Election day approacheth and we are being inundated with political ads for Corzine and Forrester. Forrester's ads largely explain his platform. Corzine's are exclusively negative. Right now the race is pretty close. Right now is the time to tell candidates to stay positive and stay away from the negative. Right now, or in a few weeks, is the time to reward the guy who stays positive, stays on message, and punish the guy who goes negative.

The New York Times is a business. It is publicly traded. Publicly traded companies are under enormous pressure to provide a return to their owners, the stockholders. If you had invested in the Times in 1986, right now you would have doubled your money. That is a dreadful performance. By comparison, if you had purchased a NASDAQ index fund, with low expenses and relatively low risk - far lower than owning a single stock - your money would have made increased four hundred percent. Had you purchased an index fund which followed the Dow, you would have also earned four hundred percent. If you were unlucky enough to purchase stock in the Times back when the market was supposed to have hit rock bottom in late 2001, 2002, you would have lost more than a third of your investment as of the close of business today.

I'm left wondering how the stockholders of this company must feel right now. I guess they feel pretty bad. The next shareholder meeting most likely will not be very pretty. I expect some heads to roll. No matter how a business views itself - and in the Times case, they view themselves as some sort of American institution - it simply must provide a return to investors. If it does not, it is sure to be "re-invented" by the people whose money it is using.

Someone asked me to publish a brief summary of the seminal evening of the nation's self-appointed moral compass, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, so here goes:

On Friday night July 18, 1969 around midnight a married man, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was driving his oldsmobile on the island of Chappaquiddick with a single woman named Mary Jo Kopechne aboard when he, allegedly drunk, drove the car off a bridge and into a pond. He was leaving a party attended only by five married men and six unmarried women. Kennedy escaped the car and swam to shore. Mary Jo Kopechne was not quite so lucky. She died in the car, in the water.

Kennedy failed to even contact the police for a full nine hours, after he was told the car and body had been found.

The Kennedy family chartered a plane to immediately fly the victim's body to her hometown, Wilkes-Barre. No autopsy was conducted.

The person who asked me to publish this noted that there are at least two generations of Americans who are not all that familiar with this event. Even if they have heard something about it, they do not fully appreciate how blatantly incriminating this story is. It has faded into nothingness.

Historians will most likely recount these events for the benefit of the nation's youth but that will be 100 years from now. They'll likely have much to say about Kennedy's angry rants about how Bush and Republicans have lied, lied, lied. They'll likely point to guys like Kennedy in a discussion about how liberal ideology was largely discredited in this epoch. It will be interesting reading that none of us will have the opportunity to enjoy.

Bill Bennett made the following comment on a talk radio show:

"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

He said this to a caller who suggested that whether the nation aborts or doesn't abort the more than 1 million babies who are aborted each year has an impact on social security taxes collected or benefits paid. He made his comments in the context of saying that abortion is, in and of itself, morally wrong. He also made these comments in the context of saying that what the caller was saying was ridiculous. He said these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are morally reprehensible.

His comments were taken out of context. End of story. But here are some comments not taken out of context. See if you can identify the author of them:

• Black people, Jews, Southern European immigrants (especially Italians) are inferior human beings.
  
• Mandatory sterilization of the poor should be a prerequisite to receiving any public aid.
  
• "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population" because the more militant among them will rebel.
  
• "More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control."
  
• Immigrants, poor people and blacks are "human weeds, reckless breeders, spawning... human beings who never should have been born."
  
• "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
  
• "Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race." - Of course the person who said this meant cleaner white race.
  
• "As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation."
  
• The government of the United States should "take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection, and segregate them on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct." In essence, this is a plan to implement concentration camps for the "unfit" or those of poorer genetics.
  

I say these comments were not taken out of context because they were included in publications, books and speeches in which the person was advocating for strengthening of the master race of native-born, white Americans.

Have you guessed who spoke these words? They were spoken by alcoholic, demerol addicted, promiscuous (perhaps sex addicted) eugenicist Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Don't believe me? Check this out for yourself. She was a prolific writer and you can easily find her views anywhere on the web or off.

Her views were ultimately toned down in light of Hitler's atrocities. Hitler ended for all practical purposes the eugenics movement in this country but that was transformed into the abortion movement because necessarily the target of groups such as Planned Parenthood is those less affluent, those who live in ghettos, those who have more babies than well-to-do white anglo-saxon protestants.

So, who's zoomin who?

Here's a great article published on Accuracy In Media which discusses the the pillory, if not outright lynching, of Fema Director Brown. The story points out the obvious points which the media seems to have missed about what the nature of FEMA is and what this tiny agency actually does. We've gone over this in this blog but reading it from someone else I think serves to support many of the notions we put forth here. More importantly, this piece on AIM discusses the process by which many stories are "developed" in the media. This is an extremely important incestuous dynamic which is going to play out in the case of Tom DeLay and Bill Frist in the coming months. One questionable news source says something, another repeats it while sourcing the comment, another refers to the second report but this time claims "sources say," then finally some big time media outlet says "question are being asked." That's the end. More than likely DeLay and Frist have no chance because the conglomerates which control your information have already convicted them. You will never again hear anything in the news which even suggests that either man is innocent. Surprise, surprise.

Here's a blog I just stumbled upon called EnviroSpin Watch which right on top of all errant things published about global warming. It is published by Professor Emeritus Philip Stott who expends a good portion of his efforts in an attempt to force British media to publish a fuller portrayal of scientific research into global warming. It is a must read blog for those who claim to be informed.

Today I took a few moments and flipped around the TV. What I found was an account of the fall of Baghdad. Do you remember that scene played over and over of the statue of Saddam being pulled down by the American military? My lasting impression of the event was our boys might have been a little over zealous with the adrenaline rush of too easy of a battle. They jerked around with an American flag and then pulled down the statue. It was not my proudest moment of being an American. But that impression is far from the truth according to first hand accounts of the event.

Apparently the way this actually played out was a group of troops stormed into the square. One of the soldiers radioed his superior and requested permission to bring down the statue. That quest was quickly denied with the admonition "that's not what we're here for." Then a large number of Iraqi civilians stormed into the square and began asking, if not demanding, that the U. S. bring it down. When that request was denied, they asked for some equipment to do it. The soldiers gave them some rope and a sledge hammer. Then a man who spoke English "with a British accent" began screaming, "I will bloody not (bleeping) calm down" and began smashing at the foundation of the statue with his bare hands. Finally a commander on the scene told a soldier to go ahead and "give these people what they want." At that point the U. S. military began to bring the thing down. During the process an Iraqi teenager began running around trying to find a U. S. flag to cover Saddam's head. Finally he found one and up it went until an American commander ordered it to be removed after which a pre-Sadadm Iraqi flag was found and replaced it. The rest is on the video.

But why can we not count on the accounts we hear in the news? Why do they not tell the whole truth as it is known to them at the time the events occur? There was not mass chaos at that time. Everything which transpired was obvious to the news guys there. Why did they fail to mention that the statue was brought down because the Iraqi civilians demanded it to be?

