This is a poem being sent from a Marine to his Dad. For those who take the time to read it, you'll see a letter from him to his Dad at the bottom. It makes you truly thankful for not only the Marines, but ALL of our troops.

THE MARINE

We all came together,
Both young and old
To fight for our freedom,
To stand and be bold.

In the midst of all evil,
We stand our ground,
And we protect our country
From all terror around.

Peace and not war,
Is what some people say.
But I'll give my life,
So you can live the American way.

I give you the right
To talk of your peace.
To stand in your groups,
and protest in our streets.

But still I fight on,
I don't bitch, I don't whine.
I'm just one of the people
Who is doing your time.

I'm harder than nails,
Stronger than any machine.
I'm the immortal soldier,
I'm a U.S. MARINE!

So stand in my shoes,
And leave from your home.
Fight for the people who hate you,
With the protests they've shown.

Fight for the stranger,
Fight for the young.
So they all may have,
The greatest freedom you've won.

Fight for the sick,
Fight for the poor
Fight for the cripple,
Who lives next door.

But when your time comes,
Do what I've done.
For if you stand up for freedom,
You'll stand when the fight's done.

By: Corporal Aaron M. Gilbert, US Marine Corps
USS SAIPAN, PERSIAN GULF

March 23, 2003

Hey Dad,

Do me a favor and label this "The Marine" and send it to everybody on your email list. Even leave this letter in it. I want this rolling all over the US; I want every home reading it. Every eye seeing it. And every heart to feel it. So can you please send this for me? I would but my email time isn't that long and I don't have much time anyway. You know what Dad? I wondered what it would be like to truly understand what JFK said in His inaugural speech.

"When the time comes to lay down my life for my country,
I do not cower from this responsibility. I welcome it."

Well, now I know. And I do. Dad, I welcome the opportunity to do what I do. Even though I have left behind a beautiful wife, and I will miss the birth of our first born child, I would do it 70 times over to fight for the place that God has made for my home. I love you all and I miss you very much. I wish I could be there when Sandi has our baby, but tell her that I love her, and Lord willing, I will be coming home soon. Give Mom a great big hug from me and give one to yourself too.
Aaron

The Associated Press reports that Republicans lead by Senator Bill Frist are considering lending support to a new kind of embryonic stem cell research that does not kill the embyro.

The AP goes on to say that a recent poll found nearly 2/3 of Americans support embryonic stem cell research, and that a majority of Americans want taxpayer funding for it. Republicans who are eager to please this demographic, have turned to this new type of research to justify support, while still holding true to their "right to life" stance.

Am I missing something here? The only way NOT to kill an embryo is to leave it inside the womb.

Otherwise, creating embryos in a test tube for the purpose of stem cell research, is akin to creating a "people farm" for scientific consumption. What kind of "right to life" is that?

I don't personally support or oppose embryonic stem cell research. I have always maintained that such research be privately funded. My point is that the same Republicans who have stood firm against this research, are now looking for loop holes to support it, due to so many Americans having voiced their favor for it.

I am beginning to see stories from a web site called LiveScience.com. Buy are these guys out there. They publish anything, I mean anything, which might inflame the public about global warming. Most of it appears to be garbage as their claims are in direct contravention of what the science community agrees upon. This site represents the lunatic fringe. To give you some flavor, the latest headline reads "Global Warming Might Create Lopsided Planet." Here's an excerpt from the article:

"A new study illustrates the difficulty in predicting how the planet might react to overall warming, which most but not all scientists believe is underway, in part due to greenhouse gas emissions by industry and autos."

I suppose that not all (but certainly most!) scientists agree the planet is warming. But if you accept that the planet is warming, the causes are undeniably anthropogenic greenhouse gases? That is what the sentence says. Science is not an egalitarian pursuit - we do not poll scientists to determine which notions are facts and which are not. And while it is fair to say that the largest number of scientists do believe the Earth is in a warming trend, far fewer can say with authority that they believe the cycle is more of a long-term trend. Of this number, even fewer can say with any certainty at all that the cause is specifically "greenhouse gases." And of these, even fewer say that these gases are specifically caused by human industry and the automobile. That having been said, there is no absolute proof that the planet is in a long-term warming pattern caused by human behavior. Until this theory is proven by solid empirical data, we are all just spitting in the wind.

You really have to question just about everything you hear these days.

Pirates have stolen a UN food shipment for Somali tsunami victims. The report I read said the waters near Somalia have been experiencing increasing numbers of piracy events. Piracy? That means the waters around Somalia are completely lawless. When are we going to wake up and smell the grog?

The world is a violent place. Human beings enslave other human beings. Terrorists kill civilians in order to further a socio-political agenda. Politicians lie to their country's detriment in order to gain power. Countries attack other countries in order to take over their land for oil resources, ports, whatever. There are numerous dictators who deprive their people of basic necessities in order to smoke Cuban cigars or eat caviar with their morning toast. Warlords take food shipments sent by charitable organizations in order to use the food to feed their militias so they are healthy and strong enough to go out and kill thousands of civilians to drive down the population of other ethnic groups.

It is an ugly world out there. When are we going to drop the veneer of touchy feely, I'm alright, you're alright kid gloves with which we approach the rest of the world. Every day the real news demonstrates to us that we live in a world which is at least as violent as it was two hundred, perhaps two thousand years ago. We have NOT reached some magical point in the history of the world in which everybody is pretty reasonable and we can resolve everything by talking or forging relationships. Those who question the existence of EVIL in this world are missing the bigger question. It is not so much a question of whether Evil exists, but rather of whether Evil is in control.

We need to approach many of the problems of the world with an iron fist. Short of that we will simply continue to have our citizens dragged dead through the streets by animals who do not know how to spell their names. I think George Bush and many in the government already understand this. Why must we continually try to tie their hands so they cannot act on the principle?

I don't know about you but I grew weary of John Kerry's claim to have a "plan" for this and that during the most recent elections. Kerry said on numerous occasions that he had a plan but when pressed for details, his reaction was to tell people to visit his web site. I went to the site and found absolutely nothing there. I corresponded with those running the site to inquire as to where I could find a plan for this and that but their response was something like "it is on the site." Now I have been using some pretty advanced means of searching for web content for a very long time. I grew up using keyword searches via Lexis Nexis and Westlaw long before searching became a way of life for people using the internet. I am able to find all sorts of content using advanced features of search engines and via other means. I can tell you that without a doubt, there were no plans. John Kerry was using "I have a plan - It's on my web site" as a means to convince those who would not go look for it that he had all sorts of plans. He was lying in order to persuade a few voters that he did, indeed, have serious plans which were better than the other guy's. Yesterday I received an e-mail from the Libertarian party for whom I have a significant amount of respect. They were touting their plan for success in Iraq. I visited the site the e-mail spoke of and I can tell you they do have a plan. But I was disappointed in it.

