All across the nation there are little fires smoldering over the issue of same gender marriage.   New Jersey's Supreme Court issued the latest ruling when it announced that a substantially identical legal relationship must be offered by the state to gay couples.   The Court ordered the Legislature to craft a union which gives identical treatment to same sex couples as that provided by the institution of marriage.   Religious groups within that state have been raising holy hell in order to "preserve" marriage for straight couples.   But they seem to miss the point.   The Court ordered the legislature to create a law which must pass their inspection.   They paid lip service to the democratic process by allowing the legislature to name the law something other than marriage.   That is the only latitude one branch of "coequal" government gave the other.   So while the legislature can morph "civil unions" into an institution substantially identical to marriage, it doesn't have to call it marriage.   And the religious groups are lobbying to make sure the legislature does just that.   Nobody is upset about one branch of government exercising dominion and control over the other.

So, since nobody else is worried about this development, I'm setting my sights on the naming of the new institution.   I'd like to see it named "egairram," pronounced EE-Gay-Ram.   And when such couples decide to end their union, that process ought to be called "ecrovid," promounced any way you like.   Those sound like legal terms and, I think, make nice names for the concepts which underlie them.

Since I want to further exercise my rights as a citizen of a democracy, I think I'll try naming a few other things.   From now on, I'm going to call male homosexuals "yags" or "yaggots" rather than "gays."   When gay men press their lips, etc. together in public, I'm going to refer to it as "ssik."   When they adopt, rather than having kids call the more "aggressive" partner "dad," I think they should both be called B-A-D as an adaptation of "both" and "dad."

Cleveland Browns great, Jim Brown, may not have known it, but he said something yesterday about football that makes me wonder if he's truly a libertarian...

When you go out on a football field, you are responsible for taking care of yourself. The more rules you get, the less players truly take care of themselves.

He goes on and on, but that's his jist. Read the full article here.

Quarterbacks have become so protected in the game, that defensive tackles are leary about hauling them to the ground. This allows teams to start quarterbacks with poor running ability. Poor running quarterbacks need more rules to protect them from harm. A vicious cycle.

Can't you just see the comparisons to society? Too many laws and too many entitlement programs is the reason why this country lost the spirit it once had in the booming days of the "Manifest Destiny" era.

This just in...

The Associated Press reports that the hurricane season officially ended without a hurricane touching the USA.

Nine named storms and five hurricanes formed this season, and just two of the hurricanes were considered major. That is considered a near-normal season — and well short of the rough season government scientists had forecast.

This could mean only one of three things...

1. Hurricane intensity is not tied to global warming,


2. We're now experiencing "global cooling", or


3. Global warming is an urban legend.

Which is it?

Reuters reports former AIG head, Maurice Greenberg, is trying to buy the Ny Times.   Times stock is way up on the rumor/news.   The only words of caution I can offer is, don't do it Mo.   The MSM is falling apart.   There is nothing you, or anyone else, can do to fix that.   Nobody trusts the NY Times anymore!

A US District Judge has determined that our money is discriminatory against blind people!   The judge noted "Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations."   How dare they?   So maybe now we will finally get a more logical approach to out bread.   Finally we will get bills of different denominations in different sizes.   The madness has been stopped dead in its tracks!

The Newsmax story discussing this case noted that one possible solution would be to change the sizes of our paper currency.   The story said, "the U.S. government said such changes would be expensive, could render currency more vulnerable to counterfeiting and could undermine international acceptance of the U.S. dollars -- an argument the judge dismissed as 'fairly absurd.'

Fairly absurd but true, the cost of changing money that is.   You have to figure that it would cost billions to design new bills, print them and then engage in a recall and replacement program.   Let's call it a cool hundred billion before we consider changing all the machines used to sort bills, not to mention the miscellaneous vending machines and ATMs!   There are about 10 million people in the country who suffer from some sort of sight impairment.   Why don't we consider allowing all blind folks to vote on the choice of money being changed or instead receiving a one-time settlement of $10,000!   At least that way we can save the trillions industry will have to spend fixing their machines.

And what about those of us who suffer from the little understood and never discussed problem of chronic dry fingers?   We have no "Restasis" with which to deal with our affliction.   What are we to do when the nation's money supply only exacerbates our problems?   Is this not discriminatory?   Do others just scoff at our travails?   When will we get justice?

I thought you'd also like to know that today is the day the EU will decide upon the carbon dioxide caps it will fail to meet over the next several years.   James Cameron calls it "one the most important decisions."   But one is left wondering how deciding the degree of failure has any importance whatsoever.

I thought you'd like to know that the Bush administration is making it tougher for North Korea to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.   I have to go now to do my Chirstmas shopping.   Buye!

