Politics City

Double Feauture: Don Imus & The Duke Case

2007-04-12T23:19:00.000-06:00

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Since two topics have piqued my interest at this time, I have decided to discuss them both, so here goes;

Don Imus Gets Fired from CBS for Using Hip-Hop Language

Radio shock0jock Don Imus has been known for saying some outrageous things throughout his career as a New York-based radio talk show host. However, Imus has been fired from his job at CBS over a remark that he made about the women's college basketball team at Rutgers, whom he referred to as: "nappy-headed hos" Now, for those of you who aren't down with the brotha' language, a "ho" is the African-American slang term for a woman, and it can be found sprinkled all over the Black culture, and all over hip-hop, the Black "music".

Now, even with the fact that Don Imus has been in the business of rubbing people the wrong way for a while, if not outright insulting them...and I certainly don't agree with going out of your way to insult someone (which Liberalistas seem to claim he did), two points have been raised by this incident...

First, the issue of whom to apologize to for this sort of thing. I have heard arguments on both sides of this issue. On the one hand, there was Ann Coulter, who on FOX News said that Imus should stop spologizing to Liberalista Black :leaders" such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, an instead, apologize to the Rutgers womens basketball team itself. When asked what the difference was between what she proposed for Imus, and the actions she herself took in relation to some of the widows of the 9/11 wictims, Coulter replied that in the case of the "Jersey Gals", these were people who had stepped out onto the public stage and started making public statements supporting a contender in the race for President. The Rutgers girls simply played a game of basketball. On the other hand, a co-worker said that anyone who puts on a uniform and plays a sport is putting themselves out ther as a role model, and thereby putting themselves out in the arena of ideas to be supported and praised, or laughed at and ridiculed.

It might be narrow of me, but I tend to support Ann's view of the matter, simply because of the relative importance of the figures involved. If the "Jersey Gals" or any other peacenik group decides to support a Presidental candidate, that is much more important to me and you and the rest of the country than a group of innocent girls playing a basketball game. In the case of the former, if they are playing on the public stage, you can as a journalist, or editor, call them of things ON THAT STAGE. This is the very basis of the entire blogging atmosphere, where public people make public statements and then other people get to make similarly public comments back. In this arena, if you get bashed back for something you said, you either take the heat, or get out of the kitchen. Girls playing basketball simply are not in this league.

Imus should apologize directly to the team, and leave it at that.

However, the second point is a bit more interesting. Why is it that a White guy gets canned for calling Black women "nappy-headed hos", but Black rappers get away with the same kind of language, on the very same radio netowrk that carries Imus' show? Where is Jackson and Sharpton with the moral outrage? If nothing else, this incident again exposes the hypocrisy fo the Liberalista Black "leadership" in this country. They should either denounce and condemn *all* uses of words such as "nigga" and "ho", and start attaching real stigmas to the kind of ghetto society that has given rise to the absolute trash that makes up most of the ghetto Black "culture", or they should keep their stupid mouths shut.

There is something strange about a society where one culture continually condemns another part of that culture for using demeaning terms about them (and rightly so), but then uses those same terms within their own culture as terms of endearment.

African-Americans will tell us that they use the term "nigga" because they came from the slave culture and they use it as a way to "own" the term...to make it theirs. The next time an African-American uses that term, ask him or her where the "owning of the language" was in the 1800s, when the N word first got its use. If the African-American doesn't kill you for asking such a question, please report back to me on their response.

To wrap up this item, Don Imus was to go to the mansion of the governor of New Jersye to meet with the team from Rutgers, and apparently the team showed up. There has been no news about whether the meeting went forward however, because while on his way there, the governor of the state of New Jersey was in an auto accident, and is listed as critical but stable in an area hospital.

The Duke Boys Are Innocent - I Hope They SUE!

I have been waiting for this day for a LONG time, the day when justice would finally be served to the three DUke University lacrosse players who were falsely accused of raping an African-American woman.

However, despite the woman's confused and changing stories about the events on the night in question, despite her obviously altered mental state because of whatever she drank at the party that she went to, despite all of the bungles that the original prosecutor in the case made, it has taken about a YEAR for the accused in this case to be declared innocent.

The charges against the Duke men have been dropped, and their lawyers have not ruled out the possibility of a lawsuit against a number of people, including perhaps the district attorney who so flubbed up this case that a jury of two-year olds would have dismissed the case, as well as the city that allowed this farce of a case to continue forward.

What you have coming out of this is not the story of a Bloack woman raped by three White men at a frat party, but rather the story of three men who have had their names dragged through the mud for at least several months while the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, used the case to get himself re-elected, and then simply strung the case along for as long as he could. If I were involve, either as the men themselves, or as their lawyers, within five minutes of the state attorney general's announcement of the dismissal of the charges, I would have announced that I was filing a lawsuit against both Nifong, and the city of Durham.

The other angle again comes back to the response of the Black community, both in Durham itself, and in the nation as a whole. In Durham, the community there was disappointed that the case didn't go forward, citing it as yet another example of where White guys have gotten away with raping Black women, and saying that the outcome would have been different had the situation been reversed. While the case might be made somewhere, to insist on continuing the prosecution of someone who has been proven to be innocent would be an extreme miscarriage of justice. Let's say that such a prosecution went forward and got a conviction...that case could be immediately appealed, and overturned on those very grounds, and then the list of people being sued would be a lot longer. The problem here is that African-Americans have become too used to playing the role of the victim, even when they don't deserve it. The accuser in this case has no story that she can back up, and to put ANYONE through the wrenching spectacle of a trial just to soothe racial issues is audacious as it is stupid.

However, we are not done. While Mike Nifong called the Duke men hooligans, and while the press reports referred to them as "worse than Hitler", where was the Black "leadership" on this issue? Did they stand on the side of waiting until the facts were heard, or did they leap into the case, immediately taking the side of the accuser, the victim of a horrible assault against both her womanhood and her race.

I'd be willing to bet it was the second option, knowing the modus operandi of the Black "leaders" such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. If these men in fact jumped to the defense of the accuser without allowing the justice system time to come to the right conslusion, then they owe the Duke men a huge apology. To not do so contributes more to the public slander and farce that this case became.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Selling Our Soldiers for Pork!

2007-03-20T17:44:00.000-06:00

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Alright, I usually don't bother covering such things as the impending doom that results from legislation that is being contemplated by Congress...because one chamber of the Congress or the other usually doesn't like it...or the Persident may very well veto the measure...either way, the proposed bill will probably die.

So, what is different in this case, the case of the proposed emergency funding bill for the soldiers in Iraq? As I heard first from NPR, then from one of my friends, and finally from Glenn Beck on his show today, the problem is that all sorts of offers are being made to Congressmen if they will not vote for the emergency funding...

Here are some of the goodies being offered, if only the Congressmen being approached will simply forget their consciences, and vote against the troops... (items taken from the Washington Times (3-20-07))...

- $3.7 billion in farm subsidies for drought relief in Colorado.
- $25 million for California spinach growers.
- $75 million for peanut storage.
- $500 million for wildfire suppression in the US West.
- $120 million to assist Atlantic coast fishermen.
- $2.9 billion in additional Gulf Coast hurricane relief.
- $2.4 billion spread amongst programs such as social problems, money for rural schools in the US Northwest, health insurance for poor children, energy assistance for poor families, and other programs...

And as if this were not enough, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also threw in the goodie of a minimum wage increase...once again, you have to vote against funding the troops. Troops in one hand...all the goodies in the other...you can't have both.

What has happened is that the Liberalista Democrats have appended an amendment to the emergency spending bill which calls for the troops in Iraq to be withdrawn by September of next year. Once again, you either vote for the amendment, or you don't get the goodies.

In response to this, President Bush has asked that Congress send him a "clean" bill, one without strings attached. His statement was as follows:

"They have a responsibility to pass a clean bill that does not use funding for our troops as leverage to get special-interest spending for their districts," said Mr. Bush, whose initial request funded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as about $3.4 billion in hurricane relief. "They have a responsibility to get this bill to my desk without strings and without delay."

As I told my friend, these issues, the funding of these projects, and the funding of our troops, should not be a part of the same discussion. People who support the troops in the field should not have to choose between that support, and funding for things to help with affairs in their districts.

Now, as it stands, the Liberalista Democrats are going to be stymied because there is no support for a timetable for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. All of this haggling over the bill means nothing because there is no support for the bill in the Senate, and if it manages to pass the Senate, President Bush will veto the thing.

Democrats should stop playing politics with the emergency spending bill and get it passed cleanly so that our troops have the money they need to function in the field, where they face life-threatening situations on a daily basis. It would be the right thing to do.

The problem is that politicians on both sides of the aisle don't always do the right thing.

I might very well start writing Congressional representatives in the states targetted by this latest deluge of pork.

John B.
Blogger Guy

PS: Over the next few days, I will be contacting the following Congressional members:

Wayne T. Gilchrest R-MD
Roscoe G. Bartlett R-MD
Sam Farr D-CA
Sanford D. Bishop Jr. D-GA
Henry C. Johnson Jr. D-GA
Jim Marshall D-GA
John Barrow D-GA
David Scott D-GA
Charles Boustany Jr. R-LA
Marilyn N. Musgrave R-CO
Thomas G. Tancredo R-CO
Barbara Cubin R-WY

and I will be commenting to them on this issue. If I get any response other than a standard "thank you for contacting us" note, I will post it here.

Oh, and I just saw this from The Hill, the DC newspaper that writes about Congressional matters:

"Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is holding the implied threat of lost committee seats over the heads of Democratic Caucus members who may vote against her $124 billion Iraq war supplemental bill."

Hillary Running for Dogcatcher?

2007-03-18T21:52:00.000-06:00

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At some point last week, I received an automated email from Newsmax with blurbs about some of the items in the news. The item leading the headlines was "Bill Clinton to N.Y. Times: Stop Picking on Hillary", and it was printed at Newsmax.com on March 16th.

The lead paragraph goes like this:

"Bill Clinton has lashed out against an old ally, the New York Times, saying the paper wasn’t giving his wife Hillary "a fair shake.”

The story then details that at a fund-raiser at the Trump Tower in New York, former President Bill Clinton spent most of two hours attacking the New York Times, because according to him, the Times was attacking Hillary for her vote in favor of the war in Iraq. According to another attendee, the former President noted that the Times did not go after Senator (and Presidental candidate) Barack Obama when he side-stepped the issue of whether he would have voted in favor of the Iraq war.

Please note that I have referred to Bill Clinton as a "former President" twice now in that last paragraph...it's kinda important.

Let me point out that on the one hand, I can certainly understand why Bill Clinton would be upset. We're talking about his wife after all, so there is the "don't pick on my wife" angle. There's also the fact that she's a woman, which as I said recently does not mean that she can not or should not run for President, but it does cause an almost automatic "don't pick on the girl" reaction from a lot of people. And of course, if the allegation, story, or whatever is outright WRONG, all sorts of other things come into play...but that's not the case here.

On the other hand, Bill Clinton, as a former President, should know EXACTLY what that job entails, and he should know EXACTLY how hard it is to get that job, and how much people are going to slam anyone who goes for this particular brass ring.

In case he's forgotten, people should remind Mr. Clinton that the office of President is not like running for dogcatcher, and we are not electing the leader of the Emerald City, or some other mythical place where there is not much in the way of violence or unpleasantness.

Mr. Clinton's major complaint with the Times is that it treats Hillary unfairly...well sir, I think the American people got out of the "fairness to our leaders" business about the time that President Johnson extended our involvement in Vietnam one time too many, and after President Nixon was found to be behind the break-in at the Watergate. Ever since 1975, the American people have looked somewhat suspiciously at their Presidents...and this does not count the fact that in most cases, their suspicion has been rewarded with at least the shadow of malfeasance. Can we say Iran-Contra, the October Surprise, Monica-gate, and any number of the conspiracy theories that people accuse the Bush (43) administration of being involved in...

So YES, Americans might very well be unfair to our Presidents. How about the fact that the economy is doing decently, and the war in Iraq is actually producing good results, if you get past the Liberalista spin in the media... You don't see G.W. Bush getting credit for that. Unfairness works both ways.

And that's just on the home front. I don't think our allies will give us much grief about having a woman President, especially in the post-Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Corazon Aquino, etc world we are now in. However, I also don't buy the idea that our enemies will simply give Hillary a pass because she is a woman. While they might respect the United States because woman at the helm or not, we can still incinerate them off the face of the planet in a moment's notice, do you honestly think that the insane evil imp running Iran at the moment really cares about being fair to Hillary?

Hell no, folks! He's out to maintain or bolster his national interests, and he'd be stupid not to (just like everyone else in the world is out for their own national interests...hence keeping historians like me in business...).

Because the world is not Camelot, or Oz, we need to elect Presidents who have been toughened by the electoral experience. This is why Guido the Average Joe won't be running in 2012. This is why respected media types like Rush Limbaugh don't get in, even though they have excellent insight on things political, economic, and diplomatic...they realize that their lives might be ruined in the process.

Hillary Clinton being treated unfairly should be taken as part of the game, and it is good that WE treat her, and all of the other candidates as unfairly as we wish...because at least when we do it, no real harm comes to the country. ALL of the candidates had best get used to it, because when our leaders have to deal with the Evil Imp of Iran or one of the other mega-baddies on the world stage, there won't be time for a crash course in the real world of politics.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Sex Ed

2007-03-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

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Forget Sex Ed classes! Some students in an Indianapolis middle school have been taking the "birds and the bees" to all new places, namely the shop class.

This story is being reported by local radio talk shows and it gained national attention on Bill O'Reilly's "The Factor" on today's show.

Getting both the print version from the FOX News website, and after listening to the story on The Factor, I have got to officially declare that some of our schools have become basically the equivalent of multi-million dollar bunny hutches where our sixth-grade children can *breed*.

Before you hit that button and fire off a hate-filled email, let me fill you in on some of the details.

The local talk-show host covering this story stated that the shop classroom where this incident took place is an L-shaped room, where part of the room could be obscured from the view of the teacher. Add to that at least one student distracting the teacher, and with all of the clatter of the workshop, and you can see *how* this happened.

The problem then becomes the reaction of the school district, which has covered up the actions they may have taken against these students. We're talking covered up to the point that we're only hearing about this incident NOW.

Now, on the issue of the school district, apparently there is a board meeting of the school board here within a week or two, and The Factor is planning on being there. I can't wait to see the fur flying at that meeting, because I can also see a ton of parents descending on that building like a pack of frenzied alley cats. The idea that the school district has been mum on how this sort of thing could have been allowed to happen at the middle school, as well as actions taken against the students and perhaps even the teacher and administration of the school can only send the message that having sex in school is totally acceptable.

Those of you who think that sexual encounters in school are a rare thing, you must have been in an ice cave in Antartica for the last decade or so. On another Blogger blog, I counted the number of instances of women teachers having sex with male students. There were 16 articles, and all of them were instances of female teachers having sex with male students. I am certain that this was not a scientific survey of all instances of teacher/student sex, but one of the things that really caught me was the fact that so many of these stories seem to float under the radar.

The underlying issue is that parents are missing in action in the lives of their children. I am not saying that parents are the complete and only answer, nor am I saying that they are infallible...after all, some parents are totally WHACKED, and I can speak from expeience. However, once again speaking from experience, I can say that if parents aren't in the picture, and if other family members aren't there, people *will* learn about sex, and they'll get their education in ways that parents won't approve of.

While I think that the parents in East Indianapolis will have some very valid questions for the school board, the members of that board will have at least one equally biting question.

Where were you?

John B.
Blogger Guy

Judge Not...

2007-03-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

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Now, after all of my latest posts, I make value judgements, and I say we should do such and such, and why...because I believe it's the best thing for the country, or for humanity in general.

Now, I can hear some of you out there... "Hey John, aren't you a Christian, and doesn't the Bible tell you that you should not judge people?" Yep! The Big J says so in Matthew 7:1, "Judge not lest ye be judged."

However, there is a difference between judging a PERSON, and judging their thoughts, actions, and opinions. If we were not allowed to form Christian-based value judgements, then why did Jesus clear out all of the money-changers in the Temple? (Matthew 21:12-13)

To put it simply, the Bible is full of value judgements...have you taken a look at the Ten Commandments? Each of the dictates contained there is a value judgement...you know, murder is bad, stealing things is bad, lusting after someone's wife is bad... Now, when you go and start talking about *people*, you have to be careful. A person who steals is a thief...that's a fact. However, people are in generally good people...until it's an unmitigated fact that they're not.

The biggest standard in judging people is that we as Christians is that we "love the sinner, and hate the sin." Thus we can and should condemn homosexuality as an abomination to God, (Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:24), however Jesus never condemned the SINNER, he offered them repentence. It's in that vein that Christians should act...we condemn the SIN, not the SINNER.

However, there is the other extreme to judging the SINNER, and that is when people decide that THEY can decide what is truth. They don't want anyone to make value judgements whatsoever. If you believe that your beliefs are the TRUTH, then they are, and who am I to tell you that you are wrong.

I guess this means that Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich buddies had their own truths too, and we should respect them because we should not impose our truths on others. Just a reminder, these are the people who came up with that wonderful set of truths encapsulated in the book "101 Ways to Cook Humans."

Yeah, for those of you who figure you can find your own truths, let's see how fast you change your mind when you confront someone who has decided that *his* truth is that you don't exist anymore. I'll place bets on how quick you find God.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Baby For Sale!

2007-02-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

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I recently found a story on the Glenn Beck show, and this just brings the illegal alien chaos to a whole new level. The link to the story is: http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1172653200/1

Now, for those who don't want to read the entire article, here's the gist:

An illegal alien, Nicole Uribe-Lopez, and a rather sleezy-looking couple were arrested in Pueblo, CO for selling a five-month old child. The woman came to this country, leaving children at home in Mexico, and she came here for the tired old excuse, "I wanted to provide a better life for my family."

So of course, once she gets here, she turns her vagina into what Glenn Beck referred to as simply a "vending machine". She originally wanted $10,000, but these sleezeballs that were trying to buy the child managed to deal Uribe-Lopez down to a lousy $1500. Once the deal was done, Uribe-Lopez took $500 of it and bought a car.

Glenn Beck proposed that we jail illegal alien slimeballs and send Mexico the bill. I have a better idea...

See, the problem we have is that no one is taking the illegal alien problem seriously. Not the Democrat Liberalistas who want to throw open the gates and let anyone with a whim come in. You know, these people were behind the whole push for multiculturalism and all of that other de-Americanization of the country. If you are looking for tough policy from the Bush administration, SORRY! President Bush is signing on with the Liberalistas who now run Congress, and want to throw open the gates and let anyone with a whim come in.

My solution is along the lines of Glenn's idea...put illegal aliens in prison. They should go directly to Jail, no passing GO, no collecting $200...especially since they might use it as a down-payment on a car... However, Glenn then says we should send a message to Mexico by sending them the bill for the expenses of keeping these dregs of society behind bars. All of the room and board expenses should be picked up by the government in Mexico City, Glenn says.

My solution is different.

See, since no one in *this* country is paying much attention to the problem, what needs to happen is that we should jail every illegal alien we can find, regardless of whether we have adequate room in our jails. Do what Joe Arpaio does in Maricopa County, Arizona...construct tent cities...lots of them. Then build the damn prisons! Then put *more* illegal aliens in the tent cities...THEN BUILD MORE PRISONS!!

Now, of course, at some point, the cost of building prisons and caring for these illegal aliens will become too much for the federal government. Either we will be paying more for federal prisons than we do on Social Security, or the prison system will break down under its own sheer weight.

Once the choice is doing something about the illegal aliens slipping into this country in the first place, or repairing a prison system that is bleeding all sorts of criminals into the community and paralyzing the federal government's budget...I think the federal government will get off its butt and DO SOMETHING about the problem of illegal aliens.

If you think the United States is the only one complaining, you are wrong. Glenn referred to a website called Wetback Wives, where wives of illegal aliens have pleaded with the US government to DO SOMETHING about the border! Illegal immigration is huritng families in Mexico as well as in the US.

Anyway, this is my idea on what we can do with the illegal aliens, before we dump them back across the border.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Mainstream African-Americans

2007-02-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

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Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) announced his bid for President in the 2008 election this week, and immediately stepped in a big warm pile of political doo-doo, when he referred to fellow President campaigner, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean."

Now, the Liberalista media types are blowing the comment all out of proportion, and Biden himself apologized, saying he was trying to compliment Obama for being a fresh face on the campaign trail, the latest thing, the newest political flavor of the month. Those attacking Biden for the comment are claiming that he made a racist comment.

Actually, Biden's comment was dead on...it's just that the media is not focused on the right word in the statement. They focus on "articulate and bright and clean."

I think Biden was totally correct and should not have to apologize for anything, and in fact, he made an insightful statement.

Because rather than focusing on "articulate", and "bright", and "clean", I focus on the other descriptive term: "mainstream".

What the Liberalistas fail to deal with is the fact that none of *their* buddies can be honestly characterized as within the mainstream of our society. Do you believe that Jesse Jackson is mainstream after some of the remarks he has made (the ones against Jews being the most infamous)? How about Al Sharpton? Carol Moseley Brawn? How about New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who said that New Orleans should be rebuilt as a "chocolate" city...is he mainstream? Can someone point me to a Liberalista leader who is a mainstream African-American?

I believe the terms Liberalista and mainstream are incompatible with each other.

Now, I am no shill for Joe Biden. I plan to take a good look at Biden, along with all of the other candidates for the election in 2008, and I'll share my views with you. However, no matter your political stripe, Senator Joe Biden should not be attacked for exposing a truth, even if that truth hurts.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Misconceptions About the Bush Iraq Plan

2007-01-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

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I have been listening today about Hillary R. Clinton, who today told people that the President misused the authority she and the rest of Congress gave him to conduct the war in Iraq.

Now, I want you to do two things... First, re-read that first statement. After that, go read the US Constitution and tell me where the Congress can simply vote the President authority to deploy troops into a conflict.

Note, we are not talking about a declaration of war, which Congress clearly has the authority to do.

See, I have been amazed by people in Congress, who think that they can get in the way of the President's current policy in Iraq, which will include the deployment of an additional 21,000 US soldiers.

If you listen to the news, you are able to spot our representatives in Congress in various mis-statements about what they can do, or what Congress can do, or what influence they have over the President and his policices.

Let's look at a couple...

1: Congress authorized President Bush to invade Iraq, and that authorization was based on lies, and therefore was a misuse of Congressional authority. (This was the statement that Hillary Clinton has been recently putting out to the public to explain her vote *for* the Iraq war.)

Congress does not authorize the President to conduct war unless they sign a declaration of war. In the case of the vote on the Iraq war, the US Congress voted to support the President as a show of solidarity on the issue. Just as in so many other votes on this issue, the Iraq war vote in Congress had no legal force upon the President...it was a show of support.

2: The Iraq Study Group report should be fully-implemented as it has the force of a Congressionally-passed piece of legislation.

Last year, Congress commissioned the Iraq Study Group to do fact-finding related to their work, and compile a report on the subject of strategy in Iraq. This happened, and last month, the ISG released their report, which contained a large number of recommendations. The President supported the work of the ISG, but largely put the work of the ISG aside in favor of the policy of "the surge".

This last weekend, former Secretary of Defense William Perry told the Commonwealth Club of California that the ISG report had no legal force on the President. Basically, when it comes right down to it, the ISG report simply was a long list of opinions that the President was free to pick and choose from. He chose to use very few of them.

3: Any vote against the "surge" policy will force the President to reconsider the policy.

Well, once again, unless the US Constitution has changed since 2001, Congress can not force the President to pull back a deployment of troops. Congress has one option in this event, and they won't do it because they would rightly be accused of being soft on the war on terror.

Congress can de-fund the war in Iraq.

If they do this, the US Army would quickly run out of cash reserves and would be put in the crisis situation of not bveing able to pay for operations. They would be at the mercy of the enemy, who would see such a move as perhaps the ultimate move of weakness on our part. This is why even the most flamingest Liberalista will *not* vote to de-fund the US operation in Iraq.

Congress has neither the power to change the President's policy, nor the willpower to stop in in the way that they can...through the power of the purse.

John B.
Blogger Guy

When Basketball Stars Attack!

2006-12-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

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Alrighty, by now, we all have heard about the basketbrawl game between the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks. Lots of stuff happened, lots of players got suspended, and both teams got fined $500,000.

However, what may not have been apparent was the sort of "secret" fight that started at the game, and has continued since.

See, Denver was ahead going into the final minutes of thegame, yet they still had their star players in the lineup. This infuriated Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, who thought that Denver was trying to run up the score. At one point, Thomas apparently told a Denver star player that he should not be in the game...apparently forgetting that he was the coach of the Knicks, not the Nuggets.

Anyway, apparently Isiah Thomas told Mardy Collins to blatantly foul J.R. Smith, and from that point, the proverbial excrement hit the fan.

Knicks coach Isiah Thomas certainly did his ball club no favors by exacting revenge on the court, and if he is not fined by the NBA, then something is wrong. But the supposed running up of the score in that game was *his* fault, not the Denver Nuggets, and not their coach George Karl. The blame for this debacle can be put squarely on the shoulders of Isiah Thomas, and the looser has-been basketball team that the Knicks have become. As Yahoo sports writer Dan Wetzel put it:

"If (Nate) Robinson really wants this to end, if he wants the MSG boos silenced, then he should get his teammates to compete hard the first 46 minutes, not just foul hard in the final two.