The Libertarian party plan for success in Iraq is described in the e-mail I received as a "thoroughly researched strategy" which "establishes a timeline for withdrawal, along with future assurances for the people of Iraq that will empower them with the resources necessary for their nation’s future success." The document begins by saying, "Regardless of an individual's stance on the initial invasion of Iraq ..." Yet the bulk of the words contained in the document consist of criticisms of the initial invasion and very little is dedicated to an actual plan for success. The basic gist of this "thoroughly researched plan" is the insurgency is mostly Iraqis, not foreign fighters or baathists; we should train Iraqis to handle the insurgency and begin troop withdrawals at a rate of 11,600 U.S. soldiers per month.

There is nothing in the plan which indicates the "research" comes from anywhere other than newspaper stories. Some of the "facts" contained in it are dubious at best. I won't go into them because my claims are probably as dubious as theirs but the point here is that they do not necessarily have the facts straight to begin with and the "plan" is not really much different than what the administration has been saying. The only thing new here is a specific timeline for withdrawal. I'm afraid that is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Basically the situation in Iraq is probably of our own making. We beat the other guy in the war part of this thing but left all th Saddam-supporting men free in the population. They had weapons squirreled away and now they are using them. In WWII, we killed or incarcerated the enemy because their were millions and millions of soldiers on each side. There was infrastructure for detaining enemy combatants. In Iraq we were not able to do that because we did not want to send half a million or more fighting men and support personnel to do the job. There were political reasons for that approach which we can all debate until an asteroid crashes into the Earth and wipes us out. But we did what we did and now we have the situation we have.

Right now, there is this violence which is probably partly insurgency of disgruntled Iraqis who want the U.S. out, partly foreign fundamentalist Muslim fighters looking to kill the infidel - us, and partly those who have ruled the country under an iron-fist for decades and now risk losing all power. The situation is chaotic. The other guy (or guys) has a very strong will and is in this thing for the duration. How would you feel if some guy moved into your house and began controlling you? You would most likely try to stay out of his way as much as possible, hope to your creator that one day he would move out - the sooner the better, and you would do whatever subtle things you could do to make him feel uncomfortable about living there. That is part of what is going on Iraq. But before we can pickup our toys and go home, we are morally obliged to get the country into some peaceful equilibrium before we leave. We must leave as the Iraq police and military are formed. We must be convinced that they are capable of handling any remaining insurgency before we go.

Not only are we morally obliged to create a stable situation in Iraq, it is absolutely essential to our country's safety that we not pick up and leave before things are settled. We cannot afford to leave fertile ground for a new Taliban ruled Afghanistan. We must make this place a successful democracy with economic prosperity which is not anti-U.S. or pro bin Laden. But that is really what is fueling the insurgency. Muslim countries have lived under totalitarianism for far longer than any soviet-bloc country ever did. Their historical rule is very similar to the Nazi form of government. Even the most peaceful Islamic nation more closely resembles Nazi Germany than it does the current Germany, or U.S., or even current Russia. There are literally millions of people who want democracy to fail. Actually, they don't want it to fail, they absolutely need it to fail. They have created their entire life around the totalitarian regime of Saddam. They cannot succeed in a democracy. They are willing to expend their lives in order to bring back the baathists.

So we are in this situation that resembles Vietnam in as much as we are spending huge amounts to sit a government and train it to police its population and put down an insurgency. It also resembles Vietnam by the elements which are necessary to win it. We cannot succeed in Iraq without the people of the country having the will to succeed. They are the ones who must be the soldiers and police who create and maintain order and stability. They must have the will. Without will there is no way to succeed at anything. But before we can ask them to have the will to succeed, we must have it ourselves.

More energy in this country is spent questioning the sitting administration than is spent on anything else. The true liberals like Move On do it. The Democratic party does it. The liberal media institutions do it. This is the problem specific to the United States in the years since Vietnam. We do not have the collective will to do anything. We really do not have the will to even defend this country if it means incarcerating Taliban fighters and using heavy metal music to extract information. We do not have the will to attack a dictator who paid huge sums to anyone whose son would strap a bomb to himself in order to kill Israelis. We do not even have the will to be patient at airport security checkpoints. We are left with only the will to act in our own financial and political self-interest. For that sin we are most assuredly doomed.

Have you seen the commercials for the new TV show this fall? It features the first woman president played by Geena Davis. Her look is unquestionably Hillary. I can hardly wait to not watch it. I'm sure it will fail but you never really know until the thing hits your box. If you think there is any accidental reference to Hillary's run for president in 2008, think again. It is interesting to see how the political party of intellectual superiority and nuanced understanding of all world issues works its magic. They must really think this is the way to get a Dem elected.

Reuters reports that the Health Minister of Canada is seeking initiatives, including legislative and regulatory changes, to limit the amount of drugs being sold to America consumers. He claims this is needed to protect Canadian citizens from low supplies.

Of course, part of the reason this is being sought is because Canada's economy is tiny, and is not doing very well. Hence, the government cannot buy enough drugs from the United States.

That's right, Canada gets its drugs from American drug manufacturers. They depend on us for their supplies, and yet, are seeking to stop their own pharmacies from selling to Americans. The reason why Canadian pharmacies can sell drugs at such low prices is because for one, they buy them in massive bulk quantities, and two, the Canadian government controls the pricing of all drugs. It's not so much that drug manufactuers are jacking up the price on Americans, it's that Canada distributes them at such low prices.

A very good article on this subject was written by Russell Roberts, entitled, "The High Price of Cheap Drugs", that discusses this quirky flow of pharmaceuticals that originate the United States, leave the country, and end up back in the States. Roberts says:

Knowing that Canadian purchases of drugs will end up in America, the pharmaceutical companies will change their behavior. One obvious change is to limit the volume of drugs they sell to Canadians. But the Canadian government will have to change its behavior as well. If the Canadian government does nothing and keeps price controls at their current levels, Canadian wholesalers and retailers will prefer to sell drugs to Americans at higher prices rather than to Canadians at lower prices. Canadians will have trouble buying drugs in their own country.

Looks like Roberts has just about predicted the future.

Democratic critics of George Bush are calling for more troops in Iraq. Rush Limbaugh said sending more troops will do what the Dem.s want which is to convert Iraq into the quagmire they have been calling it for a year. I wholeheartedly agree that more troops are necessary. Of course, my opinion has a little twist. I think the Bush administration should redouble its efforts to train Iraquis to defend and police their new nation. If more American soldiers are used in this effort, it should be done in some safe haven, not Iraq. I think Bush and Rumsfeld are doing the right things in Iraq but if the tide of public opinion insists on greater numbers of troops, I just don't think those troops should be deployed in-country. Rather we should spend money to set up a training facility outside the country and run these guys through basic or whatever training is necessary at a location such as Gitmo or in some friendly nation where we have a base.

African artists wish the Live 8 concert series would do more to include african acts in the lineup. But that wish assumes that while any money raised and actually dished out is supposed to be for African nations, the artists are doing this purely for charitable reasons. They aren't. They are doing this in order to further their careers. They have found a way to dupe the public out of even more money while worshipping at their feet. There isn't likely a single act in the lineup which is doing this entirely for charitable purposes. They simply want the good press.

