New Year, same old same old

Well it is that time of year again. Once again we gather to discuss the old year and predict what will happen in the new. Since my predictions last year were 100% correct, I will share my knowledge with the peanut gallery once again.


In the year 2008:

Ted Kennedy will emerge from a wooded lot along the Hudson covered in blood and holding the severed head of a Dartmouth coed. He will be given the Noble Peace Prize. The made for tv movie will suggest George W. Bush was the true killer.

Elections in Pakistan will be "Pakistani Peaceful." This is a lot like a regular peaceful election, but with 1000% more car bombings.

Old and Busted: Sunni Death squads roving the streets of Baghdad.
New Hotness: "Progressive" Death squads roving the streets of American cities.

Mitt Romney will win the presidential primary in New Hampshire. Mormons around the country will celebrate by drinking grape juice and staying up till 8pm.

Bill Clinton will be found in bed with a dead girl, live boy, and a seal dressed like a sailor. He will be named Time magazine's Man of the Year.

After a year of failed policies, Nancy Pelosi will be replaced by a leader who more accurately reflects the stance of Dimocratic voters on such issues as taxes and the War on Terror: Bashar al-Assad.

Rising anti-American sentiment in Europe coupled with a new sense of nationalism will lead to the introduction of new products such as "Hamburg Helper."

In a desperate bid to shore up her plummeting viewership, Kaite Couric will begin doing the news topless. She will be cancelled two days later after her last six viewers go blind.

Paris Hilton will become the new spokesman for Global Warming. She will raise awareness by traveling to Northern climes and making short videos where she says "That's hot."

The rise in global temperatures will finally give mankind the answer to the great question: Who would win in a fight; an iceberg from the North Pole or one from Antarctica.

Editorial Round-up

Time for a round up of editorials that I find interesting and hope you do as well.

1. Rich Lowery examines how JFK's assassination destroyed patriotic liberalism.

2. Ann Coulter talks about how the YouTube debate crowd was more "hippy" than "hip."

One of the funniest things about the debate was the fact that Bill "Hey I'm Hispanic" Richardson got a whoop for wanting to raise teacher's pay. Why does anyone think that raising teacher pay will help education? Do they get smarter when you pay them more?

The argument might be made that higher salaries would attract better workers, but I doubt the validity of that. Those with a modicum of intelligence could make more in the private sector in the long run. Besides, teachers are paid better than everyone thinks.

I just do not think that teachers often deserve what they make. When I was in college I had a few class with Education majors and they were by far the dumbest people I have ever met. I resolved that day that my children would never see the inside of a public school.

I want my kids educated in a manner that fuses Western commitments to rationalism and science to the Judeo-Christian world view. I do not want them hearing propaganda delivered by near illiterates.

3. Cal Thomas asks the question "What if we win?"

Its a good question, and one the Dims do not want to have to answer.

Invade our allies, coddle our enemies

B.H. Obama wants to invade Pakistan, our not great but functional ally, but pull out of Iraq.

In essence he is saying that he will shut down one safe haven, but allow them to set up another in Iraq. At least Pakistan is remote and far away from our other vital interests.

This ties into the false thinking I have observed on the Left. They all scream about taking our eyes off bin Laden and act like catching him automatically means the end of America's struggle to protect itself from Islamic terrorists. They see the War on Terror as a giant manhunt that ends when the bad guy is read his rights and behind bars. This could not be further from the truth.

The capture of bin Laden, while a worthy goal, would only be a symbolic victory. The problems of Islamic extremism do not begin and end with bin Laden or even Al Qaeda itself. They are merely manifestations of the deep spiritual and cultural sickness that grips the Middle East.

The people who blow themselves up in Iraq are not screaming the name of bin Laden as they die, they are yelling praises to Allah.

Al Qaeda is just one of the many terrorist groups spawned by a region that has been in a cultural Dark Age ever since Mohammad rode out of the desert preaching his blasphemies.

Osama is not preaching anything more than what is heard a thousand times a day on Arab tv and on the Arab street.

Attacking Pakistan will not get you bin Laden.

Wow, giving away free needles to drug addicts could actually backfire?

Who knew?

As I have noted in previous posts (here) efforts to promote "safe" drug use among addicts only leads to worse problems.

In San Fran's Golden Gate Park, addicts are discarding hundreds of needles that they get in the city's needle exchange program.

I hope families in the city feel safe now. They can take their kids down to the park to tiptoe through the syringes.

The city handed out 2 million syringes last year. They probably only get back 70%. Park officials believe that they pull about 100-200 needles out of the park a day.

Folks, when you encourage bad behavior, you only get more of it. The Utopians thought that if they offered addicts needles, they could get them to behave responsibly. An addict is by definition someone who is not going to behave responsibly.

Great, maybe they have helped a few hundred addicts avoid getting AIDS, but they are exposing thousands of innocent park goers to disease by giving these people an easy way out.

It may sound like cold calculus, but when the addicts could not get their needles so easily, they tended to hang on to them. This logically limited their danger by keeping them with the addicts who were already practicing a dangerous lifestyle.

Now that the tools are cheap and plentiful, the users can throw them away because they can always get more at a needle exchange. The risk to innocent park users is just too great.

Best pick up line ever

"Come on baby, the country needs you to put out."

Hat tip Drudge Report

Reviving the practices of Hitler's Germany, Putin's Russia is encouraging Russian youth to procreate at camp in order to continue the Russian race. The group responsible for this is known as "Nashi". They promote anti-democratic sentiment among Russian youth and ally with other groups that use racist propaganda to smear non-Russians. Nashi youths, behaving as the new Brownshirts, also harass dissenters and opponents with official sanction.

This should end well.

It has been painfully obvious for a while that Russia is returning to authoritarianism. They will never be Communist again, but mostly because the elites like the money and goods klepto-captialism provides.

The new Russia will be exactly like the old: big, belligerent, xenophobic, bellicose and armed to the teeth.

The Bear is not dead, it has just been hibernating for seventeen years.

The West does not pay much attention. Why care about an imperialistic, fascist, and expansionist Russia when you can call George Bush a Nazi and condemn America?

We will eventually pay attention, but not till an army full of Nashi youth march into the Sudetenland...I mean Estonia.

Brit youth worst in Europe

...go on to face America in the finals.

This story is great for a number of reasons.

First, it shows just how important parents and families are to the development of kids. The study links the delinquent behavior of British youth to a lack of parent involvement and the unwillingness of adults to confront their wayward spawn. British kids spend too much time with their friends, roaming the streets, and not enough time with their parents. But wait a minute, I thought it took a village to raise a child? Apparently the village is failing.

Parents are the most important part of a child's life. They are the ones who are supposed to instill values and basic morals into their children. Some will fail or neglect their duties, but the majority, when they take on the responsibilities of their role, will do it well.

The village can not effectively raise a child in a modern democratic state. There are too many factors and ideas at play. You never know what your kid will pick up off the street.

The family can not be replaced and the social problems of the West can, in part, be linked to the break down of its basic institution.

