll have to handle it in a series of posts.

2005-04-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

A Man for All Seasons

Pope John Paul II - 1920-2005
Who stood fast to his convictions and beliefs in the face of all opposition. Each of us should learn from the example of his life.

2005-04-01T12:51:00.000-08:00

Blind Eyes

I've been a teacher for all of my adult life--in fact, I started teaching music while still in high school. Like so many other teachers I've watched in horror as the Blob of "modern educators" oozed its way across academia, absorbing, consuming, and destroying everything in its path until it has become impossible to break the mind altering lies now firmly implanted in the psyche of two full generations of Americans.

The Terri Shiavo case highlighted one of the most insidious--that the judiciary is the final stop of our "rule of law." Anyone with half a brain--or a decent education--should realize that is a flawed concept. Our sacred courts have, in the past, ruled both Dred Scott and Plessy to be legitimate.

Hitler's judiciary claimed final judgment on Germany's laws. Stalin's judiciary claimed final judgment in the USSR. China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia all have judiciaries claiming to be legitimate under the "rule of law" but I doubt very much any American would want to submit themselves to those courts.

Our Legislative Branch has the authority to control rogue courts under Article III of the Constitution. The only job of the courts is to rule on the constitutionality of legislation. It is not their job of create new laws.

The secondary fallout from the Shiavo case is the attempted demonization of Christians and the legitimization of executioners who kill under the guise of "death with dignity." Under the mythical separation of church and state, they claim the church has no place in arguments about the power over life and death.

Frankly I do not believe there is any turning back. Eight years of the Clinton Administration--formative years for those in their twenties and early thirties--have allowed the cancerous fibroids of lies to spread far and deep. We in the blogosphere chatter among ourselves with the delusion we are making a difference. In truth we are no more than a swarm of gnats with inflated egos.

Some of us will continue to debate and vent which, I suppose, is a healthy outlet for our frustrations. But if any of us think we're actually educating or enlightening we have to think again. Our national Eye has been altered and, as William Blake said, "… the Eye altering alters all… "

"This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye."
~ William Blake, The Everlasting Gospel

2005-03-27T14:01:00.000-08:00

Ordeal

It's been a month since I posted this information, but in light of what Terri Shiavo is suffering at this very moment, I'm reposting it for all those of you out there who think she is "at peace" during her ordeal.

I ran across this post at Res Publica. I haven't seen much written about the specifics of death by starvation and dehydration, and if anyone is still on the fence regarding the issue of removing Terry Schaivo's feeding tube this is an unnerving description.

"Since the people to whom this is done generally can't communicate, we mostly don't know what they actually experience. But in at least one case we do: that of a young woman who had her tube feeding stopped for eight days and lived to tell the tale.

"At age 33, Kate Adamson collapsed from a devastating stroke. She was diagnosed as likely to develop a persistent vegetative state (PVS) but was actually "locked in"-that is, she was completely awake and aware but unable to communicate.

[…]

"The agony of going without food was a constant pain that lasted not several hours like my operation did, but several days. You have to endure the physical pain and on top of that you have to endure the emotional pain. Your whole body cries out, "Feed me. I am alive and a person, don't let me die, for God's sake! Somebody feed me."

"Moreover, although Adamson was not deliberately dehydrated-she was constantly on an IV saline solution-she still had horrible thirst:

"I craved anything to drink. Anything. I obsessively visualized drinking from a huge bottle of orange Gatorade. And I hate orange Gatorade. I did receive lemon flavored mouth swabs to alleviate dryness but they did nothing to slake my desperate thirst.

Read it all, then tell me Terri Shiavo is not suffering through her murder.

2005-03-25T12:18:00.000-08:00

Bleg

If anyone out there has an answer to this I'd like to read it.

I thought Florida had a law against assisted suicide, even at the request of of the patient. Allegedly the rational for Terri's starvation is that she stated her desire for assisted suicide to her husband which, according to FL law, is illegal. Why can't law enforcement arrest those responsible--including the husband--in Terri's onging death?

2005-03-24T12:45:00.000-08:00

Reasonable Doubt

Having sat on a number of grand juries in the past few years, I've learned a bit more about examining evidence that would result in someone being held over for trial and, perhaps, convicted and jailed. While there are compelling arguments on both sides, I personally see too many questions in Michael Shiavo's actions to have confidence in his suitability as Terri's guardian.

1. In the original hospital admittance report there was evidence of trauma to Terri's neck that apparently was never fully explained.

2. There were reports from Terri's friends she was considering a divorce from Shiavo just prior to her sudden collapse.

3. Is there a life insurance policy on Terri Shiavo naming her husband beneficiary? When was it purchased and what is the amount?

4. Michael Shiavo did not "remember" her wishes until after seven years and a $1.2 million malpractice settlement.

5. Nurses have testified Shiavo deliberatey denied proper rehab and therapy even though it had been ordered by the courts.

6. Caregivers have testified Shiavo seemed anxious to have Terri dead and anticipated he was going to be rich when she finally succumbed. (See #3 above.)

7. Michael Shiavo's attorney is a leader of the right-to-die movement in Florida.

8. Until 2002 that same attorney sat on the board of directors of the hospice where
Terri is confined.

Much of this evidence is circumstantial, yet if it had been presented to the various grand juries I sat on there is a very strong possibility we would have voted to have Michael Shiavo held over for trial where a full accounting of all the evidence would be presented and judged.

I find the conflicting reports of doctors and caregivers unsettling, raising too many questions about both their political agenda and finanical interest in this case. If for no other reason Terri's feeding tube should be restarted to allow for independent examination, including video monitoring of her day to day behavior and responses.

And if I was the adjuster for the insurance company holding Terri's life insurance policy (if any) I would strenuously urge my superiors to deny payment until every conflict of interest is examined.

2005-03-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

Principle, not Expediency

As Terri Shiavo continues to die in the most painful way imaginable, we continue to center our debates around the quality of her life--or, as I heard one radio personality comment, what good is her existence in her current state?

The real debate is the sanctity of life--and she has already done us all a lifetime of good just by bringing this issue to prominent public awareness. Does it matter if Terri knows or understands what she's done? Of course not. What matters is our response not hers.

News reporters would have us believe Terri Shiavo is on life support, implying her heart and lungs cannot function without mechanical help. Thanks to the blogging community, this false information has been--and will continue to be--debunked. Terri has no motor controls over her body making her unable to feed herself or consume food normally. Whether or not this is from a lack of proper physical therapy shortly after the onset of her illness will never be known. She cannot speak and doctors have diagnosed severe brain impairment. Again, the permanence of this diagnosis differs from expert to expert.

But Is her lack of speech, coordination, and ability to feed herself enough reason to allow her to starve to death? If you answered yes to that question, then you would support the "merciful" starvation of these people as well.

Michael J. Fox - Parkinson's Disease . The late stages of Parkinson's include significant swallowing problems--and the need for a feeding tube. Patients are limited to a wheelchair or a bed for most of their day and suffer severe dementia from the high drug dosage. When the time comes for Michael J. Fox, should his wife or other caregiver starve him to death because his "quality of life" is no longer up to our standards?

Dr. Stephen Hawking - ALS . Author of A Brief History of Time , Professor Hawking was 21 when diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. In his own words:

"Up to 1974, I was able to feed myself, and get in and out of bed. Jane [his wife] managed to help me, and bring up the children, without outside help…In 1980, we changed to a system of community and private nurses, who came in for an hour or two in the morning and evening. This lasted until I caught pneumonia in 1985. I had to have a tracheotomy operation. After this, I had to have 24 hour nursing care.

"Before the operation, my speech had been getting more slurred, so that only a few people who knew me well, could understand me. But at least I could communicate. I wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary, and I gave seminars through an interpreter, who repeated my words more clearly. However, the tracheotomy operation removed my ability to speak altogether."

Should he be starved to death because his "quality of life" is so limiting?

Read this interview with the mother of a young adult with ALS--who can only "eat" through a straw. Should she be starved to death because her "quality of life" is preventing her parents from moving on with their lives?

President Ronald Reagan - Alzheimer's . In the last years of his life, President Regan had lost the ability to respond to his environment, speak, and control his movements. Alzheimer's patients cannot walk, sit upright, or hold up their head without assistance. Their reflexes are erratic and their muscles become rigid and even their ability to swallow is impaired. Should he have been starved to death because his quality of life was no longer equal to what it had once been?

2005-03-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

A Picture is Worth 133 to 233 Bullets

And one big lie.

Via Little Green Footballs: pictures of Giuliana Sgrena death car "riddled" with 300 to 400 bullets. (Enlarged pictures by LGF reader "Thomas.")

Now compare that with this picture of the Bonnie and Clyde death car "riddled" with 167 bullets:

2005-03-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

Fear and Society

"The point is, ladies and gentlemen, is that fear--for lack of a better word--is good.
Fear is right.
Fear works.
Fear clarifies, cuts through, and caputres the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Fear, in all of its forms--fear for your life, of poverty, of loneliness, of ignorance--has marked the upward surge of mankind."

The reworking of Gordon Gekko's famous "greed" monologue from 1987's Wall Street is the response we should all have to the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Fear of retribution has held society together and kept people safe for over six millennia.

The Supreme Court just ruled to eliminate the fear of retribution for those who need the restraining hand of fear the most.

If they rule to eliminate the Ten Commandments from government facilities, they will have completed the quest to eliminate the acknowledgment of fear--and retribution here or hereafter--from all of society.

2005-02-28T13:08:00.000-08:00

Attention Evil Powers that Be

Per your request I'm officially changing my name. Since my station in life has been so drastically altered (without my consent or knowledge I might add) it is necessary to adopt a more accurate appellation.

Henceforth I will be:

Joe Btfsplk is very simply the world's biggest jinx. He walks around with a perpetually dark rain cloud a foot over his head. Once he appears on any scene, dreadfully bad luck befalls anyone in his vicinity.

Though well-meaning and gentle, his reputation inevitably precedes him, so Joe is a very lonely and feared little man.

He is also a character with an apparently unpronounceable name, but creator Al Capp pronounced Btfsplk with a "raspberries" sound, also known as a "Bronx cheer."

That just about sums it up.

PS: You can get off my case any time.

2005-02-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

Death by Dehydration

I thought everything had returned to normal and I could get back in the swing of regular blogging, but…

However, in light of the Terry Schaivo situation, I had to take a moment and post this information I ran across at Res Publica. I haven't seen much written about the specifics of death by starvation and dehydration, and if anyone is still on the fence regarding the issue of removing Terry Schaivo's feeding tube this is an unnerving description.

"Since the people to whom this is done generally can't communicate, we mostly don't know what they actually experience. But in at least one case we do: that of a young woman who had her tube feeding stopped for eight days and lived to tell the tale.

"At age 33, Kate Adamson collapsed from a devastating stroke. She was diagnosed as likely to develop a persistent vegetative state (PVS) but was actually "locked in"-that is, she was completely awake and aware but unable to communicate.

[…]

"The agony of going without food was a constant pain that lasted not several hours like my operation did, but several days. You have to endure the physical pain and on top of that you have to endure the emotional pain. Your whole body cries out, "Feed me. I am alive and a person, don't let me die, for God's sake! Somebody feed me."

"Moreover, although Adamson was not deliberately dehydrated-she was constantly on an IV saline solution-she still had horrible thirst:

"I craved anything to drink. Anything. I obsessively visualized drinking from a huge bottle of orange Gatorade. And I hate orange Gatorade. I did receive lemon flavored mouth swabs to alleviate dryness but they did nothing to slake my desperate thirst.

Read the whole thing.

2005-01-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

Computer Snafus

Having some major ones, which is why I'm only posting about once a week. Because of all the other problems I'm dealing with, they've been shoved into the rumble seat.

Working on them now so I can get back to business.

2005-01-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

Today in History…

…Louis XVI lost his head over the revolution.

Having just written about Thomas Paine, I was curious how the History Channel would portray the French Revolution in their Monday night special. (It will be rerun tomorrow, Saturday, at 8 pm for those interested.)

In brief, on May 6, 1789 the Commons (the Third Estate) broke away from the States-General, eventually being joined by some members of the First Estate (the clergy) to become the National Constituent Assembly in July of 1989. King Louis XVI reacted by firing his popular finance director Jacques Necker, whom he considered too sympathetic to the Commons, and, within days, the Bastille is stormed and taken. The following month the Assembly adopts their charter of basic liberties entitled "The Declaration of the Rights of Man." Two years later the National Assembly adopted the first French Constitution

As I mentioned before, Paine wrote a rebuttal to Englishman Edmund Burke's criticism of the French entitled "The Rights of Man" and shortly thereafter arrived in France to support their revolt against the monarchy. Knowing almost nothing about the French--or even being able to speak the language--he managed to become a member of the Assembly. Not long afterward, the French Assembly issued their "Declaration of the Rights of Man," and for the next two years Paine helped write their Constitution.

The History Channel managed to ignore those small facts. The only mention of America was how support of our Revolution bankrupted the government and led to Louis downfall. No mention is made of the influence of Franklin and Jefferson on the thinking of the independence-minded government assemblymen, and not one hint of Thomas Paine. They even failed to mention the fact he was imprisoned by the Robespierre-led radicals who highjacked the Revolution from the moderate Girondins Party.

The primary difference between our own revolution and the French is their distaste and denial of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular. In that era, the Church was far more closely aligned with the monarchy, anointing rulers with the "divine right" to rule. While the American colonists were an ocean away from George III, and already populated with a variety of religious believers of all denominations and dogma, the French were starving a mere twelve miles from the opulence of Versailles. The Enlightenment philosophers echewed worship of any being higher than Man Himself and encouraged a government powered by pure Reason.

What resulted, of course, was man setting himself up as god. All public displays of the Church and Christianity were banned from public display, ripped down, broken apart, destroyed and disavowed. The eloquent leader of the Jacobins, Maximillien Robespierre (once he had disposed of his opponents and former allies during the Reign of Terror) managed to have the Cult of the Supreme Being declared the official religion, including a lavish Festival of the Supreme Being.

Six weeks later Robespierre and his cohorts, who had trumpeted the rule of Reason and of Man, and enforced it with secret police and informants, were overthrown by more conservative members of the Assembly. They followed Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and all their other victims to the guillotine

The History Channel claims the French Revolution was the turning point of history--the act that changed the world forever--apparently forgetting the American Revolution entirely. The French Revolution is portrayed as the epitome of the Enlightenment philosophy that would influence all revolutions to follow--from Russia to China. In short--it was the French, not the Americans, who brought the modern concept of a free republic to the world.

Sadly too many will accept this as truth when the exact opposite is the case. Brilliant men who rise to power with no fear of God's judgment--believing themselves to be gods themselves--will always fail. The tragedy is how many innocents across the world die before they are brought down.

Two hundred years after two bloody Revolutions we can stand back and see which was truly the turning point of history--the one fought by men who fashioned themselves gods or the one fought by men who feared God.

2005-01-14T19:27:00.000-08:00

Thomas Paine-in-the-Ass

A few years ago, when I first began running through the fields of information and commentary on the Internet, I noticed a reoccurring theme: Thomas Paine had somehow become the patron saint of libertarians, moderates, and slightly-right-of-center blogs. Many posters even used his name as their nom de guerre . In fact, if you were (are?) ignorant of American history, you would get the impression Thomas Paine single-handedly instigated, fought, and won the Revolution, then moved on to write our Constitution and its attendant Bill of Rights.

Not quite.

Thomas Paine was a bit of a johnny-come-lately. In 1772 he was an excise officer (tax collector) in England--until he was fired for leading protests for higher salaries. Sometime in the next two years he met Benjamin Franklin and came to the conclusion life would probably be better on the other side of the pond.

Not until late 1774 did Paine arrive in America--with a letter of introduction from Franklin--and shortly thereafter became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine . Understandably disgruntled with the English, he took up the American cause, publishing the famous pamphlet Common Sense in 1776 and another series of pamphlets entitled The Crisis over the next seven years. It's also been generally accepted that Thomas Jefferson was more of an editor of the Declaration of Independence, the bones of the document having been written by his close friend, Thomas Paine.

There is no denying Paine's brilliance with the written word, whether he wrote from idealistic zeal or from personal animosity toward Britain. And he did back up his words by enlisting to fight in the war. At some point he was appointed Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs by the Continental Congress. It was then his sense of moral superiority and personal egotism began affecting events. He also became the prototype of the modern opposition liberals now residing in our own Congress.

Believing Silas Deane (one of our original secret agents, the man who personally brought the Marquis de Lafayette to the American side, and who held the contract to John Paul Jones' American privateer Bonhomme Richard ) was profiting from a private arms deal in France, Paine publicly denounced the affair. (Deane was exonerated in 1842.) Unfortunately his denunciation exposed America's secret negotiations with the French for help in the Revolution, a serious breach that could have affected the outcome of the war. Paine was immediately dismissed from his post.

