The Public Has A Right To Know??

There are apparently more photos from the prison at Abu Graib than we have seen. Apparently the abuses were much more serious than we had originally been told.

These abuses, when committed by Americans are absolutely indefensible. Those responsible should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We expect much better of ourselves and each other than that.

However, I find the continued harping about this subject by the American Media to be a bit distasteful as well. I think that the Media may as well, when they get all of their facts together, rather than publish them themselves, put them in a box, mark it "TERRORIST RECRUITMENT MATERIALS, HANDLE WITH CARE", and send it directly to Al Jezeera. In a way, I would rather they did this than lend their own credibility (such as it is) to the story.

The soldiers who were involved in these atrocities have been apprehended, relieved of their duties there, and are being tried and sentenced by the military courts, as is their right by law. If found guilty (There is no reason to believe that they won't be...) they will be punished according to the Military Code of Justice. If it is found that people higher in the chain of command knew about these atrocities, and did nothing to stop them, then these people will be dealt with as well. I would expect nothing less from my government, and the American military. The investigation is ongoing.

At what point (within the context of this conflict) do we draw the line between informing the public and aiding and abetting the enemy? Is Dick Durbin's right to say whatever he wants on the floor of the senate more important than an American soldier's right to life? If this soldier is killed by a terrorist who was emboldened by Al Jezeera's coverage of Durbin's comments, is Durbin now responsible (in part) for the death of this soldier? If the same soldier is killed by a terrorist who was emboldened by the latest news on the Abu Graib story, then is the New York Times responsible for his death?

Does the public really need to know at this point how serious these atrocities were? If I believed that atrocities like those that may have occured at Abu Graib were the normal policy of American prisoner of war detainment facilities, then I would say yes.

But I don't believe this to be the case.

Abu Graib was an isolated incident. I don't believe that the prisoners at Guantanimo Bay were ever mistreated (by the worldwide standards for treatment of Prisoners of War.) To continually stress the point that they were does no one any good except our enemies in this war. ( With the possible exception of the Democrat Party, who want this issue for political advantage.)

I don't want to be kept in the dark on issues like this, but if informing me means that we endanger the lives of American Soldiers, then I can be content to wait until the conflict is over to be informed.

As long as I know that the people in charge are conducting the proper hearings (which they are), you can spare me the details.

Al Jezeera does not need any more anti-American material.

Freedom Is A Messy Business...

Is Gay Pride week a nationally recognized holiday? (Or group of holidays, as it were?) Are our tax dollars rightly spent promoting Gay Pride book displays, Gay Pride parades, or other Gay Pride festivities? Who, if anyone, has the power to decide whether to promote Gay Pride week, or to try to obscure it behind the shelves or in the back room of the public library?

"(Hillsborough county) Commissioner Ronda Storms said she will schedule the (Gay Pride display) issue for a board discussion where she intends to ask that such displays be banned. As the mother of a 6-year-old daughter, she said she does not want to be forced to explain homosexuality and transexuality if her child passes such a display and starts asking questions.
"I do not want to have to explain to my( 6 year old) daughter what it means to question one's sexuality," Storms said during a budget workshop Wednesday."(From St. Petersburg Times, June 9,2005)

In Hillsborough county (Tampa), Florida, the county commission has voted 5-1 to ban Gay Pride displays in public libraries.

I am having a really hard time with this one.

Do I want my tax dollars going to promote Gay Pride? No. Do I think that Gay Pride is an appropriate subject for discussion with every patron of the public library, regardless of age? No. Do I agree with the Gay lifestyle and the activities that this lifestyle encompasses? No.
(MY OPINIONS. Whether anyone agrees or not, I have the right to think what I think, and to say whatever I want.)

I do, however believe in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I believe that the public library should be and MUST be the repository of ideas and alternative viewpoints. In my opinion, if there is a place in the world for a display about Gay Pride, it is the public library.

Now, before you Conservative religious types come out of the woodwork and hammer me for supporting a public display dedicated to Gay Pride, remember that I also support the Ten Commandments being displayed in Courthouses, if the majority of the community has no problem with it. To me it is the same arguement.

Either you believe in freedom of speech or you don't.

I do.