The second reason this story is great has to do with the proposed solutions to the problem. They basically involve keeping schools open later and funding after school drama clubs. None of them

will make one bit of difference. A child with no moral compass will not become a decent citizen after they perform a couple of acts of The Crucible. Additionally, the kids who most need the programs will probably go to a friend's basement and smoke weed while playing their Wii instead of becoming a cadet.

The report even hints that such activities will be compulsory. What are they going to do? Are they going to arrest kids who do not show up for the 5pm rehearsal of Hairspray?

Attempts to create a community based substitute for the family will fail. It is like trying to make a pizza based substitute for oxygen. Community centers and classrooms are no substitute for a family dinner.

Love, Chaos, and Repression in Zimbabwe

The chaos and destruction that Robert Mugabe has brought to Zimbabwe is tragic in both its scope and sadism.

Still, under all the strain placed on the country, the love between two people can defy even the genocidal outrages of a madman.

The story of Eugenia and her husband is inspirational.

The beatings, rapes, and mass murders of those who chose to marry some one from another ethnic group recalls some of the worst aspects of our own history.

Stories like this put our own society in harsh contrast. These people have suffered real oppression and deprivation, but have maintained a solid marriage. While here in the US, people leave their spouses and divorce for trivial reasons.

Maybe the common people of Zimbabwe understand the meaning of commitment and love better than the BoBos who rush to a divorce lawyer the moment they do not feel "fulfilled."

Zimbabwe is in dire straights and the situation is about to get worse with plans for further thefts of private property on the table.

I hope the people of this once prosperous nation will be free one day. It will not come with the old communist Mugabe around, but hopefully his successor will see the light.

Shepherds for our defeat

So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest
that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him,
Feed my sheep.

He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And
he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.
Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.

This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he
had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.

John 21:15-19

Christ asked Peter to feed his sheep. Those who feed the sheep are known as shepherds. Looks like we have modern day shepherds who would rather expose the sheep and lambs to slaughter than do the right thing.

A pull out from Iraq would expose the common people of Iraq to the depredations of the Jihadists who think that spilling the blood of the weak and innocent is the surest path to salvation.

It is obvious the Dims have a death wish in Iraq, but their hyperbole and hysterics can not over come the simple fact that pulling out would both seriously undermine our War on Terror and also give Jihadists a safe harbor in the heart of the Middle East.

The surprising thing is that we will be defeated simply because we want to be. By withdrawing, we are just proving that OBL was right when he called us a sick horse. The insurgents are not overrunning American bases, defeating coalition forces in running gun battles, and capturing Americans in number. They either set out an IED, wait for a convoy to pass, and then detonate the bomb or set up an Iranian supplied rocket launcher and let fly with a few agents of death that hit military and civilian targets indiscriminately and make sure that any casualties end up on CNN.

The consequences for our military and the region in general would be dire. How could the US ever fight another war. Our military would be useless because our enemies would just plant a few bombs, kill a soldier or two, and our media would scream that the whole situation was a quagmire.

The Dims in Congress are poor shepherds indeed folks. The enemies of the American people will not disappear because they wish them to. This is not a civil war, and the enemy has very specific reasons for wanting Iraq. America will wake up one day, but it will be when we open our eyes and see a smoking and glowing swath of land that was once Miami, Houston, New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

The wolves are real. They have sharp teeth. They are waiting.

Roundup

Big headlines always grab the attention of the readers, but eventually they get into the story and find that the headline is normally utterly worthless. Hey, I don't blame the papers, they have to sell. Here are a few stories that no one seems to care about, but still might prove interesting.



1. According to MSNBC, the slowness of FEMA may mean contractors will be in short supply after the next natural disaster.



Why does this surprise anyone? Conservatives have been pointing out big government inefficiency for over 70 years. This is what one must expect from any big bureaucracy.



This story has implications for socialized medicine. If the government can not promptly pay tree clearing contractors, how will they be able to effectively handle the medical decisions for over 300 million Americans? How long will it take to approve a simple medical procedure?



2. Booksellers will not profit from Harry Potter and the Unnecessary Hype, I mean Deathly Hallows.



I'm not all that sympathetic towards booksellers, especially the big stores that gouged me on textbooks in college. I also can summon very little sympathy for the little booksellers because normally those places carry way too many books about young girls finding out they are lesbians and old women leaving their husbands to carry on an affair with a hairless pool boy.



The Barnes and Noble near my house had three shelves devouted to "Spirituality," and only one devoted to philosophy. Nothing is more annoying than having to listen to a bunch of idiotic young women talk about crystals, nature rituals, Mother Gaea and other New Age nonsense while I am trying to peruse some Spinoza and Strauss. I will shed very few tears for them indeed.



Harry is everywhere: Want more Harry news? How about how Harry's publisher could use some CSI style detective work to track down the gauche fellow who put the book online? Funny thing is, I bet if they used technology like this to track down terrorists the Left would scream about civil liberties.



Need more Harry? A couple is going straight from their wedding reception to the mall to get Deathly Hallows. Ten to one their kids will be nerds.

You just can't get away from Harry these days. He is around every corner and under every fold.

3. Massachusetts voters can now vote "None of the Above." If a majority choose this, the election is voided and another must be held in two or three months.

Once again we have evidence of the symbolic gesture trumping real action. If voters do not like candidates, then why don't they get involved and start recruiting decent candidates? Why can they take the childish way out and risk nothing by rejecting all the candidates? This is just infantile sneering from the back of the class at those who try to take a role in the community.

70 percent of the office holders in Massachusetts ran unopposed last year. What makes people think that giving the electorate an extra 60-80 days will mean more competition will emerge? Most likely, if someone is running unopposed it means that no one really cares to challenge them.

Elections mean having to choose between flawed candidates. This is what democracy is about. If you can not deal with that do not vote.

New look for the Ring

As some of you might notice, the Ring of Gyges has gotten an upgrade. High time too. After consulting with the Dumb Ox, I have decided to help him with his "After Dark" venture. Many changes are coming. There will be more upgrades and maybe even some shameless advertising.

Give me the crawfish stuffed with tacos

The city of New Orleans is outlawing one of the staples of the Texas eating scene: the taco truck.

For those of you in the great white North, the taco truck is an urban tradition. In my fair city, every other street has a truck selling tacos or roasted chicken. In fact, they are often not trucks, but actually trailers.

I'm sure this ordinance was racially motivated, but New Orleans will be changing with the influx of Hispanic construction workers. If the former residents have not returned by now, they either prefer their new surroundings to their former cesspool or are in jail in Texas.

I'm not too surprised this happened. Those little taco stands make a lot of money in my area. About four years ago one set up on a wooded lot near my house. Over the next couple of years the owners saved the money they made (the place did wonderfully) and were able to buy the lot and put up a sit down restaurant. They still sell the same tacos out of a window on the side of the building, but the place now can take care of a larger group of customers.

New Orleans can send them back to Texas.

One guy gets it, those in the comments don't

Henry Porter over at the UK Guardian gets it.

This article is mildly interesting. The real fun part is the comment section at the bottom. Many people just do not get it.

It is the typical blame the West crap.

The Muslim terrorists are not motivated by our presence in Iraq or by past crimes supposedly committed by the West. This is about Jihad.