If Thomas wants to stop people from running up the score on him, then he should have built a better club. He shouldn't have wasted all that money on illogical signings, outrageous trades and heartless characters.

No, Thomas and his guys weren't the only ones in the wrong Saturday. The Nuggets have their own issues. But when it was over, at least they weren't crying, at least they weren't punking. "

And don't get me wrong...I'm not in the tank for the Denver Nuggets. In fact, the only time I follow the NBA is when something this insane happens, and to me, these things are just one more example of something that could be a role-model for kids, turned into Saturday Night at the Fight Club.

People expect bloody brawls at hockey games, and the occasional football game. Heck, the fans make more trouble in international soccer, and even sedate games such as baseball have their share of brawls.

I imagine soon that they'll start advertising golf as an oportunity to cave someone's head in with a metal club. How about bowling...ever try shot-putting a bowling ball at someone?

I echo the sentiments of Mr. Wetzel...if Isiah Thomas was so concerned about being embarrassed, then perhaps he should build a team that is not such an embarassment. When the University of Wyoming football team got slaughtered this year by BYU, I didn't see football coach Joe Glenn whine and cry about it. We got beat by a high-calibre team, and we went forward about our business.

Perhaps the pros need to learn something from the college-level sports they spend so much money recruiting from.

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John B.
Blog Guy

Comments on the Holidays

2006-12-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

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Christmas has become a battlefield between two competing lines of thought. On the one hand, we are told by the secular-progressive Liberalistas that we can't have too much Christmas. For example, in Chicago, there was something called "Christmarket", a Christmas-based open market for vendors and such. The market was full of Christmas stuff on sale, it is decorated with Christmas decorations, and it is *called* a name that links it heavily to Christmas.

The problem the city of Chicago had was that New Line Cinema was sponsoring the event, and they wanted to put film snippets of their new movie "The Nativity Story" on some big-screen TVs. The city objected, saying that the big-screen TV ads might offend people...as if the rest of the Christmas festivities at this event would somehow get missed.

In Seattle, the airport recently restored Christmas trees to the premises after they figured they would not get sued by a Jewish rabbi who wanted a menorah displayed.

These are just two examples of PC intolerance relating to "overt dispplays" of Christmas...during a time of the year supposedly devoted to observing...Christmas!

On the other hand, we have people who are fighting the over-commercialization of the season, and to a point, they have a valid case. I mean, the day after Labor Day, you start seeing holiday decorations for a holiday that is 2 1/2 months away. Ever notice how the latest Elmo monstrosity materializes on the market in late November? Or how Sony and Nintendo time the release of the latest game system so that parents can throw one under the tree?

So, to a point, the people who preach against the commercialization of Christmas are right...and this is coming from someone who is going to Ft. Collins and Denver to look for a Wii on Friday...

However, there comes a point where the preaching really *is* preaching.

In this case, we have Molly Humphrey, a editorial writer for the University fo Wyoming's school newspaper, who wrote a column on December 7th entitled: "What Has Christmas Become?"

In this column, Ms. Humphrey quotes Gandhi, who said: "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians, they are so unlike Christ." This from a person who earlier in the semester complained that Christian evangelism was rampant on the campus, and a threat to diversity within the student body.

This is not the first time that Ms. Humphrey has been the subject of a Politics City article. The others were posted on September 16, and October 13.

While some of Ms. Humphrey's comments are correct, such as the admonition that Christmas is about Christ, not about accumulation, when it comes from her mouth, this all sounds like someone just trying to whip the Christians again. It's like the Jews getting lessons in Judaism from Joseph Goebbels.

When Ms. Humphrey shows a shred of understanding about what Christmas is about, THEN I may have more respect for what she is saying. Until then, she is a Liberalista bombthrower.

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John B.
Blog Guy

Pelosi's Gift

2006-11-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

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So here I am, trying to find some good news to balance out all of the bad election results, as well as the almost celebratory mood on NPR and the Democrats this morning, and then they play Nancy Pelosi's remark:

"The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty to Washington DC, and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history."

And with those words, what I am calling Pelosi's version of the "no new taxes" promise, she has just condemned the Democrat majority to two years, and possibly endangered the party's hopes for 2008.

The reason is the same reason that the "no new taxes" promise was not about to work. It's a global statement, and once it is disproven, it becomes an albatross to hang around the neck of your opponents, in this case, the Democrats.

So enjoy your majority while it lasts, Ms. Pelosi. You have two years to make sure that your party is as clean as the wind-driven snow, because the second it is not, you and your party are DONE.

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John B.
Blog Guy

A New Course for America

2006-11-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

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Well, with 1% of the votes reported, and with polls not even closed on the West Coast, Republican control of Congress is doomed...they're going to lose about 7000 seats in a body of 435, and Republicans will be swept out of power from positions all across the country. Even your local dog catcher might be swept out of power.

SO, given that Nancy Pelosi is about to become the new Speaker of the House, and in spirit with the Liberalista call for a change of course in Iraq, I have decided that BY GOD, they are right. We need a change of course in Iraq.

Of course, the Liberalistas have not told us what change of course they want, although we KNOW...but still, being specific on an issue counts, so with that in mind, let me propose my idea for a change of course in Iraq...

NEW US MILITARY STRATEGY IN IRAQ

First off, we shouldn't leave, like the Liberalistas want...not until th job is done, and the military has a lot of work to do if we want to get the country into shape.

The problem with our military in Iraq is that we are fighting too nice. Even worse, we are building schools and hospitals and the like...all these things that ingratiate ourselves to the civilians, when we should be building big bristling military bases and tightening our grip on the country.

When some idiot insurgents dare to attack our forces, our military men should simply open up and waste anyone and anything in sight. And not to stop there, within two minutes, squads of reinforcements should descend like locusts on the area, eliminating all potential for resistance. Anything that has a gun...dead. Anything that raises a hand, even to surrender...dead. Anything that breathes...dead.

The US military should become a thing to be feared, even from our Iraqi allies in the government. In fact, when our military comes on the scene for diplomatic or parade events, it should be followed by Star Wars' "Imperial March".

At the beginning of the Iraqi war, our attitude was that we should go in and turn the place into a parking lot, show no mercy to anyone, pacify the entire country, and THEN work to rebuild the country. According to most people, that has not happened, but if the Liberalistas want a strategy that does not include anything that can be seen as "cut and run" from the scene, my plan is a viable option, much in the same way that the Nuke the Moon article is a viable option for US policies in general.

http://www.imao.us/docs/NukeTheMoon.htm

John B.
Blog Guy

The Latest Molly Humphrey Tripe: On Kinsey Sicks

2006-10-13T07:33:00.000-06:00

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The following is a letter to the editors at the Branding Iron, the campus nwespaper at the University of Wyoming. My comments on the situation follow...

---

^.^

Ms. Humphrey has done it again.

If the BI wanted to prove that it is in the camp of the far Left,
Ms. Humphrey has provided ample proof. Her latest waste of
ink goes on about diversity and the beliefs of other groups
of people, and how the Kinsey Sicks production represents
the University of Wyoming because there are people whose
sexual tendencies differ from the norm.

But what about the "norm" for Wyoming? Unlike what
Hollywood and the Wyoming Tourism Board might have
you think, Brokeback Mountain does not even come close
to representing the culture of Wyoming, and the culture
of this state is one of the reasons students come to
Laramie for higher education.

What is wrong with presenting Conservative, or even
simply mainstream culture at UW, Ms. Humphrey?
Why must everything that is anti-American, anti-
Christian, anti-White, and anti-male be extolled
praised, and pushed by the BI and Ms. Humphrey
in particular? What about whose who happen to BE
Christian, white, male, or those who happen to support
our President, and his Iraq policies? Why does the BI
neglect this segment of our culture?

John Brengman
UW alumni
2004 graduate, History BA

---

Now, one thing I forgot to put in this letter is that I don't have any problem with diversity. It is a valuable lesson that must be learned before young people are confronted by it in the "real world".

However, to say that a trans-gendered performance such as Kinsey Sicks represents the University of Wyoming, or this state in general not only ignores the true culture of the state of Wyoming, but it offends a LOT of people, both on and off the campus. If Ms. Humphrey was talking about the culture of San Francisco, or Berkeley, or Columbia University, perhaps she would be correct in saying that a trans-gendered performance where one man gropes the breasts of another man (dressed up as a woman) represents the mainstream of thought and culture.

Such a thing is far from the mainstream of thought and culture in Wyoming. Recent history in this very city is an example of just how that is not the case, and if the man being groped in the picture presented on the front page of the Branding Iron on October 10th were a woman, I doubt Ms. Humphrey would have written such a glowing commentary. Just as at the same time, Ms. Humphrey feels she can be as anti-Christian, and anti-Bush as she pleases, but she doesn't say a damned thing about the values that most Americans hold dear. She has proven herself to be a real Liberalista. Once again, if the picture on the front page of the BI had been of a man groping a woman, I doubt Ms. Humphrey would have praised it as trans-gendered expression within the context of "art".

But why not? If the extreme homosexual "culture" is to be praised, why not write an editorial supporting the groping of women? My letter to the BI was meant to support the REAL mainstream in society, but this article is meant to suggest not only that, but that the other extreme is also possible. As George Carlin once said, "I think rape is hilarious."

My point is that while we have the right of freedom of speech, and that freedom is expressed at the risk of offending others, there are two lines that have to be watched. The BI crossed the first line when Ms. Humphrey extolled the virtues of the gay lifestyle...once again showing her Liberalista slant. The BI crossed the second line by publishing a photo of an act that would be grounds for disciplinary measures from the university, and criminal charges from the police had it not been within the context of "art".

Ms. Humphrey needs to wake up and realize that she's not in New York City or San Francisco.

---
John B.
Blogger Guy

Oh For the Good Old (Cold War) Days

2006-10-11T18:24:00.000-06:00

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Time for a short history lesson, or two...

Back in the 1960s, President Kennedy was told that there were nuclear missiles located in Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Kennedy reacted by establishing a blockade around Cuba, challenging any Soviet ships that came close. The globe came the closest it has ever came to a nuclear war, but the Soviets blinked and pulled the nuclear weapons out of Cuba. The US later pulled some missiles out of Turkey.

In the 1980s, President Reagan met in Iceland with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. The positions of the two men were as different as their ideologies. Mr. Gorbachev told President Reagan that the Soviet Union would dismantle a number of nukes if the United States would dismantle the same number of weapons. Mr. Reagan basically replied: "No, YOU dismantle your nukes, we're going to build 'Star Wars'."

The press of course, thought that Mr. Reagan was ruining the summit, and Mr. George Schultz said at the time that it was one of Mr. Reagan's finest moments. Mr. Schultz of course was Mr. Reagan's Secretary of State.

I give you these glimpses into history as a way to compare the way these issues were handled as opposed to the way the rhetoric from North Korea and its insane sycophant leader are dealt with.

For instance, the NoKo nutjob running the country says that he's developing nuclear weapons to defend his country from an attack from the United States, but when the United States says that they are strengthening our missile defenses to respond to such a threat, the NoKos call the move a provocation.

Most recently, I have been listening to the rhetoric coming from the NoKo leaders. Remember now, this is a man who loves James Bond movies, French wine, and porbography. He has said that any sanctions levelled against North Korea will be considered an act of war.

What the HELL does he think nuclear tests are? A box of chocolate and a dozen roses?

The Liberalistas in this country are now whining that we should talk in bi-lateral talks with North Korea, while the Bush administration says that the multi-lateral talks are designed to put some pressure on the NoKos...the logic goes that if the NoKos violate an agreement with the 6-party talks, the NoKos will be ticking off five countries, not just simply the United States.

The Bush administration has the right idea. With the insanity that exists at the top of the leadership of North Korea, to agree to face-to-face, two-party talks would be the height of stupidity.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

When You Have Half the Story...

2006-10-05T21:35:00.000-06:00

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Quite a number of recent events have proven to be very disturbing. As if the murder of six Amish schoolgirls in Lancaster County, PA was not enough, the fanatic nuts at Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS were about to protest at the funerals of these schoolgirls, and were only stopped when FOX News' Mike Gallagher gave them an hour of air time on his show to spout their message.

Also recently, an anti-abortion group protested at the University of Wyoming, the protest was complete with pictures of unborn fetuses and such. This came a week after ANOTHER group of radical religious protestors showed up on campus.

Before I get into the Westboro situation, I need to address these groups that come onto campus.

In fact, I have noticed two different reactions from college campuses when confronted by messages or groups they don't like. On the one hand, you have places like Columbia University, whose students staged a violent interruption of a set of speeches being given by the Minutemen, the group stationing itself along our southern border to assist the US Border Patrol. The scene turned into full-blown chaos in something I'd expect out of the Muslim world.

The other side of the coin is displayed in places like the University of Wyoming. Since I live here in Laramie, where the univsersity is located, I get to watch the reaction of the students here to pretty much anything that happens. The reaction of the UW students to the radical groups that showed up here has been "Why do these people have to inflict themselves on us?" This is problematic only in that the UW students don't understand that although the message these people present is reprehensible, they have a First Amendment right to be on campus...something that the students at Columbia University seem to have forgotten.

Now to the Westboro nuts...

The message that these "Christians" put out is that God hates sin, God hates the sinner, and sinners are going to Hell. They think that just about everyone outside of their church fall into the category of the unwashed sinners, so we're all doomed to eternal torment.

The thing is that while elements of their message are correct, the delivery sucks. These idiots stand outside funerals for US military men, they threatened to do the same in the case of the Amish schoolgirls, and they routinely show up here in Laramie every October to celebrate the death of Matt Sheppard.

The Westboro nuts are good at hammering home the God is vengeful message, but they fail to complete the other half of the story. Yes, God is a wrathful God, and he hates the Sin that all of us have because of Adam, and therefore, he hates the unrepentant sinner. However, through the grace of God, and by the sacrifice of his Son, we have a way to be redeemed.

The Westboro church members, most of which belong to ONE family don't seem to understand this fundamental part of the Christian faith. Instead, it seems as though only members of the Westboro church are redeemed...Christianity to them is a rather exclusive group...namely themselves.

There is also the idea that men should not be judging other men in matters such as this. And thankfully we aren't given that power. If we were, Hitler wouldn't have had to used the Nazis as the vehicle for his horrid crimes.

He could have entered the Church and risen to a position of power.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Anger Management

2006-09-26T19:01:00.000-06:00

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On this last Sunday's FOX News show, FOX newsman Chris Wallace interviewed former President Bill Clinton in the aftermath of Clinton's global initiative conference. Mr. Wallace explained that there were ground rules set up for this interview, that half of the fifteen minutes would be given over to discussing the global initiative, and the other half could be about anything else.

The part of the interview that was not about the global initiative was a whole lot more entertaining than the part that was. For those of you who missed the interview, or in case you want to make some popcorn and watch the fun again, you can find the video at the FOX News website. ( http://www.foxnews.com )

Chris Wallace asked Mr. Clinton why he didn't do more to get Osama bin Laden, this in light of the fact thatUS interests had been hit in 1993, 1997, and 2000, and given the fact that Osama bin Laden celebrated the withdrawal of US forces from Somalia.

Mr. Clinton had a right to be angry, although I can not believe that he was blind-sided, as he seemed to suggest. He's a public figure, a Liberalista who was coming onto FOX News, he should have known that he was not getting soft questions.

Clinton however went overboard, accusing Chris Wallace of playing a hatchet job for the right-wingers. He accused Wallace and FOX News of double standards, not asking these sorts of questions of the Bush administration. If anyone watched FOX interviews with Donald Rumsfeld for example, they would see that Clinton didn't know what he was talking about.

Clinton also held up Richard Clark's book as though he were Hugo Chavez at the UN General Assembly. Mr. Clark worked in every administration since 1980 and has become an expert on terrorism issues. Clinton said that Clark's book supported the assertion that the Clinton administration was more aggressive in "getting" Osama bin Laden than the Bush administration. Clinton said that a strategy plan was handed to the Bush administration, and Bush apparently sat on it for eight months.

The problem is that Richard Clark says no such thing...and this is backed up by people like Condi Rice and Mary Matalin, who were there in the first eight months of the Bush administration, and they report that the Clinton's handed off no such anti-terror strategy. The intel report saying the bin Laden was planning attacks in the US was a general report with nothing specific to act upon.

Clinton was angry in the wake of the ABC film that said that he was too distracted by Monicagate to take out Osama bin Laden. The idea that a president could not do more than two things at once is ludicrous. It would take less than ten seconds to order the military or intel boys to waste the terrorist raghead and then the President could go back to dinner.

Dick Morris further indicted Clinton for his failure to get Osama bin Laden. In 1999, the CIA got information that Osama bin Laden would be in one place for a week, and he in fact, *was* there for that week. The CIA agents who had Osama bin Laden in their sights asked for authorization to take him out, and there was almost crying in the room when that authorization was NOT given...this according to Dick Morris, who worked with the Clinton administration on a wide number of issues.

In the FOX interview, Chris Wallace spoke truth to power, and the Liberalistas are reacting as though the biggest crime in humanity has been comitted...unfortunately for them, they are acting out on the biggest stage in the world.

Conservatives simply need to sit back, munch on the popcorn, and watch Clinton and the Liberalistas implode.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Laramie's Newest Liberalista: Molly Humphrey

2006-09-16T21:12:00.000-06:00

With the start of the new school year, the University of Wyoming has
welcomed a new editorial staff, and one editorial member has already
stood out for outlandish and vacuum-headed editorial columns...thereby alerting
everyone who reads the Branding Iron that she is a full-fledged Liberalista.

From her first few columns, it sounds like Ms. Humphrey is going to be a "guest" of this blog an ample number of times.

On Sept. 7th, Humphrey wrote an editorial entitled "President Bush: the next Hitler?", where she made the statement that the Bush administration has copied many of the techniques used by the Third Reich in their detention of terrorist suspects, and the use of tapping the phone conversations coming in to American citizens from people who could very well be Al Qaeda followers.

Humphrey uses the BBC website to back her statement that the phone tracking program is a violation of American citizens' rights. The New York Times should be dismayed that Humphrey did not get her information from their pages, but instead had to resort to going to the BBC...a trully honest and objective source with no hint of anti-Americanism whatsoever...(insert sarcasm here).

Ms. Humphrey apparently feels that the rights of the terrorists trump the rights of American citizens to remain alive in our own country, because make no mistake...while Ms. Humphrey rants about how the terrorists' "rights" are being violated under US laws that don't apply to people who are not citizens, while she argues against programs that monitor the phone calls of terrorists who are calling in to the United States, those same terrorists are continuing to plot ways to attack the United States and the West, and to do so in ways that would make 9/11 look insignificant.

While commenting on the transfer of fourteen high-level Al Qaeda prisoners from CIA custody to the US prison at Guantanamo, President Bush said that the CIA uncovered plots in the works to attack Western nations...he was specific when he mentioned a foiled attack at Heathrow Airport, in London.

The United States is bending over backwards to give the terrorists rights they don't have so that everything is on the up-and-up with the world community. By doing so, we risk not getting the information we need to prevent a future terrorist attack simply because we were not able to use sufficient pressure on the terrorists to get them to divulge what information they have. If we are hit again, part of the blame will go to Ms. Humphrey and the rest of the Liberalistas, who figure we shouldn't be mean to the terrorists.

As if this first editorial wasn't enough, Ms. Humphrey follows up on Sept. 14 with a column entitled "Universities are for Exploring Thought, Not Controlling It", where she launches on an air-headed tirade against Christian culture.

Her first statement reads: "Everyday students walk on campus and encounter missionaries," as if we were talking about Nigeria and not Wyoming. I graduated from the Univeristy of Wyoming in 2004 and I can tell you I had to fight off the hordes of people waving Bibles in my face like mad just trying to save my soul.

Aside from the utter stupidity of that statement, Ms. Humphrey continues on to whine about the effect of such outreach on the college campus, saying missionaries "colonize the minds of those they convert and ruin culture."

Humphrey asks: "Has the UW become a place where free thought no longer exists within the student population? Must we be subjugated to propaganda telling us how we should feel about our actions, not allowing us to explore them?"

The problem here is that Ms. Humphrey only believes that freedom of speech is good so long as she is not inconvenienced by it. As long as no voice that could be in any way construed as objectionable to her reaches her ears, she is fine with freedom of speech. However, if anyone dares to express a Christian view to her, she is offended.

Ms. Humphrey seems to forget the unwritten rule of the First Amendment. We all have freedom of speech, that is true...but none of us are entitled to an audience. This is true in two places...

I can hear you now, saying "Well, if you don't like Ms. Humphrey, why are you reading her columns, why are you writing about her?" To that, I respond that I am a History graduate, an observer of the news of the day, a political policywonk, and a blog writer. I hope that all of this will one-day become a paying job, and as such, it is my job to look out for things to report on, and to talk about. Ms. Humphrey, as a person who's views might infect young people through the printed pages of the Branding Iron, is someone I should be reading if I am to be able to make a thoughful reply.

More important to the conversation however is the ability we all have to simply walk away from a conversation that we object to. There is nothing holding Ms. Humphrey or anyone else to the vicinity of the "missionaries" as they work the crowd. In fact, on the way to a job interview on the campus, I was stopped by the Gideons, who were doing what they normally do...handing out Bibles to any that wanted one. I didn't have the time to stop right away, but I went back after the interwiew and had a good conversation with them. See, I excercised my right not to be an audience in one instance, and my right of free speech in the second.

Finally on this subject, Ms. Humphrey suggests that the presence of "missionaries" on the campus ruins culture. She rightly supports the idea that students should be exposed to other cultures, but then she misses one rather vital point. Religion is a huge part of cultures all over the world, from Japaese shintoism, to Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, etc. When an American visits a foreign place, they should be encouraged to see for themselves the richness that religion adds to that culture. Ms. Humphrey also misses the fact that other people from around the world come to the University of Wyoming, and while they are here, they may wish to see what American religion is like...in other words, they may want to see for themselves the richness that religion adds to OUR culture.

Ms. Humphrey can plug her ears and rush past the Navigators' booth all she wants, but this does not entitle her to impose her own fascist brand of anti-religion on everyone else. She is so quick to label President Bush a fascist, and to accuse Christian religion of subjugating the minds of UW students...let's see how she likes the label when it is applied to her.

As with anyone else who appears as a "guest" of this blog, Ms. Humphrey is welcome to respond. If she does, her comments will be printed in their entirety.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Lieberman vs Lamont, Round 2

2006-08-09T14:34:00.000-06:00

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First, a note of administrivia... I have enabled moderation of reader comments. This is in the wake of the link note spam that the comments section to this blog has received. I apologize for any inconvenience this spam note may cause, but I have found there is nothing I can do about it since it was posted before I instituted the moderation. I will be ready for such stuff in the future tho...

And now, on with our regularly scheduled article...

Last night was perhaps the biggest grouping of the Fall 2006 political primary season, with primary elections in both Connecticut and Georgia.

All I have to say about the Georgia primary is THANK GOD THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD, as Congressman Cynthia McKinney crashed and burned, losing a run-off election to challenger Hank Johnson, who ran on a platform of not being Cynthia McKinney.

Now to the main subject of this article...

Three-term senator Joseph Lieberman lost his re-election bid to Liberalista Democrat Ned Lamaont. Lamont, who has been called "over his head" by Dick Morris, who helped Lamont on a statewide race in the past. Morris believes that Lamont will lose in the November general election.

The thing is, the Democrats believe so too. Lamont is now working on getting Lieberman to drop out of the race, saying that the people have spoken...to which I respond, Yes, they elected you as the Democrat candidate, but that doesn't stop Lieberman from running as an independent.

From the Republican point of view, we will be able to paint Lamont, and any who support him as weak on the War on Terror, and weak on national defense, and rightfully so! A look on Lamont's website says that Israel ought to give up land for peace in their current conflict aaginst Lebanon! Yes, Israel should cede land to a bunch of terrorists who inhabit a land that is partially governed by those same terrorists...because this has worked so well the last few times it has been tried...

Yes, I am glad Lamont is the choice for Democrats in Connecticut...because Republicans will use him as the poster child for the Liberalista Left, and NEWSFLASH folks, the country is not that far left...we don't all cheer behind MoveOn.org as they launch their little volleys of bombs at George Bush and the Republicans. We don't all believe that our forces should cut and run from Iraq, leaving that country to disintegrate into sectarian civil war. I am not saying Conservatives agree with the Bush administration 100%, but we're far from being ready to sign up on the Sorosmobile.

The thing is, the Democrats won't lose anything. Lieberman has said he plans to run as an "independent Democrat" which to me means that once he wins in November, he will rejoin the Democrat party, and there is no doubt in my mind that the party will have him back...come on, when the chips are down and it comes to the numbers game in the US Senate, the Democrats will want Joe Lieberman as one of THEM simply because it gives them one more Democrat.

However, the damage will have been done. The election of Ned Lamont may have secured the US Senate for the Republican party in the November election.

So, GO LAMONT! Let's hear all about how you hate the military, how you want us to retreat from Iraq, and how you think the Bush administration has led us down the wrong path.