Hello, Apple, I'd like to place an order for 5 ipod nanoes.   Can you inscribe these with "From your glorious leader, Kim Jung Il."   Me?   No, as a matter of fact, I'm not in North Korea.   Why do you ask?   My address is ... Germany.   And I'd like to pay for this purchase with my American Express card.   Thanks.   You'll ship them in a week?   Kewl!

Hello, Kim, hi, how's it going?   I just wanted to let you know I'll be sending you those "items" you asked for in about two weeks.   But the price has gone up a bit.   Each one is $1,000.   OK?   You don't mind?   That's good.   I'll ship them with those PS3s we talked about last week.   No problem.   I got the Paypal transfer for $3,000 each.   Thank you for your prompt payment.   I'll be leaving positive feedback for you.   Can you please do the same for me.   I want to keep my seller feedback looking good.   Thanks.   Anything else you need?   Sure.   No problem.   Do you want the 50 inch one?   How many ....

The US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a case about whether the EPA should regulate carbon dioxide emissions, specifically emissions spewed by cars.   But before the Court can order the EPA to regulate, it must agree with one of the parties to the suit that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.   Is it possible for a rational Supreme Court to determine that carbon dioxide is a pollutant?   On what basis?   And if it does decide precisely that, what else constitutes a pollutant?   And what else will be considered a polluter under this criteria?

I dispute whether there is truly scientific consensus about anthropogenic greenhouse warming.   But if I were to agree that there is scientific consensus on this point, I still argue that scientific consensus means nothing in the absence of positive proof, fact.   But pushing this aside, there is undeniably more than scientific consensus on one thing and that is water vapor accounts for the largest percentage of any supposed greenhouse effect.   Put another way, if the planet is actually warming, if that warming is not attributable to fluctuations in solar intensity or any other naturally occurring phenomenon, if that warming is indeed attributable to "greenhouse gases," most of that warming is due to water vapor.   Atmospheric water vapor levels go up and down each year regionally and on a planetary basis due to causes about which mankind and its science haven't a clue.   Many greenhouse gas alarmists say the increase in water vapor is caused by increased temperature but nobody has offered solid proof to support this claim.

Additionally methane is a far more efficient "greenhouse gas" than carbon dioxide.   Methane traps heat about 23 times more efficiently than carbon dioxide.   And while environmentalists have suggested recent years' rising trace levels of the gas in the atmosphere have anthropogenic causes, the simple fact is methane levels are a function of planetary biomass.   Sure human garbage disposal and sewage spew methane but so do cows chewing their cud and rainforests recycling dead matter.   Forest fires and other causes put more methane into the atmosphere than human beings do.   It is a naturally occurring phenomenon.   Recently, atmospheric methane levels have, for unknown reasons, stabilized.   Environmentalists claim that human efforts stabilized it but again they offer no proof whatsoever.

And what about carbon dioxide makes it more of a pollutant than methane or water?   Basically nothing.   Automobiles and power plants spew it but so do plants and naturally occurring forest fires.   And before we can call a gas "pollution," we have to look at its benefits as well as its costs.   It is fairly well settled that increases in agricultural output and forest growth throughout the globe have been caused by increases in carbon dioxide.   Plants need atmospheric carbon dioxide.   Carbon dioxide has been Malthus' undoing - we would have seen many periods of food shortages had it not been for the supposed "pollution" our engines produce.   On the other hand, the precise "cost" of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been a little more elusive.   The science on "global warming" is far less conclusive than say that on plant growth.   The benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide are understood to be factual while the costs are based on projection, conjecture, and complex, perhaps faulty, modeling.

So, you really have to wonder how the Supreme Court will make its decision.   Environmentalists have suggested they will do so on the "proven" basis of the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic causes of "greenhouse warming."   I doubt they can do this without ignoring fact and embracing conjecture.   If they somehow find a legal basis for compelling the EPA to regulate automobile's carbon emissions - stranger decisions have been framed - I wonder if they'll at least acknowledge that they have criminalized fertile soil, clouds and plantlife, and made farmers, cows, and rainforests into perpetrators.

I think I'm suffering from information overload.   I can no longer make sense out of the many news stories I read.   When I pull them all together into a single train of thought, they just don't make sense.   HIV is just one of the many issues about which I read and hear a lot of stories.   But when I take all the stories together, what I am left with is a whole which just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It was just a few weeks ago that I read how those infected with HIV were living longer than ever, especially in wealthy countries.   Treatment regimens are doing a better job of keeping HIV infected people alive for very long periods of time.   Yet the AIDS story du jour is AIDS to be 3rd leading cause of death within the next 25 years.