U. S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered Pictures of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib released as a result of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU. The ACLU continues its assault against anything America does in its war on terror. Let's all please remember these folks, the judge and all members and supporters of the ACLU, just in case one day chaos rules. In that event, let's please make sure to take our revenge on the appropriate people. And remember quick death is far too merciful.

The vote is in and the final tally is 78 yea - 22 nay. Here is a complete list of the naysayers:

• CA - Boxer (California, what'd you expect?)
  
• CA - Feinstein (ditto)
  
• DE - Biden (what a complete jackass)
  
• HI - Akaka
  
• HI - Inouye
  
• IL - Durbin (no surprise)
  
• IL - Obama (trying to curry favor from the base?)
  
• IN - Bayh
  
• IA - Harkin
  
• MD - Mikulski (Maryland can do better and I hope they do)
  
• MD - Sarbanes (ditto)
  
• MA - Kerry (followed dad's vote / doesn't have a real opinion about anything)
  
• MA - Kennedy (hick, glad the vote wasn't after lunch so he didn't make a mistake)
  
• MI - Stabenow
  
• MN - Dayton
  
• NV - Reid (No surprise)
  
• NJ - Corzine (limousine liberal - no reasons given)
  
• NJ - Lautenberg (snore, needed to be awakened from nap to vote. Wasn't sure what vote was for but got signal from Corzine to "just say no")
  
• NY - Clinton (you go girl, run, run fast, for president)
  
• NY - Schumer (oh brother)
  
• RI - Reed (Only state that really does not matter - we should take away one of their seats)
  
• WA - Cantwell (The surname says it all)
  

That's the gang of 22. Obstructionists all! They knew they had no chance of winning the day. And, no, they didn't vote their consciences. They voted no to vote no. There was no reason to vote no. Roberts gave nobody a good reason to vote no. Republicans didn't vote no on O'Connor even though she was an ACLU girl who they knew would vote with abandon for liberal causes. It isn't tit for tat but no votes in an advice and consent role should be limited to circumstances in which there is a reason to vote no, not just based on partisan politics.

Looky here, there's a couple nays from red states and some from states that are only marginally blue. We will not forget those who voted against an eminently qualified person this time. We will certainly not forget those who are currently up for some elective office like Jon Corzine is.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama

The Red Cross is being criticized again but this time is quite a bit different than the criticisms levied at the charity in the wake of 9-11. This time the criticisms deserve our attention but upon further analysis seem to be rather unfair.

September 11 was quite a bit different than natural disasters. Many people were killed and a relative few injured but by and large those who survived simply got on trains boats or buses and went home. The surviving family of victims as well as other folks needed psychological help more than they needed the basic necessities of life which is what the Red Cross is good at delivering. There was no need of massive encampments of tents to provide shelter and care to survivors. There was no need of survivor kits or any other sort of material. But the Red Cross used September 11 to raise more than a billion dollars. Then it was learned they would use nearly $200 million for much needed capital improvements. We were disgusted as we came to the realization that the organization was not involved in a massive relief effort because one was not needed. Everyone screamed that they were using a tragedy and eventually the head of the organization stepped down and they gave much of what they had collected to other funds for the financial relief of victims' families.

Hurricane Katrina is a different scenario. The only similarity is the Red Cross will likely raise more than a billion dollars for relief efforts. But here there is a need for the kind of stuff they do. Here we do need tent cities. Here we do need survivor kits. Here we do need shelter and care on a scale never before encountered in this country. Yet some organizations see an opportunity to attack the organization because they smell money and they think they can draw a parallel to 9-11. The reports are just now coming out about the size of Americans' contributions to the Red Cross. The media is telling us that the organization has collected more money than all other charities combined.

Black civil rights leaders initially criticized the organization because its membership is predominantly white - not enough black people are on the ground in an official Red Cross capacity. But that's absurd beyond all comprehension. The Red Cross is a volunteer organization. If martians volunteered, they'd be on the ground in the gulf area. There is no discrimination practiced by the organization because they cannot afford to discriminate. They'll take just about anyone. They need you if you are black, brown, purple or pink. So the words of racism in employment have largely died down.

To take the place of charges of racism in accepting volunteers comes a new allegation. Black civil rights leaders are claiming that the Red Cross is somehow delivering more aid to whites than it is to blacks. How can you disprove that? You can disprove this allegation only by undergoing a massive campaign of compiling statistics of what was given to whom and where. The Red Cross has no time for such nonsense. They are giving aid wherever and whenever they can. We don not want them to stop and judge the nature of the aid or to compile statistics to disprove this allegation. And so it will just have to stand for now.

But why are these criticisms being levied? Are they being put out there to rectify the situation and make sure aid flows to everyone equally? No, that's not really it. The reason these criticisms are being levied is because last time the organization was criticized, they caved in and gave much of what they had collected to another organization. And that's what civil rights leaders are hoping to accomplish here. You see if these folks are able to get the Red Cross to give out all they have collected, a lot of that money is going to have to go to the type of organizations which are run by the critics. That money is going to go to where money inside these organizations usually goes - into the pockets of the critics and to fund their lobbying and political efforts. And that, ladies and gentleman, is what this is all about, money.

I believe it is the ten dollar bill which is now undergoing a facelift. I propose we put the sharp-toothed, none-to-friendly grin of U. S. Senator and candidate for New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine on the bill. My reason for saying this is the guy's hand is already in so many pockets, why not put his face there too.

The most recent news about Corzine is he made a hefty contribution to a group known as the Education Law Center whose mission is to take money from suburban schools and shift it into the inner city. The inner cities of New Jersey already claim the lion's share of the state's education dollars. When I attended public school many moons ago, the cities spent something like double or triple what the burbs did on a per student basis. In the state of New Jersey, we have enormous property taxes - the primary source of educational funding. I was shocked when I learned that North Carolina, for example, had taxes about 10% of what we do. In Jersey counties with the biggest inner cities, taxes are highest precisely because so much money is spent on the city schools. Corzine wants to run the government which is the butt of so many lawsuits filed by the organization he supports with his personal money yet he claims he will give us property tax relief. That's not talking out of both sides of his mouth, that's talking out of three distinct orifices.

Corzine has deliberately not promised to lower property taxes. In fact he has not been able to promise to keep a lid on them. And with good cause. How can someone promise to keep the revenue source for schools low when they also advocate spending much more on inner city schools. That would be too easy of a layup for an opponent. Yet he chose to criticize his opponent, Forrester, for raising property taxes in West Windsor when he was mayor. The only problem is the property tax he is talking about was a one time levy for installing needed sewers in the community. It was a reasonable charge for specific services, hardly fodder for substantive criticism.