Perhaps to make amends, he sent $500 to George Washington to help supply the war effort. While the hefty donation was undoubtedly welcome, subsequent events seem to indicate Thomas Paine's motives were now suspect and from then on he would be kept at arm's length.

Now here's where modern history becomes vague and fuzzy. While we have a detailed account of Pain's activities prior to this point, afterward most writings jump directly to "… after the War he retired to his farm in New Rochelle, NY, then went to England in 1787…" Ostensibly Paine went to England to seek financial aid to build an iron bridge over the Schuylkill River.

The Revolution ended in September of 1783. At some point in the ensuing years, Thomas Paine privately asked Washington for help in acquiring the job of Postmaster General of the new United States as compensation for his war work. It is said Washington considered recommending Paine for the position, then rejected his application. [NOTE: According to secondary sources, there is a letter Washington wrote regarding the matter, however, it isn't cited in any on-line Thomas Paine biography I could easily find.]

Paine was furious and began to publicly denounce Washington. (It may be that many of the "facts" modern deconstructionists cite to discredit Washington were rumors created by a vindictive Thomas Paine.) However, to Paine's surprise, the attacks were not well received, hence the trip to England. There's also some evidence Paine was greatly displeased with Washington's openly Christian beliefs which led him to write The Age of Reason . While in England he wrote the Rights of Man , a reply to Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution, and immediately found it necessary leave England for France.

In the French Revolution Thomas Paine saw the same goals as the American Revolution, with one major difference. The French Revolution would be based on human reason and ideals, divorced from any "religious" interference. History shows us what resulted. Sadly, the French were no more appreciative of his efforts than they are of our modern assistance toward their country. Paine ended up in Luxembourg Prison, living in fear of execution, until American Ambassador James Monroe secured his release after the Reign of Terror ended.

In gratitude, Thomas Paine immediately released another diatribe against George Washington for failing to help him, attacking the President's reputation as a soldier as well as his administration's policies. This will sound a familiar note:

"The eventful crisis to which your double politics have conducted the affairs of your country, requires an investigation uncramped by ceremony. There was a time when the fame of America, moral and political, stood fair and high in the world. The lustre of her Revolution extended itself to every individual; and to be a citizen of America gave a title to respect in Europe. Neither meanness nor ingratitude had been mingled in the composition of her character.

Later in the same letter comes a very Kerryesque accusation.

"The part I acted in the American Revolution is well known; I shall not here repeat it. I know also that had it not been for the aid received from France, in men, money and ships, that your cold and unmilitary conduct (as I shall show in the course of this letter) would in all probability have lost America; at least she would not have been the independent nation she now is. You slept away your time in the field, till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have but little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, Sir, to speak the undisguised language of historical truth.

"Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of everything to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution began to appear. […] As to what were your views, for, if you are not great enough to have ambition, you are little enough to have vanity, they cannot be directly inferred from expressions of your own; buy [but? ] the partisans of your politics have divulged the secret."

When his old friend Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, Paine decided it was safe to return to the United States. President Jefferson planned to offer him free transport on a United States ship, celebrating him as a hero. But even after the passage of five years, the public had not forgotten Thomas Paine. The opposition to Jefferson's plan from all sides was so loud and furious, the President backed down. Paine returned in 1802 only to be thoroughly ignored. In 1809 he died and was buried on his farm in New Rochelle. Ten years later, a plan to return his bones to England for a memorial burial were abandoned when, after exhumation, the remains of Thomas Paine were lost.

An ignoble end for a brilliant yet ignominious man.

2005-01-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

Word Play

Surfing around during the weeks and months after the election, I noticed disgruntled leftest had glommed on to a particular phrase, claiming it as their own. "A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community" was popping up everywhere. At first I found it amusing, rather like all those TV docudramas "based on a true story" that have nothing to do with "reality." The only benefit of the phrase was to serve as a warning I was entering the red-light district of the blogosphere.

Then I read Slate's amusing article about the "Word of the Year" decision process by the Linguistic Society of America.

"During the afternoon voting, everyone agreed that Most Unnecessary had particularly good candidates. The suffix -based , as in faith-based or reality-based , was widely disliked. "It's its own opposite," said Bill Kretzschmar, editor of the Linguistic Atlas of America . "If it's reality-based , it's not real."

Reality-based communities--living life in a Michael Moore documentary.

Found via Silflay Hraka.

2005-01-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

Homespun Symposium

What, in your opinion, are the moral responsibilities of the individual citizen in the United States (or your own country) today and how do you believe people should act upon (or react to) those perceived responsibilities?

My question wasn't asked from a religious perspective since I believe certain moral obligations are ecumenical.

In my opinion there is a single moral imperitive, whatever your religious beliefs: educate yourself. Educate yourself, your children, grandchildren, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc. etc. Without knowledge, or with an incomplete grasp of facts, you will be sucked into the whims and vanities of fashionable opinions, your emotions holding sway over your logic.

Education is a lifelong process, at times tedious and grueling and uncomfortable. And it means studying history. Not just recent history--those events that have occurred in your lifetime--but events that occurred in your great-great-great-grandparents lifetime as well.

A professor once told me the closer you come to the original events the better you will understand the actions and biases of those involved. Distance creates larger-than-life heroes and villains out of ordinary people. Understand I am not advocating deconstructing history. But without facts you will always be prey to the vagrancies of popular opinion and emotional rhetoric. One of my prized possessions is a 1912 encyclopedia, which is both amusing and enlightening.

I strongly recommend reading Allan Bloom's 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind . Twenty years ago he was already sounding the alarm of the impending firestorm we now live with daily.

"…the United States has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition is unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple, rational speech that is immediately comprehensible and powerfully persuasive to all normal human beings. […] You had to be a crank or a buffoon…to get attention as a nonbeliever in the democracy.

[…]

"But the unity grandeur and attendant folklore of the founding heritage was attacked from so many directions in the last half-century that it gradually disappeared from daily life and from textbooks. It all began to seem like Washington and the cherry tree--not the sort of thing to teach children seriously."

Take the time--make the effort--turn off Desperate Housewives or 24 and take intellectual, moral responsibility for your future.

Citizen--educate thyself.

2005-01-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes You Do Live Long Enough…

…to see your claims validated.

My original extended profile description included the comment I am "Old enough to remember how Walter Cronkite lost us the Vietnam War…"

In early April of 2004 I wrote a post entitled "I Blame Walter Cronkite" in which I said:

"To this day I cannot understand Cronkite's strange flip-flop [over the Vietnam War]. At the time I got the distinct impression he was 1) impressed with his own importance as a veteran war correspondent and 2) deliberately attempting to influence the upcoming Presidential elections."

My friends grew tired of hearing my complaints and greeted every new rant with that polite-smile-glazed-eyes-where's-the-bar-I-need-a-drink-now expression I imagine people get when listening to Michael Moore.

Unlike Michael Moore--I was right.

Today Howard Fineman writes:

"Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things. The seeds of its demise were sown with the best of intentions in the late 1960s, when the AMMP was founded in good measure (and ironically enough) by CBS. Old folks may remember the moment: Walter Cronkite stepped from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become an outright foe of the war in Vietnam. Later, he and CBS's star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon's fate as the first president to resign." [Emphasis mine.]

Took you long enough, Howard.

Merely another example of why you young whippersnappers should listen to your elders.

2005-01-11T18:25:00.000-08:00

Homspun Symposium

Just wanted to say I'll get around to answering my own question shortly. After yet another day of dealing with lawyers, agencies, and semi-futile attempts at salvaging my financial life, I need to rest my brain.

2005-01-11T12:10:00.000-08:00

Facing Dilemmas

UPDATE: Cap'n Arbyte has more on the TennCare situation and the consequences of allowing individuals unlimited medical entitlements.

When you encounter someone like the "Jane" profiled below, someone you know--through personal experience, actual evidence, and day-to-day observation--is cheating the system in massive ways, what do you do?

As adults we still live with the childhood fear of being called a "tattletale," especially since, in today's world, it's not the wrongdoers who are reviled, but the whistleblowers. They're bitter, mean, angry, small-minded, and only out for revenge. Whether or not they're accurate or truthful is rarely considered.

So what do you do? Chuckle and nod, turning away with a wink and a grin at the fact they're "putting one over" on the government? Try to avoid the question, uncomfortable with your knowledge but even more uncomfortable with the thought of being a snitch--a rat--a squealer. Is it just too much trouble to get involved and you have your own life to live?

Do you not realize the government that person is "putting one over on" is you? The money they're using to live large is your tax dollars? The system they're milking is nearing bankruptcy?

Fortunately the government is beginning to wake up and exert some small effort to track disability frauds.

"A Government Accountability Office report published in September stated that SSA had detected $990 million in Disability Insurance overpayments in fiscal 2003, up from $772 million in 1999. This was just the total of overpayments that were discovered; the agency does not know the true total of improper payments. The largest individual overpayments exceeded $100,000.

"The prospect of having to repay such large amounts may deter beneficiaries from seeking employment. GAO found that about one third of Disability Insurance overpayments result from beneficiaries whose earnings exceeded the amount allowed.

"The Social Security Inspector General issued the results of an audit in July that assessed Disability Insurance beneficiaries' earnings reported to the agency by March 2002. The audit found that the agency had not assessed all of the earnings for 41 percent of 275 sample cases. Based on the sample, the audit estimated that 171,620 beneficiaries had been overpaid $3.15 billion because of work income."

What this program will not investigate is whether the person receiving SSI is capable of full-time employment. Typically new applicants are offered a huge range of benefits to encourage rehabilitation and retraining/reeducation. Some are supplied with free computers and training to begin the process. Injured persons who can no longer engage in the regular physical demands of their former job can--through additional education funded in part or in whole by the government--succeed in non-physical management positions and telecommuting jobs.

But like the old adage says, "You can lead a horse to water…" To the best of my knowledge--and investigation--there is no follow-up to verify the "disabled" party is making any attempt at rehab or reeducation.

And to unearth those who willfully deceive and steal from the SSI program, Social Security is almost totally dependent upon informants--and we already know how well that type of program works.

Beyond taking money directly from your monthly paycheck (SSI is funded by tax dollars from the General Fund), people such as "Jane" are doing far more serious damage--they are bankrupting state and federal medical aid programs.

"[Democrat Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen] announced plans…to dissolve Tennessee's expanded Medicaid system and drop 430,000 poor and disabled people from the rolls of the health-care program that has been devouring a large chunk of the state budget."

"Poor and disabled people" like "Jane" who quickly learned that living on your tax dollars was easier than being a productive member of society.

"The TennCare concept was for the state to operate like an HMO, providing health insurance to those who needed it and paying the premiums for those who couldn't afford it. The idea was even sold as a cost savings because it would provide "managed care" (volume discounts, preventative care, etc.). TennCare opened enrollment to hundreds of thousands of people who did not qualify for Medicaid, even to some six-figure earners. Costs quickly exploded, and despite attempts to tighten eligibility rules the program still covers 1.3 million of the state's 5.8 million people."

So the next time you encounter your version of "Jane," think twice--or a half dozen times--before dismissing their behavior with a wink and a nod. Because of her, your grandparents, your parents, your children, and you will not be receiving any help when you really need it.

2005-01-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

Addition of BlogClicker

There's a new blog exchange site out there and I decided to try it out. BlogClicker is much like Blog Explosion. It has possibilities, although the large banner that jumps from top to bottom on the page as you surf is a bit irritating. And for a minute or two I couldn't figure out how to click on the next blog--but that's probably just me being stupid.

More interesting reads, I hope--except for a certain Sir Peter Maxwell who will undoubtedly offend everyone , no matter where on the political spectrum they reside.

Found via Mad Tech

2005-01-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

Facing Issues

In my last post I mentioned I intended to "put a personal face" on certain issues. Since we have become a visual society--with an attention span reduced to sound bites--a picture is now worth considerably more than 1,000 words. 10,000 words are no longer adequate--unless a picture is attached. For instance, the "face" of MSM bias became Dan Rather. The "face" of Hollywood hatred became Michael Moore. The "face" of millionare arrogance became John Kerry.

Take a look at this picture. Take a moment to consider the woman--I'll call her "Jane" for now--and make some simple deductions about her. She seems to be a typical middle-aged woman--a few pounds heavier than necessary like so many of us beyond our 40's--obviously enjoying a vacation or family outing. Pleasant woman. Contented and living life fully. Could you imagine this person--this nice, grandmotherly-looking "Jane"--as a thief? Or a cheat? Of course not. But she is.

That picture was taken during one of the five vacations she took in one year. All paid for by the taxpayers. You see, "Jane" is considered 100% disabled by a back injury. A back injury so debilitating she cannot sit in an office. A back injury so serious she cannot attend classes for reeducation.

Now consider this photograph. Undoubtedly you're thinking what do these two picture have in common? In 1986 "Jane" ruptured a disc and had back surgery. Barely four months later, Joe Montana suffered the same injury throwing a pass and underwent back surgery. Two months later he was back on the field, going on to play football for another ten years and win two more Super Bowls.

Nearly 20 years later, "Jane" is still considered 100% disabled, collecting almost $1,000 per month of taxpayer money while her comfortably-off father sends her money to pay her bills.

Think about it. Study the face. The saga will contiue…

2005-01-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

Returning

I will resume detailed blogging within the next few days. The past month was so full of trauma and personal disasters I didn't feel I should inflict my emotions on readers, particularly during a time designated as "happy" and "joyful." If you read the Biblical Book of Job, that pretty much sums up what's been happening in my life . Really.

Suffice it to say, I intend to keep going as long as I can. My goal for 2005 is to put a personal face on issues; to take them out of the abstract realm of things that affect "the other person." It may not be nice. Individual names may be named. Deal with it.

2004-11-30T00:18:00.000-08:00

Has Genesis Been Right All Along?

Interesting. First there was this:

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." - Genesis 1:2

Now one scientist claims this:

"Washington- According to a new study, space and dark are eternal, they were not created, and the 'Primordial Fireball' as claimed by the Big Bang theory could not produce them. The dark had existed before anything else since it is the occupant of the space, the master of the space. When there was no light before existence of the Universe, there existed dark, only dark, nothing else but dark and no one can challenge it; just think over it.

"These chattels of infinite space and dark are one combination of the two; dark has been the natural occupier of the whole space right before the birth of the Universe. In other words, the space has been serving as the living room of the dark."

I read somewhere that whenever scientists reach a mountaintop, theologians are already there to greet them.

2004-11-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

The Myth of a Divided America

The premise of the Homespun Bloggers' Symposium this week is:

Is the division in America important to you? What will be necessary to heal it? What part do you see Bloggers playing in that discussion and how will you personally contribute to it?

First it must be said there is no "division" in America . That phrase is the media construct of disgruntled news journalists who discovered the hard way they no longer control the debate on a national scale. Grasping at straws to retain their relevance, they somberly announced we now live in "a America divided" to 1) discredit President Bush's overwhelming reelection, 2) to give themselves something--anything--to talk about other than why their favorite son lost, and 3) to provide a framework for their agenda over the next four years.

Pockets of spoiled brats, clustered in the media centers of LA and NY, have the megaphones to screech their discontent far and wide. Sadly, many average, well-meaning Americans hear only pieces of information delivered by soundbites from the talking heads. "Somewhere in America a child has died from inadequate medical care" resonates in America's compassionate soul, fueling demands for free childhood health care (John Kerry's newest clarion call). Busy working and living their ordinary lives, too many Americans never stop to think who will pay for that health care and how it will burden the economy in general and their own pocketbooks in particular. We don't have to look at the abomination of Canadian health care to see the even-more-tragic results of such policy. We only have to take a long, hard look at the Tenncare program (now in the process of being dismantled) to see the consequences of enacting any emotion-driven legislation.

Average Americans live their lives as libertarian/conservatives. They believe in working for a living. They want to keep the money they earn and donate it wherever they please without coercion. They want their children well educated not indoctrinated. They would never encourage their daughters to use abortion as birth control or have their sons test their virility on every girl in the senior class. They want to go to the doctor for a check-up without having to spend the next month undergoing a battery of tests that serve no purpose except to protect the doctor from a potential lawsuit. They don't want nanny-state regulations from either the FCC or the EPA. If pressed, the majority would admit they really only want two things from society and government--common decency and common sense.

So in terms of being important to me, this mythical "divide" is only valid when viewed as a prism through which news and opinion is delivered to the public.

Bloggers have become the Paul Harveys of the news--the people who find "the rest of the story." When the MSM--or talk radio--attempts to lie by omission (as opposed to just plain lie á la Dan Rather) the blogging community will find the facts and present them in all their raw, frequently unpalatable reality. The sore losers of November 2 blame bloggers for undermining Kerry's credibility and electability, forgetting it was also bloggers who orchestrated Trent Lott's demise.

