More Simple Pleasures

Last month I posted an awesome guitar video by Antoine Dufour. This month, it's time for a little Andy McKee. Enjoy.

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The Latest From Mumbai

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OK, I'm Starting To Believe

Hard as I try to push this away, simply for the sheer ludicrousness of it, it just won't leave. Where was the president-elect actually born?



I realize that the video could very well be a radio gimmick type of spot, but why are there still so many lingering questions regarding this issue? Why have so many people been signing this petition so rapidly?

There was a time when I actually entertained the notion that John McCain might have had a problem regarding Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. constitution, so despite my partisan interest in politics, this is not an example of my bias in that regard. Additionally, this post is not a clandestine statement of my hatred for Kenyans, nor Panamanians, for that matter. It is, to be concise, a declaration of my sincere desire to see my next president meet each and every requirement of the constitution, the tenants of which he will swear to uphold on January 20th of 2009.

I don't think I'm asking too much.

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Canadian Meteorite

Here's something you don't see every day. It's an Edmonton Police DashCam Video of a huge meteorite crashing to Earth.

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Egads! Bush Pardons

Yes kids, it's that end-of-term time when presidents start doling out pardons and commutations to convicted criminals, and the AP has a list of terrifying bad-guys about to be turned loose on society by President Bush. Lock the doors and hide the children, here they come!

The latest is the AP reporting 14 pardons and 2 commutations. Here is a sampling:

On the latest pardon list were:

_Leslie Owen Collier of Charleston, Mo. She was convicted for unauthorized use of a pesticide and violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

"Unauthorized use of a pesticide"? Lordy, save us! Who is this depraved Leslie Owen Collier? From the Washington Post:

One of the pardon cases was Leslie Owen Collier, a farmer from Charleston, Mo. He pleaded guilty in February 1996 to two counts of taking bald eagles and one count of using poisoned bait to kill animals on his farm. The victims were three bald eagles, a red-tailed hawk, a great horned owl, a opossum, a raccoon and seven coyotes. Collier was sentenced to two years' probation, barred from possessing a firearm during that period, and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution.

(Extra credit if you noticed the gender difference in the two reports. [Extra-extra credit if you know the meaning of "taking bald eagles"]). Actual, bonafide kudos are available to anyone who notices that animals are now referred to as "victims".

Next up is Daniel F. Pue III, 64. Oh, he is an especially heinous man (I think).

He was convicted in 1996 on federal charges of illegal storage, disposal and transportation of a hazardous waste without a permit! The waste was pentachlorophenol and creosote sludge.

And now, thanks to George W Bush, he will be free to continue this dastardly practice of moving wood preservatives. America is in grave danger, my friends.

Here's one more from the list: Richard Michael Culpepper of Mahomet, Ill, who was convicted of making false statements to the federal government.
I wonder if Bush will pardon Bill Clinton?

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A Letter To Candace Gingrich

Yesterday in the Huffington Post, Candace Gingrich wrote a scathing letter to her brother, Newt, in which she several times referred to him - and ostensibly, all of "us" - as haters. I seriously doubt that Newt will respond in kind, but I have no qualms whatsoever about filling in for him. And I have no fears at all that Newt will be coming to beat me up for slapping his sister around just a bit, albeit figuratively.

Dear Ms. Gingrich,

You don't waste time, do you? In your opening paragraph, you mention the "fears and prejudices of the far right". Couple those gross mischaracterizations with the silly misnomer of "haters", and you have filled your stew with all the wrong ingredients. People are permitted to have strong opinions on subjects without being labelled as such, but it seems to be the most effective tool your "community" utilizes. You put the opposition on defense right out of the gate. I feel no need to defend against such charges, however, I just grow weary of hearing that tired, old mantra.

I will briefly address your concerns regarding "LGBT Americans". There is much credit due for the success the movement has achieved over the past decades. It is a good thing that you no longer have to live in those small closets. It was wrong for people to be brutally beaten simply for being who and what they were. Kudos on that front, you have become accepted in society.

The thing is, it just is never enough, is it? Civil unions were not good enough, were they? The cry was for equal rights for health benefits, hospital visitation, estate bequeathal, etc. Even if all this is offered, you are still akin to the warriors of old, who could not accept victory at the expense of continued conflict. To put it simply, you live for the fight. That is a sad commentary.

Your movement claims that two people who love one another should have the right to marry, but we both know that there are already prohibitions of this on myriad levels, don't we? For example, brothers cannot marry sisters or, if you prefer, brothers. Mothers cannot marry sons, nor fathers daughters. Some things are just wrong despite the efforts of others to obfuscate that fact.

A fair question asked by the LGBT community and its defenders is, "How will two gay people getting married affect you"? That is a question I cannot answer with conviction, but it is also true that someone else's kid getting kidnapped doesn't affect me, either. Does that make the act permissible?

You said in your letter:

The truth is that you're living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as [sic]-- and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

You seem to equate change unequivocally with progress. I beg to differ, since changing America's laws and morals into something more resembling Europe is not progress but the opposite of it. Remember, little sis (of Newt), we left that place more than two hundred years ago for a better life, which we created and which you are trying to destroy.