Finally, Corzine is under the gun for holding stock in his former employer, Goldman Sachs, in the "blind trust" of his personal investments. Critics of Corzine questioned these holdings because Goldman is a contractor with the state of New Jersey. Corzine says he quickly called managers of his blind trust to put in a sell order. But the transaction couldn't be made because the shares had already been sold. Only one problem with that, however. It seems the sale wasn't reported on Corzine's tax return for that year. But even if he slithers out of that one, what about the obvious issue of when a "blind trust" is blind in fact. How does one give a sell order to the a blind trust? I suppose it isn't blind at all and the entire contents must now be examined to see precisely what he holds investments in.

At every turn Corzine shows he is going to tax New Jersey in a fashion similar to Florio who was pretty much forced out of politics for those efforts. Jim McGreevey did a far better job of hiding his tax increases by pushing them onto businesses. But those increases surely hurt New Jersey and continue to bear such fruit as companies pull up stakes under the current taxing structure. Corzine will not have such a handy magic trick so he will likely be forced to increase taxes right out in front of us. Corzine has expressed disdain for the "tax breaks for the rich" which evil George Bush forced down our throats. But he has not acknowledged that included in that legislation was a rather sizeable tax break for married people, for middle class married people. Corzine would like to reinstate the "marriage penalty" and that is probably a bigger issue than contributing money to a cause which runs counter to most of our budgets.

Jon Corzine plans to raise taxes and contributes to organization that will work ceaselessly to cost us even more. Even when we win the lawsuits he is himself funding, it will cost us tax dollars to defend against them. He holds investments which are not really in a blind trust and it remains unclear whether he always pays taxes when he should. He gives money to lovers who also happen to be leaders of important unions, unions whose members are told to vote for him. He criticizes his opponent for taxing property to the tune of $200 a family in order to put in sewers. Yet he will undoubtedly cost each of us far more. He is already in so many of our pockets whether we know it or not. Why not put his mug on the ten dollar bill so his face could reside there too. And if the ten is already spoken for, maybe we could create a new bill for the purpose. I suggest the three dollar bill.

I need to cross the PC Rubicon here to make a point. I hope I can get back across but I'm willing to risk that in order to make a point. My discussion is about crying. People cry because they are sad, mad, totally confused, frightened, desperate or overwhelmed. Everybody cries at some point. We generally permit men to cry less than we do women although in the new world order, that is less true. It is not, strictly speaking, PC to be intolerable of crying. But while sometimes crying is totally appropriate, sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is only demonstrative of personal weakness.

After September 11, 2001, many of us cried quite a bit. Even Rudy Giuliani cried, although he generally did so either at friends' funerals or late at night in the privacy of his own bedroom when maybe he felt a little overwhelmed. He did not cry out in public when he was working to get things done, when he was leading us. He cried mostly because he was sad about the friends he had lost. He never cried in front of us because he just didn't know what to do about the mess he and we were in. Instead, when he was out in public leading us all through a terrible time, he never cried. He showed us how to keep a stiff upper lip while permitting himself to cry only in limited, understandable circumstances. That taught us to keep focused on fixing things. That helped us deal with our own sadness and feelings of being overwhelmed. That helped us get back to work.

It is unfair to compare any leader to Rudy. We heard someone criticize ex-FEMA Director Brown for not being Rudy Guiliani and he quickly took umbrage to this as anyone would. None of us like to be compared to anyone else since we are only ourselves and not other people. But sometimes specific behaviors of others do form a basis for comparison. Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to compare one's reaction to a situation to that of another who has been more successful at dealing with adversity. that's how we improve ourselves for the next one.

In contrast to Rudy's private tears, Louisiana Governor Blanco cried openly and in public. She cried on national television in the wake of Katrina. She seemed overwhelmed even before the storm hit but at that point she did not cry. After the defecation hit the rotary oscillator, she cried quite a bit. She appeared to cry at the enormity of the situation. Her tears were not tears of sadness so much as they were tears of confusion. One wonders if she cried in order to show her constituency that she felt for them or if it was some sort of cry for help from her friends in national politics. I don't presume to know the reasons she cried. All I know is she cried right out there in front of us in the middle of all this confusion. That caused us to feel far more overwhelmed and confused than perhaps we should have. That taught us to cry freely when we should have been getting to work. She was, herself, overwhelmed by the disaster and her tears told us it would not get better since there was nobody in leadership who was prepared to deal with the situation. That was unacceptable behavior from a leader.

Crying is sometimes justified. We are not allowed to question tears whether they come from a man or a woman. But even in this PC world we have formed in order to equalize things, there are times when crying is totally unacceptable. Gov. Blanco's tears in the midst of a crisis were unacceptable from a leader. We must acknowledge this if we are to get to work and get to work we must.

According to OneWorld.net, fossil fuels are set to become extinct. "The question for oil executives is whether you're in the oil business or the energy business." Their article says renewable energy including solar, wind, and geothermal power and biofuels is derived from sources that are continually replaced. By contrast, scientists say the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming, which in turn drives the increased incidence and intensity of major storms such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Also, in the continental United States, oil production peaked at eight million barrels per day in 1970 and fell to 2.9 million barrels daily last year.

Obviously this organization's role on the earth is to spew hot air and that's a problem since global warming starts with hot air. What this organization fails to point out is that in the United States, we are no longer permitted to drill for oil anywhere. We must preserve and re-establish the pristine, bug-infested, dangerous environment so drilling for oil is not even considered. We have been led down this path where the only conclusion is "renewable energy sources" are the only option.

Right now there is a huge amount of oil sitting there for the taking in the western U. S. There are plenty of reports which suggest there may be more oil out there than there is in the entire middle east. But it is expensive to extract. At $20 per barrel in is not economically feasible to do this right now although it may become cheaper as more technology is developed. Those who have worked to prevent drilling and refinery building have helped to cause the price of oil to soar. As a result, extracting the oil from shale out west is becoming a more and more economical option. "Renewable energy," on the other hand is rather expensive even after decades of working on making it better and cheaper.

Solar power is wonderful in the sense that it is out there for the taking but it has not proved to be a viable alternative after many decades of promotion. We probably have spent more on developing this source than on any other. Yet it is still extremely expensive and rather unwieldy. Geothermal power looks really good on paper but it is not something which easily works in large scale. Biofuels are pretty much of a joke since we are still not able to feed the world population well. How can we justify dedicating huge swathes of land to growing of produce specifically for energy sources. That seems rather immoral. And, finally, wind power is the ultimate joke since in order to avail ourselves of it, we need huge number of gigantic windmills which environmentalists have told us kill birds en masse. Not only that, whenever a large windmill project is proposed, activists come out en masse to oppose it. We don't want oil wells. We don't want carbon in the air. But we really don't want large windmill farms of very large man-made structures all over our pristine environment. So what are we to do? We've painted ourselves into a corner.

It isn't so much whether the oil executives should decide if they are in the oil industry or the energy industry. Rather, activists need to decide whether they are in the people business or in the religious zealotry business. Unabated environmentalism hurts the people of the world. It makes things up which fit its agenda. We have been told lies for 50 years about how we are destroying the environment. The result is we are hurting people. OneWorld.net claims it seeks to provide balanced and accurate coverage of news and events in order to educate ordinary people. What it really does is propagate incomplete and inaccurate news in order to persuade people to take up the religion of environmentalism.