Principled bloggers can deliver information on a previously unheard of scale. They can debunk the pseudo science used to scare the public into supporting disastrous environmental policies such as Kyoto. They can strip away the façade of holier-than-thou theologians, including major denominational leaders, fundamentalists (of all religions), atheists, agnostics, pagans, and secular humanists. They can expose the greedy, self-serving agenda of minority activists, radical feminists, gay rights organizers, and environmentalists, all of whom need money from suitably alarmed Americans to keep their bank accounts flush.

My own contribution is negligible, but I do know from experience that a single voice can make a difference. It is not necessary to trumpet opinions on a national stage because changing minds and hearts takes place one person at a time. It's a long, slow journey that I began over twenty years ago.

Nice to see the rest of you catching up.

2004-11-16T23:03:00.000-08:00

Local Politics and the Electoral College

Homespun Bloggers are discussing the topic of whether the Electoral College is still necessary, should be changed or, perhaps, abolished all together. Enough people seem to think so the Pew Institute is doing a study on the question. (No link available--just information from someone involved.)

Considerettes and Bunker Mulligan deal with various aspects and Redhunter has a detailed explanation.

The Founding Fathers had no interest in rule by the elite, having just experienced that tyranny and fought a war to remove it. They were also classically educated and knew the end result of mob rule--aka pure democracy. The framers of the Constitution had to develop a balancing act between the densely populated northern colonies and the agrarian South--neither of whom completely trusted the other. Some things never change.

Fortunately the idea of the Electoral College doesn't either, although I'm sure there were numerous proponents every time the Presidential "loser" won more votes from the populace.

However, what everyone who debates this topic appears to be forgetting is, the Electoral College--or rather the number of votes apportioned to each state which increases or decreases their importance--can change every ten years. Why ten years? Because the number of representatives from any particular state varies according to the state's population. And each state has two electors (equal to the number of its US senators) plus the number of its US representatives.

That change, along with the ensuing district reapportionment fights, occurs after every census and, hypothetically, a state can control its own importance in the national vote by encouraging (or discouraging) people to relocate--or move out. For instance, from 1981 to 2010, Arizona has gone from 7 electoral votes to 10 and Florida gained six electoral votes. Both are big retirement states and reflect the aging Baby Boomers. In contrast, Illinois lost two, and a whole string of northern and so-called "rust" states lost at least one each. Generally the northern states including NY, PA, and OH lost while the southern states like NC, TX, and VA gained or stayed the same.

Tom at MuD and PhuD plays Devil's Advocate in the discussion.

"My most basic issue with the EC is that it discounts many individual citizen's vote for President."

That will happen every four years, whether or not the Electoral College changes. Just look at the county election map for blue state California. How many individual citizens' votes were "discounted" there? (Fortunately the psychiatric community is ready to help.)

Tom mentions the "district system" of Maine and Nebraska (the other forty-eight states are "winner-take-all" systems) where only two electors' votes go to the winner of the popular vote. The rest are apportioned by congressional districts, awarding the vote to the candidate who received the most votes in each district. This could be a compromise change if the drumbeat for abolishing the Electoral College becomes too loud.

Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams both won the presidency, without the popular vote or the electoral vote, by winning the vote in the House of Representatives (Jefferson after 36 votes, Adams after only one). So if you or your friends think those individual House races every two years are "boring," or if you only vote for the representative who will bring home the bacon--er--pork--rethink your priorities. If neither Bush nor Kerry had reached an electoral majority, the Republican majority in the House would have elected President Bush. Consider the alternative.

Like they say--all politics is local.

2004-11-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

Reach Out To Keep Democrats at Arms Length

It never fails to irritate me how Democrats always expect people to be reaching out to them. They're losers--and becoming bigger losers day by day as every vote is counted, per their own demands--but they think President Bush is somehow obligated to placate them.

In yesterday's Weekly Standard, Peter Berkowitz, teacher at George Mason School of Law and is a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, magnanimously offers George Bush "A Second Chance to Unite" in which he lists four ways the President could reach out to Democrats.

Considering how poorly the first chance to unite after the 2000 election worked out, giving the Democrats the equal representation on committees (which only ended up making Tom Daschle Senate Majority Leader for two years and Democrats filibustering every judicial nomination put before them) President Bush had better think twice before taking Berkowitz's advice.

Here are Berkowitz's suggestions:

"First, the president could appoint a distinguished Democrat or two to the federal bench."

No thanks. Clinton did that for eight years. As a partial result, we have had to split the Ninth Circuit to dilute their asinine rulings and deal with glory-hound judges looking to legislate (rather than adjudicate) their names into law books for eternity.

"Second, the president could appoint a "liberal hawk"--a Democrat who supported the war in Iraq and who believes that both American interests and ideals are served by promoting democracy abroad--to a high-level position on his national security or foreign policy team."

With the Democrats' penchance for leaking classified information to all and sundry, á la Patrick Leahy, this would not only be wrong but criminally stupid.

"Third, Bush could bring into his administration a prominent Democrat to help craft policy for the improvement of the nation's public schools."

Perhaps Mr. Berkowit'z short term memory has been damaged by the election. Has he forgotten Ted Kennedy crafted the "No Child Left Behind" education policy? That little exercise in "hands-across-the-aisle" certainly did nothing to improve relations. Kennedy remains one of the most virulent opponents to the Bush Administration on every level.

"Fourth, the president could establish a regular process of consultation with the Democratic opposition on Capitol Hill. This could be done through regularly scheduled meetings, casual lunches, and formal and informal solicitation of opinions about possible Supreme Court nominees."

I want some of whatever Berkowitz is drinking. President Bush catered to the Democrats so often during his first term there were serious questions during this election cycle that he had alienated his conservative base. If Democrats want to be included they can come to the President, hat in hand, and beg for a few crumbs. They can stop being obstructionists. They can accept that their forty-year attempt to legislate a social utopia has failed and reach out to the Republicans who are attempting to repair the damage.

Or in other words…

…you lost, we won--get over yourself.

2004-11-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

The Democrats Find Religion

…and pray an Act of God (aka assassination) will take out President Bush. [LOGIN: bugsy PW: ysgub]

"A little more than a month before he was assassinated, Abraham Lincoln stood at the east portico of the Capitol and delivered his second inaugural address. It was a brief speech with a distinctly religious message: he twice cited biblical verses, and made a dozen references to God, most strikingly in assessing the opposing sides in the Civil War.

[…]

"Now, with George W. Bush's re-election, God and a newly triumphant Republican president are once again in the headlines. And there are signs that the present national divide, between the narrow but solid Republican majority and a Democratic party seemingly trapped in second place, may be hardening into a pattern that will persist for years to come.

"Democrats, especially, are left to wonder: What will it take to break the pattern - an act of God?

[…]

"Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, saw two instances in history when the American electoral landscape resembled that of today. "They are kind of scary examples," Professor Wilentz said. "One is 1860, and we know what happened after that one, and the other was 1896, the McKinley-Bryan election."

"That contest, which seemed to herald a new era of Republican dominance, also started a chain of events that led to a disastrous schism in the party. William McKinley, a conservative Republican, defeated William Jennings Bryan, a populist Democrat, and won the first clear popular majority in 24 years. He beat Bryan even more soundly in 1900, but less than a year later, he was assassinated.

[…]

"Professor Wilentz of Princeton said that even if the 2004 victory was an incremental one, that should not comfort the Democrats. He said Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush now have a chance to do what Hanna and McKinley never did: Lay the foundation for lasting Republican dominance.
"The Republicans are basically unchecked," Professor Wilentz said. "There is no check in the federal government and no check in the world. They have an unfettered playing field."

"Until the next act of God, that is."

Found via Little Red Blog

2004-11-05T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Specter Lurking in Republican Shadows

Arlen, that is.

Not much time over the next few days, but I want to get this out to as many people as possible. The power of the blogosphere sank Dan Rather. Now we need to sink Arlen Specter.

I do not understand why President Bush campaigned for this man in the PA primaries, however, what's done is done. Now, in gratitude to that outreach, Specter has been threatening to apply a litmus test to Bush's judiciary nominations and oppose any who might be too conservative vis a vis abortion and other heartland issues.

For the rest of country who might not know how seriously this one "Republican" could upset the President's judicial agenda, all you need to remember is--this is the man for whom they created the term "borking."

(For those too young to remember, it refers to Senator Specter's treatment of Reagan's much-too-conservative-for-Specter's-politics Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.)

He must be stopped from becoming Chairman of the Judiciary Committee! Patrick Leahy doesn't need any more help.

If your Senator is part of the Judiciary Committee, voice your opposition to the Specter of a turncoat chairman here.

If your Senator isn't a part of the Judiciary Committee, contact him or her here.

If you're stuck with a Democrat, contact Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at 202-224-3344.

For much more information about this man, visit NotSpecter.com.

2004-11-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Moral Values

They still don't get it, do they? The Big Losers are attempting to spin the seeming aberration of an overwhelming Republican victory (with heavy conservative overtones) on the opposition to gays and abortion. They have no frame of reference to understand the "sudden" importance of moral values in this election. They mistakenly believe they had successfully driven "morality" from the public arena.

They are wrong. Morality might have dozed for a while during the 90's, but our eyes are wide open now.

For years the majority tolerated Clinton's adultery because it was a "personal responsibility" issue that no one thought would affect his ability to govern. They tsk-tsked at the Monica story for the same reason, until he aggressively lied right to our faces. But the economy was booming and the world seemed to be relatively peaceful. Only now do we understand our beliefs were based on a façade. In reality, the Clinton administration was an old, raddled whore who showed us a painted façade of youth and beauty.

The economy was booming because of the dot-com bubble, prosperity based on businesses with no assets, no tangible product, and no accountability. Big Business was allowed to pay their employees with stock without having to list the value of that stock as debts. In 1993, Hillary Clinton was not-so-subtly forcing the pharmaceutical business to give away vaccines, effectively putting those "evil corporations" out of business. The results were Enron and the flu vaccine shortage this year.

"The panel of doctors and economists issuing a report on vaccines last week identified as a fundamental cause of the problem the fact that the government purchases 55 percent of the childhood vaccine market at forced discount prices. The result has been "declining financial incentives to develop and produce vaccines."

But we were feeling so good about ourselves. We were having it all without really working for it. The terrorists attacks we suffered were, with the exception of the first WTC bombing, half a world away and waged against our military. They deserved it anyway, so why worry. It was Alfred E. Newman meets Madam de Pompadour*.

Then George W. Bush beat Al Gore in 2000. At the same time, all the wrong decisions of the Clinton Administration were coming apart, conveniently in time to blame Bush for the failures. Leftist outrage at their loss morphed into hatred. The pimple of liberal hate on the chin of America was beginning to fester and come to a head.

On September 11, 2001 we were united as a nation--briefly. Within 24 hours the "we-deserved-it-crowd" was back in force. But they never quite understood a profound change--a paradigm shift, if you will--had occurred in the United States. We saw a President who openly stated his plans and followed his words with actions !

The pimple popped.

The voters of America now had a physical comparison to Bill Clinton. No more pandering to feel-good emotions while philandering with feel-good interns. The passage of the Patriot Act launched the politically correct crowd into their assault on ordinary people, attempting to marginalize everyone and everything that was perceived as "moral" or "religious," however remote. The mere hint of a cross, the mention of the Ten Commandments, or the word "God," drove them into a frenzy. Disagree with the practice of partial-birth abortion or legalized gay marriage and liberals became rabid pit-bulls.

This attack was nothing new to many conservatives, but it was an unsettling surprise to many "right-leaning" moderates. Then the acidic pus began seeping into the mainstream media. Day after day reports of lawsuits and judicial fiats that crushed Judeo-Christian beliefs were gleefully reported at length--and ultimately culminated with the Rathergate attempt to bring down the President. Judges usurped and defied legislators and thumbed their noses at the will of the people. Public schools and university administrations openly flaunted their attempts to intimidate and brainwash students. The radical left had became embolden, blatant, feeling themselves intellectually superior to the majority of American. Authorities seeking out militant Islamists within our borders became "fascists." Conservative free speech became "intimidation." Tax cuts became "immoral."

The moral values many claimed influenced their decision this election cycle did have much to do with the gay agenda and abortion. But if the Democrat Party attempts to frame their agenda for the coming years on those issues alone, they will continue to fail miserably. They will have missed the growing awareness and distaste for hypocrites, liars, cheats and those who lust after power for power's sake. And they will never understand that the deeper issue of personal responsibility, doing the right thing, and holding people accountable for their actions has trumped political--national and international--expediency.

*Madame de Pompadour is credited/blamed for starting the Seven Years War by her manipulation of the French King Louis XV. "[The] French alliance [with the Habsburgs] eventually brought on the Seven Years War with all its disasters, the battle of Rosbach and the loss of Canada…Mme de Pompadour persisted in her support of these policies…brought Choiseul into office and supported hini in all his great plans, the Pacte de Famille, the suppression of the Jesuits, and the peace of Versailles that lost Canada."

2004-11-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

The World Turned Upside Down

BBC.

France.

France hailed the U.S. election as an important moment in world diplomacy on Wednesday, calling it an opportunity to revive the transatlantic relationship no matter who wins.

Canada

Belgium.

"The apparent re-election of President George W Bush is the news most of Europe never wanted to hear. But with four more years in the White House seemingly assured for Mr Bush, many leaders will now have to rebuild bridges with Washington."

To paraphrase another famous blogger--"Indeed."

All links from The Command Post.

2004-11-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

John Kerry Will Concede at 1:00 p.m.

AP report.

Dan Rather under a suicide watch…

2004-11-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

As For Me…

Many people have written if John Kerry is elected (in spite of their personal opposition), they will accept "the will of the people" and support him as President of the United States in much the same way they would support President Bush. That is their right.

As for me, my flag will once again fly upside down as it did through the Clinton years. As for me, the day a dishonorably discharged sailor who turned his coat takes the Oath of Office will be one more in a long line of disasters the United States will have to suffer through and survive, hopefully intact.

As for me, it will be

9-11-01

11-22-63

12-7-41

9-30-38

1-30-33

10-29-29

6-28-14

2004-11-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

Intolerance Toward English-Speakers

Well, so much for Suggestion No. 5.

"The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections fired a poll worker Tuesday after he was accused of making an inappropriate statement regarding non-English speaking voters.

"At least two people who attended an election training class said Martin Drabek made a comment opposing voting assistance for Hispanics who do not understand English. The two who made the allegations against Drabek are Hispanic and said in a statement that he mentioned his parents had emigrated from Poland and had to learn English.

"We can't tolerate that," said Jane Platten, an elections board administrator…"

2004-10-28T22:36:00.000-08:00

Already Looking Past the Election

In today's Washington Post, Richard Cohen has fired the first shot--and perhaps set the stage for the liberal left's future endeavors. [LOGIN: fedup@mailinator.com PW: fedup]

"I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline for this one, it would be "Impeach George Bush." Of course, I realize there's no chance Congress would impeach the president at this point or under almost any circumstance. It somehow reserves its outrage for lying about sex under oath and not, as now seems clear, the making of war under false pretenses."

Lying under oath to a grand jury is against the law. Period. No matter what the issue.

"Say what you will about Bill Clinton, no one died in the White House pantry."

No, but as a result of his philandering and pandering, 3000 died on September 11, Mr. Cohen. Apparently you've forgotten that inconvenient little fact.

"The same cannot be said in the larger sense about George Bush. Well over 1,000 Americans and countless more Iraqis have died because the president insisted on going to war. I know I should grieve for the Iraqi dead as much as I do the Americans, but I simply don't. It is the Americans -- those names I read almost every day, the hometowns, the lives I conjure up for them, the hideous moments of death -- who would make up every one of my articles of impeachment. I would read every name from the well of the House."

But would you read the names of the dead at the first WTC bombing, Mr. Cohen? Or the Kobar Towers bombing? Or the USS Cole bombing? Or any other terrorist attack that Bill Clinton ignored, thus leading to the ultimate attack on September 11th? I doubt you remember those dead Americans.

"I do not hold George Bush accountable for believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I have talked with senior administration officials who opposed the war and they, too, thought Hussein had chemical and biological weapons -- but not nuclear ones. By the time Bush had firmly decided to go to war, all in Washington knew Hussein's nuclear weapons program consisted of a wish. Even Vice President Cheney had to know that, but the truth does not matter to him. In a long career as a Cold Warrior, he morphed into the enemy: The end justifies the means."

And how many times, Mr. Cohen, have you and your cohorts "morphed" the 2000 election into the lie of "Bush was selected not elected?" How many times have you preached the false gospel of the "disenfranchised voters" of Florida? You knew (and still know) that is nothing more than a base lie, yet if Gore had won his challenge--had truly "stolen" the election from Bush--you would have gleefully toasted his illicit victory with your Democrat cronies as you all chorused "the end justifies the means."