Your disdain for "what worked in the past" is misguided, at best. There is an old axiom that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

You should also leave political prognostication to the experts such as your big brother. Your belief that this election indicated a sweeping sea change in the ideology of the nation couldn't be further from the truth.

You will learn that in four years, though, and my guess is that you and your comrades will rail against the rule of democracy, just as you have seen fit to do with the proper decision of Prop 8. Democracy is only good when it works to your advantage, apparently.

In the meantime, if Newt doesn't write back, don't feel too bad, no one else would blame him.

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For Obama, A Question Of Judgement

For quite some time, Americans have dreamed of having a "common man" in the White House, someone just like them. It was a dream that never came to fruition simply because of the logistics of running for the high office coupled with the price tag. Further, the intense scrutiny of the vetting process is prohibitive to most common men since, as such, they again have little resources to afford to cover up the skeletons we all have. What happened to Joe the Plumber should serve as a prime example.

What we have now, however, is the next best thing, depending on one's perspective. Barack Obama is the president-elect, and while he is far from being a commoner, he does lack experience and is therefore an empty canvass. His promises of change and hope have already begun to yellow around the edges, though, as he begins to build his cabinet; most of the bricks are used.

Aside from the obvious problem this causes, that being the erasure of the promise, it is not necessarily a bad thing since the neophyte will need to surround himself with people who are familiar with the process, people with experience. The trick is to pick people with good experience, though, and not someone who just happened to have performed in a similar role once before.

Eric Holder was assistant Attorney General in the Clinton administration, so yes, he does have experience, but what was the nature and the outcome of that experience? The pardon of Marc Rich immediately comes to mind.

Breitbart news has found a video of hearings on the Rich pardon from 2001, in which Eric Holder is grilled by Congressman Bob Barr. During that testimony, Barr asked Holder if he made a recommendation to the president on the Rich pardon, to which he said that he made the recommendation to the White House Counsel. When Barr asked if the White House Counsel asked on behalf of the president, Holder stated that he didn't "know the process there".

An incredulous Barr then asked, "You don't know what the process is there?" It would seem that an assistant attorney general should know who the White House Counsel reports to, one would think. But the other half of the problem with Holder is his involvement with the pardon itself.

The New York Times on Saturday was kind enough to provide a neat little synopsis of why the Rich case is significant at all. (Emphasis mine).

A little history first. In 1983, Marc Rich was indicted along with his partner, Pincus Green, and their companies on 65 counts of defrauding the I.R.S., mail fraud, tax evasion, racketeering, defrauding the Treasury and trading with the enemy. (The last of these was for an oil deal with Iran while it held American hostages.) On hearing that they were about to be prosecuted, they fled to Switzerland. For the next 17 years, Mr. Rich ducked extradition requests as well as attempts by federal marshals to arrest him in France, England, Finland and elsewhere.

Going back to the testimony of 2001, Holder told Barr that, regarding the pardon of Rich, he was "neutral, leaning toward favorable", despite his own prosecutors vigorously pursuing the case against Rich. This also caused Barr severe perplexity.

The president-elect may need to surround himself with experienced people, but this is not the way to start.

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Victory In Iraq Day

I apologize to all who served for being a day late.

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Freedom Is The Fairest Of All

It is a profound reality that the most successful civilizations the world has known have been the most free. There is a pitfall to this fact, however, that has historically doomed such civilizations of the past. Liberty begets abundance, yet abundance poisons the well. I find this to be a perplexing conundrum, one that mankind has suffered for all time; the thing we seek most is that which will kill us in the end. "Be careful what you ask for...", and all that jazz.

I received something in an email today that I found interesting. It is not accredited, so if anyone knows the origin of it, please share. It is partly thus:

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:



1. from bondage to spiritual faith;

2. from spiritual faith to great courage;

3. from courage to liberty;

4. from liberty to abundance;

5. from abundance to complacency;

6. from complacency to apathy;

7. from apathy to dependence;

8. from dependence back into bondage"

I maintain that we are somewhere between numbers 6 and 7. The author asks, "How long do we have"?

From my perspective, it's not long.

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Righteousness? Who Has it and Why is it So Misunderstood?

Written By W.A.

Many of us fortunate enough to have a variety of persons of various religious and societal influences with which we can exchange beliefs and
ideas, know that the subject of religious righteousness is a sticking
point. Over and over the chasm of convictions is reached. And
repeatedly, both sides walk away feeling frustrated at the ignorance or
the judgmental nature of the other. Unbeknown to us, we are speaking
carefully orchestrated languages designed to eliminate altogether any
consensus or agreement on the subject. Political forces of the left have
begun to speak a mirror language concerning things of a moral nature.
Those on the right have only their Bibles, a predetermined set of rules
exclusively NOT to be valid by those on the left. And therefore, vastly
misunderstood by same. This brings me to righteousness.


The left sees righteousness as something they can never have, so they quit
trying. The Bible describes a righteousness that the left can not have
if they are to have what they want. Immorality, as the right sees it, is
those actions that cause one to sin or are outright sins themselves. The
left sees immorality as someone else's idea of what is right and wrong,
but exclusively “not theirs”. This is where the battle lines are drawn;
“your idea of right and wrong vs. my idea of right and wrong". The
desire for one's own freedom from a set morality is the driving force
behind this debate.