Even if it means that I have to support a Gay Pride display, I still believe in freedom. (This also means that I would support an ANTI- Gay display in the same library, or Nazi-ism, or the Ku Klux Klan, or a display of Hillary Clinton's new book.) ("Freedom of speech" means "FREEDOM of speech".)

I don't, however, believe that a Gay Pride display (or ANY display on any subject that is as controversial as Gay Pride) should be in the common area of the library. It should be in the Adult Non-Fiction section, where the children of people who would like to sheild their young children from subjects like this, until they feel that their children are able to cope with such things, will not stumble across it, and ask questions to which they may not be able to understand the answers.

I think that the Board of Commissioners got this one wrong. They should have regulated the displays, limited the areas in which they could be erected, and allowed the displays to stand.

Until the end of Gay Pride week.

And then they should have denied any request from the Gay community, whatever it was, until Gay Pride week next year.

I will state for the record that I believe that until a cure for the AIDS virus is found, that it is an extremely bad idea for society to promote the Gay lifestyle. However, I also believe that even Gays have the constitutional right to express their opinions in public just like everyone else, whatever their opinions may be.

Freedom is a messy business...

I must give credit where credit is due. My Democrat friend ER was the first that I ever saw use the phrase "Freedom is a messy business..."
I thought it was very profound.

SAY WHAT??

Listening to the usual talk radio shows over the last couple of weeks, I have heard some amazing things.

I heard that a group of activists have been handing out tee shirts emblazoned with the words "I DO NOT CONSENT TO BE SEARCHED" at the entrances of the New York subways.

I heard one radio commentator say that anyone who supported the patriot act was "afraid" and would rather "trade their freedoms for a phony sense of security".

I heard one say that "we are all going to die anyway, so now the question becomes, how do you want to LIVE?" He also said that "If you search my bag and you find a bag of weed, LEAVE IT ALONE! That's not what you were looking for!"

I have over the last couple of weeks heard a U.S. senator compare U.S. Marines to Nazis, heard him compare an air conditioned detainment facility for prisoners captured in combat against U.S. troops to a Goulag, and heard him liken their treatment to the treatment that PolPot would have given his enemies.

I have heard this senator and many like him demand that these enemies of America be afforded full constitutional rights as if they were American citizens.

I have heard the Media construct a story of a presidential advisor leaking the identity of a CIA agent, and then heard them assert that this offense is much more serious than a President leaking military technology which made it possible for the enemies of America to target our homes with inter-continental ballistic nuclear weapons.

I heard the U. N. say that it is "unfair" for the United States to administer the internet, and then demand that control over the internet be turned over to them.

I heard that the Space Shuttle started falling apart on the launch pad, so NASA decided to "wiggle a few wires" and launch it next week.

I heard (repeatedly) that a "constructionist" judge or an "originalist" judge would roll back freedoms for women.

I heard another U.S senator make the statement that if John Roberts were confirmed to the Supreme Court, that five thousand American women every year would die from back alley abortions and still another senator say that the President looks like Alfred E. Newman.

I heard a sentor say that justices Thomas and Scalia were the most radical and activist justices on the Supreme Court.

And on and on and on.

So is it any wonder that now, when I sit down to write my post, against this cacophony of idiocy, I can think of absolutely nothing to say?

Hot For Teacher...

Well, Greco Middle School teacher Deborah Lafave is back in the news, and guess what??

She's going for the insanity defense!! I don't know if I can survive the shock!! I mean, how will she and her attourney ever convince a jury that a 23 year old woman with a brand new career and a gainfully employed, good looking husband would throw her whole life away just to provide oral sex to a 14 year old male student?

I think the insanity defense is a monumentally bad idea. The problem with pleading insanity is that right off the bat, she's admitting she did it. No going back after that. She may as well say "The Devil made me do it!!"

I am not a lawyer, and I know that nothing that I say can really help her, but I thought that I would suggest some alternative defense strategies...