"In his forthcoming book on the Crusades, "Fighting for Christendom," Christopher Tyerman of Oxford University argues, "There existed no strategic or material interest for the knights of the west" to invade the Muslim east and try to wrest Jerusalem from Islam. "Consequently, the Christian wars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Near East provide startling testimony to the power of ideas."

Contrary to Tyeman's arguments, 11th through 13th century rulers were well aware of the deadly menace of the Islamic hordes. Rulers as diverse as Genghis Khan (whose rage was kindled against Muslims when the Persians--or Iranians as we know them now--executed his emissaries) to Vlad of Wallachia (whose habit of impaling his beaten Islamic foes had much to do with holding the Ottoman Empire at bay) fought back the insidious tide of Muslim conquest.

Yes, it was indeed a war of ideas--and we of the 21st century can thank them for recognizing the oppressive evil lurking in the bowels of militant Islam. They had one goal. And that goal hasn't changed in nearly 1500 years. Destroy Western civilization.

"I cite this book for a reason. You will remember that early on Bush referred to the war against terrorism as a "crusade." The word, though, was too freighted with Christian-Muslim conflict, and Bush quickly backed down. But, really, he was speaking the truth. Just as the original Crusades were a form of mass madness, so was this one when it was extended to Iraq. It came, as did the original one, out of the bonnet of a leader: Bush this time, Pope Urban II in 1095 -- and it swept everything before it. Congress lent its approval and so, significantly, did the media (myself included). The failure of leadership was across the board. The events of Sept. 11 were as emotionally wrenching to us as the Muslim capture of Jerusalem was to medieval Christians."

I frankly don't care if I upset a few dozen "moderate" Muslims. We are in the midst of a Crusade. A Crusade of ideas--right versus wrong--that will write the future history of the world. And you'd better pray, Mr. Cohen, to whatever/whichever God/Goddess/Supreme Being you choose, that we win. If we don't, you will be one of the first to vanish in the tidal wave of Islamic "tolerance."

"My peripatetic colleague Dana Milbank recently reported on a poll showing that 72 percent of Bush's supporters believe Iraq did in fact possess weapons of mass destruction and that 75 percent believed Hussein gave al Qaeda "substantial support." These beliefs are false, in contradiction of the facts, and even Bush, when pressed, has admitted that. But these beliefs did not arise out of nowhere. They are a direct consequence of the administration's repeated lies -- lies of commission, such as Cheney's statements, and lies of omission, the appalling failure to correct wrongly held views.

Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction because he used them on his own people. And you know that yourself, so spare us more revisionist history-making. It has also been well-documented that Saddam Hussein gave substantial financial support to terrorists, from al Qaeda to the Palestinians. You must have the ability to search LexisNexis for such information even though a quick free tour through Google will give you the same response. It is your beliefs that are false, Mr. Cohen, and rely far more on blind faith than those who believe in WMD and financial incentives.

"Not since the Spanish-American War has the United States gone off to war so casually, so half-cocked and so ineptly. The sinking of the Maine, the casus belli for that dustup, has been replaced by missing weapons of mass destruction, and the Hearst and Pulitzer presses are now talk radio and Fox News Channel. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Still, though, we mourn the dead, look away from the wounded and maimed, and wonder what it was all about. We embarked, truly and regrettably, on a crusade."

Everything has changed, and that's what is really bothering you, isn't it? You are no longer the only game in town. Competition--that ugliest of all words to your sort--has reared its reprehensible conservative head. You are losing the battle. The dead you mourn, the wounded and maimed you look away from are the liars, the plagiarizers, the truth-twisters who once had their poison pens sunk deep into the psyche of American readers. Some of us have merely had our suspicions confirmed. Others, however--too many others for your comfort--have had the scales stripped from their eyes and are seeing clearly for the first time in years.

"Yet from Bush comes not a bleep of regret, not to mention apology. It is all "steady as she goes" -- although we have lost our bearings and we no longer know our destination. (Don't tell me it's a democratic Middle East.) If the man were commanding a ship, he would be relieved of command. If he were the CEO of some big company, the board would offer him a golden parachute -- and force him to jump. But in government, it's the people who make those decisions. We get our chance on Tuesday."

There is no cause for regret nor need for apologies. It is you who have lost your bearings in the ocean of moral relativism. You who have allowed yourself to be swamped with mindless hatred of George W. Bush. And in the midst of that blood-red sea of hate, you still believe you can throw any carrion of a lie on our hook and we will blithely reel it in, ignorant of the rank stench billowing around us.

You and your ilk have spent too many years attempting to pirate the ship of state. On Tuesday we will have our chance to make the lot of you walk the plank.

"Impeach Bush."

Keelhaul Cohen.

2004-10-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Uncorked Bottle

Alex at The Wandering Mind left a comment asking if it was possible to "…ever put the genie back in the bottle."

I doubt it. First the nation has had eight years to learn 1) you can get away with anything as long as you or your surrogates can out-shout your accuser, and 2) if you're near-charming and say you're sorry (trembling lip optional) people will forgive and (more importantly) forget.

But the real answer is provided by Stanley Kurtz over at NRO's The Corner.

"The fact that a candidate who called America’s soldiers war criminals and threw away his metals could get this close shows that something has changed for the worse. And the reason is that even cultural leaders like the owner and publisher of The New York Times were once radical antiwar activists. Recall that after his second arrest for anti-war protests, Pinch Sulzberger was asked by his father what his son called, “the dumbest question I ever heard in my life:” “If a young American soldier comes upon a young North Vietnamese soldier, which one do you want to see get shot?” The younger Sulzberger answered, “I would want to see the American get shot. It’s the other guy’s country.” The reason John Kerry and his “global test” have even a ghost of a chance in this election is because Sulzberger and the folks who thought like him are now in charge of the media–and much of the rest of our culture." [Emphasis mine.]

Our best hope is that today's conservative-leaning teens hold to their beliefs through their college years and begin making new bottles to hold the genie. It took the Isralites forty years of wandering the the wilderness before the last of their defeatists died away. I can only hope we learn our lessons more quickly.

2004-10-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

Less Than 1,000 Words

For all those who hold the seriously mistaken belief the Electoral College should be altered or abolished… Get the picture now?

How the people voted. (And remember, Gore won the popular vote.)

2000 Electoral College Results.

Do you really want your future decided by those elitest population enclaves?

2004-10-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

And One More Time…

UPDATE: I neglected to include this link to an October 21 Powerpundit post (from an original post by Powerline):

"At the same time, [PA Governor Ed] Rendell [former head of the DNC] is making sure that prisoners are assisted and hand-held so that they can send in absentee ballots from prison. " [Emphasis mine]

As I just mentioned in my last post and in this one, Democrats are intent on supressing the military overseas vote.

"With all eyes on Pennsylvania, all eyes are increasingly on [Governor Ed] Rendell's handling of the military vote. Angry emails are beginning to circulate regarding Rendell's opposition to extending the deadline for military ballots, and radio talk show hosts are urging listeners to take action."

As reported by the AP:

"The men and women who are most affected by who becomes commander in chief, their vote is going to be denied," said state Rep. Stephen Barrar, R-Chester. "If 73 percent of these votes were coming in for John Kerry, she (U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane, a Clinton appointee), would rule the other way and so would Ed Rendell."

Rendell, you recall, is the former head of the DNC. [Insert standard comment about smacking an ass between the eyes with a two-by-four.]

2004-10-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

How Democrats Make it Harder to Vote

World Magazine Blog is reporting actual evidence of how the Democrats almost stole the 2000 election. And the Marine Corps Colonel referenced is advising his people to take a day of leave to make sure their vote counts.

"In a recent edition of the Marine Corps Times (subscription required), Col. Dave Lowry, active duty serving at the Army Reserve Command at Fort McPherson, Ga., warned other military personnel of the problems with voting by absentee ballot. During the 2000 election he sent his absentee ballot to Florida via UPS and had documented proof that it arrived before the deadline on Election Day. But then he learned his and thousands of others' votes had not been counted. Instead, the ballots were stamped with "received nine days after" the election.

"Lowry said he believes officials set aside the absentee ballots, most sent through regular mail, because there is no tracking system for general mail. It took more than three years for Lowry to get his vote counted, and now he urges people to bypass absentee voting and take a day of leave to make sure their vote counts:

2004-10-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

We Need to Make it Harder To Vote

…not easier. If we don't, we will rapidly descend those last few inches to the "bread and circuses" mentality that brought down the Roman Empire.

When the Founding Fathers established the election process--which was amended any number of times over the years--they realized one simple fact: the basic nature of all animals (including human animals) is to look out for Number One. If candidate A offers free bread while candidate B does not--even if there is no reason for free bread--human nature is to take the goodies and run with no thought for the future. To phrase it more simply--humans are sinful.

To avoid wild swings in the voting process, the Electoral College was established. I've read some opinions it was because the "elite" landowners in control didn't trust the average citizen. Perhaps. More likely they knew the average citizen too well and, without a vested interest in the country, they feared voters would indeed succumb to "bread and circuses." They were right, weren't they?

So only male landowners over 21 years of age were eligible, but even then they put a leash on the more populated eastern cities with the Electoral College that weighed the vote of one heavily settled area against two or three more thinly settled areas combined. It still works today, thank God, or President Gore would be running for reelection.

But it should be more difficult to cast any vote--for dogcatcher or president--in the United States. Here's a half-dozen suggestions. I'm sure you can come up with more.

1. No current picture ID when you go to the polls, no vote. Period.
2. No motor voter registration. You must present yourself--and your ID--at the registrar's office. If you're an immigrant, you must present your naturalization papers as well.
3. No registration drives sponsored and paid for by [fill-in-the-name-of-your-favorite-527-organization]. If possible, an area could be set up by the registrar's office at the various DMV offices to accept registration forms.
4. Card stock paper, #2 pencil, and fill-in-the-square ballots only. I'm not a fan of any type of mechanical voting machines for a whole host of reasons. Like slot machines, they can be rigged whether we want to admit it or not. And it's just too bad if it takes longer to tabulate to results, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and all you other MSM types. It'll learn ya' to keep your mouths' shut! (Obvious exceptions would be made for those severely challenged persons unable to handle a pencil.) If polling hours need to be extended to accommodate delays, well, maybe that should be done too.
5. Ballots printed in English and Braille only. If you can't read the name of the candidate (and no matter what language you speak you should be able to recognize the name and number of your favorite) you're out of luck. If you can't read the endless description of "voter initiatives" included on many ballots, you shouldn't be voting on them.
6. No surrogates to pick up/fill out absentee ballots except in very rare cases. If a personal visit is necessary, one official designee from each major party must be present. Patients in nursing homes, other convalescent centers and hospitals, and the medically-certified home-bound should be the only ones permitted to "vote early." If you care about an election you should care enough to make it your business to get to the polls.

I'd like to add property owners and business owners only be permitted to vote--although that's just a pipe dream. The voting age should also be raised back to 21 so pop tarts and gansta' rappers would be taken out of the mix, but that does present a difficulty with the military vote. I believe if you're old enough to fight for the country you should be permitted to vote for your Commander in Chief.

So what are your suggestions? No fair saying "disqualify" Democrats or Republicans or any other political party.

2004-10-25T02:14:00.000-08:00

Look Who's Talking

Er…blogging for Bush over at Truth Laid Bear. All sorts of Heroes for Bush. From Washington, Lincoln, Patton, and Churchill to Indiana Jones and Yoda; from Hamlet and Henry V to Kirk and Spock; from Buffy and Angel to Herman Munster, Alf, and the Tick; from Rin Tin Tin to Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

Lots of great posts to keep readers amused.

2004-10-24T23:35:00.000-08:00

Color Me Underwhelmed

Whizbang has the news about this story, the "breaking scandal" the blogosphere has been waiting for. Frankly, I think it has more wiggle room than a fat lady's muumuu.

"U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

"An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.

[…]

"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator."

Okay, so he didn't talk with all of them together , but he did talk with them at some point prior to the war. With the World Series being front and center for many people, this isn't going to move any percentage points in Bush's direction.

2004-10-24T17:41:00.000-08:00

Newly Registered Voters Helping Kerry

I mentioned previously how the Democrats are picking up the absentee ballots of early voters in Florida. That leads me to wonder about this story. (Found via The Free Republic.)

"A surge of newly registered voters has helped Democrat John Kerry regain momentum in the presidential race in Florida, where he has pulled even or just slightly ahead of President Bush, according to a statewide poll less than two weeks before the election.
Kerry has rebounded in Florida and other key electoral states since falling behind Bush in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention early last month. The momentum now is shifting almost daily, however, leaving the two candidates in a statistical dead heat on their way to a suspenseful finish.

[…]

"Interviews with some of those surveyed indicate that new voters, who have registered in record numbers this year, are giving Kerry his best chance for ousting the incumbent president. One big question on Election Day, Nov. 2, is whether these newcomers will show up at their polling places.

The big question?--are they real or are they Memorex?

The Discerning Texan has some stories of registation fraud in Ohio and voter intimidation in Florida which is quite serious. More serious is the apparent non presence of the local GOP organizations to counter the behavior.

"The Florida media are picking up on the stories of voter intimidation at early polling places I mentioned a few days ago. They specifically confirm the "Danny DeVito Block The (Bush) Vote" rally in the doorway of a polling place.

"Unfortunately my Florida source says the GOP is still outnumbered and outgunned. The GOP has county, state and national party organizations. Florida couldn't be a more important state. Why aren't they confronting every one of these crowds of Kerry thugs with court orders and cops?

But there is some good news from Ohio.

"A federal appeals court ruled Saturday that provisional ballots Ohio voters cast outside their own precincts should not be counted, throwing out a lower-court decision that said such ballots are valid as long as they are cast in the correct county.

"The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supports an order issued by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Democrats contend the Republican official's rules are too restrictive and allege they are intended to suppress the vote.

The Democrat attempts at fraud and disenfranchisement in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are exactly why we have the Electoral College. I was talking with a friend the other day about it, and he mentioned his niece was associated with the Pew Institute. He claimed they were studying the possibility of the Electoral College being eliminated in the near future. (If Bush wins by another narrow margin we will see those arguments resurface yet again.) It won't happen, at least while this election cycle is still fresh in everyone's minds. You will never see two-thirds of the country turn over their power to places like Hollywood, New York, Palm Beach, and Chicago.

2004-10-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

Kerry Bombshell?

Lots of speculation, especially over at RedState.org, about the "breaking news story" that will turn Kerrites into scrambled eggs.

Stay tuned for Monday morning, folks. A story will break that the Kerry campaign will have to respond to. Call it another chapter in the story of John Kerry making stuff up. And while RedStaters didn't write a single word of it -- I'm proud to say that some folks involved in this site (and at least one other blogger) certainly pointed in the right direction.

I personally would like it to be hard evidence that John and/or Teresa Kerry received oil vouchers from Saddam in the UN Oil-For-Food scam.

Hey, a body can dream, can't they?

2004-10-21T23:20:00.000-08:00

2,500, 1,300, and 2,300

Remember those numbers.

Saying it could do more harm than good, a federal judge last night denied a Bush administration request to force Pennsylvania counties to send new absentee ballots to thousands of oversees voters and to count the results up to two weeks after Election Day. [Registration: realcities@r.com PW: realcities]

2,500, 1,300, and 2,300. Those are the minimum number of "invalid" absentee ballots sent to overseas U.S. citizens including numerous soldiers now serving in Iraq. If Bush loses Pennsylvania by less than 6,100 you can trace the reason directly to those missing votes--and those disenfranchised voters.

Actually, it's believed over 26,000 incorrect ballots were sent. They all included the name of Ralph Nader who was ultimately tossed off the ballot after the absentee ballots were mailed. Now Pennsylvania can't seem to find a way to get new one to those stationed overseas, and undoubtedly the Democrats will demand any "incorrect" ballots returned must be thrown out.

"In all, counties have sent about 26,700 absentee ballots to Pennsylvanians living abroad or serving in the military overseas. But it was unclear, even among top election officials, how many of these voters received ballots with Nader as a candidate.

"Montgomery County sent 2,500 such ballots, Allegheny 1,300, and Philadelphia at least 2,300, testimony showed."

Of course, they aren't very important votes.

"Philadelphia lawyer Mark Aronchick, a special election-law expert hired by the Rendell administration, called the number "a theoretically tiny universe of people."

So were the "disenfranchised voters" in Florida. Oh--wait--there were no disenfranchised voters in Flordia. Besides, there are more important issues to be attented to.

"If the court required a new ballot, county election officials would be hard-pressed to comply, state lawyers argued. To do so, they would have to sacrifice time and resources needed to meet other demands, such as processing the crush of new voter-registration forms that this tight presidential contest has generated.

"When overseas voters are weighed against that potential pool, "the scales don't even come close," Aronchick said. [Emphasis mine.]