The right sees righteousness as something they can become, so they
continue to strive for it. Does this mean all religious people are
righteous? No. But they know it when they see it as a result of the
rules of the religious ideology with which they identify. For instance, as
much as the religion of Islam has been castigated, sometimes for good
reason depending upon which side of Jihad you are standing on, it has
some very righteous aspects of the other two Judeo-Christian religions.
God hates sin. Therefore, sin is bad. The definition of sin then varies
wildly and is not a matter of discussion here. But the principle of sin
is universal in these majority religious ideologies. However, those who
do not subscribe have made the sin of no consequence. The areas that lie
in between are the areas of hot fighting and philosophical debate. The
battle comes from the middle ground and a critical flaw in the mind of
the sinner. Believers and unbelievers quarrel over the right to be
right. Righteousness.


To the Christian specifically, the definition of sin is like wearing
skin. We all have it. We were born with it. And we can not eliminate it
from ourselves by ourselves. According to the Jewish Ten Commandments,
which all three monotheistic religions adhere, no one has lived a “sin
free life”. All come short of the commandments and the glory of God. If
the judgment is of those ten things, we are all doomed. This aside,
those of us who break the least of these commandments should not
attempt to change them to suit our needs. We still insist that they
stand as the Law of God handed down to Moses. They are right. We are
wrong. Sin is constant. Repentance must also be constant. Sin and guilt
can not be overcome by abandoning the laws (morals) that make them
wrong. The sin remains in the heart of man.


Unbelievers have the propensity to define their disbelief in terms of
belief. Unbelievers also experience this largely due to the fact that
they do believe and will not or do not want to admit it. The unbeliever
is caught between wanting and fear. Or wanting and doubt. They don't
believe desperately. This affords them the luxury of claiming that they
know no right and wrong other than what they themselves define. They
have no accepted rules of engagement, nor are they bound by any
customary notions of sin. But they, having defined their beliefs upon
the disbelief, have doubts. The constant gaze from those of us who carry
the Laws in our hearts is more than they can bear. Those who are aware
that they live outside the customarily accepted bounds of morality
strive for the elimination of that feeling. They want to be left outside
of the influence of the the knowledge of good and evil. But they doubt
their own religious convictions in the absence of sin.


All experience doubt. Believer and unbeliever alike. Believers deal with
it differently. Unbelievers do not know or understand why they want to
believe. Their doubt tries to find proof of the non existence of
righteousness. This is their Holy Grail, as it were. They are constantly
fighting the desire to believe. They are constantly fighting the pull
toward their place in the reality of the universe.


Then we find the disparity among the major religions. The Ten
Commandments are written in stone. They do not suggest anything. They
are definite. As stated before, we have all sinned. All have stolen a
pen or lied about the “extra” day off on Monday due to the 24 hour flu
or the death of a long lost Uncle. As harmless as many of these things
are, they are in violation of the Law and cannot be dismissed as lesser
than the other sins. This is where the Christians have taken sin to the
next level, so to speak; sin continues. All have sinned and all will
continue to sin to some degree. So where is righteousness?

Righteousness is possible only through Christ. No one alive has it, but
it is promised if the believer confesses Christ as Lord and continually
strives - in his heart and to the world - toward righteousness. Sin
remains until death. Salvation comes through grace and confession of
Christ. This does not mean confession as the Catholics use the term.
Confession to a Priest is not quite the original intent of Confession.
The ownership of Sin and repentance, true repentance is the manner and
purposeful meaning of the Christian “confession”. This is where the
righteousness of Christians resides. It's not in the sinless life of a
Christian, it is in the sinless life of the Savior, Jesus Christ of
Nazareth.


The sin we see today of the left is lost in a sea of finger pointing.
The left continually tries to point out how “sinful” those “self
righteous” Bible thumpers are and how meaningless then their pretend
religion is. The “religion” of Christianity is exactly why the left
fails to understand us. They assume that since we are Christians, and
sin, that we are neither righteous nor Christians. The fact remains that
no one is good. All sin. So they equate this with hypocrisy. The truth
is that Christians do not call their sin good. They do not promote their
sins as alternative lifestyle or choice. Christians hate their own sins
as they hate the sins of others. Liberals find it unnerving when
Christians call their lifestyles wrong and sinful. But they are.
Liberals also feel that Christians are saying that unbelievers are bad
people. They are. We all are. But Christians do not call their sins
good. This is the major distinction between righteousness and
unrighteousness. Calling evil good and good evil is the paradox of our
time. The attempt to eliminate God or morality from our lives only
magnifies this distinction. We can no more eliminate sin by eliminating
the morality that defines sin as we can cure cancer by bleeding and
killing cancer patients. The cancer remains and bleeding is the cause of
death. But neither matters when saving the life of the patient is the
intended goal.

Sin remains even after the morals are gone. The truth of the existence
of God and God's laws are the crux of the issue for non believers. If
it was so easy to dismiss God, why is Atheism defined as the religion of
“no God” rather than the religion of nothing? When you define yourself
as Godless, you can hardly then express anything without the contrast of
God as the major factor.

