SlothBlog (with Podcast)

New York Times Editorial

2006-09-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

"For three years, Washington has been periodically consumed with the question of who unmasked a covert C.I.A. agent to the columnist Robert Novak. It has been a huge distraction for the White House, resulted in the unjustified jailing of one reporter, and led to perjury charges against the vice president’s chief of staff.

"Last week, it was reported that Richard Armitage, then deputy secretary of state, was the first to mention Valerie Wilson to Mr. Novak, and that the federal prosecutor knew this more than two and a half years ago." There's a better way to frame this. The prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald, knew who the leaker was on the first day of his investigation, and it should have been shut down at that point.

All You Need to Know

2006-09-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

"karl rove"

"richard armitage"

I Made it To PowerLineBlog Wooo-hoo

2006-08-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here is the LINK.

Limbaugh On Israel

2006-07-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

The only way some form of quiet will ever exist in the Middle East is if Israel is given the latitude to totally defeat its declared enemies. Only then will the terrorist attacks on Israel's civilians come to an end. Perpetual negotiations, diplomatic half measures, or land for peace deals will not bring peace to the Middle East. For those who believe this is an irresponsible notion, I use history as my guide.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of Imperial Japan's unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, in which 2,500 Americans were killed. There are lessons to be learned from our victory in that war.

In his April 16, 1945 address before a Joint Session of Congress, President Harry Truman stated: "So there can be no possible misunderstanding, both Germany and Japan can be certain, beyond any shadow of doubt, that America will continue the fight for freedom until no vestige of resistance remains. We are deeply conscious of the fact that much hard fighting is still ahead of us. Having to pay such a heavy price to make complete victory certain, America will never become a party to any plan for partial victory. To settle for merely another temporary respite would surely jeopardize the future security of the world. Our demand has been, and it remains, unconditional surrender."

On August 6, 1945, just 16-hours after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, Truman issued a statement which said, in part: "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. … We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake: we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war."

Truman understood that there could be no peace without total victory. This lesson has not been lost on President George Bush. On September 20, 2001, Bush also addressed a Joint Session of Congress and announced America's policy - "the Bush Doctrine" - in responding to the atrocities of September 11. He stated: " … Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."

Bush stated further: " … We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Since September 11, Bush has refused all offers by the Taliban regime to negotiate any settlement of the war - including the status of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants in the al Qaeda terrorist network - short of outright surrender. As Bush once eloquently put it: bin Laden is "wanted, dead or alive." And for over two months, the U.S. has been systematically bombing the Taliban and al Qaeda day and night. Already, the Bush administration is planning the next phase of the war, which may involve U.S. military action in Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere.

So, in the two most recent examples of the U.S. being attacked on its own territory, America's predicate for peace has been the total annihilation of its enemies. And there is every reason to expect Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to have learned the same lesson.

Since 1948, Israel has been forced to fight 4 wars with the hostile nations surrounding her. Despite defeating her enemies on the battlefield, the international community has never permitted Israel to completely destroy any of these regimes - none of which are democracies. They've always been left largely in tact, free to start or support another war, including the current terrorist war now being waged against Israel's citizens. And between wars, Israel's enemies have convinced the world, including the U.S., that her borders and security are not only legitimate subjects of constant negotiations, but that Israel's refusal to accept most, if not all, of her enemies' demands is an obstacle to peace.

This week Hamas and other terrorist groups - which, like certain of the countries that surround Israel, seek the destruction of Israel, not co- existence or even the establishment of a Palestinian state - intensified their war against the Jewish state by unleashing 5 fanatic suicide bombers against innocent civilians, mostly children. The result: hundreds of casualties, including 26 dead. In the past 14 months, more than 230 Israelis have been killed - the proportional equivalent to the U.S. losing some 11,000 people.

In addition to Hamas, which receives support from Palestinian expatriates, wealthy Saudi Arabians, and Iran, Israel is under attack from, among others, Hizballah, which is supported by Syria and Iran, and Islamic Jihad, which is backed by Iran, Sudan and militant Islamic groups.

On December 4, in an address to his nation, Sharon stated: " … A war has been forced upon us. A war of terror. A war that claims innocent victims daily. A war of terror being conducted systematically, in an organized fashion, and with methodical direction. … We will pursue those responsible, the perpetrators of terrorism and the supporters. We will pursue them until we catch them, and they will pay a price."

Ironically, the major obstacle to Sharon implementing the Bush Doctrine has been U.S. Middle East policy. When attacked by terrorists, Israel has been urged to show "restraint," to make more negotiated concessions and even accept the creation of a hostile Palestinian state on its border. This week's carnage appears to have caused some positive change in America's rhetoric and position. The president has now pointed the finger of responsibility directly at Yassar Arafat for ending the terrorism committed by his people. But accomplishing peace requires more - much more.

Truman was right to insist that peace would only be realized after the "obliteration" of the Japanese war machine, just as Bush is right about "defeating" the Taliban, al Qaeda and other terrorist networks. It is, therefore, necessary that in the pursuit of real and lasting peace, Israel also be free to destroy its enemies - meaning the terrorists and, yes, their sponsors, who are at war with her, and that she do so before they obtain devastating weapons of mass destruction.

WWIII

2006-07-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

It would be something like:

Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Pakistan, China, 'Palestine', Libya, Somalia and Chechnya w/ Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Iraqi insurgency, Hezbollah, Jemaah Islamiyah, al aqsa martyrs brigades, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist groups

vs

USA, Israel, the UK, India, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Russia, Denmark, Poland and Kuwait.

It gets pretty blurry, though.

Where do the Saudi's side? Germany? France?

William F Buckley:

2006-06-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

A charter for Buffett-Gates

By William F. Buckley

Jun 27, 2006

The marriage of Buffett and Gates was a truly exhilarating event, even though it leaves the world hanging on the question whether there will be offspring remotely tall enough to do their parents proud.

The achievements were of separate orders. In the case of Bill Gates, you have, really, an invention. Whatever else came along, it is Microsoft's evolving operating system that was at the center of it, just as the automobile was at the center of the career of Henry Ford.

In the case of Warren Buffett, it was prudential brainpower working with the power of compounding. His company, under his direction, bought and sold for more than 40 years. He was not a man who contributed the idea of an automobile, or an operating system to drive a computer that did the work of 10,000 scribes. He simply looked around and bought this and sold the other, and in a little while he discovered that he was the second-richest man in the world.

What do you do when you are the second-richest? Why, unite with No. 1. The two men spoke admiringly of each other on the Charlie Rose show, revealing quiet admiration for singular talents and the special kind of joy that comes to an entity (the Gates Foundation) that yesterday was worth $30 billion, today is worth $60 billion.

But here are critical matters Buffett and Gates didn't discuss. First of these is retrospective.

What thoughts do we have about the means by which these two men accumulated a greater wealth than all the silver and gold brought out of the New World by Spain? After the Gilded Age was done, a generation was given to analyzing what had happened. Resentments and recriminations crystallized, and Major reforms were institutionalized, which provided against monopoly agglomerations.

But there hasn't been much critical commentary in the matter of Buffett-Gates. In the matter of Buffett, the reason for the lack of criticism is pretty obvious. There isn't a law against trading, and shouldn't be. In the matter of Gates, it is generally sensed that competition is already modestly in play. In any case, it can't any longer be contended that he alone controls computer communications, in the sense that he alone controlled Windows. It would not be easy to describe a single law that we all wish might retrospectively have been enacted 40 years ago to prevent Gates from accomplishing what he did. There is no canvas, save that which fumes at the capitalist system, in which he figures as a predatory beast.

But there was something else missing from the collaboration of Buffett and Gates with Charlie Rose. It was to be expected that Buffett would say about the Gates Foundation that it was the best foundation, so to speak, on the market. But he failed to say what it was that made it distinctive, beyond that it is worth $30 billion. We did get from Buffett that he thinks the market does a pretty good job. "I'm a big believer in the market system 95 percent of the time, but -- it's done pretty well for me."

The stated goal of Buffett-Gates is to go out into the world and address the two enduring problems of mankind, pestilence and poverty. But they did not tell us what exactly they intend to do, and it was disappointing that they didn't inquire into what it is that engenders poverty and sustains it.

One way to end poverty for the few is to give out packets of $10,000. Quite a few such could be handed out by the new foundation. Melinda Gates said, "We've got 1,000 kids a year on scholarships through one of our programs." But for all that Gates and his wife talked about the poverty they have seen all over the world, no thought was expressed on the cause of it. There was a passing derogation from Buffett: "A market system has not worked in terms of people, poor people around the world, with something -- with a disease (cure) that should be available for just peanuts."

What they did not talk about, and have given no evidence of preparing to address, is the endemic economic ignorance. More money even than their new foundation has accumulated has been spent in the same 40 years attempting to alleviate the hunger and poverty and disease of the continent of Africa, but journalists and scholars and travelers have relentlessly documented the terrible misjudgments -- and they are political misjudgments -- that stand in the way of a quiet productive war on poverty, which is what happens only when property is private and secure, government is nonintrusive, and political ideologies run out of town.

There is a challenging charter for Buffett-Gates.

White Guilt and Our Western Past

2006-06-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

its long, but it is probably the most brilliant piece i have read in many
years.

it is just absolutely brilliant/ read the whole thing.

Left Has Turned Their Guilt Into Our Problem
May 2, 2006


RUSH: I've got to start in sharing this Shelby Steele piece. "White Guilt
and the Western Past -- Why is America so Delicate with the Enemy?" [Wall
Street Journal, Opinion Journal Section, May 2nd 2006] He begins by
writing, "There is something rather odd in the way America has come to
fight its wars since World War II. For one thing, it is now unimaginable
that we would use anything approaching the full measure of our military
power (the nuclear option aside) in the wars we fight. And this seems only
reasonable given the relative weakness of our Third World enemies in
Vietnam and in the Middle East. But the fact is that we lost in Vietnam,
and today, despite our vast power, we are only slogging along -- if
admirably -- in Iraq against a hit-and-run insurgency that cannot stop us
even as we seem unable to stop it. Yet no one -- including, very likely,
the insurgents themselves -- believes that America lacks the raw power to
defeat this insurgency if it wants to.

"So clearly it is America that determines the scale of this war. It is
America, in fact, that fights so as to make a little room for an
insurgency. Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a
policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged
policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long
and rather passionless war against a weak enemy. Why this new minimalism
in war? It began," Mr. Steele says, he thinks, "in a late-20th-century
event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of
communism: THE WORLD-WIDE COLLAPSE OF WHITE SUPREMACY AS A SOURCE OF MORAL
AUTHORITY, POLITICAL LEGITIMACY AND EVEN SOVEREIGNTY.

"This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources,
imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the
majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After
World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from
Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority
inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat
exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the
white West -- like Germany after the Nazi defeat -- lives in a kind of
secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down
withering condemnation.

"There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned
authority. I call this white guilt not because it is a guilt of conscience
but because people stigmatized with moral crimes -- here racism and
imperialism -- lack moral authority and so act guiltily whether they feel
guilt or not. They struggle, above all else, to dissociate themselves from
the past sins they are stigmatized with. When they behave in ways that
invoke the memory of those sins, they must labor to prove that they have
not relapsed into their group's former sinfulness. So when America -- the
greatest embodiment of Western power -- goes to war in Third World Iraq,
it must also labor to dissociate that action from the great Western sin of
imperialism.

"Thus, in Iraq we are in two wars, one against an insurgency and another
against the past -- two fronts, two victories to win, one military, the
other a victory of dissociation." Now, I'll continue this after the break,
but when I first understood the premise after reading this I thought, no
way are we guilty. We're not so guilty that we will lose a war. But if you
continue to read Mr. Steele's piece, you have to conclude that he's nailed
it. But I think it has to be pointed out that it is the left in this
country, the left here in the world, who are guilty, and they have made
their guilty into our problem, and it has become -- it has almost
transformed their guilt into a hatred of this country, or a blaming of
this country based on their own self-loathing because of this guilt.

----------------------------------------
RUSH: Continuing now with Dr. Shelby Steele and his piece at
OpinionJournal.com today, "White Guilt and the Western Past." Now, stick
with me on this, folks, as I'll analyze this. This white guilt has a
specific meaning here. I think, as I said before the break, what I would
add to this is I think most of the white guilt is found on the left, and
all kinds of guilt is found over our prosperity; guilt at our power; guilt
at our superpower status. Now, keep all that in mind.

"The collapse of white supremacy -- and the resulting white guilt --
introduced a new mechanism of power into the world: stigmatization with
the evil of the Western past. And this stigmatization is power because it
affects the terms of legitimacy for Western nations and for their actions
in the world. In Iraq, America is fighting as much for the legitimacy of
its war effort as for victory in war. In fact, legitimacy may be the more
important goal. If a military victory makes us look like an imperialist
nation bent on occupying and raping the resources of a poor brown nation,
then victory would mean less because it would have no legitimacy.

"Europe would scorn. Conversely, if America suffered a military loss in
Iraq but in so doing dispelled the imperialist stigma, the loss would be
seen as a necessary sacrifice made to restore our nation's legitimacy.
Europe's halls of internationalism would suddenly open to us. Because
dissociation from the racist and imperialist stigma is so tied to
legitimacy in this age of white guilt, America's act of going to war can
have legitimacy only if it seems to be an act of social work -- something
that uplifts and transforms the poor brown nation (thus dissociating us
from the white exploitations of old). So our war effort in Iraq is
shrouded in a new language of social work in which democracy is cast as an
instrument of social transformation bringing new institutions, new
relations between men and women, new ideas of individual autonomy, new and
more open forms of education, new ways of overcoming poverty -- war as the
Great Society.

"This does not mean that President Bush is insincere in his desire to
bring democracy to Iraq, nor is it to say that democracy won't ultimately
be socially transformative in Iraq. It's just that today the United States
cannot go to war in the Third World simply to defeat a dangerous enemy.
White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people
whose problems -- even the tyrannies they live under -- were created by
the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must
'understand' and pity our enemy even as we fight him, [such as yesterday's
New York Times headline: "Saddam, Misunderstood."] And, though Islamic
extremism is one of the most pernicious forms of evil opportunism that has
ever existed, we have felt compelled to fight it with an almost managerial
minimalism that shows us to be beyond the passions of war -- and thus well
dissociated from the avariciousness of the white supremacist past."

It all adds up to the fact that we are afraid to win because we think it's
wrong -- and again, not talking about all of us collectively, I think
where he has nailed this here is identifying the mind-set on the left, not
just in this country, but around the world. We're actually afraid to win,
because there's no question, folks, how many times during this war have
you sat frustrated? We're the United States of America. What do we need to
put up with this insurgency and these IEDs and these car bombs? We could
win this war inside of two weeks to a month, but we refuse to, and that's
why this piece is so important, because we do fight these things in a
minimalist fashion, and all the while even while this is happening we are
told what a bunch of brutes and how unfair we are by the leftists in this
country, the Drive-By Media.

We still get hammered for the way we're doing it. You can't appease
people. It's like when you try to get along with the left, it never works.
They take advantage of you. They think you're a sap or a sucker. They
think you're exposing weakness. You can't make them your friends. They're
not interested in that. Same thing here. We can't make the world like us,
but this is I think from which these comments from John Kerry and all
this, "We've lost our standard in the world. We've lost our reputation."
Shelby Steele has nailed precisely why. These people are so self-loathing.
They have such disrespect for their own country and its past.

Kerry in Vietnam, the whole Democratic Party in the civil rights movement
which really was responsible for stopping integration early on in the
period, with all the Democrat mayors and governors and sheriffs down
there, and the senators who opposed the Civil Rights Act.
"Anti-Americanism," continues Mr. Steele, "whether in Europe or on the
American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes
America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white
Western past so that America becomes a kind of straw man, a construct of
Western sin. (The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons were the focus of such
stigmatization campaigns.) Once the stigma is in place, one need only be
anti-American in order to be 'good,' in order to have an automatic moral
legitimacy and power in relation to America."

You come out and oppose your country as the Democrats have about Abu
Ghraib, that gives them moral superiority. They've got the guts to
understand our past sins and to say we are continuing to commit them and
we need to stop, and it's the evil George Bush who needs to be reined in
-- not Al-Qaeda, not bin Laden, not Saddam, and not Mahmoud.

"(People as seemingly disparate as President Jacques Chirac and the Rev.
Al Sharpton are devoted pursuers of the moral high ground to be had in
anti-Americanism.) This formula is the most dependable source of power for
today's international left. Virtue and power by mere anti-Americanism. And
it is all the more appealing since, unlike real virtues, it requires no
sacrifice or effort -- only outrage at every slight echo of the
imperialist past. Today words like 'power' and 'victory' are so
stigmatized with Western sin that, in many quarters, it is politically
incorrect even to utter them." In fact, if you're Madeleine Albright, you
go out around the world and you lament the fact that we are the lone
superpower in the world. It is guilt that inspires this and self-loathing
and disgust for the country.

"For the West, 'might' can never be right. And victory, when won by the
West against a Third World enemy, is always oppression," is always going
to be called oppression. "But, in reality, military victory is also the
victory of one idea and the defeat of another. Only American victory in
Iraq defeats the idea of Islamic extremism. But in today's atmosphere of
Western contrition, it is impolitic to say so," and dangerous to proceed.
Now, this is profound. Let me read it again. "[M]ilitary victory is also
the victory of one idea and the defeat of another. Only American victory
in Iraq defeats the idea of Islamic extremism. But in today's atmosphere
of Western contrition [and guilt], it is impolitic to say so," and even
accomplish it.