Have you ever said the word "abstinence" in a room full of super-intellectual liberals? Even if there is no sexual context to your comments, eyes will roll, funny faces will appear from nowhere, and someone will likely challenge you directly about your obvious preaching of Evangelical Christianity. That's how contentious the word has become in our society. Somehow, the left has grasped onto the notion that Evangelicals want everyone to abstain from sex so they must be completely out of their minds. Somehow the notion that the promotion of sexual abstinence is not the root of all evil.

Today I see an article which discusses the debate on condoms' effectiveness. The piece notes that while condoms do drastically cut down the spread of HIV, they are certainly not 100% effective and their record on some other STDs is not nearly as good as it is with AIDS. So why is it that "abstinence" is a bad word? My kids are not yet of the age of sexual maturity but we plan to tell them both that abstinence is the only perfect preventitive measure and if they insist on experimenting with sex, they need to use a condom. I have faith that my kids will be smart but I still want the parachute. But why can our schools not teach our kids about abstinence? It isn't moralistic. It is just plain common sense.

A new economic study entitled, "Federal Marijuana Policy: A Preliminary Assessment", commissioned by Taxpayers for Common Sense, says that the federal government spent $3.67 billion in 2004 to combat marijuana use, and tens of billions over the last three decades, while use of the drug has changed little.

"Despite sky-high deficits, taxpayers continue to watch their money go up in smoke funding expensive but ineffective government programs intended to reduce marijuana use," said Erich Zimmermann, senior policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The report goes on to describe a couple of media campaigns launched in 1998 and 2002 by The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), aimed at reducing and preventing drug use in children. After the campaigns ran, the ONDCP hired a consulting group to measure their effectiveness:

The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania was contracted to analyze the media campaign as a whole and the marijuana initiative specifically, and found that in both cases there is little evidence that the millions being spent every year are having any discernable impact on use of or attitudes toward marijuana among the nation's youth.3 The final Annenberg study, which was due in January has been delayed, even as the program reauthorization moves through Congress.

The report continues on to cite numerous cases where contractors over-billed the federal government, where the ONDCP spent money on programs that returned no benefit, or wasted efforts going after the wrong types of marijuana. For example, the report describes that the DEA spent $13.1 million to eradicate marijuana plants in the United States. It turned out that 99.42% of the marijuana they thought they eradicated was actually "ditchweed" a type of marijuana that contains no THC, and has no value on the street.

If you like to read about wasted taxpayer money, and foolish federal spending, read this study. It'll either make you laugh, or make you angry.

A press release issued today by The Mighty 1090, says that the Viejas Band of Kummeyaay Indians bought a 50% stake in Broadcast Company of the Americas (BCA).

BCA owns the programming and sales rights for Mexican radio stations XEKTT, XEPRS, and XHBCE. The significant piece of this is station XEPRS, the station commonly known as "The Mighty 1090", broadcasting San Diego's largest and most popular sports-station. The Mighty 1090 has the exclusive broadcasting rights for the San Diego Padres, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and the San Diego State Aztecs. They are currently in negotiations to get the San Diego Chargers.

Because the transmitter is located just on the other side of the Mexican border, they can broadcast an extremely powerful transmission reaching out to Arizona, and as far north as Los Angeles.

The point of me blogging this is that Native American tribes are using their casino revenues to buy control of American media.

The Viejas Band of Kummeyaay Indians is an aggressive business-oriented tribe. They are part of a group called the "Four Fires", a partnership of four different tribes that buy up businesses across the country. They own hotels in Washington D.C. and Sacramento, CA (two of the most important cities for Indians), as well as a bank in Borrego Springs, CA.

Keep in mind these tribes continue to claim themselves as "sovereign nations", that are not subject to state and federal laws.

The loser in the political race for president, John Kerry, speaks.

What do you call a person who constantly criticizes everyone else while never taking the big risk of putting forth his own ideas? I have always referred to such a person as a "loser." John Kerry has put forth the same tired rhetoric on Iraq which he used during the election in the form of an editorial. If you have a strong stomach, click on his name, above, and read it. If you just cannot take any more of this, I'll try to summarize it and translate it in a manner which reduces your stress.

Summary Points:

1) The Bush administration "ignored the advice of others, went in largely alone."

Meaning: I still think the world of the French.


2) Bush should tell the truth regarding the insurgency

Meaning: I continue to cite things I know will inflame the American public regardless of the real truth.


3) Our military leaders used too few soldiers in Iraq.

Meaning: I, John Kerry, Vietnam Veteran, would have done almost everything completely differently if I were president


4) "The president must also announce immediately that the United States will not have a permanent military presence in Iraq. Erasing suspicions that the occupation is indefinite is critical to eroding support for the insurgency."

Meaning: I am a complete jackass who only served in the military at a very low level so I really do not know what I am talking about.

I'm sorry, I cannot keep doing this. I just lost my lunch. What I mean to say is, John Kerry, shut the heck up already.

I'm on the health kick so why not keep going? I admit that I haven't gone for a physical in over a year. Shame on me, or maybe not! A new study questions the usefulness of physicals.

I figure that the typical physical with all the spreadin's costs about $300. Perhaps that figure seems inflated to you but with all the tests currently in use, it may even be low. Most of us don't know because our HMOs or health insurers cover the cost and we never see the actual bill. A doctor visit alone costs no less than $75-100 and with all the extra time allotted to a complete physical examination, the visit plus the typical blood work costs plenty. Assuming $300 is accurate, applying this to a country of 300 million people yields a total societal cost of $90 billion per year. If everyone switched to once every two years, in one decade we could save almost half a trillion dollars. That is a far larger saving than if we wiped out obesity.

(Please note that I have left out the costs of the extremely expensive diagnostic follow-up tests which result from these annual physicals yet frequently do not reveal serious illness.)

It's like some weird Roman Coliseum (Colosseum) event. We sit in the stands doing the wave to cheer on the attack against some vice in which we do not engage. Society, the government, and the medical community identify some aspect of human lives which cause large numbers to supposedly get sicker than they would otherwise have been. We begin hearing about how prevalent the "condition" is. Then we hear about its cost. Then there are a litany of lawsuits blaming someone for a specific instance of the "condition." Finally, government takes aim at the problem and a bunch of laws and regulations are passed preventing (or, more likely) taxing folks for buying Marlboro or McFood. Tobacco took the biggest hit over the last 20 or so years. Now obesity seems to have become the devil du jour. But what's next?

Many felt empowered by the attack against tobacco. Almost every non-smoker smugly told anyone lighting up how bad it was for them, as if they had access to privileged information because they were one of those smarter people. Conversations got downright nasty in business meetings, cocktail parties, whatever as non-smokers spoke of how completely stupid anyone who smokes is. I wonder how this will play out with obesity. I suppose many of the same self-righteous folks will engage in the same judgmental, I'm better than you, stroking of their own egos. Calling someone "fat" will lose the PC scorn it once had and rise up to a term which is imbued with love since all we really want is to help our brethren improve their lives. Those nasty, super-skinny, non-smoking, really irritating people who like to correct everyone else's mistakes will come into their glory again.