The Left acts like American and British forces are roaming Iraq mindlessly gunning down innocents in the name of blood lust. This is so far from the truth it boggles the mind. The Left blames our foreign policy, which they mean supporting Jews, for the Islamists rage.

This position is untenable. The West deals very lightly with Muslims. We have never enslaved our exploited them on a large scale. We take their oil, but we let them charge us unreasonable prices for it because of their little cartel.

The "blame the West" first crowd is always going to be there. They simply can not understand that the problems we face are not about changing our foreign policy or being more "tolerant" or Islam. The terror stems from a pathology that runs throughout the Muslim world. It is religiously based but has additions of Arab racism and a refusal to take responsibility for their countries.

The Koran promises its followers that they will be rewarded on Earth for being pious Muslims. Yet they look around and see a West light years ahead of them economically and socially. They have to account for this somehow. They can either undergo self-critique and admit that their societies are sick, or they can find a scapegoat for their failure. They do the inevitable human thing and blame the West and the Jews for their plight.They scream about imperialism and conspiracy when there is no evidence of either. Heck the only real imperialism the Middle East has ever experienced came at the hands of fellow Muslims.

This is why the mission in Iraq is so important. The president looked at the threat and saw it for what it was: the symptom of a disease in the Muslim world. We are trying to implant a source of hope into the Middle East. Whether this will succeed or fail is up in the air but it was time to do something. We need to find a cure for the sickness of the Middle East. Merely giving into the nihilists demands that we submit or die is not a good choice.

In the end, I think that the Muslims will not change. The West will move past oil and return them to the irrelevance and obscurity that they enjoyed for over 500 years. Of course they will take hundreds of thousands of us down with them in their rage. The Arabs will be return to being a small silly people.

The Left is so sad.

A bunch of anti-war, anti-West, pro-terrorist Libs descended on the City Council of my fair city to demand that the elected body call for the impeachment of the President.

The modern Left loves the symbolic act. They have little else to go on. These are the people who think rock concerts will end global warming. The Left does not have the benefits of reason and argument. They merely scream slogans and ignore the big picture.

This is further evidence of what the modern Left is: shrill, inappropriate, obsessed with the surface and appearance of things, and utterly irrelevant. These are not deep thinkers, they are weak minded people who take propaganda on its face.

The Left is too insane to allow them anywhere near the levers of power. If they had their way, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld would be executed and all the terrorists at Gitmo would have full tenure at Berkley.

Live Earth to hit Washington

Looks like there will be some sort of environmental concert in D.C. after all.

I desperately want to find some interest in Live Earth just for the fact that it would give me something to do. One of life's great delights is making fun of the Left. I thought Live Earth would be a good time to see a bunch of celebs prancing around talking about things they know nothing about and giving the rest of us so fuel for the criticism mill. But it look like the entire thing is going to be lame.

The show in Washington will feature: "Native American rock, funk, punk, reggae, gospel and Andean music in addition to films." What the hell is Native American rock? This thing is going to be lame. It will be a bunch of hairy hippie guys with their first dreads hitting on chicks with more body hair than Hasselhoff.

Dick Cheney: The Legend continues

As all of you know, Dick Cheney both fascinates and frightens me. From my Leftist friends I learned that he controls the weather and kills black people for fun. But they do not even know that half of it. If they only knew:

1. All the "Die Hard" movies are based off of comments written in Dick Cheney's yearbook.

2. His crotch is a Superfund site.

3. Direct eye contact with Dick Cheney = loss of soul

4. He uses his Weather Machine to ruin John Edwards $500 haircuts.

5. He has never laughed in the face of death because you can not laugh in your own face.

6. Einstein came up with the theory of relativity after watching Cheney strangle a caribou to death.

7. The Clapper was based on a Cheney invention called the Decapitator.

8. You can lead, follow, or get out of the way, but it does not matter because Dick will flay your skin off and wear it to the daytime Emmys.

9. The ancients believed that eclipses were Cheney swallowing the moon. This is silly of course. If Cheney had swallowed the moon, he would have full digested it.

10. Dick Cheney can see at night, under water, and right into your worst fears.

11. The Flock of Seagulls wrote "And I ran" after watching Cheney beat a labor union boss to death with his own spinal cord.

Further evidence of the dangers of socialized medicine

Ah socialized hospitals. Havens of bad service, dirty floors, poor quality care, and now terrorism.

As everyone knows now, the people who wanted to kill innocent women out for a night on the town and Scottish travels looking for a chance to tan their pasty skin hatched their scheme while working for the NHS.

This whole situation illustrates the complexity of the threat we face. Al Qaeda does not recruit from the poor peasant in the villages of Pakistan. It wants sophisticated operatives who can move about seamlessly in the West. They want people who know how to use a cell phone, email, and an ATM card, not a guy who gets excited when he sees his first flush toilet and attracts his neighbor's disdain by raising goats in his living room. Riots and revolts are the political tools of the lower class. Terrorism is the tool of the middle and upper class.

The fact that these people are well educated and supposedly better off shows that the poor Muslims are not the ones who we need to fear. We should fear those who know better. These are not ignorant people lashing out.

In many ways, these educated Muslim terrorists are much like the Libs in America. They have had the benefit of Western science, political theory, and economics, but still strain with every fiber of their being to over turn the very thing which makes them affluent. Whether it is calls for a global caliphate or a more equal distribution of wealth,the underlying psychology is the same.

Former Muslim fanatic: No it really is all about Islam

A former Muslim fanatic has finally confirmed what we have all been saying for years: Islamic terror is not about Western foreign policy, it is about warring on the non-believer.

This guy lays it all out on the line and even acknowledges that Islamic terrorists laugh at our pitiful, politically correct attempts to blame ourselves for their murderous rampages. He puts the blame where anyone with a brain knows it belongs: Muslim theology. It is all about spreading their corrupt and perverted ideology.

Here in the West we like to blame ourselves for every little problem in the world. It is sad. The world was dysfunctional, poor, violent, and intolerant long before Western civilization took to the high seas in search of the future.

British government under reporting its crime rate

To the tune of 2-3 million violent crimes.

The stats are compiled by polling people on violent crime. If the person reports more than five instances a year, all further reports are disregarded. Let me give you an example. If a woman reports that her husband beat her up eight times this year, the crime stats will report it as five incidents of violent crime.

European governments are notorious for cooking their books when it comes to stats on social problems. Whenever you quote stats, you should know who produced them. It just like when people tout the infant mortality and literacy rates of Cuba without ever acknowledging that the source is the Cuban government itself.

Utopian social engineers - 0, Human nature - 1,675,789,456

Australia's experiment with injecting rooms is encouraging junkies to overdose.

These rooms are places where drug addicts can go to inject themselves with heroin. There are nurses on station to prevent overdoses and help the addicts with their habits.

Well it turns out the giving these people a safe zone to do drugs only encourages them to do more drugs. The addicts know that if they overdose there is a good chance that the nurses on staff will be able to bring them back to life. Therefore they are encouraged to use more. As a consequence, the overdose rate in these rooms is much higher than that of the average junkie getting high at home.