Her lawyer is already on the trail of my first strategy, however I don't think that he fully realizes the possibilities of his line of thinking, so I will try to flesh out the idea for him (so to speak.)
He said this morning that she is "too pretty" to go to jail. Yeah! That's the ticket!
I will say this much for her... she is ONE HOT CHILD MOLESTER! Wowsers! Holy Moley!! This chick is a top shelf example of why I love living in the Tampa Bay area.
But just pointing out that she is pretty is not going to be enough. Her lawyer needs to come up with a few catchy little rhyming phrases to chant at the jury.
Such as..."If she has nice (?), you must aquit!" (If only I could think of a word that rhymes with "aquit"...) Okay I'm still working on that one.

Or, how about this?
She could call a big national press conference, practice making her lower lip tremble, and at the press conference, stare directly into the camera, stick her index finger into the air and as seriously as she can, say "I did NOT have sexual relations with that boy Mr.(name withheld to protect the identity of a minor.) Then she can assert that her sex life is none of anyone's business, declare the whole thing a witch hunt, and deny, deny, deny. She could also demand that the whole thing be dropped so that she can get back to the business of educating America's children. As long as she has destroyed HER blue dress, it should work. (If precedent is any indicator, anyway...)

Or maybe she could ask for a change of venue to Santa Maria, California, then admit that she slept in the bed with the boy, and in the backseat of the car, and that they were naked together occaisionally, but there is nothing wrong with anything that they did. It's beautiful! It's love! She was just showing her LOVE! She could tell the jury that she just LOVES children. (Especially the BOY children...)

What is she really guilty of anyway? All she did was help a young, innocent schoolboy to realize his dreams!

No?

Okay, I've had my fun, now let's get serious about this. (The jokes were just too easy...)

I do not believe that this young woman should be put in prison. She is a very disturbed individual. If you don't believe that then you should listen to the taped telephone conversations between her and the kid. These tapes will make your hair stand on end. (No offense intended to any bald people out there.) She has a very severe disconnect with reality.

In other words, The chick ain't right.

I can believe that she didn't realize that what she was doing was wrong.

However, I don't believe that she should be released either.

She is a sick person, and she should be confined to an institution until such time as she can be trusted around young boys again. Under no circumstances should she be allowed to ever teach school again, and if she gets a book deal out of this episode, all proceeds should be diverted to rape crisis centers for underage victims.

Nobody is too pretty to go to jail, but I believe that Deborah Lafave is absolutley too ill to go to jail.

This young woman is not John Couhy. She is not a monster who rapes and kills helpless victims.
She needs help, and now maybe she will get it.

I wish her and her attourney the best of luck.

New Tone?

I am beginning to think that maybe our friends over on the left may be right.

It may be time to impeach President Bush.

Not over the war, not over the Karl Rove mess, not over the supposed lies, not for any of the reasons that the left says he should be impeached...

I think we should start to think about impeaching the President over the New Tone in Washington. I think we should think about impeaching the President for not pressuring senate Republicans into triggering the Constitutional Option to stop the filibustering of his judges. ( I will no longer call it the Nuclear Option, The OPTION is constitutional, the FILIBUSTERING is nuclear...) I think we should start to think about impeaching him for not pushing the Republican, Right Wing, Conservative agenda that we elected him for.

When I went into the polling booth last November, there was one phrase playing over and over in my mind as I colored in those Republican circles on my ballot form...

"U.S. Supreme Court Cheif Justice Hillary Clinton."

That one phrase was enough to ensure that President Bush got my vote, even if all of the lies from the left had been true. Even if they had proof that there were never any WMD's, even if they produced videotape of the President HAVING SEX WITH THE KING OF SAUDI ARABIA, as long as he put Originalist (I did not say "Conservative"...) judges on the courts, he still would have gotten my vote. I could not stand the idea of John F. Kerry appointing judges to lifetime appointments to set policy for the entire Nation, in spite of the elected representatives of the people, and I knew that cheif Justice William Rehnquist was circling the drain. I knew that whoever was elected in 2004 would inevitably select at least one Supreme Court Justice, And I didn't want Kerry having anything to do with the selection process. This was THE most important issue to me during this past election cycle.

On Thursday morning of this past week, the President held a meeting at the White House with some key senate Democrats to discuss nominations for a replacement on the Supreme Court for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

WHAT?!?

Since when do members of the opposition party get to have ANY input into the SELECTION PROCESS for potential federal judges?? Has this EVER been done before?