Righteousness must be understood by all if we are ever going to move
beyond our current social and political deadlock in the world today.
Major religions all believe in the righteousness of their creed. But it
is the unbeliever that is still trying to define God and morality
without God that makes the issue difficult to see clearly. Once it is
established what is and what is not wrong, we can then turn our
attention to what is right. Then we must all strive to get there.
Believer or not, righteousness has it's rewards. Sin is always sin as it
leads to death and corruption. Regardless of an afterlife.

In the real terms of political conflict, righteousness is not a state of
being, it is a state of becoming. A path never fully followed by us mere
mortals. It is a path set out for us who watch where and more
specifically care to watch where we tread. The Christian does not point
a finger in judgment. The Christians points a finger in warning. “Watch
out! You are about to stumble on the oldest and well known root of all
evil along the path of righteousness, which we must all travel.” Walking
along side it is wrought with peril. Perils we have well defined in our
short but rich history of people and failures. Trip on that root, but
get back on the correct path. That is what a Christian yells at those
who sin. “Forget it! It's past, just get back on the horse and don't do
it again. But never give up, even if you sin again.” But do not call it
good. Do not make excuses for sin. Call it what it is. Sin which is
unrighteous and evil.

So when the issue of sin arises, first address what is sin and what is
doctrine. Then the truth can be seen by those circular reasonings that
cause so much meaningless argument. The righteousness of Christianity is
the celebration of the salvation of Christ when he said...”Follow me”.
It's the path of righteousness that is righteous, not those who are
walking or trying to walk it. It is to follow Christ , the righteous.
Especially if you sin. This is where Christians have been branded as
judgmental. This is a mistake.

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Pirates Draw Wrath Of U.N.

I realize that the image is a stunningly cavalier portrayal of the seriousness concerning the issue of the rash of Somali pirate seizures on the open seas, but I thought it was the perfect illustration when the latest news is considered. That would be the news that the U.N. has approved sanctions against the pirates!

Yes, the U.N. is flexing its flab once again, and I'm sure the effect is causing tremors in the "pirate community" (don't they have a lobby yet?) that would rival those felt in San Francisco during earthquake times. I'm waiting for the president-elect to threaten them with a terror tax. That would certainly slow the incidence of ship takeovers. Pirates are, after all, capitalists and they will cower in the face of a tax on their entrepreneurial endeavors.

I'm content to sit back for the time being and allow the United Nations to work its magic, however. When have they ever let us down?

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Abolish The Prisons?

Good Lord, this guy teaches at the University of Illinois in Chicago!

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Obama And Global Warming

Barack Obama is not only aboard the global warming bandwagon, he's about to move into the driver's seat. Another one who insists that, "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season".

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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal: The Next President?

He may well be the up and coming Republican superstar, a moniker I happen to agree with, for obvious reason. All one needs to do is watch him speak in the interview on CBS' Face The Nation

Pay particular attention to the seamless way he answers the creationism question when pressed on his personal stand on the issue. He's got the luxury of serving a full term as governor, which was lacking for Sarah Palin, and he's also much more sure of himself in face-to-face interviews.

There are many videos available across the web, but for now, enjoy this one:

Watch CBS Videos Online

As a post script; does it matter what he looks like? Does it matter that he's of Indian descent? Does it matter that he's not white? My answer to all of these questions is no, as I suspect will be the consensus of many of the republican party. He's bright and articulate, and he is shaping up to be the best bet to limit Obama to one term. I really do hope that I will not be clamoring for such four years from now, but I have my reservations in that regard.

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Wrong Turn At Albuquerque

For anyone who has been either underground or in a coma for the past ten years or so, suddenly surfacing today would be quite a shock to the central nervous system. Such a shock would likely drive the mole back to the dark of the hole and the coma patient into cardiac arrest, thus finishing the job left undone by whatever precipitated the coma in the first place. Suffice it to say that America bears little resemblance to the country I knew a scant ten years ago and is completely alien to my recollections from thirty or more years ago.

Growing up on Long Island was an experience I do not hold as the exclusive pleasure of the region, as I'm sure that there are many like me across the country who feel equally blessed by their own childhoods. I write here, however, of that which I know from personal experience and would welcome comparative narratives from any reader who cares to engage in such. My tome is of morality as I knew it then, as an inhabitant of childhood nirvana.

We had parents who struggled to get by, but nowhere near on the scale that we do now. Dad worked and Mom ruled the home, and when the weekend came, they had neighbors over to enjoy the finished basement with the bar and the music. The magic was on holidays, particularly the Christmas holidays, when the parents would be in the basement and we kids would be out running in the snow and dark, enjoying the holiday lights, while being safe from anything we as parents today fear.

There were no predators skulking in the dark waiting to abduct us and kill us. They may have existed, but they were too afraid of capture. Back then, they would have received a severe beating at the hands of the revellers in the basement, with no chance of litigious recourse to recover damages for their injuries, had they survived.

Back then, bad guys wore black hats and it was accepted philosophy. They were immediately recognizable and even they acknowledged their role. Somewhere, though, we have made a wrong turn. Today, every hat is beige, and even a criminal of the most heinous nature is something of a sympathetic figure.