Legitimate overseas voters--many of them soldiers--count less than all those new, possibly fraudulent, voters signed up by the Democrats. That potential pool--of Kerry votes--cannot possibly be overlooked.

2,500 + 1,300 + 2,300.

I hope our lawyers are ready.

2004-10-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

Hope for the Future

Teens want Bush re-elected. At least until those liberal college professors get their hands on them…

"American teens have spoken, and they want George W. Bush for president. Nearly 1.4 million teens voted in the nation's largest mock election, and the Republican incumbent wound up with 393 electoral votes and 55 percent of the total votes cast.

"Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry received 145 electoral votes, far short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win a presidential election. Kerry received 45 percent of the total votes, while five percent of teens selected the third-party option, though no third-party presidential hopefuls managed to pick up any electoral votes.

"In an exit poll taken after making their pick for president, teens weighed in on the issues most important to them. A majority of respondents-- 44 percent-- said that the war in Iraq was the most important issue facing the candidates today. The economy was the first priority in the minds of 22 percent of teens, followed by education (14 percent), national security (12 percent) and health care (8 percent)

Found via Instapundit.

2004-10-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

Kids Vote the Darndest Way

More bad news for the Kerry campers--from the children.

Bush Wins Scholastic Poll [52% to 47%]

"Since 1940, Scholastic Classroom Magazines have given students the opportunity to cast their vote for president in the Scholastic Election Poll (online voting was added in 2000). In every election, but two, the outcome of the Scholastic Election Poll mirrored the outcome of the general election. The exceptions were in 1948 when students chose Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman and in 1960 when more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than John F. Kennedy. In 2000, student voters chose George W. Bush, mirroring the Electoral College result but not the result of the popular vote."

Although the Nixon/Kennedy election is listed as an "execption," most political history scholars recognize Nixon actually did win that election only to have it stolen by Kennedy with help from the Chicago political machine.

Over the years, the Democrats have learned. Today they are prepared to blackmail the country if John Kerry doesn’t win with threats of endless legal action from coast to coast. And they have no qualms about announcing it publicly.

"Sen. John Kerry has a simple strategy if the presidential race is in doubt on Nov. 3, the day after the election: Do not repeat Al Gore's mistakes.

"Unlike the former vice president, who lost a recount fight and the 2000 election, Kerry will be quick to declare victory on election night and begin defending it. He also will be prepared to name a national security team before knowing whether he's secured the presidency."

Hopefully Republicans have a counter plan. Any suggestions?

Found via NRO The Corner.

UPDATE: Nickelodeon disagrees. Kerry wins 57% to 43%.

"Kids Have Correctly Picked Winner of the General Election for Last Four Presidential Campaigns Through Net's National Poll Where Kids Pick Their Choice For President. Nick Encourages Kids to Motivate Parents to Vote on Nov. 2 with 'Nag The Vote' Campaign."

Has Nick been online since 1988? Wow. Of course, if my kids started "nagging" me, Nickelodeon would be permanently blocked and they'd go back to reading.

No indication of how SpongeBob Squarepants voted.

2004-10-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

No Provision for Provisional Ballots

The Florida Supreme Court gets one right. They unanimously ruled against a union-filed lawsuit that demanded provisional ballots must be counted no matter where they are cast. The AFL-CIO had brought the suit, claiming the new (since the 2000 election) rule disenfranchised voters. [Login: herald@miami.com PW: bogus1]

With the election less than a month away, the Florida Supreme Court has agreed to hear a lawsuit demanding that all provisional ballots be counted regardless of where they are cast.

According to the Flordia Supremes, if you cast your ballot at the wrong precinct you are not entitled to have your vote counted merely because you got lost on the way to the polls. Frankly, if you're too stupid to figure out where you're going, I don't want you within ten miles of a voting booth.

Found via Rush Limbaugh transcripts.

2004-10-17T22:41:00.000-08:00

Democrats Collecting Early Votes in Florida

In an earlier post I mentioned an email I received about the DNC's Early Vote Campaign and wondered how easy it would be for Democrat operatives to stuff the ballot box. Shortly after that post, the page the link in the email cited had vanished. (No, I’m not attributing that event to my post.)

I found it suspicious, but some people thought the email was an ordinary "get-out-the-vote" encouragement. I still find it suspicious, especially in view of this report at Drudge.

As early voting begins Monday in the sunburn state of Florida controversy has already developed around a Democratic National Committee/Kerry-Edwards election manual.

The election manual titled -- "FLORIDA VICTORY 2004" -obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT, advocates an apparent unlawful "BALLOT PICKUP" drive by campaign volunteers.

The DNC Kerry/Edwards manual states:

"In Florida, it is legal to handle ballots. This means it is possible for the campaign to canvass base neighborhoods, pick up completed ballots and deliver them to Early Vote locations. We will incorporate these deliveries into our Early Vote canvassing program."

But Florida State election law - as detailed at [the Absentee Voting page] is in sharp contrast and conflicts with the Dem plan.

"A designee may pick up an absentee ballot for a voter on election day or 4 days before election day. A designee may only pick up two absentee ballots per election, other than his or her own ballot or ballots for members of his or her immediate family. Designees must have written authorization from the voter, present a picture I.D. and sign an affidavit. Candidates may pick up absentee ballots only for members of their immediate family."

It is not clear as this transmits, if any Dem operatives have yet collected ballots. A legal challenge will be filed to stop any action, top Republican sources tell DRUDGE.

Dem officials point to difference between blank and completed ballots.

[Blank ballots? Blank ballots except for a signature perhaps? ]

The exhaustive how-to FLORIDA VICTORY 2004 manual runs 26 pages with an 18 page appendix. It is signed by the DNC, Kerry Edwards, Florida Democrat Party, Kerry Edwards Campaign Chair, Florida Victory 2004, Florida AFL-CIO, Florida Education Association, Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, and Florida SEIU.

Early votes. "Provisional" votes that have been described as "…ballots for people who show up to vote but can't prove they're registered…that potentially will be counted later, like absentee ballots." Apparently the only way W's re-election will be considered legitimate is for him to achieve a 3-1 victory. Even then the RNC will probably need teams of lawyers ready to go in every state.

2004-10-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Update

The PDF file outlining the DNC Election Day Manual "preemptive strike" instructions that Drudge had linked to has disappeared. But fortunately Rush Limbaugh read it aloud and I found parts of it posted in the October 14, 2004 show transcript.

"Look, I've got a page from it right here, and this is Kerry-Edwards Colorado Election Day Manual, November 2004.

"Democratic National Committee, www.Democrats.org: "If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a preemptive strike, particularly well suited to states in which these techniques have been tried in the past…

"Issue a press release reviewing public tactics used in the past in your area or state, quoting party minority civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting.

"Prime minority leadership to discuss the issue in the media. Provide talking points to them. Place stories in which minority leadership expresses concern about the threat of intimidation tactics.

"Warn local newspapers not to accept advertising that is not properly disclaimed or that contains false warnings about voting requirements and/or about what will happen at the polls."

"That is just one page of this 66-page document."

2004-10-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

Vote Democrat and Die

Not long ago Michele at A Small Victory wrote an amusing piece about the rough and tumble way those of us born pre-1990 grew up--and marveled how all of us survived in the BC era without being planted in our graves. BC as in Before Clinton, of course. (Sorry. I can't locate the link and for some reason can't access her archives at the moment.)

The one thing she didn't mention, however, was the growing pathological fear of GERMS. We are becoming obsessed with GERMS. The advertising industry is in overdrive marketing their cleaning products with scaremongering over GERMS. We can no longer wipe a counter or clean a bathroom by touching a cloth or sponge lest we come in contact with GERMS. Our clothes aren't pure unless soaked in bleach to rid them of GERMS. Our carpets must be professionally cleaned to fight GERMS. Forget about radical Muslims or suicide bombers--the real terrorists are GERMS.

As a result, emergency rooms and doctors' offices are crammed with parents clutching sniffling, sneezing, coughing, and wheezing children, demanding a magic potion to fight the cold and flu GERMS. Somewhere we have forgotten the simple fact--kids are going to get colds. Period.

Now the flu season is coming and we are seeing near-riots over the shortage of flu vaccines. Colds and the flu are both viral infections and every time we catch one or the other, we develop natural immunities. But they have to run their course. All we can do is try to alleviate the symptoms early and let our bodies fight the infection.

People with a cold or flu are at their most contagious in the early stages, before their bodies' defenses have begun to beat the infection. As one medical website says:

"There are more cases of colds and flu in the winter months not because the cold makes our bodies more prone to infections but because people tend to spend more time together indoors. Viruses get trapped in the moist humid air - an ideal environment for them to thrive in. They are then breathed in, spreading easily from person to person."

So, by sealing ourselves into airtight homes, winter and summer, we're actually increasing the chances of illness.

But our war on GERMS and other airborne irritants doesn't seem to be going well.

"The rate of asthma among children five to 14 years of age increased 74% between 1980 and 1994; the rate of asthma among preschool children increased 160%."

Now what major campaign as been waged since the 80s? The war against tobacco. Tobacco smoke was allegedly causing no end of problems for children and now some places have bans on smoking in your own cars and homes. CA claims 82% of children now live in smoke-free environments.

So--if tobacco smoke, whether from a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, caused so many problems, why has the asthma and allergy rate increased so drastically? The WHO itself did a study of the effects of second-hand smoke, and suppressed their own findings when they showed there was no data to prove the adverse effects claimed.

Our children are living a hermetically sealed, self-esteem driven, insult-free lives, yet they are still getting sicker and sicker--mentally, emotionally, and physically. And now we are facing THE FLU.

Worse, we are facing flu vaccine shortages so serious the problem was brought up at last Wednesday's debate.

"SCHIEFFER: New question, Mr. President, to you. We are talking about protecting ourselves from the unexpected, but the flu season is suddenly upon us. Flu kills thousands of people every year. Suddenly we find ourselves with a severe shortage of flu vaccine. How did that happen?

"BUSH: Bob, we relied upon a company out of England to provide about half of the flu vaccines for the United States citizen, and it turned out that the vaccine they were producing was contaminated. And so we took the right action and didn't allow contaminated medicine into our country. We're working with Canada to hopefully -- that they'll produce a -- help us realize the vaccine necessary to make sure our citizens have got flu vaccinations during this upcoming season."

Why are we relying upon a company out of England--or Canada--to provide our vaccines? Look no further than Hillary Clinton's Vaccines for Children program.

From a 2003 report:

"The panel of doctors and economists issuing a report on vaccines last week identified as a fundamental cause of the problem the fact that the government purchases 55 percent of the childhood vaccine market at forced discount prices. The result has been "declining financial incentives to develop and produce vaccines."

"The root of this government role goes back to August 1993, when Congress passed Clinton's Vaccines for Children program. The plan, promoted by the Children's Defense Fund, was to use federal power to ensure universal immunization. So the government agreed to purchase a third of the national vaccine supply (the President and Mrs. Clinton had pushed for 100 percent) at a forced discount of half price, then distribute it to doctors to deliver to the poor and the un- and under-insured. As a result:

"Where 30 years ago, 25 companies produced vaccines for the U.S. market., today only five remain, and there is only one producer for a number of critical shots.

"Recent years have brought shortages of numerous vaccines, including those for whooping cough, diphtheria and chicken pox."

Democrats just do not understand free anything, unless it's a handout from a government controlled by them. Free Will. Free Speech. Free Markets. When you remove the incentive of profit for production, nothing will be produced. That lesson is as old as the original Massachusetts Plymouth Colony. William Bradford figured it out in the 1620s when his people were dying from starvation and lack of proper housing.

"The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God… “[That experience]…was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice."

The eventual results of his capitalistic, free market experiment?

"This had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been."

For forty years the Democrats have preached "… that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing…" It hasn't. And if Bradford could figure it out after only a few years, you would think Democrats could manage after four decades.

Except…

It isn't about making Americans "happy and flourishing." It's all about power, manipulation, and fear.

Vote Democrat--and die.

2004-10-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Waiting for the Other Shoe

It's October, with just over two weeks remaining before the election, and a young radical's fancy naturally turns toward--exposés. In record numbers apparently.

"Whether the critiques come from principled whistleblowers or from people with partisan axes to grind, they are coming in unprecedented numbers, indicating that bureaucrats and other insiders have become more willing to go out on a limb to criticize the White House and agencies headed by political appointees than they may have been in the past."

[…]

"As the election approaches, controversial assertions have been mounting."

If there are legitimate problems, they need to be made public. But I'm suspicious that the upswing in "leaks" seem to be coming from environmental and civil rights organizations.

Whatever the motivation, I wonder how many were encourage by Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers infamy, the articles he wrote and interviews he gave earlier in the year. He was referring to the Iraqi War, but his words could be for any and all leakers.

"Exposing governmental lies carries a heavy personal risk, even in our democracies. But that risk can be worthwhile when a war's-worth of lives is at stake."

With the constant threat of an exposé lurking in the shadows, I'm beginning to feel like a child playing "Button, Button, Who's Got the Button."

2004-10-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Princes of Thieves

I haven't been blogging much lately for a number of reasons, one of which is I do get weary of commenting on the same stories/issues over and over and over.

So, in light of today's Drudge Report information, I'll merely link to something I posted last July.

"A 66-page mobilization plan to be issued by the Kerry/Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee states: "If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a 'pre-emptive strike.'"

The Democrats think they have a winning strategy to thwart the will of the people. But as I mentioned earlier, Republicans now have their own intimidation hotline (posted at the top of this blog) and I hope to God we use it !

The Democrats intend to win by hook or by crook--mostly by crook. Here's what I posted about how they tried to do it in 2000.

"You get me within 100 votes and I can steal any election"
Think that's an idle threat? Then let me remind you of this article originally published November 13, 2000.

"What's happening in Florida is exactly the game plan laid out to me by an attorney who represented the Democrats in a recount in California where they stole a seat from us," former California Assemblyman Pat Nolan told WorldNetDaily .

"[Bob] Haueter was, at that time, chief of staff for Nolan, and it was he who first contacted attorney Tim Downs, who readily admitted the Democratic strategy and even described the tactics to Nolan. [Emphasis mine .]

"When I first called him and explained to him who I was and why I was calling, he chuckled and said, 'I wondered when you guys would get around to calling me,'" Haueter said, adding that Downs told him -- "'I've taken several seats from you across the United States.'"

"Downs told me, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, 'You get me within 100 votes and I can steal any election,'" Haueter [said].

"Nolan subsequently hired Downs and "brought him out to train my staff in the techniques they [Democrats] were using" so they could protect themselves against future election-fraud victimization, Nolan said.

Nolan and Haueter said Downs described three basic tactics:

"The first rule is, you keep counting until you're ahead. And if that doesn't put you ahead, you recount, re-recount -- you keep counting until you're ahead. If you're behind, then you've got nothing to lose."

Second, Nolan said, "the more times those ballots are handled, the more chance there is that chads will break loose" and hence disqualify the ballot.

Third, he said, "the minute you're ahead, you stop and declare yourself the victor."

"After that, you don't want the ballots handled any more," Nolan said, "because some of the chads for your candidate might break loose. While you're behind it doesn't matter, but if you're ahead and more break off or become disqualified for your candidate, that's a bad thing."

A favorite tactic, said Nolan, is to ask election officials for ballots, "allegedly so they can look at it more closely." When operatives do, often they will bend or crinkle ballots covertly in an effort to break another chad loose and thus have the ballot thrown out.

"This whole process sounds like exactly what is going on in Florida," Nolan said. "And the more times those ballots are handled, the more chances are you'll break some of them [chads] loose."

Never forget.

2004-10-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

Follow the Money

Especially when it's being doled out by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN. You remember ACORN don't you? They're the people bragging about how they will take the Democrat Party away from Kerry if he is elected.

"But the morning of Nov. 3, we're going to start organizing to take the party away from him,"

Naturally ACORN is claiming they, too, were scammed in this particular voter fraud exposé. But they are uber liberals. And they need to put in their puppet so they have the proper power strings to pull. So how many of those bogus names and addresses reached the local activists who might take advantage of all those "extra" votes--just in case it's a close election.

"Most of the fraud has come from registration drives, where people at grocery stores or on the streets ask you to sign up. 9News has learned many workers have re-registered voters multiple times by changing or making up information about them. 9News has documented 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms at county election offices show fraudulent names, addresses, social security numbers or dates of birth in Denver, Douglas, Adams, Boulder and Lake counties. Information from other counties is still coming in.

"Some voter registration application forms are completely bogus. Others belong to legitimate voters, who have had one or two facts changed that could affect their registration when they show up at the polls November 2nd. Tom Stanislawski registered to vote six years ago. But this summer, someone signed him up again and changed his party affiliation. "My concern would be I'd walk in November 2nd and be unable to vote," he said.