The problem isn't Democrats. It is Republicans who will not support their own party, and the President for not putting more pressure on his own party members to stay in line. The Republicans hold 55 seats in the senate. They only need 50 to confirm a judge. This shouldn't even be an issue.

The only reason that it is an issue is that Republicans in the senate will not stick together and support the President. On this point I really admire and respect the Democrats. They never stray off the reservation for any reason. They understand that the people who elected them wanted Democrats in power. They understand that their constituancy does not want the representatives that they elected trying to make nice and come together with the opposition, and they present a united front.

Do you think that they would include a single Republican in the process if the situation were reversed?

NO.

Because THEY understand what is at stake. The Supreme Court is the avenue by which Liberalism becomes Policy in America. It doesn't win elections, it is ruled into law through the court system, and I am sick of it.

I think that when our elected leaders do not impliment ( and in a timely manner) the agenda of the people who elect them, then these leaders should be held accountable.

So let the impeachment proceedings begin! Maybe Dick Cheney will make a more effective President when it comes to representing Republican voters. I like him better anyway...

Told Ya...

Are you sick of the Karl Rove story NOW??

I tried to warn everyone to just wait a while before we all decided to label Mr. Rove a traitor, that the Grand Jury was still out, that we didn't have all the facts yet. (If you go to the link, READ THE WHOLE STORY....)

It seems that this story was drummed up by the (non-partisan?) Media in order to take down one of the President's confidants. (Rove's source was a reporter...) and now journalists are in jail, and Rove, it appears, will go free to advise the President another day.

Mr. Rove was just too juicy a target for the left (I still think because of that stupid movie...) to wait on. I mean the dream of people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is to lobotomize George W. Bush, don't you think?

But the Left was wrong on this one, just like I said. So there. I know that some on the left will continue in their denial or look now for another victim, but Karl Rove has not lied, has cooperated fully with the investigation, is not a traitor, and will not be removed from the Bush administration over this. The truth is that Karl Rove is too smart to get caught in something like this. I'm not saying that he is as innocent as a newborn non-aborted baby, I'm just saying he won't be caught in anything this stupid and trivial. The Left may as well set their sights on someone else.

I will accept apologies from those of you who said that I was wrong on my comments page. (Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath.)

I for one am STILL sick of hearing about it. I still contend that this was a non-story from the beginning. It was a distraction from more important news stories...


Like these;

An Army Medic was shot by insurgents (murderous Islamic terrorist scum) in Iraq, Survived the attack, and then located the sniper, secured him with handcuffs, and gave MEDICAL ATTENTION TO THE MAN WHO HAD JUST TRIED TO KILL HIM! Why isn't this on the front page of every American newspaper?

Sandy Berger, former Clinton White House National Security Advisor apologizes for what he calls an "honest mistake." Honest Mistake?!?! The dude crammed sensitive National Security documents into his socks and drawers and took them home and destroyed them!! Want to talk about traitors now??

All of the highly trained and talented engineers at NASA can't seem to figure out why the "Check Engine" light on the space shuttle Discovery won't go off. After much thought and deliberation, they have decided to try "wiggling the wires." Where do I sign up to be in the space program??

Another false memo story? Will they never learn??

Senate Democrats disclose information about a top secret spy satellite program? Do you want to talk about traitorous information leakers now??

Let's talk about something important for a while and leave this dead end story alone, shall we?

Much Ado About Nothing...

Is anyone besides me sick of hearing about what a heinous criminal Karl Rove is?

The facts of the Karl Rove scandal, as I understand them, are (And please correct me if I am wrong, But back it up with factual information...)

Karl Rove, at the end of a telephone conversation about a totally different subject with a reporter, may or may not have mentioned the name of a CIA agent, who was not on covert assignment at the time, and had not been for nine years prior, and whom everyone in Washington who would recognize her name knew worked for the CIA, and he may or may not have warned the reporter not to pursue the story too hard because it was nothing in the first place.

Huh??