Only an idiot could not see this coming. The Utopians think that they are helping these people, but all they are doing is giving them higher tolerances for illicit substances that ruin their lives. This is further proof that when you encourage, or at least remove the worst consequences from bad behavior, the situation gets worse not better.

Is Fred Thompson the next Reagan?

The Dims think so.

I like to hear the they are afraid of Fred, and I do think that there are some similarities with Reagan.

I have heard that some conservatives might be turned off by some answers he gave on a survey about abortion back in the 90s. Reagan signed a permissive abortion law while governor of California. He later changed his mind on this issue, which Fred seems to have done as well. I doubt this will hurt him much.

The media likes to portray conservatives and pro-lifers as fire breathing fundamentalists who will not let anyone who disagrees with them into the Republican party. This could not be further from the truth. The Republican party has a pretty big group of abortion supporters in it. It is easier to find a pro-choice Republican than a pro-life Dim.

I like how the Dims are planning to attack Thompson as a beltway insider. He is one, but so is every Dim running for president. Thompson at least can point to a career outside of the Beltway.

They go to absurd lengths to make it seem like everything has been handed to him because of his political contacts. They even claim that he got the "Law and Order" job that way. Sure because we all know that a conservative Republican is guaranteed a Hollywood job the instant they leave office. That is why you will catch Tom Delay tonight as the tough no-nonsense Chief of police who plays by his own rules but gets results on "The Shield."

Have these people even watched Law and Order? It seems that sixty percent of the bad guys on that show are Left wing ideas of the stereotypical Republican or conservative. The criminal is always a self-righteous religious figure, greedy business man, racist/homophobic WASP, or gun toting anti-government crackpot. You hardly ever see a lefty bad guy.

Speaking of using connections to make money, when are we going to get to talk about Whitewater again? Turning $100,000 into millions off of cattle futures? Millions of dollars in speaking fees? Record book advances? Chinese military payola?

Dims, is this the road you really want to go down?

Self-Help idiocy

There are some worried that the new piece of pop self help non-sense "The Secret" is producing a blame the victim mentality.

The mantra of the book is "ask, believe, receive." It is based on the idea that there are laws of attraction, and that like attracts like. This is idiotic. Does the rape victim want to be raped an therefore attracts the rapist? Of course not.

The self help industry is truly American in that it peddles a lot of easy answers to complex questions. It is also insidious in that it tricks a lot of ignorant people into thinking that the problems in their lives can be fixed with positive thinking, meditation, or wishing them away. In America we are taught to have a certain aversion to suffering and hardship. If you are hungry, you eat; cold, put on a sweater; not satisfied with your wide, divorce her. We cannot fathom that people would fast out because of religious beliefs. We can not grasp the dignity of suffering.

Yes friends there is dignity in suffering. It is an act that is so human because it is not only inescapable, but also illustrates that as rational creatures we can endure. It is an irrational act with much meaning. A good Epicurean man would commit suicide at the first hint that his pleasures were subsiding.

People want easy answers and a simple solution to life. Well here is the best answer I can give to how life works:

"Life is suffering, but is is also pleasure and joy. You must take the good with the bad. There are no simple answers because the world is not simple. We will all suffer. Some will suffer more and some less. Still, that does not mean that one who suffers less has a better life or is some way more valuable than the other. The child with Down Syndrome will probably have a less full life than a genius. That does not mean that their life is worth less or is somehow on a lower level than that of Einstein. They are as beautiful, perhaps more beautiful, than the greatest minds of man. They will see the world forever in ways most will never know. They may never cure cancer or drink deeply from Shakespeare, but they learn the most important lesson: the simple pleasures of life are the best. We will all hurt and grieve, but God loves us and is not ignorant of our plight. All he asks is a short period of endurance with the promise of an eternity of freedom. Seize the day, the world is a ugly and beautiful place. Stop worrying about your personal pain, fulfillment, or hang ups and put the world in its proper perspective. Be happy and let not your heart be troubled. The richest and happiest man on earth will go to his grave with regrets, pain, and hurt. Just enjoy what you have."

Exhibit #1,345,987 why you should not trust Leftists

Under pressure from the French, the government of Columbia released FARC leader Rodrigo Granda after he promised to call for peace and a demobilization of the narcoterrorist group.

Long story short, the little commie bastard went back on his word and promised to "never demobilize or call for an end to armed struggle until our objectives are met."

Which gets to my point, you can not trust Communists. Reagan was right about them, they have no morality past what furthers their political ambitions.

For those of you not up to speed, FARC is a Marxist rebel group in Colombia which follows the teachings of Che Guevara and finances their terror tactics with drug trafficking, kidnappings, and petty brigandry.

But I thought the media was Right wing

Surprising absolutely no one, a new report shows that journalists tend to give money to Dimocrats and Left wing causes.

The libs now a days like to assert that the media is really right wing. This is refuted by the article above. Their evidence for this is that the majority of editorial pages in the last couple of decades have endorsed Republican presidents. This is idiotic. Sure they may endorse Republicans, but they also run scathing anti-right editorials more often than they criticise libs. All that piece of evidence does is confirm that there is a severe strain of schizophrenia running through the media. It also gives them a convenient way out of criticism for left wing bias. Sort of like calling for the confiscation of guns one day, but giving to the NRA the next.

What really irks me is when media figures get in front of the camera and, with a straight face, tell us that they report the news without bias. This is absurd and impossible. We all have built in unspoken prejudices that work at an unconscious level. It is evident in the words we use and the manner in which we process information. Journalist's bias creeps into every story, even if they mean well.

I tend to agree with Bernard Goldberg. He claims that journalist are telling the truth when they claim they are not bias. His position is that they do not even realize that they are bias. They live in such an isolated little world that they rarely encounter a thought that is different from theirs. Their heuristics are confirmed by those around them so often that they can not seriously consider that anyone else thinks any other way. Perhaps this is true.

Fox News is not "Fair and Balanced" but it does give the opposite sides of each debate a pretty good chance to air their views. On most of the shows you get people from both sides arguing. On the other hand, when I watch CNN or MSNBC, you get less of that and more of a single host talking to a partisan.

Here is the point of all of this: Journalists report the news in a bias way. They may not purposefully try to color the news in a certain light, but they are human and therefore can not report in a way that is completely devoid of prejudices and unspoken assumptions. If they would just admit that, it would help to restore a little bit of trust in their work.

Jimmy Carter: Stop favoring religious extremists over ultra-religious extremists

Carter, the greatest idiot America ever put into office, claims that the US refusing to support Hamas, noted terrorist group and front for Iranian megalomania, is "criminal."


How does one man come to hate his own country and all that is good and decent? Then again, why would anyone listen to Carter. This was the man who did not understand Soviet brutality till the invasion of Afghanistan. He apparently was not paying attention when the Soviets crushed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968.


Carter is a madman and a traitor to boot. If he had his way, leaders like Washington and Jefferson would be replaced in the pantheon of good men with the likes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

Jimmy Carter is a true American traitor. He has a knee jerk anti-American streak that he just can not control. He is bitter because it is obvious the American people made the right choice when they sent him packing. I hope he lives a long life in his obscurity and irrelevance.

Christian by day, Muslim by night.