You'll find out shortly just how wrong you are about the poliitcal views of the American people.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Land in the Middle East (Views on the Area, Pt 1)

2006-07-27T06:43:00.000-06:00

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Views of the Area will be a series of essays on specific regions of the world, and the various political, economic, social, military, and historic forces that shape these regions, along with my own opinions on all of these.

The first part of this essay in Views of the Area will look at what is quite possibly the basis for most of the problems in the Middle East, the issue of land, and who owns which part of it.

In 1947, the United Nations took up the matter of the creation of both a Jewish and Palestinian state. David Ben-Gurion announced the independence of Israel in the next year, and the new state was immediately attacked by its neighbors.

Since that time, many arguments have been made about who owns what land in Israel and the surrounding region...in fact, the possession of certain parts of land have become the main sticking points in talks between Israel and the Palestinians...all other issues not withstanding, of course...

The Palestinians claim they own the land that Israel sits on, simply because they were there before the Jewish state was created. It must be stated however that as far as modern history is concerned, Jews have been living in the area since at least 1891, when local Arabs protested the settling of Jews in Palestine. Prior to this, the story of the region was largely one of some variety of Arab or some other dominance...with a few breaks provided by the Crusades.

The Palestinians of today say that they have been forced from their homes and livelihoods by an Israeli state that is hostile to them, and as a part of their talks with Israel, they demand a "right of return," which is to say, these displaced Palestinians want to be able to return to what was their homes.

This sounds like a great idea. Certainly, no one would be opposed to people returning to their homes. However, historically, no such right exists. Jews were uprooted from their homes in Germany before and during WWII, Germans were uprooted from their homes in Poland after WWII, all sorts of "population transfer" happened in the Balkans during the 1990s...basically, anywhere there is a refugee problem, there is the possibility of a permanent displacement. Even a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, which slammed into the southern coast of the United States caused a wave of population displacement, and it is certain that not all of the people who lived in those areas will be returning to their homes.

Israel opposes the Palestinian right of return for two reasons. The first is that by leaving, the Palestinians forfeited any ownership of the lands...whether this is justified or not is not the point, this is one view held by the Israelis. Are they supposed to let houses sit abandoned? Are they supposed to let farms sit idle? The other reason Israel does not like the Palestinian right of return is because if such a thing were granted, there would then be the possibility that a flood of Palestinians returning home would tip the demographics in Israel, and suddenly, the Jweish state would lose its Jewish character. This is why Israel left the Gaza Strip last year...they have no intention of absorbing a large number of Palestinians into the Jewish state.

This can be taken too far. There is the story of a Palestinian hotel in Jerusalem which was to be closed because local Jews had managed to buy the land underneath the hotel. Some people might see the border wall that Israel is constructing to be another example of Israel going too far, but in this case, it is something that has worked so far in Gaza, for the most part...which is why people are complaining...anything that ensures the security of Israel is bad for the Palestinian whackos who are only interested in killing innocent people in shopping malls or streetside cafes.

On the other hand, you have the radical Arab view that Israel should not exist at all. The Iranian maniac-President calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, and in fact, Palestinian maps of the area show it as being completely owned by the Palestinians. By listening to this kind of rhetoric, it is easy to see their view of who owns what. It doesn't bode well for Israel, and it would seem to make negotiating with the Palestinians to be an excercise in futility, after all, if the group you are talking to is out for your annihilation, is anything they agree to really worth the paper it is written upon?

However, Israel can play the game too. After all, this is all a matter of who was inhabiting the area first, and if you go back to the Bible, Israel should own everything it has now, plus most of Syria, and good chunks of both Lebanon and Iraq, because under King David, and then King Solomon, the biblical state of Israel dominated the Middle East. If you go back further, you have Canaanites, Jebusites, and such, but those peoples don't exist anymore.

So, perhaps it;s time that the Palestinians quit playing the little games with who owns what parcel of land, and get to some of the real issues in the argument between them and Israel.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

* Information taken from "The Palestine-Israeli Conflict", by Dan COhn-Sherbok and Dawoud El-Alami (Copyright 2001-2003).

The term "population transfer" was used by the British to describe the forced dislocation of Germans from what became western Poland in the aftermath of WWII.

Thoughts on the World Cup

2006-07-11T21:13:00.000-06:00

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Well, first off, thank GOD it's over.

While it has been interesting to hear which national team was facing off against another one, I must say that I had little interest in who Ghana or the Ukraine were playing. I did perk up some interest when it seemed possible that Germany and France might be the finalists...I would have loved to see some of the old rivalries from back in the 40s come back on the soccer field.

Now of course, the interesting thing...what the entire world is talking about is the headbutt heard 'round the world, as France's star player head-butts an Italian player, and gets red-carded. The game ends in a 1-1 tie, so they go to penalty kicks, and since the French star is not available for penalty kicks, it is very possible that the French lost the World Cup because of his lame-brained move to head-butt an opposing player.

You would think the French might be mad. You might think this guy would be run out of the country.

Instead, he is praised by the French president, and invited over for lunch.

It almost makes me wish that we treated OUR OWN athletic stars like that. Barry Bonds boosted up on drugs? Not only could he admit it, but he could go on breakfast cereal boxes with the message: "Don't worry kids, DO DRUGS and you could be like ME!" Perhaps Bonds could visit the Department of Justice!

Or, how about Mike Tyson, of boxing fame, who bit Evander Holyfield's ear during a fight. I can see it now... "If you don't like chicken or beef, but still want your protien, may we at Tyson Foods suggest a radical alternative: CANNIBALISM! Yes, did you know that four out of five dieticians prefer broiled human flesh over more mainstream meat products?" And Mike can go to Washington too, and he can talk about taking a bite out of crime...or something like that...

Anyway, the World Cup is over, and France lost...like the sore losers that they are. My day was good!

John B.
Blogger Guy

The Palestinian Mindset

2006-07-03T11:12:00.000-06:00

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Late in June, Palestinian militants slipped across the border from Gaza into Israel via an underground tunnel. Once in Israel, the Palestinians attacked a nearby observation post, killing two IDF soldiers, and kidnapping a third, a young man named Gilad Shalit.

Until now, the Israeli response to terrorist attacks has been measured. Militants fire Kassam rockets into Israel on a daily basis, and quite frankly, these attacks have received barely a yawn, proportionally speaking...basically, while Israel will remove the threat if they can do so with minimal effort, the Kassam attacks are nothing to invade Gaza over...

The kidnapping of Gilad Shalit was different. To do this, Palestinians had to cross into Israel and take someone. So the Israelis respond in a big way, and tanks are soon seen advancing into the Gaza Strip, much to the displeasure of the Palestinians, who immediately start howling with indignation over the Israeli actions.

Please note! The Palestinians weren't complaining to the militants, demanding that they do what's best for the Palestinian cause and hand over their hostage. Instead, the Hamas-led Palestinian government has done nothing but stone-walled the situation, and complained when the IDF came into the Gaza Strip, and complained some more when the offices of the Palestinian prime minister were bombed.

The Palestinian response has been the tired and worn excuse that they have the right to defend themselves against the Israeli occupation...this despite the fact that the IDF left Gaza last year, and despite the fact that Gilad Shalit was in *ISRAEL* when he was kidnapped.

Even if I was to stipulate that the Palestinians have the right to "defend" themselves against the Israeli occupation, I would be at a loss to see how a militant attack that kills two IDF soldiers and captures another, an attack carried out on Israeli soil can be considered a form of defense.

I believe by now that I have made my point. Now, the Palestinians are demanding the release of 1000 prisoners from Israeli jails before they will give Israel information regarding Gilad Shalit. Not release these prisoners and we will release our hostage...release the prisoners and we may give you information on his condition...or something like that...

Israel is perfectly correct to reject that "offer" of information. Israel should in no way compromise with these terrorist criminals. Israel should issue a demand... Either Gilad Shalit is returned to Israel unharmed by the end of the day, or Israel should go into Gaza and level the place. Use high-energy explosives and destroy every building in the Gaza Strip. Of course, this will cause hundreds of thousands of refugees, but that's not Israel's problem.

Then turn to the West Bank. Once again, either Gilad Shalit is returned by tomorrow at sunset, or the IDF goes in.

See how quickly Gilad Shalit is returned.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Ward Churchill Revisited

2006-06-26T15:10:00.000-06:00

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Last February, I gave my opinions on Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado, who referred to people working in the World Trade Center as "Little Eichmanns" in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

As far as I am concerned, I would not want to be associated with such a person, and if I were the university in Boulder, I would work toward dropping this guy like a rock. Sure, Mr. Churchill has a right to free speech, but as I have said before, just because you can asy something doesn't mean you should.

As I said last year, "I find these views to be utterly insulting and nonsensical, and I for one find comfort in the fact that the majority of the reaction on this subject from responsible human beings has been pretty much right where it should be...outright and utter condemnation."

However, I also said that Ward Churchill would be fired, but that it would not be because of his "Little Eichmanns" comment. Rather, Churchill will be fired because of his impropriety surrounding what was called in a statement by the Chancellor of the university, "research misconduct"...in other words, he plagarized some materials from others, and he simply made a whole bunch of stuff up.

Other allegations stem from the charge that Churchill misrepresented his ethnicity in order to gain employment at the university, and then to gain "credibility and an audience for scholarship", to quote the UC Chancellor's statement...which means that he tried to claim he was part American-Indian to give his research work more credibility and to give himself more academic standing. The committee that studied these allegations said that these particular accusations might represent "research misconduct and failure to meet the standards of professional integrity."

About mid-way down the statement, the Chancellor levels the verdict in this case:

"Today, I issued to Professor Churchill a notice of intent to dismiss him from his faculty position at the University of Colorado, Boulder."

Of course, this is not quite over. Mr. Churchill may appeal the case, and it will then be heard by a special committee. He has also said that if he is fired by the university, he will turn around and sue them.

I think that the university should stick to their guns and rid themselves of an embarassment.

As a recent student, I must say that the primary goal of any facility of higher education is to provide students with what they need to get and keep a job within the American workplace. Most of everything else is window dressing.

Because of this, and because of the fact that students and parents PAY for the education they get at universities, while academia may like to trumpet their First Amendment rights, your First Amendment rights stop at the classroom door. I don't pay for YOUR opinions, or YOUR agendas. I pay for facts.

So, where do opinions come into the classroom, and they rightly do in some cases? When a discussion drifts into opinion, or when a professor asks for opinions, then I wouldn't have a problem. The presentation of opinions is an excellent way to challenge people's beliefs, which should happen. However, the professor should never present his or her opinions as the concrete fact, and students should never be tested on their professor's opinions, nor should they be penalized if they disagree with their professor. Now I must say that when I was able to detect a slant with a professor, they were never a part of the tests for those classes.

Another issue that comes up is that Ward Churchill's research has been spoiled by the use of bad research work, and flat-out plagarism. These are the bane of journalism, of general research work, and within my field of politics and history. People doing research in areas that Churchill worked in will not be able to faithfully use his works to support their arguments. Churchill's findings themselves should not be taken on their own, and basically, all of this becomes a big problem for people who advocate or are interested in these topics.

All around, research misconduct and plagarism are a big headache for professors who are professional in their work and their studies, as well as a big headache for students interested in turning in quality research.

The time for bashing Mr. Churchill over his insane comments is over. The "jury" has spoken in the case of his research misconduct and plagarism, and the verdict is clear.

Ward Churchill's days at Colorado University are numbered, and we should thank the leadership at the university for their decisive action.

---
John B.
Blogger Guy

Liberal Media Traitors

2006-06-25T23:25:00.000-06:00

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The Liberal media types have demonstrated that they are anti-American, and more specifically, anti-Bush. Anything that harms this country, or anything that might bring down the Bush administration, the Liberalistas thoroughly enjoy.

For example, in the United States, we have no problem referring to the fight against Osama bin Laden and his AL Qaeda cohorts as the War on Terror. No fooling around...no ambiguity...the context we are putting forward is pretty clear.

However, if you listen to the BBC, you will hear things like "America's war on terror," "the Bush Administration's war on terror," or "the so-called war on terror." It's as if not only did the attacks on September 11, 2001 not happen, but apparently, neither did the attacks in Bali, Madrid, and London, just to name a few. These sorts of things make me wonder whether the British media realizes that they too are involved in what President Bush has called the WORLDWIDE War on Terror. When the BBC uses the sorts of phrases that they do, they undermine our own efforts, because they fail to provide a united front against our mutual enemy. Not only this, but any effort to show the other side of the story...to show that the insurgents have their point against the "occupation forces" simply lends aid and comfort to the enemy.

However, the BBC can almost be forgiven. After all, they see themselves as cultured, and they see themselves as acting within the boundaries of objectivity. There are no such shelters given to the Liberal media in the United States.

The Liberal media has made their money on supporting Liberalistas in government, whether they were doing a good job or not...in fact, in some cases, the office holder barely needed to be competant to gain the support of the Liberal media.

To say that the Liberals were dismayed at the outcome of the election in 2000 would be an understatement of titanic proportions...in fact, that's why they spent a month trying to have recount after recount on top of recount after recount, because no matter what they did, they could not find enough hanging chads to give the election to Al Gore.

This is the basis for the Liberal hatred of President George W. Bush...the idea that he "stole" the election, and that he was not legitimate. Even the election of 2004 did nothing to change this...once again, Liberals screamed that the vote in Ohio had been stolen.

September 11, 2001 gave Liberals virtually nothing to move with. After all, the attack had happened on Bush's watch, and both he and the administration were quick to rally around the flag, and the hated fumes of patriotism were so thick in the air that the Patriot Act managed to get by both chambers of Congress and was signed by the President. Even the attack on Afghanistan could not be used by Liberals at the time it was launched...it was a largely successful war that got rid of the regime that harbored Osama bin Laden.

Iraq has been different. Despite all of the evidence presented by the administration to the contrary, Liberals have refused to believe that Saddam was involved with Al Qaeda, they refuse to believe that he had weapons of mass destruction, and if it would have kept Bush from attacking, the Liberalistas would have said that Saddam was a nice guy who never oppressed his people, and was never a danger to his neighbors.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, and the overthrow of Saddam, the Liberal media has not missed one instance where they could blame the US or the Bush administration for some wrong. The death toll among Iraqi civilians was too high, the treatment of prisoners at Abu Graib was torture, the treatment of prisoners ar Guantanamo Bay is torture, the government is spying on arabs in the United States, and so on and so on. If the US forces in Iraq were to clean up the country tonight, if the Iraqi government were solidified, and if US forces were in the air on their way home, the Liberalistas would find some way to blame some small part of it on Bush.

As if the recent leaking of telephone monitoring was not enough, the New York Times released details on Bush administration monitoring of an international banking system, that tracks the transfer of money across international borders. This fact is important. The SWIFT system only keeps track of monetary transactions if they cross an international border...so when I write a check to pay my utility bill, SWIFT is not going to see it. If I pay rent on a condo in Abu Dhabi, then SWIFT will make note of it.

The Liberalistas have jumped all over this story, crying out that Americans' rights are being violated once again by an administration that is too secretive, an administration that wants to know private details of citizens' lives, an administration that is over-reaching, an administration that has lost the focus in the War on Terror and really should be continuing the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Except, as has been pointed out in several Conservative media outlets, the information carried by SWIFT is *NOT* private information. It is about money transactions between banks! Person A in Bank A sends money to person B in Bank B. Bank A wipes the money from their books, and sends a note to SWIFT informing Bank B to add the money to their books.

The United States used "broad subpoenas" to gain access to the SWIFT records, which show the name and address of known terrorists who are using international banking to move money around the world. In other words, the Feds were acting legally in gaining these records which allowed them to keep tabs on terrorists and their money.

With the outing of this program, it is likely that the terrorists will try to switch their money transfers to some form that does not use the international banking system. This may be a bit hard considering the reach and scope of the international banking system, but now that they know that it is one of the ways that we track them, they will probably try to avoid the system.

The Liberalistas and the media have taken a tool that the government has been using in the War on Terror and thrown it away. It is one thing for the BBC to sit in London and be delusional about somehow being a safe distance away from the global War on Terror.

It is quite another thing to be an American newspaper that is doing their best to aid the enemy.

---
John B.
Blogger Guy

On Ann Coulter

2006-06-19T14:24:00.000-06:00

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As you may know, conservative commentator Ann Coulter has put out a book entitled "Godless: The Church of Liberalism", and in it, she makes some statements that on first blush, seem to be beyond the pale.

The assertion that the media and the liberals have pcked up on is found in Chapter 5 of the book, where Ann talks about how liberals have reacted with outrage to the fact that rather than a media monologue, todays's citizen is treated to a dialogue, where BOTH sides of the political spectrum have a voice. The liberals who used to run the media don't like this one bit, so they had to come up with some vehicle that would allow them to push their message without anyone being able to dispute it.

The perfect vehicle for the liberal message has been people like Cindy Sheehan, and the women that Ann Coulter refers to as the "Jersey Girls"...women who lost their husbands in the attacks on September 11. On pages 102-103 of "Godless", Coulter goes on to describe how the Jersey Girls have taken their anti-Bush campaign to the media...who just gobbles this stuff up. They've attacked Bush for not responding to the 9/11 attacks quicker, and they've acted as though all of the events on that day were about THEM, as if the pain felt by the rest of the nation matters nothing.

Then Ann gets to this statement:

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

This of course gets the liberal bleeding hearts all worked up into a tizzy. How COULD she be so mean? This has led to even some conservatives such as Bill O'Reilly saying that she went too far in her remarks. Some lawmakers in New Jersey tried to get the book banned from the bookshelves (as if people could not jump the state lines and buy the book in Pennsylvania or something...) Hillary Clinton called the comments "mean to women".

Of course, all of the attention has only helped sales of the book, which has reached the #1 spot on the New York Times list.

Now that we have the facts and background, it's time for my take on the situation, and my take is:

GOOD FOR ANN! YOU GO, GIRL!

Now of course comes the question of why I think this way, and it is simple. This is in the spirit of levelling the playing field a bit. The left has had bomb-throwers like Al Franken and Michael Moore since the 1990s, but somehow when a conservative emerges that is not soft-spoken and defferential, we're supposed to send them to the gallows? I think not!

Ann Coulter has said something that needs to be said, even within the controversial statements in Chapter 5 of her book.

Think about it this way... When I say something privately to someone else, it is none of your business what that is, and you have no right to criticise it. However, when I step on THIS platform, and give you my opinion on something, you are encouraged to respond...whether you agree with me or not. Unchallenged beliefs are worthless.

The same is true of the Jersey Girls. It is one thing to be a victim, and we all sympathize with the Jersey Girls in the loss of their loved ones, and we all sympathize with Cindy Sheehan in the loss of her son.

However, when you as a victim step onto the political stage and make policy statements, your opinions and statements become fair game for criticism.

Once you get past the "mean" in Ann Coulter's statement about the Jersey Girls and if you read it in the context of the rest of the chapter, you see the point she is trying to make...that liberals have tried to hide their message behind other people's misery...beause we dare not speak bad of those who have recently went through a tragedy.

Ann Coulter has seen through this tactic, and she has spoke out about it in Ann Coulter fashion, by being a firebrand, a controversial figure...someone who will always get a LOT of press simply for being the way she is.

The Left has Al Franken, Michael Moore, the Jersey Girls, CIndy Sheehan, SUFP and the rest of the anti-war ranters, the Daily Kos, and etc...

We have Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter!

Good for our side!

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John B.
Blogger Guy

C2C: Secret Societies Are Gonna Kill Us All!!

2006-06-15T11:58:00.000-06:00

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This is the second in what will be a series of essays on why Coast to Coast AM is actually dangerous to American society.

The last time I talked about this, I talked about how C2C is so self-absorbed with what they believe to be their role in US politics. At the time, the story of Dubai Ports World was making all sorts of splashy news, and C2C took credit for breaking the story, pushing the story, and then claiming credit when the deal fell through. Of course, the story broke months before C2C was even aware of it, and although the C2C audience is large, it is largely comprised of people who are out there on the fringes, listening to conspiracy theorists, alien stories, ghost stories, and etc.

C2C even admits that they have guests on who are outside the mainstream of society, in part because these people would never see the light of day on a regular television show or on the radio. The show is basically entertainment for those who are likely to believe that if the aliens don't get us, we'll either be killed by the secret government agents, or blown up by whatever asteroid hits planet Earth.

Anyway, last night's show featured a discussion on the Bilderberg Group, a supposedly secretive group that recently held its annual meeting in Ottawa, Canada. The discussion was moderated by George Noory, and had bomb-thrower Alex Jones, researcher Jim Marrs and journalist Daniel Estulin. Please note that Mr. Jones was the person who organized this discussion, with help from the show's producer.

The following is a couple excerpts from the C2C website information on the discussion, so you can get a bit of a feel for what was discussed...

"...They want to bring about globalism-- a one-world government and economy-- but they are trying to push it through using secrecy and deceit, Marrs commented..."

"...Their real name though is the Synarchist Movement, he [Estulin] said, and the group of around 125 wields so much control because many of its members are the heads of nations or powerful organizations such as the Central Banks & NATO..."

"The Bilderberg group was mainly founded with Nazi money, said Jones, who pointed out that until recently the US press never reported on the group-- but now the secretive yearly meeting is starting to get mainstream news coverage...."

"Marrs added that it appears they are "running scared" as though they were on a deadline, possibly due to upcoming geophysical changes."

When taken at face value, all of this sounds really SCARY! Secret organizations that want to take over the world are plotting to do so through the corporate boardrooms and the political smok-filled chambers of power? And they control the economy through globalism and the World Bank? And they control politics through electing those that serve their whims? And they want to wipe out 85% of humanity?

Sounds really scary. We should do something about these people.

Except that these groups are not that secretive, and not that scary.

First, the Council on Foreign Relations, or CFR, the main American "secret" group often supplies people to appear on spots on FOX News and other news outlets. Another "secret society" even allowed the BBC to enter their property in the UK and interview people. And look at this Ottawa meeting...Alex Jones made a big deal about how these people like to conduct their proceedings in private, yet these people checked in to a meeting room in Ottawa, and Alex Jones stood outside with a bullhorn and went about exposing the group as much as he could.

For a group that is supposed to be a secret, there is certainly a lot of information on them.

And look at the situation we are left in. We are at the mercy of these people. Why? Because if we believe the conspiracy theorists, the bad guys already control the highest echelons of not only our own government, but governments all over the world...not to mention many of the major businesses, and much of the media world as well.

However, if we use the prism of the conspiracy theorists of C2C and look at the gigantic world order of the Illuminati, we see a plot to take over the planet that would make the villain of Inspector Gadget (Dr. Claw) proud. You see, the Bilderberg group controls NATO, and NATO is involved in both Serbia and Afghanistan...both powerhouses in the world of global politics...I mean world finance...I mean military force...I mean...you get the picture.

The cabal of C2C conspiracy theorists were then asked what should be done to curtail the power that this group holds, and the first response was "Outlaw TV." Like PBS, and cable TV are responsible for the secret societies and getting the word out to the masses... Rather than join a massive campaign to out the bad guys, we're supposed to censor ourselves a bunch. Sounds like a nice plan.

And they put so little faith in the nation-state, a system of governance that has been around for quite a while, if you go back to the founding of Rome. Nations are generally strong, resilient things which tend to ward off upheavals such as wars, depressions, rebellions, and natural disasters. In the case of secret societies, I have to believe that if nation-states were that damn weak, that we would be under the heel of the Illuminati by now.

In the end, we're talking about people who believe that George Bush was directly responsible for the attack on 9/11. They don't believe that the Pentagon was hit by a plane...rather a missile of some sort hit the building. These guys see government prison camps and black helicopters where-ever they look.

As far as I can tell, the conspiracy theorists on C2C are worth a hearty laugh...not a shiver of fear.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

C2C Commentary: Mother Nature is Gonna Kill Us All!

2006-06-15T11:53:00.000-06:00

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My current job as a newspaper carrier requires that I be up at 2:30 AM to be delivering newspapers, which are supposed to be on my subscribers' porches by 6:30...and they are...and my subscribers LOVE me.

It also means that I listen to at least one hour of Coast to Coast AM, which runs from 11 PM to 2 AM, and then the first two hours are repeated on the local radio station. I ususally listen to the hour up until 4 AM and then switch to the local NPR station to catch one hour of BBC news and then one hour of NPR news...by about which time I am done with the routes.

So, now that you know that I am cultured...

Coast to Coast AM is the biggest early-morning talk show in the US. It was started by Art Bell initially as a politics/opinion show, but then morphed into the current science/science-fiction/mystery/supernatural/UFO/occult/etc show that it is now. I tune in for entertainment purposes...and to find out exactly how everyone in the world is going to die today.

Whether it be from a comet strike, a massive solar flare, mad cow disease, bird flu, an alien invasion, our military doing experiments with the ionosphere (HARP), the government's attempts to impose total control over the people, the secret societies, the Illuminati, global warming, the Yellowstone volcano, or The Day After Tomorrow (co-written by Art Bell)...it appears that we are all going to die from some sort of cataclysm, and Coast to Coast is there to warn us and inform us...

The problem I have with C2C is that they are so self-absorbed. They bring us these perils, they put on people who are "experts" who back up the hysteria, and then they sorta pat themselves on the back for keeping people informed to these potential dangers. For example, in the matter of the US ports deal being done by Dubai Ports World, C2C credited itself with breaking the story, and then with stopping the deal. "We won one," C2C host George Noory said to the audience in the aftermath of government moves to kill the deal.