For someone like William Ayers to be viewed as an upstanding member of society and hold tenure as a "respected professor" at UIC is confounding to me, and I have been awake all this time. I see the accolades bestowed on people who once would be considered toxically detrimental to America, and I shake my head, but at least for me, it has been a gradual process.

There can be no doubt that America has made a wrong turn. Some might refer to it as a left turn. I would be inclined to agree.

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Remaking America In New Orleans' Image

Mention Hurricane Katrina and the first thoughts evoked in many peoples minds will be how the government failed the people; more specifically, how President Bush failed them. They will not think first of the warnings issued by government at all levels, nor will they recall their own failure to heed those warnings. Why? The answer is simple; they heard the warnings and waited for their instructions from their "leaders". The instructions were clear, however, and they were to get out of the city fast, but most of the inhabitants of New Orleans were so accustomed to being cared for on every level that they sat back and waited for someone, anyone from the government, to come for them.

New Orleans was but a spec on the landscape of the entire nation, and was not anything more than an anomaly at the time. Other Gulf Coast cities dealt with the ravages of Katrina fairly well and have since moved forward, while many of the citizens of New Orleans still languish in the aftermath of the storm, still waiting for help. Still dependent on the government.

Apply this mentality to the nation as a whole, as we are beginning to witness through the financial crises that have befallen us, coupled with the mantra of our new president-elect, and we have the makings of a gigantic New Orleans. Everyone is now demanding a helping hand from the very people who caused this financial storm, unlike the culpability of Katrina which lay largely in the hands of God and, to a much lesser degree, Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco.

Bear in mind that Nagin was re-elected by the people he damaged so, while Blanco has been supplanted. But the people of the U.S. just elected Barack Obama, who has been promoting an agenda bearing a striking resemblance to the atmosphere that created the havoc in New Orleans, that being, that government will take care of everything. Personal responsibility is being vilified as we speak as a cruel outlook on the "misfortunes" of others, while it is all of us who stand to lose in this economic meltdown.

All of us dream of a protective blanket and a world in which we have no cares, but we are all born to fly free, and the constraints of protection and security are alien to us, in the end. Even birds nudge their hatchlings out of the nest. A prison cell is the most secure place in the world, particularly an American cell, where the incarcerated has nothing for which to want; except freedom.

I do not fret over the "red state" areas of the country save for one reason; it is those people who will be forced to deal with the marching zombies exiting the large cities when the experiment of re-engineering America fails. When people realize that they have traded their souls for the comfort of an omnipotent government, only to be sadly disappointed in the end, they may well end up as trophies on a dark-wood panelled den in flyover country.

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More Thuggery From The Peaceful Left

I am always amazed when the radical leftists in America claim to be uber-patriotic specifically because they demonstrate an overt hatred of the country, the very country that affords them the right to do so. Berkeley, California is a concentrated epitome of the insanity of it all because they also openly loathe the military, which protects the same right. If a child strolled into the dining room during a dinner party and announced that her parents were the worst humans on the planet, I sincerely doubt that a single guest would assume that she loved her parents deeply.

Speaking of Berkeley, for people who claim to be tolerant and "pro-choice", they certainly portray a completely anti-choice attitude at military recruiting centers by blocking the entrance and attempting to intimidate prospective entrants. What is it about that choice they find so offensive? Is it because the folks who enter military recruiting centers may one day be in the business of killing the people who would harm the very protesters trying to thwart their career choices? Would these same protesters be so willing to block the entrances to abortion clinics?

The silly organizations known as World Can't Wait and Code Pink staged yet another "rally" in Berkeley on November 10th at which they now demand that Obama pledge to end the Afghan engagement as well as vacating Iraq. World Can't Wait members bore signs and shirts declaring, "Stop thinking like an American". Very nice.

Meanwhile, referendums in a few states that passed the test of a vote have now come under attack by liberal homosexuals who treasure democracy only when it works to their own benefit. When a majority of voters reject their agenda, the war lines are drawn, and God and the elderly be damned.

In Lansing, Michigan, a gang of gay protesters not only had the poor taste to protest outside of a church in Delta Township, but they had the unmitigated audacity to take seats in the church and disrupt the service itself. Once the service began, the nice folks who just want the same rights as heterosexuals saw fit to terrorize the worshippers. According to the article:

Protesters who entered the Creyts Road church along with worshippers surprised the congregation when they stood up during the service, threw fliers at churchgoers and shouted slogans such as "It's OK to be gay," and "Jesus was a homo," according to David Williams, communications director at the church.

I would like to offer a suggestion to these fine folk; target a mosque next. You may learn a few things about tolerance from (ironically) kindred spirits. Just trying to help.

Moving on to California, where Proposition 8 was just given the stamp of approval by voters, another rally saw its share of shameful behavior perpetrated by the alleged purveyors of peacefulness. 80-year-old Phyllis was on hand in Palm Springs to show her support for the proposition and was shouted down by enraged gay protesters. She also had the crucifix she was carrying ripped from her hand and trampled upon while the thugs continued to scream at her as she was trying to conduct an interview with a local news woman.