Hooray. We did it. All of us who worked to have the International Freedom Center removed from the grounds of the WTC memorial got what we wanted. Gov. Pataki announced today that due to the pressure which had been mounted against the IFC, it will not be on the grounds of the memorial site. Congrats to those at TakeBackTheMemorial.org for their very successful campaign. All that hard work and dedication finally paid dividends.

Also thanks to Governor Pataki for seeing the light.

Remember the seventies. That's my word to automobile manufacturers in this country. I remember the seventies well. My father had one of those gigantic Ford LTD station wagons. You went around a turn at less than 25 mph and the thing's body would swing wide. We used to refer to it as a boat. That was kind. I have since owned a boat that handled far better than the Ford. We traded that LTD gas guzzler in and boat a Datsun B-210. That car was junk but the cost of gas was pretty much nothing. It got 30 miles to the gallon while the Ford I think got 1 mile to the 30 gallons.

Remember the seventies? That's when U. S. automakers got blended at high speed. They got their clocks cleaned. They nearly collapsed. Our government had to bail out one of the "big 3." That was a terrible business blunder the American government decided to bail out. That's not likely to ever happen again. This time when one of the "big 3," or whatever they are today, fails, nobody is going to want to bail themn out. Remember the seventies.

Connecticut is restricting the age at which fertility treatment is covered by health insurance to 40. What? Why that's age discrimination. That's un-American. Call the ACLU.

My most recent copy of National Geographic tells me that the state of New Jersey is having an epidemic of multiple births. It must be something in the water. No, it's something else. New Jersey has the highest density of fertility clinics. It is also a state in which many women choose to put career ahead of child baring. The result? Many women try to have children starting at about age 35 and then turn to fertility clinics. The fertility clinics under immense pressures to achieve a high rate of success, end up implanting several fetuses to achieve higher success rates. Thus there is a high rate of multiple births.

The trouble with multiple births is it not that it adds to the number of babies you birth, rather it is that it increases hospital bills exponentially. A pair of twins can run the bill up to a million dollars. Three births makes the bill many millions. That's a huge drain on our healthcare system and it drives up everyone's health insurance costs.

If you're going to go after smokers because they cost the system, you are going to have to go after anyone who undergoes IVF. The average smoker maybe smokes a pack a day. The taxes on a pack are something like $3.00 in my state. If a smoker does his thing for 40 years and then dies, he pays around $50K or so in additional taxes. So I propose a tax on IVF of $25,000 per live birth. That sum cannot be covered by insurance.

I think this tax evens up the equation. But it doesn't nearly deal with the social stigma which should attach to IVF. I think we should have several commercials on TV which show someone smoking and then lying in a hospital bed with numerous physicians around them. Then we could have a narrator tell the viewer that undergoing IVF is as bad as smoking a pack a day for 40 years. Teachers in our public schools could teach a course which suggests to kids that they should have children while they are actually in child-baring years and then pursue careers, or alternatively, give up the option of having it all. Kids could be shown how having multiple births causes poor children in the ghetto from receiving normal medical care and thereby hurts the poor. We could make fertility clinics pay into a system which puts up billboards, funds our school efforts to teach children the truth about IVF, and generally weans the public off its addiction to having children when we are too old to care for them.

One one hand we have today a growing criticism of hurricane relief cronyism wherein the Bush administration is said to be handing out pork to its friends in the awarding of (gasp) no-bid contracts. On the other we have reports that hurricane victims are still waiting for relief. Does nobody see the irony here? We want immediate assistance but we require open, transparent bidding processes which require anyone who wants to bid to register and prove their ability to provide the services on which they are bidding. That process takes weeks and perhaps months. That means nobody who has not accomplished the task in advance of a hurricane can bid on the cleanup work. So guess what? That results in no bid contracts. That's why the super-large companies which are the only ones with the resources are doing the work. So which is it that we want? Quick or fair and transparent?

In one report we learn that one Mississippi town insured itself against the loss of casino gambling revenues and on the other, the state of Mississippi is suing insurers for not covering flood damage. The town's purchase of an insurance contract was a "gamble" which paid off. That's no gamble, that's prudent. That's as prudent a thing as it would have been for property owners to have armed themselves with the knowledge that every blessed American has which tells us that conventional insurance doesn't cover floods. You know what I'm talking about here. Is it possible that you have not seen the television commercials or heard the radio commercials which say clearly and loudly that regular insurance doesn't cover flooding.

Our society and this country have gone completely mad. There is no hope of reason winning out over knee-jerk reactions. There are just too many stupid people in this country. And those stupid people who do not work in government, all are employed by news agencies.

You communists out there know who you are. You embrace that economic system because you believe it would be more fair to the poor among us. You see examples of countries like China as demonstrative of a kindler, gentler system than our brutal one. I know you are out there. I had one of you as a teacher in high school. You claim communism takes care of the people better. So what do you have to say about this. China executed 10,000 criminals in 2004. The infractions for which capital punishment applies include smuggling, tax evasion, corruption, endangering national security, separatism (Taiwan), and others. So my question to all you communists is, if we were to adopt such a system, would the United States merely apply a kindler, gentler sort of communism here? Yeah, right.

The ACLU would like to work this country towards a communistic economic system. If they one day succeed, many of their members are going to have to worry about defending themselves from being executed!

There is an editorial in the times today which suggests we connect the dots between anthropogenic global warming and hurricane intensity. The logic runs something like:

1. There is global warming.
   
2. Human carbon emissions do contribute to global warming.
   
3. Hurricanes have increased their intensity recently.
   
4. Hurricanes rely on warmer water to determine their intensity.
   
5. Oceans are warmer due to global warming which leads to stronger hurricanes in general.
   
6. While we cannot say this storm or that is stronger due to global warming, it doesn't take a genius to determine that hurricanes in general are stronger at least partly due to human carbon emissions.
   
7. We should do anything we can to mitigate this even a little.
   

Number 1 has perhaps been established. I do not have access to a complete set of data but I'm willing to give on the point. But number 2 is far from being a "connected dot." There are some indications that if there is global warming, it is due to solar activity. that's why "global temperatures" have been going up not just on Earth but also on Mars. There is no solid science demonstrating causality but let's no quibble. I'll give on the point, er dot.

Number 3 is a bit more problematic. Let's just think about this a little. Some scientists have performed quantitative analysis on hurricane intensity. They did publish their results in authoritative scientific journals but promptly thereafter other scientists discredited the work as based upon incomplete data sets and because it ignored numerous other works which have similarly been published in authoritative scientific journals. Further to the point, we humans have owned a technology called radar for a very short time. That was developed on a relatively small scale, circa World War II. That's almost half a century you might reason but in terms of hurricane cycles, it is far too short of a time. Hurricane cycles run into several decades. We haven't had the technology long enough to say, for example, that there were not 500 category 4 hurricanes which went unreported in 1910. My example is of coure fairly absurd yet irrefutable. Further to this discussion, even after we had radar, we did not have satellites until maybe 60 years ago. So we cannot say with any degree of certainty what the lay of the hurricane landscape was before then.