Of course, C2C had little to do with the progress of the deal or the story of DP World and the US ports...but the fact that C2C thinks that it is a prime mover in these sorts of things means that they can then put forward hysterical doom & gloom stories, pat themselves on the back for bring us the warnings, etc, etc...

Recently, George Noory had Linda M. Howe as a guest on the show. She had done a special investigation into global warming, and she came on the show with grim news. The environment is nearing the point of no return, and soon we will be experiencing an environment that has not been experienced since the age of the dinosaurs. The ice sheets of Greenland and the Arctic were going to melt, the sea level was going to rise at least three feet, coastal areas were going to be sunk, the snow atop Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone in nine years, and the people who rely on snowcap for water will become "environmental refugees", and we're all going to die...

Now, I don't totally discount the possibility of mankind being a cause or contributing factor to global warming, simply because mankind has had an increasing inpact on the environment since the Industrial revolution of the 1800s. Over the past 200 years, we have had an increasing ability to mold the environment to support and service our needs.

However, to say that mankind is the only factor, or the main factor in global warming is a stretch. For one thing, even the scientific guests that appear on C2C don't agree on the causes of global warming. One scientist points out that there is a chain of volcanoes under the Arctic Ocean, or in the northern Pacific. These volcanoes heat the area to about 3000 degrees, and spew all kinds of CO2 into the air...CO2 being the primary cause of global warming. Even if you take this particular set of facts out of the equation, there is still the fact that land-based volcanic eruptions spew all sorts of soot and ash into the air, which contributes to the general environment. Another C2C scientist believes that the culprit behind global warming is not CO2, but water vapor...so even the scientists who come on C2C as guests can not agree on the cause of global warming.

The hysteria at C2C also discounts other factors in the global environment. They hype the melting of the ice in Greenland. Art Bell practically ridiculed a caller who pointed out that the Vikings colonized and farmed Greenland...before the mini ice age of 1320 or so to the mid 1400s. This actually happened...they have records of this, yet it was splashed by C2C. So, this means that the conditions we are seeing on Greenland happened before, they are happening now, and they will happen again. C2C points at the breakdown of the North Atlantic conveyor current that keeps Europe's weather moderate during the winter, but they poo-poo the notion that snowfall in other parts of the far north has any effect whatsoever to off-set the melting being seen in Greenland and elsewhere.

Finally, C2C seems to think that the United States is a major contributor to the problem...us with all our cars and industry. They miss several facts, like that the US is continuously trying to green up its industry. A global map produced by NASA a year or so ago showed that North America is one of the lowest producers of atmospheric pollution in the world. The other fact that C2C misses is also indicated by the same map, which shows that southern and eastern Asia produce the most atmospheric pollution. C2C misses the fact that India, with its 600 million people, and China with its roughly 3 billion people are just now going through industrialization, which means that they are busy putting up factories, building roads, and driving cars, and like the US and Britain and the rest of Europe at this point in their development, neither China nor India have much in the way of regulation over the industrialization of their country...which means that they can throw pollution into the air with little concern for their own people, or the general environment.

Note that one of the reasons that the Kyoto Accord was not ratified by the United States was because China and India were not included...meaning that the countries responsible for the most pollution did not have to adopt any restrictions.

Coast to Coast AM is good when it comes to entertainment. But as a source for news, it falls flat.

It also fails when it comes to informing us about possible "threats" because the show then turns around and congratulates itself for bringing the news. Finally, it also fails because differing points are not given serious consideration while the point they want to push is given little criticism.

There are a couple other issues that C2C brings each morning that I want to talk about. They will be easy to spot...just look for "C2C Commentary".

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Perverted Boys Meeting Stoopid Girls

2006-06-09T20:46:00.000-06:00

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First, a couple definitions...

STOOPID (n) - An act that is so dumb or ignorant as to go beyond even the boundaries of the definiaiton of normal stupidity.

STOOPIDITY (n) - An action currently being engaged in that would be considered STOOPID.

Alrighty.

The topic mentioned in the title has come up because of at least four stories in the news recently.

The first is the case of the Duke "rape" case, and I put "rape" in quotes because we have a victim who was seen at another party before she attended the one she was "raped" at, another woman who was with her called the rape allegations "a crock", and the DNA samples from the victim did not match up to the three people arrested. This to me is a defense lawyer's dream case.

The second story is the murder of Tiffany Souers, a student at Clemson University. Ms. Souers was killed by a sexual predator who described himself as " a monster". This man, Jerry Buck Inman, has spent time in jail in Florida for sexual assault, and he recently broke into another woman's house, and was about to rape and murder her. She apparently said that she told Inman about God, and how He would forgive Inman for his sins...or something like that. This worked, and Inman simply stole some money and left the scene. In the case of Ms. Souers, Inman strangled her to death with her bikini top, and now may face the death penalty for his vicious crimes.

Next, we have the story of a teenage woman who made the high-school honor roll, ending up in Jordan. We'll exerpt from Fox News for the details on this case:

A 16-year-old honor student from Michigan tricked her parents into getting her a passport and then flew off to the Mideast to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com, authorities say.

U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank. She was on her way home Friday.

Katherine R. Lester is a straight-A student and student council member, her father said. "She's a good girl. Never had a problem with her," Terry Lester said.

Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff's officials said. She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.

And finally, we have the story of 15-year old Jason Pickler, who met a 10-year old Michigan girl online. The two had an online friendship for the next 1 1/2 years, until Mr. Pickler, now 17, and the unidentified girl, now 12, decided that they were in love.

According to the story in the Casper Star-Tribune of June 10, 2006, Pickler confided in his parents, who apparently agreed to attempt to gain custody of the girl should Pickler himself not be able to do so. Pickler then went out to Michigan, met with the girl, who gathered her things, and came back to Wyoming with Pickler. Pickler has been charged with kidnapping and custodial interference, and faces up to 25 years in jail.

I tell you these stories because we have in each of them a case of either a perverted boy or man, and/or a girl or woman who makes some rather questionalbe..OH Ok, STOOPID decisions.

And stoopidity is not limited to these cases. Remember the case last year of the "runaway bride"? Well news update, the wedding's been called off again...this time, the husband has left...probably the best thing he could do for his sanity.

I guess my point here is that just when I think we've reached the bottom of the barrel as far as male sexual predators go...just when I think that THIS TIME they've caught the scum of the earth, another case is revealed that makes me shake my head and ask WHAT? in a sort of tone that sounds like I can't believe anyone would be that STOOPID.

And on the other side, after EONS of women fighting for their rights, fending off sexual predators, through the advent of self-defense courses, pepper spray, and just sheer knowledge, you would think that girls and women would get the point. Yet some of the women in these cases clearly were on the STOOPID pill or something.

These cases show why parents must do more to protect their children, both boys and girls from those who would do serious harm to them. Even after they are out on their own, parents should be there to relate to their children as responsible adults and be ready and watchful for trouble.

I don't want to scare anyone, but the stories I have highlighted show that there is trouble out there in the hinterland, and sometimes even adults, or "responsible" children don't have the intelligence not to get themselves into seriously dangerous situations.

And I hope that these stories put to rest the notion that the Internet is simply the children's playground. Places like MySpace and Yahoo chat are nice when used responsibly, but as the Lester story proves, these places can be extremely dangerous, as people hide themselves behind the Anonymous monicker, or use fake identities.

And if you think children are not visiting adult websites, think again. Most adult sites simply ask if you are 18 or older before letting you in, and the websites are not babysitters...they rely on your honesty to click NO if you are under-age. Like that will stop a teenager who wants to see what's behind the curtains...

These stories are examples of why parents must step up, take responsibility, and fend for their kids. In the case of Ms. Lester and the Pickler case, the parents nearly lost their daughter into a situation that would be problematic to say the least.

They are very lucky people.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Secure Our Borders Before the Next Person Dies!

2006-06-06T21:10:00.000-06:00

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The following was picked up from the Laredo Morning Times,which printed the story on March 5, 2006...

"A fatal pre-dawn shooting in Nuevo Laredo took the life of a young woman and injured two others Saturday near International Bridge I, officials said. The shooting occurred just days after the young woman was wed.

Not even a week before 17-year-old Nataly Berlanga Barraza was shot and killed in a spray of gunfire in the Sister City, she became the legal wife of 20-year-old Marco Polo Arredondo, sources said.

Barraza, who was the passenger in a metallic-blue Cadillac Escalade with Texas license plates, received a single gunshot wound to the chest. She was killed instantly in the attack.

Two friends, identified as 19-year-old Roberto Moreno Cardenas and 18-year-old Jose Carlos Ruiz, accompanied Barraza. Though Cardenas and Ruiz were also hit by gunfire and seriously injured, both survived the attack.

The motive for the attack is still unknown.

According to Associated Press reports, Barraza, Cardenas and Ruiz are from Laredo. However, as of Saturday evening the victims' nationalities could not be confirmed.

The incident marks the 35th killing of the year in Nuevo Laredo."

(excerpted from the Internet version of the story, written by Celina Alvarado)

Alrighty folks, the immigration problem on the border has GOT TO BE STOPPED. The situation from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas has gotten out of control. It's gotten to the point that not a day goes by where you don't hear some sort of incident involving illegal aliens or criminal mobs fromMexico crossing illegally across the border, threatening people living along the border, tresspassing on private property, or in some way making themselves a ganeral nuisance.

Some examples, other than the shooting death of Nataly Berlanga...

A tunnel was found that led from a warehouse in Mexico to a warehouse behind a diner in San Diego. The tunnel was large enough to stand in, it had electicity,and police found a huge amount of marijuana stored in the tunnel.

Along a desolate stretch of the Texas border, authorities are having to deal with convoys of drug dealers who try to cross the Rio Grande River. The police have attempted to intercept these criminals, who sometimes get stuck in the river. What generally happens is that the criminals call in support from the local military, who come in with SUVs, take the drugs off the stranded vehicle while holding the US police off with machine guns, they then drive away, after setting fire to the stranded vehicle. The US police have stated that they will not stand for this again.

People living along the border have said that they are afraid to come out of their homes after dusk for fear of being shot at, or otherwise acosted by illegal aliens, or the"coyotes", the criminals who the illegals pay to smuggle them across the border.

Governments are having to put out food and water at special way stations in the desert, so that illegals who cross in what is often-times very dangerous conditions or terrain can have something to eat and drink. This of course, keeps them alive...but their lives would not be in danger in the first place if they were not ILLEGAL ALIENS trying to cross our borders!

And as if the above were not bad enough, we have bleeding-hearts in this country who want to take the illegals in, bathe them, shelter them, and help them get access to the best health-care system in the world, along with our schools, employment opportunities, the welfare system, and everything else that goes along with living in America. It's no wonder that states such as California and Arizona are struggling under the weight of social systems that not only have to take care of the under-priviledged citizens of the state, but also the illegal aliens who show up and leech off the system.

And if you think Mexico is willing to help, THINK AGAIN! Not only are their federal agents assisting the drug smugglers along the Rio Grande, but if they turn the other way and give a blind eye to the situation, they get rid of a large number of people who would otherwise become an unemployment problem in Mexico. That plus the fact that illegal aliens in theUS often will send money home to their relatives still living in Mexico...money mind you, that they don't pay taxes on...and this money is pumped into the local economy. So to Mexico, the illegal alien problem in the United States is not a problem for them...it's community investment.

While talking to a friend of mine, whom I find to be a bit left of center politically, he brought up most of the same tired arguments for giving a shred of mercy and dignity to the illegals. When they get here, they need jobs or they will slip into a life of crime. Their children need education or they'll grow up illiterate. When someone gets hurt, the health-care system is obligated to assist. If the need is there, the social welfare system is almost obligated to help.

All of these arguments sound good, and in fact, they are tailored to pull at the heart-strings and make you feel all wishy-washy and sorry for the poor Mexicans who only came here to seek a better life for themselves, and they can't help it that they brought their mal-educated children, blah blah blah.

I would buy these arguments, and probably agree with them if it were not for the fact that THEY BROKE THE LAW THE FIRST STEP THEY TOOK ACROSS OUR BORDER!!! If a Mexican is here legally, if they were in Mexico, and they filled out the proper paperwork, if the paperwork was written in ink, as the Genesis song "Illegal Alien" says, and if they were accepted into this country, even as temporary workers, FINE! I can handle that, and they can and should have access to our society and the various systems that we use to keep it running.

But I am sorry, if the first act you do in this country is to break our laws, I have no sympathy for you. I want NO employment, NO welfare, NO education, NO desert way stations, NO assistance of any kind...why? BECAUSE ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE CRIMINALS! The sooner that the Mexicans realize this, the sooner they will look somewhere else to better their lives, whether that be improving the situation in Mexico, or applying to become either a guest-worker or a citizen of this country. The sooner our own people drop the bleeding-heart BS about the poor Mexicans who come across our borders because they want a better life, the quicker the majority of the resources that the illegals depend upon to live here will dry up, and the illegal aliens will find the "Land of Opportunity" a much harder place to live in...and perhaps they will stay home and try to make Mexico a better place to live.

My solution is simple...

First, tear up the way stations in the middle of the desert, and publish an article in every major newspaper on both sides of the border. The article should tell the Mexicans that if you are thinking about slipping across the border illegally...DON'T! If you do, there will be no assistance...no food, no water, no nothing, so you are risking your own life. And if you are picked up, no matter what your condition is, you get dumped back across the border into your own country. Do not pass GO, do not collect the golden ring.

Next, build a 15-foot wall (at least) from the Pacific Ocean to Brownsville, TX. At the spots where rivers must pass across the border, we should build watch stations to monitor the situation. Once again, if anyone is caught trying to climb the wall, or tunnel underneath it, they get dumped back into Mexico.

Next, issue a warning that anyone caught attempting to smuggle drugs into this country across the border can be shot...by anyone...maybe not to KILL, but possibly to maim. Once most of the drug smugglers in Mexico have lost an arm or leg, perhaps they'll get the message.

Next, the Minutemen and every single property owner along the border should be deputized as state police in whatever state they live or work in along the border. And again, they get the authority to detain any illegal alien they find, and if they find smuggling activity, these people should have the ability to shoot people in defense of their lives and property.

Employers harboring illegal aliens should be fined $250,000 for each individual. This will quickly dry up the small business market for illegal aliens, and most large companies won't like having to pay one million dollars just to keep four illegals. And by the way, if you're caught employing illegal aliens, the government should check back in six months to ensure that the situation has been corrected. If not, the fines get imposed AGAIN.

Hospitals who treat illegal aliens should report such activity to the Immigration & Naturalization Service, as well as the police. The illegals should then be deported. The same should happen when illegals try to access the education or welfare systems.

Put the national guard on the border. In some cases, the border forms the southern boundary to things like military bases and weapons test ranges, so doing so will actually increase the safety to the people trying to slip into the country.

Finally, all of the above items should be codified into FEDERAL LAW. It's already illegal to slip across the border, therefore the enforcement of the laws should be at the highest level.
Not all of our moves should be "mean". I say offer economic incentives to Mexico to build infrastructure and other improvements. Not only will the projects themselves be a source of employment, but the improvements will make the life of the average person so much better.

Now, before people come at me and say that my ideas are radical or draconian or will result in undue hardship for the illegal aliens, I would ask you to go back and read the incidents I cited at the beginning of this blog. My ideas actually take steps to SOLVE THE PROBLEM of illegal aliens, and it might be that the money spent on them might be recovered through the savings from employment, education, health, and social programs that are no longer strained past the breaking point by the continuous influx of illegal aliens.

Big problems call for big solutions. I am planning on emailing this article to each of the governors of the states along the border, along with certain federal officials who have taken this issue up, and are fighting for border integrity along our southern border.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Protecting the Country, Part 1

2006-06-04T22:59:00.000-06:00

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I came across a liberal in an unexpected place last week. While I was getting ready to deliver papers, I tossed my garbage at the university police department and started up a conversation with the dispatch person. Now, I know you might be asking when does a police dispatcher have the time to chat about national politics, but this is a university police station on a week night, during summer...so no college kisd to deal with.

I expected to be able to have a good chat, agree with him, no matter how right-wing I decided to push it, and then go off and do my papers.

Instead, when I told the man hat *I* didn't feel threatened by the Patriot Act, because I have done nothing wrong, and I don't have anything to hide, he replied that what has become law under the Patriot Act is the start of a slippery slope, and the Germans in the 1930s said the same thing to the Jews...

Not expecting to find a liberal working at the police station, I was stymied for a response. Luckily, an incoming call came in, and he had to answer the phone, so off I went on my newspapeer routes...

But I also continued to think about what the dispatcher had said, and the following occured to me:

Osama bin Laden could give a rat's butt about the rights of Americans, whether we hold them sacred or trample them under our feet. Osama bin Laden could care less about the plight of the Iraqis, the fate of the royal family in his home of Saudi Arabia, or the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza...this despite the fact that he talks about all of these alot, and undoubtedly these things make great grist for the Islamic fanatic rhetoric machine.

However, at the end of the day, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are all about establishing a radical Islamic state throughout the world, preferably without the United States in it. Now you ask "Why?" And the answer to that is because as the world's last superpower, the United States is a threat to the establishment of that radical Islamic state.

I reasoned that if Al Qaeda could have killed 3 million people on Sept. 11, 2001, they would have done so. Al Qaeda does not need a reason to want to kill Americans. The fact that someone is American is enough to seal their fate, as far as Al Qaeda is concerned.

It might be all well and good to sit here in the United States and talk about personal freedom and human rights, and moan about their loss. I have seen a lot of college students argue these points with their little college attitudes, with the sorta pious "we're college students, we're cosmopolitan, and we know what is right about the world and bad about America" style of talk. This is all well and good, but the thing about human rights and the personal freedoms we all share is that they are best when enjoyed while alive.

That's right folks, the dead don't give a damn about human rights and personal freedom. They're DEAD. And Al Qaeda wants to render Americans dead, no matter where they are. In my book, that means that personal and national security has to take a higher priority, and if that means a bit of inconvenience at the airport, if that means I need to be searched every so often, if that means that the government wants to know what I check out of a library, if that means that we have racial profiling on traffic stops, if that means that personal freedoms take a back seat for a while, by all means, DO IT!

Because in the end, the job of the government is to protect its citizens, so that they can enjoy the rights and freedoms that some of us feel strongly enough about that they hype up a conspiracy to explain why the government wants to take them away.

Myself, I have nothing to worry about. I've done nothing wrong, and I don't have anything to hide.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

Why Iran Won't Get Nukes

2006-05-27T11:41:00.000-06:00

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We have all heard about how Iran is defying the United States and the will of the rest of the world by pursuing nuclear technology. The Iranians and their insane president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been saying that they want technologies that are legally due to them under the NPT, the treaty restricting the spread of nuclear weapons technology, and they accuse the United States among others, of trying to rob them of that technology.

The United States on the other hand believes that Iran is really after nuclear weapons, and they bring some evidence to that effect.

First, the US is following the advice of that old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me." This is because back during the Clinton administration, the United States got involved with talks to limit the nuclear aspirations of North Korea. These were the talks headed by former President Jimmy Carter. The North Koreans signed a deal limiting their development of nuclear technology, and it was only during the Bush administration that the North Koreans turned around and said basically, "Not only did we not mean what we said when we signed the treaty, but we already have nuclear weapons."

So, the US is right to be skeptical of Iran's assertions that they only want peaceful nuclear technology. The Iranians too have played the game of "hide the nut" when it comes to their facilities. They unveiled the Natanz site during their announcements on the subject, but there's an associated facility at Bushehr. Who knows what other facilities the Iranians might have.

Secondly, the Iranians have obtained a manual on how to design shaped charges using uranium materials. The IAEA said that this report had no peaceful use...it's used to tell people how to build and improve nuclear warheads.

However, things are not as rosy for the Iranians as it might look. It is true that sanctions are not likely. Both Russia and China will oppose such things in the UN, probably to the point of vetoing any such resolutions that come down the road. So it looks like Iran is in a good position to negotiate for what they want.

For Iran, that's where the good news stops.

While it looks from the outside that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has monolithic support, this is not the case. The Iranian economy has not done well, despite promises made during the last presidential campaign. There are mixed signals being sent on social and cultural rules, and students at the nation's universities are protesting the proposed stationing of police or soldiers on the campuses...some students have taken to wearing T-shirts saying "Our schools are not garrisons." At the same time, while satellite receivers are outlawed, they are proliferating like weeds in the cities of Iran, since no one enforces the restriction, and the reason the conservative clerics are trying to clamp down on social interactions is because the youth of Iran are probably the most liberal thinking people in the Middle East.

On the nuclear issue, while there is support for the development of nuclear power, and while there is some support for Iran to join the nuclear club, that support is not universal, and some people also say that antagonizing the United States is not wise.

Despite the religious beliefs of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who believes that he should do what he can to bring about the return of the missing mahdi (and this can only happen through an apocalyptic horror), those portions of Iranian sociaty that are not insane religious fanatics are actually quite sophisticated and intelligent, and I think that should push come to shove, they would act to preserve their nation.

The United States and our allies should put good sums of money into backing the underground democratic movement in Iran, and we should come up with other things that we can be doing to quietly be working against the leadership of Iran.

However, the Iranian democratic movement should take the lead on this. We have admitted that military force is not our primary option, and economic sanctions are probably not going to happen. Therefore, the only way that we can resolve this issue is to have the leadership of the country, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad removed from power.

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John B.
Blogger Guy

About Cultures: A Response to a Response

2006-05-24T11:54:00.000-06:00

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I have received a response to my recent articles on Islam, and I figured I should reply. Before I get going, I would like to thank the person who wrote the response. It takes time and effort that could have been used elsewhere, yet I engendered the use of these in response to my comments...my opinions. I am thankful, honored, and humbled.

Now, to the comments raised by Anonymous...

He starts with the following: "why do you hate Moslems that much and you consider them enemies?, why you consider Christianity is Western while Islam is not?" He continues by saying that Islam would have been adopted by the Roman Empire if Christianity had not been.

I don't "hate" muslims. I AM suspicious of Arabs in general, and muslims in particular. It was 19 muslims that carried out the attacks that left roughly 3100 or so people dead on Sept. 11...it was not a clan of Irish men, not a gaggle of Germans, and it was not a communist plot hatched in the cellars of Moscow. Like it or not, the attack on the World Trade Center was designed by an Islamic fanatic, carryied out by a group of Islamic fanatics, and all of them were following a radical Islamic theology.

Do I consider muslims as the enemy? Yep, and that includes the "moderates". Why? Well, in the case of the radicals, that's easy. The moderates however have been shirking their duty and have in that way helped the radicals who have publicly stated that their aim is to kill Americans, to replicate 9/11 on a far larger scale, etc. The moderates have been silent, and in doing so, they have silently given their blessing to the fanatics. If muslims don't wish to be considered as the enemy, they need to stand up and firmly denounce the fanatics who preach that Americans should be killed simply for being Americans.

Anonymous then makes the unfounded statement that the Roman Empire would have converted to Islam had it not converted to Christianity. This is false simply because Christianity was founded roughly 600 years before Islam was created, and the Roman Empire converted to Christianity roughly 300 years later. (I am giving rough estimates.) The point is, Islam wasn't on the scene yet to convert anyone.

Anonymous continues, talking next about how I am wrong in my opinions (which is why people generally write to me...) and how I am making generalizations. And in some cases, he is correct...because it is now the job of the muslims to convince me that they are not fanatics. However, from what I see and hear a lot of the time from the news reports, the sense that I am getting is that all muslims are exactly that...fanatics.

Then comes a bit of moral relativism, where Anonymous says that events happened in the Bible that would not have been allowed in Islam, such as an assault on a city where women and children were ordered killed. My first thought is that I doubt Islam lets women and children off that easy. For simply talking to a man who is not a relative, a woman risks death. Whether it is Sharia law or Islamic tribal custom makes no difference...the custom is defended as religious law. In the case of the Bible, sure there are a large number of incidents where woman and children were killed. To understand this, one has to understand the nature of sin, and how God hates sin. God himself destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all of the people living there with the exception of Lot and his family. God also struck down Israelites who rose up against Moses during the trek to the promised land, and God told the Israelites to attack many of the peoples living in the promised land.

But one thing you have to remember is CONTEXT, which is why I mentioned God and his hatred of sin. When Israel or its kings fell away from God and comitted sin, God was well within his rights to punish them, and that's what was happening.

Anonymous then goes on to explain the nature of religious belief and how Islam fits into that. He then gets into a bit of criticism of Christianity, thus displaying the hypocrisy I see in a lot of muslims today...it's not alright for me to criticise Islam, but Anonymous can mock Christianity, and the Trinity, and then compound that error by displaying just how little he understands Christianity: "God does not need to have a son, God does not need to kill his son who is himself on the cross to forgive us because of a sin we did not do..."

God does not need to have a son...that's quite a judgement...try that on the next expecting couple you see.

God did not "kill" his son...that implies that God directly did the deed. God gave his son to be a sacrifice on behalf of humanity for the forgiveness of sin, the consecration of the new covenant which wipes out the Old Testament law, and the redemption of those who believe. As for "sin we did not do," as human beings, we are born into sin, and throughout life, we are tempted to do sin, but through the belief in Jesus, through repentance and asking for forgiveness, God, through the sacrifice of his son, wipes that sin away, and it is completely forgotten.