For these thugs, I offer the same advice as for those in Lansing; try the same with an 80-year-old Muslim woman's Qur'an.

I wonder at what point normal Americans will plant their feet and declare loudly that this has got to stop. I wonder when people will recognize that tearing something to pieces does not equate to constructive anything. I wonder if the election of Barack Obama - whom I consider to be a leftist extraordinaire - will be the receipt the people I have described here finally needed to examine, whereby they realize that they have achieved all that they have dreamed of, only to realize when they get home that they bought a bag of squirming meal worms.

Either they will recoil in horror upon opening the bag, seeing their purchase, and finally realize the error of their ways, or decent people will finally have their fill of bad pie and throw back the table and rise to fight back. This is one I cannot predict, not will I attempt such. I will, however, be so bold as to predict a dramatic change in the near future, and it will not be of the variety that Obama supporters envisioned.

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Too Damned Close To Human

This robot scares me to death!



Here's a different look.

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Nothing Is Sacred Anymore

There was a time, long ago, when American presidents were automatic members of an exclusive club. This club was not meant to place presidents above the people but merely apart from them, and for good reason. As any administration has demonstrated throughout our history - through staff members - people are people, and they are prone to vanity and as such have a propensity toward the loose-lips syndrome. While the public has a right to know most things, it is best that they not know all things.

Barack Obama will be only the forty-fourth member of this club in over two hundred years. That is a staggering figure when one considers the current population of the country as well as all who have lived and perished over the course of that time span. Forty-four people. And up until the forty-third, the club was sealed up pretty tightly. None of the alumni spoke ill of a sitting president, and no newly elected member would have uttered a word to staff about the traditional meeting between himself and the outgoing member.

Just as we have seen a steady decline of basic moral principles among the citizenry of America, the normally rock-solid governing structure has begun to crumble from the tremors. Since George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the protocols that once formed the cocoon of power have nearly eroded. Nothing is sacred anymore.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton held no punches in projecting to the entire world their utter contempt for one of their own. Whereas presidents before and between them reserved whatever judgements they may have had for their successors and predecessors for the prospect of a unified face to the rest of the world, and also out of respect for the office, Carter and Clinton had much less regard for the "club rulebook" than was ever alleged by the guards at Guantanamo in regards to the Qur'an.

Now we have the president-elect, Barack Obama, having the details of his meeting with outgoing President Bush, being reported in the media. According to The Drudge Report, it is not pleasing to the current president:

BUSH ANGER: OBAMA AIDES LEAK CHAT DETAILS
Tue Nov 11 2008 09:28:10 ET

Just hours after President Bush and President-elect Obama met in the Oval Office of the White House, details of their confidential conversation began leaking out to the press, igniting anger from the president, sources claim.

"Senator Obama would be wise to keep close counsel," a top Bush source warned.

There may be some people who view this as a trivial matter, but consider this; if a future lame-duck president takes from this experience a reticence to aid in the transition to his successor, it could weaken the chain of steady governance and jeopardize the security of the nation. These men - and future women - need to understand that there are surrogates who are well paid to conduct partisan political attacks, but that theirs is a fraternity (sorority) that must maintain its integrity, if for nothing else than the stability of America.

With the general society in the state it's in, it is crucial that this last pillar does not crush us all.

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Some Change, I'll Say

Since America has not had a ruler since the Declaration of Independence, this is quite a change coming from the Obama camp. He'll be ready to rule on day one. Does that mean that he's assembling that Civilian Security Force at breakneck speed?

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Political Round Robin

Political Round Robin

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Closing The Book On Joe The Plumber

Having read so much nonsense about Joe Wurzelbacher on blogs and message boards, it has become very apparent that a substantial percentage of people hear a tidbit of "information" from whatever source they derive their information from, and then go boldly forth and spew their own interpretations of it. They give little thought to the veracity of what they relay, and it then becomes a string of gossip that decays along the way. Think of it as the old telephone game where one whispers in an other's ear who then whispers in the next ones ear and so on. Then when the last person relates what he has been told, it bears little resemblance to what the first person whispered.

One of the things I've read is that Joe The Plumber is a fraud and not a plumber at all. This is based on the fact that came out - after extensive investigations of him by the media - stating that Joe doesn't have a license. It doesn't matter that it was also discovered that in the state of Ohio one doesn't need a personal license if he works for a licensed contractor, which Joe does. Someone heard someone else say it and that's all that mattered.

Another absurdity seen on prominent display on the internet is the myth that "Joe was a McCain campaign plant". Considering the fact that Joe was in his yard when the Obama entourage came down the street, it would be a stretch of the imagination to believe that Joe was a plant. It would require the belief, also, that the McCain campaign either guided Obama and company down Joe's block and knew that Joe would be outside when they came by, or better yet, that the McCain campaign knew the route in advance and set Joe up in that house. For those of you are nodding as you read this, contact me immediately; I live in New York and I have several bridges for sale.

Perhaps my favorite one of all, though, is that Joe isn't even his real name. His real name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Ha! For anyone who has ever lived in "flyover" country, it is common for people to use their middle names as their first.