I once had a co-worker who, of course, was a super-skinny, non-smoking, self-righteous, certain of her own intellectual superiority, know-it-all who engaged in this sort of hyper-judgmental behavior. She was that person we all know who eats a bunch of leaves for lunch while criticizing everyone else's meal. I'm a smoker and while I make no sort of rationalization for it, I have almost complete scorn for anyone who "informs" me of its dangers. When this person tried to "correct" my behavior, at first I tried to be ignore her, then I tried being nice but when that didn't work, I had only one tool left in my arsenal. I asked her where she had learned that smoking was bad for a person since I had never heard that one before. I asked her to tell me where she was reading all this super-intellectual stuff since I really wanted to better myself and maybe one day become as informed as she was. That didn't go over real well but she did finally shut up.

This very same person realized when she was approaching fifty that she had missed something. She was certainly super-skinny and a non-smoker but she had neglected to take care of her own bones. So she began furiously taking calcium supplements. Then she began preaching to every co-worker how all women should take such supplements. We would actually be sitting their eating lunch, many having yogurt, or other dairy products and she would tell them how that was not enough. Nobody bothered to tell this know-it-all that they took in plenty of calcium every day because they were adults and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

So we have defeated smoking and soon we will conscript the armies of know-it-alls to bring down obesity. But what comes next? Hopefully some well-funded, highly credentialed group of researchers will begin publishing studies which demonstrate that the biggest threat to our overall health are governmental regulation of individuals' lives and people who criticize others to make themselves feel better. That's unlikely but I can come up with a few more obvious things.

First off, anyone who does not sleep 9 hours per night (I don't) should pay a tax since studies have shown this to be necessary for really good health. After that, I think it would be helpful for a tax to be levied on those who commute long distances. There is little question that this is really bad for your health and measuring it first by the distance traveled should catch the really big offenders. I have heard that any driver who gets into an argument before driving is more likely to cause an accident. So I propose an argument tax. Nobody who never crosses a street is ever hit by a car so there ought to be a tax based upon the number of times an individual performs this risky behavior. Teenagers who actively engage in kissing are loads more likely to come down with mono and other diseases. That having been said, it is plainly obvious that sex with multiple partners is extremely risky behavior and costs all of us money. So anyone who is not in a monogamous relationship is engaging in costly behavior. The logical extension of this is that male homosexuals routinely engage in behaviors which result in diseases at a higher rate than heterosexuals so we ought to have a homosexual tax as well. I'm going to stop here because I'm beginning to digress and there are is a limitless supply of normal, everyday behaviors which indicate higher risk and therefore indicate a higher cost to society for medical related charges.

The bottom line here is that American society is in some serious danger. We have reached the point as a country that we almost constantly judge the behavior of others. It matters not how kind we say our intentions are. We are a society of judges, juries and executioners. For that we are all eternally damned.

I am aware that I frequently give too much credit to the United States Supreme Court. I defer to their logic and enjoy reading the actual decisions they publish because I enjoy the logic employed. It is a mental exercise I wish more would try but it also leads me to not judge the overall impact of decisions. Today, I feel differently.

The Court issued a decision in which they held Kentucky cannot display framed copies of the Ten Commandments in county courthouses while at the same time ruling displaying the Ten Commandments on government land is generally OK. Talk about confusion.

I will not read these rulings and examine the logic under which they were framed. To me, there is one simple fact in all law of the United States and the various countries on whose law we framed ours. The Ten Commandments are the first real "codification" of principles of law under which our civilization has lived for millenia.

To take any step which reduces the Commandments impact is just plain wrong. Sure they are a religious symbol. Of course, they come to us from Judaism. But they are our foundation whether we be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. To throw them away is to embrace secularism, which is a religion of its own sort.

We are at the cross roads with atheism, agnosticism and secularism. We must either embrace a world in which we evolved from dust or one in which we were created from dust. If we are evolved from dust and the universe was created from a "really big bang," look out because there is absolutely no reason for me to be kind to you. If you have something I want, I'm gonna take it and while the law may attempt to find me and punish me, I will feel no remorse. The law cannot possibly hope to police 6 billion people like me. Eventually I will die but, there being no god, so what? Just stay out of my way because if you get in it, there is nothing stopping me from trampeling you. This secularist principle should be applied not only on the individual level but also by coutries, societies, cultures. We are now a tribe of people who just simply take care of ourselves.

The AP has a story today discussing the moniker given the generation currently coming of age, the "Entitlement Generation". This got me to thinking about the so-called "greatest generation." Names given to whole generations of people seldom have any real value when it comes to judging individual members. But sometimes, well, let me explain.

When I first set eyes upon William Donald Giovine, I was about 7 or 8 years old and he was climbing the stairs of the high dive at our town's swimming pool. People all around jumped to their feet and encircled the pool. "Mr. Giovine is going off the high dive," all exclaimed. He was a bear of a man, standing about 6 feet or so and weighing perhaps as much as 300 lbs. He did not dive so much as flop directly on his stomach which was pretty much what everyone expected. When he exited the pool, his entire body was bright red, like a just cooked lobster! It was quite the spectacle and one which was repeated nearly every day I was at the pool.

Years later, Mr. Giovine was the team manager of my little league baseball team, the Dodgers. At the end of every defensive third out, he would charge onto the field and, screaming at the top of his lungs, implore us to run in off the field "like Dodgers." He demanded that we act like a team at all times whether we won or lost. He demanded that we comport ourselves well and always give our best because our team members deserved it. I recall after one season he scheduled a team party for the day on which a big hurricane was to pass over our little town in northern New Jersey. My parents told me I would not be going because it had already rained about 6 inches in six hours and we were expecting at least that much over the next six. The streets were flooded and not many parents were willing to take the risk of driving. But Mr. Giovine would hear nothing of it. He drove all over town picking up every single kid on that team. It was the best team party I ever attended.

Mr. Giovine died May 5, 2005 of "natural causes." At the age of fifteen, with World War II raging, he lied about his age and joined the Merchant Marines. He was kicked out when they discovered how young he was. So he lied again about his age and joined the Army Air Corps where he was a gunner, serving over Guam, Saipan and Tinian. During his service he became an amateur boxer and made the Army Olympic Team. He was on his way to a team exhibition when the plane in which he was flying went down in the Pacific. He was injured and burned in the crash but allowed more seriously hurt men to use the life rafts while he stayed afloat by inflating his pants and using them as a life preserver for himself and another man. He was at sea for three days in this manner when the group was finally spotted. But when a boat was sent to pick them up, Mr. Giovine and several others had drifted out of site. He had had the foresight to save one last flare which was fired and fortunately spotted by the rescue boat.

After the war, Mr. Giovine turned his boxing career professional while he also attended law school. Managed by Angelo Dundee, he earned a title shot at Rocky Graziano. He was ahead on points when Graziano managed to catch him with a hard right, sending him to the canvas. The referee stopped the fight but Mr. Giovine was so enraged by the early knock-out call that he got up and threw the ref out of the ring. This ended his career as his license was ultimately revoked.