Why is this even news? The Grand Jury has not even said if a crime was commited or not, and we have Nancy Pelosi calling for Rove's head?
Why is this such a big story? I'll tell you why...It's because Pelosi and her ilk believe that Rove is the power behind the throne. They believe that President Bush cannot function without Karl Rove. (Yes, I watched the movie about "Bush's Brain" too, I just don't believe everything I see on T.V.)
Read the law again, all of you who think that Rove should be raped repeatedly in prison for this horrible crime that he has committed. Nothing in the law applies to the woman who was reportedly named. If anything, Rove tried to prevent a story from being written that would have disclosed her identity, if everyone hadn't known it already.
And by the way, hasn't this same woman appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine twice since she was supposedly outed by the supposedly unnamed source, supposedly Rove? She's really trying to keep a low profile, isn't she?

Don't get me wrong...If Karl Rove has committed a crime and is found guilty, I will support his punnishment right along with the rest of you. Criminals have no place in Presidential administrations and I don't want them there.
But make no mistake, losing Rove will not cripple the President. Rove works for President Bush, not the other way around. If Rove is fired or imprisoned, The President knows where there are ten more just like him.

I wonder why the New York Times has decided to leave Judith Miller rotting in jail? If Rove was her source, then why doesn't she say so and go home?
Maybe because Rove is not her source? If not, then who is?? It's a mystery!

All I know is that I am tired of hearing about it. The press should report on it when they have new information about it, and stop trying to beat me over the head with it. I get it already. The Media doesn't like Karl Rove. I picked up on that one pretty quick...

By the way, anyone who doesn't believe that the mainstream press has a negative Bias against the Bush administration should listen to the press conference with Scott McClellan yesterday. The reporters screamed at him, yelled at him, did everything but throw feces and urine at the poor man, simply because he refused to comment on an ongoing investigation. (You never saw Janet Reno get thet treatment...)

When you couple a twenty-four hour news cycle with ten different cable news networks competing with each other, and then throw in a decidedly negative bias toward the President, you are bound to have situations like this, I guess.
I will be glad, though, when the news coverage returns to stories about people falling into wood chippers, and John McCain starring in "R" rated movies(!) and other trivia.

This other stuff just makes my head hurt...

Who Needs It?

The point was recently made by one of my blogger friends on my comments page (see my July 5th post "Stop This Immoral and Unwinnable War") that the top 1% of wealth holders in America own 38% of all wealth, and subsequently should pay 38% of the tax burden. He then proceeded to rail against inheritance, calling it "welfare" and saying it was "unfair". He contended that the only fair way to divide up the tax burden is for the people with the most money to bear the largest burden. After all, do we really believe that Bill Gates NEEDS all that money??

NEEDS??

I am not picking on him or trying to start a fight, he is entitled to his opinion. This is mine.

We must be very careful when we start deciding how much of their own money someone else NEEDS.
Sure Bill Gates wouldn't starve to death if he didn't have 28.41 billion dollars, but he made the money. It belongs to him. No one else has any legitimate claim to this money. Not the Government, not me, not you. Not the homeless, the poor, the disadvantaged, not even his children. This Fortune would not exist had Bill Gates not figured out how to amass it, and then amassed it. He could just as easily have shut down the whole company as soon as he got his first two million, and then I would be typing this on a green MSDOS screen.(By the way, did you know that there is a website devoted entirely to how much money Bill Gates has? It's The Bill Gates Net Worth Page.) ( Why is that any of MY business?)

Bill Gates is the ultimate "American Dream" story. He invented a product that nobody had, and a marketing strategy which ensured success and as a result, he and the people who invested in his business have become wildly rich. Along the way they have created thousands of high paying jobs and his business continues to grow.

I personally am happy for him. I wish I had thought of it.

And there it is right there.

If I had thought of it, and done it, it would be me who had 28.41 billion in the bank.
How we arrive at the question of whether he needs his money is beyond me. Even if he doesn't, who is to decide who DOES need it? Especially when he basically came from nothing himself?
Are we to leave this decision to the government? The same government who administers the Social security system? The same government that enacted NAFTA? The same government who invaded Iraq?

I hope not.