As for the exchange between Obama and Joe, this is where it gets interesting. I guess it would have been much more palatable to the left if Joe had begun his question with, "Let's say I was buying a business..." or, "I have a friend who...". At least then we could remove the dispute over whether or not Joe was being honest and concentrate wholly on Obama's own honesty in saying he believes that spreading the wealth around is a good idea. It is compatible with Biden's notion that it's also good to "take money and put it in the pockets of middle class Americans". The fact remains that both of them will have to take from someone and give to another.

As we move further away, Joe is getting harder to hear anyway and he's beginning to look like an old photograph that someone forgot to coat with the preservative, but I wanted to set the record straight before we move on. Joe could have said he was a brain surgeon and it would not have mattered in the end. He got Obama to flat out admit his intentions, and that cannot be changed.

Good luck, Joe, we'll miss you. I wish we could have gotten to know Obama as intimately as we know you and Sarah Palin's children. Maybe one day the media will remember to do the entire job, but I won't hold my breath.

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Dems Loving Embrace Cracks Ribs

As an admitted partisan cynic, I have long railed against the ever increasingly constrictive actions of the people we send to Congress to be our public servants. They are ostensibly placed in these positions at our behest and for our behalf, but even the policeman must arrest those he "serves". It is only in science fiction movies that the servants eventually impose totalitarian rule over the masters for their own good. Such a thing could never happen to us, right?

I'm not so sure. Consider legislation that has come to pass in the last decade and a half, and things take on a different hue. In other words, while you glance at the trees on the way out, once in the clearing, look back and see how big the forest has become. While they grew up around you from saplings, you had no idea of what they had become, nor how quickly they had grown.

It began with protecting the children on their bicycles, and then on any other vehicle that children employ. Helmets were first, then knee pads and elbow pads. To be fair, I'm not aware of laws requiring protection for extremities, but the helmet law is paramount. Then, expanding to encompass adults, came the seat belt laws. Then cellphone laws. All were designed to save lives. While it is inarguable that safety is always a good thing, did we really need government intervention and the accompanying punitive power of legislation to get us to protect our kids and ourselves?

Laws were something the Founding Fathers envisioned as protection of citizens from the acts of other citizens behaving in unlawful manner. We were never told that government would one day protect us from ourselves, but now the government is overreaching yet again. How far will they go? Unless a few more trees have populated the forest since last I glanced back, I maintain that they can only go as far as we permit. Yes, I still, perhaps naively, do believe that.

We have been subjected to smoking laws - smoking is still legal - we have been subjected to nutrition laws - eating is still legal - and we are now seeing the federal government attempting to delve into our retirement accounts; for our own good.

Who's to say that once the government becomes the administrator of your retirement account that they won't impose restrictions on your access to your own money? For example: you need to borrow money from your 401k for a child's wedding. The government, as administrator, is concerned about your health and ability to repay the loan. (Repay the loan to yourself. This is key.) They insist that before you can access your own money, you must sign a pledge to quit smoking, or stop eating fast food, or enroll in the neighborhood gym.

Some will ask why this is bad, since any of these acts can only make you healthier. It is a valid question, but anyone asking it has already given up the ideal of personal freedom and cannot comprehend the inherent danger in imposed and coersive behavior requirements. I cannot discern the intent of those who seek to impose these rules upon us.

My position has long been that the intent of liberal politicians was nefarious in nature, but in retrospect, I could have been wrong. It is entirely possible that they are as young children who enthusiastically kill the small family pet out of unbridled and misunderstood love. What really matters, ultimately, is that the puppy dies.

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Come Together Now?

Come Together Now?

Written by SleeplessByTheSea

Everywhere I go, everything I hear today is, it’s time for us all to come together, now! Whoa! Wait a minute? Now? Why not yesterday? This is still the same country as it was yesterday, and we still all face the same problems and the same threats. But, it was not politically correct to rally around the president yesterday was it? This makes me sick!

The democrats are acting as if the Bush administration caused this war, and caused every problem that the globe faces today. Did the dem leadership in congress not agree to fight the war? Did the dem leadership in congress not also read the international intelligence that told us Saddam had WMD? Why, as a matter of record, yes they did! But, the War is all Bush’s fault! That is nothing more than pure partisan rhetoric. The last I looked, the whole country was attacked in 2001, not just the repubs! The last I looked, the whole country has been living on credit, not just the repubs! The last time I looked, the whole country was depending on foreign oil, not just the repubs! And excuse me, but how many times did President Bush and the repubs try to get the congress and the country interested in energy alternatives, and those requests fell on deaf ears? How many of those same deaf ears refused to even discuss social security reform? How many of those deaf ears were wrapped up in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs, and hiding the reality that they were in trouble?