"Some of the registration drive workers earn $2 per application or about $10 an hour. One woman admitted to forging three people's names on about 40 voter registration applications. Kym Cason says she was helping her boyfriend earn more money from a get-out-the-vote organization called ACORN or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN works with low or moderate-income families on housing issues. Cason said her extra registrations earned her boyfriend $50.

"Gerald Obi says workers pressured him to keep registering to vote so they too could earn extra cash. When asked how many times he had registered this year, Obi said, "about 35 times."

Well, well, well. Voter fraud is really plain old ordinary greed. Everyone is just out for a buck. How Republican .

In reality, on election day we could have who knows how many people walking into who knows how many polling places with fraudulent voter information, and casting who knows how many votes.

UPDATE: Guess the NAACP is getting into the act now.

2004-10-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

Report Voter Intimidation Now

Republicans now have their own hotline for reporting Democrat-inspired intimidation. It's about time we began fighting back. Call the police first, then 1-888-303-7125. Be sure to take that number with you on election day.

"Below is the text of a letter sent by Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign Chairman Governor Marc Racicot to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney via fax at 10:15 a.m. today. The letter asks Sweeney to put an end to protest activities that have led to injuries, property damage, vandalism and voter intimidation at Bush-Cheney '04 and Republican Party offices around the country."

"Protests by your organization come on the heels of several other incidents at Bush-Cheney '04 offices around the country, including a break-in at our Seattle office where laptop computers were stolen from the Washington State Bush-Cheney ’04 executive director and the state Republican Party 72-hour director. Just last night [October 10] in Canton, Ohio, a Bush-Cheney '04 staffer was forced to lock herself in an office while another break-in was in progress."

If you'd like to tell Mr. Sweeney how you feel--a pre-stamped postcard will do--here's his address:
Mr. John Sweeney,
President
AFL-CIO
815 16th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006

Found via Free Republic.

2004-10-11T23:09:00.000-08:00

Coalition of the Bribed…

...in Miami?

"…more than 19,500 Miami-Dade residents have applied to FEMA for financial help with temporary housing, repairs, medical bills and other expenses they claim were brought on by Frances, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Sunday. As of Friday, FEMA had approved 9,801 of the claims for a total of $21.5 million.

"In Indian River County, hard hit by Frances and Jeanne with more than 49,000 houses damaged or destroyed, just under 14,000 residents had received $20.5 million in FEMA help through Friday, $1 million less than Miami-Dade."

Wonder if they'll be able to fill out their ballots as easily as their FEMA requests.

2004-10-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

Heart of Darkness

For any "moderate" Democrat or "undecided" voter leaning toward supporting John Kerry, I suggest they read this article first.

"With Bush vanquished, the Democrats' internal battles will begin.

"We're going to celebrate with John Kerry the night of Nov. 2. But the morning of Nov. 3, we're going to start organizing to take the party away from him, because we have serious disagreements about what the party should stand for and where this country needs to go," said one activist at the "What We Stand For" conference, Bertha Lewis, co-chair of the Working Families Party in New York state and a leader in the grassroots antipoverty group, ACORN." [Emphasis mine.]

So when you walk into that voting booth on November 2, remember--the socialist/communists/anarchists are waiting…

2004-10-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

Another Hurricane Aimed at Florida

I guess John J. Miller at NRO's The Corner didn't get the same DNC email I did.

"It's bad enough that on Election Day we're going to have to deal with these "provisional ballots" -- i.e., ballots for people who show up to vote but can't prove they're registered casting "provisional ballots" that potentially will be counted later, like absentee ballots. Now the AFL-CIO is in court to argue that the provisional ballots of people who show up at the wrong precinct must be counted. This is a recipe for chaos, which, of course, is exactly what the Left wants to produce. How long before there's a lawsuit claiming that people don't even have to leave their homes on Election Day to have their preferences read into the political process? Anyway, here's a Miami Herald article on the madness." [emphasis mine]

The Miami Herald article says:

With the election less than a month away, the Florida Supreme Court has agreed to hear a lawsuit demanding that all provisional ballots be counted regardless of where they are cast.

And we all know which way that Florida Supreme Court swings, don't we?

"But a lawyer for the state's election supervisors predicted widespread turmoil on Election Day if the court orders counties to count all provisional ballots. Ron Labasky, who represents the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, said nothing would stop special interest groups from telling voters to go out and demand a provisional ballot at any precinct instead of using the touch-screen voting machines used in 15 counties, including Broward and Miami-Dade."

A whirlwind of "provisional ballots" would turn the election into a nightmare that would make Hurricane Frances seem like a light drizzle.

This is one instance where I believe the Feds should step in--as in passing a law stating only U.S. citizens with legal picture ID be permitted to vote. (For non-drivers, the DMV in most states will provide a picture ID for just a few bucks.) I don't care if you manage the corner convenience store and your kid goes to local schools--if you're an illegal and/or a non-citizen you don't vote. Period. End of story.

2004-10-06T08:33:00.000-08:00

Smile When You Vote That Way, Pardner

NOTE 10/7: Professor Bainbridge has what Glenn Reynolds calls a "thug-o-rama" round up. Democrats are, of course, outraged at the violence. I'm outraged these collected stories aren't leading the national news.

Considering the vitriol being spread by Kerry & Co., and other Democrat operatives, including the MSM, I'm surprised it's taken this long for the party of universal peace and understanding to descend to these depths. But now that it has, my greatest concern it that it will accelerate until it becomes a widespread danger. Hopefully 2nd Amendment-supporting Republicans won't find it necessary to show that support openly on their way to the polls--in self defense.

September 2, 2004

"A shot was fired at the Republican Party headquarters in Huntington Thursday night, while two dozen supporters of George W. Bush watched him accept his party's nomination on television."

September 29, 2004

"Enough of the burning Bush and enough of the Avon [CO] chain saw massacre. Vandals trespassing on his property to chainsaw the middle out of Republican campaign signs spurred landowner Magnus Lindholm Wednesday to offer a $5,000 reward for information leading the arrest of those responsible.

"Earlier this week, somebody chain-sawed the middle out of two Bush signs on his property in Avon at the William Post Boulevard exit on Interstate 70. A “Bush/Cheney ’04” campaign sign was burned in Wolcott."

October 1, 2004

"Madison [WI] homeowners are livid after vandals defaced their homes. Someone burned an 8-foot-by-8-foot Nazi swastika on a home's lawn near where Bush-Cheney signs were posted. The vandals used grass killer to spray the symbol… "Several nearby homes were vandalized -- all were within a two-block radius…

"Homeowners are angry, but resolute in what they plan to do next. "I just cannot believe that someone would take the liberty to do this," said homeowner Rob Schaeffer. "We're appalled that someone would choose to destroy our property because they don't believe in our political views. My signs are going right back in the yard. This is my property. We live here. We have rights."

"Police are investigating the criminal damage and told the homeowner it will be investigated as a hate crime, which carries stiffer penalties."

October 5, 2004

"An unknown gunman fired several shots into the Bearden, Tenn., Bush-Cheney campaign office Tuesday,"

Madison WI story found via Instapundit.

UPDATE: Art Green at Conservative Eyes just posted information about another incident in Orlando, FL.

"A group of protestors stormed and then ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters building in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, according to Local 6 News."

UPDATE 2: The Discerning Texan has a great picture of upbeat, positive Kerry supporters enjoying themselves--as they invade and vandalize Bush HQ in Milwaukee. Remind me again--these are the people who want us to get out of Iraq because we're imperialistic invaders ? They're worried about John Ashcroft crushing dissent ?! I vote we institute a limited draft--every one of the people pictured here should be immediately inducted and shipped to Fallujah.

2004-10-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

Voter Fraud

I kept trying to figure out how someone who registered twice--once as themselves and once as a dead/fictitious person--could actually get away with showing up at the polls and voting without getting caught. Part of my problem was that I have lived most of my life in relatively small cities and communitites where everyone was at least acquainted with one another and the odds of meeting up with someone you knew were great.

Then I received this e-mail from the Democrat Party.

"Are you ready to elect John Kerry and John Edwards? Can't wait to defeat George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? Then do it now! You can vote today. Just like in 2000, this year's presidential election could be decided by just a few votes in a handful of hotly contested states. The potential impact of votes cast in September and October is huge. That's why early voting is so important."

Vote early--vote often. Yeah, we get the message.

"Many states allow you to vote early by absentee ballot or even in person. Voting now means you don't have to worry about getting to the polls on Election Day, when a busy day at the office or a child home with a cold might stand in your way. It's a great way to make sure your vote is counted. And you can learn how at the DNC's Early Vote Center: http://www.democrats.org/evc/

"You can request your ballot or find out if your district offers in-person early voting. We've also included answers to common questions, and provided contact information for your local election office. By voting early, you'll miss standing in line at the polls. But there's no chance you'll miss voting on Election Day."

Or--it frees you to spend Election Day gadding about town to other polling sites, casting your votes at random.

Perhaps I am unduly suspicious--and I am admittedly not in the frame of mind to trust anyone these days, much less a Democrat--but this seems to be a perfect set up for massive voter fraud

Hmmm--surprisingly--or perhaps not--that URL no longer goes anywhere.

2004-10-01T04:22:00.000-08:00

Debate

The consensus seems to be a draw or a slight edge to Kerry. Maybe. On the side-by-side screen shots he resembled a reanimated cadaver, which I suppose is better than looking like an Oompa Loompa…

Pundits say Kerry has a better debating style, made organized, detailed arguments. So? We've already seen what happened to our country--and the world--after eight years of a glib, gifted-at-debating, policy-wonker President.

Kerry's handlers should really work on that pointing-finger habit. Whenever I saw The Finger come out, all I could think of was Bill Clinton, jabbing his digit at the American people while saying "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky."

But the ultimate near-hurl experience?… Kerry and Teresa trying to imiate Gore and Tipper in "The Kiss."

2004-09-29T19:39:00.000-08:00

Disenfranchisement

It ain't just for Florida voters any more.

In fact, there seems to be so much evidence of fraud across the country, Bill Hobbs has created a special category on his blog. And he's asking for bloggers nationwide to help him document incidents by emailing him at voterfraud-at-gmail.com.

From allegedly non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts of the NAACP National Voter Fund, to the openly anti-Bush group America Coming Together (ACT), to the AFL-CIO, predominantly Democrat leaning organizations are engaged in a systematic attempt to disenfranchise every non -Democrat voter. San Francisco, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Tennessee, Ohio, New York City, and (of course) Florida are merely the tip of the iceberg.

If you run across any story or have any experience with registration fraud, send Bill the information as well as noting it on your own blogs. We need to thoroughly publicize how cheating Democrats are "disenfranchising" Republican voters from one end of the country to the other.

2004-09-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

Bad Poll Numbers for Bush

From the Great Northwest

"EXCLUSIVE: Straw-poll shocker! Fierce warrior race strongly backs Democrat. Even as John Kerry struggles to establish national-security credentials nationally, an exclusive WW straw poll shows his campaign dominating one skeptical, warlike demographic: Klingons.

"The poll, conducted when the DVD release of the Star Trek fan documentary Trekkies 2 attracted Portland's Klingon community to Tower Records on Southeast 102nd Avenue, may spell trouble for President George W. Bush.

"According to the poll of eight local Klingons, a whopping 75 percent support the Democratic nominee. Two Klingons polled--or 25 percent--said they planned to write in Satan.

"Portland Klingon speakers are increasingly influential. Last year, Multnomah County's mental-health services opened a search for a Klingon interpreter to work with speakers of the language.*

"[* No, we're not making this up.]"

Okay, that pretty much settles it for that voter poll…

2004-09-20T19:18:00.000-08:00

Making It Easy…

…with a little encouragement. Excerpt from an email just received from the DNC:

"That's why we need your help right now. Here's how you can help: write a short letter to the editor of your local newspaper, magazine, TV anchorperson, or favorite publication.

"We make it easy for you to write your letter, with:

--Contrasts of Bush's record and John Kerry's plan on the top issues.
--Contrasts of Bush's record in the TANG and John Kerry's Vietnam heroism.
--Sample letters to the editor.
--Sample letters from official government records.
--The Bush record in your state.
--The Bush paper trail found by disgruntled TANG officers.
--A simple step-by-step tool to format your document properly.
--A simple step-by-step tool for sending your letter.

You know America can do better -- make sure your community does too. Write a letter today."

[It's a joke, son.]

2004-09-18T14:52:00.000-08:00

Hoax Felonies

This bit of information was just sent to me via email. I haven't seen this posted elsewhere, so I'll pass it on here:

"Sources from inside the Taylor County Texas GOP are saying that the Taylor County District Attorney is considering asking his Grand Jury to look into the CBS document hoax. If the documents are proved to be forged, and were indeed sent from Abilene, Texas, then the local D.A. would have jurisdiction. Tampering with government documents as well as forgery are both felonies in Texas."

2004-09-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

Militia of the Pen

New England Republican links to an interview with David Brooks on Newshour with Jim Lehrer which includes this quote:

"You have got all these people out there on the web, some of whom are smart, some of whom are wacky but who are the people. And they're out there; they're blogging and some of them are picking apart stories and so it became a war between the establishment media and the Internet media. And my basic view of that is they're amateurs and they're amateurs in the best sense. They're expressing their opinions, some of them know a lot, some of them know nothing but they want to express their opinions."

The much-maligned Second Amendment to our Constitution states "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Although some local governments have succeeded in dispossessing their citizens of their Arms, they have not succeeding in dispersing the other Militia.

In 1839 Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), Victorian-era novelist, wrote "Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword." (Unfortunately, nine years previously he had written "It was a dark and stormy night ;"* leading to a legacy of bad jokes and beagle mockery.)

The Militia of the Pen is growing mightier with every passing day and, as David Brooks concludes:

"One of the things they do to us is they make it impossible for us to get away with mistakes because if we make a mistake, there are ten thousand of them."

*"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." --Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830) Bulwer-Lytton's ancestral home Knebworth was also "stately Wayne manor" in Tim Burton's Batman .

2004-09-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

For the Children?

Jonah Goldberg at NRO's The Corner reports this speculation on the "little girl" picture making the rounds.

Was the picture a set-up? Is this guy just a too-aggressive Republican who makes a habit of showing up at heavily Democrat rallies? Or is this left-of-center blogger trying to find any gotcha' to discredit the blogosphere?

UPDATE: Looks like the left is indeed looking for a gotcha' or, as Michelle Malkin says, The Left is Desperate for a Hoax.

2004-09-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

Ra^ther Simple

Hugh Hewitt argues Congress should call hearings about the CBS forgery scandal. Others aren't sure, but I agree deceptions of this magnitude need to be exposed quickly and ruthlessly.

"Second, Ramesh Ponnuru argues at The Corner that hearings are a terrible idea because hearings converst the CBS meltdown into a "Republicans vs. CBS" controversy and that hearings will cause other old media to rally 'round CBS.
[…]
"But even if it did, the consequence of generalized as opposed to specific stonewalling would be generalized as opposed to specific contempt. Even if the media's reputation was the most important issue here, this wouldn't be a reason not to proceed and would in fact be an incentive to proceed.

"But it isn't about Rather's or CBS's or all of old media's reputation. Someone tried to manipulate a presidential election! If that isn't a matter of Congressional oversight, nothing is, and even if the GOP blows it --and Chris Cox is not the sort of congressman to participate in botched inquiries-- that fear does not release Congress from its duty.

There is strong secondary evidence the forged papers came from someone in the DNC, perhaps even the Kerry campaign, although that doesn't seem as easy to connect.

What is most surprising, however, is why CBS and the DNC has allowed this to drag on for an entire week. That speaks volumes of Rather's arrogance not to mention the total cluelessness of the Democrat Party. The solution is obvious.

Once it became apparent the forgeries were exposed, the DNC needed to find a young, expendable, low-level operative in the organization and induce he/she to fall on the sword. By Saturday at the latest that person should have been all over the airwaves, stammering, near tears, "confessing" he/she knew the information was accurate but Bush "operatives" had removed the originals to keep it from damaging Bush's reelection. Between embarrassed blushes, he/she should have been stoutly proclaiming their belief in the "public's right to know," no matter the cost, so, yes, they had typed up "new" memos to replace the documents "stolen" from Bush's TANG files.

Democrats are dumb as dirt. No wonder they're always getting snookered by the Chinese and North Koreans.

UPDATE: Well, obviously CBS can't trot out Bill Burkett since his credibility and motive is highly suspect, to say the least. But considering this story the "well-meaning-but-misguided-young-DNC-intern" excuse just might have worked.

"With a broad consensus that the documents are probably forgeries, the big question then is: Where did they come from? At least one of the documents bears a faxed header indicating it was faxed from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Tex., to CBS News. CBS has declined to reveal the source of the hotly disputed documents since airing them in a "60 Minutes" broadcast Sept. 8.