What scant evidence there is out there suggests a 30 or so year hurricane cycle. The theories which attempt to describe this cyclical nature tell us that we have been in a prolonged lull period. That's during a period of high volume carbon spewing. Much of the work indicating the cycle predicted that we would be back into a period of increasing hurricane intensity and numbers right about now. And that's before any assumptions about global warming were worked into the equation. The work which suggests that hurricanes have been increasing in intensity only recently is based on a comparative of records during the lull period described by other work. So we are comparing apples and oranges to determine that the sky is falling.

Regarding points 4 and 5, Oceans are apparently warmer. I won't argue that point. But how much warmer are they? 1 degree Fahrenheit? How does that impact hurricane intensity? There is no scientific work which says, for example, that 90 degree water will yield a stronger hurricane than 89 degree water. Actually that is true for 90 degree water vs. 85 degree water. So no connection has ever been established which indicates that the actual water warming which some say they have observed would yield stronger hurricanes. Also in refutation of the notion that any observed ocean temperature increase is due to global warming, reputable scientists have published works in authoritative scientific journals which establish that in the short run ocean temperatures are connected to salinity rather than global temperatures. The current increase in both salinity and temperature was predicted by environmental scientists such as Chris Landsea years ago. And we have heard many discussion about ice caps melting which would generally serve to lesson salinity not increase it but that hasn't happened. So it should come as no surprise to us that water temperatures are rising regardless of global temperatures and it is not one of the dots out there which is susceptible to connection in the flawed analysis.

I agree with the final point of wanting to mitigate anything we might be doing which is actually causing our ultimate destruction. But I do not agree to drop one eye-dropper in the ocean to reduce the temperature if we cannot be reasonably certain that doing so would have any impact. We cannot say with any degree of certainty that carbon emissions are doing anything to the Earth's temperature. Even if it were, we cannot say with any degree of certainty that this has had any impact on hurricane intensity. We cannot, without question, connect any such dots between carbon emissions and hurricane intensity. These hurricanes are not, as Babs Streisand said, a wake-up call. They are terrible natural phenomenon which have occurred on this violent Earth. We should draw no conclusions from them. The guy who wrote the editorial knows this and even if he doesn't, editors at the New York Times do. Yet they allowed this "editorial" to speak of facts which are false in order to draw false conclusions. No newspaper ought to print news which is plainly false but they do.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports behemoth media firms are dashing back onto the web to spend billions on acquisitions and initiatives targeted at challenging the behemoth internet portals. They are seeing such a rapid decline in traditional advertising revenues that they simply must act. But will their actions be as bad as they were during the last iteration?

Many of us remember something along these lines 10 years ago when the "internet bubble" formed. Those efforts were almost a joke. I worked for a large media company which tried to get going on the web back in the god ole days and fell on its face. Most of the people in charge had no idea what they were dealing with at the time. One CEO of the firm was so computer inept that his e-mail experience went something like: have administrative assistant open and print all e-mails, read them, dictate responses to administrative assistant. And this guy was driving a media company onto the web? He was ultimately replaced by one of the biggest buffoons ever to lead a company. That guy managed to move huge sums of money from the traditional media conglomerate to a bunch of swindlers who had created a business model outrageously good at increasing viewership while never being able to turn a profit. That experience nearly brought the company to its knees and he was summarily fired.

Now we see a new wave of media companies coming increasing their web efforts. This out to be fun to watch.

As I suspected, press coverage of the House hearings yesterday in which ex-FEMA director Brown gave over 6 hours of testimony was reported in an extremely slanted way. The Associated Press published a limited amount of comments in their coverage. Their choice of only testimony which was unflattering to the federal side of the equation tells the story of their bias. For example, they left off Brown's testimony which challenged a Louisiana representative to refute the assertion that Louisiana and New Orleans government was in complete and utter chaos before the storm hit. The Louisiana representative did not challenge Brown's statement and you could tell by his face that he had indeed witnessed the same thing Brown had. Also not refuted was Brown's statement that one of the key persons for Louisiana's disaster efforts was unavailable because he was under federal indictment, presumably preoccupied with saving his own ass someplace else. Not even addressed was Brown's assertion that FEMA actualy did do what it was staffed and funded for in this disaster. Brown addressed the press and Democrat assertions that he lied on his resume and/or was a political patronage appointment who was not qualified for the position. His actual experience does in fact indicate otherwise. The press lied to us on that one. But don't let the whole truth get in the way of a decent slant piece.

One thing we will probably here as a result of these is that FEMA would be better served by placing a person with military leadership exerience in place as director. That sounds great but what can a general do with soldiers who are largely unionized civilian employees? Brown is a weakling bureaucrat for sure but that is exactly what the job description envisions. FEMA merely coordinates the real work. That's what they have always done. That's what the legislation creating them envisioned. That is what we pay for. That's what we got. A general can command the troops and get the job done but that presupposes what we want is federalization of relief efforts. That's a different can of worms for a different discussion.

Today Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco will testify before a Senate hearing. Undoubtedly she will tell a different story but let's all go back through the record and see if we agree with her account. She will make claims which are not reflected in the paper and film record of the event. She will attempt to paint herself as totally in charge in those days. But I wonder, will she sob before the panel as she did before the world during the disaster? Will the press cover it if she does?

I'm but a slow thinking automaton conservative. Can someone explain to me very slowly in simplistic terms I can understand what the connection between civil liberties and the teaching of evolution is? The ACLU is pressing the case against a Pennsylvania school district which wants to teach intelligent design. They argue that the weight of science indicates evolution is how we humans came about. The intelligent design advocates claim that a creator made us what we are. There is evidence of the existence of evolution but there is no evidence that evolution is how we came to be what we are. Any such theory relies upon a big bang giving birth to the Universe followed random coming together of the building blocks which at some magical point in time "gave birth" to life. Neither theory is provable but what does one argument or the other have to do with civil liberties? Obviously it has nothing to do with it. Yet the ACLU leads the charge. You can, by way of contrast, understand why they would stand up for a pedophile since the issue is civil rights but the scientific theory thing just baffles me. Pretty weird!

Insurance can be an extreme rip-off. You pay $1,000 for automobile insurance which is required by state law. Then you get into an accident and put in a claim for $1,000 repair. Your insurance rates go up by $500 per year. That seems OK, right? Want to buy a bridge?

Taxes are not insurance payments. At least they're not supposed to be. Yet our taxes are going to go in a huge way to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the gulf coast. One report says Katrina to cost far less but into this good news is added U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu's introduction of a bill to drastically increase this spending. Landrieu's bill includes everything imaginable including money for cattle farmers who one would assume would be insured. Landrieu's bill includes an incredible amout of fluff or should I say pork. It is a laundry list of not only building the most important infrastructure that was there before the storm but almost everything imaginable. We simply cannot afford this. Please tell your congress member that we need reconstruction but it must be sensible reconstruction.