Anonymous ends with the following:

"God can forgive the well-guided people with a simple word if God wish. We want to stop hatred, and follow what Jesus Christ said (peace be on him and his pure blessed mother); do love your enemies, bless who curse you."

If God wanted to do so, he could. However, that would be like me slapping you across the face, and expecting that you'll forgive me and forget that it ever happened. Instead, under the Old Testament law, the people were responsible to make adequate sacrifices to God for their sins. Under the new covenant, the sacrifice that Jesus gave for us is perfect, it is highly valueable, as any father will know...and it shows how much God loves all of us. He was willing to send his son to be nailed to a cross so that our sins may be forgiven.

Now, back to the political realities here in closing... I am suspicious of muslims, and I think this extends to a lot of Americans. Being suspicious is not a sin. Being hateful is. Do I hate muslims? No. I wish that we could all get along and understand each other, but I keep coming back to a question.

I know that a muslim can walk across a Christian community, no matter the size, and not be harmed at all. In fact, I doubt in most cases that he would get a second galnce. However, I question whether the same could be said of a Christain walking across an Islamic community, no matter the size. Given the rhetoric I see coming from muslims, a Christian would be risking his life in such a thing.

From what I have heard about the situation in Iran, I am hopeful that perhaps the insane president of that country can be overthrown. I believe that Israel knows the best way to defend itself and secure her future...with or without Palestinian cooperation or consent, and in general, the ravings of the muslims that we see to any time they don't get what they want has been exposed as exactly that...the ravings of a people whose version of negotiation is to get everything they want, or they'll attack.

It is up to muslims to change this view of themselves and their religion. I will listen with an open mind, but it will be a hard sell.

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John B.
Blog Guy

Islam: A Study in Contradictions

2006-04-22T00:23:00.000-06:00

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I picked up a copy of the Koran today. Now, given all that is happening in the world, such a purchase might raise some eyebrows. However, before I am forcibly shipped out of the country or something, I must state that this is the second copy of the Koran that I have owned. The first was a required purchase for a class that I took on understanding Islam, a class I thought I needed for my degree, and a class that I dropped when I discovered that I did not. I then sold the book back to the bookstore.

Specifically, because of all that is happening in the world, I bought a new copy of the Koran, and in fact, I would encourage others to do likewise.

Why?

Well, for one thing, as Sun Tsu once asid, "know your enemy as yoruself, and you will always triumph." Another thing is that I have found that people sometimes cherry-pick sources so as to get the meaning from the source that THEY want, not what the source really is saying. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, and in fact, there is no blame...but having the source at your fingertips to sorta, "go deeper" into the actual text can sometimes be enlightening.

This is not limited to the Koran. In fact, I discovered this phenomena while doing a Bible study.

Take perhaps the two most prominent Bible verses: John 3:16, and Romans 3:23.

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." KJV

The next verse however, reads: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." NKJV

See? The thought is rounded out, and complete.

Romans 3:23 - "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," NKJV

Romans 3:24 - "and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ." NKJV

So, with all of the articles I have been reading and writing lately, I bought a Koran for the same purpose, and when I got home, my friend gave me a few other books on Islam. One of them was "Islam Unveiled," by Abdullah Al-Araby (2001), and in it, he tries to state that the Koran says that unbelievers are to be treated much differently than they tell us in public...as we see in the streets of a number of Middle East cities as the mobs burn flags, ransack buildings, and cause general mayhem over the publishing of cartoons.

Al-Araby says that Surah 73:10 states that God is telling Muhammad that the unbelievers are to be at least tolerated. However, if you read the entire thought, you get the following: (I'll put the part Al-Araby quoted in bold face)

"Remember the name of your Lord and dedicate yourself to Him utterly. He is the Lord of the East and of the West: there is no god but Him. Accept Him for your Protector. Bear patiently with what the unbelievers say, and leave their company without recrimination. Leave to Me those that deny the Truth, those that enjoy the comforts of this life; bear with them yet a little while. We have in store for them heavy fetters, and a blazing fire, choking food and harrowing torment; on the day when the earth shall quiver with all its mountains, and the mountains crumble into heaps of shifting sand."

Now, Al-Araby goes to a completely other verse to refute 73:10 and the assertion that muslims should be tolerant. However, look at the complete thought.Al-Araby refutes 73:10 with Surah 2:191, which reads: "Slay them wherever ye catch them and turn them out from where they have turned you out."

I believe that Al-Araby's book will be an extremely enlightening look at the real face of Islam.

He continues by saying that there is a doctrine called "al-Nasikh wal-Mansoukh", which means "The Abrogator and The Abrogated". According to Al-Araby, this means that if a more recent verse in the Koran contradicts an earlier one, the more recent verse REPLACES the earlier one.

Since part of the Koran was written before Muhammad's journey to Medina, where he changed the religion from one of peace to one of Jihad, then turned around and led an army back to Mecca, you can imagine what original tenets of Islam fell victim to the doctrine of The Abrogator and The Abrogated. Al-Araby states that an Ismalic scholar found that out of the 114 chapters (surahs) of the Koran, only 43 were not affected by this doctrine. He then states that 124 verses of the Koran were wiped out by a single verse:

"Find and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war." Surah 9:5.

Al-Araby then points out that if Allah is so perfect, why must he revise himself so often.

In a recent church service where I go to, it was pointed out that the apostle Paul might seem to contradict himself in the various letters to the ancient churches, but in reality, a single, solid Truth could be revealed through some further evaluation. The Bible itself stands from Genesis to Revelation as one spiritual doctrine of Truth....that we hate the sin, we love the sinner, and we are all redeemed through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, who died so that all men may be saved from eternal death, but rather have eternal life.

Unlike Christianity, it appears that Islam is a religion of contrasts and contradictions. I'll continue these study sessions on Islam as I myself study further.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Islam: A Religion of the Weak

2006-04-22T00:20:00.000-06:00

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While reading some other blogs, I came across a description of muslim women, having to be dressed from head to toe. Even an exposed ankle is enough to bring down severe retribution upon the offending female.

Some rather malicious people in the West might wish that women were in such servitude in their countries, but to me, the practice of covering women from head to toe is one more item that proves that Islam is a religion of the weak, and by this, I mean weak-minded.

A family in Christianity is given some guidelines in Ephesians 5:22 through 6:4. Wives are to recognize that the husband is the head of the family. Husbands are to love their wives as they would Christ. The role of marriage is highlighted, and children must obey their parents.

I realize that I paraphrased the verses, but that is the general gist of it. The point is that there is nothing in those verses about wives being slaves to their husbands, or that wives need to do anything demeaning.

In Islam, the most common reason I have heard for the need of a woman to wear clothing from head to foot is to keep her from tempting a man. For this reason, every inch of the woman's body must be covered...even the ankle.

Imagine, getting aroused from seeing an ankle! Either muslim women are incredibly beautiful, or muslim men are incredibly weak-willed. I tend to believe the second option. The blog article I read told of a girl who was 8 years old being used as a prostitute by her mother. Who was having sex with this girl? What kind of sick mind finds an 8-year old girl sexually attractive?

Everywhere you look, you see muslims in a complete uproar. Why? Because some guy in Denmark held a talent contest to get pictures for a children's book about world religions. Instead of approaching the man with a sensible, even-headed argument about why such pictures should not be published, the local muslim leader promptly demanded a meeting with the Prime Minister of Denmark, and when he was refused, he took the cartoons on a tour of Middle Eastern countries, trying to drum up muslim anger. The result: hordes of angry muslims, frothed up into a murderous frenzy over something that was drawn hundreds of miles away...something that doesn't REALLY affect them. Rather than being out trying to find jobs, these mobs are protesting cartoons.

If the muslims don't get their way, and I'm talking 100% their way, they won't agree to anything, and worse, they'll work themselves into a jihadist frenzy. Hamas recently won the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority, and they have said that they will start talking to Israel ONLY AFTER the Israelis return to their pre-1967 borders, which Israel has said they won't do. Yet Hamas says that the West should not cut off funding for the Palestinian Authority, and that even if this happens, the Palestinian Authority will be able to function.

Not likely.

Everything from Osama bin Laden complaining about the US presence in Saudi Arabia, to the idiots in Iran claiming that the Holocaust didn't happen, to pictures demanding that the Muhammad cartoonist be killed, to almost every article I read about the religion itself, all of these point to one thing...

Islam is a religion whose people are weak-minded, and easily led by the fanatics within their midst. And because of this, the fanatics are who you see and hear the most. In an earlier post, a follower of Islam replied that I did not understand the religion, but given what we see of it in the media, what else am I to think?

I would love to be proven wrong, but every time the maniac president of Iran opens his dumb mouth, it just reinforces my view on Islam.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Hunting in Liberal Fantasyland

2006-04-22T00:17:00.000-06:00

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Greetings all!

I live in Wyoming...sure, the city I am in is only 20 miles fom the border with Colorado, but most of the people here are still cowboy enough to know what goes into a hunting trip, even if they've never been hunting...which in Wyoming is probably a rare thing.

Even though I am a rarity myself, even I know enough about hunting to immediately dismiss the hunting accident that Vice President Cheney had last Saturday as exactly that...an accident, one that happens every so often, where the confluence of guns, people, nerves, adrenaline, and whatever animals you are hunting meet.

However, as conservatives, we must not ever under-estimate the ability of our Liberal friends to turn an easily-explained accident into the latest big conspiracy to destroy the country and take away our civil liberties.

And before you think that making this accident into the latest Conspiracy is the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard, I have one that will top it. A caller on December 31, 2005 to Art Bell's prediction show on Coast to Coast AM predicted that in 2006, the aliens would land on Earth, and punish George W. Bush for wrecking the environment.

I'll pause here to let you recover from laughing.

...

The thing is, in LiberalFantasyLand, the very second that "dubya" won the election in 2000, the black hats came out in force. It doesn't help that the Libs think that Bush stole the election with a vote of the US Supreme Court...that was just the first of the Conspiracy Theories that got started once Republicans controlled the White House.

Once the attacks of Sept. 11 happened, and after the immediate aftermath, when the people of this country seemed to come together in a moment of unity, it did not take long for the Liberals to reflexively shy away, like: EWW! I stood next to a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN!

Over the next five years, we have heard almost every sort of Conspiracy being hatched...all by the Bush administration to enslave first the United States, then the entire human race...if they don't lay waste to the world's environment first...either by destroying the land environment, polluting the air, or melting the planet's ice caps.

And if you're in foreign lands, the events of the last five years should dis-abuse you of any thoughts that you might be spared. Whether it be through our insidious ABC program in Africa to stem the spread of AIDS (ABC stands for Abstinance, Being Faithful, and Condoms), dictating to the Third World through the US domination of the World Bank and IMF, dominating the Middle East directly through the use of our jack-booted thug military who took their training straight from Hitler (He wasn't killed in 1945, Prescott Bush had him frozen so he could indoctrinate future generations of the family), or allowing our thug friends in Israel to dominate the region.

When some admirable soul attempts to stand up to the Imperial Empire of "dubya" (insert the Imperial March, from Star Wars here), they find themselves ridiculed, called "Old Europe", insulted, disregarded, blah blah blah. And HEY, while we're on the subject of Star Wars, the Liberals in LiberalFantasyLand can easily slip our country into the Star Wars cast. (I actually saw a Liberal version of the Attack of the Clones movie poster.)

Of course, let's start with the good guys!

MUJAHADEEN WARS: 2006 - ATTACK OF THE JIHADIS

Starring:
Osama bin Laden -- Yoda
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- Luke Skywalker
Ayman al-Zawahiri -- Mace Windo
Iraqi Insurgency -- anti-Imperial "freedom fighters"
George W. Bush -- Emperor Palpatine
Richard Cheney -- Darth Vader
Donald Rumsfeld -- General Grievous
US Congress -- The Senate of the Republic
US Armed Forces -- Clone Army

And of course, we have to continue with the on-runing struggle of good vs evil. In this LiberalFantasyLand Production, the valiant forces of good, led by Osama bin-Yoda follow the precepts of Muhammad, who reprises the role of Obi-wan Kenobi. Princess Leia is his concubine, and she is covered from head to foot in heavy clothing. On the Dark Side, we have Christianity, who is represented by Pat Robertson.

Enjoy the movie folks! Barf bags are available at the concession stand.

John B.Blogger Guy

I HAVE RETURNED

2006-04-22T00:12:00.000-06:00

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Well, after a brief sojourn to another blog that has collapsed, I have returned here, where I will stay for the fore-seeable future. I will start by re-publishing the materials I have published in the last couple months, so that you all will have something of my opinions on recent news to read and perhaps respond to.

Thanks for reading my posts, and I look forward to hearing from you.

John B.
Blogger Guy

Muslims SHould Grow a Thick Skin

2006-02-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

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No doubt many of you have seen or heard reports of muslims being angry over a series of satire cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. These cartoons depicted an evil-looking Prophet Muhammad...in one, he is wearing a black turban with a bomb nestled inside. In another, he is addressing a line of people approaching Heaven, and he tells them "Stop! Stop! We've run out of virgins!"

Now, before we get further into this topic, let's set some ground parameters. First, if it were me, if I were an editor at one of these newspapers that originally printed the cartoons, I would not have authorized them, for the simple fact that as one political cartoonist in the US said, there is no point to them outside of offending someone, and that is what I would call "bad form". Secondly, to REprint the cartoons shows solidarity with the Danish press in the matter of free press, but it also serves to stick it in the eye of all of the muslims who are up in arms about the issue...also bad form.

I believe in free speech. But just because you can say something does not mean that you should.

That being said, there is something to be said for mobs of people in Gaza, who are hundreds of miles away from cosmopolitan Europe, where all of these cartoons were printed, getting all up in arms about some offense to Islam that they did not discover for themselves. Someone had to inform them that this blasphemy had taken place, and it was THEN that they got all angry...not when the cartoons were published roughly four months ago...but now.

And whoever informed these people of these cartoons apparently did not tell the masses that Islam is not as strong in Denmark as it is in the Middle East, and that in Denmark, there is a healthy respect for freedom of speech, whcih means as one German newspaper put it: "We have the freedom to blaspheme."

In another cartoon story, the Washimgton Post ran a satire cartoon from a liberal cartoonist. It showed a US Army soldier lying in a bed. His haed was bandaged, both his arms and his legs had been amputated, and Don Rumsfeld was sitting at his bed-side.

"I'm listing your condition as battle-hardened," Runsfeld says in the cartoon. A caption underneath continues: "I'm prescribing that you be stretched thin. We don't believe in torture."

The US Army responded by writing a letter to the Post. The letter, sent by the Chairman fo the Joint CHiefs, General Peter Pace, said:

"We believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds . . ."

"While you or some of your readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, we believe you owe the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices."

Please note, the US Army is responding to a political satire cartoon that they find tasteless and offensive. Their response is to write a letter to the newspaper and express their own views on the matter.

In the meantime, reaction to the Muhammad cartoons ran something like this, according to extracts from the AP news stories on the events...

"More than 300 students demonstrated in Pakistan, chanting "Death to France!" and "Death to Denmark!" — two of the countries where newspapers published the drawings. Other protests were held in Syria and Lebanon."

"Any citizens of these countries, who are present in Gaza, will put themselves in danger," a Fatah-affiliated gunman said outside the EU Commission's office in Gaza, flanked by two masked men holding rifles.

If the European governments don't apologize by Thursday evening, "any visitor of these countries will be targeted," he said."

Even when trying to be reasonable, muslim sensibilities get in the way. According to the AP news story, a paper in Jordan tried to explain things.

"A Jordanian newspaper took the bold step of running some of the drawings, saying it wanted to show its readers how offensive the cartoons were but also urging the world's Muslims to "be reasonable." Hours later, the owners of the weekly, Shihan, said they had fired its editor and withdrawn the issue from sale, and the government threatened legal action."

What's interesting was the reaction from Hamas, which is now in control of the Palestinian Authority, but who is also recognized by the United States among others as a terrorist organization...

"Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Islamic militant Hamas also demanded an apology from European countries. However, he said foreigners in Gaza must not be harmed."

All of this uproar from a religion, and a people who have no problems whatsoever making fun of, insulting, or assaulting Jews and Christians, but let anyone say one wrong thing about the Prophet Muhammad or Islam, and WATCH OUT! Something doesn't seem right about this situation.

And not all muslims are outraged by this. A Syrian publicist says he's going to write an essay explaining why the cartoons are not that bad. I hope he stays safe after his essay is published, but he points out that the culture in the West is different that that in the Middle East, and that religions are not put up on a perch where no satire, comedy, or opinion can get to them.

Personally, I think that just like the whole Newsweek issue with the Koran being flushed down the toilet (the story was a fake and five people died in the resulting riots), this issue will die down. But, the muslims should perhaps think about answering a question that almost everyone in the West gets as a child, especially after they get smacked after picking on someone else.

You can dish it out, but you can't take it?

John B.
Blogger Guy

Sheehan & The Peaceniks Meet the Dictionary

2006-01-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

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Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines the word "idiot" as "an ignorant or stupid person."

Using that definition, I can safely say that Cindy Sheehan is an idiot.

And she's an idiot on so many levels. Take one of her rants in the wake of Hurricane Katrina...

"I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest."

Excuse me...OCCUPIED New Orleans? Hmm, last time I looked, thereis no way for the US Army to "occupy" New Orleans in the manner Sheehan means, which is as an imperialist force. Here she is trying to compare the mission in Iraq with that in New Orleans following the hurricane, when the differences between the two are immense.

On top of that, Sheehan does a tremendous dis-service to the men and women of the US armed forces by making these sorts of comments.I would like to point out to Ms. Sheehan and the rest of the peaceniks that the US armed forces have not only performed admirably in both the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they have performed vital civil support missions in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and in the aftermaths of both Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

The dictionary defines an "army" as an organized group of people, who are armed and trained to fight wars. In today's world, an army can also be used to assist the civil authorities and to help with constructing shelters, distributing food and water, and seeing to the needs of the injured. Yet Sheehan sees the US Army's actions in New Orleans as those of an occupier.

I will stay away from one of my complaints about Ms. Sheehan for the most part...that she did not know that given the definition of what an army is, that she did not consider the fact that her son might die while serving in one. It's not as rare an idea as you might think...this idea of getting into the national guard for the educational benefits. The problem with that logic is that it leaves out the "payment" that the country is going to expect for those "goodies" that a recruit might get later.

Let me be crystal clear on this. Cindy Sheehan is a citizen of the United States, and as such, she has the right to spew whatever hateful gray wrinkled elephant dung she wants, for the most part. She can protest and have marches in Washington, and camp out in ditches, for the most part, and her duped supporters can worship the ground she walks on and sing her praises until the cows come home.

But, just as there is no right to privacy in the US Constitution, there is no right to an audience. Although Sheehan's antics scream for attention, there is nothing saying that such attention need be paid.

I am all for Cindy Sheehan speaking out, even if it is stupidly. As Rush Limbaugh says, the best thing to do when you see or hear stupidity is to get out of the way. When Cindy Sheehan was camped out near the President's ranch, while she was playing up the role of the shattered mother, the grieving victim of the "Bush war", she was the darling of the left-wing media. Since then, her antics have disabused her of even those friends.

The following is an excerpt from the AP, from a story that ran on January 24, 2006:

"Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, joined more than 10,000 anti-globalization activists in Caracas, where she hailed Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.

"I admire him for his resolve against my government and its meddling," said Sheehan, who gained notoriety when she camped outside US President George W. Bush's ranch last year to protest the Iraq war. She said she hoped to meet Chavez later in the week.

Sheehan was among more than 10,000 people from across the Americas who took to the streets of the Venezuelan capital Tuesday in an anti-war protest that launched the six-day Caracas World Social Forum (WSF).

My government should not meddle anywhere, the "peace mom" told AFP during the march, which was marked by anti-Bush slogans."

The last sentence of the AP story asys that Sheehan stated thatVenezuela's foreign ministry sponsored her trip to the World Social Forum.

There is a word that defines speeches and actions taken outside the borders of the United States which seek to undermine this nation's armed forces while they are engaged in the war against Terror, the continued hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Treason.

Quite frankly, if Cindy Sheehan feels such a compelling need to go to the home country of a socialist thug who openly supports injuring the United States, then perhaps she should check out the real estate market in Caracas, and consider staying there on a permanent basis. Venezuela can have her.

John B.
Blog Guy

Josh Thompson Hijacks SUFP

2005-11-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

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This post could also be called "Dumb Peacenik Group Runs Out of Things to do,
and Therefore Farms Out Their Platform"...

See, SUFP, which stands for Shut Up F***ing Peaceniks, or "Stand Up For Peace" as
they like to be called, has been staging ineffective little protest rallies at a major corner
of two of the main streets that run through Laramie, WY. In these rallies, they hold
signs dissing the war in Iraq, attacking the Bush administration, and basically slamming
the soldiers who are defending the country and allow them to spout their "progressive"
*ack*liberal*cough* line.

Now however, SUFP has allowed itself to be hijacked by one of its members. See, there is going to be a showing of a recently-published film that bashes Wal Mart. Here is what the email from Mr. Thompson says:

"Everyone has seen Wal-Mart's lavish television commercials, but have you ever wondered why Wal-Mart spends so much money trying to convince you it cares about your family, your community, and even its own employees? What is it hiding? This film takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers (and their families) and business owners (and their communities), in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel...and shop."

Now, I don't have a problem with anyone doing a film, or a book. I don't have a problem with anyone being pro-Wal Mart, or anti-Wal Mart, or whatever. However, when a peacenik group decides to go off the reservation and start complaining about Wal Mart, I have to ask what the subject has to do with war in Iraq.

Does Wal Mart support the war? Are they working with the evil vile Haliburton? Are they secretly working to construct internment camps in the wilds of the West?

Perhaps Mr. Thompson should come up with his own group, build his own website, and from there, he can spout his wrinkled gray animal-dung BS all he wants.

But unless SUFP is deciding to franxchise out anti-Wal Mart-ism from their anti-Iraq war normal garbage, such materials should be left out of the SUFP lists.

John B.
Blogger Guy

The Bartlett Doctrine: Disproportional Response

2005-10-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

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"Let the word ring forth from this time and this place, you kill an American, any American, we don’t come back with a proportional response, we come back with total disaster!"

"Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens. Where was Morris’ protection, or anyone else on that plane? Where is the retribution for the families and where is the warning to the rest of the world that Americans shall walk this earth unharmed, lest the clenched fist of the most mighty military force in the history of mankind comes crashing down on your house!?"

Quotes by President "Jed" Bartlett, "The West Wing"
"A Proportional Response" (Season 1, Episode 3)

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Yes, I will admit, I have started watching "The West Wing", and I am beginning to like it...a little. Don't get me wrong...the show is still a liberal fantasy about a Democrat in the White House. That the show was first aired in 1999 tells me that the liberal Democrats knew they were losing the election in the next year, but here was something that they could console themselves with...a Hollywood left version of comfort food, so to speak.

And although it looks like the show's creators are about to recognize reality and a Republican is about to be put in the White House, the people playing the Republican contender are Alan Alda, and Jimmy Smits...both of whom are liberals. I guess the Democrats can only take so much Republicanism at one time. It doesn't help that the show has cast liberal bomb-thrower Janeane Garofalo as a media consultant.

So, am I likely to become a full-fledged fan? Probably not. However, as I have been putting down rental money to rent the DVDs from the show's first season, I find that I like bits and peices of the show.

For instance, no matter what his politics, Martin Sheen makes a good president. In some episodes, Sheen's character impacts the scene like thunder, like in the above quotes. In a later episode, President Bartlett is deeply troubled by a decision on whether to use his powers to intervene on the behalf of a death-row inmate after the Supreme Court refuses to stay the man's execution.

I'll admit, this is only a preliminary opinion, but so far, I find that I like the episode "A Proportional Response" the best. It shows President Bartlett thinking what I imagine any Persident must feel when American citizens are in harm's way. While the solution is typically liberal...the President decides to go with the measured response, I believe that the point is that ALL people have to respect the office and the powers of the President of the United States, including the President himself.

The thing is, I don't believe that no one, not the American people, nor the world, has ever seen what I will call, the Bartlett Doctrine, that is that every single American life is precious, and that if harm comes to ONE American, the perpetrator will be destroyed with extreme prejudice.

The last time America pursued anything like the Bartlett Doctrine was the Union during the US Civil War. General Sherman's march to the sea, from Tennessee to Savanah, Georgia was part of a massive policy designed to grievously injure the South and bring the war to a close.

I don't believe anything before or anything since really compares to Sherman's march, and I believe that it is because of this that Americans seem willing to accept kess than a total crushing victory in some of the problems we face today around the world.

Quite simply, the last two times we had a credible military victory before 2003 in Iraq were 1991, in the first Persian Gulf War, and 1945, when Germany and Japan fell. It's 2005, and I dare say that most people were not around for 1945, and quite a few people who are now reaching the age of adulthood were not forming coherent thoughts in 1991.

And no one alive today was around in the tail end of 1864.

But I do believe that Americans need the kind of protection that is outlined in the Bartlett Doctrine. I was listening to the BBC, and a reporter was talking to the Pakistani president, who said that most of the problems of Islam were caused by the United States, because we are the source of all of the extremism. Now, I don't believe I have met many muslims, and so I would like to know where I harmed Islam.