"America and the broader West are now going through a rather tender era, a
time when Western societies have very little defense against the moral
accusations that come from their own left wings and from those vast
stretches of nonwhite humanity that were once so disregarded. Europeans
are utterly confounded by the swelling Muslim populations in their midst.
America has run from its own mounting immigration problem for decades, and
even today, after finally taking up the issue, our government seems
entirely flummoxed. White guilt is a vacuum of moral authority visited on
the present by the shames of the past. In the abstract it seems a slight
thing, almost irrelevant, an unconvincing proposition.

"Yet a society as enormously powerful as America lacks the authority to
ask its most brilliant, wealthy and superbly educated minority students to
compete freely for college admission with poor whites who lack all these
things. Just can't do it." We need the victims. The left needs its victims
in order to continue to promote this guilt, show that we're still
committing these sins.

"Whether the problem is race relations, education, immigration or war,
white guilt imposes so much minimalism and restraint that our worst
problems tend to linger and deepen. Our leaders work within a double bind.
If they do what is truly necessary to solve a problem -- win a war, fix
immigration -- they lose legitimacy. To maintain their legitimacy, they
practice the minimalism that makes problems linger. What but minimalism is
left when you are running from stigmatization as a 'unilateralist cowboy'?
And where is the will to truly regulate the southern border when those who
ask for this are slimed as bigots? This is how white guilt defines what is
possible in America. You go at a problem until you meet stigmatization,
then you retreat into minimalism."

He's exactly right, folks. It's a brilliant, brilliant piece. He has
nailed it. This is again Shelby Steele: "White Guilt and the Western
Past," at OpinionJournal.com today. "Possibly white guilt's worst effect
is that it does not permit whites -- and nonwhites -- to appreciate
something extraordinary: the fact that whites in America, and even
elsewhere in the West, have achieved a truly remarkable moral
transformation. One is forbidden to speak thus, but it is simply true.
There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today,
because whites see this idea as morally repugnant. If there is still the
odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of
whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities.

"This is a fact that must be integrated into our public life -- absorbed
as new history -- so that America can once again feel the moral authority
to seriously tackle its most profound problems. Then, if we decide to go
to war, it can be with enough ferocity to win." Amen, bro! This is just a
grand-slam home run. He is essentially saying we're not committing sin.
There may be the lone bigot out there who's outlived his time, but the
vast majority of Americans have no desire to practice the sins of the
past, to be discriminatory and so forth. We've moved beyond it, and yet
nobody wants that to be stated because there are too many people who
benefit from the idea that we're still like we were in the 1800s and all
the way through the 1960s and '70s.

There's an entire industry in fact that has cropped up to maintain that
mind-set within as many groups of people in this country as possible. So I
would urge you to follow the link to this. We'll link to it at
RushLimbaugh.com. You can find it now at OpinionJournal.com, because in
this piece he has explained so much of the left's attitudes and the effect
that they have had and continue to have on the country. People have asked
me my entire sterling career, "Can you explain liberals to me? How can
somebody be one?" and it's not possible to explain it in brief. There are
many facets and characteristics, but I've always told people that at the
foundation of it is guilt, guilt over so many things.

I just never had the intellectual power to express it as powerfully here
as Shelby Steele has. You really need to read this, folks, and absorb it.
It will explain why we're not doing anything about immigration, because
we're afraid what people are going to say about us. We're afraid to
succeed. We're afraid to do what we know is morally right because we're
afraid of the stigmatization of our past being attached to present day
activities. We're afraid to actually go out and fight a war and win it or
deal with a problem like immigration and solve it because of the
ramifications of what will be thought of us, what will be said of us by
the left not only in this country, but around the world.

2006-04-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

Oil

2006-04-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Who's Gouging?

The Federal Government's Three-Month Take from ExxonMobil Sales: Nearly $17,000,000,000 (Plus They Took a Chunk of the Company's $8.4B Profits)

The demagogues denounce ExxonMobil's profits,
but the government takes double that for itself, and does absolutely nothing to produce gas for your car...

Massachusetts Institutes Socialized Medicine

2006-04-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hours of Sleep Per Night on Average Last 30 Days: between 4 and 5. Hours of sleep missed due to insomnia, last 30 days: 0.

Massachusetts Set to Offer Universal Health Care

The relevant line in the article "The bill, which resulted after months of wrangling between legislators and the governor, requires all Massachusetts residents to obtain health coverage by July 1, 2007."

My coworker, at a health care - related firm in Maryland, said it all here:

Her: "Is that socialized health care?"
Me: "No comment."
Her:"I think that is a great idea. I don't even care if I lose my job - they should do it here in Maryland."
Me: jaw hits the floor.

My coworker acknowledges the utter failure of socialized medicine. She admits it may cost her her job! She understands socialized medicine will compromise the efficiencies offered by the private sector. Yet she still supports it! Expect fireworks next week.

Talking About Walls

2006-04-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

The 700 mile fence proposed to help protect the United States border with Mexico is being compared to other walls from history. The moral relativism of those comparisons are glaring.

Unlike the wall used in East Berlin, metaphorical and real walls used in North Korea and walls used China and the former Soviet Union the wall proposed on the US southern border is to keep people OUT.

That is the difference. People want to come here. They want to come in. In East Berlin the wall was used to keep people IN. People are free to leave the United States. Rarely do they want to. If people were free to leave East Berlin, they would have wanted to. They would have left in droves. That is why they built a wall to keep people in.

The US, (and Israel too), build walls to prevent people from coming in that would disrupt the things that the US does that keeps people wanting to live here. Got that? We don't want to descend into the type of country that people want to flee from. And we do that by keeping people from coming here who want to terrorize us (i.e. 9/11), people who want to socialize us (i.e. eurocrat remnants of socialized east europe or france), or people who want to usurp us (i.e. mexicans who want to reclaim 'Aztalan').

The wall is not a symbol of oppression - it a symbol of freedom and sovereignty.

Context Modeling

2006-04-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

As far as Modeling techniques go, I am finding Context Modeling to be one of my favorites. Instead of boring you with the details, the Model provides a graphical summary view of a process, a system, a role - I like to use it in many ways.

Here is an example I found during a Google Image Search (GIS):

I prefer this one because it has all the red-shaded boxes in the center enclosed by a larged blue-shaded box. I prefer Context Diagrams that show, visually, what pieces are part of an enclosed system, such as all of the red-shaded boxes over Context Diagrams that do not.

If I were process modeling, I would have four parts. To the left would be the Inputs. Inputs could include people, documents, triggers, anything that will initiate the process. The center will be the process as the large box, and all the steps of the process as small boxes enclosed therein. On the right will be the Outputs. This could be documents, results, triggers for another process, people, I have a lot of levity with this. On the bottom will be a brief summary of the systems used, (but not a long detail on how and when to use them.) It is a good overview. It helps a user new to the process to visually see and map it out. Think of the Context Diagram as an Outline. After the outline is complete, you fill in the details.

To the Back of the Line?

2006-04-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

The esteemed Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kenndey, marshaled Immigration Reform through Congress in 1965. It was an utter failure and gives us the present situation. Ironically enough, Kennedy is still around to reform his own failed bill. Last week Kennedy was quoted as saying, paraphrased, this reform "will put illegals at the back of the line." Teddy, the 11 million illegals in this country now are not in the front of the line and they will not go to the back of the line. There is no line! They are here already. That's the point - the illegals are here, with jobs, at our emergency rooms, and not paying taxes.

Here are some choice words from Kennedy from 1965:

"Our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, the bill will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia -- and in the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think."

He was right, we are at only 500,000 illegals annually.

"No immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public charge."

LBJ said "This bill we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not restructure the shape of our daily lives." In 1965.

Hart-Seller is the bill. Look it up.

Busy Scale

2006-03-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

No postings in forever. I know. On a busy scale of 1 to 10, where when I wasn't going to school and was unemployed = 1 and the busiest time of my life was a 10, I am at about a 13 or 14 right now. I am redefining 'busiest point of my life' each new day. Besides juggling jobs, school, car, house, research project, presentation, travel, etc, etc, taxes, investments, i am loving it.

Also, the average hours of sleep per night is dwindling into the 4-5 hours range. Love it.
I am more energized than ever. I wish I could bottle and sell this.

Documentation Change Management

2006-03-02T04:46:00.000-08:00

To continue a prior post:

The first I need when I see an orphan paper (hard) copy of valuable system or process documentation is the title, date, electronic location and author. Is this current? Is this accurate? Who made this and is this person still accessible? The problem I have successfully overcome in my current task has had to answer those questions.

Here I have documents created by an employee no longer with my current employer and no longer accessible. There was no header or footer to provide me the file location (the share drive and directory the file can be found under), there is no date on the document to show the currency of the information contained therein and the author didn't even sign his own work! At least sign the document to give yourself credit, if for no other reason!

All of these relatively easy and mundane tasks are appreciated by the sloppy seconds guy who has to come in and make sense of all the documentation that is at my disposal. Instead, I am cubicle Jack Bauer trying to unravel a secret terrorist cell operating out of some cave. Ok, what Jack does may be slightly more difficult.

Finally, lets talk about versioning. Versioning a document is when multiple versions or drafts of the document are saved and when a new version is created, instead of saving it over a prior version and erasing that version; the new version is "Saved As" an entire new document. Subsequent users can 'see' the evolution of the document over time as it is changed, improved, or updated. One added benefit is that old or outdated policies (organizational memory) are not forever lost. Sometimes rules change, but change back to the way they once were. By keeping the old version, the organization can reinstitute the old policies with the ease of a flip of a switch. The organization can refer to past policies by perusing old documents saved or old versions of the current document that have been wisely archived. And trust me, the organization will sooner or later need to reference the old documents.

The Documentation Trap

2006-03-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

Pat yourself on the back. You have documented your systems and processes. Now someone can refer back to that documentation and upgrade your systems and processes. Some day. Or so you thought.

That someday snuck up on you faster than thought. And that someone can't. They can't find the documents, and when they do they don't know how to read them or what they mean. And so they just decided to start all over again.

And here we are at the documentation trap. Because change is constant and your documentation procedures turned a blind eye to change management. What did you do wrong and can you do to rectify the problem?

. . . more to come.

. . . open question for now.

Fantastic Essay by Michael Crichton

2006-02-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

"Once I looked at Chernobyl, I began to recall other fears in my life that had never come true. The population bomb, for one. Paul Ehrlich predicted mass starvation in the 1960s. Sixty million Americans starving to death. Didn’t happen. Other scientists warned of mass species extinctions by the year 2000. Ehrlich himself predicted that half of all species would become extinct by 2000. Didn’t happen. The Club of Rome told us we would run out of raw materials ranging from oil to copper by the 1990s. That didn’t happen, either.

It’s no surprise that predictions frequently don’t come true. But such big ones! And so many! All my life I worried about the decay of the environment, the tragic loss of species, the collapse of ecosystems. I feared poisoning by pesticides, alar on apples, falling sperm counts from endocrine disrupters, cancer from power lines, cancer from saccharine, cancer from cell phones, cancer from computer screens, cancer from food coloring, hair spray, electric razors, electric blankets, coffee, chlorinated water…it never seemed to end.

Only once, when on the same day I read that beer was a preservative of heart muscle and also a carcinogen did I begin to sense the bind I was in. But for the most part, I just went along with what I was being told."

Better read the rest . . .

Google: Fears Bush Admin More than China

2006-02-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

From the linked article:

"Responding to a motion by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Google also said in a filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California the government demand to disclose Web search data was impractical.

The Bush administration is seeking to compel Google to hand over Web search data as part of a bid by the Justice Department to appeal a 2004 Supreme Court injunction of a law to penalize Web site operators who allow children to view pornography.

Google is going it alone in opposing the U.S. government request. Rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are among the companies that have complied with the Justice Department demand for data to be used to make its case."

It is amazing that the world's top Internet company has harsher criticism for the U.S. Government than it does for China. Google is a very liberal company. One of the Google cofounders is a Russian transplant to the US. While they may be brilliant, and highly profitable, Google is not necessarily a very pro-capitalist firm. To do communist China's bidding abroad and then wax eloquent at home is highly hypocritical. Then again, Blogger is a Google-owned enterprise.

I'll dumb-it-down for everyone: Google IS now evil.

Cheney Accidents Shows Remarkable Steps in Hunting Safety

2006-02-18T06:15:00.000-08:00

Full Disclosure: I don't hunt, I don't own a gun. (For those who want to come to my house and beat me, I DO own a gun).

If you had heard that a 78-year-old man was shot in the face and the neck, and that some of the birdshot had gone into his heart it would be miraculous to think that he would be released from hospital and talking to the media within the week. Especially for non-hunters like myself. But that is just what happened. Those unfamiliar with hunting may just assume the man will die - after all, old man gets shot in the face and neck, he couldn't possibly live? Thats what happens in the movies.

Remarkable strides in technology have enabled hunters to use weapons custom designed for the game they wish to hunt and reduce the chances an accident such as the Cheney shooting puts innocent human life in jeopardy. Also too, we underestimate the resiliency of the human body. The point I am trying to make is that just because a hunter is shot, it doesn't mean it is over for him.

Don't get me wrong, anytime someone gets shot is dangerous and abhorrent. And that person needs medical attention right away. But quail hunting is not like the setting on James Bond 007 - one shot, one kill. There is a middle ground. There is nuance.

MARK STEYN ONCE AGAIN SHOWS BRILLIANCE

2006-02-05T06:27:00.000-08:00

'Sensitivity' can have brutal consequences

February 5, 2006

BY MARK STEYN [Chicago] SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

I long ago lost count of the number of times I've switched on the TV and seen crazy guys jumping up and down in the street, torching the Stars and Stripes and yelling ''Death to the Great Satan!'' Or torching the Union Jack and yelling ''Death to the Original If Now Somewhat Arthritic And Semi-Retired Satan!'' But I never thought I'd switch on the TV and see the excitable young lads jumping up and down in Jakarta, Lahore, Aden, Hebron, etc., etc., torching the flag of Denmark.

Denmark! Even if you were overcome with a sudden urge to burn the Danish flag, where do you get one in a hurry in Gaza? Well, OK, that's easy: the nearest European Union Humanitarian Aid and Intifada-Funding Branch Office. But where do you get one in an obscure town on the Punjabi plain on a Thursday afternoon? If I had a sudden yen to burn the Yemeni or Sudanese flag on my village green, I haven't a clue how I'd get hold of one in this part of New Hampshire. Say what you like about the Islamic world, but they show tremendous initiative and energy and inventiveness, at least when it comes to threatening death to the infidels every 48 hours for one perceived offense or another. If only it could be channeled into, say, a small software company, what an economy they'd have.

Meanwhile, back in Copenhagen, the Danes are a little bewildered to find that this time it's plucky little Denmark who's caught the eye of the nutters. Last year, a newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published several cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, whose physical representation in art is forbidden by Islam. The cartoons aren't particularly good and they were intended to be provocative. But they had a serious point. Before coming to that, we should note that in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags. When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.

Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith.

Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.

Jyllands-Posten wasn't being offensive for the sake of it. They had a serious point -- or, at any rate, a more serious one than Britney Spears or Terence McNally. The cartoons accompanied a piece about the dangers of "self-censorship" -- i.e., a climate in which there's no explicit law forbidding you from addressing the more, er, lively aspects of Islam but nonetheless everyone feels it's better not to.

That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.

One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.

No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."

And doubtless the British foreign secretary also appreciates the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And the "sensitivity" of the Dutch film director Albert Ter Heerdt, who canceled the sequel to his hit multicultural comedy ''Shouf Shouf Habibi!'' on the grounds that "I don't want a knife in my chest" -- which is what happened to the last Dutch film director to make a movie about Islam: Theo van Gogh, on whose ''right to dissent'' all those Hollywood blowhards are strangely silent. Perhaps they're just being "sensitive,'' too.

And perhaps the British foreign secretary also admires the "sensitivity" of those Dutch public figures who once spoke out against the intimidatory aspects of Islam and have now opted for diplomatic silence and life under 24-hour armed guard. And maybe he even admires the "sensitivity" of the increasing numbers of Dutch people who dislike the pervasive fear and tension in certain parts of the Netherlands and so have emigrated to Canada and New Zealand.

Very few societies are genuinely multicultural. Most are bicultural: On the one hand, there are folks who are black, white, gay, straight, pre-op transsexual, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, worshippers of global-warming doom-mongers, and they rub along as best they can. And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.

One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there's very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity and Sharia. As a famously sensitive Dane once put it, "To be or not to be, that is the question."

© Mark Steyn, 2006

Forbes: Big Government Means More Corruption

2006-01-22T11:34:00.000-08:00

STEVE FORBES:

Beltway Banditry: Don't Expect Real Reform

The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal is grotesque, but it is not unprecedented in Washington history. Before the Civil War most Americans' only contact with the federal government was through the Post Office. Now contact occurs ubiquitously. The scandals that tarnished Ulysses S. Grant's presidency over 130 years ago were a sign of things to come. As more money flowed through Washington and as Washington's power to regulate our lives grew, opportunities and temptations for graft, influence peddling and cutting corners grew exponentially. Power breeds corruption.

And this will not be the last such case as long as our central government remains so huge and pervasive in our national life. Abramoff's big wrongdoing was in shaking down Indian tribes that wanted either to get casino licenses or to protect current casinos from competition. We don't need a raft of new laws--Abramoff and his ilk broke plenty of existing ones. He could spend a decade or more behind bars.