Tax dollars should never take the place of private insurance. Persons who do not obtain insurance but should, pay the price of their foolishness. You cannot make them whole by taking from others who prudently buy insurance to protect themselves. Landrieu's bill does just that.

I hereby challenge any and all newspapers to publish the actual and complete transcripts from the congressional hearings on Katrina disaster response. There is possibly nothing more important in the news right now. All Americans should know precisely what all witnesses and members of congress have to say on this. We, in this country, need an absolutely complete record of this. It is insufficient to merely publish interpretations from questionable reporters. A complete account is the only way we can judge the event.

Ex-FEMA head Brown is testifying before the House today as Congress tries to analyze what went wrong in the Katrina disaster response. The purpose of the hearings is said to be to "get to the bottom" of federal failures in disaster response to Katrina. Brown demonstrated encyclopedic knowledge of the nation's disaster response coordinating agency, its capabilities, its responsibilities, and its limitations. He noted that in the case of Katrina, New Orleans' and Louisiana's response was far worse than he had expected.

Rep. William Jefferson (D - Louisiana) attempted to ask what appeared to be an extremely long-winded question but what turned out to be a speech which criticized the fed.s for criticizing the locals, and basically repeated much of what has circulated through the media. Brown responded by comparing and contrasting the local reaction in anticipation of this storm with that observed in other areas in this storm and others. The comparison was not flattering to New Orleans or Louisiana. The city and the state were singularly incompetent, disorganized, even chaotic. Brown said, "Rep. Jefferson, I know you saw what I saw on Saturday and Sunday because you were there." He went on to describe almost complete chaos on the part of the state and local officials.

Jefferson tried to refute Brown's testimony but each time and on each point Brown replied with confidence, experience and knowledge about how FEMA works and what went wrong in Louisiana. It became clear to Jefferson that he was not going to land any punches and he cut short his participation in the hearing. But the media will not tell you this. What they will tell you is everything Jefferson said. They will not explain how Brown refuted every point and eventually Jefferson backed off because he knew he was beginning to tread into dangerous area - dangerous for the Democrat local politicians. Jefferson did not want Brown to get more specific about just how incompetent the locals were.

Brown came off as confident right out of the box, if a little angry at the many allegations made at his resume and his honesty. Brown acknowledged specific mistakes he made but these were limited to not communicating better with the media and failure to get the governor and mayor to work together. He expressed his anxiety about getting people to evacuate New Orleans. He told how his staff tried desperately and unsuccessfully to determine whether the governor or mayor had issued evacuation orders. Finally, on the Sunday before the storm hit, he spoke on TV and said he doesn't care what the governor or mayor have been saying. If you are in New Orleans, get the hell out. Brown also went into detail about his qualifications for the job which have been the subject of many attacks. He told of being given forty five minutes to refute several allegations about alleged fabrications on his resume. But he was busy dealing with the disaster at the time and could not respond. The media gave him forty five minutes to respond to ultimately incorrect allegations which ultimately brought him down. That's a bit more than unfair. Tha is the media just covering their asses so they can say, "we asked Brown for a response but he couldn't give one."

Brown did go into some detail about his specific qualifications for the job he was forced essentially by the media to give up. He has a large functional knowledge of how state and local government works. He is well qualified for the position. He was not some political hack who received a patronage job. He has worked for twenty years in local, state, and federal government positions including some higher level FEMA positions. He is easily as qualified as anyone else.

Many things are quite evident as a result of this testimony. They lay bare the fact that the media lied to us yet again. They were not fair and objective. We cannot take what they say as more authoritative than what the fool on the hill tells us. Unfortunately they have set in motion a series of future events which will make this country weaker and less prepared for future disasters. Tha is how the media is serving us.

Time Magazine says skeptics of man-made global warming are increasingly few and far between and then goes on to draw some linkage between global warming and the intensity of hurricanes. At the same time numerous climatologists went before various media outlets and proclaimed with a singular voice that carbon concentration s have nothing to do with hurricane frequency or intensity.

Today the New York Times said an article by one of its reporters was completely fabricated "out of whole cloth." As I said earlier, this is not the first article containing news this month which the Times had to admit was completly fictional.

Numerous news shows told us dozens and dozens of people were murdered or died from heat, etc. at the New Orleans Superdome and convention center. Relief medical workers, including three medical doctors, showed up to claim the bodies. They brought a refrigerated tractor trailer to haul away what they thought were going to be lots of bodies. There were 4 from the Superdome and 6 picked up in the streets.

One article this weekend spoke of hundreds of thousands (perhaps 300,000) of anti-war demonstrators in the streets of Washington DC while noting that about 100 anti-anti-war demonstrators held some sort of gathering. Witnesses and the police say there were about 100,000 of the anti-war variety but other articles note there were large gatherings of communist groups, anarchists, as well as huge throngs of anti-globalization protesters and others there in a protest that had been planned since before Cindy Sheehan began her thing in Texas. The pro-Bush people have documented that they had more than 500 people there. Not a lot but certainly more than 100.

A Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx "loaned" most of their cash to a liberal radio station. Newspapers barely covered this and when they did, they noted that the radio station planned to pay the money back. Left off this was the fact that the radio station is broke and since their ratings suck, they cannot repay the money. The national organization for Boys and Girls clubs revoked the "lender's" charter which is basically a death knell for a place meant to keep poor kids off the extremely mean streets of the Bronx.

Many of these stories are one-sided but they would be far more one-sided were it not for the growth of conservative media. And you cannot blindly trust conservative media either. Nobody is telling us the truth these days. It is a crisis of munmental proportions. You get up in the morning, read the paper of the way to work, perhaps listen to the radio during the day, catch the nightly news after dinner, and maybe watch something before you go to bed. All the while you are no more informed of what is really happeneing than you would be if you were blind and deaf, living in a cave, and never able to rad or hear anything that is going on in the world.

Our media is in complete collapse. Is it not a forgone conclusion that Democracy cannot thrive without information and that information generally comes from a free, trustworthy, independent news media? The Aaron Browns of this world are guilty of crimes against our society. These are not little crimes. They are heinous crimes of dishonesty to further their own financial gains and political aims at the expense of us all.

The news media is an instutional compulsive liar. There is nowhere to turn to to obtain information. Save electricity, shut off your TVs. Put down that newspaper. Read a good book instead. Your information about what is going on in the world will be as good as your contemporaries.

Liberals today celebrated after receiving news that Cindy Sheehan was arrested during a rally today in Washington DC. Sheehan was clutching a photo of her dead son, while being whisked off by U.S. Park Police.

What did she do to deserve arrest? Well, she sat down right in front of the White House gates. What's so wrong with that? I don't know, except that police ordered everyone to keep moving. In any case, the reasons aren't important, it's the results.

In fact, the photo shows Sheehan herself smiling, realizing her celebrity had just been elevated to sainthood. Look carefully at the people around her, and notice them clapping their hands.

Perhaps this paragraph from the Associated Press best summed it up:

Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She smiled as she was carried to the curb, then stood up and walked to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching."