In my opinion, logic dictates that the only one who can make that decision is BILL GATES. If he wants to use his fortune to grow his business and create more jobs and make available more products to make my computer more user friendly (which he does), Then that's okay with me. If he wants to donate to a myriad of charities (which he does), that's okay as well. If he wants to invest it in other businesses (which he does), so be it. And if he wants to pile it up to the moon and then leave it all to his children (which he has said he will NOT do), then that's his business. It makes no difference to me whether Bill Gates is rich or not, or what he decides to do with his own money.

Let's take Bill Gates out of the equation for a minute...

Is there some homeless person in your town who needs money and food more than you need a new television? Would you die if you lived in a smaller house? Do you NEED all that space? Do you NEED a new car or could you get by with one that is ten years old? Do you really need a car at all?

Do you want anyone else making these decisions for you?

I don't...

Tag I'm It, Huh?

Okay, I'm not really sure how this is supposed to work, but here goes.


1. How many books do you own?

I have no Idea. It's gotta be a couple thousand, between my collection and my wife's. My place basically looks like a library with junked cars in the yard. My personal collection includes a lot of paperbacks, A lot of biographies, fantasy - science fiction, and murder mysteries. ( Whatever they had at the truck stop...)

2. What is the last book you read?

Let's see now...That would be "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. (By the way, Mark, thanks a pantload for making me answer THIS question NOW.) The book that I am currently reading (again) is "1984" by George Orwell.

3. What is the last book you purchased?

The last book that I purchased was "Chilton's Auto Repair Manual for the Pontiac Firebird -1982 to1994". (Once again, timing is everything... Thanks a lot!!)

4.Name 5 fiction books that mean a lot to you.

Like some other people that have answered these questions, I tend to read books in series. I have read the entire "Dune" series by Frank Herbert and Brian Herbert w/Kevin J. Anderson. I have also read all of the "Mayfair Witches" and "Vampire Chronicles" books by Anne Rice.
Another series of books that I love dearly and believe that everyone should read is "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis. Also the" Harry Potter" books are cool, as well as"The Hobbitt" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.


Now I am supposed to tag 5 other people, Right?
Okay toad, rich bachelor, o-likewhoa, justlikehim and Your yiddish bubby, you're up.

I must say, I am kinda curious...

This was fun!

Superpower?

I listened today with horror as the news media related the events in London this morning. It seems that Terrorism is alive and well in the World and innocent people are still dying and suffering because of it.

We don't know for sure who perpetrated this act of war against our most faithful ally, but a supposed spokesman for Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility. I can't understand why there is anyone alive in the World anymore who would say that they are associated in any way with Al Qaeda. By this point in time, America should have waged such a horrible war on everyone in the region that allowed Al Qaeda to fester that the very thought of engaging us in any kind of conflict would make people weak in the knees.

It occurs to me that maybe America no longer has the intestinal fortitude to win a war against anyone. We have become known around the world as the kid with the biggest stick on the whole playground, BUT EVERYONE KNOWS WE WOULD NEVER USE IT.

The only time in human history that nuclear or atomic weapons have ever been used during a time of war was in 1945, when we exploded atomic bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan ( the last entity to attack American soil until 9/11), and that use of them deterred attacks upon American soil for decades. During the Vietnam war, however, the World figured out that America would never again use nuclear weapons, no matter what happens, and if there were any doubts in the minds of the enemies of America, these were erased during the months and years following 9/11.
The people who are fighting us have no respect for cowards, and have labeled us as such PRECISELY because we WILL NOT use whatever weapons we have at our disposal to defeat them. They understand strength and power,but they have no use for appeasement and political correctness.
We have become Gulliver, tied down by a million tiny strings. The Lilliputians have tied us down with the strings of fear of world opinion, fear of the accusation of racism, the unfairness of our superpower status, and fear of our own media.
We absolutely have the strength to throw off these bonds and regain our worldwide respect, but we will never do it as long as we remain engaged in an internal struggle over whether or not to do it. Besides, I'm afraid that we have missed the window of opportunity. The time to display American might was immediately after 9/11. If we did it now, we would look like indecisive bullies.
I am not advocating the use of nuclear weapons at this time, but you can rest assured that our enemies would have no qualms about using them if they had them.
This is the very reason why Iraq must never be allowed to develop these weapons, why North Korea must be made to abandon their nuclear program, and why it is a complete disaster that China now has them and the means to deliver them to American soil. (Thank you, President Clinton.)
My fear is that the next time nuclear weapons are used in the world, that Los Angelas or San Francisco will be the target. Maybe when that happens, the American people will get behind the concept of victory instead of appeasement as the way to end wars.
Until then, we will just have to languish in our rhetoric and indecisiveness.