A female Episcopal is also a practicing Muslim.

This story is truly a marvel at the idiocy of some people. She defends her contradiction by claiming that even Christians can not work out all of the details. Listen Christians may argue over the details, but she does not even get the big picture. This is obvious in her professed beliefs:

"She has never believed in the Christian doctrine of original sin, and for years she struggled with the nature of Jesus' divinity, the Times said, concluding Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans. "

This is ludicrous. If Christ was not the Son of God, then he was a mad man. How can you even call yourself a Christian if you hold these beliefs? If I am as much a son of God as Christ then even calling my religion Christianity is absurd. It could just as well be Joeanity or Timanity because my beliefs have as much validity as those of Christ.

This woman is obviously nuts. She has tried to merge two religions that can not be reconciled. The interesting thing is that Christianity and Christian societies allow her to hold such heretical views and flaunt her own apostasy. In a Muslim society she would have been stoned to death long ago.

This woman is no Christian. To her assertions and beliefs and claims I have this statement, which I hold as dear to my heart as any words ever written:

" I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, He came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, He became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered death and was buried. On the third day, He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and Son, He is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Amen."

If one disagrees with these statements, fine, but you are not a Christian. She can call herself whatever she wants, but calling yourself a doctor does not mean you can prescribe medicine. If you are a Christian you must believe that the path to salvation was laid out by Christ and not Muhammad.

This lady needs to go back to her mosque, put on her burka, and stop trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Opinions are like buttholes...

...they all end up on my blog.

Here are a few interesting articles all of you, the astute Ring of Gyges fans, should read.

1. VDH (one om favs, big man crush) analyzes the immigration debacle.

Long story short, he gets it right.

This bill is the worst of both worlds. It brings together the greediest and worst of the business world with the pimps and race baiting panderers of the radical Left. It is an unholy alliance akin to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression pact.

2. Jay Nordlinger's Wednesday Impromptus was worth the read.

3. Nice editorial at Opinion Journal about fatherhood.

It is nice to see that the old manly virtues are once again being investigated. I find the continued feminization of boys in the modern age quite troubling.

Jonah Goldberg on Education

Jonah Goldberg hits the nail right on the head.

I have always agreed with the proposition that the government should provide funding for the schools, but not the schools themselves.

Listen, most of the money that goes to public schools gets spent on worthless administrators and do nothing teachers. What needs to be done is provide a certain amount of money for each student and let private entities run the schools. The government should also allow them to have the right to hire and fire teachers at will.

Education is a commodity like everything else. Teaching is not a higher calling it is just another job among many. We need to demystify the public schools and its employees in order to have realistic reform. It is time to decide between what is good for the education establishment and what is good for the kids. They are not the same things.

Real education reform probably will not happen because in many places the school districts have become nothing more than job providers. Where I grew up the schools were the biggest employers in the town. It was a common thing for people to leave after graduation, go to one of the big cities, and if they failed, end up back at home working at one of the schools.

Liberal absurdity

Hat tip to the NR on this one.

90% of this article is mindless bullshit, but the rest is pretty interesting.

The author recognizes the absurdity of the American Left, but then lapses into the same old class warfare tripe that motivates the whole thing.

He praises the New Deal, which was an unmitigated failure that left millions in poverty to this day. He blames free trade for the ills of American society, but in attacking Big Business, why do we never question the input of Big Labor? Why doesn't he discuss the depression of wages caused by illegal immigrants.

This is one problem I have with the Left and people like this. They worry about all the people working at Wal-Mart, decry the loss of manufacturing jobs, and basically make it sound like the vast majority of Americans are just blue collar rednecks working substandard jobs. This is not ever remotely true. Just thirty years ago people like him were decrying the fact that so many of us worked in factories that polluted the air, discriminated against women, and pushed consumerism. You cannot decry the loss of factory jobs without demanding a rise in consumerism.

He does correctly identify part of the problem, that most of the liberals do not understand the middle class, middle America electorate, but he does not offer a plausible solution. I think that people like him would be very disappointed if they followed their own advice and talked to these people.

They would not find young waiters and house cleaners waiting for the "Progressive" in shining armor to ride in, raise their pay, vanquish their bosses, and give them free health care. They would find people who distrust the idea that the government can help them at all. They look around and see crime in the streets, illegal immigrants slowly taking their jobs, and bureaucrats that care more about protecting their jobs than helping the people they are tasked to assist. All they can deduce from this is that the government is at best ineffective, and at the worst indifferent. How are these people going to have faith that the new spending programs and welfare benefits will get to them effectively?

Additionally, he credits the New Deal with creating the industrial middle class. The industrial middle class existed before Roosevelt's horrid New Deal. All Roosevelt did was set the grounds for a welfare state that has failed to provide what it promised.

Most Liberals misunderstand Conservatives. They think that they are indifferent to the poor and all for business. Let me met some of these objections: (These are all things actual libs have said to me, I am not constructing strawmen here.)

A Lib might say:

1. Conservatives are either hostile to the poor or indifferent to their suffering.
Answer: Conservatives are neither of these things. Conservatives tend to come from middle America which is poorer than the rest of the country. I would put money on the fact that more Conservatives grew up poor than liberals or "Progressives." Conservatives understand that lots of people have it hard in America, but also understand that there is little the government can do about it. Poverty can not be legislated away. We are human beings, there will be winners and losers in every economic system. Demanding "more equal distribution of wealth" is just positing an unfounded value judgment onto the economic system. There is only so much you can do for people.

2. Conservatives use social issues like gay marriage to drive voters away from voting for their economic interests.
Answer: This argument is founded on the idea that there are distinct classes that have a common undivided economic interest. The idea of classes is an abstraction. Just because two people have the same or similar incomes does not mean that they have the same interests. Helping steel workers in Pittsburgh does nothing for the autoworker in Detroit. The fact that the farmer in Texas gets government subsidies does not mean that the construction worker in Seattle will be better off tomorrow. This view also operates under the assumption that some how economic issues should always trump social.

Libs do not give credence to the idea that social issue and economic issues are intertwined. They also do not account for the fact that social issues are often more important to the average person than economic. I will explain. You can not address economic issues and give a free pass to social issues.

Libs complain about poverty, but they never ask about the real issues underlying poverty in America: teen pregnancy and single parenthood. They can not touch these issues in a real way. It would undermine the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement. Culture plays a bigger hand in poverty than all the greedy business men on the planet. A woman who has a baby before she is 18 is almost certain to fall into poverty. If you give her government help, you are just exacerbating the problem by subsidizing it. In situations like this the libs never ask several important questions: "Why did the woman even get pregnant in the first place? What pushed her to have sex at this young age before she was married? Why is she not marrying the father?" All of these questions are social questions. Society has a wink wink policy toward underage sex these days. The loosing of moral and social standards has led us here.

The libs also do not understand that many people hold social views because of deep seated religious or ethical conviction. People in America really do live by the "Teach a man to fish..." mentality. They want people to succeed without the help of the government.