"The only Kinko's in Abilene, says the Post report, is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of Bill Burkett, a retired officer in the Texas National Guard who has been identified by other news organizations as a possible source for the documents.
[…]
"Burkett has accused Bush aides of attempting to have some of the president's National Guard record destroyed to avoid political embarrassment. Earlier this year, Burkett told news organizations he had overheard a phone conversation in 1997 during which top Bush aides – namely, Chief of Staff Joe M. Allbaugh and spokespersons Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett – tried to get the head of the Texas National Guard to sanitize Bush's files. A few days later, Burkett claims, he witnessed the dumping of dozens of pages from Bush's military file in a trash can at the Guard's Camp Mabry headquarters.
[…]
"Burkett told numerous news organizations earlier this year of alleged corruption and malfeasance in the management of the Texas National Guard, although most of his charges have never been substantiated.
[…]
"Burkett, who has suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression after leaving the Texas National Guard, has given different accounts of exactly which Bush records he allegedly saw disposed of in that Camp Mabry trash can. While sometimes describing them as "payroll-type documents" and performance assessments, on another occasion he has said he saw "a two-page counseling statement" signed by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the officer who supposedly signed the damaging "60 Minutes" Bush memos."

2004-09-14T19:52:00.000-08:00

Dan Ra^ther Back Where He Started

Earlier today a reader sent this note to NRO's The Corner.

"Jonah: I worked with Dan Rather at KHOU TV in Houston at the time he got his big break by wading hip deep in water at the weather bureau in Galveston, TX during Hurricane Carla. Believe me, Jonah, and everyone who knew him would agree, he was a "sad buffoon" even then.

"Dan was never thought to be the sharpest knife in the drawer as an anchor, but when he got trapped by rising water that Summer of 61 and was spotted by Walter Cronkite, a career that probably never should have happened, did.

"He has acted like a loon on many occasions, but the hilarious high point for me was his appearance in Afghanistan wearing a turban and a burnoose and a bunch of towels. I fell out of my chair. Old Dan, from Sam Houston State, undercover in Afghanistan! Got to admit, I'm his age, only he looks a lot older.

The only difference? Now he's in water up to his neck.

And I can still blame Walter Cronkite.

2004-09-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

Islam's Convenient Loopholes

For years I have been attempting to explain to people that Islam allows its adherents to deliberately enter into contracts for personal gain with the express intention of breaking those agreements whenever they wished. Mohammad used that ploy to conquer the tribe holding the city of Mecca, lulling them into a false sense of security with a treaty of peace--then attacking and destroying them when his own military strength had been restored. Muqtada as-Sadar is following this unique Islamic pattern in Iraq.

Most people greet this information with understandable skepticism since in most belief systems one's word is one's bond. The Wandering Mind, however, has uncovered a particular heinous form of that same practice.

Apparently, Muslim men are permitted to marry non-Muslim women, use them for as long as they need, then divorce them--without incurring any spiritual penality. While we Americans do not worry unduly about divorce or infidelity, Islamic law is quite strict--except when furthering Muslim purposes, of course. [Emphasis in the original.]

"Yes, the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and the Issuing of Fatawã, over which I preside, has issued a fatwa permitting a marriage entered into with the intent of divorce as long as this intention remains concealed between the groom and his Lord.

"If he married in a foreign country with the undisclosed intent of divorcing his wife upon the completion of his studies or employment, he is not liable according to the majority of scholars. "

Until every non-Muslim nation realizes this mindset is perfectly ordinary and acceptable to the Islamic world, we will contiually be sucked in to an endless cycle of war/peace/war, etc.

2004-09-13T07:25:00.000-08:00

The Silenced Majority

Not just the Silent Majority.

If this sort of thing is widespread--as many people think it is--the Dems could be in for a huge shock in November. [Emphasis in the original.]

"But there may be a genuine political climate of fear in some parts of the United States - including my corner of Los Angeles:

"Many Republicans are afraid to put Bush-Cheney bumper stickers on their cars or signs on their lawns because they are afraid of physical retaliation from angry liberals.

"It is not just that one sees few Bush-Cheney bumper stickers and lawn signs - even in areas in which one knows his support is high. I do not have such a bumper sticker or lawn sign. In fact, most Bush supporters I have asked, even those who are fairly passionate on the topic, just don't think the risk of a key-scratch or broken home or car window, or much worse, is worth whatever benefit one receives from a partisan bumper sticker or lawn sign. There are just too many personal stories of cars and homes defaced and damaged ."

Ignorant people do everyone a great disservice by attempting to suppress the "opposition." Not only do their tactics actually encourage more people to move to the other side, they stifle debate (which could present their side in a favorable light) and create an aura of complacency among their own followers, dangerous in any sort of competition.

I imagine we'll be hearing sentiments akin to those expressed after the election of 1980--shocked Democrats wandering the land in a daze, wondering how Reagan got elected since nobody they knew voted for him.

Found via Instapundit.

2004-09-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

Divine Rights

Looks like Cox and Forkum had similar thoughts to mine.

2004-09-10T18:41:00.000-08:00

Ra^thergate

Michael Ledeen at NRO Online draws the obvious Watergate/Ra^thergate flap:

"It calls to mind the highest achievement of modern journalism, which as we all know was Watergate. If you read the self-encomium by Woodward and Bernstein--"All the President's Men"--you will discover, after the confessions of tampering with a grand jury and illegally obtaining telephone records, the story of a very bad day for our heroes and for their editor Ben Bradlee. WoodBern had run a front page story that day, and by noon they had been ravaged by Nixon's Press Secretary, Ron Nessen, who denied it all and called them liars and frauds. They checked with the Delphic Oracle, then plying his trade under the pseudonym "Deep Throat." He confirmed Nessen's claims. The story was wrong. The Post had lied. So WoodBern went to Bradlee, who wrestled with his conscience and quickly won: "F**k it," he said, "let's go stand by our boys," and he wrote an editorial reasserting the Post's confidence in the story."

How can Dan Ra^ther continue to get in front of the cameras with the expectation the public will be watching for any other reason than to laugh?

Image found at The Comedian via Instapundit.

2004-09-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

The Continuing Fallout from Vietnam

The blood trail is on the ground and the hounds are closing in. Such is the legacy of Vietnam, Watergate, Walter Cronkite--and the CBS dynasty.

CBS has been the broadcast outlet of record for the Democrat Party for so long, they have forgotten they are publically licensed entity. And until he "stepped down" from the post, Walter Cronkite was the kingmaker--the "most trusted man in America."

One of the very first posts I made on this blog was "I Blame Walter Cronkite." (I won't link to it here since many of the links in the post are no longer valid.) Back then I reminded readers that during the late 60s TV viewers had only three options for nightly news. Cronkite was No. 1, perhaps because of the stellar reporting he had done during WWII when he went ashore at Normandy with the so-called "Writing 69th." His accomplishments at that time were remarkable. He originally supported the Vietnam War, perhaps because it was started by Democrat JFK and accelerated by Democrat LBJ. But when the Tet offensive began in January of 1968 Cronkite allegedly "discovered" the government had been lying to the public when spokesmen claimed our troops had the Vietcong on the ropes.

Now we know that was the truth. Yet because it appeared the North Vietnamese were more powerful than expected (they were throwing their last soldier at the American troops during TET), Cronkite cried foul without investigating the full story. At that point Cronkite flip-flopped and began using his powerful media voice against the war. As Albert Auster writes in his fawning profile of Cronkite at the Museum of Broadcast Communications website: "Many observers, including presidential aide Bill Moyers speculated that this was a major factor contributing to President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision to offer to negotiate with the enemy and not to run for President in l968."

Cronkite fancied himself a kingmaker--a position historically more powerful than the king--and took upon himself the concept of the divine right of kings.

"Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704)…in his theory of the Divine Right of Kings,…argued that certain kings ruled because they were chosen by God to do so and that these kings were accountable to no person except God. […] Not only did God bestow power on certain monarchs,…but the bestowal of this power legitimated autocracy (rule by one person). The king ruled by virtue of God's authority; therefore he should be obeyed in all things. No group, whether they be nobles, or a parliament, or the people in the street, have a right to participate in this rule; to question or oppose the monarch was to rebel against God's purpose."

This superiority of knowledge and opinion marked all of Cronkite's subsequent reporting as evidenced by Auster's profile.

"By the same token, Cronkite never stinted on coverage of the Watergate Scandal and subsequent hearings. In l972, following on the heels of the Washington Post's "Watergate" revelations the CBS Evening News presented a 22 minute, two-part overview of "Watergate" generally credited with keeping the issue alive and making it intelligible to most Americans."

"On an international level. Cronkite could also influence foreign diplomacy, as evidenced in a l977 interview with Eygptian President Anwar El-Sadat, in which he asked Sadat if he would go to Jerusalem to confer with the Israelis. A day after Sadat agreed to such a visit an the invitation came from Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. It was a step that would eventually pave the way for the Camp David accords and an Israeli-Eygptian Peace treaty."

Ironically, Auster ends his piece with this stunning phrase:

"Cronkite's legacy of separating reporting from advocacy has become the norm in television news."

Cronkite's legacy was the arrogant Divine Right of the Kingmaker, quickly adopted by the next generation of CBS anchors and reporters.

And just like the sycophants of corrupt monarchies before them, the CBS shadow rulers now find themselves clinging to the sides of the tumbrel listening to the swish/thunk of the blade as they approach the guillotine.

2004-09-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

The Teacher Chose Death

Note: I've been trying to post this for two days. Blogger was out of commission.

Yanis Kanidis A story of a hero among cowards.

In an act of unlimited devotion and dedication, to the bitter end, an elderly teacher insisted on remaining with his students. He protected them, bandaged their wounds, and with his death, saved their lives.

Found via Baldilocks by way of AllahPundit

2004-09-06T18:07:00.000-08:00

The Silent Majority

A phrase originally invoked by Richard Nixon in a November 3, 1969 speech (and later turned by Rev. Jerry Falwell into the "Moral Majority"), Nixon used it as a way of dismissing the protestors to the Vietnam War as a "noisy minority."

"Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight -- to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans -- I ask for your support."

Yet, in spite of the disrepute the expression has fallen in to, it appears to have some current application in today's political environment.

NRO's The Corner has posted two letters revealing some underreported activity.

First this one from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania:

"And I found I was astonished. The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area is a renowned Democratic stronghold, run by a political machine that's been in place for decades. Where did all these Republicans come from? How did they fill every one of the 18,000 seats they could? Why would 18,000 people (and more if they could have) come out in the pre-dawn darkness to hear a speech? Why did students from the University of Scranton arrive at the airport at 12:30 this morning to greet the President and First Lady and show their support? Why did even more crowds see him off at the airport this morning - unable to get to the stadium but needing to cheer him on?

"Why did the total number of protestors at the stadium, in this Democratic town, number 3 whole people? Even the newspapers seem incredulous.

"And then it occurred to me. There's a base of support that's farther and wider then realized. That people are quietly supporting Bush, keeping to themselves because they're unwilling to find themselves a part of the vitriolic smear and attack debates launched by those who hate him. That they walk away from political argument because you can't talk to someone who rants, but their silence doesn't mean agreement."

Next is this email from an NYU student in reponse to the first:

"I have experienced several similar occurrances over the past year, and am continually amazed at the level of quiet support for Bush."
[…]
"Volunteering at the convention, I spoke with numerous police officers, one of whom spelled it out for me very succinctly.

"I'm 16 hours deep in a 20 hour shift, and I spent the first half of it being harassed, cursed at, and attacked by protesters over on Eighth Ave. One of them bit me on my hand, so I got sent back here to wat ch over the delegates for the second half of my shift. Since I showed up, I've gotten nothing but smiles, thank yous, and salutes from these delegates. One of my friends just offered to relieve me, but I told him I didn't mind staying around for a while longer. I voted for Gore last time, and Clinton before him, but I'm voting for Bush this time, without a doubt."

"Hearing that made up for all of the vitriol I've had to deal with being a Conservative at NYU."

These two notes, undoubtedly representative of many more left unwritten, bode ill for the Kerry campaign. And if, as rumor has it, John Kerry decides to go negative with a slash and burn campaign against Bush, those tactics could harm more than help.

2004-09-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

Protest Warrior on the Front Lines

Yelling At The Windshield blogger CMCornell posts this report from his brother, a member of the Protest Warriors who joined the NYC convention protests.

"Maybe that was the real meaning of the comment a Protest Warrior made to me as we first sallied forth to confront the leftist mob the day before: "There's 250,000 of them and 150 of us. Looks even to me."
[…]
"The camaraderie among our little army was remarkable. Men and women had come from California, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, from all over the country. One was Canadian and another was Australian, which I suppose means we qualified as an International Coalition of the Willing. Several were Russian-Americans who represent a subgroup within PW.com called Communists for Kerry.
[…]
"All of us were starved for conservative conversation with kindred spirits, and no one was disappointed. Most of us were urban dwellers who live surrounded by liberals, often feeling like aliens stranded on a foreign planet. Being together was like coming home."

A terrific read.

2004-09-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

Color Me Confused

Okay, maybe I'm reading this wrong but, didn't Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder and Rush Limbaugh both get fired for saying things like this? So why is Jason Whitlock still a regular contributor to ESPN?

2004-09-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

The Taproot of Democracy

In US News, Mort Zuckerman makes his argument for what needs to be done in the wake of the atrocities carried out in Russia. [Found via Instapundit.]

"What can we do? Obviously, we must eliminate terrorists wherever we find them, but we must also provide an example of moral leadership and devote resources to transforming education in the Muslim world, replacing the odious madrasahs that are the breeding grounds for hate. These so-called religious schools are often financed by Saudi Arabia, which has halfway awakened to the fatal disease it has incubated, but Shiite Iran remains the greatest threat. It is radically ideological, seeks nuclear weapons, and sponsors Syrian terrorism as well as most of the terrorism in Iraq. If that weren't enough, it also sponsors and arms most of the face cards in terrorism's unholy deck--Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah. Iran, truly, is the problem of the future. So we must promote political democracy whenever we can in the region. Remember what Abu Musab Zarqawi, the ruthless terrorist leader in Iraq, wrote in his memo to al Qaeda? "Democracy is coming. There will be no excuse thereafter for terrorism in Iraq."

Zarqawi makes no mentioned of it, but he knows--and fears--why democracy will destroy his way of life. The taproot of democracy is Christanity.

That concept is also behind so much of the fear that grips the current incarnation of the Democrat Party special interest groups as well, since Christanity, respect for life, and personal responsibility for one's actions go hand and hand.

Derek of Weapon of Mass Distraction points out this columnist from the Asia Times who seems to know our roots better than our current crop of political hacks.

"The secularists who dominate American foreign policy seem to think that they can export the shell of the American system, namely its constitutional forms, without its religious kernel."

As Derek rightly concludes

"If Spengler is right, than the rapid spread of evangelical Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa may have more to do with the spread of freedom to the Middle East than any nation-building our Department of Defense might take on. It also doesn't bode well for the prospects of successful democracies in Afghanistan or Iraq, unless there is a mass conversion to Christianity in those nations, which seems unlikely."

2004-09-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Now This is a Bounce

On Friday, Jeremy at Pacetown posted this amazing poll result:
AOL Straw Poll shows Bush winning 535-3 in Electoral Votes.

From their computers to God's ear…

2004-09-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

A Daily Read

His old friend might be a magazine editor, but somehow I think I'd rather be reading Solomonia's Blog than that magazine. Read this. Then Bookmark his site, start at the top, and work your way through.

2004-09-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

Chechens and A Short History of Muslim Nazis

Some news stories are so unbelievably abominable it takes time to absorb the impact. Such are the stories out of Beslan, Russia.

"Valery Andreyev, the top Federal Security Service official in the region, said 20 militants were killed, including 10 Arabs. The Arab presence among the attackers would support President Vladimir Putin's contention that al-Qaida terrorists were involved in the Chechen conflict, where Muslim fighters have been fighting Russian forces in a brutal a war of independence for most of the past decade."

News that Arab men were part of the terrorists seems to be a change from the opinions reached in this Christian Science Monitor article about Chechens fighting in Afghanistan.

"But most experts who study the tiny, traditionally Muslim republic of Chechnya say they doubt its legendary warriors have joined Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in large enough numbers to become its "biggest single component," as some reports have claimed. For one thing, they say, most Chechens are not religious. "Islam did not strike deep roots among the Chechens, and has played only a slight role in their rebellions against Russian rule in the past," says Alexander Iskanderyan, head of the independent Center for Caucasus Studies in Moscow. "Religion is not the key to understanding Chechens; their painful past is."