But gleeful Democrats (even though some of their politicos will be tarred by the Abramoff brush) and panicked Republicans will be eager to pass reform measures to demonstrate to angry voters that, yes, they are truly against corruption. One temptation: enacting more laws to further the hopeless task of banning money from politics. Expect a boatload of proposals for public financing of congressional campaigns and even more public financing of presidential ones. But these will only further complicate our increasingly IRS-like election laws.

As long as Washington spends so much of our money--$2.6 trillion a year at last count--and exercises so much life-and-death power over so many segments of our economy, affected people and interests will find ways to get their points of view across. Our Constitution makes it clear we have the right to petition our representatives. But some reformers will try to ban campaign contributions from affected interests. They and eager prosecutors will try to make the mere contributing of money to politicians the equivalent of a bribe. Thus, if your senator opposes more regulation on gun ownership and receives a contribution from gun owners or the National Rifle Association, prosecutors will try to twist that into a crime. But why shouldn't gun owners or those who simply believe in the Second Amendment have the right to support candidates and incumbents who share their views?

There are effective steps, however, that could be taken to lessen the likelihood of future Abramoff-like scandals. But you won't hear much advocacy for them.

Our tax code--all 9 million words of it--is the biggest source of lobbying and corruption in Washington. The thing has been amended 14,000 times since 1986. Tax bills have become feeding frenzies for special interests, as well as a way for pols to try to buy votes through manufacturing ever more tax credits. The flat tax would eliminate all of this.

Similar frenzies are now regular occurrences with various appropriations bills. Two decades ago Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill that had some 150 earmarks, that is, special appropriations to specific projects that would be exempt from the normal enactment process and regulatory scrutiny. Reagan thought so many corruption-inviting earmarks were an abomination. Yet a Republican President and a Republican Congress passed a highway bill last summer with more than 6,000 earmarks.

Deregulation also reduces the influence of and need for lobbyists. But the White House has dragged its heels in deregulating our whole communications industry. Television, radio, cable, satellite and telephone companies still wage tong wars against one another for special regulatory advantages, even though the Internet has obliterated the traditional boundaries between these segments. These wars generate a gusher in contributions and lobbying fees.

Another breeder of the Washington-is-the-world-and-we-are-indispensable mentality is longevity. But don't look to Congress to enact term limits on itself anytime soon.

Another necessary reform is cleaning up the way we draw district boundaries. In no other democracy is the process of districting so politicized as it is here. Most federal and state legislators no longer face any real competition in general elections. Rare is the federal election cycle in which fewer than 95% of the incumbents in the House of Representatives running for reelection fail to get reelected. Competition not only is good for business but also is a necessity in politics.

The flat tax, term limits, redistricting reform, greater transparency in writing legislation--alas, don't expect such potent antibiotics to be prescribed for the Abramoff lobbying infection.

Ahmadine - What? [Update]

2006-01-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

Another pronunciation I have heard is "Ah- mahd - E - neh jahd"

The plot thickens.

Can Matt Drudge Go More Nuts Over Brokeback Mountain?

2006-01-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

Matt Drudge has been in an orgy over Brokeback Mountain for going on his third month now. Or more.
Without getting into the details of why he is going nuts about the Gay Cowboy Film, the prominence he gives to the Munich/ Brokeback 'controversy' or competition is disproportional to its real importance. He may disagree, but with issues such as Iran, a battle over an award like the Grammy, which seems to gaining more and more insignificance with each far-left politically charged choice as the winner involving a film nobody will see and that is being played at no theaters is a nonplus.

Focus on the real issues of the day, Drudge. Don't compromise your keen ability to pick out what is and isn't important by giving us the play-by-play of a Grammy competition your regular readers couldn't care less about. Do conservatives really put a lot of weight in the decisions of a far far -left panel of kook Hollywood liberals for the best far far -left kook movie production? Does anyone besides the far -left liberal kook base?

I have no problems with Drudge. His site is great. But don't put too much stock in the whether or not a movie wins a meaningless award.

Ahmadine - What?

2006-01-17T16:48:00.000-08:00

This is the psycho president of Iran. He wants to start nuking places, like Israel.

How the heck do we pronounce this guy's name?

First, the Ahmad part. Think Ahmad Rashad

That guy ^

Now the rest. Ahmadinejad. Does the last part - jad - rhyme with rad or God? So it could be Ahmadinejadd or Ahmadinejod.

Now the middle. Is the middle like din - a or like dine?

This is how I say it:

Ah- modd- din'a- jawd

good day.

Alito Hearing Analysis

2006-01-12T04:51:00.000-08:00

Have they let Alito speak yet?

I have heard more about this tearful wife than Alito over the past 12 hours. This is supposed to be about the nominee, not Schumer and Kennedy and Biden waxing eloquent for hours on end. Nobody wants to hear from you. This isn't about you.

Wireless Internet Not Available Here

2006-01-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

Exorcising one frustration here.

Popping up in coffee bars, restaurants, labs, hotels and anywhere else where people maywant to gather and use the internet are signs that say "Wireless Internet Available Here".

The only problem? Wireless Internet is not available here, there or anywhere. It is one thing to buy a router and set up a wireless network. It is yet another to make sure it is working. And more and more I am finding that these networks set up are poorly maintained, if at all.

The primary point of contact for the customer hoping to use the wireless service on premises is usually a server, barista or clerk who has no training or experience with the network. Any issues with the network cannot be addressed immediately, and undermine the benefits of the service - Internet at the place you want, when you are there. Without immediate technical support, the wireless service provides no benefits to the location. Successful places will outsource support to a phone number the customer can call when support is not available (i.e. a coffee shop may not provide daily technical support for their LAN, but can outsource that function to call center. Since most customers carry their cell phones around, this is usually acceptable.)

Common errors will include a secured network, but the neither the customers nor the employees of the location know the WEP key or password.

The Internet connection, for whatever reason, has been disconnected at the point of the router and no one has access. The server/ clerk/ barista may not be trained to restore the connection.

The router has a weak signal and the connection goes in and out depending on where you are sitting and what factors in the local environment disturbs the signal to your computer. For example, the signal at the Fort Lauderdale airport can change from nonexistent to excellent just by shifting a few feet and aiming my pc in a slightly different direction - until the hall traffic walks in between my notebook and the receivers located throughout the airport. And it is definitely something that the gate attendent or ticket agent for my airline will not know how to troubleshoot.

Sometimes places underestimate how popular their LAN's will be (since they are actually working, people decided to come out and use them) and do not provide enough bandwidth. Without the capacity to handle all the Internet surfers on premises, the connection times in and out or moves too slow to provide a benefit.

My favorite is when my pc says that the network is connected, the signal is very strong, but the number of packets received is less than half of those sent and the browser connection is ultimately unsuccessful.

It is more frustrating because you won't know the wireless network at your new favorite location doesn't work until you have sat down, ordered a coffee, plugged in and turned on your computer and tried it out. By then you have committed a great deal of time (and money).

Finally, one is less likely to enjoy using the wireless internet at a location they may worry their notebook will be stolen. Whether it is a trip to the bathroom or to talk with friends, one may not want to always have one eye on their notebook during their stay on the premises. A secure storage location on premises would be a valuable service to provide.

Google PC, Sold At Wal-Mart for $200?

2006-01-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

Breaking all over the blogosphere and beyond are stories related to the Google PC, using its own Operating System and to sell for $200.

Here's an idea. I don't know how much Google's PC relates to my idea, but how about a cheap pc that just lets you surf the net and nothing else? A specialist machine where you can go on the net and do all the work you need to do and that's it? It would have limited file storage, if any, no Word, no Excel, no Powerpoint or any other programs - just a web browser. In fact, the web browser would basically be the OS. By stripping it down, you make it cheap.

I can see another machine that is stripped down even more that. If would be a portable search device. Basically, it hooks to the internet, but only to a limited set of trusted search sites - one for mapping, driving directions; one for retail shopping, price comparisons; one for checking your flight status; one for weather; one for tracking packages; one for searching news, sports. Its a mobile Google device. It doesn't take pictures, it doesn't make phone calls and it doesn't schedule your appointments. Just get on the net and find what you need. Oh, and for $100 or less. It eventually will be done.

Google News Adds Many Blog Sources

2006-01-01T19:23:00.000-08:00

I have noticed that the Google News feed is getting more and more liberal with its News sources. The line between traditional or main stream media and blogs has now been raized as both appear with nearly equal weight through the Google News search.

Indeed Google has been bombarded with withering criticism from bloggers for not including their own sites in the news feed, even though some may just link back to some main stream newspaper. Google may have responded by just opening up and letting all the blogs qualify as "news sources" and leave it up the web surfer to click the ones they want to read. An interesting development that will be monitored.

Showing the MSM How It Is Done:

2005-12-30T21:25:00.000-08:00

"[t]here is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction [...] Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will."

Farris Hassan, 16-year-old Iraqi-American living in Fort Lauderdale. Written during his secret journey to Baghdad.

While the New York Times and Newsweek and all the other left-wing media continue their anti-american orgy, we have a maverick reporter in the making with Farris Hassan. His innovative strategery - go patriotic. Its a crazy enough idea that it just might work. Report the news pro-america and pro-iraq. Clearly define good and evil. Choose the side of good. Do not employ moral equivalence. Call the terrorists terrorists. This kid has a bright future.

Population Migrates South, West

2005-12-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

The Boston press reports that only three states lost population in 2005: Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. That's right, northeastern liberal states. The states gaining the most in population? In the south and west: Nevada, Florida, Utah, Arizona and Idaho.

Why are people moving out?

"Experts attribute the trend to soaring housing costs, a stagnant job market and the arrival of fewer immigrants."

Yeah, the people who remain in Massachusetts and New York keep voting for the John Kerry's and Ted Kennedy's and Hillary Clintons and they probably will always continue. But there are fewer and fewer of them around doing so. And Kerry and Kennedy and Clinton will continue to see the number of people they represent diminishing.

Everyone else is voting with their feet. They are moving to southern and western conservative republican states where housing is cheap and jobs are plentiful. Kerry and Kennedy and Clinton can have the northeast. Soon one will wonder why anybody would even want it.

VDH, A Moral Case

2005-12-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

December 20, 2005
Iraq and Moral Distortion
by Victor Davis Hanson
The American Enterprise Magazine

The war that began on September 11, 2001 has unfortunately pushed international moral relativism and anti-Americanism back onto the front burner. Ugly paradoxes abound:

European and American journalists agonized over a purportedly mistreated Koran in Guantanamo Bay, yet remain silent about the police state right outside of Gitmo’s walls.

Sexual stupidity at Abu Ghraib gets far more weight than the thousands murdered in the same building by the dictatorship that America ended.

The U.N. is held up as a morally superior alternative to coalitions of the willing, even after the vast Oil-for-Food scandal that enriched Saddam and U.N. insiders at the expense of everyday Iraqi lives has been exposed.

France and Germany present themselves as alternatives to U.S. leadership in solving the problems of the Middle East, even though they were the main traffickers with Saddam up until the very eve of the war, and have sent money to terror groups like Hamas.

The U.S., which has welcomed millions of Arab immigrants, and given billions in aid to Egypt, Palestine, and Jordan, and rescued Muslims in Kuwait, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, and Afghanistan must now plead that we are not anti-Muslim.

How did America’s willingness to remove fascistic and odious regimes like the Taliban and Iraqi Baathism result in such a skewed moral reaction?

First, for a great many Western elites, and the Third-World intellectuals who take their cues from them, it is a given that anything the United States is for, they are against. America enrages these people, while they merely blink away al Qaeda terrorists and Arab dictators. We glimpse this pathology in Cindy Sheehan’s indictment of President Bush as a “terrorist,” or Senator Kennedy’s slander that “Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.”

Second, the problem is deepened when the Administration fails to make the full moral case for our current Middle East policy, and speaks only in the abstract about installing democracy and eliminating the horrors of the Taliban and Hussein pasts. In truth, the United States is engaged in one of the grandest efforts in international rebuilding of the last century. Not since the postwar liberation of Japanese women, and the breakup of landed monopolies in Japan, has any postwar humanitarian reform of this cultural and social scope taken place.

How perverse that Americans — long branded as cynical opportunists for backing strongmen who pumped oil and kept out communists — are now derided as naive fools who do not appreciate the hierarchies of tribal Islam, because we now traffic in idealism.

Then there is oil. The entry of China and India into the global petroleum market has encouraged cutthroat self-interest. Almost everything a France, Germany, India, or China does in international affairs in the future will be predicated on improving its own access to oil supplies. That’s why Putin’s Russia and Chavez’s Venezuela and near-nuclear Iran and Wahabi Saudi Arabia are increasingly immune from global criticism; they have petroleum to sell. Yet it is America that gets accused of trading blood for oil!

there's more. read it all.

Crazy Soy and Tofu Influenza

2005-12-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

Much fuss has been made over Bird Flu and Mad Cow Disease. The scare cycle kicks in for either one of these maladies and riles up a lot of unneeded worry and fear. Let me not diminish outbreaks in the UK or in Vietnam, but hardly as much attention is drawn to automobile deaths which number in the tens of thousands a year on American roads.

Switching course temporarily, there is also a segment of our current population that go to extreme lengths to defend the rights of animals. This segment of the population has defended animals held as pets against inhumane treatment, has argued for animals that are slaughtered for human consumption and go so far as to sue in courts on behalf of cetaceans to stop the use of sonar in oceans by the military or oil companies. This is your commune-living, capitalism-hating soy and tofu crowd. These people call you and I speciest - we are discriminatory to other species. We eat them, after all!

I cannot but help but the scare tactics described in the first paragraph and the ideological movement described in the second paragraph are related. You never hear about any deadly endemics originating from soy or tofu. More to come.

Government Spying

2005-12-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

"I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups."

President Bush Radio Address.

The president has admitted to secret spying on American citizens and defiantly states he will continue to do so. The lefty blogs literally exploded hearing this. Lefties have been trying for four years now to get Bush on record admitting spying activities on within this country. They cast the activities as unconstitutional and criminal. This will be a basis for a possible impeachment. This will be the Bush scandal. Not Abu Ghraib, not Valerie Plame - but government spying.

I applaud the president. I think government is too big. I think small government is best. But I applaud the president for watching would-be home-grown terrorists secretly. The liberal assumption is that the spying was kept secret because it would not garner public support. The assumption is if the government is not willing to tell the public, it is because if the government did we wouldn't support it. That is dead wrong. The spying is kept secret so that the program is effective - so that the bad guys don't know and we catch them. Why is that so hard to understand?

Whoever leaked this story to the NY Times - who published the article that got this whole story running - should be strung up a tree and hung. Seriously. Republican or Democrat. Notice how the media, who bashed Scooter Libby and Karl Rove daily for months, have no problem with the person who LEAKED this story to the NY Times. Not a second thought, not a concern, not a critism. I guess leaking top-secret government information is only OK when it hurts the current administration. If leaking top-secret government information helps the current administration and the country - that awful. If it hurts the administration and hurts the country - keep it coming. You will get invited to elitist liberal parties on the upper west side or in San Francisco or in Hollywood.

If there is one area where government should be stronger - and I think education should be privatized, health care more privatized, social security privatized, and on and on - it is national defense. Our national defense as it is now is antiquated. The world is flat now. This program that the president has secretly instituted adjusts to a changing enemy, to an enemy that is successful not with large, centrally controlled armies; but with small disconnected cells. Our enemies have innovated their methods of attacking us, we must innovate and change the way we defend the country to be successful against this new breed. This is what the president is doing.

20 Feet is Too Far?

2005-12-16T04:56:00.000-08:00

I am learning a new project from two coworkers who share an office about 20 feet down the hall and around a bend from my cubicle. (Yes, your esteemed blogger is relegated to a cubicle.) And for some reason that I cannot fathom, the coworkers who are teaching me this new task are beginning to get upset because I am too far away from them to learn the process. Currently this is in 'muttering under your breadth mode' [them, not me] but I can see the writing on the wall that this will bubble to the surface.

I did work with them one-on-one to learn the basics, but now I need to do the work from my cubicle and while I am still learning it out, I have to get it done by a certain deadline. And sure I made mistakes. I do not deny that. But I have been double-and triple-checking my work and working very hard. Heck, I am blogging it.

Why do I bring up this seemingly meaningless trivialty of my day? This is a perfect example for me to use. Old school business versus new school business.

Here I am learning what many would see as a plain vanilla process at this company, and may superiors are frazzled over 20 feet. Indeed, the twenty feet that separates my cubicle from their office is the literal breaking point. Of course that is ridiculous. Instead of using readily available and cheap technology solutions to near the 20 foot distance, the decision that will be made [not by me] is to have me jammed into the office. Is that such a problem? Yes. 1) There is no room. 2) I have no pc in there, so I can't get my work done. 3) The duo in the office are subject to nonstop interruptions. 4) The so-called personalized attention utopia I receive when in the office in physical form is myth. Its basically watch us do the work and try to pick it up.

Ok, so I have read so far and I still have no idea what this guy is talking about? Sorry folks I can't give specific details. I need to keep some sort of privacy and I don't want to overreact.

I am reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat and here are two quotes:

Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani like to dsy, in a flat world there I “fungible and nonfungible work.” Work that can be easily digitized and transferred to lower-wage locations is fungible. … For instance, you are not going to go to Bangalore to find an internist or a divorce lawyer, but your divorce lawyer may one day use a legal aide in Bangalore for basic research or to write up vanilla legal documents, and your internist may use a nighthawk radiologist in Bangalore to read your CAT scan.”

Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat” 2005, p. 238-9

Using French-made airplane design software, the Russian engineers collaborate with their colleagues at Boeing America – in both Seattle and Wichita, Kansas – in computer-aided airplane designs. Boeing has set up a twenty-four-hour workday. It consists of two shifts in Moscow and one shift in America. Using fiber-optic cables, advanced compression technologies, and aeronautical work flow software, ‘they just pass their designs back and forth from Moscow to America,’ Pickering [a former US Ambassador to Russia] said. There are videoconferencing facilities on every floor of Boeing’s Moscow office, so the engineers don’t have to rely on e-mail when they have a problem to solve with their American counterparts.

Thomas L. Friedman, “The World is Flat” 2005, p. 195

If my company can't handle outsourcing to 20 feet, how can we possibly compete against companies who are outsourcing halfway across the globe and back? And how long should I work under such leadership?

Breaking *** Perdue Plant Explosion in Salisbury, Maryland

2005-12-13T05:49:00.000-08:00

Injuries NOT serious.

The Random Access Database

2005-12-08T04:42:00.000-08:00

My employer has asked me to develop a few Access databases. Some I have made, some are in-progress (are they ever not?) and some may be further down the line.

Second, my employer has several access databases floating around on the shared drives. Some were developed by people in the IT department, some by SME's, some by contractors, and some by managers or whoever else knew how to do it.

I will get to my open question in one sentence. My employer has not given me a set of best practices or guidelines or template for developing the Access database. My question is twofold: is it more common for employers to just let employees develop Access databases as they can, regardless of position, experience, tenure or department?, and do most employers provide said developer a set of company standards or best practices to use for developing the database?

And yeah, yeah, I know about first normal form and boyce-codd normal form, etc, etc. And no, my employer never checked with to determine if I was familiar with the concepts before I started development (very concerning to me).

It could very well be that the databases I am creating and those floating out and about that were created by others are just not that important. But why do it if you are not going to do it right?

I am talking about a companywide best practices that ranges from the minimum level of normalization required for a database, through to the level of error-handling present in the code-behind, the data-formatting required all the way to the level of security given the database and the VB code-behind and the inventory of databases and assignment of DB owners. What is common, what isn't? What should I be concerned about? What am I missing that I should not be missing?

Oh, and can we save the Microsoft-bashing for another, more relevant thread? The intentions of this topic are to discuss best practices for an organization's databases, not say how evil Microsoft is.

Thanks.

The Bush Christmas Card

2005-12-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, I got a Christmas card from the Bushes. I guess that means I donated to the RNC sometime this year. I think I have been forthcoming enough is this blog that you might have figured it out by now.

Anyways, it has a Psalm in it. I guess the controversy this year is that the card doesn't have the word Christmas in it. I understand that side. There is a picture of a tree on the card. What other major holiday is the card being sent out for - Ramadan? - Chanakuh? The point on this side is that a card sent out at the beginning of December, with a tree on the front and a Psalm in the body is symbolic of one and only one holiday - Christmas, but is used to celebrate all holidays in a secular way. Basically, the meaning of the card-giving custom of Christmas has been morphed to signify and less spiritual and more secular celebration of 'holiday'.

Now, I don't even know how the card-giving tradition started, nor am I going to look it up. I thought the inclusion of a Psalm would cause a conniption among some. Sadly, I did not notice that the word Christmas is not on the card. It says instead "With best wishes for a holiday season of hope and happiness. 2005"

The Psalm reads "The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts; so I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him. Psalm 28:7 (RSV)"

Question: Why put the above Psalm in the card, with the reference to the Christian Lord and then not mention Christmas?

Ok, enough religious stuff for this blog for this year.

Eventually We Will Pull Out

2005-12-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

Republicans have postured themselves in a position whereby a pull out immediately means we lost the war in Iraq. Some Republicans want a timetable or strategic deployment from the nation, some just ask for patience to stay the course.
Democrats have postured themselves anywhere from we have already lost to we need to pull out immediately. Hillary Clinton is now in it for the long haul, Howard Dean says its already too late.

Eventually we will pull out. And when we do, it does not necessarily mean we have lost. America will not have 150,000 troops (or whatever the figure is) in Iraq in 2010. We just won't. We will have some troops, just not in that great a number. And when we do start pulling out troops, the democrats will try to claim that as a victory.

Sorry democrats, but this was the intention all along. The dissent at home will not hasten the pullback. The republicans may respond that a pull-out guarantees certain defeat. Sorry, I don't buy that either.

Saddam is on trial. He will be found guilty for crimes against humanity. We have two elections, one more on the way in Iraq. We have a new, non-tyrannical, somewhat democrat government formed. We have a new corps of Iraqi police, military and other security forces in training or on patrol. We have new schools opening. Joe Lieberman commented that Iraqis have cell phones and satellite dishes.

As any cell phone owner knows, once you get the phone you did not take lightly the loss of said phone. In short, those Iraqis with cell phones and satellite dishes - and I am not talking about a small cabal of lucky or well-connected Iraqis, but hard-working middle-class Iraqis too - will have a strong interest to strengthen and legitimize a free and democratic Iraq, but become suicide bombers.

Even a pull-out within the next year does not equal defeat, it equals success. And a pull out does not mean the loss of US control in Iraq. Maybe we go from 150,000 soldiers on the ground to three shifts of 50,000. Instead of 150,000 soldiers in Iraq for two years straight without a reprieve, you split the 150,000 into three shifts of 50,000 troops operating for 1/3 of two years, the rest of the time they are back on American soil. In other words, you cut down on each soldier's time in Iraq by 2/3. I am no military strategerist (mis-spelled for laughs), but when the numbers do get cut back, you can rotate troops to keep them fresh and reduce the time each individual is in harm's way, while retaining a lean, experienced, motivated force. Leaving soldiers in harm's way in Iraq for three years straight with no end in sight is not motivating. It can't be. But, setting a timetable for return is bad strategy as well.

But this war must be fought with equal part military might and equal part the establishment of the institution of democracy, an overwhelming force in and of itself to motivate our surrogates, the Iraqi's and other freedom-loving peoples in the Middle East, to fight alongside us. While during combat Iraq may be a haven for terrorism and al qaeda-loving peoples of Iran, Syria and elsewhere, it shall soon turn into a haven for Democracy-loving peoples from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and elsewhere. And other Middle Eastern nations will soon need to follow.

Why Not Just Make it a Holiday Candle?

2005-12-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

A tree is a religious symbol of Christmas. A tree is not a religious symbol for all faiths or a secular symbol for holidays. A tree is a religious symbol for christmas for christians. Only. Period. In Boston, renaming a Christmas tree a holiday tree is hijacking the christian symbol and turning it into a secular symbol. Changing the name changes the meaning of the symbol - some might say unjustly. You want a secular symbol for holiday, go make your own. Go make your Holiday Starbucks Coffee or your Holiday iPod, but leave the trees for Christmas and Christmas only.

You don't see a holiday minora being lighted in New York or a holiday red crescent displayed in the center of Detroit (large muslim population).

And this dovetails into culture. Countries are founded on their culture. In this country, culture is not up for debate. It is not a come one, come all start your own culture and see which one rises to the top or a revolving door of different trials of different cultures for however we feel this day or that month. This country was founded on a judeo-christian belief system, one that is evident throughout our founding documents, in our schools, in our national anthem and in the national holidays we have chosen. Christmas was not defined to be a secular celebration of all holidays - it was created to celebrate the christian holiday of Christmas. This is celebrated by 95% of all Americans.

Yet here we go with this holiday tree up in Boston. The epitome of tolerance from our wonderful northeast liberal progressives. Look at what has happened to a France that has thrown their own culture under the bus. Riots, fires - the bus they threw their own culture under has been torched. By a bunch of intolerant, devoutly religious - or militant religious zealots - people who don't want anything to do with traditional French culture - they want to impose their own culture onto France. While still taking advantage of the European welfare state. And there are the same type of people living in this country.

There is a desire to secularize specific religious symbols, excepting certain special interest minority religious groups. And this diminishment of religion is an attack on this country's founding culture - the one that made this country great. And there are fears that if the culture falls, that if the underlying of the culture falls (religion), then this country will no longer be great. That this country will fall to where the France's of the world are headed.

Smoking on the Big Screen

2005-12-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

I am a nonsmoker. All my friends and family are nonsmokers. But, when I go to the movies, all I see are smokers. Apparently I am not the only one surprised with the amount of smoking shown on the big screen.

The most surprising part of the whole hollywood-movie-smoking thing is the paternalistic view these hollywood libs have. The same people who run around saying they are vegetarians, worrying about global warming and the dangers to the environment, are largely critical of the 2nd amendment and unhealthy cheeseburgers at fast food restaurants promote smoking in their movies.

The significant statistics: the progressives in hollywood seem to be out-to-lunch on national smoking trends:

• Only about half as many people in the United States smoke as did in 1950 -- but that's not true on the silver screen. A sample of top-grossing films over the past 50 years found that the amount of smoking decreased from an average of 10.7 events an hour in 1950 to a low of 4.9 in 1982 -- and then shot up to 10.9 by 2002. (Events range from a character lighting a cigarette to a shot of a tobacco advertisement.)

Smoking on the Big Screen

2005-12-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

• Only about half as many people in the United States smoke as did in 1950 -- but that's not true on the silver screen. A sample of top-grossing films over the past 50 years found that the amount of smoking decreased from an average of 10.7 events an hour in 1950 to a low of 4.9 in 1982 -- and then shot up to 10.9 by 2002. (Events range from a character lighting a cigarette to a shot of a tobacco advertisement.)

EnviroWacko Updates

2005-12-03T05:16:00.000-08:00

On the heels of the much-maligned report that global warming will cause a "mini ice age" our good friends at the UN come up with this astounding claim: Global Warming responsible for 150,000 deaths per year around the world.

woah. This is reporting by the CBC (Canada, folks).

I wonder how many lives would be lost as a result of the sanctions imposed by Kyoto? Or those lives saved by colder regions warmed up? Its cold as hell today where I am, when does that global warming kick in?

this is an obvious scare tactic without any basis. this is a bunch of phooey.

Yesterday, Cont.

2005-11-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote a partial thoughtpiece arguing that the Europeans view themselves as partial owners of the US Military by default, since they decided not to create powerful militaries of their own. The view of being partial owners of our military by the Europeans explains why they try to micromanage or otherwise exert control over our military, unlike other nations.

And today they validate my argument:

EU May Suspend Member Nations With Secret Prisons.

Here is just one more way the EU has attempted to exert control over the US Military:

EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini warned Monday any EU nation found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.
"I would be obliged to propose to the Council (of EU Ministers) serious consequences, including the suspension of voting rights in the Council," Frattini said at a counter-terrorism conference.

To be continued. . .

Its Their Military Too

2005-11-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a thoughtpiece that has marinated in my brain over the weekend.

Whether it is memos declaring to bomb Arab 'news' service Al Jazeera, claims that US troops used white phosphorous in Fallujah or that we have illegal military prisons operating out of Eastern Europe, criticism for the US Military has remained prevalent. The difference is, these criticisms did not come from US Democrats. They came from Europe.
The British paper the Daily Mirror was the first to run the Al Jazeera story. Just today the Guardian releases this story about how human rights abuses in Iraq are worse now than under Saddam.
Der Spiegel reports that Germany and Italy want to see US CIA agents in court regarding a Milan kidnapping.
A Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for three US Soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel.
Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter all know nothing warms up a European audience like bashing America on foreign soil.

The underlying current of all of this is the idea that Europeans have a say in what the US Military does. And they think they do. Because their military might is so meak, because Europe has essentially outsourced their national defense to the USA, to them Its Their Military, Too.

Granted, some Americans will gladly take the role of defending Europe instead of letting some nations with questionable pasts become military powerhouses again. Then again, we do not like the idea of US Soldiers being brought into a Spanish court for war crimes.

Whether it is Abu Ghraib or Eastern Romania; the EU or International ANSWER, the UN or Human Rights Watch - could it be that they feel ownership over the actions of our military? Could Europe feel responsibility and blame for the actions of the US military because we are their de facto military?
One may question whether the conclusion that the need to be under the US military umbrella defines ownership, as many socialist Europeans probably draw, but perhaps this is what John Kerry means by his 'Global Test'.
Maybe they don't really want us to lose wars. Maybe the Europeans do not want to embarass our military. Maybe they are just frustrated that they cannot exercise control over our military, when they feel they should have the right to exercise control over our military, since we are their military too. Perhaps Europeans are upset because we represent them, we are agents for them, we act on behalf of Europe and they have no control over how we perform that duty. For the controlling, socialist societies that comprise Europe, it must be extremely aggravating to defer such import.
Or maybe they think that if we lose or become sufficiently embarassed, they can wrest greater control over us. Indeed, we are now fighting a sensitive war instead of a ruthless war in Iraq. Many question that strategy.

more to come later.

Retail Technology Insights

2005-11-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

I am not a big shopper. I have never shopped on Black Friday. I go shopping so infrequently that malls and box stores initially intimidate me. But, I decided to go out this year.
I woke at 5am, only to learn that the stores had already opened. I rushed out and was at Best Buy by a quarter to 6.
What you won't see in the articles describing this year's shopping season is what items were sold out by 7am at the big discounters. They may not be the highest sellers, since they were offered in limited quantity, albeit highly demanded.
I went to Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target. I wanted to see what deals got the crowds riled up. The big item that sold out by 7am was a 14" flat tv for $178 at Wal-Mart. Shoppers lined up in Maryland in 20 degree temperatures well before 5am the day after Thanksgiving for a flat-screen television for under $200. By 7am, Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy stores were sold out of all 14" or 15" or 17" tvs (depending on which was on sale at what store). Look for these to pop up on EBAY.
Also selling well were the 42" flat-screens for $1500, regularly $2000. I know, I know - tv's are boring.
TV's some may ask? What is new and exciting about tv's? What was the hot new gadget you wonder instead.
I am talking about the LCD TV's with HD and the no-glare screens. Not exactly as chic as an iPod Nano, but selling extremely well. And just in time to watch NFL playoffs in high-def. For those of you that still have a traditional-sized tv, you have to carry around a flat-screen for a minute or two. These things are lightweight. So much easier than lugging around those bulky deep tvs. The ease of mobility of the featherweight tv is worth a premium in and of itself.

Tokyo Governor: China Could Win War v US

2005-11-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

"Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.

"In any case, if tension between the United States and China heightens, if each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives," Mr. Ishihara said in an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the exception of the Marines, are "extremely incompetent" and would be unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. Indeed, he asserted that China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and American cities—even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation.

The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.""

Ahh, the Governor is talking about the Culture of Life v the Culture of Death. The Chinese are communists. Communists kill their citizens. Look at the gulags in Russia. Millions die in labor camps in China now. The Chinese have 1 billion people to feed and 1 billion to supply energy. The strain on China now is unbearable. They would have no problem sending hundreds of millions to die. That is what the Tokyo mayor is saying.

Look at the US. We are a western, democratic society that values a culture of life. We get wobbly in the knees when 2,000 soldiers die in Iraq. Look at the message that sends to China - to a China who would not blink at losing 500,000,000 citizens in a nuclear war. That is 1.7 times the entire population of the United States.

Is our culture of life a weakness or a strength? Undeniably, a strength. It is chosen by us - not forced upon us by a fully-controlled communist system.

Our culture of life is why we would win the war against China. The Japanese mayor made one critical mistake in his assessment - he did not account that the reason we don't have communism, nor would we be willing to be subjugated by such a system is precisely because of our culture of life. We value life. And communists starve and kill their citizens. That is precisely why we would fight, fight valiently and unrelentingly. That is why we have a superior military supported by superior science. Some have alluded that the Iraqi theater, the sandbox, is just a training ground for a showdown with a China. Iraq is the preseason, the warmup; China the Super Bowl. It is strategically important to test out how effective our technologies will work in real life action. Also, an experienced military is better than an inexperienced military. I do not totally discount that theory. But, let's not diminish the threat posed by a nuclear fanatic islamofascist.

Still, our population pales in comparison to China. We cannot afford to trade casualties with China. If we traded casualties, the US population would reach zero, while China would still have nearly 1 billion left. Our best case scenario is turning China into a free, democratic nation. The chances are very slim of that happening any time soon. Democratic nations do engage in wars with each other. It has never happened before.

What Media Bias #3403490

2005-11-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

This about sums up the past month plus reporting on the Intifada in France, courtesy of Jamey Keaten, AP Writer:

On Sunday, authorities discovered racist and extremist slogans — including one that said "defend yourself, France" — spray-painted on a mosque being built in Saint-Etienne in the southeast.

Document Management Open Question

2005-11-21T04:37:00.000-08:00

I am working on a low-budget document management problem that I am sure many are familiar with. Simply, a high percentage of submitted applications do not 'Survive the Scanner'.

Our firm's document management system requires all customer paperwork to be scanned into electronic form and the electronic files of the documents are then separated into processing queue's. Very standard. The question I have is 'What are the best practices for designing a form so that when the customer fills it out (written out), the print is legible after the document is scanned in?"

And there is a catch. There is always a catch. The goal is to 'smush' all the input fields into a form that is no longer than two pages.

(I am looking for tips beyond the obvious e.g. using larger fonts, double-space, etc.)