Talking to a college student later, he explained to me that it is our policies supporting globalism that aer seen in the muslim world as an attack upon their culture. So, I guess McDonalds is responsible for the muslim rage that led to the downing of the World Trade Center.

I replied that it is not the right of muslim extremists to use violence to push America out of their countries. If they don't want American businesses in their countries, they should pass laws keeping us out, then work to evict those companies that are there.

The idea here is that Americans should feel safe where-ever they are in the world, and they should know that if they are harmed, the government of this country will rain down fire and brimstone on the perpetrators.

Does this mean that the Bush administration should be doing things differently? Perhaps. How about an overwhelming presence of US troops in Iraq until there is no enemy left? How about making it clear that if you are an insurgent in Iraq, you had better not show your face in daylight if you want to stay alive. How about offering a year's salary for every confirmed insurgent that is brought in by the residents? How about plastering the airwaves and a non-stop message of what is going right in Iraq? How about a White House that doesn't pansy around on the leftist, defeat America slant that the press seems to like to throw to the American people...how about these morons get taken aside by a White House staffer ala Josh Lyman, who turns on them as soon as they are out of earshot and says "Look you STUPID morons..."

Quite frankly, while I support the Bush administration on our Iraq policy, I don't think we've gone nearly far enough. We should try to win the conflict in Iraq in one year, not ten, we should make it clear what our goals are going to be, and that once those goals are met, we are done, and that the best way for those that don't want us in Iraq to get their wish is if they and the rest of their Iraqi buddies cooperate with us.

We should make it clear that while we aer a benevolent superpower, we will not tolerate harm coming to our people, and if you harm us, our military will swarm in and turn your country into a parking lot. We should stress that we are all in favor of diversity, and we respect other people's opinions, but that tolerance stops when some whacko who doesn't like our Israel polciy picks up a gun.

And, by the way, someone needs to explain to the leader of Pakistan that we are not the source of all of the problems of his religion. Islam needs to look in the mirror and clean up its own mess before they start looking outward. I think that people in the United States would take Islam's grievances against our pro-Israel policies a bit more seriously if the dominating image that we see of them was not a bunch of Islamic Jihad terrorists marching around and telling anyone who will listen that they forced Israel out of the Gaza Strip.

I think that the Bartlett Doctrine could usher in a new Pax Americana.

John B.
Blog Guy

Cindy Sheehan Does Not Speak for ALL Americans!

2005-09-23T18:57:00.000-06:00

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I'm going to amke this short, because I am not going to do all of the speaking on this article. I'm simply going to say the following:

CIndy Sheehan, the other peaceniks, including those that march outside my window each Friday afternoon, do NOT speak for the majority of the American people, who I believe support our troops as they do their duties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through their efforst, the world is being made a safer place, and the security of America, and the freedoms of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps other countries, will be secured with the hard work and bravery shown by our troops.

We'll see you all soon when you return home.

Now, to counter the Sheehan misfits, I am reprinting some of the quotes I have found from the website of Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission, which can be found at:
http://www.unitedforourtroops.com/

From: Kerry & Dodi White, of Boschobel, WI:

"Our son is a Marine and is currently serving his second tour in Iraq. Although it is a day to day worry, we believe in what our son is doing! HE believes in what he is doing and we find it sad that there are Americans that don’t stand behind our son as he fights for the very Freedom that they enjoy!"

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From: John Ellsworth:

"I am the Father of a United States Marine who was killed in action. I am so proud of what our son was doing. He was saving lives every day. I truly believe he was born for this and he died for this. What Cindy Sheehan and her merry band of followers are doing will only cost us more lives by giving the ENEMY more support.”

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From: Thea Nutter, of Comano Island, WA:

“I just sometimes wonder how these protesters think they have their freedoms to protest if it wasn’t for all the generations of soldiers fighting and dieing for this freedom. I would also love to hear what Sheehan’s son would have to say about his mother’s actions.”

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From: Shirley & Bob Hemenway:

“We are sick and tired of what Cindy Sheehan is doing. She is being used, she has a history of this, and it concerns us. (Our) son died in the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. He was never found. He was a husband and father of a two year old and a 10 month old. The evil mis-guided terrorists that are killing our people would just as soon kill you (Sheehan), (an infidel, according to them) as well as others that don’t prescribe to the terrorist’s convoluted ideas. They even kill other Muslims. ”

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From: John Horrigan, of Austin, TX:

“My brother believed in the mission and knew that he was making our country safer here by defeating the terrorists there; He passionately believed in what he was doing, as did his fellow solders.”

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There are more quotes from the families of REAL Americans at the website. These families have had the ultimate sacrifice happen to them, and they remain proud, they remain steadfast in their support for the troops, and their mission, and they are doing all of us proud!

One final quote, which I think sums up the feelings of these REAL Americans...

From: James Slaughter, of Zebulon, NC:

“Being a veteran, I’m very much in favor of protecting our way of life at any cost. If not us, who? If not now, when?”

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Very well said!

John B.
Blogger Guy

New Orleans - Stupidity Rises from the Chaos

2005-09-06T12:50:00.000-06:00

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I have had enough!

Let me start off by saying that what has happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a horrendous and heart-rending story, and we need to come together and get as much assistance to the citizens of the city as quickly as possible. In fact, I am planning my own small help, which I hope to put into effect within the next few days.

However, I have also been amazed by the stupidity that has come out of this situation.

For one, we saw on TV, a woman asking why the government hadn't told them what to do. "If the government had told us what to do, we would have done it," she said.

Well, the problem here was that the government had been saying for days before the hurricane hit TO GET OUT OF NEW ORLEANS! The state governor made the warning, and in fact, is STILL saying that people need to be evacuating.

Now, I can understand and sympathize with the independent mentality that some people in this country have. "Don't go telling us what todo," one of the people who lives in my apartment complex said to me a day or so before the hurricane hit. "Who do they think they are?"

Uhm...they are the government, and they tend to know things like how to protect the public in the event of a life-threatening situation.

Given that, it is STUPID for people to blame the government from Washington on down for not telling them what to do when the government did what they could to warn the people. Because despite the popular fringe belief, the government can not come in and force people to leave their homes in the event of a natural disaster.

With the city devastated and with the police forces working to save people, civil order has broken down. In this situation, a level of looting is to be expected. People having to survive in this situation will raid the stores to get what food and water they need. And quite frankly, when you look at the situation, more supplies might be needed. If a person needs to get clothing to replace clothes ruined by the floodwaters, fine. If they happen to have a generator and need a TV or computer in order to get news or comminucate, fine. I can even see people needing to get guns to protect themselves and their meager possessions from thugs.

I said I understand the looting...not that I approve of it.

On the one hand, we have bands of thugs roaming the city, robbing people, shooting people, and committing whatever crimes come to their minds. Even in the Superdome, where you would think that the sheer mass of people would cut down crime, there was a reported half-dozen murders, and about six rapes.

On the other hand, there was a report on the radio that a man broke into the local school district, stole a bus, and loaded it up with people for a drive out of the flooded city. Good for him!

In another instance of stupidity, the mayor complained that the federal aid was not there yet. If he paid attention to the news, he would see that the US Navy is sending eight ships from the east coast, and the US Congress is budgeting billions of dollars for the recovery effort. Southwest Airlines has sent an airplane filled with national guardsmen to the city.

So, the aid is coming. The response of the federal government may have been stuttering in the beginning, but it is getting steadily better as we progress.

However, even that can not help if the people won't accept the assistance...and this is for STUPID reasons! One woman complained about food she received because it was not HOT!

The human story is monumental. The stories of courage and people bonding together to help each other and recover from the situation are stories that we should tell children about what America is about. When we are down, we come together and solve the problem.

These stories of strength and courage have to compete with the stories of absolute stupidity that come out at the same time. Here's one more...

A young boy was reduced to crying so hard that he vomitted. What happened?

Bad medication?

Did he drink dirty water?

Nope.

He was getting on a bus to leave town, and he had his dog with him. Before he could get on the bus, they told him that he could not take his dog with him. I saw the picture on TV of the dog being put off the bus. It was a small white poodle-looking dog that was simply let loose on what looked to be what used to be an interstate.

The dog kinda wandered away...

Absolutely stupid.

John B.
Blog Guy

Affirmative Action - Mission Accomplished

2005-08-08T13:48:00.000-06:00

^.^

While listening to NPR this morning, I heard the story of Gerrard College, which has become a success story in the history of affirmative action in the United States.

Founded 175 years ago, Gerrard College was established in Philadelphia by the namesake of the college, who was once the richest person in the United States. At some point, he set up a trust account for the founding of a school that would take in young white orphaned boys, and this is how Gerrard College got its start. For most of its history, Gerrard College was able to stick to its exclusive recruitment practices due to the nature of the Gerrard trust account.

However, during the 1960s, with equal rights a hot topic in the nation's conscience, a Supreme Court case was decided against Gerrard College, and the school was forced to open its doors to blacks for the first time. Four black students were the first to enroll in Gerrard College, and they endured some racism from other students and teachers, but they endured that and went on to graduate.

While listening to this story, my beliefs on affirmative action were reinforced. Affirmative action has done its job, and should now be thrown away, because with few exceptions, our society is as fair to African-Americans as it's going to get. My belief was bolstered not by the part of the story of Gerrard College that you have read to this point, but by what happened in the 80s and onward.

By the 1980s, Gerrard was teeming with African-Americans. In fact, during the mid 70s, an African-American ran against a popular white student in the race for student body president, and was elected by a plurality of all of the students, black or white. By 1980, Gerrard had accepted its first female student.

The NPR story goes on to say that nowdays, Gerrard College has the opposite problem than it did up until 1968. African-Americans now dominate the college's populace, shifting the white student population to virtual non-existence. The president of the college has openly stated that diversity remains a challenge for the college. This seems to indicate that the president of the college believes that the school has become too dominated by its black student body, and he said in his remarks that blacks are fully-capable of exclusionary or racist tendencies on their own.

When people begin to talk seriously about the fact that there is bigotry and racism against white people in the United States, I believe we can say that affirmative action in this country has accomplished its objectives, and is no longer needed.

Affirmative action was set up to allow people of all nationalities equal access to opportunities in this country, and it has been codified into law. Things such as the equal opportunities policies that organizations adopt, or the equal employment policies that companies must adhere to are examples of affirmative action success.

This is not to say that reverse discrimination must be evident before something like affirmative action is a definate success, but the fact that the student body of Gerrard College is over 90% black tells me that affirmative action has accomplished what it was supposed to do. Anything more pushes the pendulum in the opposite direction and damages the rest of society.

John B.
Blog Guy

Celebration of the Bomb

2005-08-08T13:35:00.000-06:00

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Saturday morning, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Japanese gathered in Hiroshima's Peace Park, where they commemorated the exactmoment on August 6, 1945 that the first atomic bomb was dropped.

And the peaceniks gathered there as well, and they called for the complete banning of nuclear weapons. At least they were not calling for the United States to apologize for the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as has happened on previous anniversaries of this event.

However, let's look at both issues for a second...

One problem I often have with protestors or peaceniks is that they come up with aims and demands that are unrealistic. A complete banning of nuclear weapons is simply not going to happen. For example, the entire crisis in North Korea centers around that country's quest to gain nuclear weapons technology. The European Union is negotiating with Iran on how to curtail that country's nuclear ambitions.

As long as countries such as North Korea and Iran are looking to gain nuclear weapons technology, no responsible nation on the face of the planet will agree to getting rid of what might become an integral part of their defense.

So for the peaceniks to rant against nuclear weapons is akin to me or you shouting at the sky. It does nothing and it is a complete waste of time.

The Japanese issue is multi-faceted. For one thing, there is a movement to come up with a new constitution, and this is due to the realization that there are threats to the nation's security, and perhaps more can be done at home to defend the Japanese islands...if they remove the shackles that have bound the armed forces since 1945.

The situation is different in 2005 than it was at the end of WWII. Japan is faced with a resurgent and possibly hostile China, and North Korea has proven that they can hit Japan with long-range missiles.

Yet, under the current Japanese constitution, the armed forces are strictly limited. Japan needs to, wants to, and should contribute its fair share to its own national defense. This would allow Amreican forces to reduce their presence in places like Okinawa. So, Japan should be supported in its efforts to modernize its constitution to allow for a proper armed forces capability.

On the other hand, the Japanese need to grow a thick skin, and drop the whiney little pleas for an apology whenever someone so much as sneezes wrong in their direction. The Japanese rampaged across Asia and the Pacific from 1931 to1945, they were responsible for the rape of Nanking, death camps and forced marches in the Phillipines, the abuses of "comfort women" in Korea, and other atrocities. Where are the apologies from the Japanese government for these acts of inhumanity?

People have said a number of things about war, and the people who wage it. War is Hell. The purpose of an army is to kill people and break things. All of these are right, and that's why I don't expect an apology from Japan for anything that they did...because War is Hell, and because I know that war is something to be avoided because of the human suffering that ensues.

However, going back to my argument about nuclear weapons, perhaps Japan should issue an apology for the atrocities that were committed in WWII. As it is now, some nations see Japan as an irresponsbile nation that once again wishes to re-arm. Perhaps the leaders on Beijing or other countries in the area have nightmares about a recreated Japanese Empire. An apology from Tokyo will be a first step toward telling the world that a return to imperialism is not what is happening in this case, rather that a responsible nation is going to contribute more to its own defense.

John B.
Blog Guy

Judith Miller Should Take One for the Team

2005-06-09T17:02:00.000-06:00

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Judith Miller is a writer/reporter for the New York Times, she is well-written, and she is one of the lead writers for what is probably the most well-known newspaper in the United States.
She is also at the center of a special prosecution investigation into the "outing" of a CIA operative. Apparently the information was leaked to columnist Robert Novak, who then reported it to the public.

Miller appeared on the Commonwealth Club's broadcast this last Sunday on NPR, and while there, she went on and on about her case. She may very well end up serving 180 or so days in jail for contempt of court, because she is believed to know the identity of the person who leaked the information on the CIA operative to Mr. Novak. Miller said on the Commonwealth Club that not only does she not have the information that the special prosecutor is looking for, she didn't even write a story on the case.

However, Miller continued by commenting on how cruel the system is, how secrecy shrouds everything, how journalists and journalism is threatened by George Bush, the Patriot Act, and the War on Terror...that if the government was able to restrain journalists, we would never have found out the "truth" behind the WMDs, or Abu Graib, or the other abuse scandals.

And Miller defends anonymous sources...it was an anonymous source that led to that brilliant piece of journalistic reporting about the Koran being flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay. Never mind that the resulting protests led to about 15 people being killed in riots...never mind the rather sheepish way that Newsweek withdrew the story...anonymous sources MUST be able to keep their secrecy.

Secrecy sounds a lot better when it serves YOUR cause, right Ms. Miller?

Quite frankly, my argument on this subject is not about Ms. Miller's views on anonymous sources, but with how she is acting in the face of 180 days in jail. She spent 30 minutes on public radio whining and crying about what a burden this is going to be on her family if she goes to jail, at the same time she will not cooperate with the special prosecutor, she won't reveal her source, and she won't sign a confidentiality waiver...she says any of these things would damage her ability to be a journalist.

And to an extent, I can see her point. But you can not have your cake and eat it too.

If Judith Miller does not want to cooperate with the special prosecutor, fine...but she should then stop whining and serve the jail time...and through the lawyers she'll have, and through the lawyers of the New York Times, they can play up the injustice of the whole thing and scream about how the government is SO unfair.

Martin Luther King was willing to go to jail for his principles, because he KNEW he was right, and he was willing to endure jail because of that.

What is Judith Miller ready to endure for her beliefs?

John B.
Blog Guy

The Nuking of the Senate

2005-05-21T13:08:00.000-06:00

Democrats in the US Senate are whining again, this time over the possibility of losing the ability to filibuster the approval of federal court nominees.

Please note the fact that I'm specifying the federal court appointees...it's important.

Democrats have said that if the filibuster is voted down in what is called the "nuclear option", the rights of the minority in the US Senate will become nonexistant.

"If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, there will be no check ontheir power," said Senator Harry Reid, D-NV. "The radical right wing will be free to pursue any agenda they want. And not just on judges. Their power will be unchecked on Supreme Court nominees, the President's nominees in general, and legislation like Social Security privitization."

Well, there are three things wrong with this whole debate...or at least the way the Liberals are framing it...

The first is that while Reid and other liberals are complaining that the nuclear option will destroy the historic traditions of the US Senate, in reality, the right to use the filibuster has been abolished in certain cases. For example, the filibuster can not be used to block use of force measures in foreign policy, they can not filibuster budget bills, and they can not block reconciliation bills...where the two houses of Congress introduce compromise bills when both houses have passed bills on the same issue.

The thing is, the filibuster was not originally in the Constitution, and originally it took 67 votes to stop a filibuster. In the 1970s, this was changed to 60. Originally, the filibuster meant that you stood in the Senate chamber with a telephone book or dictionary and spoke about anything under the sun until you stopped. Ifyou did, even to go to the bathroom, the filibuster stopped.

That is not how things work nowdays.

So, not only is the filibuster not a part of the US Constitution, but the filibuster has been limited in the past, both in what can be filibustered, and how many votes are needed to break one once it gets started.

The second problem I have with this present collectionof whining from the Democrats is that they are obviously trying to imply that the entire universe will be doomed if the Republicans are allowed to get their way.

Senator Reid said that the nuclear option will mean that Republicans will be able to almost automatically get their way on "the President's nominees in general, and legislation like Social Security privitization."

This is patently false. The nuclear option is framed by the parameters of the debate. This means that the rules change is specifically on the nomination of appointees to the Courts. The President's nomination to the Director of the FDA won't be affected by the nuclear option, and except for the exceptions I noted above: use of force measures, reconciliation bills, or budget bills, filibusters can still be used against legislation.

I can tell that Harry Reid is trying to frighten the American people because he specifically mentioned Social Security...a very testy issue, especially with the nation's senior citizens. The fact that the Liberals can't oppose an issue without trying to frighten the American people is pathetic, to be honest.

The third problem I have is that filibustering judicial nominees steps outside the Senate's role in the process. According to the Constitution, the Senate is supposed to "advise and consent" on the topic of judicial nominees. This is fulfilled in the committee level, where nominees are reported out of the committee with a recommendation. The recommendation is either to aprove the nominee, to not approve the nominee, or the committee can send the nominee to the floor of the Senate with no recommendation...and this is generally thought to be a mark of disapproval.

But the person in question gets to the Senate floor for a vote.

Let me tell you something. I don't care if the nominees are the most radical people on the face of the planet, right or left. The President's nominees deserve an up or down vote. If they are too radical, than gather the votes to defeat them in a fair vote, and if the nominee is indeed radical, that should not be too hard a task.

I could respect the filibuster more if they actually DID a real filibuster. Nowdays however, filibusters are no real big deal...the person doing the filibuster is not inconvenienced at all.

As it is, the filibuster needs to be nuked.

Democrats have warned that the Republicans will rue the day that Democrats are in power and have majorities in the Senate.

The Liberals are missing the point. This is a matterof principle, and good principles deserve a vigorous defense.

The Schiavo Case: Why It Matters to You

2005-03-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to hear what some people ares aying about the Terri Schiavo case.

Rush Limbaugh says that this is an issue about the right to life, that if her right to live is critical, that if she is allowed to be killed because she is "inconvenient", what happens when you or I become inconvenient?

George Nory on Coast to Coast AM says that he believes that good will prevail, and he challenges Michael Schiavo to take a lie detector test. If he passes, George says he'll back off and stop talking about the case. If Michael fails the lie detector test, he should turn guardianship of Terri to her parents. (I actually think this is a good idea...)

Various people, from the religious, to the frantic have spoken up, asking for various government officials or judges to intervene on Terri's behalf. Meanwhile, themore radical among these people have written protest signs and internet posts saying that Judge George Greer, Michael Schiavo, Florida governor Jeb Bush, and President George Bush should be shot, or have their feeding tubes removed. This morning there are news reports of a man from Illinois being arrested for breaking into a sporting goods store. He wanted to steal a gun to "rescue" Terri Schiavo.

"The red states should have their feeding tubes removed," one internet post read. The response to this was quick: "The red states feed the blue states, you moron!"

It got so bad that in the speech announcing the state's latest evidence in the case, Florida governor Jeb Bush asked that people supporting the Schindlers act peacefully and without violence.

I find it interesting that the people who are are all for putting the feeding tube back into Terri Schiavo don't blink an eye when people start talking about shooting people on the other side.

Dr. Dean Adell has a radio show on the local radio station on weekday mornings. He addressed the religious angle when a woman called into the show and accused Michael Schiavo basically of murdering Terri and that God would want her to keep living.

Adell countered first by saying that not everyone believes in one God, in this case the caller's God...whatever version of God that is. He pointed out that people in other parts of the world have differing views on God and their religious beliefs, and we don't impose our beliefs on them.

Finally, Adell ended his comments by saying that most religious people believe in miracles, so why not now? Remove the feeding tubes, and pray that God provides a miracle that allows Terri Schiavo to feed herself.

The reason this case concerns me is because of the precedents that the congressional intervention *does* set. It says that you may not have the right to decide how you check out of this world.

And let's be clear about something here. No one heard of Terri Schiavo much before this latest round of court battles. Outside of the malpractice money that Michael Schiavo won, the family is not rich by any means...so the only reason this is in the news is because of the government's interest.

By overriding the judicial branch of the state of Florida, which had said that Michael Schiavo had the right to have his wife's feeding tube removed, the federal government provided the legal precedent for interfering with any other case of a persistent vegetative state that comes down the pike.

The decision on how I will live, or IF I will live in some sort of injured state is up to me to decide. Quite simply, while Congress has the power to determine the jurisdiction of the federal courts, they have no business whatsoever intruding themselves in a matter that families all across this country have to deal with each day...whether to allow a family member to be released from a torturous life.

As of the latest news report from the radio, the Schindlers and the state of Florida are going back to the Court of Appeals with their latest allegation saying that Terri is suffering from abuse, and asking that the courts allow the state to take custody of Terri Schiavo.

I hope the court case falls flat, as the most recent court cases have done. I am not hoping that Terri Schiavo dies sooner rather than later. I am however a supporter of state's rights, and I am a person who advocates that the federal government stay out of places where it has no business being.

I must say that I have scored points with my liberal friends for my opinion. They expected me to agree with Rush because I agree with Rush on most things. However, just because I agree with Rush on most issues does not mean I agree with him 100% on everything. When my guys are wrong, I say it, and I stand up for my opinions.

However, I am not taking my position based on whether TerriSchiavo should live or die, and I don't care whether I am scoring points with my liberal friends. My opinion is based on the fact that I would not want the federal government to be interfering in that kind of decision if *I* had to make it. It's none of my business how you make that decision should it come to that, and you have no right butting into my decision should I have to make it...and according to the polls, the majority of Americans agree with me on this.

It is interesting to see my "guys" being so wrong on this issue.The people who are usually for the rights of the individual, the people who are usually against federal control, and the people who are suspicious of congressional action are the ones supporting federal power being involved in the case of whether a person should be allowed to die as they wanted to.

While the Republicans have been accused of bringing their morality into this issue and forcing God down our throats in all of their speeches on this subject, the congressional Democrats have been accused of being overly concerned about the legalities. YES! Exactly! In the meantime, today we've heard that Jeb Bush nearly called out the troops and had them march to the hospice, but was stopped by Judge Greer. I am not sure whether that actually happened...I doubt it, but I would not be surprised.

Not only that, but the US Congress, Jeb Bush, Rush Limbaugh, George Nory, and the Schindlers have all been ignoring the fact that in Quinlan case, in the Finn case, and in other cases of people in the same state as Terri Schiavo, whose circumstances were brought before the US courts, the courts have sided with the right for a wife or family to remove feeding tubes from patients. If people want to get this changed, they need to pass a law that prohibits the removal of feeding tubes from people who are disabled in some way...but the US Congress has not done that up until now, and they did not do it in the case of Terri Schiavo.

Meanwhile, on CNN, one person said that if illegal action is required to save Terri Schiavo, and if it creates a constitutional crisis in Florida, so be it.

Rush Limbaugh says that we are a nation of laws, not a nation of courts, and he is right...but which side is abusing the court system in this matter? I don't see Michael Schiavo repeatedly filing petitions to everyone up to the Supreme Court.

I don't see Michael Schiavo robbing a sporting goods store to get a gun so he can "rescue" Terri Schiavo. I don't see him pleading with the governor of the state to use strongarm tactics if necessary to force the insertion of her feeding tube.

All Michael Schiavo wants to do is let his wife die in peace.

---
John B.

The Terri Schiavo Case is Over

2005-03-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

It appears quite certain that Terri Schiavo will finally be allowed to die...this after a fifteen-year ordeal where she has been in a persistent vegetative state. This case has been at various times in the spotlight of the national news and the center of the nation's attention ever since Terri Schiavosuffered a heart attack that kept her brain deprived of oxygen for several minutes.

Let me be clear on this.

If there was any way at all that Terri Schiavo could be fully restored to a vibrant life with little or no ill-effect, I would have it done,and I assume that a vast majority of the people in this country would as well. If Terri Schiavo could be restored to say...75%, or maybe even 50% of what constitutes as normal function, I would support that, and I am sure that most other people in this country would as well.