The disease hasn't yet been diagnosed for 3 decades and already medical breakthroughs have extended life expectancy from about 6 years to closer to 25.   Keep in mind that AIDS diagnosis back when it was first identified was pretty rare.   Few had heard of the disease until many years after the first diagnosis in 1981.   Now people get tested fairly routinely.   So the typical diagnosis is at an earlier stage in the game.   I suppose you should expect life expectancy to go up if you are doing a better job of identifying infection early.   But even considering this, people living with AIDS are living far longer than once expected.   One news article noted that new drugs have changed AIDS "from a death sentence into a chronic disease."   You have to assume that given the accelerating rate of medical breakthroughs in all areas, scientists will continue to extend the lives of HIV infected people.   One estimate I read suggested that about 40 million people worldwide are infected with the virus.   (By comparison the World Health Organization estimates that at least 171 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes.)   And since the rate of infection is not accelerating, it baffles me that it is projected to become the third largest cause of death.   What assumptions are included in that 25 year projection?

The second news story to add to my confusion was one in the local paper suggesting that HIV infection is on the rise for women.   This story was published on the front page of my news paper but the first thing I noticed in the online version is that it is tagged as "opinion."   It remains unclear to me how anything to do with a rate of infection, a numerical fact, can be tagged as opinion.   The rate is either rising or it is not.   There shouldn't be anything about that which is opinion.

The story, opinion or not, reports that "women now account for more than a fourth of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the United States."   Over many years, perhaps more than a decade, I have been reading, watching and hearing that HIV is not a disease of gay men and intravenous drug abusers.   rather it is a disease which effects all of us equally.   Interestingly, the story in my newspaper quotes an executive of an activist group as saying, "The face of HIV and AIDS has been changing.   Those are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our nieces, our friends, our lovers.   Women cannot opt out of the messages about prevention any longer.   This virus is having a disproportionate effect on women."   So now I suppose they really, really mean it when they say it isn't a "gay disease."   It's as if they (the AIDS activists) willed it into a heterosexual problem.   But is it?   Is HIV commonly transmitted via heterosexual intercourse?   Why are only one third of the disease's victims women?   Why isn't in closer to 50%?

What rarely gets reported are the actual causes of or pathways to infection.   The HIV virus is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood or semen.   Infected blood transfusion remains the easiest path.   IV drug abuse coupled with dirty needle sharing is probably just as easy.   But sexual transmission is the most common cause.   Of the possible sexual pathways, "anal intercourse" remains by far the most common means of transmission.   In other words, while it may not be exclusively a gay men's disease, practices of homosexual men - anal intercourse - are the most common cause.   It is far easier for a women than a man engaged in vaginal sex to get the disease.   Men usually get it from vaginal sex when they have abrasions on their penis and have sex with an infected partner.   It stands to reason that exclusively heterosexual, non-IV-abusing women are mostly infected by "bisexual" or IV-abusing men.

I do not want to reduce HIV to a gay problem.   In fact, of the several friends, acquaintances, etc. who I have lost to the disease, the most significant one happens to have been my most important teacher.   He was my high school English teacher for two years.   I thank my creator every day for having been taught by this man.   He taught me far more than a mere appreciation of literature and how to compose my thoughts into written words.   But he was gay and was infected with the virus back before it was commonly diagnosed.   He died in the early 1980s when most of us had never even heard the term "AIDS."

What perplexes me most about the overall rate of infection throughout the world is that it has remained steady or accelerated slightly.   You would expect the rate to accelerate since more people walking the face of the Earth are infected, they are living longer, and they are continue to engage in acts which put others at risk.   But weren't we told long ago that the best prevention means was education about transmission and use of condoms?   Discussion of abstinence and monogamous sexual behavior, particularly with respect to sexual education courses taught in our schools, were eschewed as the fancy of religious zealots.   Billions of tax dollars were devoted to "education," distribution of condoms, and medical research.   Yet infection continues to occur.   These methods did not get the job done to a degree sufficient to call them successes.   Something more needs to be done.

We need more honesty in news reporting especially as it relates to risks we face in everyday life.   HIV infection and AIDS are definitely one of the biggest risks.   If heterosexuals and non-IV drug abusers are significantly at risk, we need an honest discussion of what those risks are.   If the risk is intercourse with "bisexuals" or IV drug abusers, if the risk is far greater with anal intercourse, we need to know that.   If mere education is not enough, that should be reported.   If condom distribution doesn't get the job done, let's admit that.   If AIDS is more a chronic condition than it is a cause of death, let's speak honestly about it.   If it is likely to become even more survivable, let's admit that too.   We don't need to over-sensationalize AIDS.   We don't need to fear it as equally effecting heterosexuals if that isn't the case.   There is never a reason to fear the truth.