Mr. Giovine married Maria C. DeRose who was unquestionably the love of his life. The couple tried many times to have children without success. The story I heard said they had as many as a dozen miscarriages before the successful birth of their first child. Eventually they had four children who became their lives' work. The Giovine family completely eschewed material things, focusing instead on building character. They loved their children like no other human being is capable of loving another. Not only that, they truly loved all children and believed in their total goodness. Mr. Giovine often times would endlessly praise every child within a stones throw. I remember many times when there was an adult around who didn't know me. Mr. Giovine heaped so much praise on me that I was almost totally embarrassed. But, you know, Mr. Giovine never heaped false praise on anyone. He actually remembered everything praiseworthy each kid had ever done. He did this for perhaps hundreds of kids, remembering each event as if it happened yesterday.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, generally up to no good and causing trouble, it was known in my circle that if you ever got in trouble with the law, all you had to do was call Mr. Giovine and he would become your own private public defender before the courts. Of course, he would never charge you a penny. Of course, he would always win your case or, at least, make the penalties so slight as to be painless. I never availed myself of this free service as I would have been far too embarrassed to tell Mr. Giovine what I had done wrong.

Mr. Giovine was truly a member of the greatest generation. He was a great man, far greater in fact than I ever supposed while I was in contact with him. Now that he is gone, I know I can never live up to his legacy, but it is certainly worth trying.

I just read some news that NASA had sent a rocket into space on a collision course with a comet named "Tempel 1". The $333 million project tries to let astronomers see what happens when they punch a hole into a comet. It effectively pits NASA at playing a very expensive game of "Asteroids", in order to satisfy Man's long-time fixation with "what happens if..."

The article goes on to say that we should not be worried over any large chunks of ice straying off course and hitting the Earth. No no. The article says that NASA "guarantees" this won't happen.

Come on, "guarantees"???

How do we Earthlings expect to hold NASA accountable for this guarantee, should a chunk of comet slam into our planet and kill off every warm-blooded creature?

They say that "you live by the sword, and die by the sword". I think it would be poetic justice that Mankind meets its fate in a zealous endeavor to satisfy curiosity. Our intelligent brain is the weapon we use to defend our position on the food chain. This weapon could very well end up causing our demise.

Dave and I have said this before, and you've heard it elsewhere too. Socialism takes responsibility away from people, and places it in the hands of government. Hence, the basic premise of socialism, is that people are never to blame. It's always the fault of some extenuating circumstance, ergo, get rid of the circumstance.

This is the reason for such stupid laws.

The case involves another blogger. Gina felt compelled to write about all the new legislation aimed at banning pit bull dogs. She wrote that pit bulls are not the problem, it's the people who treat these dogs improperly:

What I guess I meant to say was that I would prefer to see the banning or severe regulation of cruel PEOPLE over the current witch hunt for dog breeds. I believe breed bans are what in dog-trainer terms is something called "redirected aggression" -- turning on what's nearby and obvious while missing what's really the problem.

I agree with her completely. Being a dog owner, I know that pit bulls can be wonderful dogs, that wouldn't hurt anybody. But many people who buy pit bulls do so because they think these dogs enhance their own public image. They reward their dogs for aggressive behavior, instead of rewarding them for being polite and loving creatures. Other owners mistreat their dogs, treating them like "dogs", instead of members of their family. Dogs give back what they get, it's not rocket-science.

Nonetheless, several cities, counties, and states are considering legislation to ban the sale and ownership of pit bulls. Rather than faulting the owner for having a created a dangerous dog, they fault the dogs. Hence, the people are never to blame, but the objects are.

It's like when they blamed alcohol for turning people into lazy drunkards. It turned out that alcohol wasn't the problem all along, it was the people who made alcohol a problem.

It's time we start faulting bad people. We don't need more laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have.

In the interest of broadening your cultural diversity, I thought I would promote another blog. The blog which caught my interest is known as PlunkBiggio.blogspot.com. It chronicles the Major League Baseball career of my former classmate at Seton Hall University, Craig Biggio, who stands at the precipice of breaking the modern day hit-by-pitch record. He has been hit 266 times during a career of 18 years made even more remarkable by the fact that it was with a single team. Don Baylor stands in Craig's way having been hit 267 times. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, a player by the name of Hughie Jennings was hit 287 times but I can tell you for sure that the ball was softer then.

Aside from being plunked by more pitches than anyone else in modern history, Biggio also is reasonably close to the 3,000 hit mark. He also owns a lifetime batting average of around .285. If you get a chance, check out http://plunkbiggio.blogspot.com. Here's to hoping Craig catches at least two more pitches and breaks the modern day record. It would take him, on average, another whole season to break the all-time mark. But as far as I know, he plans to play as long as it takes to reach 3,000 hits. He sees trying to go for 3,000 as an obligation to the game.

Let's hope he plays as long as it takes to achieve both marks.

I guess that's one way to look at it. A bunch of advertisers pulled their ads from Yahoo's chat rooms, after a television news team reported that pedophiles were luring young kids there.

"We were completely unaware that our ads were associated with these chat rooms in any way," said Dave DeCecco, a spokesman for Pepsi-Cola. "As soon as we were aware we worked with Yahoo! to immediately remove them."

Yeah, right. I think this is one of those cases where both Yahoo and Pepsi-Cola knew full well that a lot of sexual discussions take place in chat rooms, but allowed business to continue so long as no one was saying anything. It's also no secret that a lot of pedophiles frequent these chat rooms. And it's also no secret that law enforcement set up sting operations in these chat rooms.

Look at it this way, most "normal" adults don't frequent chat rooms. Chat rooms are used by kids and teens and weirdos. Thus, the only people who would see the advertisements in these chat rooms, are the people who tolerate such illegal and immoral activity.

On the other hand, the rest of the public never bothers to visit these chat rooms. That's why advertisers like Pepsi didn't have to worry about its image. It wasn't until the nature of these chat rooms were publicized on television, that advertisers began to worry.

I'm not sure, however, that shutting down the chat rooms was necessary by Yahoo. Perhaps they did so to demonstrate their concern for child molestation. But I think having these chat rooms operational allows law enforcement to bust more pedophiles. I mean, how easy it for a cop to just sit in his office, monitoring chat rooms? You don't have to drive a car, you don't have to run, you can even keep a couple boxes of doughnuts on your desk. Seems like that's the way cops would prefer to operate.

Tom Cruise called Matt Lauer glib during an interview on NBC's "Today" show. Lauer attacked comments made by Cruise about Brooke Shields using medications to overcome post-pardom depression. But that's last week's news. My wife was PO'd because she tuned in to the show to hear about Cruise's new movie "War of the Worlds." She didn't tune in to hear Matt speak his personal philosophy.

Here's some news for Matt, we do not think you are a bright young man. We do not think you have much at all valid to say. Stick to the script and keep your personal horse manure in your own barn.

I didn't watch the show but I applaud Cruise for fighting back against this condescending egotistical moron. Can you imagine applauding Tom Cruise for fighting back against a cocky egomaniac?