The case of Terri Schiavo is unfortunate, and I would be hard-pressed to wish such a fate on my worst enemies.

However, something has happened in this case.The Republican conservatives have started to act like liberal Democrats, and liberals actually make sense on this matter. I found myself agreeing with the syndicated columnist Georgie Ann Geyer, which was scary, when you consider that she is usually a shill for the Liberal Left.

There are a number of myths in this case that need to be addressed:

MYTH: Terri Schiavo is NOT in a persistent vegetativestate...she is "minimally conscious".

This latest opinion was offered by a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, who spent less than one hour viewing VIDEO of Terri Schiavo. He did not visit her, and he did not do a medical examination. Thus, Judge George Greer told the state and the Schindler family that there was no new evidence to go on that would allow for a case to be made.

Quite frankly, for all of the zeal that the governor of Florida has displayed in this case, you would think that if he was going to put forward this new "evidence", he would have made sure it was done RIGHT. The fact that no medical exam was done was just plain stupid. The state should have went in and did a full medical examination. This would have provided a fresh view on the condition of Terri Schiavo. It would have actually constituted new evidence had the results indicated a state of minimal consciousness, and it would have indicated any effects of the removal of the feeding tube.

However, when faced with the numerous opinions of the doctors who have been on this case for the past fifteen years, the state did a quick-and-dirty job, and it showed in the decision handed down by Judge George Greer.

MYTH: Terri Schiavo responds to stimuli and therefore is not in a persistent vegetative state.

The problem here is that the Schindler family and the protestors who have been demonstrating outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is being cared for are taking their wishes, their hopes, and their fantasies, and they are projecting them onto Terri simply because she happens to move.

However, medical science does not take wishes, hopes, or fantasies into consideration when determining the state of a patient. Medical science also recognizes that even a person in a persistent vegetative state may move, they may blink their eyes, they may speak nothingness. Rather than being any sort of coherent response to her surroundings, these are simply Terri's reflexes reacting. The accident that put her into the state she is in took away any higher brain functioning.

Terri Schiavo no longer thinks, and she no longer feels...anything. This means that even with the feeding tube removed, Terri Schiavo is not feeling anything. She is not feeling the euphoria that some doctors say happens with starvation, and she is not feeling the pain that the Schindlers and their supporters say she feels.

MYTH: The Schiavo case did not set legal precedent when the US Congress took up the issue.

In fact, ANYTHING brought up in Congress can serve as a precedent. All one would have to do is say "Remember what we did in the Schiavo bill..." and the precedent would be referenced.

Now, did Congress have the power and authority to allow the Schiavo case to move to the federal level? Yes. Congress has the constitutional right to decide where the federal courts have jurisdiction. However, for them to say that they are limiting the law to Terri Schiavo so that it is not a precedent is ludicrous.
There are precedents in this topic. Karen Ann Quinlan overdosed on drugs and ended up in a persistent vegetative state. At that time, there were no laws on the books governing who has authority to guide treatment when the patient could not do so. The family went to court and asked that they be given permission to remove the feeding tube from Karen Ann Quinlan. The courts agreed, and the precedent that we have operated under up until now was laid down.

An associated myth is that the US Congress passed a law demanding that the Schiavo case be reheard from the beginning. Nope! Congress does NOT have that right. They can say that a certain case can be heard in federal courts, but the US Congress can not come in and dictate court action.

MYTH: Terri Schiavo has had her rights violated, or has not had her day in court.

Actually, the Schiavo case has lasted basically over the past fifteen years, from the case of malpractice against the doctors who failed to diagnose the chemical imbalance that led to her injury, to all of the fights over her care...this is the third time that her feeding tube hasbeen removed. There are over 22 cases in local, district, or federal court. She has had three petitions to the Supreme Court on her behalf. (As of Saturday, March 26, there have been at least 26 seperate court cases filed with the various courts, and that may not be counting the decisions handed down today.)

MYTH: We really don't know what Terri Schiavo would have wanted in this situation because we only have Michael Schiavo to tell us.

Actually, the reason the case was upheld in the court of Judge George Greer was because Terri Schiavo not only told her husband, but two other friends.

MYTH: Michael Schiavo wants his wife to die.

I believe that people on both sides, both the Schindlers, and Michael Schiavo, the politicians of both political stripes, and even the people on talk radio such as Rush Limbaugh and George Nory are operating in amoral way. I believe that they are doing what they think is morally right.

However, just because people believe they are doing the right thing, this does not mean that they are correct.

MYTH: People were arrested because they were trying to bring water toTerri Schiavo.

Wrong. The hospice and the surrounding grounds are private property. The protestors were arrested because the hospice did not want them near the building, where they may disturb the other residents, or disrupt the operations of the facility. When the protestors tried to bring water to Terri Schiavo, the hospice was within its rights to have these people picked up.

Having addressed some of the myths surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo, I will go on in the next article to explain why this case is important to you.

---
John B.

The Continuing Saga of Ward Churchill

2005-03-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

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I imagine somewhere that I am breaking some code of conduct that says that if you want someone or something to go away, simply stop paying attention to it. It seems to work on zits, television ads, and the streetlght at 2nd and University that seems content with regulating the passage of invisible cars...whatever the color of the light, you're usually pretty safe walking across this intersection...

So, by all accounts, I should ignore the continuous ravings of CU professor Ward Churchill and he will go away.

Well, if you've been following my blog-world up to this point, you have learned that ignoring the controversial is not about to happen here.

See, three things are happening that are keeping the story of Ward "Whacko" Churchill alive.

- He keeps appearing in public venues. He recently attended a speech in Washington or Oregon despite the fact that the university there didn't want him to show up. He also made a guest appearance on Bil lMaher's HBO show, and true to form, Maher almost wet his pants trying to worship Churchill as if he were standing in the presence of the Messiah.

- A far larger event in this story is about to come to a close, if media reports are correct. In the aftermath of the initial controversy over Churchill's "little Eichmanns" comment, the CU Board is looking into whether or not Churchill's writings contain academic fallacy. If they do, Churchill could be fired...it's actually a long process, but there would be a huge amount of movement toward getting that process started if the man's teachings are found to be total BS...

- And perhaps the biggest event so far...I received a reply to my first article on the subject! Yes, since you come here to read about me and my opinions on matters of importance, you also get to know what I think about the notes I get from people...please note that I maintain my creative policy of trying to sprinkle historic, economic, political, or cultural truth when answering notes from people who avidly hate me with every fiber of their being...the better to inspire and educate you with, my friends...

And now, to Rachel S. and her comments...

Rachel says:

"However, most of the claims he's made, which you are now questioning, are highly controversial. If some historians are telling one side of the story, and some are telling another side, there is bound to be some dispute about "the facts." After all, history is told by the victor, and Churchill is trying to tell the other side of the story."

Well, there are two things wrong with this statement. The first is the supposition that I am questioning claims made by Churchill that are merely controversial. Nope! The claims I am contesting are also being questioned by scholars in the field of Native American studies. These people have facts which say that what Churchill is claiming as genocidal policies on the part of the US military during the time in question is WRONG.

The second thing wrong with Rachel's statement is the idea that history is written by the victors. Nope again! While history may become clouded by stories, foggy memories, and sinister agendas that may combine to create a myth that gets handed down, at the end of the day, just as the DNA strand forms the basis for an entire entity, history is made up of a series of truths. These are spread out on a series of levels...political, military, economic, cultural, and more...and when taken together, they form something rather important...they form a story of what really happened.

The whole "history is written by the victor" line reflects the fact that people telling the story of history often have agendas, such as Ward Churchill, who has marched at protests demonstrating against Columbus Day. When you add that to his statements about a supposed plan to wipe out the Native Americans through the use of disease-laden blankets, you begin to see an anti-American bias that quite frankly also explains his "little Eichmanns" comment.

A historical scientist learns to strip the biases of other people away from the historical fact and keeps his/her own biases away from the observations being made so that what comes from the work being done is as close to accurate as is possible.

I have no doubt that if Ward Churchill wanted to make himself to be a champion of the Native American, he could...there has been enough bad history between the Native Americans and those who later settled the lands formerly belonging to the indian tribes. No country's history is spotless, and no people can call themselves angels.

However, one of history's greatest admonishments for why it is relevant is the teaching of its lessons...because if we don't learn them, we will be forced to stay after class until we do...and history's lessons are often taught with a lot of bloodshed.

With that in mind, Ward Churchill does a dis-service to his students by filling their heads with false teachings...with history that did not happen, with slights against the Native Americans that never ocurred, and with slanders against innocent people whose only crime against humanity was getting up and going to work in New York City on one early Fall day in 2001.

Quite frankly, I know that the White Man has enough historic sin on his head. I don't need to carry extra burdens for things that never happened.

I will continue to follow the Churchill case in Boulder with the hope that not only justice for the students of Colorado University will be done, but also that justice for history will also be done.

John B.

The Peaceniks Strike Back

2005-03-15T23:04:00.000-07:00

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For this blog article, you will need a copy of the Imperial March, from"The Empire Strikes Back." If you have it, COOL! If not, just float back in fond memories of yesteryear when DarthVader would stride down the ramp from a shuttle, with all of the evil fanfare.

Yes, for while the forces of good, right, and justice continue onward with their mission, both on the international level, and here in the city of Laramie,Wyoming...while proud Americans stand up for the rights of people everywhere...including here at home to excercise their freedoms, even when those people are dead wrong in their opinions, and even as the foreign policies of the Bush administration continue to bear fruit in the form of blossoming democracies and cowering dictators...even as all of this happens, the liberals, the Democrat National Party, and the peaceniks continue to snipe fromthe shadows...

...and they whine a lot...

Taking you back to the battle over the SUFP protest that was not a protest against the speech last month by Ken Starr at the University of Wyoming, I received a letter from Lesley W, a member of SUFP, who in a very long-winded note proceeded to tell me how I was wrong, how SUFP had been most effective in getting their point across at the Starr speech, and recounting pretty much everything that SUFP even thought of doing from the dawn of the Revolutionary War right up to yesterday afternoon.

What I have just done is save you all some eye-strain by giving you the gist of Lesley's note, because our starting point for this article is in the reply to MY reply to Lesley W.

I responded to Lesley W. ... you can read my response in the comments to that particular blog article if you wish...and then I got the following reply from Willis:

"Pathetic.

It seems that it has become easy fodder for neo-con sympathizers to criticize the efforts of grassroots groups for being "ineffective." It certainly seems easy to sit at home, throw out a few e-mails, and then write up a few pieces of baby-muckraking as if there's some type of story to be had. But then that's the luxury one has when sided with the winning team, right? Just keep nodding your head, chewing up the same political information that the rest of the righties are armed with, provide nothing in your opinions that might amount to authentic substance or insight, and go after the little people because they are concerned with making a statement against overwhelming odds... That seems to be the emerging American ethic, eh?

Keep up the good work. The status quo needs more noble people like you beating up on old ladies, hippies, and peaceniks.

Wondering, John, when did you choose to trade your suit and tie (and cowboy hat?) for a brown shirt?"

---

This note is just precious.

Willie here comes onto my blog talking tough, saying that I'm all hot air, providing you with nothing of substance or insight.

Yet what does he do?

When I read Willie's note, I do not hear someone taking my arguments about SUFP and providing some substantial or insightful arguments to combat my singular point, which was that by their inept handling of something as simple as a protest against a speech, SUFP proved that they are nothing more than a bunch of losers.

Rather than "Stand Up For Peace", SUFP should stand for Shut Up Freakin' Peaceniks.

Apparently Willie is well-versed in the fine liberal art of failing to practice what one preaches.
WIllie made some interesting comments, such as: "It certainly seems easy to sit at home, throw out a few e-mails, and then write up a few pieces of baby-muckraking as if there's some type of story to be had."

If Willie had perhaps read my blog article, he would see that I followed the story of the Starr protest with quite a bit of interest. The only thing I didn't do was show up at the speech itself. For coverage of the event, I relied on the local newspapers, and they did a good job...then again, it's not like covering a speech is a hard task.

Nowhere do I say that it is my job to track down stories. I am not a reporter. I am an opinion guy. My job is to look at the news of the day, give you feedback based on the facts as I find them, and give you my opinions. If you don't like those opinions, find some other blog to read...but when I give you my opinions, they are based in fact, and often I try to teach
people about history, society, economics, or whatever other subject I slide into on that particular day.

However, rather than combat my fact-based opinions with some opinion of his own, Willie only seems interested in making snide attacks on people who endorse the Bush administration, support the war against terror, and trully believe that we are doing yeoman work in the Middle East.

The last few sentences of Willie's note are interesting. Why is it that if you are supporting liberal psychobabble, if you are speaking out against Republicans, or conservatives, if you are supporting the things that have made this country great and are willing to go into a public arena with comments to that effect, you are called aNazi?

Throughout all of this argument with Shaddup Freakin' Peaceniks, I have steadfastly stood by and defended their rights of free speech. This is even though I disagree with their ideas...this is even though I think their conspiracy-theory-laced BS is about as stupid and wrong-headed as you can get.

Despite all of that, they still have a right to wander around the Laramie area, spewing their propaganda, and pretending that they are relevant.

Yet, I dare to utter a word against the peaceniks, and I get attacked. The person that I run into that I know is a member of SUFP recently referred to me as a "whiney-mouthed Star Trek fan". (It is amazing what you can find on a person by running their email address through Google.)

I've twice been called a Nazi, and other verbal slings have been hurled my way.

The peacenuts can have all the free speech they want...but if you are a supporter of our efforts to take down the terrorist baddies, if you endorse our spreading of democracy over there so that the world is a much safer place, and if you don't think that Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the rest of the administration are the scum of the earth, apparently your rights are forfeit.

Not as long as I breathe air they aren't...

John B.

A Tale of Two Protests, Part 3: The Emails

2005-03-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

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As I have said, I intend to give SUFP and its members their equal chance to express their opinions on this subject...especially since the subject is about THEM.

With that being said, here is a response, from Mr. Hanks (name obscurred for privacy purposes)

"I don't care how this Nazi sympathizer feels. We are at war with trash like him. He belongs in Leavenworth. Instead he will have a career as a corporate lawyer learning all the arts of force and fraud."

"For what it is worth, I was against the demonstration because I didn't think there would be enough interest or time. I would prefer a well planned demonstration demanding the abolition of the Republican party for years of treason and subversion. Then we don't get tied down to "celebrities".

*signed by Mr. Hanks*

---

Hmm. Perhaps Mr. Hanks should be on the lookout for a possible coronary, a brain explosion, or some other such thing. After all, Mr. Hanks and the rest of the members of SUFP say they are for "peace", yet he apparently is at war with "trash like (me)".

And I'm a NAZI... *grin* That's certainly original.

However, Mr. Hanks should perhaps take a step back, and re-evaluate what he said. After all, the "trash" I think he is referring to are a bunch of nihilistic Jihadists who don't think twice about killing anyone, be it Iraqi, American, or miscellaneous, man, woman, children, etc. They are led by men like Ayman al-Zarqawi(sp), and Osama bin-Laden...who are searching for the quickest way to take as many innocent Americans IN THIS COUNTRY off the face of the planet, not to mention any Americans or foreigners who might be "despoiling" their own lands.

I am merely a person using my own opinions, my philosophy, and the philosophies of like-minded people, and the lessons of history to write commentary on today's world, and the people who live there.

It's two different things, in my opinion...

John B.

PS: Please continue with the emails!

A Tale of Two Protests, Source Materials (emails)

2005-03-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

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Okay, so maybe I wasn't as polite as I thought...but here is my initial email, and the response it received...

---
^.^
Ok. A couple of things for you to consider...

First off, GET OVER IT! Clinton and impeachment were about FIVE YEARS ago, and you still insist on crying about it...

Second, if you don't have a permit to protest Mr.Starr, then university security can and probably WILL do something about it. Your rights of free speech do not mean that you can prevent the university from functioning in that area of the building, nor does itmean you can block the free speech rights of Ken Starr, or people who agree with him.Your rights of free speech also don't do you much good if you get hauled away from the area. Do yourselves a favor and apply for a permit.

John B.
Laramie, WY

---
Here is the response I got from Josh Thompson, a member of SUFP:

With all due respect:

(a) Clinton's impeachment proceedings concerned the obstruction of justice charge related to the Lewinsky investigation. These are the matters with which most Americans are very familiar, and will always be the subject of controversy regardless of how you feel about that... Why doesn't that right wing neocon cabal responsible for the replacement of the first independent counsel with Starr and Starr go after Bush for his obstruction of justice that potentially killed 3,000 Americans in blocking FBI and CIA investigations into the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and others that may have prevented September 11 because of his family's unequivocally proven business relations with them through Carlysle and Arbusto? Or after his lies to the American people to justify the War on Iraq or about his relationship with Kenneth Lay? Which were more egregious, really? I'msorry, but the President is the moral compass of our children... What will my son do now that President Bush has so much more frequently and substantively lied to the American people on national television? LOL... I'm sorry, but I think it's important to point out all of the hypocrisy in regards to all of this wonderful right wing moralism... Next, a good number of people believe that Ken Starr abused the public trust and wasted tremendous taxpayer resources on what, prior to Lewinsky, were completely scurrilous charges and baseless allegations (from White Water to Flowers toTroopergate, there most certainly was a nefarious right wing cabal financed by Richard Mellon Scaife and others). Essentially, I'll never "just get over" the fact that Kenneth Starr wasted $30 million dollars on an investigation that was ultimately unable to prove the allegations and leaks Starr was frequently making to the media? I think Starr should be dis-barred, frankly. I think he violated his code of ethics in many ways...Yes, it may have happened five years ago, but that is irrelevant. What, to most of us, is relevant, is the fact that the mainstream corporate American news media was absolutely negligent in its coverage of these issues, and that because of the same, the vast majority of Americans are oblivious as to all of the reasons we disdain Starr's conduct. What is important is informing others. It appears clear in your reply that you do not fully understand Starr's conduct. I highly encourage you to attend our re-screening of The Hunting of the President that Friday evening and to watch for the details to be announced... It's free.

(b) I've had two potentially precedent setting First Amendment cases surrounding protest, and beg to differ with your interpretation of FirstAmendment case law. Don't worry; we're not stupid, and we will decide on a protest permit if we think in weighing the advantages and disadvantages of both. But we do not need a protest permit to express our First Amendment rights on the grounds of a public state institution. Period. University security CANNOT do anything unless we are disruptive simply because we have not asked somebody for permission to do what the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights and a vast body of case law guarantees us the right to do... And if they do, we will have legal observers and video cameras, and the University will be paying dearly for any illegal political repression, and such officers will be facing the consequences that contingent action will bring to them... We will ensure that our expression is well within the confines of current case law because none of us want to go to jail. But we will also ensure that law enforcement does not overstep their bounds and will ensure that all involved are well-educated as to what they can and cannot do... We are not having a parade, and a protest permit is not necessary, seriously...

(c) while you have the right to express your opinion, I respectfully disagree; the College of Law and those who've brought Starr at public expense or the expense of law school students have had their opportunity to express themselves in extending the invitation and bringing him here, who is most clearly a very controversial partisan political operative; we have the right, and some might argue, the duty, as American citizens, to express ourselves in kind; you may disagree with the means of expression, but you cannot fundamentally disagree with our right to do so ourselves and publicly express that disagreement and work to educate others without being a fascist; I would never myself ever prescribe for you how and when and where you should exercise your rights guaranteed to you by the First Amendment; personally, I find that fundamentally un-American ; please extend us the same courtesy, or if you disagree with us, organize your own counter-protest; that's certainly your right...

---
My counter-protest is right here...in the pages of my own personal soapbox. However, I reserve for you the right to read this, and any of my blog articles and respond to them. I encourage the exchange of ideas and debate. In fact, your letter may inspire me to delve deeper into your insinuations. March may turn into a busy month for me...

John B.

A Tale of Two Protests

2005-03-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

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I'll start off this article by telling you that I dislike people who say they're going to do something, then fail to do it. Such inaction makes the person or group appear to be unreliable or ineffective, and one should question their word again in the future if they say they are going to do something.

This has turned out to be the case with Stand Up For Peace(SUFP), a local peacenik group here in Laramie, WY that decided to protest a recent speaking engagement at the University of Wyoming. The speaker in question was Kenneth Starr, currently the dean of School of Law at Pepperdine University, and former independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton's involvement in Whitewater and charges stemming from it, including lying under oath about sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky. These charges resulted in impeachment proceedings, which resulted in Clinton's impeachment, but not his removal from office.

To set up my point, we have to go through the whole story of SUFP and Ken Starr.

SUFP announced that they were going to protest the Starr appearance on their listserv, although at the time, they didn't really know HOW they wanted to go about making a protest...they just knew they wanted to show up and make their presence known.

I was concerned...not because SUFP might interfere with Starr or his speech...I figured that even if they were standing around outside the doors with signs, it would still be a respectable demonstration, and an act of free speech...and let me be clear here that I support SUFP's rights to free speech...I never know when I may need someone to defend my own free speech rights...

I was concerned because I had recently seen a newspaper article about a group of Christians who had surrounded a gay pride get-together in a public park. While the Christians did not engage the crowd, those who approached and showed an interest in the Christians were given some words of encouragement from the Christians in their own Chirstian sort of way. Nothing anti-gay, just "Jesus loves you," "Jesus died for you," that sort of thing.

Police soon contacted the Christians and told them that they were demonstrating without a liscense. I believe at least one of the Christians was arrested for this incident.

With this in mind, I wrote to a couple of people in SUFP and told them that they should consider going to the university police and getting a permit. I also told them that I disagreed with their protest, and I asked why they couldn't get over the whole thing. It has been several years since the impeachment fight, and even I don't bother with anti-Clinton rhetoric much anymore.

I really should reprint the response I got from SUFP. It was a classic left-wing tirade about how SUFP didn't need a permit to engage in free speech, and how I was wrong, and blah blah.It was that letter that initially got my dander up and started the inspiration for this rant.
I will find the letter and reprint it here for you...

HOWEVER, as the time for the protest neared, publicity of the protest escalated, and it was printed in the university paper,which as most university rags, tends to be quite liberal-leaning.

Shortly before the day of the Starr speech, SUFP came up with a plan to come to the speech wearing blue dresses with a stain on them, a reference to the semen-stained blue dress that was made famous in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. I did what I could responsibly in opposition to the protest...I notified the college Republican group about the protest, and encouraged them to engage in some free speech of their own.
Then I sat back to watch the fireworks.

On Saturday, February 19, one day after the Starr speech, the local newspaper, the "Laramie Boomerang" had the following to say about the protests in their story on the speech...and the story ran on the front page of the paper...

"Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn't make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address."

Please read that last paragraph again. It's kinda important.

So! It seems that for all their bluster about how they were going to SHOW Ken Starr, how they were going to make their voices heard, how they were going to use their rights of free speech and such...when it came down to show time, when it came time for SUFP to put their money where their mouth was, they failed miserably.

Let me re-state for the record:

"Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn't make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address."

So much for wearing stained blue dresses.

Now, the story is not quite over. See, today I ran into one of the members of SUFP, and I politely asked her what happened to the protest,and I said that I had been expecting something more substantial.

Her response was that SUFP had in fact showed up for the speech, and had entered the venue as listeners, thus skirting around the need for a protest permit...who is going to arrest anyone because they are wearing a blue dress? However, the protestors apparently were scattered throughout the audience. My SUFP acquaintance believes that they made an effective statement against Republicans, the neocon-dominated Bush administration, and Ken Starr in particular.

But, once again, I bring you to the official eye-witness account of the speech:

"Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn't make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address."

Even if SUFP had stuck with the strategy of attending the speech wearing blue dresses, they should have stayed together as a single group...that way they would stand out visably, and that would have gotten them noticed.

Instead, they chose to spread out, and send a quiet message.

The message was so quiet that it was not noticed.

SUFP has thus proven that they really don't know what they are doing when it comes to putting on a protest. Rather than maximizing their effect and cleverly making their presence known in a respectful manner, they diluted themselves in a sea of suits, ties, and dresses of a multitude of colors.

SUFP let people down.

They are inept as a protest group, and I for one won't pay much attention to them again.

As if that weren't enough, my SUFP acquaintance apparently thought that I didn't have the right of free speech...just because I don't happen to share her (and SUFP's) liberal anti-Bush policies. She asked me why I didn't sign up to go to Iraq. The conversation wasn't pointing in that direction. We were not talking about the military,and we were not discussing any possibility of a draft (there is none). This just seemed to come out of nowhere. So, according to SUFP, if you believe in the Bush administration and what we are doing in Iraq, or if you perhaps believe in Ken Starr and the Whitewater investigation, you should sign up to go to Iraq.

I would if I could. However, with my health, no armed force will take me. However, I should not have to sign up for military service simply because I have a point of view.

However, it was an excellent dodge. The real issue was SUFP, and how they can't put on an effective protest. They and their representatives certainly are good at dodging the issues though.

John B.

PS: I'll post the email I received from an SUFP representative as a seperate article...

The Insane Writings of Ward Churchill

2005-02-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

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Alrighty.