I'll start the practices:

1) One technique I am using is vertical lines separating characters. Separating characters avoids the following problem: when someone writes "k" and the person processing the document is trying to figure out if the'k' is a "k" or "lc". If it is a "k", it will be in one character spot. If it is "lc" it will be in two character spots. The vertical lines separating characters only extend one third of the way up each paragraph line, so that they themselves do not get in the way of reading the form.

2) I have bubbles extending to the left and right margins of the form with helpful tips for filling out the form. The bubbles denote the fields that customers most often fill out incorrectly and how to avoid making those most commons errors. The tips and fields are highlighted in bold.

3) I am using checkboxes and optionbuttons whereever I can.

4) All input fields are boxed off.

Of course, if the forms were completed online and then printed, our processors would not need to worry about trying to read someone's illegible handwriting. Remember, above I said low-budget.

Michael Steele and Victimhood Card

2005-11-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

I have followed the Michael Steele senatorial campaign for about a year now. It was already going when he spoke at the RNC Convention in 2004. Steele only formally announced his intention to run a couple weeks ago, but lacking any challengers, he was expected to run once Paul Sarbanes announced his retirement.

National media has focused on Steele's victimhood, not on his policies or where he stands on the issues. I saw Steele on Hannity and Colmes, the entire bit focused on the racism of Democrats directed towards him. Steele is what my generation calls a 'brother'. I am lilly white. I don't know if it is a derogatory term or an endearing term, but in the lexicon or slang we use, brother means african-american male and sister mean african-american female.

To his credit, Steele did try to direct the conversation to issues. Hannity never left the focus off of Democrat racism. Colmes spent the entire time defending Howard Dean and other democrats. [By the way, I specifically remember that potential challenger Kweisi Mfume immediately and vehemently denounced all the racist comments directed at Steele, a very good move on his part.]

Here is what Steele actually said:

"As a young man I realized that the front lines in the New Civil Rights Struggle would be different.

Instead of just hope... we needed action.

Instead of just government protection... we needed opportunity.

And instead of the right to sit at the lunch counter... the New Civil Rights Struggle would be a struggle for the right to own the diner and to create legacy wealth for our children.

To win that struggle, we must all come together and work for the same freedom... the same growth... and the same opportunity.

But too many in Washington today are not working toward that common goal of growth and freedom and an equal opportunity for every individual.

Instead, they have their feet set in the concrete of old fears, old divisions and the old ways of government.

They see government as some sort of grand leveling machine where one size fits all. A bureaucratic world where individuals are held back as much as set free.

A place built by those who preach hope but practice division.

And no people can prosper when its leaders believe the way to empowerment lies not in the advancement of the individual... but in the promotion of an opportunistic government.
We can do better."

That is not from Hannity & Colmes. That is from his senatorial campaign announcement speech. This is a conservative philosophy - a philosophy of that government is not the solution to every problem we have. Steele is saying that power should be vested in individuals, and that the government is not to determine what is in the best interest of each individual - individuals determine that. He outlines an agenda of small, limited government.

Don't vote for Steele because he was a victim of racism. Vote for him for his policy. A policy founded in conservatism.

So I Was Listening to Michael Savage Last Night . . .

2005-11-16T05:05:00.000-08:00

And Savage is dedicating the opening hour of his radio show, as defined by him, to Islamofascism and France. The MSM dropped the France story long ago. Even Foxnews is no longer covering it. The French openly state they are intentionally avoiding the story for fear of increasing the popularity of right-wing politicians (right of French center, folks, which is still far left of American center.) Although I did see Shepherd Smith say Monday something along the lines of "After 18 days [of riots], Jacques Chirac finally addresses the country. I repeat, after 18 days." Shep didn't say, 'what if Bush waited 18 days after Katrina hit.' He didn't need to. The French media gave Chirac a pass for the delay. If Sarkozy, anyways, I digress.

Savage was digging in hard against Fox. He dug in against the Republicans in Congress, but he left his sole compliments to GWB - "the only one who is actually doing something about the Islamofascist threat" - paraphrased from memory.

I won't dig too hard into Fox. Mr Ailes, if I wanted to watch liberal-biased news, I could go anywhere besides Fox. But I am watching Fox. Don't slide into that Northeast Liberal culture, because I have no patience for it.

Open Source Media

2005-11-16T04:29:00.000-08:00

Open Source Media has this blog listed on their blogroll. The title of this post is linked to the Blogroll, also available here.

A quick personal background:

I am a software/ business/ systems analyst with a web services company of approximately 400 people primarily located in Hunt Valley, MD and Dallas, Texas serving the health care industry. My tasks range from architecting databases to documenting procedures.

Second, I am also working on a GEICO-Sponsored Scholarship in Data Mining with Johns Hopkins University Graduate School in Business, Information Technology concentration.

Third, I am a part-time grad student at Hopkins, studying Information Technology with a concentration in Discovery Informatics.

Fourth, I am spending weekends as an Extra on the set of Invasion, a Nicole Kidman movie filming in Baltimore and Washington DC.

Fifth, I coach a young adult social football team, although we are not very good.

Sixth, I am blogging politics and technology when I find the time on this site. Expect pretty frequent updates. I am a registered Republican.

Also check out my News Blog Affiliates here, here and here.

Enjoy.

Expect completely original Sloth content.

What Media Bias #39483:

2005-11-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

Suicide Bombers Are People, Too

So says a Palestinian filmmaker who’s garnering prizes and praise for his new film, ‘Paradise Now.’

For Ryan K, The Real Oil Gougers:

2005-11-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

Rush Limbaugh Says it Best:

The gouging -- folks, if you want to look at who really makes the obscene profits off oil, take a look at your federal and state governments. For God sakes, folks, do they ever lower their taxes? Do they ever suspend them? Do they ever do anything? Hell No. Not on any phase of energy. The profit per gallon of gasoline compared to the taxes per gallon, federal and state, is so vast you wouldn't believe it. A dime is the average profit for big oil on a gallon of gasoline. It's about 46 cents, as of August of this year, combined federal and state taxes. And then there are taxes at every level of the sale of an energy product. Not just at the retail level. They tax it so many damn times, I'm just giving you retail taxes at the pump. It's like tobacco. The government couldn't survive without tobacco taxes and yet they want you to think they hate big tobacco. The energy policy of this country is not set by big oil. It is set by the US government. They tell them where they can put the pipelines to distribute. They tell them where they can drill. They tell them where they can't. They tell them where they can ship it. They tell them what kind of ship they can ship it on. They tell them what kind of port the ship can go into and what kind of port it can't go into and right at the root of all this is your favorite little weenie environmentalist wackos who have got everybody stymied on all this.

Via LGF, What Media Bias?

2005-11-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

French Media Covering Up the Intifada

Riot coverage ‘excessive’, says French TV boss. (Hat tip: Ralph.)

One of France’s leading TV news executives has admitted censoring his coverage of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right politicians. Jean-Claude Dassier, the director general of the rolling news service TCI, said the prominence given to the rioters on international news networks had been “excessive” and could even be fanning the flames of the violence.

Mr Dassier said his own channel, which is owned by the private broadcaster TF1, recently decided not to show footage of burning cars.

“Politics in France is heading to the right and I don’t want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed burning cars on television,” Mr Dassier told an audience of broadcasters at the News Xchange conference in Amsterdam today.

“Having satellites trained on towns across France 24 hours a day showing the violence would have been wrong and totally disproportionate ... Journalism is not simply a matter of switching on the cameras and letting them roll. You have to think about what you’re broadcasting,” he said.

Ed: And FYI, the Media has no less bias in Amrika than it does in France.

Pat Buchanan:

2005-11-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

The soaring Muslim population is a Fifth Column inside Europe.

Nevertheless, their numbers must grow. For not only do they have a higher birth rate than the native-born Europeans, no European nation, save Moslem Albania, has a birth rate (2.1 births per woman) that will enable it to endure for many more generations. The West is aging, shrinking, and dying.

Yet, to keep Europe’s economy growing and taxes coming in to fund the health and pension programs of Europe’s rising numbers of retired and elderly, Europe needs scores of millions of new workers. And Europe can only find them in the Third World.

Nor should Americans take comfort in France’s distress. By 2050, there will be 100 million Hispanics in the United States, half of them of Mexican ancestry, heavily concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans still believe by right belongs to them.

Colonization of the mother countries by subject peoples is the last chapter in the history of empires—and the next chapter in the history of the West—that is now coming to a close.

One Culture is Enough

2005-11-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

Former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. Here is how they do it," Lamm said:

"First, turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country." History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset, put it this way: "The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy." Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, and Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans.".

Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, "Invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

Third, "We could make the United States an 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: "The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentricity and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together." Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

[And the results: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2005/11/08/wfran08big.gif ]

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high. school."

"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.' I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure
on the majority population."

"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship, and
promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity...

America can only have one culture. Any more is a recipe for disaster. Look at what has happened to France.

Socialist Europe Falls Again

2005-11-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

Europe's political experimentations in Multiculturalism and Global Warming have both metastized into the perfect storm:

Exhibit 1:

Exhibit 2:

Kyoto Threatens European Economies

LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's push to meet pollution targets agreed under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change could dent its economies and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs by 2010, according to research published on Monday.

Compliance with Kyoto's greenhouse gas reduction targets could hit gross domestic product in Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy as energy energy bills soar, said pro-business thinktank International Council for Capital Formation (ICCF).

"The findings of our research suggest that an alternative approach (to climate change) is urgently needed for both the developing and developed world," said Margo Thorning, Managing Director of the Brussels-based ICCF.

ICCF predicted the loss of at least 200,000 jobs in each of Italy, Germany, Britain and Spain as governments chase greenhouse gas reduction targets set out under Kyoto, which came into force in February.

Average increases of 26 percent in electricity prices and 41 prices in gas prices by 2010 were also predicted in the ICCF's study.

Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) could be reduced by 0.8 percent from base case levels by 2010, with Spain and Britain suffering reductions of 3.1 percent and 1.1 percent respectively, the ICCF said.

Duh!

I Saw This Web Posting From a French Citizen:

2005-11-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

alonso05 11/7/2005 05:37AM PST

It's almost the civil war here :

Fucking muslims are now throwing Molotov cocktails agains't churches (Saint-Edouard in Lens & île de Thau in Sète) and synagogues (5 november) (Garges-lès-Gonesse).

36 cops were wounded yesterday

1 408 cars burned

395 arrestations

police syndicates ask the government to apply a curfew and bring up the army

In Noisy-le-Grand, the mayor (who is a socialist) reports that women have been stoned, and ask the army. Molotov cocktails have been thrown on civilians, houses've been burned, building burned etc.

They've beaten to death pensionners, one died this morning, he was 61 years old. One baby was wounded and many others personns were hurt.

During the day-light, it's ok, you can travel in suburbs; but when the night comes, they take everybody for target.

All the territory is concerned now, arabs are in every cities of France, so it won't stop that easy.

People start to radicalize themselves and militias (still not armed ) born a bit everywhere.

Chirak does nothing. Government is outdated. Looks like that they don't give a fuck about the people. I'll be not surpise if mosques flame in the days to come.

Mark Steyn gets it right:

2005-11-06T09:19:00.000-08:00

Wake up, Europe, you've a war on your hands

November 6, 2005

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Ever since 9/11, I've been gloomily predicting the European powder keg's about to go up. ''By 2010 we'll be watching burning buildings, street riots and assassinations on the news every night,'' I wrote in Canada's Western Standard back in February.

Silly me. The Eurabian civil war appears to have started some years ahead of my optimistic schedule. As Thursday's edition of the Guardian reported in London: ''French youths fired at police and burned over 300 cars last night as towns around Paris experienced their worst night of violence in a week of urban unrest.''

''French youths,'' huh? You mean Pierre and Jacques and Marcel and Alphonse? Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic, it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East. After four somnolent years, it turns out finally that there really is an explosive ''Arab street,'' but it's in Clichy-sous-Bois.

More here:
http://www.suntimes....

About the News

2005-11-05T06:51:00.000-08:00

it's a great lesson to apply every time you watch the news from this day forward, because what they tell you that is happening now isn't. It's what they hope will happen. What they tell you is going to happen in the future is what they're telling you they're going to try to make happen at every stage of the way.

US Media Mute While The Caliphate Strengthens in Europe

2005-11-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

The Dhimmified states of Europe are reaping what they have sown, as rising Muslim immigrant populations get bolder and bolder in their retaliation to bountiful social, educational and other statist social programs provided by overly tolerant European states. Instead of saying "Thank you," jihadi religious zealots are trying to resurrect the caliphate through now daily riots in France and Denmark; train suicide-bombings in England; rampant immigration into Spain; sleeper cells in Italy, religious beatings in Germany and frequent attacks in Russia.

The latest is linked here:

Mainstream media isn’t only ignoring and/or distorting the Muslim rioting in Paris suburbs—Viking Observer points out that Muslims enraged by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten have been rioting in Denmark for at least four days: War in France, War in Denmark.

'Party trumps race' for Steele foes

2005-11-02T06:26:00.000-08:00

Let me illustrate that the NAA(L)CP is a political group first and an African American group far second:

By S.A. Miller

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2005

Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.

Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an "Uncle Tom" and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.

Operatives for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) also obtained a copy of his credit report -- the only Republican candidate so targeted.
But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with "pointing out the obvious."

"There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names," said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.

"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."

This week, the News Blog -- a liberal Web log run by Steve Gilliard, a black New Yorker -- removed a doctored photo of Mr. Steele that depicted him as a black-faced minstrel.
However, the blog has kept its headline "Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house." A caption beneath a photo of the lieutenant governor reads: "I's Simple Sambo and I's running for the Big House."

A spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party denounced the depiction as being "extremely offensive" and having "no place in politics or in any other aspect of public discourse," The Washington Post reported. Democrats have denied any connection to the News Blog.

Don't Forget, Valerie Plame Was "Undercover"

2005-11-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

Here is the DEEP UNDERCOVER CIA Agent SPLASHED all over the pages of Vanity Fair:

“CIA people don’t like cameras. We don’t like publicity. We operate in the background as much as possible. So she’s in a very, very uncomfortable spot,” Former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowski on 60 Minutes.

Going for it All Today

2005-10-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

Rush Limbaugh on Roe v Wade (from Oct 11):

The more I hear from the defenders of Ms. Miers -- and again, I've got no brief against her, but the more I hear the people whose job it is to defend her, the more I hear them sounding like the left, that there's sexism here, that that's elitism going on. Let me take a stab at this again. Let me go back to one of the things that got this whole ball rolling, and that is this whole notion of Roe vs. Wade and we need to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and I think that there has developed here a considerable sense of confusion and lack of understanding from most of the people on the right about Roe vs. Wade. There are two camps in the Roe vs. Wade camp, I guess, on the right. The left is a unified voice on this. They care about the vote. There are some on the right that care only about overturning Roe vs. Wade, but I have spoken at length on this program about the fact that the Constitution is a science, that the Supreme Court is a culture, and that the culture of the Supreme Court is just way out of whack. So while some people may think that the primary objective here on the part of conservatives and people like me, is to get enough votes on the court to overturn Roe vs. Wade, that's not going to stop abortion. That's really not what this is about. Roe vs. Wade is bad law. What happened was that a Supreme Court could not find the word "abortion" in the Constitution and yet found it, and they created a right to privacy and a number of other rights.

The court is out of control. The court is made up now of nine people, some of whom are simply substituting their own personal policy preferences or foreign law or whatever to find in legal cases that come before them. Now, these cases involve the Constitution. If you're going to have members of the Supreme Court look at the document and find something in it that isn't there, then the Constitution is meaningless! If you can find something that's not there, and if you can ignore something that is, and get away with it because you are in the majority of the Supreme Court then the Constitution is meaningless. This whole thing is about reorienting the court for constitutionalism. Another word for that is originalism. You go back and you check the originalists, the Founders. It's there, and if the Constitution doesn't provide for it, you don't make it up. You amend it, and there is an amendment process. The Founders left us quite a path -- constitutionally defined, I might add -- to change the Constitution. It's how we deal with things that it doesn't specifically address, and some things that it doesn't specifically address, that's it, and it's up to other people to decide, such as the states.

Roe vs. Wade, if it's ever overturned, is simply going to go back to the states. It's going to be decided on by the people of this country and it's going to be legal in some of these states. You know that. Overturning Roe vs. Wade is not going to overturn abortion. It's not going to make it illegal throughout this country, and so a vote just to overturn Roe vs. Wade is meaningless unless there's some foundation behind that vote that believes it's bad law, not just that it was a bad result -- and to sit here and get caught up in all this, "Well, this is a sexist view, and these are elitists, and these people don't understand," it so misses the point. It just saddens me as I listen to the people whose job it is to defend Harriet Miers in this nomination, run around.

Most of the people I know who are having a problem with this nomination have a problem with it on the basis that I just mentioned: the Constitution, the court, originalism, not a single case, not a single vote, because that single vote is not going to change it. It's fine if you're against Roe vs. Wade because you're against abortion. That's very moral of you and I love you and I'm proud of you, but you've also got to understand that it is horrible law.