A new research study published in the July issue of Review of Policy Research suggests that the decline in highway fatalities has little to do with speed limits, and more to do with other factors. (Note this study is not yet available online, I'm working off of a press release).

The study, conducted by Robert O. Yowell, an assistant professor of Political Science at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, states that factors such as the technical progress in car manufacturing, increased use of seat belts, an increase in the minimum legal drinking age, and the general maintenance of roads were more responsible for reducing the number of fatalities on roadways.

The study was performed to see what effects took place after the national speed limit of 55mph was rescinded in 1995. The national speed limit was originally put into effect in 1974, in response to gasoline shortages. Once the shortage issue was resolved, the focus shifted to highway safety as a reason to continue the national speed limit.

What Yowell discovered goes along with what I've always suspected. Mainly, people don't drive at speeds they are not comfortable with. Yes, there are some idiots, as there are idiots everywhere. But 99% of us do our best to drive safely.

I advocate removing ALL speed limits, everywhere. But I'll settle with at least removing them on a state-level.

We briefly discussed the eminent domain case which the United States Supreme Court decided yesterday. The actual decision is located here.

I urge you to read it in its entirety. Much of what you are reading, watching and hearing in the media is rather incomplete. You must go to the source in order to fully understand the nature of the decision.

In general, I don't much care for "eminent domain" as I feel it provides the apparatus for depriving people of their personal property. "Personal property" more aptly describes our economic system than "capitalism" does. But I do understand the purpose for which eminent domain exists. If an area absolutely needs to build a highway and there is no other place for it to go, if all the needed land is available excluding a couple of homes which lie exactly where the road must go, eminent domain allows the state government to "condemn" the property it needs. To me this would used in extreme cases but obviously that is not always so. In the case before the supreme court, many people are claiming that the government is simply depriving a few, not very powerful, private citizens of their property and handing it over to powerful private economic interests. I am against that under just about any circumstances. The Supreme Court has apparently allowed the city of New London to do just that in this case but it did not establish any sort of legal principle which makes all of our property more vulnerable than it was before.

What the Supreme Court did in this case was to state that they have established general principles in this area before. Their legal precedent, which should not be given any sort of absolute authority, is still controlling to some degree. And the Court typically refuses to cross into areas in which they establish state and local law. In this case they simply found along narrow lines that the city had met the necessary criteria for establishing eminent domain. If folks from Connecticut are outraged by the outcome, they should change their state law to make a more specific one which protects their rights. The rest of the country should not bother to get upset by this. Instead they should use it as a wakeup call which causes them to review their own state's laws and change them if necessary.

As I said, I am against depriving one entity (human or otherwise) of personal property in order to turn it over to another for any sort of economic benefit. But, that having been said, many states have such laws and as long as they obey their own laws, they can do this. It is the state laws which have to change. The Supreme Court did not over step its authority. It simply stated that, in this case, the city of New London had obeyed its state's laws.

Just about every library has many books. Just about every bookstore has many books. You can't read or buy them all. But the ones you choose to borrow or buy has a great deal to say about your thinking.

The LA Times has an editorial running today which wonders, May we find terrorists by what they read? This opinion piece briefly examines the case of a library book about Osama bin Laden containing some scribbling in the margin which read "Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God." The FBI would like to see who took out this book. The library refused and the FBI backed down.

I suppose I am more civil libertarian than not. I do see the reason why this particular circumstance would fall out of my idea of what ought to be protected privacy and what ought not be protected. I suppose we really do not have a true "right" to privacy in this country but I still think we should protect our privacy, even from the authorities, whenever possible.

If a pipe bomb goes off anywhere and a likely suspect is identified, the police will usually obtain search warrants which will allow them to "invade" the suspect's privacy including viewing store records of what this individual might have bought recently. If they find he purchased pipes, other elements used in bomb-making and a book about making pipe bombs, the guy is going to have to answer for that. The proof of what he purchased will be used in a court of law to try him provided that police had probable cause for their warrants. But police are not allowed to willy nilly go out and find any old individual who may have purchased certain kinds of pipes or books on bomb making in order to prevent future potential crimes. That seems simple enough. You can't use private information like books unless you have probable cause for a crime which has already been committed. I'm kewl with that. Privacy above all else!

The war on terror, however, raises such considerations that my personal beliefs are shaken to the core. I don't want another 9-11. I guess I can say that I place the desire to avoid another big attack above all other considerations.

The feeling I got from walking down an empty Fifth Avenue in the middle of the day was far too reminiscent of the movie "Devil's Advocate." The feeling I got riding the train home during day light (unusual for me) and then craning my neck to watch the smoke plume is something still vivid in my mind. The stench of, I imagined, burned human flesh and office materials which hung in the air around my home for days even after the fires were put out is permanently etched upon my mind. The overwhelming despair I felt for the days afterwards when I couldn't bring myself to leave the house to begin my commute is something I never want to relive. But the emotions which struck me when I saw spouses of victims at the supermarket, little league field, and elsewhere as recently as yesterday have changed my view on privacy.

Until I can again commute to my job or do anything at all without even considering the possibility of a devastating attack, I suppose privacy is going to have to take a back seat. It is just too bad that our representatives in D. C. do not see things this way. We can and should judge some men by the covers of their books.

Medical doctors and psychologists at Gitmo are helping to design programs to increase fear and distress among detainees in order to obtain intelligence information. The New York Times and others are questioning the ethics behind doctors' participation.

The Pentagon defends its practices by noting that the doctors are acting as behavioral scientists not in capacities as medical doctors. There are many arguments and discussions by both sides about this issue. I imagine we'll be hearing a lot more in the coming weeks and months.

What strikes me is one side of the political spectrum keeps hammering and hammering away at anything and everything the U. S. military has done, is doing or may do in order to create a situation in which those who are protecting us will eventually be too afraid to do anything. If this continues, all of these individuals who have placed their hate of George Bush and everything even mildly conservative in the front of their thinking will be the ones to take the blame when the next attack comes. They are taking a huge gamble in this civil war of words. For their sake, there had better not be another "big one." If there is, there will be such a backlash against them that it is not even conceivable.

I defend their right to say whatever they want. That is the American way. If they want to put all their chips on one number, so be it. They are gambling with all their money on the table. Unfortunately, they are also gambling with mine.

I know this comes as no surprise to you but Ted Kennedy is a complete jackass. I happened to catch a brief exchange between him and Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. He basically told Rumsfeld that he has done a terrible job and should resign. What a crock.

I'm glad that Rumsfeld is a much cooler cucumber than I. Had I been in that position, I would have gotten up and walked out. Public opinion seems to favor Rumsfeld over Kennedy. It is lucky for Kennedy that all he has to do is carry Massachusetts in order to keep his job. If he were evaluated based on the reasonableness of the words he speaks, he would have been out of a job long ago. But his constituency sees things differently.

I don't know if he is hitting the sauce but he is completely out of line with his comments and questions. How long must we endure this moron?