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past couple weeks, you have probably heard of Ward Churchill, a professor at Colorado University, who recently stated his views on the September 11th attacks...and you probably know the gist of his views...that America deserved the attacks, and his calling the victims "little Eichmanns."

First, I will tell you that I find these views to be utterly insulting and nonsensical, and I for one find comfort in the fact that the majority of the reaction on this subject from responsible human beings has been pretty much right where it should be...outright and utter condemnation.

(Please note the equivocation in that last sentence...it becomes important here in a bit...)

I will also tell you that I agree that Ward Churchill had best be checking through the want ads of his local paper for a job, because the man will not find work at a reputable college or university once he is fired, and I believe that he WILL be fired at some point.

However, this will not happen as a result of his remarks about Sept. 11.

Now, I can see two reactions from this last statement. The first, from those on the Right, and from the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks would be: WHY THE HELL NOT? And trust me folks, I empathize all the way with you on this.

And before the total morons who make up the vast majority of the college/university populace in this country start cheering for victory, please remember that the man WILL be fired. My opinion of these people has sunk too, which is why I hedged a bit earlier when I talked about responsible human beings. The actions of a few students at a recent CU Board meeting called to discuss the case of Ward Churchill convinced me that these people are not normal. As for being responsible, as a former college student myself, I contend that as long as you are getting money either from parents or financial aid, you are not responsible in the true sense of the word.

These idiots were storming around the room where the board meeting was held yammering about an obstruction of Churchill's rights of Free Speech.

However, what the CU Board decided to do should lift the spirits of those offended by Churchill, whether they are victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, or just honest, sensible, reasonable people who think that Churchill's spoutings amount to the equivalent of raw sewage in the arena of ideas.

The CU Board decided rightly that they will look into the writings of Ward Churchill, to see if his writings, which have been controversial as well, are protected by the Free Speech amendment to the US Constitution.

See, STOOPID speech is generally protected, even at a university, because it represents a different point of view from the majority, or perhaps a more "enlightened perspective."

However, if a speech or a book demonstrates teachings that indicate that the professor in question is inept, incompetent, or outright falsifying information, that my friends will get you out of a job at a university, whether you are tenured or not.

And in the case of CU & Ward Churchill, we seem to have a case where our dear friend, the Nutty Professor, has passed off fiction as scientific fact.

In 1993, Churchill published a book entitled "Indians Are Us?: Culture and Genocide in Native North America." In it, he made the following claims:

- The US government had a policy of eventually wiping out the Indians.
- The US Army deliberately spread smallpox among the Indians of the US West.
- The US government passed a lot requiring proof that an Indian was more than one-half Indian before providing a land grant to that person.

All of these claims have been contested by scholars who have some background in Indian history. Ward Churchill claims he is one-sixteenth Creek indian, but this claim is not confirmed. He claims to have served in the military in Vietnam, but those claims have shifted. Churchill himself will not answer questions about his past, or questions about his academic qualifications.

However, Thomas Brown, a sociology professor at Lamar University called Churchill's claim of the use of smallpox to commit genocide "shocking" and "fraudulent." Churchill cited UCLA anthropologist Russell Thornton as his source for the assertion, but in reading the two
claims, Churchill's argument does not match Thornton's. Thornton describes how the Mandan indians may have received smallpox from the deckhands on ships that traded up and down the Missouri River. Churchill claims that smallpox-laiden blankets were distributed by the US Army at Ft. Clark.

Another critic is John LaVelle, a University of New Mexico law professor, who said that Churchill's book "constitutes a regrettable setback in Indian people's struggle for social justice." In further comments, LaVelle said: "...the discerning reader will discover that, notwithstanding all the provocative sound and fury rumbling through his essays, Churchill's analysis overall is sorely lacking in historical and factual veracity and scholarly integrity."

In other words, Ward Churchill wouldn't know truth if it came up and smacked him in the face with a huge sign that said I AM THE TRUTH on it. His claim that the US has had a concerted plan to wipe out the indians has never been proven and is the thin hope of those seeking something...anything...to stick Uncle Sam with. The US government is certainly no angel here, but they are not as guilty as Churchill and his radical buddies make them out to be.

The claim that the US passed a law requiring indians to be one-half indian in order to receive land grants is also proven false, in this case because people have read the law in question, and the language Churchill says is in there...well...isn't.

On those three claims alone, Ward Churchill can be proven to be teaching bad history. The man is entitled to his views, and he is entitled to speak them. However, as I have always said, your right of free speech does not entitle you to an audience. In other words, just because you can say something doesn't mean that people have to listen. However, in a classroom setting, the students are expecting their professor to bring them truthful information on the subject, with a minimal amount of their own biases. If Ward Churchill can not keep his political biases out of his class, he is inept.

If he is teaching falseness and passing it off as the truth, he is incompetant.

In either case, he should forfeit his position at Colorado University.

John B.

(Note: I used a front-page story printed in the Denver Post on February 10, 2005 for some of the info in this article.)

Democracy in Action...It's a Beautiful Thing, Pt 2

2005-02-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

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Welcome back!

In Part One of this article, I went over the victory of democracy in the Palestinian territories, and the total vindication that those elections were for democracy, peace, and the policies of George W. Bush, and Ariel Sharon, who refused to play the "business as usual" game with a committed terrorist.

Now we move on to Iraq, where a possibly even bigger election has just taken place. And I must say that this election mirrors one that was helf not too long ago in Afghanistan, resulting in the election of Hamid Karzai to the Presidency in that country. Iraq's completed election has similar effects throughout the Arab world, but it was done in a more spectacular way. Let us review, shall we?

1: First off, let's splash the entire idea that the Left put forth that the US could not use military force to impose a democracy on a people. I can see George Bush now, saying: "Well, we did...so NYAH!"

2: The terrorists (the word "insurgents" does not convey what these people really are) were supposed to have a banner day! There was supposed to be blood running in the streets, and they were supposed to have a real impact on the election. In fact, in the week or so running up to the election, attacks on Iraqis increased quite a bit. Most of those attacks were on election workers, or against polling stations. However, on the day of the elections itself, there were a few attacks during the morning hours, but by early afternoon, they had died out, and people turned out by the MILLIONS to cast their ballots!

3: The Left thought that turnout would be low, probably due to the terrorists. After all, once a person in Iraq cast his or her vote, their finger would be dipped in a purple ink that would not come off for a few days...and this would make them into easy targets for the terrorists. So why bother? Why risk one's life for what's likely to be a sham election of a puppet government run by those evil Americans...right?

WRONG!

Turnout in Iraq averaged 70%. In some places, it was above 90%. Folks, the United States hasn't seen those kind of turnout numbers for a very long time, if ever. Since the government shut down most of the roads and restricted travel, the people turned it into an impromptu holiday and it was quite festive in places.

By the way, you can take all three of those points I just made about Iraq, and they also apply to the election last year in Afghanistan. The democracy in Afghanistan was imposed there by the US military, it was carried out under the threat of attacks by the terrorists in that country, and turnout was not supposed to be high.

In both cases, the Left, the talking heads on antique TV, and the Liberal know-nothing politicians in Washington got the story horribly wrong.

BUT, let's not talk about the Left for a moment...

Instead, look at the situation in the Middle East, and listen to what various people are saying about the Iraqi elections.

First off, if you look at a map of the region, you see that we've had successful democratic elections in the Palestinian territory, Afghanistan, and Iraq. All three of these are areas in the Arab world that have virtually no experience with democracy whatsoever. The last free election in Iraq was in 1954, there has never been a really free election in Afghanistan until last year, and Yasser Arafat controlled all of the elections in Palestinian areas up until the one last month.

The success of these elections cuts the Middle East's autocratic nations into seperate areas, with little support for each other. If I were in Damascus or Tehran, I would seriously be looking over my shoulder at the possibility of a democratic uprising, in part inspired by the elections being held on my borders. The only reason the Iranian people haven't risen up yet is because the mullahs are feeding them some line of bull about how the US is about to attack them. It's the classic way for a government to avoid facing problems at hmome...have the people focused on a problem on the foreign relations front.

If either Syria or Iran collapses in a heap, and democracy is allowed to flourish there, it would be an huge thing. If both go, even better. If we throw Saudi Arabia on that pile, even better. Now, don't get me wrong...none of this will be a cake-walk. I doubt that Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia will go quietly into the night. These are entrenched regimes, possibly with the power of the military behind them, and the collapse of any government is seldom a neat affair.

However, things are possible in the area...good things. And for every person in Jordan who says that the election in Iraq is a sham to allow the Americans to stay there and suck all of the oil out of the country, there is a Yemeni wondering if this is only the beginning. When I saw that, I thought "You know, this could be just the beginning."

John B.

Democracy in Action...It's a Beautiful Thing

2005-02-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

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Alright. It is now two days since the elections in Iraq, and the Left in this country is astounded that the elections went so well...mostly because it means that George W. Bush has been totally vindicated in his idea that the United States can use military force to bring democracy to an authoritarian state.

All the rest of the authoritarian states would do well to learn a few lessons from the example of Iraq.

But, before we get to that, let's take a look at not one, but TWO elections that must surely have the people in the White House jumping up and down, shouting "YES!"

First, at the beginning of January, we had the election in the Palestinian territories. In them, Abu Mazan prevailed over a bunch of no-names and has succeeded the late terrorist, Yasser Arafat to lead the Palestinian people, and during his first month in office, he has already done more for the Palestinian people than Arafat did in the last two years of his life.

Despite sporadic incidents, the cease-fire that Mazan asked for after winning the election appears to be holding. In case you don't remember, there was a time not too long ago where mortar attacks from Gaza or the West Bank would hit some Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, or a town in Israel proper. Once this happened, the Israeli army would respond with overwhelming force, lock down an area of the occupied territory, bulldoze a few houses, perhaps kill a few Palestinians who they accused of being terrorists, and generally make life a living Hell for the inhabitants. After a while, the Israelis would pull out, some idiot terrorists would vow revenge for the "acts of oppression" committed by the Israeli army, and before long, another mortar attack would be launched, starting the cycle again...

The cycle has largely been stopped.

Instead, Israeli army units are pulling back from the border areas, and Palestinian security forces are being deployed in an effort to stop terrorist attacks into Israel.

At the same time, Mazan has started cracking down on corruption within the municipalities. On a visit to Gaza, Mazan saw some shops that had been built without legal permits. Under the regime of Arafat, these shanty shops had been allowed. Mazan ordered them demolished. One man who lost his shop was not happy, but he seemed willing to accept it as long as all of the illegal shops were demolished.

"Abu Mazan said he was going to enforce the laws," the man said.

Abu Mazan's approach to the peace process, and perhaps the very fact that he is NOT Yasser Arafat has also opened some doors that had been closed to the Palestinians prior to his winning the presidency.

See, ever since Yasser Arafat started attempting to pretend that he was a statesman and not a terrorist, both Israel and the United States have attempted to work with him. I believe, based on the results of the talks, that the United States and Israel were honestly working toward a just peace in the Middle East, with Israel living side-by-side with a Palestinian state. Arafat however, wanted no such thing. I know this because former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and former US President Bill Clinton handed Yasser Arafat *95%* of what he wanted. He wasn't going to get ONE thing, and he threw the agreement in everyone else's face and walked out of the talks.

Yasser Arafat never wanted Jerusalem by itself...he wanted that city, plus Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, and every square inch from Elat to Kiryat Shimona...preferably with the Jews driven into the sea. Once Israel and the United States realized this on some level, they stopped doing business with the man that I called the "little evil elf".

Now we have Abu Mazan, and while I don't want to throw all of my eggs in this one basket, I really do hope that he is serious about making real progress in the peace process. Like I said, doors have been opened that were slammed shut on Arafat. Mazan and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be meeting soon, and a meeting with President Bush is also planned. This is a signal that in Abu Mazan, we have a man that we can do business with.

I believe that the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis has been brightened, and it was done through a democratic election that we backed wholeheartedly.

More democracy in action in Part II...

John B.

The Peaceful Satanists, Revisited

2004-12-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

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Greetings to all!

Recently, I weaved you a yarn about my encounter with Laramie's "peaceful Satanist", a man named Jeff Archer. I encountered him at the local food bank, where he was engaging the staff in a lively political discussion.

For those who want the details, please visit my previous blog entry on the subject.

Now for the update...

Mr. Archer had told the people at the food bank of his naturally-built house, which was situated just off the city's greenbelt pathway, near one of our parks. It was sitting in a public park, and therefore in public property.

Shortly after he revealed the location of his "wigwam" to the people at the food bank, I saw a newspaper article on the front page of the Laramie Boomerang, which I deliver to 110 (or so) subscribers. The article stated that police had talked to Mr. Archer, and had informed him that he was in violation of several city ordinances, including putting up an illegal residence structure, and sleeping in a public area. He was given until the 8th
to vacate the area, and the newspaper article said that the wigwam would be torn down.

Mr. Archer made several statements to the Laramie Boomerang that are insightful on his worldview...and just how whacky that it is.

First, he said that he used to live out of his car, until the US invaded Iraq in 2003. At that time, he decided that he could not continue to live in his car because it uses oil...and he believes that the war is an illegal and unjust war over oil...so he doesn't want to contribute to that.

Toward the end of the article, Mr. Archer said that he doesn't consider himself homeless. "I don't own anything, and the earth owns me." Therefore, he doesn't have a problem constructing a wigwam and living without the comforts and conveniences of modern life. He doesn't like renting or owning a home, even if he could afford it, because that is feeding an evil system of ownership of landlords, and reliance of residents on landlords for their shelter.

Some of this is interesting. Hey, if someone wants to construct a wigwam somewhere and live like a hermit, more power to him. The problem I had with the situation is the slap in the face that Archer did toward all the rest of us, who are law-abiding citizens of the city who may wish to use the public parks.

See, almost everything in human civilization is based on the ownership of property. If you don't think so, just think of what would happen tomorrow if people all of a sudden were not able to say "I own this."

First, there would be no property ownership at all. I could walk into a store and take anything because the store does not own the products it sells. I could arrive back at my apartment and find someone else there. I would be out of luck because I don't own the apartment, and neither does my landlord.

Think about money. What money does is transfer ownership of goods and services. You go to a store, and you pay the store what the store says is the value of a loaf of bread, or whatever. In return, you gain ownership of that loaf of bread. Without property rights, the basis for any sort of economy is reduced to nothing. You wouldn't be able to trade anything because even if you could determine the value of something, since there is no respect for ownership, the storekeeper could conceivably mob me at the door to the store and tell me that that loaf of bread is his...again. This reverberates all across human society. Gas and oil are purchased at a value, ownership changes, and it is bought and sold throughout the economy. Ownership changes numerous times. The government would not be able to collect taxes, because taxes are based either on ownership of property (housing taxes), or the ownership of time and effort (income taxes), or the ownership of products (sales taxes). With no respect for ownership, the government can't collect taxes, and therefore can not spend for programs and services...for such things as business development, or even basic things like road repair and construction.

At the very basic level, the case of Mr. Archer and his wigwam was a valuable lesson in the thing that is the basis of human society as we know it...the idea that a man can not walk into a public park and essentially co-opt a part of it for his own personal use. Just like I can not walk into your home and shack up in your living room.

It's unfortunate for Mr. Archer, especially at this time of year. However, the case is an affirmation of the society we live in, and until proven incontrovertably that our society is completely whacked, I am willing to "back the system", as they say...

Ta ta for now...

John B.
Blog Guy

The Peacenik Satanists

2004-12-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

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Alrighty.

I went to lunch today at the local food bank. While there, I met this guy, who is a naturalist, and also a peacenik.

Now, I can understand not liking war. I don't like war either, and I hope that wars happen as infrequently as possible. I can even understand the anti-war types who believe that war is wrong, and we should not be engaged in it, and I can even understand those who think that the current war in Iraq is bad and that we should not be involved in it...I may disagree with these people...but I understand them, and why they think the way they do.

Then there are the peaceniks.

These are people who think that war...ANY WAR...is at least wrong. The guy I met at the food bank thought that people engaged in war were doing "demonic work" through the killing of other people.

Tell that to the US soliders who landed on the beaches of Normandy.

Of course, God doesn't like wanton killing. It's important enough to be one of the Ten Commandments, and Jesus himself asked people to "turn the other cheek". However, to say that God is totally against war ignores half of the Bible...you know, the half where God used war as a tool through the Hebrew Israelites to conquer the peoples living in the lands of Canaan. You didn't see God having any second thoughts about killing people who didn't worship him.

When I mentioned this to this peacenik, he scoffed at it. When I repeated it, he insisted that that's not how God works now, and when I told him that he was missing the point...that God himself has used war as a means to an end, that was when this peacenik said he was a "New Testament Christian".

That is to say, "I don't believe half of the Holy Book".

I told him he could not do that, theologically. There is a verse in the Bible that condemns a person from subtracting from the Bible, and similarly for anyone adding to it. This did not phase our peacenik, who said that the verse was probably in the book of Revelations, and that Revelations was propagandist, and probably was not written by John the Baptist at all...

I then practically laughed at him. Not only did he not take the Old Testament at value at all, he was quite willing to pick apart the New Testament as well. Now, this is America, and you can say and believe what you wish, but that does not necesarily make it true. In a debate, or argument, you have to be able to convince the other person that YOU are right in order to change their minds.

However, not only did I find that this person only took the parts of the Bible that backed his philosophy up, and discarded the rest, but he told me that on the issue of men killing men, he was not going to change his mind at all. I accused him of being closed-minded, and he admitted that on that issue, he is.

The problem with peaceniks, and Laramie has more than its share of them, because we are a college town...the problem with peaceniks is that they do not recognize that the world is full of evil people...and sometimes, the only way that evil people will listen to reason is if that reason is backed up by a heavily-armed man with a big gun, and the will to use it...and he is accompanied by about 500,000 of his friends.

Saddam Hussein had his chance. He was given 12 years, and 17 UN Security Council resolutions, as I told this peacenik. We tried our best to say: "Come on Saddam, be a nice boy. Give us your weapons of mass destruction, quit threatening your neighbors, and be nice." It didn't work. The last resolution said that there would be dire consequences if Saddam didn't heed it.

When Saddan didn't heed that last resolution, it came down to this: either we put some brute force behind the resolution, or we fold up the UN and never EVER put ourselves out to influence anything in the world ever again...because the world would have seen the UN and the US by extension as what the Vietcong used to refer to as a "paper tiger".

If the peaceniks had their way, any evil guy with a rock bigger than the next guy would be able to rule the roost by the force of the gun. They see the use of force to stop evil as evil itself, and they generally don't listen to arguments that are opposite.

Peaceniks are generally not able to be reasoned with, as my encounter with one of the ones here in town proved...and he was one of the more peaceful ones. Others I have encountered are all too willing to buy into almost any conspiracy theory that suggests that the United States is nearly the source of much of the evil in the world, or the center of oppression, or some other such nonsense. In their world, the US knew about what was going to happen on Sept. 11, and did nothing, that George Bush wanted Sept. 11 to happen so that John Ashcroft could institute the homeland security program and the Patriot Act, that George Bush and the oil men, and Haliburton started the Iraq war over oil, and on and on...

When you try to say that perhaps we are fighting a just war against a regime of evil that is linked to Osama bin Laden, they simply get louder and louder and insist that THEY are right.

Quite a shock coming from a bunch of people who presumably want to continue to excercise their rights of free speech, but apparently I am not entitled to the same thing...nor am I entitled to have a single opinion that differs from theirs.

Oh well.

From the Great Rocky Mountains, on this December day, I wish the men in uniform the best of everything! Keep fighting the good fight, you guys! Please know that most of the people back home here support you, and await the day when you can come back to us...and the sooner that day comes, the better!

John B.

My First RANT

2004-11-04T18:58:00.000-07:00

(Note: You come here at your own risk. Political talk is the subject of this, and all posts in this BLOG)

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Alright.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am pretty far right when it comes to political views. I am not a Nazi or anything like that, but my political beliefs fall right along the right side of the road...less government involvement in the lives of us the people, lower taxes across the board, etc. Generally, take the political beliefs of George W. Bush, and the only one I have found to disagree with is the prohibition on federal money for stem cell research. I also listen to Rush Limbaugh as often as I can...so I get a good dose of Conservativism each week day.

Now that I have driven all of the weaker-hearted people away, let's get to the RANT...

I have noticed that once again, some people on the Left want to delegitimize the results of the election, concluded this last Tuesday. I must say that both John Kerry and George Bush acted like gentlemen in this matter...Kerry's people took a look at the results of the Ohio elections and decided that there was no way for him to get the 135-140K votes he would have needed to win Ohio, and thus the election...so he decided to do the right thing and concede...and thus NOT throw the country into another contested election that I think might have done serious damage to the entire process.

George Bush also acted like a gentleman...he didn't announce his victory on the night of the election, preferring instead to let Kerry "reflect" on the results. He accepted Kerry's concession in gentlemanly form, and did not gloat or anything like that. It was a refreshing scene, after the hard campaign this year, and the problems that arose after the 2000 election.

NOW, here's what we have:

- We have a President who won the popular vote by a 3% margin.
- We have a President who won the Electoral College vote with barely any of the problems that plagued the 2000 election.
- With these first two, we have a President who has a clear and legitimate mandate to lead the country.

However, we still get Liberals complaining. The following letter is an example, and it is in response to another Liberal who is almost in tears over the election results...

"Winning by 2% is no mandate.

I am not a Democrat (I'm an independent); however, thisturn of events is exceedingly frustrating to me becausepartisanship has now destroyed all of the Constitutional checks and balances designed into our government -- saveone, which I'll get to in a minute. We have already seen the effects of this in the first George W. Bush regime; Congress and the courts denied Bush almost nothing, and he in turn issued not one veto. There is only one single check remaining upon the Republican party machine's complete takeover of our government: the supermajority requirement to end a filibuster in the Senate.Note that this is not a Constitutional measure but merelya long-standing rule which could possibly be repealed. If i tgoes, we will have one party rule akin to that of Soviet Russia."

--Brett Glass, Laramie, WY

Now, before I get into why this guy is so wrong, let me remind you all that this country has been through a CIVIL WAR, and we have not managed to end the country. With that in mind, we survived eight years of Bill Clinton, we survived the Watergate scandal years, we survived the turmoil of Vietnam and the 1960's Civil Rights movement...we survived the Great Depression and WWII, and all of these were pretty heavy times, some of which presented real dangers that could conceivably end the country. However, the country survived all of these things.

To help my friends on the Left, I say this: eight years of George W. Bush will not end the country.

But the Left doesn't end there. One of the people who lives in my apartments is a MAJOR Liberal...he watches Bill Maher's HBO show and just drinks it in...which is fine. I sometimes watch the show to see what the Liberals...and the rare Conservative on the show...have to say. However, Bill Maher, and Michael Moore, and other Liberal shills get free reign in the house, but let one Conservative so much as say one thing he disagrees with, and this guy goes through the roof. To him, Rush Limbaugh is not someone to disagree with. Rush Limbaugh apparently doesn't have the same rights HE enjoys...Rush Limbaugh deserves to die a slow and painful death.

All of this was demonstrated when Ann Coulter was on the Maher show. Now, Ann can get offensive, let's not kid ourselves. She is WAY out on the Right, and her views oftentimes get a bad reaction from people. However, she was in an arena that was filled with political enemies. As the conversation went onward, it was clear that Ann was uncomfrotable facing both Bill Maher, and the panelists, all of whom were Liberal, AND the audience, who heckled her every chance they could get.

When the situation got out of control was when Ann responded to a bunch of audience booing by saying that half of them were the kind of people who wanted to see President Bush shot.

Now, while Ann was out of line in lodging that particular accusation, she was RIGHT in saying that there are people out there that want President Bush killed. It was in a book published earlier this year (that was scorned heavily on Limbaugh and Hannity). In a journalism class, a teacher gave the assignment: President Bush has been assassinated...you are the reporter on the scene...you write the story. When a student objected and asked if a different topic could be used, she was refused. Locally, I know of a guy that I get into arguments with over politics, and he has said that President Bush should be killed.

In the house, this caused an explosion from my apartment-mate, who called Ann Coulter a Nazi. When I tried to calm him down so I could continue to listen to what was going on, this man ripped into ME.

This same attitude has prevailed since the election. This same guy (I'll name him Fred), complained when Rush Limbaugh retired the Kerry theme song on election day (The Mighty Mouse theme), saying that it was rude of Limbaugh...saying that it was as though Rush was saying NYAH NYAH to Kerry.

This afternoon, I am sitting here at the cafe and another computer user is complaining about the election. He is saying that Kerry conceded too early...that there was a large number of voting irregularities that Kerry could have used to contest the vote. This despite the fact that Joel Lockhart, the Kerry campaign aide was asked on election day whether he saw any irregularities that would warrant a recount, and he said that while there were small things around the country, the election seemed to be running smoothly.

I'm sorry, but the Left needs to get with the idea that they have lost the 2004 election, and there's not a damn thing they can do about it. There's no one that they can blame but themselves. There was no disenfranchisement. No hanging chads, no uncounted ballots, no Supreme Court decision. Bush won the 2004 election fair and square, and now the Left is faced with the hard realities. They are now faced with one question...

Not: how do we win the election, either now or in 2008, but

How do we stay relevant at all.

---
John B.
Blog Guy

Test Blog Post

2004-11-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

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This is a test. If this had been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.

John B.
Blog Guy