And that's exactly what the liberals wanted, for the world to watch as their martyr was born.

Results speak. Intentions do not matter in this life. If you want to help the poor and end up enslaving them for "their own good," what you have done is promote slavery of the poor. Your intentions blinded your judgment. You accomplished the wrong thing.

Since September 11, 2001, this nation has spent incredible sums of money for "homeland security." Those funds have primarily been spent at the local level. The money has been pushed down to "first responders" because our governmental officials have reasoned that they are the ones who do the real work when disaster (man made or natural) occurs. That reasoning was apparently shattered by Katrina when first responders became victims themselves or flew off to Las Vegas to party.

In the wake of Katrina, we heard mass criticism of the President and federal government on a scale never before levied. Everyone who should have done "something" was implicated. But because the governments of New Orleans and Lousiana have been Democrat for a very long time and because we have an unpopular President (unpopular with the leftist media), the blame largely fell upon the fed.s. Every lefty mouthpiece including Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, and many, many more criticized the President and his administration for the disaster of Katrina. No President, no federal government can possibly take as much criticism as was levied and not react to it. The Bush administration and Congress are now reacting to the criticism.

When Katrina struck much of the blame was levied on FEMA. FEMA is a tiny coordinating agency which basically coordinates first responders and funds local work. As I've said numerous times before, FEMA is not some kind of fire department which sits on standby waiting to be activated by blaring sirens inside their station houses. They sit in offices from which they generally will not emerge because they need to be at their phones so they can do their work. This is not great TV, but it is fact. But that being the case what are the fed.s to do when the entire media and many politicians as well as others are screaming at the top of their lungs that they should have done something? The answer is send in the military.

The military is the only organization within the government which has the numbers of people, equipment and other resources to respond to disasters on the scale of a Katrina. But long ago our government wisely set a bunch of limits on when the fed.s can place themselves in charge and when exactly they can use the military in domestic efforts. Let me say that again a little more succinctly. The federal government cannot simply take over a state in the event of a disaster. They must be invited in. But that's about to change.

The President and Congress simply do not like what everyone has been saying about them. They never, ever again want to have a similar circumstance as Katrina occur. The only way, the only way they can avoid this in the future is to relax the circumstances in which the fed.s can basically remove a governor or a mayor and bring in the troops. Let me say that in more reevant terms. A future New Orleans situation might be avoided as follows:

The President today announced he is invoking his powers under the Disaster Reaction Act of 2005 in the wake of Category 5, Hurricane Zena. The President announced the suspension of all authority of the governor of Lousiana and the mayor of New Orleans. All governmental decisions will adhere to a new chain of command with Major General Ike Andoit at the top. All governmental employees will report to a list of sites contained in an attachment to the official orders and submit to the authority of military officials. State and local employees (including all police and emergency responders but also including all other employees) who are available but fail to report to designated centers will be relieved of their positions retroactively to the date of the storm. If you are a state or local employee who is currently residing in one of the many emergency shelters, it is your duty to report your status to central command via contact officers at your shelter. Failure to report will be considered a felony under this order.

Media members who wish to visit affected areas must apply to the army chain of command before entering the area outlined in attachments to this order. Failure to receive appropriate credentials will cause media to be detained as looters with appropriate criminal prosecution. The same order applies to all civilians found in the area who cannot affirmatively prove they are resident-victims of the storm.

Is that what you critics wanted? I suspect not. I suspect what you want is for Democrats to do better in the mid-term elections and to have a Democrat, preferably somebody like Hillary, I mean Geena Davis as the next President. You never thought much about relaxing posse comitatus.

I hope what you really wanted was a relaxation of posse comitatus and greater power vested in the fed.s than in the state and local governments. I hope so because that is precisely what you are going to get.

NewsMax.com reports "New York Times public editor Byron Calame said Alessandra Stanley's September 5 report claiming that the Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera "nudged" an Air Force relief worker out of the way so he could film himself rescuing a Katrina victim had been made up out of whole cloth."

This is not the first time the Times has admitted fabricating the news. This isn't even the first time they admitted fabricating the news this month.

What is most interesting in all this is the reporter admits that she based her whole story on a videotape she saw on Fox News. The same videotape we all could have seen for ourselves. Why does a reporter at "the newspaper of record" report what she saw on the TV news? Is that why we should pay 50 cents per day to these clowns? They watch TV for us? Then they make things up about what they saw?

Byron Calame said he viewed the same tape a dozen times and concluded that the report was 100% false. It is great that the paper reviews reports but it would be nicer if they looked before they published. An editor should have been able to review the tape before the piece ran. And what the hell is the Times doing allowing their writers to report on what they see on the evening news?

Alessandra Stanley must be fired so that we know when we read the Times, we are not simply reading stories about last night's evening news. Anyone else caught writing a piece based on what they see on TV news should likewise be summarily fired on the spot. Otherwise the Times runs the risk of falling further, although there is not much further to go before they hit rock bottom.

New York Yankee star shortstop Derek Jeter has been receiving disturbing hate mail from someone who apparently doesn't approve of inter-racial marriage. Jeter's father is black and his mother is white. But the letter's are aimed directly at Jeter who is called by the writer "traitor to his race" because he dates women of various races.

Jeter is a clean cut professional athlete who while obviously endowed with great natural abilities, evidently works very hard at his craft. It is apparent to me that other professional athletes might be more naturally endowed but Jeter works harder than most at perfecting his skills. If you are not a lowly Red Sox fan, what is there to dislike about him. He's anti-drugs. He never says a bad thing about anyone. He is basically a quiet guy who gets the job done. Who the hell cares what race he is.

Jeter is the leader of my favorite team. But Arod might be a better player. Bill Cosby makes me laugh, a lot. So did John Belushi. Langston Hughes made me think. So did Dickens. Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitarist ever to live. Carlos Sanatana is another one I admire, likewise Stevie Ray Vaughn. Numerous other people of various races entertain me, make me feel admiration for their work ethic, or make me think. Why should I care what race any one individual is. Why should I care even a little about race?

Purity of breeding is for show dogs. And even then it often does more harm than good. Why can we not just get over this obsession with race?

The October 3 issue of Newsweek, due to hit newsstands tomorrow includes a feature that perhaps illustrates the state of our people, the Americans, and their inability to cope with life...

He had flown to Colorado to the headquarters of Northern Command, the military nerve center for protecting the continental United States. A few hours after Hurricane Rita came ashore on the Texas-Louisiana border at dawn on Saturday, Bush sat in the Northcom Situation Room, looking at large flat screens filled with satellite images of the storm, graphics of troop deployments, and the faces of his commanders, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."

Liberals and the media seem to have convinced the entire populace of the USA, along with rest of the world, that protection against hurricanes is the job of the President.

Seemingly overnight, President Bush is now having to fight a war against Mother Nature. If that's the role of the President, then shouldn't we have elected a weatherman instead?

But you won't find President Bush complaining about all this. He instead stepped up to the plate, and took the blame, even though it has since been discovered that the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans were to blame for what happened down there. That's what a real American is about, less talk and more action.