In a nutshell I can sum up a lot of what Conservatives think on issues like these with this:
"Yes there are many poor people in America, but there are also a lot of people who succeed every day and pull themselves out of poverty through industriousness and hard work. Yes there are people suffering in America, but that is true of all nations everywhere at all times. Suffering is part of the human condition. Just because someone is richer or more prosperous than someone else does not mean that their life is better or more worthwhile. Giving people subsidies and programs does not make them happier or more secure. They are still dependant on charity and the largess of others. They have not been liberated or helped in anyway. They are jsut like slaves who change masters. There is only so much that we as flawed creatures can do for our fellow man. We can not perfect the world, we must learn to make improvements where we can, and accept our limitations. No political ideology can fix the problems of man. There are those that can do more to alleviate some, but there must always be trade offs and a final solution is impossible. Be happy with what you have, because someone is always worse off than you. In this world it is better to be content with your blessings and failures and not worry about what others have."

The shame of Ireland

The W.H.O. has released the numbers on global alcohol consumption.

Luxembourg has the highest rate of consumption. No surprise, the Irish are number two. In fact, I take that back. What the hell is wrong with the Irish? Come on butch up. What would the world be without the drunken Irishman? How could you let a country no bigger than a postage stamp defeat you at your own national sport?

Of course the article does allude to the fact that people tend to cross into Luxembourg to buy cheap alcohol. Maybe Ireland is number one. They should get a recount.

The US came in at number 40 by the way. The Japanese and Mexicans had lower consumption than we did. I wonder if they counted sake as an alcoholic beverage? I wouldn't because the stuff is sort of weak.

Well anyway, it is a slow news day.

Modern schoolyard activities: Merry-Go-Round, soccer, vicious rape...wait what

Sex offenders are getting younger and more violent.

Experts are blaming it on "a society saturated in sex and violence." I'm sure there is a lot of truth to this. You can not turn on a television without seeing something that is totally unsuitable for children. Porno pop ups are all over every computer. Kids today see more sexual images in a year than adults in 1904 saw their entire lives.

The break down of society has reached its acceleration point. A lot of blame can be put on sexual abuse, but is that also not linked in some way with the modern obsession with sex? We are taught to treat other people as objects, just there for our own enjoyment. Go to any frat party and you will see what I mean.

I also like how this article tries to place the blame for the rise in child sex offenders on the fact that there are laws against it. One expert placed the blame on "fairly draconian laws with very harsh sanctions that apply to juveniles."

Yeah that is the ticket, the sure way to have less rapes is to make the laws less draconian. Hey lets try that with murder too. Soon we can have a crime rate of zero. All you need to do is act.

Listen, the laws are there because there is a genuine problem. Some people want it to look like there is an overreaction to sexualized children. This is nonsense. Any fool can see that exposing a child to sex, someone unprepared to understand the ramifications of the act both spiritually, physically, and morally, is going to lead to some really dangerous consequences.

Beautiful, simply perfect.

Defeat's Killing Fields

This op/ed from the NY Times (I know I know I know) is simply divine.

The authors truly understand what defeat in Iraq means for the US and for the world at large. Listen, Libs love to draw comparisons with Vietnam every time a story about Iraq breaks. This is perfectly natural for them because their efforts were a big part of America's eventual abandonment of the Vietnamese people.

Yet even they can not ignore the price that the people of Southeast Asia paid for their victory over a non-existent "military industrial complex."

I hear all the Dim presidential candidates pledge that they will "end the war in Iraq." Of course their only proposal is the withdraw and leave the people of Iraq at the mercy of the mullahs and beheaders.

If we were to leave tomorrow the war would not be over. There would still be car bombings in Baghdad, riots in Najaf, and murders in Anbar.

Whenever I hear someone suggest that we need to get out I just think about this and this.

The victims of Lib defeatism and hatred are still roting in the soils of Asia, Africa, and South America. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Dick Cheney Definitions: Cheneypedia

We all love, or at least fear, Dick Cheney. Cheney has dabbled in many things. Here are some definitions:

1. Cheney Colostomy: The detonation of a 20 megaton warhead in the anus of a Muslim.

2. Cheney Long Division: When a judge cuts a disputed piece of personal property in half, eats one half, urinates on the other, then burns anyone who objects with a cigar.

3. Cheney Home video: snuff film.

4. Dick Cheney Snapple: The blood of the proletariat.

5. Cheney Promotion: Being the first person Dick Cheney eats on Passover.

6. Cheney Alka Seltzer: Molotov Cocktail

7. Cheney Toothpick: A Trident ICBM

8. Cheney E-mail: EMP

9. Dick Cheney Bar Mitzvah: Like a regular Bar Mitzvah, but with more blood, weeping, and sodomy.

10. Cheney Hole Punch: Chaingun.

Are the kids shy or just stupid?

Apparently asking students to raise their hands if they think they know the answer to a question in class is a bad thing.

Ok I will admit it, I was, and still am, one of those little Hermione Grangers. I answered at least two-thirds of the questions asked by my teacher in 8th grade U.S. History. I still answer as many questions as I can in law school.

I also know a lot of kids hide in the back of class and try to stay off the radar. I do like the suggestion that the teacher pick a child at random to answer the question. In law school they do this. Some professors even make you stand. I think this is a good system. It keeps the kids on their toes and requires them to do the work if they do not want to look like an idiot in front of the class.

The other ideas, asking the question then giving kids 30 seconds of "thinking time" or telling them to discuss it in small groups for a short period are both asinine.

Number one, both take too much time. It is better to try to get an answer and move on. If the kid in the front wants to answer the question let them. I doubt that the kid who is in the back trying to avoid the teacher's gaze even knows the answer.

The small groups thing is a recipe for disaster. Once you let a bunch of giggling ten and eleven year olds freely interact, getting control back will take a Herculean effort.

The one thing that I dislike about this article is that it never blames any poor student performance on teachers. It places all of the blame on parents. While parents do deserve a lot of it, so do teachers. It is their job to make sure our kids are learning.

The reason I bring this is up is because teachers do not get their fair share of the blame when it comes to poor student performance. They are the proverbial "Sacred Cow." I cannot remember the last time I heard anyone suggest that perhaps the teachers are somewhat culpable in the death of education.

Lets face it folks, here in America, we do not send our best and brightest in to the teaching profession. This is not meant to offend, but most of the public school teachers I have dealt with in my life have been intellectually unimpressive. In fact, I myself have little to no respect for public school teachers. I see them as little more than glorified babysitters. This assessment is bore out by the fact that the Education departments of major universities contain the students with the lowest IQ's, the lowest test scores, and the worst GPAs.

Yet, in America you rarely hear any real criticism of teachers. All you hear is the blatant falsehood that they are "under paid and under appreciated." More money is always the answer and the bureaucracy grows.

Sakozy to French workers: "Surrender to productivity"

The new president of France is seeking to reform the economy of Gaul.

Apparently it is a French tradition to take long lunches, kiss your co-workers good morning, and stand around on breaks smoking a cigarette while wearing a beret and striped shirt. Ok I made that last one up.

Sarkozy wants French workers to be paid for their overtime. Currently all they receive are extra days off.

Recent studies have also confirmed that French workers are the biggest whiners in the world. I always thought that title should go to Congressional Dims.