By the way, I would personally like to ask those of you who believe in God to keep the people of Florida and the rest of the Gulf Coast in your thoughts and prayers as we brace for the attack of Hurricane Dennis. Pray that God will steer it away from us if it is His will, and to give us the strength to endure it's onslaught if He decides we should.
Thank You...

Stop This Immoral and Un-Winnable War!

I have been thinking about the war, And I have decided that we need to pull out of it immediately. We are losing by anyone's standards, it is immoral and unjust, and the president lied about his reasons for engaging in it. It has hurt millions of innocent people, and has cost the taxpayers way too much money.

I am talking about the War on Poverty.(Which war did you think I was talking about?)

Since 1964, when president Lyndon Baynes Johnson declared War on Poverty, there has been enough money (Taxpayer money) spent fighting poverty to have handed every poor person in America at that time a Million dollars, but poverty still persists.

According to the Joint Economic Committee Study of May, 1996:


The burden of excessive federal spending and intervention on the economy is creating conditions in which one child out of ten is shifted into poverty.
Restraint of federal spending growth would boost economic and income growth, lowering the poverty rate.
Restraint of $100 billion in non-defense spending growth would lower the child poverty rate by 4.35 percentage points. This would reduce the number of children in poverty by 3 million.
For every $33,000 of federal spending restraint, one less child would grow up in poverty.
The excesses of the modern welfare state are one cause of the deterioration in a number of economic and social factors affecting children and families. The increases in family breakdown, illegitimacy, educational failure and other social pathologies are related to the perverse incentives of the excessive and impersonal welfare state, and its counterproductive effects on economic and income growth and poverty.
(http://www.house.gov/jec/welstate/vg-3/vg-3.htm)

The top one percent of wage earners in America pay ten times more in income taxes that the bottom fifty percent. The top fifty percent pay roughly ninety-six percent of the tax burden. I think that it is high time that EVERYONE in America pay their fair share.

My wife and I don't have any children. We have chosen to wait until we feel that we are financially stable enough to provide for a child. We are not there yet.
She had a fifteen year old girl in one of her classes this past school year who talked things over with her boyfriend (of about two months) and decided to get pregnant. They went to the library, checked out books on the subject of conception, studied up and then went and practiced what they had learned. Sure enough, she got pregnant.
This young girl has no means by which to raise and care for a child. Her family doesn't really have it either. Where will the money to care for this child come from?
The government, that's where. It will be with held from my paycheck, my wife's, my brother's, my sisters, and your's.
She made the concious choice to put herself into a situation in which society will have to care for her and her child. Because of her, and thousands more like her, people like my wife and myself, who are trying to be responsible, will have to wait a little longer.
To some, the logical solution would be to try to talk her into having an abortion, but she doesn't want that. (At least she made ONE good choice...) Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe in a woman's right to choose whether or not to have a baby, but the time to make that choice is before she takes off her pants. I also firmly believe that parents should be allowed to kill their children, however, they should wait until the child is about twelve years old. That way the parents would know whether the child has any promise of becoming a productive citizen, or be an idiot all his life and a burden to society. (I am being absurd to make a point. Killing innocent children seems wrong to me whether they are twelve years old or twelve weeks in utero. If you disagree, I am never going to be able to convince you, and you are never going to be able to convince me. Just let it go.)

We have set up a situation in America in which irresponsibility is rewarded, and responsibility is punnished. People scream about tax cuts for the rich, when the rich are the creators of jobs. They scream about how much money the stockholders of companies like G.M. are making, when some of MY 401K funds are invested in G.M. stock. (Some of your's probably are as well.) Without the stockholders who put their own money at risk, there would be no G.M. to complain about.

Like it or not, we live within a capitolist economic system. To punish achievement and reward irresponsibility in a capitolist system supresses growth and job creation. It is time for this trend to stop.

The Activist Supreme Court...