The Seattle School District has asked a federal appeals court to permit use of race as a key admissions criteria.

What is it that these guys don't get?

The term for what they are proposing is generally called racism. When you refer to the entire membership of any race and characterize them this way or that, you are prejudging all of those people. It is racism to use race as the sole basis on for any judgments about an individual.

It is readily apparent to me that the school system needs to make sure that at least one of the teachers or administrators own a dictionary. I realize that this is an unfunded mandate like requiring that teachers obtain college degrees. So in the interest of fairness, I will provide the relevant dictionary definitions of the important terms:


Racism - Any program or practice of racial discrimination, segregation, etc. based on racialism

Racialism - A doctrine or teaching, without scientific support, that claims to find racial differences in character, intelligence, etc., that asserts the superiority of one race over another or others

Discrimination - A showing of partiality or prejudice in treatment

What the Seattle School system is proposing is a special exemption for it to engage in racism. I know Democrats like to use racism as they did in the deep south many years ago. But I thought we had stamped out institutional racism. Let's redouble our efforts to eradicate racism in our time.

Well, they have finally gone mad. Democrat Senators, Rep.s, and even Howard Dean are calling for either an apology or resignation from Carl Rove for comments he has made about liberals' response to September 11.

Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Jerrold Nadler, Joe Lieberman, Chris Dodd, Jon Corzine, Frank R. Lautenberg and many others are screaming that Rove has politicized the war on terror.

But you know (and here is the punchline of the whole thing), Rove did not criticize Democrats. He criticized liberals. I thought the vast majority of those who are calling for his head have recently denied being "liberal." Those who even allow themselves to be given such a term generally call themselves "progressives" not "liberals." So what gives? Can we now refer to all these politicians as liberals? I mean, they are the ones ratifying the name.

A 9-11 widow of a Port Authority cop threw out the first pitch at a low class A minor league game near me. The local paper covered it on the front page of its local news section. One of the themes of the news article was that people have already forgotten September 11, especially those who do not live within 50 miles of the epicenter of the attacks in New York City. I question whether many people in this country, be they from the NY tri-state region or not, have forgotten based on a couple of things.

First off, it seems almost easy for some to complain about the treatment of detainees held at Gitmo. It is likewise easy for some to search until they find some sort of "contributory negligence," if you will, on the part of America's political, social or economic policies which caused the terrorists to act against us. But these people are not forgetting the attacks. They are motivated by politics. They need to bash Bush at every turn so they can regain power. They sometimes slip up by saying hateful things not based in reality. But they do not forget the attacks. If they did forget, they would quickly lose their current positions and their ability to regain political power. They know this and, therefore, their lust for power will never allow them to forget how powerful an impact the attacks had.

Secondly, there is some notion that only those with relatives killed in the attacks are still grieving. The folks at the World Trade Center were, by and large, not captains of industry and champions of capitalism. Most were regular people who sat on PTAs or coached little league baseball and soccer. Most were not 7 or 8-figure income types. They were simply you and I at our places of work. They went out into the forest to hunt and gather - to provide for their families. The WTC might sound as if it is the central institution for capitalism but it really was just a complex of offices where a bunch of ordinary people worked. The attacks of 9-11 were attacks against the American people at large. It doesn't matter that each and every one of us is not visiting a relative's grave every year on that day. We were each directly attacked and can never forget this.

Next, the notion that only those who live within 50 miles of Manhattan are constantly reminded belies the fact that any major U. S. city could have been the target and can even be the next place an attack occurs. There are plenty of symbols in Seattle, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and just about every major city which would make excellent choices for the next one.

Also, there are millions of soldiers and their family members involved in the very war which resulted from 9-11. These folks have constant reminders of why they are doing what they are doing. And most of the military folks out there keep this constantly in their minds. That is how they keep their sanity in very harsh conditions.

Last, whenever a transformer blows or there are unexpected fireworks off somewhere in the distance or when a commercial jet seems to fly too low, I see people react in ways they never would have before September 11, 2001. They take notice and their first thoughts are, "here we go again." None of us has forgotten.

To those who lost a loved one in the attacks, please know that we do feel for you. We feel your pain. I know I will never be the same. But I also cannot go out and remember those who perished every day. I'm not emotionally made up to outwardly express my sorrow. Instead, I must go about my daily business as if nothing ever happened. That's how I cope. Nothing disrespectful is intended. And when I see you at a ball game or in other places, please understand that I am acutely aware of your pain. I just cannot deal with it. You do have my sympathies for ever more.

A high school near where I live had a little fracas among its seniors who are scheduled to graduate soon. The incident involved a food fight which the principal of the school called "the worst I have seen in 27 years in schools." He decided to exclude the students involved in the fight from commencement ceremonies. The involved students will receive their diplomas but they cannot attend the ceremony. Some parents and even students not involved in the fracas have, of course, objected very strongly to the punishment. They claim that although the fight was "stupid," no one was injured and there was no real damage done. Some parents noted that many families may have invited out of state relatives to view the ceremony and these kids' relatives will not be able to see them "walk." The Board of Education held a meeting at which the principal's decision was unanimously agreed to.

It is far too easy to look at this as a "kids will be kids" thing. When I was in school ... is the usual excuse to defend this sort of behavior. That was my first reaction but, you know, after a few other minutes some other thoughts popped into my head. When I was a high school senior, the legal drinking age was 18. I was able to walk into any liquor store or bar in my area and buy whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it from the age of about 15. When I was in high school, drinking and driving were fairly much accepted as normal. These are the reasons why, at the age of seventeen, five or so friends and I were able to sit at a local bar all night on Easter Eve, 1978 and get so bombed that one of us did not come home alive that night. When I was a kid, the cops would pull over smoke filled cars and simply took away the pot the driver and passengers of the car had on them. When I was a kid ....

Food fights were something I had never been clever enough to know about until I saw "Animal House" shortly after high school graduation. Food fights, as Americans know them, are generally harmless things that break out randomly when kids and young adults just want to let everything hang out. They typically do not wind up with injuries or damage, such being the texture and density of food. They are a form of (somewhat controlled) misbehavior but they are misbehavior nonetheless.

Our society cuts a lot of slack to graduating high school seniors. We reason that we did it, so why shouldn't they. As a society we almost never take this approach to important matters. It may take time to change things around but we do make progress and try to eradicate harmful behaviors such as underage drinking and driving while intoxicated. We have fought a psychological war on drugs for the decades since I was in school. We have done these things because it was obvious to us that these behaviors, once thought to be harmless or even victimless, are actually far more damaging than anyone supposed. In my opinion, the same is true for our special leniency towards high school seniors. Cutting them slack at a point in time at which they have in no way "made it" or even taken a significant step towards establishing a real, adult life, harms the students themselves as much as it makes for obnoxious behavior.

We have this tendency to indoctrinate our high school seniors in this notion that they are now adults by allowing them to do things like have food fights late in the school year, get completely bombed for several days at "graduation parties" where adults frequently supply the alcohol, and driving automobiles in dangerous ways for the weeks following school. We allow our kids to run off to places, like Aruba, in order to sow their youthful oats. But what do we accomplish by allowing our newly minted "young adults" to perform behaviors ordinarily unacceptable from anyone? We create even greater unrealistic expectations and another generation which permits public behavior to erode.