Of course, there could not be a story on CNN that does not take a swipe at the US.

Some dumbass American babe that works in France said "I did think I would have had a more humane life than if I was working in New York."

Yeah because France is just a great place to live once you get past the race riots, high taxes, and car burnings.

Listen I am sure that France has the potential to reform. I hope that Sarkozy has the power to get things done because Europe needs to regain its economic vitality. Still I fear that an entrenched socialistic mindset will prevent the French from reviving their once flourishing economy.

Miss USA jeered by Mexican audience...

...for not speaking Spanish in Mexico.

Sorry can not comment, my Irony Meter just exploded and I need to put it out.

Isn't God the Alpha?

Well, for the perhaps one hundredth time since the "Sensitive Male" craze of the 1970's, the media is declaring the Alpha male dead.

According to Jennie Yabroff at Newsweek, what women really want is an unambitious man who spends all his time on the couch playing video games and not worried about competing in the real world. Of course this is news to all the ladies I know. That sort of behavior is cute when the guy is 24, but when he turns 30 without a meaningful direction, they tend to leave. It promotes the irresponsible man as the answer to a ladies dreams. So what women now want is a man to sit around, spend her money, and use her for sex. Great, we sure have reached an enlightened age haven't we folks.

Yabroff blames this "new" attraction to the beta male (she never accounts for the long term popularity of Woody Allen) on the fact that we are losing in Iraq. Hey Jennie, maybe we are losing in Iraq because Feminists have so emasculated the American man that we can no longer fight and win. We are fighting the ultimate Alpha males in Iraq. They have their ideology and are not afraid to spread it with fire and sword.

I can not see why anyone would idolize a vacillating, weak, follower. Are we so far from John Wayne, Leonidas, and William T. Sherman that we can not see the virtue of the man who takes charge, defeats enemies, and does what needs to be done?

Let me tell you where this article really gets it wrong: It equates the Alpha Male with with what everyone would define as the "asshole." It describes Alpha males as "abrasive" and not "amenable to consensus." Of course we all know that consensus is the total absence of leadership.

The point I wish to make is that this article sets up a straw man. It paints the Alpha male as an ego-centric, aggressive, pompous, self-righteous know it all. This misconstrues reality. The stereotypical alpha male of yesteryear was a quiet self-assured man who others instinctively followed. He got things done because he was a leader and everyone could sense his inner strength. Being an alpha male is like being a lady, if you are one no one needs to tell you so. A man can be sensitive and still be a leader.

The examples she gives as successful Beta males are noted adulterer Bill Clinton and Al Gore, noted liar and loser. Are these the men women really want? A cheater and a Chicken Little?

This article is just another attempt to promote the morally relativist agenda. It attacks the idea that men should be masculine, which is not synonymous with being jerk, and promotes the notion that men should be weak and petty.

The article is right: we are in the twilight of our nation, but it is not because of the failure of the alpha male, it is because the modern age has killed him.

Long live the Dyspublic

A Kansas City bookstore owner is burning the books he can not give away.

I have to admit, I sympathise with the guy. The written word is pretty much dead these days. Most adults and children do not care for books, and the ones they do enjoy are a far cry from what anyone would call "literature."

I blame teachers and modern society as a whole. It just is not fashionable to read anymore. When I was in school they had idiotic programs that were intended to trick kids in to wanting to read. These programs were stupid and the prizes were lame.

I believe Neil Postman best described the state we are in when he contrasted the novels 1984 and A Brave New World:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. "

Kids do not feel that the written word can have any relevance to them. A teacher friend of mine put it quite succinctly: "The kids are bored with the books." The answer to this seems to be: "Give them trivial non-sense to read that in no way helps them realize the truth about their souls."

I know the kids are bored with the books. That is no reason to write off their value.

We are slouching toward a dystopia full of brain dead children who can sing every word of the latest pop princess's ode to rebellious-conformist onanism, but who can not read a single line of Plato without falling into fits of apathy.

The Republic is dead. Long live the Dyspublic.

Article Roundup

After my long absence, your humble WordBearer has returned to the shores of blogdom to minister to the sick and faint of heart.

Couple of tidbits:

1. See Spiderman 3. It is really good despite all the complaints. As a true blue Spiderman fan, I got what I expected from the movie. All the complaints are coming from Comic Book Guy "Worst Movie Ever" types who basically want a complete retelling of the comic book frame by frame. While I am sympathetic with that point of view, I understand that you must make changes to make the story accessible to the general public.

2. Law school is damn hard.


Now to some of my patented opinions.

-----------------------------------------

Afghans might be starting to get it.

It seems that many Afghans are starting to place the blame for civilian deaths from NATO strikes on the fact that the Taliban are using civilians are shields. All I can say is: About Damn Time.

Of course there still is a disconnect between what the Afghans want and what NATO is willing to do. Local Afghans are attacking Taliban positions in their area and are not afraid to ask them not to lay mines near their villages. Meanwhile NATO forces are engaging in "public relations."

NATO hopes to win over the local farmers that support the Taliban by contrasting the life lived under the Taliban with that lived under the new Afghan government. This will fail.

This strategy will fail because it misses the mark on what the Afghans want. NATO promises these second tier Taliban development. What they should promise them is security. If they were interested in development they would have turned to the West long ago. The Taliban can provided them with what they want: security. NATO can militarily offer them security, but we are not able to because of politics. In the West we must agonize over every civilian casualty and we constantly ask "Is the price too high?" Our enemies never ask this question. We need to show them that lawlessness will be punished.

NATO seems to think that people will forget the roving death squads in their village if they have a flush toilet and running water. That thinking is absurd. Development must follow peace...not the other way around.

The simple fact is this: The Islamofacists love killing infidels and waging jihad more than we love our civilization and heritage. The West must either renew itself spiritually or be prepared for ossification and Islamization.

Here in the West we think that flashy commercials and promises of Coke and smiles will win over the world's poor and downtrodden. This is untrue. We need to offer them them security, ordered liberty, and reject our own "do as you please/get rich get high get off" mentality. Our enemies are the opposite side of the same coin.

We can win this war, but it will not be done with words. The sword must accompany the word.

The return of the WordBearer

Howdy friends, well wishers, and not so well wishers. Your friendly neighborhood WordBearer is back on the block.

I know I have not posted since March, but I have been busy. I had a big appellate brief due and then hurled headlong into finals. Well finals are over this week.

Additionally, I have a new girlfriend. She is really special and perfect for me.

I promise I will get back to some of my usual color commentary after my Property Law final of Saturday.

- WordBearer: Back in Black

With Libby in jail, it is now safe for Sandy to stuff his pants with more secrets

Charles Krauthammer points out that fun little fact.

Libby has to go to jail for the simple reason that he could not remember the exact moment he heard Valarie Plame's name. Meanwhile, Sandy Berger still gets to attend the best parties and be an expert on CNN.

The injustice of the whole Libby trial is apparent to anyone with the slightest bit of sense. Fitzgerald was tasked with finding out who leaked Valarie Plame's name. Libby did not do it.
Richard Armitage did. Rich is fiercely anti-Cheney, but he was never charged. Probably because it was not a crime to begin with.