"Many experts agree that a history of bloody defeat, mass repression and bitter exile, combined with a martial culture in which boys become full-fledged soldiers at age 12, may have led significant numbers of young Chechen men to join Al Qaeda, seeking revenge not just against Russia, but the entire non-Muslim world. "The Chechens cannot forget or forgive the mass suffering they have endured, and which they continue to bear," says Svetlana Omarova, an expert with the Confederation of Repressed Peoples of the former USSR, a human rights organization. "This is not to offer excuses, but one must understand how profoundly offended this nation is. These are men who are used to fighting for a lost cause."

The Chechen "lost cause" began centuries ago with the Russian Tsars. (Additional information from the Christian Science Monitor.)

"General Mikhail Yermolov, who led Russian forces in a ruthless 30-year campaign to crush Chechnya in the 19th century, called them "congenital rebels." Novelist Mikhail Lermontov, who took part in that struggle, was more admiring of the Chechens, writing in 1832: "Their god is freedom; their law is war." Yermolov conquered Chechnya by burning its forests to deny cover to the guerrillas, and by killing dozens of Chechen captives for every Russian soldier he lost. [from CSM]

"Russian imperialism in the Caucasus lasted several centuries and met its most determined and well-organized resistance on the territory of Chechnya and the bordering regions of Dagestan. There, for a quarter of a century, Shamil's Islamic proto-state fought the Russian army until 1864."

When the Bolsheviks began their deadly march, Chechens allegedly fought on both sides, only uniting against the Red Army after the Tsarist army had been defeated. That revolt was finally defeated in late 1921.

"The Congress of the Mountain People that convened in the trans-Caucasus in January 1921 (chaired by Stalin, the People's Commissar of Nationalities at the time) declared the formation of the Mountainous Soviet Republic of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Over the ensuing three years, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and a number of other autonomous oblasts of the Northern Caucasus became independent.

But the "peace" only lasted until the Soviets had consolidated their power over greater Russia.

"A brief period of relative tranquillity was cut short by the mass political repression of the collectivization campaign during the late 1920s and early 1930s. This sparked a new wave of anti-Soviet uprisings in Chechnya that continued for the next ten years, gradually taking on the character of guerrilla warfare."

During WWII the Chechens looked for new allies. They created a rebel government that "…issued an "Appeal to the Chechen-Ingush People," to "wait for the Germans as [welcome] guests." The government declared that the Germans would be greeted with hospitality if they acknowledged the independence of the Chechen republic."

The Muslim communities of the Caucasus joined forces with the Nazis.

In fact, the dark, dirty secret is that many Islamists fought with the Nazis. Bosnian Muslims, Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia, other Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Chechen Muslims all formed Nazi-Muslim SS Divisions.

Nazis found sympathetic allies among the Muslims of that era, and their primary ally was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. In 1937 he met with Adolf Eichmann and became a Nazi agent. In 1941 he went to Baghdad to help in a failed pro-Nazi coup against the British. (One of the other coup plotters was Saddam Hussein's future father-in-law and Yasser Arafat is believed to be al-Husseini's nephew.) He then met with Hitler himself and gained a promise the Nazis would "free" the Caucasus and the Arab world from British rule once they had established their dominance in Europe. Not coincidentaly, shortly after the Hitler/al-Husseini meeting, the infamous "Final Solution" was implemented.

It's doubtful Hitler would have kept his word to the Mufti. Hitler was not a Christian although he attempted to pass himself off as one. He believed he was an Aryan, a mythical people from Atlantis who were both great artists and great warriors. Himmler was the architect of the "religion" fashioned from that myth, and claimed Christians had actually stolen the holy teachings and relics from the Aryans to pass them off as their own. A victorious Hitler would never allow a religion such as Islam free reign in his idyllic "Aryan" world. (Ironically "Aryan" is actually an Iranian word that means "noble.")

Al-Husseini either ignored the possibility or thought he could sway Hitler when the time came. He went about encouraging fellow Muslims to ally themselves with the Third Reich, personally bringing the Bosnian Muslims into the newly established Nazi-Muslim SS which slaughtered both Jewish and Christian Serbians during the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia.

The Mufti escaped ahead of the Allied forces sweeping through Germany, as did many other mid-level Nazis SS. We know many found asylum in South America, but just as many found refuge in the Islamic Middle East, including Syria and Egypt, and busied themselves teaching and training endless ranks of Islamic terrorists. The Nazi "final-solution" philosophy, the plotting, the tactics, the killing of innocents continues unabated to this day.

So every time I read the 'Bush equals Hitler' meme, I realize how dirt-stupid the liberal left really is, including Hugh Pearson of Newsday .

"As I watched Tuesday night's network coverage of the unrelenting political propaganda hour known as the Republican National Convention, the first thought that came to mind was of old newsreels of those self-congratulatory Nazi rallies held in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler."

On second thought, they're not dirt-stupid--they're bloody -stupid.

2004-09-02T19:52:00.000-08:00

All You Need to Remember

I've been waiting to post this. As everyone cheers and jeers (depending upon one's preference) the various political speeches and candidates, one fact alone should stand out. It's a very silent fact, which is how it should be. Silent, calm, uneventful, and the single overwhelming reason Bush should be--needs to be--relected.

June-July-August. A week-long state funeral. Two weeks of national political conventions. More than a fortnight of the Olympics. Not one terrorist attack.

2004-09-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

Orgastic Politics

I wasn't going to post anything about the RNC this week since everyone else was covering it so much better than I could. However, this item was just too good to pass up.

World Magazine Blog reports on a group called the Brooklyn Orgastic Politics Collective who has serious plans for Thursday. The Village Voice has the story. (Scroll down.)

"Our Cloudbusters will be drawing in fresh Orgone Energy from the air over the Atlantic, creating a suction over midtown. As we increase the orgonomic potential in the sky, we will, in effect, vacuum away the fascist energy generated in Madison Square Garden, allowing the life-affirmative Orgone to prevail over its deadly counterpart. If our theories prove correct, it may thus be possible to induce significant behavioral changes in the Republican conventioneers."

The diagram is most edifying.

I can't imagine Homeland Security will let those "devices" be positioned on the rooftops, even if it is only in Brooklyn. Look for more screams of "oppression" coming to a protest near you.

And people were ragging about the Bush twins' comments on Sex in the City …

2004-08-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

Inside the Brain of John Kerry

Finally. A scientific explanation for the seemingly unfathomable behavior of John Kerry.

This article doesn't appear to be a joke (although I have little faith in psychology and realted sciences). And it does sound disturbingly logical. You decide.

"Is your boss a charming, well-educated and polished leader intent on climbing the career ladder? If so, he could be a psychopath, psychologists gathered in Stockholm said.

"Recent research has shown that not all psychopaths are violent killers -- many of them hold normal jobs, with some rising to the highest levels of executive management.

"But their charisma and ambition are often mistaken for leadership traits rather than psychopathic ones, industrial-organisation psychologist Paul Babiak of the United States told the EuroScience Open Forum in Stockholm.

"Psychopaths tend to be charming, have a grandiose sense of self, and they like money, power and sex. They have strong verbal skills and can manipulate by telling a good story. Because they can talk big, you think they have vision and can lead an organisation, but a psychopath will mislead," Babiak said."

So all you undecideds out there… Do you really want to elect a psychopath ?

2004-08-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

Lazier-Faire Political Commentary

Yesterday Glenn Reynolds commented:

"Just as who controlled the Senate in 2002 wasn't the most important thing in the world, who wins the White House in 2004 isn't either, except perhaps to those involved."

Reynolds is flat out wrong. As much as people hate the whole "trickle down" philosophy, it's as true in political leaders as it is in business models. When business prospers, the workers prosper with new jobs and higher salaries. When the President is strong, optimistic, and (for the most part) ethical, the populace itself feels strong, optimistic and successful. So we are all involved whether we like it or not.

Humans always look up to other humans as examples--good or bad--and are swayed by what they see. They emulate that person, whether it be parents, minister, doctor, teacher, the local pusher draped with gold chains, gangsta' rappers, "Jackass," Brittany (et all ), or a President who smiles away lying and adultery.

Eight years of Reagan made us collectively feel "I can do it!" and communism fell. Eight years of Clinton made us collectively feel "I can get away with it!" and we were nearly flattened by Muslim jihadists.

The surest yardstick to how the public psyche is inexorably tied to these trickle-down morals from the highest office in the land is the rise and fall of professional victims groups. Homelessness, the AIDs crisis, racism, poverty, health costs, and environmental ruin had us all teetering on the brink of destruction during the Reagan years. Magically they vanished (or were solved?) the moment Clinton took the oath of office. Now they're back in all their gruesome, gut-wrenching, grant-to-study-them-needing, legislation-to-cure-them glory.

For eight years during the 90s we allowed the Piped Piper of the mainstream media to lead us along the primrose path of moral relativism. We allowed them to be the traffic cops at the national accident in progress, waving their arms authoritatively and shouting "Move along, move along. Nothing to see here!"

No more. The Internet has elbowed its way onto the roadway to expose the drunk drivers on both sides.

So what if you're bored with all the Kerry controversy? Deal with it. The MSM would love for the blogsphere to become bored with exposing their pet candidate's shameless pandering, inconsistencies, and questionable funding. They pray for the time all the independent commentators "move on" to other things and give them back the mantle of "kingmakers."

Don't count on it, you ink-stained wretches and babbling heads. Glenn Reynolds might be bored with the debates, but there are a hundred other bloggers just getting warmed up.

2004-08-25T18:15:00.000-08:00

Poll Monitors

Well, this bit of information should make voters feel safe when going to the polls November 2.

"The AFL-CIO will monitor polls in battleground states on Election Day to guard against voting abuses, and is launching a new effort to educate voters about the process and their rights."

Brass knuckles and truncheons optional.

2004-08-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

The Great Red/Blue Divide

World Magazine Blog had a long post yesterday about a new blueprint for Democrat control of the United States.

The Great Divide: [Retro Vs. Metro America , a new book by John Sperling] is billed as "a blueprint for how the Democratic Party can regain, and maintain, control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives." Mr. Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, believes that conservative voters with traditional values are a millstone around America's neck,

Most of you probably know the University of Phoenix--or at least had one pop-up ad for the place invade your screen. They're big on email appeals too. If you visit the University website, you will find they actually have campuses around the country and are looking for faculty. Wonder how many conservatives have been hired.

If you follow the link to a sample from Sperling's book, you'll find a side by side comparison of what he considers Retro versus Metro--conveniently categorized in red and blue columns with a long, jagged virtual tear between them.

"Retro America’s commonalities are religiosity; social conservatism; an economic base of extraction industries, agriculture, nondurable goods manufacturing, military installations; and a commitment to the Republican Party.

"Metro American states are loosely held together by common interests in promoting economic modernity and by shared cultural values marked by religious moderation; vibrant popular cultures; a tolerance of differences of class, ethnicity, tastes, and sexual orientation; and a tendency to vote Democratic.

Note the addition of the adjective "vibrant" in the Metro description. I'm surprised Sperling didn't slip the word "morbund" into the Retro paragraph instead of limiting himself to the description "nondurable."

"Retro Representatives support subsidies to oil, mining and agriculture, but they are opposed to women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights, affirmative action, welfare, organized labor, and taxes of any kind… These are “God, Family, and Flag” folks politically dominated by rural, conservative, white, Fundamentalist Christian populations. Retro America is not the land of co-habiting, unmarried, hetero, or same-sex couples, or of the young seeking cultural excitement in the large Metro cities.

Got guilt?

"Metro America values inclusion, respects science and social discourse, and promotes policies designed to provide physical, economic and social security for all families, both the 20 percent of the “old traditional families” and the 80 percent of the “new traditional families.”

Metro America "values," "respects," and "promotes" while Retro Americans "are opposed" to just about everything, not to mention "dominated by" their Fundamentalist (note the capital "F" just for good measure) Christian populations.

The final insult is the closing sentence of the "Metro America" profile:

"If America is ever to be a true United States, it must embrace these Metro values of inclusion and respect."

Closely embraced by inclusive, respectful, liberal Democrats as they lead us to the Promised Land.

2004-08-23T21:28:00.000-08:00

Seeing the World Through Rose-Colored Glasses…

…is not a good thing. Cockeyed optimists are out. Crabby is in. Science has vindicated Lucy.

"People in a negative mood provide more accurate eyewitness accounts than people in a positive mood state, according to new research.

[…]

"People in a positive mood such as happiness were shown under experimental conditions to have relatively unreliable memories, and show poorer judgement and critical thinking skills.

"By contrast, those who experienced a negative mood such as sadness were shown to provide more reliable eyewitnesses accounts and exercise superior thinking and communication skills.

[…]

"In a second experiment, researchers put different subjects in a positive or negative mood state and asked them to write down an argument in favour of a particular proposition.

"When their arguments were analysed for their quality and persuasiveness, subjects in a negative mood were shown to be far more effective in their critical thinking and communication skills.

That might explain the extraordinarily literate arguments (and success) of the Swift Vets. Of course the Democrats have to be in an even more negative mood… Perhaps they're the exception that proves the rule.

"The finding makes sense in evolutionary terms," says Professor [Joe] Forgas. "Animals that are wary of their environment are more likely to perceive threats to their survival. This supports the idea that mood states are evolutionary signals about how to deal with threatening situations. That is, a negative mood state triggers more systematic, more attentive, more vigilant information processing.

"By contrast, good moods signal a benign, non-threatening environment where we don't need to be so vigilant."

Darwin has his uses, I suppose. At least now we have clinical proof that a socialist-state Utopia will never survive. It's unnatural.

2004-08-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

No More Playing Fields

The Duke of Wellington is said to have commented that the Battle of Waterloo was "…won on the playing fields of Eton,"

We can only hope another Napoleon never arises out of France. (I don't suppose there really is much danger of that.) But if, in years to come, a charismatic "emperor" does manage to pull together a massive army to come face to face against the United States, we are in deep trouble. Any future creative, imaginative leaders have nowhere to play today.

"Concerned about safety and injuries and worried about bullying, violence, self-esteem and lawsuits, school officials have clamped down on the traditional games from years past. Gone from many blacktops are tag, dodgeball and any game involving bodily contact. In are organized relay races and adult-supervised activities.

[…]

"Natomas Park [Elementary School in the Natomas Unified School District] administrators say physical safety was the main reason they instituted restrictions. But they admit to worrying about bullying and potential lawsuits from parents."

For that worry we can thank Democrat VP nominee John Edwards, king of lawsuits aimed at destroying society. But of course it is all "for the children."

"At Maeola Beitzel Elementary, Janis Mayse, the mother of a fifth-grader, doesn't think the fun is worth it if a game is played to the detriment of another child. "All of us want to hang on to the games we played as kids," she said, "but we have to keep an open mind that there are games that kids can get a benefit from without hurting one another."

[…]

"Child behavior experts are concerned that strict rules for play threaten to straitjacket students' creativity. Recess is supposed to be spontaneous play. The unstructured time helps fuel the imagination, said Dolores Stegelin, associate professor of early childhood education at Clemson University.

"It encourages creativity. It strengthens social development when they can be creative and plan something together and set up their own rules. It allows for leadership," said Stegelin, a member of the Association for the Study of Play. "Adults need to be there, but there needs to be more time for kids to be innovative and do their own activity."

Dodgeball teaches students eye-hand coordination and gross motor skills. Getting singled out and eliminated from competition is part of life, said Tom Reed, professor of early childhood education at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg.

"Life is not always fair," said Reed, also a member of the Association for the Study of Play. "You don't get what you want. Things like this are learned on the playground."

"That's what worries Kellie Randle. A former teacher and a parent of a student at Joseph Sims Elementary School in Elk Grove, Randle believes kids aren't as creative as they once were. "I'm concerned about the direction of a society where kids are encouraged not to run and play," she said. "If you take away running, freeze tag, and red light, green light, you're taking away a big part of childhood."

Now could someone please explain to me why everyone is so worried about the "obesity epidemic" among children when those same children are being forbidden to engage in the very games that might take the weight off ?

2004-08-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

Those Seven Minutes Still Rankle

At least a few people, apparently, although I think "mattcable2506" who brought up the question at My Little Corner of the World was more interested in engaging in "gotcha'" posting than a real debate. Anything and everything must be dragged out to counter the devastating effect the Swift Vets are having on the Kerry campaign.

Tom at Mud 'n Phud did some major keyboard work tracking down the various links from my original post, and the explanation we read is entirely logical and appropriate.

As I mentioned to Tom, I didn't question the "7 minutes" explanation primarily because I have had a number of opportunities to talk with former Secret Service agents (some from the Reagan era) who explained their duties in surprising detail. Their object is always to keep the President safe and secure whatever the situation, and they will not, under any circumstances, allow the President to move/travel unless they are positive the route is as secure as they can make it. So what I read made sense. President Bush was safe in the classroom--potentially not safe outside the classroom.

Hopefully the radical left will give up this Mickey Mouse--er--Michael Moore--argument and get on with the rest of the election.