Nonetheless, it looks like "We the People" have become pathetic little sheep. We can't seem to take care of ourselves anymore. We can't seem to protect our own assets, we can't seem to bounce back from disaster on our own. We'd rather be dependent on government for our needs, particularly the President. The liberals have turned the Office of President into "Mommy", and are blaming the President for not making his nipples available enough.

Maybe Australians think it was Bush's job to protect people from natural disasters. Maybe the Canadians think it's the government duty to provide welfare for its people. But this American right here believes that what made us special is that we don't bend over for anyone, and we don't stand around waiting for someone else to do something. That's why our ancestors left Europe in the first place, because they weren't going to take shit from anyone. That's the mold we Americans were cut from.

I'm really sickened to see how liberals fucked our people up.

Each year this decade twice as many Americans will die from the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, advil, tylenol (but not including the latest generation of drugs for arthritis) than have died in the September 11 attacks, both Iraq wars and Afghanistan.

Far more Americans will die next year as a result of homicides committed by other Americans than have died from all terrorist actions in our nation's history plus the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

More Americans will kill themselves next month via suicide than have died at the hands of the Iraqi insurgency since the beginning of the war.

This coming week more Americans will be hospitalized for excessive use of NSAIDs than will die this coming year in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Also, this week, more Americans will die from adverse reactions from prescribed drugs than from any military causes this year.

The first two days of this coming week more Americans will die as a result of drinking alcoholic beverages than will die this coming year in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Today more Americans will die as a direct result of poor diet and physical inactivity of their own choosing than will die this coming year in Iraq.

Israel ceded significant swaths of land to the Palestinians. Israel pulled back. Israel engaged in no aggression and then Hamas sent dozens of rockets into Israeli towns. So of course Israel retaliated. Now Palesitinian officials are calling Israel's actions a "serious escalation that will lead to a new era of violence."

Who started this fight? It wasn't Israel. Every peaceful overture made by the country is met with fresh attacks. When will the world and especially the UN recognize that the cause of the problem is not Israel. The cause is those who want to push Israel into the sea. The perpetrators are not worthy of any sort of sympathy. They are not worthy of any sort of help. To give one cent over to the "Palestinian cause" is simply to be a funder of an aggressor bent on genocide.

I suppose you could say this was an easy one, a lay-up, maybe even a slam dunk, but Hillary Clinton came out publicly against the International Freedom Center planned at the old WTC site right next to the memorial. I don't know why more politicans haven't come out against it but they haven't. Hillary was handed the ball in the key with the entire other team either standing in the opposite key or sitting on the bench.

Australia's Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, is considering a proposal to reimburse australians up to 85% of their costs associated with weight loss programs, from the country's federal Medicare program.

Under the plan, the Federal Government would give doctors the ability to prescribe approved weight-loss programs through Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig to patients, who would then be able to recoup 85 percent of the cost through Medicare.

The plan is the brainchild of Mark Walhqvist, a professor at Monash University, and President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, as well as Chairman of the World Health Organisation's working party on dietary guidelines.

Wahlqvist also happens to be Chairman of Australia's Weight Code Administration Council, whose members just so happen to include Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and Trim-A-Weigh.

So, these companies managed to find a way to artificially inflate demand for their services by lowering the cost to the consumer, at the expense of taxpayers.

Can you say "SCAM"?

Source: The Age, via Big Fat Blog

If you're looking for a federal government job, then check out the 2005 edition of, "Best Places to Work", published by the Partnership for Public Service. It's a list of the top federal agencies to work for, in terms of employee satisfaction with leadership and teamwork.

Best Places to Work is a comprehensive ranking of federal government organizations, drawing from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Federal Human Capital Survey. This survey was distributed to a stratified random sample of more than 275,000 executive branch employees, with a response rate of 54%, resulting in a study of nearly 150,000 employees.

And now, on with the list...

1. Office of Management and Budget (77.5)


2. National Science Foundation (75.0)


3. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (74.8)


4. Government Accountability Office (74.3)


5. Securities and Exchange Commission (72.8)


6. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (70.9)


7. General Services Administration (69.1)


8. Environmental Protection Agency (68.4)


9. Department of Energy (66.9)


10. Department of State (65.7)


11. Department of Veterans Affairs (64.5)


12. Department of Commerce (63.5)


13. Department of Justice (62.8)


14. Department of the Interior (62.5)


15. Department of Defense (62.1)


16. Department of Agriculture (61.8)


17. Department of Health and Human Services (61.0)


18. Agency for International Development (60.2)


19. Department of Labor (60.2)


20. Department of Transportation (59.3)


21. Social Security Administration (59.2)


22. Department of Housing and Urban Development (58.3)


23. Department of Treasury (57.4)


24. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (55.7)


25. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (55.2)


26. National Archives and Records Administration (55.0)


27. Office of Personnel Management (53.4)


28. Department of Education (52.7)


29. Department of Homeland Security (46.7)


30. Small Business Administration (43.9)

Note that of all federal agencies, only those having 150 or more employees were represented in the study.

Also, the above list represent only the "best places" to work, and not the worst, or average. That is, what you see above are those agencies considered to be the cream of the crop in terms of employee satisfaction with agency leadership and office teamwork.

All over the media the terms "Rita" and "weak" are being used. The idea that this storm has weakened is perhaps a little misleading. We really won't know what is going to happen until it does. Remember Andrew? That storm apparently strengthened as it made contact with land. Also, consider that two storms of comparable sustained wind speed can do very different things. It is just difficult to judge what a given storm will be like. A better gauge (one might say barometer) of storm severity is the barometric pressure. The pressure readings have not been going down quite as rapidly as the wind speed readings. Here is a recap of the wind speed and barometric pressure in the last several public bulletins (all times central):

Date/Time	Pressure MB	Wind Speed mph
Thursday
7 pm	913	145
10 pm	917	140
Friday
1 am	921	140
4 am	927	140
7 am	930	140
10 am	929	135
1 pm	931	125
4 pm	930	125

It is a bit premature to call this storm anything using the word "weak."

In the midst of all the failures after Hurricane Katrina, one entity performed well above anyone's wildest expectations. Of course it was not FEMA nor any other governmental agency. Was it the Red Cross, perhaps the Salvation Army, or maybe another charitable organization? No, it wasn't. Well, then, who performed so well? None other than liberal target, Walmart.

According to Fortune Magazine, the only solid lifeline in hurricane ravaged areas was Wal-mart. The company took care of its own by allowing displaced workers jobs anywhere in the country they chose. But more than that, they "hauled $3 million of supplies to the ravaged zone, arriving days before the Federal Emergency Management Agency in many cases. The company also contributed $17 million in cash to relief efforts. Wal-Mart also demonstrated how efficient it can be. As of Sept. 16, all but 13 of the (126) facilities that Katrina had shut down were up and running again."

Unlike the various levels of government, Wal-mart began its reaction 6 days before the storm struck because its director of business continuity, noticed that a storm off the coast of Florida