Libby was the fall guy. But he was the fall guy for Richard Armitage.

Global warming killed my father, then raped my mother

It seems like every day more and more stories surface about global warming. So far it has been claimed that global warming will kill off the polar bears, cause a thousand more Hurricane Katrina's, and give us all hepatitis.

Well now brothel owners in Bulgaria are claiming that is has hurt their business.

According to the spokesman for the pimps, whore mongers, and Democrats, all their "elite" girls are off working in the ski resorts because of global warming. They claim that the lack of snow means tourists have to find other ways to enjoy themselves.

Wow, so the choice is that stark. Apparently, the next best thing to shooting down the slopes dressed like a tool is sexually abusing poor Eastern European women.

The brothel owners claims they are being forced to use "temps" to take up the slack. Wait a minute, there are temp agencies for hookers? Where was I when this happened?

All the trappings of the West...none of its ethics

Here is a great article on the crimes committed against women every day in India.

Female infanticide is common in India. Men want sons, and punish their wives when girls are born.

My heart broke when I read the part about the girls in the orphanage. I probably will never have children. Extreme doses of radiation in my past have put the skids on that. Still, I want to adopt one of these little girls. This story broke through even my tough exterior.

Where are the Liberal on this? Why have they, the supposed defenders of women, been silent? They prattle on everyday about non-existent glass ceilings, "good old boy networks," and the like. Of course, most of these complaints are just ways to cover up their own incompetence. Why has Nancy Pelosi never mentioned this? Where is Harry Reid (probably taking bribes)?

I can tell you why they are silent. As lovers of multiculturalism, they would refute their own ideology and self-hatred if they spoke out against it.

The multiculturalist lie starts with the premise the all cultures are equal, or at least that no real value judgments can be made about any of them. It is a hollow argument full of relativism and error, but they hold it in the face of Reason and evidence. Additionally, they fail to account for their belief that value judgments are bad. Isn't that a value judgment?

The truth is that some cultures have pathologies that should be stamped out. Female infanticide in India is one of them.

Round up of various editorials

Time for another group of editorials. Sometimes others say things so much better than I ever could that it makes sense to defer to them.

1. Little Miss Craptacular (My title)

I saw Little Miss Sunshine. It was by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It was depressing, self-absorbed, and full of narcissistic characters one simply can not embrace.

The movie was not funny, it was just boring. The plot frequently dragged, and the message of the film seemed to be "Hey all Americans are living a futile existence full of drug addicted grandfathers, suicidal gay uncles, and failure fathers." There is a significant anti-male bias in the film.

In the end it seems like the scriptwriters took characters from esoteric European existentialist novels and put in a VW Bus.

2. We have a choice

Of all America's liberals, at least Joe Lieberman gets it.

3. I'm not Homophobic; I'm Chick-O-Centric

This guy is saying what we are all thinking.

4. Continued Dependency: Billions of Dollars a year; Killing the Welfare State with Truth: Priceless

Thomas Sowell is our muse.

The monster celebrates

Zimbabwe's tyrant Robert Mugabe is having his 83rd birthday on Saturday.

He is celebrating in grand style, by banning political protests and docking the wages on civil servants to pay for his punch and pie extravaganza.

While Mugabe parties, the people of Zimbabwe continue to starve. The price of bread is now $15,000 Zimbabwe dollars for four loaves. That is about what a farm worker makes in a month.

Of course I am sure all you liberal commies will blame Western imperialism.

Bet you won't see this on Cops

An Irvin police officer was found not guilty after ejaculating on a stripper he pulled over.

He admitted it, DNA proves he did it, yet the jury would not convict. This is what happens when you let a bunch of half educated proles on the jury.

Manlaw

I love those commercials.

Here are some additions of my own:

1. Topics off limits for conversation during football games: Your "feelings" about anything other than the merits of the 3-4 defense, the appropriate name for a cat, and whether or not the dip will "go to your hips."

2. All competitive drinking must be performed with a regulation 3 foot college beer bong.

3. Badmitton is not a sport.

4. Giving a stripper a $5 when your buddies are dishing out $1 is a serious breach of etiquette. Punishment will be that the next round is on you rich boy.

5. All conversations in restrooms will be limited to one syllable words.

6. Sideburn length is not to exceed 1/4 an inch unless one can show proof of membership in a Civil War reenactment society.

Worst Half-Time Show ever

I really get up for the Super Bowl folks. I love football even though my team, the Houston Texans, sucks so so bad.

It seems that every year the halftime show gets worse and worse. This year we have Prince on stage looking like a meth addicted Aunt Jemima singing songs I have never heard.

Who the hell plans these things? Do they not understand their demographic? Ok, most of the people watching the NFL are guys like me. We do not want to see Prince, Jessica Simpson (unless she is wearing a swimsuit and has here mouth duct taped shut), or any other female oriented singer on stage.

Here is the perfect Half-Time show for the demographic:

Act I: The Parade of Machine Guns - Here a bunch of women dressed in camo bikinis walk through the stadium carrying machine guns loaded with blanks. They fire them off while the PA system plays "Rock You Like a Hurricane." (Substitute in another song if the game is being played in New Orleans)

Act II: Showcase of Strippers - In the second act a giant stage full of polls will be wheeled out with 100 polls. Then 100 of America's best strippers will hit the stage and dance a set to "I love Rock and Roll."

Act III (The Final Act) American Idol Loser Hunting - After the strippers are taken off the field and all the dollar bills are picked up, a giant maze will be place on the field. At one end is a recording contract; on the other the losers 3-5 on the latest American Idol. They are then set loose into the maze which contains 12 of Africa's best big game hunters and Dick Cheney. If they can get through without being killed, they get the contract.

I would watch ever minute of that.

Harry Potter and the Wizard of Ass

Apparently there is more going on at the Harry Potter Conference in Vegas than talk about the Dark Lord and speculation on who will take the next Quidditch Cup.

It seems that there is more to it than that.

The attendees are overwhelmingly women; which is no surprise. Yet the topics are. Marxist readings of Harry Potter. Harry Potter gay porn. Rape story lines.

What is wrong with our society?

Stories like this point out the overarching theme of my blog: America, and the West in general, has slipped into an irrevocable downward spiral of moral decay and worthless hedonism.

To me the Harry Potter books are about heroism, standing for what is right, and the virtue of sacrifice. I have never entertained a single sexual thought while reading a Harry Potter book. In fact, that is why I like them so much. They seem to be free from the taint of the passions and engender positive ideals about Truth and good.

What are these women lacking in this era that would make them want to hear stories about a character in a child's book being raped by another? I thought Women's Lib was supposed to make society better for women. Why would the women raised to be warriors reveal in stories about rape and beastiality?

We all know the true answer folks: The Sexual Revolution did not make us more open and thoughtful about sex, it made us more vicious about it.

The zeitgeist is to get off in what ever way pleases you and to hell with anyone who might disagree.

Our openness and rejection of Truth have produced a generation of female predators who watch "Sex and the City", write gay Harry Potter snuff porn, and fantasize about sex with animals.

What kind of mothers will these women be? What sort of children will they raise? How will we survive with them?