It set the precedent. Well, it didn't set the precedent, but I mean it established a huge, huge precedent to allow the rulings of the court ever since then, since 1973, to go outside the Constitution. Once it was praised as great law, once it was praised as progressive; we had all kinds of trouble because it's bad law. It would be no different than if the court decided to just cancel the Second Amendment because some justices didn't like it. What would you think of that? And, by the way, that's not far out of the realm of possibility, because liberals read the Constitution differently than you and I do. They read it and they see things that aren't in there, and then they read it and they see the things that are in there that they can't believe are in there and if they can write them out of there with a Supreme Court decision, they would. So if you've got enough of them on there that want to get rid of the Second Amendment on the basis, "The Founders never intended! It's up to us to interpret modern times," well, it's no different than that. It's the same type of reasoning as what gave us Roe vs. Wade. Well, that kind of reasoning stinks, and that's kind of reasoning is going to end up destroying the very fabric that holds us together, constitutionally and legally, and that's the beef here.

RoP

2005-10-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

Look at the front page of BBC News now..

Bombs in New Delhi
Bomb in Iraq
Beheaded Indonesian school girls
Muslims riot in Paris
Iran "not going to attack" Israel
...
several others..

Love that Religion of Peace..

need i say more?

Transgender Wackos

2005-10-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

by Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - What box should you check on a job application -- male or female -- if neither one is quite right?

That's just one of many issues organizers hope to tackle at what they are calling the nation's first "Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color Job and Education Fair," slated for early December in New York.

From cross-dressers to people who have surgically changed their sex, transgender people often encounter trouble going to school or getting jobs, organizers said at a City Hall news conference.

"Today I'm a model of stability, but I think back to when I was waiting tables and turning tricks," said Melissa Sklarz, 54, an activist and a manager at a credit union. "It's time for us to leave the streets and take our place in mainstream culture.

"It's time for us to be taken seriously," said Sklarz, who was born male.

While there are no official statistics, thousands of people in New York could be called transgender, an umbrella term that refers to people who don't reflect or identify with the gender they were born with, experts say.

"Nobody knows. Figures are meaningless because most people are not 'out,'" said Katherine Rachlin, a New York clinical psychologist who specializes in gender identity.

My comments: I guess not knowing what gender you are does not *disqualify* you from a job?

Howard Dean Hits the Trifecta With a Deranged, Incoherent and Salami Confluence on Letterman

2005-10-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

RUSH: Did you see the Letterman show audience with that remote clicker? Letterman says, "Well, you know, almost every week in a national publication or any publication you'll see that glaciers are melting, the polar ice caps are melting. In my lifetime will we ever see an article, 'Hey, good news. The glaciers are back. Good news, the ice caps have frozen up again'? It seems unlikely. It seems like at least a hundred year job, at least a hundred year job." This is David Letterman talking with Howard Dean, and here is the erudite reply.

DEAN: You talk about Al Gore, I'll tell you something interesting about this. The global warming could actually end up in a much more -- in an ice age because what happens -- Al is an expert in this stuff -- what happens is the globe as a whole will heat up, and what will happen is, if the Gulf Stream stops and reverses, which is what's likely to happen for a very complicated series of reasons, you'd actually have an incredibly warm earth around the equatorial regions and a much greater ice cap in the long run. So the ice cap is getting smaller now. If the Gulf Stream reverses because of the increase in freshwater, then we're going to see an ice age, which is going to be even more of a problem. And you have to listen to Al to explain it to you, but it's really worth doing.

RUSH: Whew! Man, man, give me more of this, Dave. This is what your show is missing, expert commentary on wacko environmental opinion. Well, let's keep going. We're not through here. Letterman says, "I saw you on Hardball with Chris Matthews. You were talking about Harriet Miers and the Supreme Court. You talked about hiding the salami with Harriet Miers. Now, honest to God, what's going on there, Howard?"

DEAN: Unfortunately, I was thinking of three-card monte but then I thought nobody outside New York is going to know what three-card monte is, so I was thinking of a shell game, and I said hide the... and I got stuck and I knew I had about three seconds to avoid looking like Jeanette Pirro, so I said -- so I said, hide the -- hide the -- the first thing that came into my mind was kielbasa, but I didn't want to say that.

RUSH: Here's exactly what he did say.

DEAN: Certainly president can claim executive privilege, but in this case, I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court you can't play, you know, hide the -- the salami or whatever it's called.

RUSH: Well, we've told all of you who didn't know what that means. You know, think of sausage in a pita pocket. It has a very specific meaning. This is the one thing I would not have to translate for the people in Rio Linda. This is their language. (laughing) Anyway, these are the people that think they've got it all wrapped up in '06. This is the guy who thinks it's all over in '06. It's all over in '08. They're winning! It's over! The conservative crackup! That's on the Letterman show.

Judas Patriots: Win Points Abroad By Bashing America

2005-10-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

I remember when John Kerry and John Edwards talked about how America's image abroad was suffering. This was all George Bush's fault. They said we must work to repair our image to Europeans nations but submitting to so-called 'global tests' and other such nonsense.

And then here comes Algore:

"We would not have invaded a country that didn't attack us," he said, referring to Iraq. "We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families."

"We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people," Gore said. "We would be a different country."

Most significant in these lunatic rants, aside from the press once again white-washing or all-out ignoring it, is that "Gore told reporters after giving a speech at an economic forum in Sweden." Yep - Gore wouldn't dare make these comments on US soil. If this is what he really believes, why won't he come out and say it on American street? Come out and be honest, Mr. Gore. Come out and tell us what you really believe, what you really think about your country. And if he doesn't really believe this - if he is just trying to cater to a Swedish audience that is apparently hostile to the United State - then that is even worse. This is why people like me vote for Republicans. This is why you lost Mr Gore - as long as I am alive I will make it my duty to make sure that someone who says what you said in Sweden never gets elected president in my country. I am steaming mad.

Liberalism Fails

2005-10-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

From Rush Limbaugh's Program Today:

This is all going to be new spending because this is the way we define the kind of country we are, and there is a story today, the New York Times, that demonstrates this.

It's by Jason DeParle, and the headline is this: Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate. As failing programs will not be expanded. The story is all about the deep funk that the left is in, because the thing that has happened is that the aftermath of this Katrina has shown us that the ideal Nirvana of a community run by Democrats for 60 years in a state run by Democrats for 60 years is an absolute hell hole for most of the people that live there. It's a place of poverty, it's a place of drugs, it's a place of unemployment, and yet it ought to be a Utopia. Liberals and Democrats have done nothing but run New Orleans for I don't know how many generations. There ought not be one unemployed person, there ought not be one unhappy person, there ought not be any discrimination against anybody on the basis of anything. There shouldn't be ramshackle areas of town. There should have been levees that would have withstood a category seven hurricane. There should have been levees that would have withstood an earthquake. It should have been a Utopia because that's what the left has been promising us. That's their whole argument, they've got a better way of doing things. Everybody will be okay, everybody will be equal, everybody can be happy, there will not be winners and losers picked by an unjust system. There will be equality, and everybody will be hunky-dory, it will be kumbaya every night and take a night off for Mardi Gras for the beads but after that it's back to kumbaya. And so now we're finding out that none of that's true, that when liberals run things for this many years unchecked, you end up with more misery in their communities that you do anywhere else in the country. And a spectacular inability to deal with these crises and natural disasters that are going to happen. You've got corruption, you've got money allocated to shore up the levees that doesn't get spent on that, who knows where it goes. You've got a corrupt police force, you've got an incompetent governor and mayor that can't get people out of town, even though they know days in advance this thing is coming. And so the liberals are in a funk because people are now saying, "Well, what we were doing isn't working there." And what they were doing is what they want to do, the welfare state, the entitlement mentality, all these programs. And so people are saying, "You know what, they don't work."

Earthquake: Best Thing to Ever Happen to Kashmir Region

2005-10-10T05:10:00.000-07:00

Of course those who perished in the Kashmir earthquake will not reap the benefits the earthquake aftermath will bring. Those who survive the earthquake will find that it may be a blessing in disguise. Let me start with a brief history of the Kashmir region, as known to me.

The Kashmir region, a territory long disputed by India and Pakistan, is one of the most violent places in the world. Until the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was the most violent place on this planet. A friend living in the United States, originally from Southern India, told me it is a beautiful region that was a vacation retreat for residents of Mumbai and New Delhi and Islamabad before India-Pakistan civil war broke out and the two countries were created - Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India - following emancipation from British rule. But, the region is set on the foothills of the Himalayan mountains - rugged, unforgiving, cavernous and moutainous terrain.

Additionally, the cavernous mountain region of Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden is supposedly is in the affected region of the Kashmir earthquake. This is not a wealthy region of the world. Yet.

Many buildings collapsed in the earthquake, because, well, they were of poor quality. But the aid will start pooring in. Aid will come in from India, China, the UN, Russia and Japan. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton will start raising funds in the same likeness of the Tsunami and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Countries will start calling each other stingy in a bid war of who can be the most generous and charitable. And a region comprised of indiginous violent militias, terrorist training camps and roaming bands of pseudo-governing gangs will be awash in wealth. Wealth that, at its dubious best will be used for emergency health care, food, water and reconstruction and at its worst invested back into weapons stockpiling, civil strife and jihad. I am not talking about the aid going through the Pakistan government and Pakistani president Musharraf or through the Indian government. I am talking about the money that finally reaches a section of the world that is without government or rule of law.

What Media Bias: Media Swarm Around Terrorists

2005-10-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

Title:	The spokesman of Hamas' military wing, t
Subject:	News, Politics, Parties






Caption: GAZA CITY, -: The spokesman of Hamas' military wing, the Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades, speaks during a group press conference for Palestinian factions in Gaza City 08 October 2005. Eight armed Palestinian groups reaffirmed with one voice that they have no intention of giving up their weapons or the struggle against Israeli occupation. Among the groups behind the statement were the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad. AFP PHOTO/MAHMUD HAMS (Photo credit should read MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images)

What Media Bias: Long an outlet for the GOP message, talk radio undergoes a shift?

2005-10-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

Read this carefully:

A decade after Republicans credited Limbaugh with helping them win control of Congress - they called him the Majority Maker - they still look to his conservative-dominated medium for a lopsided communications edge over Democrats [this isn't true, since democrats dominate newspapers and television. Considering about 90% of journalists are wacko leftists, this is a ridiculous statement to make -ed.] Today, they count on talk radio to rally support for President Bush, attack those who criticize or question him, and stir passions leading into the 2006 midterm congressional elections [this isn't true either. Limbaugh is not a mouthpiece for Bush, he is a mouthpiece for conservatism. Talk radio and FoxNews are the only places that do support the president, despite the fact the marketplace for news consumers has more supporters than detractors, which is why radio has more listeners -ed.]

There are signs that the Republicans could be losing some of their overwhelming edge, however. Ratings for Limbaugh and Hannity slipped this spring in some markets. Liberals such as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Al Franken are carving out their own radio niche. And Democrats argue that they have an edge on the Internet, where explosive growth could dwarf the political impact of radio [wait, so the shift is occurring on the Internet, not radio? -ed.]

Then, way way way way at the end, the article's conclusion disproves the claim in its title:

[Obligatory democratic propaganda deleted -ed.] Yet if the communications of politics is changing, it hasn't changed that much yet[, dammit.]

Limbaugh still has about 14.75 million listeners, according to Talkers Magazine. Hannity has about 13 million.

Even the most successful liberal hosts, such as Schultz, Miller and Franken, don't come close yet. None made the top 30 talk radio shows as ranked by Talkers Magazine.

The So Called Liberal Media:

2005-10-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks since two Democratic Senatorial campaign committee staffers resigned for illegally accessing the personal credit report for Maryland lieutenant governor and possible Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele (search). Now, The New York Times has run it's first story on the subject, and this is what it says: "National Republicans, who face an uphill battle in their efforts to capture the open United States Senate seat in heavily Democratic Maryland next year, are trying to exploit potential legal problems that Democrats are now suddenly facing in that race."
As for New York's senior senator and DSCC chairman, Chuck Schumer (search), he's not mentioned until the 16th and final paragraph.

That was Brit Hume's report. The Times has such an openly liberal bias, I laugh at people who contend otherwise.

Mark Steyn: Making a pig's ear of defending democracy

2005-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

(Filed: 04/10/2005)...

Alas, the United Kingdom's descent into dhimmitude is beyond parody. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (Tory-controlled) has now announced that, following a complaint by a Muslim employee, all work pictures and knick-knacks of novelty pigs and "pig-related items" will be banned. Among the verboten items is one employee's box of tissues, because it features a representation of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. And, as we know, Muslims regard pigs as "unclean", even an anthropomorphised cartoon pig wearing a scarf and a bright, colourful singlet.

Cllr Mahbubur Rahman is in favour of the blanket pig crackdown. "It is a good thing, it is a tolerance and acceptance of their beliefs and understanding," he said. That's all, folks, as Porky Pig used to stammer at the end of Looney Tunes. Just a little helpful proscription in the interests of tolerance and acceptance.

...

A couple of years ago, when an anxious-to-please head teacher in Batley was banning offensive "pig-centred books", Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain commented that "there is absolutely no scriptural authority for this view. It is a misunderstanding of the Koranic instruction that Muslims may not eat pork." Mr Bunglawala is a typical "moderate" Muslim - he thinks the British media are "Zionist-controlled", etc - but on the pig thing he's surely right. It seems unlikely that even the exhaustive strictures of the Koran would have a line on Piglet.

So these little news items that pop up every week now are significant mostly as a gauge of the progressive liberal's urge to self-abase and Western Muslims' ever greater boldness in flexing their political muscle.

After all, how daffy does a Muslim's willingness to take offence have to be to get rejected out of court? Only the other day, Burger King withdrew its ice-cream cones from its British restaurants because Mr Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe, after a trip to the Park Royal branch, complained that the creamy swirl on the lid resembled the word "Allah" in Arabic script.

It doesn't, not really, not except that in the sense any twirly motif looks vaguely Arabic. After all, Burger King isn't suicidal enough to launch Allah Ice-Cream. But, after Mr Akhtar urged Muslims to boycott the chain and claimed that "this is my jihad", Burger King yanked the ice-cream and announced that, design-wise, it was going back to the old drawing-board.

Offence is, by definition, in the eye of the beholder. I once toured the Freud Museum with the celebrated sex therapist Dr Ruth, who claimed to be able to see a penis in every artwork and piece of furniture in the joint. Yet, when I suggested one sculpture looked vaguely like the female genitalia, she scoffed mercilessly.

Likewise, Piglet is deeply offensive and so's your chocolate ice-cream, but if a West End play opens with a gay Jesus, Christians just need to stop being so doctrinaire and uptight. The Church of England bishops would probably agree with that if, in their own misguided attempt at Islamic outreach, they weren't so busy apologising for toppling Saddam.

When every act that a culture makes communicates weakness and loss of self-belief, eventually you'll be taken at your word. In the long term, these trivial concessions are more significant victories than blowing up infidels on the Tube or in Bali beach restaurants. An act of murder demands at least the pretence of moral seriousness, even from the dopiest appeasers. But small acts of cultural vandalism corrode the fabric of freedom all but unseen.

Is it really a victory for "tolerance" to say that a council worker cannot have a Piglet coffee mug on her desk? And isn't an ability to turn a blind eye to animated piglets the very least the West is entitled to expect from its Muslim citizens? If Islam cannot "co-exist" even with Pooh or the abstract swirl on a Burger King ice-cream, how likely is it that it can co-exist with the more basic principles of a pluralist society? As A A Milne almost said: "They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace/ Her Majesty's Law is replaced by Allah's."

...

I doubt whether the Post Office will be in any rush to issue another set of Pooh commemorative stamps, or the BBC to revive Pinky and Perky. Forty years ago, Britain's Islamic minority didn't have the numbers to ban Piglet and change the Burger King menu. Now they do. What will be deemed "unacceptable" in the interests of "tolerance" in 20 or even five years' time?

It has been clear since July 7 that the state has no real idea what to do to reconcile the more disaffected elements of its fastest-growing demographic. But at some point Britons have to ask themselves - while they're still permitted to discuss the question more or less freely - how much of their country they're willing to lose.

Mark Steyn:

2005-10-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Media deserve blame for New Orleans debacle

October 2, 2005

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Dan Rather was on ''Larry King Live'' the other night and was asked about the Katrina coverage. Now, say what you like about Dan, but he knows his meteorological phenomena. I've always thought there was something quintessentially American about Dan's hurricane editions of the CBS news -- not the part of the show where he's reporting on the actual hurricane, but the bit where he says "And today's other headlines,'' as if it's the most normal thing in the world to be reading "The Dow closed 19 points down today" while wrapped around a lamppost in your sou'wester with a rusting doublewide flying over your shoulder.

Yet Hurricane Dan professed himself delighted with his successors. "They took us there to the hurricane," he told Larry. "They put the facts in front of us and, very important, they sucked up their guts and talked truth to power."

Er, no. The facts they put in front of us were wrong, and they didn't talk truth to power. They talked to goofs in power, like New Orleans' Mayor Nagin and Police Chief Compass, and uncritically fell for every nutso yarn they were peddled. The media swallowed more bilge than if they'd been lying down with their mouths open as the levee collapsed. Ten thousand dead! Widespread rape and murder! A 7-year-old gang-raped and then throat-slashed! It was great stuff -- and none of it happened. No gang-raped 7-year-olds. None.

Most of the media are still in Dan mode, sucking up their guts and congratulating themselves about what a swell job they did during Katrina. CNN producers were advising their guests to "be angry," and there was so much to get angry about, not least the fact that no matter how angry you got on air Anderson Cooper was always much better at it. And Mayor Nagin as well. To show he was angry, he said "frickin'" all the frickin' time so that by the end of a typical Nagin soundbite you felt as if you'd been gang-fricked. "That frickin' Superdome," he raged. "Five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

But nobody got killed by a hooligan in the Superdome. The problem wasn't rape and murder, but the rather more prosaic lack of bathroom facilities. As Ben Stein put it, it was the media that rioted. They grabbed every lurid rumor and took it for a wild joyride across prime time. There was a real story in there -- big hurricane, people dead -- but it wasn't enough, and certainly not for damaging President Bush.