The principal was right to exclude these kids from the commencement ceremonies. Their lives after school will not be harmed by this justifiable punishment. It is just too bad that so many relatives will not have to sit in the sun with 90 degree heat to watch Johnny and Janey throw their caps into the air. Maybe these kids will gain a greater seriousness about their lives and about their public behavior as their relatives continue to remind them throughout their whole lives of how foolish their behavior was for these few moments. That is the reality of life. Do one really stupid thing and everyone will remind you for eternity. And that's the way it should be.

A press release issued today from About World Ahead Publishing, a book publisher focusing on libertarian and conservative issues, claims that Google is being unfair when it rejected its advertisement of one of its anti-Hillary books. The company cited the fact that Google has several ads that are anti-George Bush.

Search engine giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) continues to deny charges of political bias for removing ads for an anti-Clinton book, saying that CEO Eric Schmidt's support of Senator Hillary Clinton was not a factor...

Last week World Ahead Publishing revealed that Google censored banner ads for its new book "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine" ... by attorney and rape survivor Candice E. Jackson. The campaign had been approved by Google's editors and was running on its ad network when the company suddenly reversed course and pulled it, citing muddled guidelines regarding advertising against individuals.

World Ahead disputed Google's flip-flop on the ads when online searches revealed multiple Google-sponsored ads attacking George W. Bush, including "Hate Bush? So Do We," "Bush Belongs Behind Bars," and "George W. Bush Fart Doll" -- ads which remain on Google's network a week after World Ahead called them to public attention.

I guess I didn't know that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, was a Hillary Clinton supporter. The press release goes on to say that he is a "a financial backer of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry." I have to admit that when I first saw video footage of Schmidt, he seems like the liberal type.

The company also notes that Google rejected ads from RightMarch.com, a conservative activist group.

To see the ads that Google shut down, and the anti-Bush ads that they are still running, visit the company's "Google page".

The same company issued a similar press release last week.

If you are 30 years old right now, you could end up retiring with $2.9 million dollars in the bank, if only the Social Security system was modified to allow deferrals into private investment accounts.

Let me rephrase that for you.

Instead of having Social Security take a chunk of your money out of each paycheck, and kissing that chunk goodbye, what if you were allowed to put that amount in to an interest-bearing account that you get to withdraw on the day you retire?

A new website called Save Social Security Now explains what would happen. You'd be rich!

Imagine if all Americans retired as millionaires? We wouldn't need Medicare or Social Security, and our taxes would be much lower!

The following is a full text version of Senator Dick Durbin's apology regarding his comments about the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We present this here because we had some difficulty locating it online:

"More than most people, a Senator lives by his words. Words are the coin of the realm in our profession. Occasionally words will fail us and occasionally we will fail words.

On June 14, I took the floor of the Senate to speak about genuine heartfelt concerns about the treatment of prisoners and detainees at Guantanamo and other places. I raised legitimate concerns that others have raised, including Secretary of State, Colin Powell, about the policies of this administration and whether they truly do serve our needs to make America safer and more secure, whether, in fact, some of the policies might, in fact, endanger our troops, or in some ways disparage the image of America around the world.

During the course of that presentation, I read an e-mail from the federal bureau of investigation that was discovered to exist last August, and has now been produced as part of the Freedom of Information Act. After reading the horrible details in that memo, which characterized the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, I then, on my own, my own words, made some characterizations about that memo. I made reference to the Nazis, to the Soviets and other repressive regimes.

Mr. President, I have come to understand that was a very poor choice of words. I tried to make this very clear last Friday that I understood to those analogies to the nazis, soviets and others were poorly chosen. I issued a release which I thought made my intentions and my inner-most feeling as clear as I possibly could.

Let me read to you what I said. 'I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said causes anybody to misunderstand my true feelings. Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.'

Mr. President, it is very clear that even though I thought I had said something that clarified the situation, to many people it was still unclear. I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.

I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. I went to Iraq just a few months ago with Senator Harry Reid and a bipartisan Senate delegation. When you look in the eyes of the soldiers you see your son and daughter. They are the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them.

Some may believe that my remarks crossed line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies.

There's usually a quote from Abraham Lincoln that you can turn to in moments like this. Maybe this is the right one. Lincoln said, 'If the end brings me out right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10,000 angels swearing I was right wouldn't make any difference.'

In the end, I don't want anything that I may have said detract from the love for my country, my respect for those who bravely risk their lives each day for our security, and this Senate which I am so honored to serve as a member. I offer my apology for those offended by my words. I promise to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation."

I accept his apology in the same manner that I accept an apology from my child. If my child continues to act in a manner inconsistent with the apology, my anger shall be twice as great. I sincerely hope that the Democrats in the Senate and elsewhere can finally get a grasp on the anger they feel towards President George Bush and move on to better things. If the Democrats continue with this foot-in-mouth disease they have been suffering from since November, they will put the country in further danger and we will be forced to remove them. This is not only directed at Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, John Kerry and John Kennedy. This is aimed right at anyone in the national political spotlight who continues to act in this irresponsible fashion.

Just to keep the record straight, the Senate voted 66 - 29 to adopt an amendment to an energy bill which would rely on voluntary industry measures to slow the growth of heat-trapping emissions through an expansion of "private-public partnerships" to develop ways to produce energy with lower carbon emissions. Notice that this vote was not 55 - 43. I do not have the exact tally but at least 11 of 44 Democrats voted to adopt this. So maybe now we can stop refering to the Bush administration's policy against the Kyoto Protocol?

The AP reports that a girl who was adbucted and beaten in order to force her into marriage against her wishes was saved and protected by lions. Assuming this story is true, you have to say that these abductors chose their victim unwisely.

It looks like some lawmakers want to force public schools to teach the Theory of Creationism, calling it "Intelligent Design", as a counter-balance to the Theory of Evolution.

I'm not going to rehash all the old arguments between the two. Though to me, both theories are theories until one has been proven as fact. If Evolution still cannot provide factual evidence of our origins, then it cannot be a science.

However, I remember in high school taking a physics class. Our teacher looked, acted, and dressed as a prototypical physics professor, thin, geeky, bald, buck teeth, glasses, pocket-protector, etc.

But he said something interesting to the whole class one day. He said that after having studied science, which includes physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc., he came to the realization that our planet and our universe was so complex, that it could not possibly have evolved out of randomness.

Perhaps the more you study about science, the more you begin to question the Theory of Evolution.

But if you think about it, theology could very well be a science. If it turned out that God was real, and that Heaven and Hell are places that really do exist, then they become fact. And that's what science is, fact. So, if Heaven does exist, then it becomes a science.

So, when we talk about Evolution versus Creationism, one of them is fact, and the other is theory. We really don't know which one is which. That's why we must either teach them all, or teach them none. It's really up to the parents to decide.