Well, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made history on friday by becoming the first woman in history to resign from the supreme court.
Now the battle over her replacement can begin. I can hardly wait.
The pundits that I have heard have all been talking about how moderate she was, and now (if the president is smart) he will try to replace her with another moderate, so as to not upset the delicate balance of the court.
The die-hard conservatives want him to appoint a die-hard conservative. The Libs want him to appoint a revolutionary liberal.
I don't want him to appoint any of these. I would be happy if he would just appoint someone who can READ. It would even be okay with me if his appointee had never even been to law school, Just as long as they can pass a reading comprehension test.
The job of the supreme court is to look over the cases which are presented to them, read the constitution, and then decide how the constitution applies to that case. Their job is not to right the wrongs of society, not to over-rule unjust laws enacted by the legislature, or to FIX ANYTHING. It is simply to read what is already written in our constitution (Nowhere else), and decide how it applies on a case by case basis.
This requires complete objectivity, which is extremely difficult for human beings to achieve. This is why news is biased one way or the other, no matter what source you get it from. Any time anyone relates a story to you, whether it is about world events, or what they had for lunch, that person relates the details which are important to THEM. You, in turn, will retain the details which are important to YOU, and pass those details on to the next person you talk with about it. It's almost unavoidable.
When supreme court justices hear cases, they must try really hard not to inject their particular political leanings into the debate, but when they fail to resist that urge, they cross the line between judge and legislator. They cease being judges and become rulers, a situation which the founding fathers tried very hard to protect us from. When this happens, the power in America is taken out of the hands of the people, and placed into the hands of a very few lawyers, who then rule by, for lack of a better term, Emperial Decree.
Our current supreme court seems to me lately to have lost the ability to understand exactly what the constitution says.
For example, how did the phrase "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" come to mean that private property can be transfered from one private citizen to another private citizen, whether they want to sell it or not? How is "just compensation" to be calculated in this situation? Are we going to figure out how long the current owner would have kept the property, and then pay him the value of the property at that point in time? Are we going to determine what improvements or development the current owner would eventually have made, had he been allowed to keep his property, and then pay him according to the value of it then?
No. What we are going to do is confiscate whatever piece of property seems juiciest to what ever local politician sees it, and transfer it to whoever will promise to pay the most property tax on it. This is wrong, and as long as this recent ruling is allowed to stand, no one's home or investment property is safe from seizure, not even if you happen to be a supreme court justice.
(See http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html )
Another example..." Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof." Does that say anything about a seperation of church and state?
To me, that says that the congress cannot make a law which forces me to become a Bhudist, or a Muslim,Or to force YOU to become a Christian, but it also means that no one can make me pretend to be an Athiest either. ( and now, here come the wise and enlightened Athiests, to equate my belief in God with a belief in Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny...Whatever. The truth about this is that personally, I have just as much evidence in the existence of God as I have in the existence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I've never seen either one, however, I know they both exist.) This phrase also says to me that no one can make a law which restricts me from posting the Ten Commandments anywhere I think they should be.( as long as I don't violate any anti-littering laws or anything like that.)
Does that mean that if the local City Council in the town where I live decided to post a plaque displaying the Ten Pillars of Islam on the courthouse lawn, that I would have to like it? No, but if I opposed it, I would be on the wrong side of the issue, constitutionally.
The Freedom of Religion clause of the First Ammendment does not give anyone the right to be insulated from any mention of God. It just gives you the right to accept, or reject whatever beliefs make sense to you personally. And before you start up about taxpayer money being used for monuments on public land, remember that Christians pay taxes too, and about 77 percent of Americans believe in God, in one form or another. The Ten Commandments issue is one that would go in favor of Christians every time if it was put to a public vote. Like it or not.
Enough on that.
What I am getting at is, I don't want a Conservative to take Justice O'Connor's place. I don't want a Liberal either, nor do I want a moderate. What I would like to see is for her to be replaced with 192 justices from all stripes, so that no longer will the nation be subject to the rule of a body so small, that a single justice's opinion can sway the laws of the entire government. I would also like for there to be an even number of justices, so that we have the occasional tie.
The way I see it, The supreme court justices individually have way too much power, and as long as this is the case, We The People are going to always come out on the short end of the stick.