Think about that: Hurricane week was in large part a week of drivel, mostly the bizarre fantasies of New Orleans' incompetent police chief but amplified hugely by a gullible media. Given everything we now know they got wrong in Louisiana, where they speak the language, how likely is it that the great blundering herd are getting it any more accurate in Iraq?

...

How many times does this have to happen before the press seriously examines why so many of them get the big stories wrong in exactly the same way? After decades of boasting about "hiring diversity," everybody in America's newsrooms is now so remarkably diverse they all make exactly the same mistakes. Oughtn't that to be just a teensy bit disquieting even to the most blinkered journalism professor?

Sun Plays Role in Global Warming!!!

2005-10-01T06:47:00.000-07:00

Who woulda thunk it?

Study: Sun's Changes to Blame for Part of Global Warming

By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 30 September 2005
01:12 pm ET

Increased output from the Sun might be to blame for 10 to 30 percent of global warming that has been measured in the past 20 years, according to a new report.

Increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases still play a role, the scientists say.

But climate models of global warming should be corrected to better account for changes in solar activity, according to Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West of Duke University.

The findings were published online this week by the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Scientists agree the planet is warming (i still disagree, but what do I know - ed). Effects are evident in melting glaciers and reductions in the amount of frozen ground around the planet.

Victor Davis Hanson

2005-09-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

Ivory Cower
University presidents have lost their dignity.

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Whether or not you agreed with them, university presidents used to be dignified figures on the American scene. They often were distinguished scholars, capable of bringing their own brand of independent thinking to bear on the operation and reform of their institutions. Above all, they took seriously the university's mission to seek and transmit the Truth, and thereby to strengthen the free society that made such inquiry possible.

But it has been a long time since Woodrow Wilson (at Princeton), Robert Hutchins (at Chicago) or James Bryant Conant (at Harvard) set the tone for American campuses. Over the past year, four university presidents have been in the news--from Harvard; the University of California, Santa Cruz; the University of Colorado; and the University of California, Berkeley. In each case, the curtains have briefly parted, allowing the public to glimpse the campus wizards working the levers behind the scenes, and confirming that something has gone terribly wrong at our best public and private universities.

Hypocrisy, faddishness, arrogance and intellectual cowardice are among the ailments of the American university today, and it is hard to say whether even a great president could save higher education from its now institutionalized vices. Amid the variety of scandals afflicting the campuses, the one constant is how the rhetoric of "diversity" trumps almost all other considerations--and how race and gender can be manipulated by either the college president or the faculty in ways that have nothing to do with educating America's youth, but everything to do with personal aggrandizement in an increasingly archaic and unexamined enclave.

At Harvard University, beleaguered President Lawrence Summers challenged notions of "diversity" and paid a steep price. He suggested--off the record, at a conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research--that factors other than institutional prejudice and cultural pressure might help explain the relative dearth of women faculty in the hard sciences at Harvard and other elite universities. If the intent of that mildly provocative, off-the-cuff exegesis was to jumpstart debate among serious thinkers, it proved a big mistake. Within seconds, one tough-minded feminist was reduced to bouts of nausea and swooning, and within hours many were calling for Mr. Summers to apologize, if not resign.

As the country soon learned, Mr. Summers had touched the live wire of the contemporary campus by hinting that inequality of result might be due to something other than invidious and institutional discrimination. Mr. Summers fell back limp from that high-voltage jolt; only massive and repeated doses of self-abasement could resuscitate him. Accordingly, he quickly renounced and denounced his own musings, promising task forces, "independent listeners," investigations, committees and ample largesse (including $50 million from Harvard's own bulging coffers) to be distributed to the purported victims of his insensitivity--who are in fact some of the most educated, privileged and upscale women on the planet.

But to save Mr. Summers's job it will probably cost much more than his pledge of $5 million a year for a decade. His special task force already has urged the appointment of a senior "vice provost for diversity and faculty development," along with improved recruitment and the "mentoring" of junior faculty members. According to a communiqué from his office, the members of his task force "propose a series of reforms and enhancements to the way women pursuing science and engineering are treated at every point along the 'pipeline,' from undergraduates, to graduate students, to post-doctoral fellows, to the faculty ranks." And lest we think $50 million is too much, Mr. Summers's statement also added that it is merely a down payment: "There is no doubt that these initiatives will require significant additional expenditures. But we want to make clear at the outset that this is a serious effort calling for a serious commitment of resources."

Somehow the former secretary of the Treasury, who once helped manage the Byzantine world of global commerce, failed to realize that the entire campus industry of mandated retroactive compensation--targeted fellowships, release time (i.e., excusing teachers from teaching), ideological curricula, favorable hiring and promotion considerations, tenure decisions based on criteria other than merit, and other forms of recompense that Mr. Summers in fact scrambled to grant--would be imperiled by a few politically incorrect syllables. Perhaps Mr. Summers naively thought that Harvard was about free speech and unfettered discourse--its motto, after all, is Veritas, "Truth." In any event, he quickly recovered, winning back through penance, self-censorship, and spoils a job that he had almost forfeited in a passing moment of intellectual curiosity."

Another Horribly Misleading Article

2005-09-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Credit Card Payments Hindered by Gas Prices

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
1 hour, 48 minutes ago

The percentage of credit card payments that were past due shot up to a record high in the second quarter as surging gasoline prices strained budgets and made it difficult for some people to pay their bills.

The American Bankers Association reported Wednesday that the seasonally adjusted percentage of credit card accounts 30 or more days past due rose in the April-to-June quarter [last I checked, the first hurricane hit August 29th, and the spike in gas prices occurred after - ed] to 4.81 percent. That followed a delinquency rate of 4.76 percent in the first quarter and was the highest since the association began collecting this information in 1973.

"The rise in gas prices is really stretching budgets to the breaking point for some people," the association's chief economist, Jim Chessen, said in an interview. "Gas prices are taking huge chunks out of wallets, leaving some individuals with little left to meet their financial obligations."

While Chessen mostly blamed high gasoline prices for the rise in credit card delinquencies, other factors also played a role, he said.

Where is Jason White?

2005-09-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Quarterback emergencies grip the Jets, Ravens, Bears and Cardinals. I never figured out why these teams haven't opted for college phenom Jason White: (his past injuries could have been a factor)

An intense rehabilitation would see White return to action in 2003, but he lost most of his speed and developed into a pocket passer … [He went] on to gain 3,846 yards on 278 of 451 passes (61.6 percent) with 40 touchdowns to shatter school season records … Also had only 10 interceptions while earning consensus All-American honors and winning the Heisman Trophy that year … Was granted a sixth year of eligibility and decided to return to the Sooners in 2004 rather than test his wares in the NFL … Captured the Maxwell, Davey O'Brien and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm awards and was a finalist for the Heisman … Hit on 255 of 390 passes (65.4 percent) for 3,205 yards, 32 touchdowns and only nine interceptions as a senior … His 7,922 yards and 81 touchdown passes set school career records, topping the previous marks of 7,456 yards and 53 touchdown passes by Josh Heupel (1999-2000) … Completed 622 of 990 passes (62.8 percent) during his Oklahoma career, marks that were surpassed only by Heupel (654 of 1,025) in school annals … .His 7,961 yards in total offense surpassed Heupel's previous school all-time record of 7,522 … A model of consistency and a renowned scoring machine, White threw at least four touchdowns in 10 of 40 games he played in for the Sooners … Joined Heupel (63.8 percent) as the only quarterbacks in school annals to complete more than 60 percent of their passes in a career (62.8 percent).

An Anatomy of a Photograph: Required Reading

2005-09-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

Click post title to read.

Gates of Vienna Weblog has the Following Excerpt:

2005-09-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

Then my eye was caught by the following bumper sticker:

I did a double-take and backtracked for a closer look: it was the table for the “Coalition Against Civilization.”

I had to know more, so I started looking through their literature. The woman running the table noticed my interest, and helpfully pointed out the more informative pamphlets, encouraging me by telling me that they were free.

I came away with several interesting tracts (and paid $1.50 for the bumper sticker so I could display it here).

The lengthiest of my acquisitions is a pamphlet entitled “The Primitivist Primer.” It outlines a manifesto for an anti-industrial political philosophy:

	What is anarcho-primitivism?
	…At best, then, anarcho-primitivism is a convenient label used to characterize diverse individuals with a common project: the abolition of all power relations — e.g., structures of control, coercive authority, domination and exploitation — and the creation of a form of community that excludes all such relations.

O.K, so far, so good — we’re not going to coerce and dominate and exploit anybody any more. That will be nice. Of course, we also won’t coerce anyone into non-dominating non-exploiting behavior, either. Hmm…

Anarcho-primitivism incorporates elements from various oppositional currents — ecological consciousness, survivalism, animal liberation, anarchist anti-authoritarianism, feminist critiques, Situationist ideas, zero-work theories, Luddite and technological criticism — but goes beyond opposition to single forms of power to refuse them all and pose a radical alternative.

All forms of power will be abolished! A truly Utopian plan.

Anarcho-primitivism is an anti-systemic current: it opposes all systems, institutions, abstractions, the artificial, the synthetic, and the machine, because they all embody power relations (as well as domination and destruction of nature). Anarcho-primitivists thus oppose technology and the technological system, but not the use of tools and implements (that would be absurd!) in the sense as indicated here.

Presumably the tools and implements will all be made of stone and wood and bone, because otherwise we would have to do some destructive smelting and smithing.

They envision a future that is “radically cooperative and communitarian, ecological and feminist, spontaneous and wild.” A primitivist society would be decentralized, egalitarian, and self-sufficient…

I can dig it. I’m ready to hang out at the all-organic non-industrial commune and truly align myself with the earth.

But there is the thorny problem — after we junk all the John Deere harvesters and grain elevators and nasty steel mills — of how to feed the five billion souls under Mother Gaia’s care. But don’t worry; the Coalition Against Civilization has taken this into consideration:

What about population?

Anarchists have long argued that in a free world, social, economic, and psychological pressures towards excessive reproduction would be removed. There would just be too many other interesting things going on to engage people’s time! Feminist primitivists have argued that women, freed of gender constraints and the family structure, would not be defined by their reproductive capabilities as in patriarchal societies, and this would result in lowered population levels too. So population would be likely to fall, willy-nilly.

So that’s how it will work: feminist primitivists will have control over their reproductive lives. And they will do so, presumably, without birth-control pills, diaphragms, condoms, etc., because industrial technology is required to make those luxuries. One assumes that anarcho-primitivist guys will just have to do without.

I also brought home this flyer:

	SPECIES TRAITOR
	Species traitor exists as a forum for spreading and developing theories and practical means to bring about the destruction of civilization and defend what wilderness remains. We feel that now more than ever, there is a need for a viable alternative to the mass death culture, and hope to widen the range of information available.
	This cannot be clear enough, we embrace the goal of moving beyond civilization and will not settle for reform on any level.
	SPECIES TRAITOR P.O. BOX 835 Greensburg, PA., 15601 coalitionagainstcivilization@hotmail.com

Matt Drudge Comments:

2005-09-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

On his radio show last night, Matt Drudge removed any and all doubt

"If Hillary Clinton runs for president, [the Drudge Report] is going to rock her world."

Have no fear Drudge will lose his edge in 2008.

Hopefully with a Panama hat.

Anti-SUV Movement Gathers Strength

2005-09-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

From the article:

Eight in 10 people say it's important for Americans now driving sport utility vehicles to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles to reduce the nation's dependence on oil, a poll found.

With gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon nationally and the price of natural gas rising sharply, six in 10 said they are not confident President Bush is taking the right approach to solving the nation's energy problems, according to the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Considering that more than two in ten drivers drive SUVs, I wonder how many who drive SUVs ask that other people not drive SUVs so that they can have cheaper gas prices? Although, even if everyone tomorrow switched to fuel-efficient cars, it would be, oh, six years until we reach current demand levels again. Conservation IS NOT a solution, it is a lousy mitigator at best.

But let me talk about the greater issue of controlling what others do, eat, say - and drive. What I drive is not a decision you, the government or anyone else can make. It is my decision alone. So what if 8 of 10 people want me to drive my bicycle to work? I prefer low gas prices, too. But, even at $3 a gallon, I am willing to pay it!

This poll isn't news, its opinion. Bias, wrapped an invisible cloak of objectivity.

Victor Davis Hanson on New Orleans

2005-09-13T18:51:00.000-07:00

"In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes."

Arson, looting, shooting at helicopters, random murder, gang rape and stampede supposedly only occur elsewhere —in Baghdad or Rwanda, as if Americans are exempt from the frailty of culture simply because we live in the United States.

We are not, as we saw in New Orleans. And when the protocols of American civilization vanished through storm and flood, the devolution to our instinctual savagery proved only minutes away.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina and the breaching of the Lake Pontchartrain levees above New Orleans ushered in not one, but successive storms of human and natural brutality.

First, we pressed nature one too many times. America forgot that there are very few cities extant on the planet that are below sea level. And to add to that, New Orleans is positioned on a gale-prone coast, aside the delta of one of the largest rivers in the world, and at the mercy of a huge lake damned right above the city.

That New Orleans heretofore had not experienced ruin in the manner of a swampy Venice or Naples beneath Mt. Vesuvius was the real miracle.

But besides topographical peril, New Orleans suffers from an ossified Louisianan political culture that has not evolved all that much from the crass demagoguery of Huey Long of the 1930s. The party machine's reason to be is providing exemptions for the very wealthy and subsidies for the dependent poor. We saw the dividends of this old "every man a king" politics in the scapegoating by paralyzed public officials.

A few abroad could not resist expressing delight at the misery of the world's hyperpower. A Kuwaiti official Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, director of a state research center, also cited superhuman retribution. Now safe from Saddam and with oil sky high, he assured his former American saviors that Allah was rendering retribution to us infidels.

Jurgen Trittin, Germany's environmental minister —without memory of Americans eliminating German Nazism, saving Berlin from starvation, keeping the Red Army out of Western Europe and lobbying for German unification —preened that the ruination of New Orleans was duly earned for our neglect of the global atmosphere. This was from a government that counts on exporting thousands of its luxury gas-guzzling Mercedes, Audis and BMWs to the United States.

We could have weathered one storm, but four or five natural and human tempests all at once reduced us to abject calamity over New Orleans —bringing "men's characters to a level with their fortunes."

$6.6 Trillion to Fight Poverty, a Racist Does Not Make

2005-09-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

The idea that Katrina would change the only thing that matters -- thinking -- perished even more quickly, at about the time Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a suitable symbol of congressional narcissism, dramatized the severity of the tragedy by taking a television interviewer on a helicopter flight over ... her destroyed beach house. ``Washington rolled the dice and Louisiana lost,'' she said in a speech on the Senate floor that moved some senators to tears. You can no more embarrass a senator than you can a sofa, so the tears were not accompanied by blushing about having just passed a transportation bill whose 6,371 pork projects cost $24 billion, about 10 times more than the price of the levee New Orleans needed. Louisiana's congressional delegation larded the bill with $540,580,200 worth of earmarks, one-fifth the price of a capable levee.

America's always fast-flowing river of race-obsessing has overflowed its banks, and last Sunday on ``This Week'' Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois' freshman Democrat, applied to the expression of old banalities a fluency that would be beguiling were it without content. Unfortunately, it included the requisite lament about the president's inadequate ``empathy" and an amazing criticism of the government's ``historic indifference'' and its ``passive indifference'' that ``is as bad as active malice.'' The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the ``war on poverty'' that President Johnson declared in January 1964. Since then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of antipoverty spending, strictly defined.

New Orleans Represents the Failure of Liberalism

2005-09-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh:

The literal fact that more money has gone to New Orleans for levees and the Corps of Engineers in five years of the Bush administration than any time during the Clinton administration. As you pointed out, the local officials have not spent it wisely, who knows where it's gone. It hasn't gone to poverty relief because the poverty rate down there is bad. The reality is that you have a massive socialist type entitlement state in New Orleans and through a lot of Louisiana, and you look at when a disaster hits, the people are out there saying, "This is just really displaying the depths of American poverty." No, it's not. It's displaying the depths of poverty in a liberal Democrat-run community, not the depths of poverty in America. You're not seeing this, as I say, from Mississippi. You don't see stuff like this when hurricanes go through Florida. You just do not see it. So what Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin are saying is that it's not their fault, that the government didn't succeed, government didn't work, and government needs to be bigger. The left is saying this proves that government is not yet big enough.

The lesson here is something that I and other conservatives have been saying for decades, and that is that self-reliance and self-responsibility are the best things to be able to fall back on. You hear that a disaster is coming, make sure that you have the ability to get out of the way. Make sure you have the ability to move. We're talking about saving lives here. Everybody is going to suffer economic and financial losses in a disaster this size, so we're talking about saving lives. Why is it that the people who were able to get themselves out have become enemies? Why is it that, "Well, easy for them to do, but what about the poor?" What about the poor? We still haven't had the proper argument in this country about why they're poor, and the reason that we haven't is because the left believes they're poor because of the construction of this country. They think that the system of capitalism dictates that there will be haves and have-nots and therefore there is no attempt even made to help the have-nots, that capitalism is comfortable with haves and have-nots. But socialism, even though it's never worked, even though it is something that requires revolution, dictators, and walls to keep people in, even though it's never worked, the self-loathers constantly rely on the promise of socialism and the promise of equality, the good intentions of equality. "We'll make sure that there are no haves and have-nots, there are just haves." Well, when you take away entrepreneurial capitalism and free markets, and that's what socialism does, you don't have achievers - all you will have is have-nots. You've got people that become more and more and then totally dependent. So the argument here really is, "Is the government not big enough, or is it too big?"