Every administration that has ever served this country has had some sort of crisis to deal with, and problems to face. You cannot have a nation with hundreds of millions of people, without problems. We will always need to work together! After 9/11, we did work together, beautifully…..but it was short lived. The dems saw the country pull together moreso than they had in decades, and it scared them. They saw their chances of taking back the white house in 2004 slipping away, so they began their negative attacks. Bush couldn’t sneeze or even choke on a pretzel, without being ridiculed. The media piped right in with them. No matter how many things Bush got right, they did everything in their power to make it look wrong. When he saw that we had an economic slow down, after the way 9/11 hit the travel and entertainment industry, he chose to cut taxes. The dems tried their best to make that out to be a bad thing. In reality, it was a good thing…it improved cash flow, and the economy began to pick up. There were new jobs, and spending picked up…even with the us in wars on 2 fronts. Less tax is never something the dems embrace. They didn’t like it a bit, even though it worked. They fought the patriot act, even though it enabled our officials to try to keep track of terrorists that intend to do us harm. The dems sold it as a ‘bad thing’.

Bush didn’t do everything right, but he certainly didn’t do everything wrong, and he certainly never created the “Miserable” mess, the dems and the media would have us believe. Why weren’t they willing to pull together then?
Today’s problems are no different than the ones yesterday, but now all of the sudden there is this outcry for us to all come together. It seems to me like before we go the road ahead together, some of us need to go back an patch up a few deep holes in our solidarity, that you chose to cause, with your own partisanship. I’m willing to work with anyone that earns my trust. But it’s got to be earned. How about beginning with honoring the man that has kept your country safe from attack for the last 7 years, as a start, before you go expecting us to honor the new kid on the block, with no experience. He’s going to need us all no doubt. But, no more than Bush needed all of you, all of these years.

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Television Switching From Analog

Get rid of those rabbit ears!

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Handle With Care

It has finally happened. America has elected her first black president. How I wish the first could have been a republican, but that is water under the bridge. I do have to wonder what the reaction would have been in such a case, though. How enthusiastically would he have been embraced had his party been different? Perhaps we'll never know, and we now have the opportunity to see how this man performs as our leader.

It remains true, despite his overwhelming victory, that he is still a political and, more importantly, executive neophyte. His cabinet choices in the coming weeks will be critical toward determining just what direction he plans to move the country. It is also the first time in over a decade that the democrats have had complete control of the executive and legislative branches. It only lasted two years the last time, so Obama must handle this job with care. I pray that he does well.

An interesting side note in this turn of events is the fact that racism is now officially dead. Jesse Jackson was on hand last night at Obama's acceptance speech, crying as he spoke. Only Jackson knows what caused the tears, but I will speculate that the joy of seeing an African American giving such a speech was only part of the reason.

Perhaps Jackson is either giddy in anticipation of his impending retirement or lamenting his loss of employment. There should be no further need for so-called civil rights leaders anymore, there should be no guardians such as Jackson, Sharpton, et al, railing against racial injustice, and there should be no need for envy on the part of the African American community. America has just moved past the last boundary to racial harmony.

For this, we should all be grateful. Well, at least those of us who truly wanted to see the end of racism. There may still be people who will complain over the absence of something about which to complain.

Yeah. I'd bet on it...

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Civilian Security Force

Is this what Obama's "Civilian Security Force" will look like? Has he already begun to construct it?
His campaign is already defending these two guys and their presence at a polling place in Philadelphia. Makes one wonder...

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Another Orwellian Obama Video

There can be no mistake that he wants to control your life. Even if he does have one redeeming quality - something I have seen evidence of yet - that one redeeming quality is not worth the overall suffering he would inflict on Americans.

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The King-Maker, William Ayers

Once there was a time when a young William Ayers believed that America could be overthrown through military means. He believed that blowing up buildings would bring about radical change, the change he desired and that which he was convinced could be achieved through boldly attacking head-on. He quickly learned that the FBI would have none of it and that his goals could not be attained while constantly hiding from the law.

It was time to change tactics and strategies, and he decided that he would rot the pumpkin from the inside out. This way, by the time we noticed the spoilage, it would be too late. Each day we would see a healthy looking pumpkin from outward appearances, unaware that the interior was a festering mess.

The Weather Underground began publishing a paper, Osawatomie, and it had some stunning writings, some of which bear a striking similarity to the views of one Barack Hussein Obama.

From Zombietime.com, a few excerpts:

Revolutionaries must be organizers.

There are serious antiracist organizers building a revolutionary base in working class communities — in neighborhoods, shops, mills, mines, social institutions. There are those who are working among women, GI’s, vets, prisoners, among youth, students and the unemployed in every part of the country. There are some who have been at it for years and some who have just begun.

And this:

But revolutionaries expect adversity, expect to be fought every inch of the way by an entrenched ruling class, expect to confront danger and demoralization and overcome it, with creativity and audacity.

Indeed, the Audacity Of Hope. One must notice the similarity, also, of the Weather Underground logo and the Barack Obama campaign logo. Obama gave a radio interview to a Chicago radio station in 2001, and he had some pretty radical ideas then which he seems to still carry into today. He said:

Generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, what the federal government can't do to you,but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
There was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways, we still suffer from that.

The shame of it is, we are so close to having the pumpkin collapse in an oozing puddle on the porch and no one seems to care. Obama is about to be inserted as President and there is no doubt in my mind that he is a Manchurian candidate. For those of you who do care, I implore you to click on this link to Zombietime and read the entire piece.
And a special hat-tip to LittleGreenFootballs for showing me the way.

UPDATE 10:05AM
Kudos to SleeplessByTheSea
Long video well worth watching before election day!

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