The media, which is creating a reality for everybody, is out there saying, "This proves small government doesn't work and we need to have government get even bigger." And mark my words, when the inevitable hearings begin, that will be the theme of the left. That government wasn't big enough and it wasn't ready enough and it needs a new department of disaster relief, we need a new cabinet level, homeland hurricane security, or whatever, something along these lines. And then we'll have a whole new bureaucracy that's supposed to sit around and do nothing but get ready for these. On the other hand, you'll have people saying that, "No, the government is too big and if you're going to make it even bigger it's only going to get worse." The bottom line, if you want the real truth, the bottom line is that the local and state governments failed miserably, there's no question about it, I don't care who wants to try to rewrite history here. The dirty little secret is that the feds got there pretty quick and they got there pretty quick with a lot of stuff that could help people. They got there faster than they got there in five other hurricanes.

They all vote Democrat and a lot of them are not going to go back, and one of the reasons they're not going to go back is because after all this aid gets spent they're going to have nicer places to live than they had when they lived in New Orleans, and they're going to have more opportunities for jobs. New Orleans was a demonstrable failure for these people, and that's why I think there needs to be an investigation of liberalism down there. Far from creating a utopia, look at what they created. So these people don't go back. So there's a significant number of Democrats not voting in Louisiana, and it could be. I mean, how many people have been evacuated, 182,000? I don't know how many of those are going to go back, but let's say 90,000 of them don't, that's 90,000 votes that are not going to be voted for Democrat candidates in Louisiana, and Mary Landrieu barely, barely eked out the last two elections, and it took Bill Clinton making phone calls down in New Orleans to get these people out to vote, and it was razor-thin.

Now, little known to people is that much the same type of thing is happening in the northeast and the upper Midwest, otherwise known as the Rust Belt. The number of people, for example, moving to Florida is calculated to be 800 a day, despite four hurricanes last year, and one hurricane this year, 800 people a day moving to Florida. Many of them are moving to the Tampa-St. Pete area, Jacksonville along the panhandle in Florida. They're moving from places like Long Island and other parts of New York state. They're coming from Cleveland, they're coming from places in Detroit and Michigan and so forth, and the reason is that the taxes, real estate, property tax, income taxes have gotten so high that people cannot afford to live there and work there. And they're able to move to Florida with a job that pays pretty much the same but have twice the house, with no state income tax. They have more disposable income. They're able to actually factor sending their kids to college. If this rate of 800 people a day moving to Florida -- and, by the way, most of the people in these areas are Democrats. When you're talking about New York and Michigan and upper Ohio, Cleveland, you're talking about Democrats. So if this rate of 800 a day moving to Florida keeps up and everybody expects it not only to keep up but increase, in ten years Florida will have more electoral votes than New York, and when the Democrats start losing bodies to get to the polls in these northeastern and Rust Belt states, they're losing Democrats up there. It's not so much that enough Democrats are leaving New York, say, that it will become a Republican state, but they're going to lose electoral votes. Their electoral map for winning the presidency is what's going to change. Florida is clearly a Republican state and getting more so by the day, and the same thing is happening in the South. The Democrats have written the South off, as you know, except for Louisiana. They've written it off, and that's where these people happen to be moving. Some are moving to North Carolina. Some are moving to South Carolina. Some are moving to Georgia. Some are coming all the way down to Florida. But they are leaving, and it's going to change the electoral map for presidential elections for the Democratic Party.

Bush-Bashing By the Boss

2005-09-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

What do you do?

A boss is someone you are supposed to respect and obey.

But occasionally a boss may stray into the realm of politics during work. Or during a meeting with a VP, some Directors (accounting, IT, etc), some Network Admins, a couple of Managers and a bunch of lower level technicians, service personnel, analysts, etc, myself included. A total of 20-25 people, including my boss and my boss' boss. With a talking Bush doll. And some obscene body gestures.

Blatant to everyone. All of the senior people were raucously amused. Some of the lower level employees were appalled, some neutral, some laughing. I was positively steaming. For several minutes jokes referring to Texas, Halliburton, Oil and Bush - combined with the placement of the doll in obscene positions and the frequent slapping of the doll ensued in front of the people assembled at the meeting. I would say, that although people were turned off, only one person at the meeting was a conservative. Me. My facial expressions did not hide my disgust, but no one noticed.

Such is life in the IT industry, in Maryland.

Sigh.

What was on display in the several minutes that delayed today's afternoon meeting was pure, unadulterated, blind, seething, white-hot rage. All of the most senior level employees took their shots - the enmity was total. My company is a web services firm for the health care industry headquartered in Dallas, but my office location is in Hunt Valley, MD.

Someone call me intolerant.

Feeling Hosed Yet?

2005-09-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Louisiana Death Toll: 297.

Boy did those 10,000 body statements raise a lot of money. Unfortunately, they were false. You think the guys stealing Nike's or Plasma TV's were looters . . . how about the relief fundraising based on lies?

Comment Spam

2005-09-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

It appears comment spam is starting to become quite oppressive. I have no choice, but to turn on word verification for comments.

Charles Krauthammer

2005-09-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — In less enlightened times, there was no catastrophe independent of human agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and all felt better (except the witches and Jews).

A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2) the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn sinner-in-chief George W. Bush.

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I’ll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period. The problem with the evacuation of New Orleans is not that National Guardsmen in Iraq could not get to New Orleans, but that National Guardsmen in Louisiana did not get to New Orleans. As for the Bush tax cuts, administration budget requests for New Orleans flood control during the five Bush years exceed that of the five preceding Clinton years. The notion that the allegedly missing revenues would have been spent wisely by Congress, targeted precisely to the levees of New Orleans, and reconstruction would have been completed in time, is a threefold fallacy. The argument ends when you realize that, as The Washington Post notes, “the levees that failed were already completed projects."

God Save Us From Another Commission

2005-09-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton is calling for a commission to investigate the New Orleans catastrophe. George Bush is calling for a commission to investigate the New Orleans catastrophe. Senator Leahy is calling for a commission to investigate the New Orleans catastrophe. Even Kofi Annan is calling - just kidding!

I have already concluded my own investigation. Here is the problem: TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT. I can save a lot of time and tax dollars. The problem is TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.

Who failed? Government. The city of New Orleans had a disaster plan. They didn't execute it. They collected money through taxes - they didn't appropriate it well. They had warnings from scientists and meteorologists - they didn't heed them. They had the authority of rule of law - they didn't enforce it. The State of Louisiana could usurp power from the City and execute an evacuation. They didn't. The State could have appropriate funding for the levee's - they didn't. The State could have enforced law and order - they didn't. The Federal government could have gone over the heads of the city and the state - they didn't. Congress could have appropriated funding for the levee's - they voted it down. Hillary Clinton and Leahy voted against funding for the levee's. President Bush was warned of the danger posed to New Orleans from a hurricane - he responded lethargically. We created more bureaucracy so that disasters like this wouldn't happen - FEMA and the DHS. They failed to act as well.

And now all these same people who failed to act and failed to plan and failed to respond want a commission to investigate. Do you think Bush will investigate himself? Hmm, vacationing in Texas instead of evacuating New Orleans? Do you think Hillary will investigate herself? Voted against appropriated funds to secure the levees. Do you think Patrick Leahy will investigate himself? Sitting under the apple tree in Vermont trying to destroy John Roberts.

There is a commission investigating Oil For Food in the UN. Still. There is a commission investigating the commission investigating the UN Oil For Food Scandal, which was part of a commission that was supposed to investigate Saddam. And, yes, they are still shredding papers at the UN.

There is a commission (see Curt Weldon) investigating the 9/11 commission that investigated the terrorist attacks. There is probably a commission investigating the commission that is investigating the 9/11 commission. And Jamie Gorelick is probably on that one too.

What were the solutions proposed by all these commissions and investigations?
A) Government failed.
B) We need more government.
C) We need more commissions and more investigations.
4) We will fail again.

Sometimes these commissions get bold and blame a building (last I checked, you can't fire a building. Not set fire, but fire, make the building lose its job.)
I am sure when this commission is over they will blame a cloud.

And utter incompetence will not be accountable. Tax dollars will pay for all of these commissions and investigations - paid at a premium. No one will be blamed. No one will be fired. Government will grow and become more incompetent.

We accept this.
And in some cave somewhere, Osama bin Laden is laughing his head off. I have to give the man credit. He has never tolerated big government anywhere. He has never tolerated such incompetence. And that is why he thinks he can beat us. Because we do.

Via AOL Blogs

2005-09-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Stockbridge, Georgia

From: DaniMcCullough

Where/When: Stockbridge, Georgia - August 31, 2005

Comment: This BP is located on Hwy 138 right of the Stockbridge exit off I75. The amazing thing was that people were actually pumping gas there when the Pit Stop gas station directly across the street was charging about $3.29 at the most. If people are too ignorant to go across the street then they deserve to pay $5.87-$6.07 for gas

City of New Orleans Comprehensive Management Plan Link

2005-09-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

"'We coordinate all city departments and allied state and federal agencies which respond to citywide disasters and emergencies through the development and constant updating of an integrated multi-hazard plan. All requests for federal disaster assistance and federal funding subsequent to disaster declarations are also made through this [New Orleans Mayor's Office]. Our authority is defined by the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, Chapter 6 Section 709, Paragraph B, 'Each parish shall maintain a Disaster Agency which, except as otherwise provided under this act, has jurisdiction over and serves the entire parish.'"

And yet the blame is on Bush.

"Authority to issue evacuation of elements of the population is vested in the mayor:"

2005-09-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

- City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.

"By executive order, the chief elected official, the mayor of the city of New Orleans, has the authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane. Evacuation procedures for special-needs persons with either physical or mental handicaps, including registration of disabled persons is covered in the standard operating procedure for evacuation of special needs persons, which is a different annex of this report. Major population relocations resulting from an approaching hurricane or similar anticipated disaster caused the City of New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness to develop a specific hurricane emergency evac standard operating procedures, which are appended to the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. The standard operating procedure is developed to provide for an orderly and coordinated evacuation intended to minimize the hazardous effects of flooding, wind, and rain on the residents and visitors in New Orleans. Standard operating procedure provides for the evacuation of the public from danger areas and the designations of shelters for evacuees."

"Roman Numeral II is Concept of Operations: Paragraph I: "The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed. When specific routes of progress are required, evacuees will be directed to those routes. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life-saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed."

Roman numeral A: "Evacuation Time Requirements: Using information developed as part of the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Task Force and other research, the city of New Orleans has established a maximum acceptable hurricane evacuation time for a category three storm of 72 hours. This is based on clearance time or is the time required to clear all vehicles evacuating in response to a hurricane situation from area roadways. Clearance time begins when the first evacuating vehicle enters the road network and ends when the last evacuating vehicle reaches its destination."

Shocker: Government Does Something Poorly.

Why Were the Hurricane Victims Poor?

2005-09-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

The behavior displayed by the victims of the hurricane (not all, but some) shows all we need to know about why they were poor in the first place. Its about behavior.

Stealing plasma TVs instead of getting food and water, helping victims or trying to escape.

Shooting at rescuers.

Waiting around for someone else to help them, instead of taking responsibility for themselves.

Waiting around for someone else to take care of them, instead of being self-reliant.

Raping women after the hurricane instead of evacuating before the hurricane.

Feeling entitled to something for nothing - complaining because their food rations are not hot enough instead of being thankful that someone is risking their life to provide food.

Blaming Bush instead of themselves.

Making excuses for behavior that risks lives and criticizing behavior that saves lives.

It all sickens me, but it does not surprise.

People are poor because of behavior, not luck. And here we see it on public display.

A Colorblind Hurricane

2005-09-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

Charges of racism in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina are as absurd as if the hurricane itself were racist. The conflagration of clouds did not pick New Orleans to target african-americans. And the reason we are only seeing african-americans suffering in the city has less to do with racism, than it does with liberalism - a culture of making citizens completely dependent on government - only to watch government inevitably fail them.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrine shows self-reliance a relic from a bygone era of individualism and independent. In the place of self-reliance is a dependence on others - government, and an expectation of entitlements - unearned - at every turn. This disconnect, of course being, is that you cannot sustain getting something for nothing, and receiving entitlements for nothing cannot a city make.

Furthermore, with entitlements and liberalism come big government. None bigger and more incompetent than the government in New Orleans. Some, if not most of the blame for the lack of law, order and civility; rampant crime; the lack of proper emergency planning, preparation and execution; and the politicking and blame games that occurred during the past week. The citizens tried to vote themselves more and more entitlements for nothing. An overdrawn account must eventually be collected and some have paid with their lives.

Updated:

Local and state authorities were well aware of the possible catastrophe awaiting them and had an emergency plan that included bussing people out of the city. The busses would be used for those who didn't have their own transportation. City, other local and state authorities should have done this prior to landfall. They didn't. The busses are under water now. The media has yet to criticize them, with their entire blame directed at the President Bush. They say Bush hates black people. This is absurd.

The levee situation was well understood prior to landfall. Whether this was preventable, we don't know. But just as if an earthquake were to hit San Francisco, DO NOT blame Bush. Yet, before the bodies are counted, the left has been doing that.

Photos of Mobile, AL

2005-09-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of my friend RK, who is taking advantage of his pilot's license.

Hurricane Relief Efforts are a Dismal Failure

2005-09-02T07:19:00.000-07:00

The government never ceases to prove that it does everything poorly. Now is not the time for the blame game, but I want to outline a couple of things.

First, my Bush support credentials are without question - but I am disappointed. Where are the amphibious car/boat rescue vehicles? Where is the restoration of law and order? This, folks, is how the government would handle a terrorist attack on a major metropolitan area. And the question is not if, but when we are attacked by terrorists. This is a dismal showing.

Second, i have no patience for global warming and climate change arguments. They are absurd. Atlantic Ocean hurricane activity over the past fifty years has decreased - both in frequency and in intensity. That is a fact.

Third - all looters looting jewelry, plasma tvs or nike sneakers should be shot on site. Shot to kill. Looting medicine, bottled water, food and similar is ok. Do not shoot them. Anyone raping women in the SuperDome should be shot first, questions later. Anyone obstructing rescue efforts is risking lives, is costing lives. They should be shot as well.

Bush has got to do a better job. But the LA Governor, NO mayor, FEMA and other agencies are equally or more so to blame as well.

The terrorists are learning a lot from this incident. They understand just how poorly we handle catastrophe. And it is precisely that weakness they hope to exploit.

Why Do EnviroWackos Ride in Private Jets?

2005-09-01T05:07:00.000-07:00

In early August, Sociacrat Hillary Clinton and Republicrats John McCain and Lindsay Graham flew in a private jet up to the Northern reaches of Alaska and talked with the eskimos. They talked with the Inuit peoples, and based on the discussions with the non-college-educated, still living as if it were the 17th century eskimos, Clinton and McCain et al determined there is global warming. Caused by humans.

And promptly got in their private jets and flew back to DC. To tell us we have to conserve fuel. Before Clinton and McCain get back in their private jets and fly to wherever they are vacationing - Davos, Switzerland or Chile or wherever.

I drive a Honda Accord Coupe. Do you have any idea how much more fuel is burned by a private jet than a Honda Accord Coupe? What really burns me a new one is that to envirowackos like Clinton or McCain, Global Warming means people like you or me need to give up our Honda's, but they can keep their private jets, their Hummer's and their extravagant lifestyle. You think John Kerry will put those windmills and solar panels on Cape Cod or Martha's Vineyard? Or will he put them in your backyard?

But the larger issue exposed by the private jet hipocracy is that the environmental movement has nothing to do with saving the environment. It is about control and about power. Control and power is gained by taking away someone's private car and making them dependent on government for transportation; taking away someone's private energy source to make them dependent on government for power and taking away someone's business because it pollutes to much and making them dependent on government for sustenance. If you listen to the arguments made by all the envirowackos, always the solution is government. Government must find other energy sources - not private firms; government must private transportation - not private individuals; government must control emissions and clean up the environment - not private citizens.

If you want to cede your life to government, go ahead. I won't.

Uber-Wacko Astronaut: Cut and Run - From Earth

2005-08-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

A SlothBlog exclusive of Eileen Collins, a SlothBlog wacko regular. Here is what she said on Good Morning America today to Charlie Gibson:

"Its important to us as human beings to go out and explore. As you go out in space and you look back at the planet and you see how fragile it really is and you look out the other way you see its dark and there's really nothing we can see. We need to explore space, we need to get people off this plant. If we want our species to survive in the long run, we need to go out and explore."

Forget Iraq, we need an exit plan for Earth. We need to cut and run from Earth. Now, Miss Collins was on the shuttle Discovery, has returned from her flight in space back to Earth. But,...but, she is a certifiable wacko. A hurricane hits Louisiana and she is ready to cut and run from Earth. Now I have seen a lot of wacko stuff today - I was reading the Huffington Post - but this takes the cake!