Alcee Hastings is most likely out as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.   Well, thank goodness for that small favor.   But isn't it at least a bit disconcerting to consider for a moment that Nancy Pelosi, left to her own devices, would have placed this crook in such a position?

Maybe it was already upsetting to consider that he's been the number two Democrat guy on the commission for the past couple of years!

If liberal Democrats in Michigan can rid themselves of affirmative action via the ballot, is it not time we considered ridding the entire country of this antiquated policy?   When, in 2003, Sandra Day O'Connor said we should revisit affirmative action in 25 years, what was she thinking?   We've had much more than 25 years of it to date.   Would she have expected it to last 50 years from the date it started?   Or would she have then said 25 years is enough?   Is she just a procrastinator?   Does she just think 25 years from "now" is good for liberal policies?   And if it is always now, as it is, does that mean they never go away?   Are all liberal policies merely good for a while from "now?"   Isn't affirmative action just a quieter, gentler form of racism?   At what point has its job been completed?

If 5 Arab men got onto a plane, began doing martial arts exercises and muttering "Allah Akbar," and then discussing the "great work of the beloved martyrs on September 11 or how American civilization was in rapid decline, would anyone even suggest removing the men from the plane constituted racial profiling?   Of course not.   Yet when a group of imams exhibited behavior which "has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry," we wonder, if but for a moment, if maybe our law enforcement people are acting like racists.   This is the sort of foolishness which will eventually cost us dearly.

Michael Moore would like us all to know that "Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II ... we were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad."   He's missing part of the equation.

To begin with, US forces were combined with British, other European and sundry forces in the millions, not to mention the millions of men in the Soviet military!   The war was fought on two fronts.   And the casualties were staggering.   America does not nearly have the stomach for the casualty levels of World War I in which as many perished in a month as have fallen in ythe entire Iraqi campaign.   We can't even begin to imagine the casualty levels of a World War II.   If we were as committed to Iraq as we were defeating the Axis powers, there is little doubt we could finish the job very quickly.   But we don't have the stomach for it thanks in no small part to the mainstream media and the Hollywood elitists who count the dead at every turn but fail to put them in historical context.

Let's now turn to the Japanese campaign.   We ended it by bombing entire cities into fire storms, spawning blazing infernoes complete with fire tornadoes and, ultimately, by dropping two of the most destructive devices ever seen on the face of the Earth.   Even then, the Japanese only reluctantly "negotiated" peace.   If we used the same approach today, we would wanr Iran and Syria once to put a stop to the fighting and when they failed to do so, drop nuclear weapons on them.   We might also drop a smaller device on the areas where the biggest trouble makers live.   Then we would stand on the mountain top and demand complete adherence to a rigid set of behavior protocols.   Perhaps every movement would have to be supported by proper military controlled credentials.   Perhaps anyone leaving their homes without proper authority would be shot on sight.   Who kno0ws what we could come up with but it would accomplish the mission.

Yet, somehow, it is easy to see that Moo9re and the other detractors would never tolerate such a harsh approach.   So what is it they want us to do?   They want full retreat.   That's their only answer.   But, again, they fail to put things in historical context.   If we cut and run today without finishing the job, the enemy will undoubtedly regroup and gather strength.   Then they will come for us.   And, here, in the US, we are just sitting ducks.   Our society is too open to defend against what tactics they would employ.

So, go ahead and cut and run.   But be prepared for the slow invasion which will follow.   And expect nuclear weapons to eventually be deployed, though probably not by us.

Somewhere off in the distance I heard a debate regarding the pros and cons of homeschooling.   The points raised in the discussion caused me to muse about the relative strengths of each side's arguments.   In order to properly analyze the points, I believe we have to ask ourselves why our school system exists, what its mission is, whether it accomplishes this mission, and whether its results can be substantially duplicated or improved upon by homeschooling.   If we conclude that homeschooling accomplishes the mission at least as well as the system, we can then ask whether there are other reasons, unrelated to the system's central mission, which favor formal schooling over homeschooling.

Before I begin, I should discuss my personal biases.   I attended public school.   My children attend public school.   I would never attempt to educate my own children and I have my reasons.   But my reasons are particular to me, my family and our circumstances.   They are not reasons which I can extend to others so I won't get into them here.

As I see it, the following summarizes the typical arguments against homeschooling.   I'm sure there are others but I think I've developed a list of the major ones.   That list is as follows:

• Homeschooled children are denied the full range of curriculum experiences and materials provided by the formal school system.   The NEA said, "Home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience."
• Homeschooling does not provide effective assessment of academic standing.
• Home schooled children are taught by persons not qualified to teach.
• Kids taught at home are deprived of certain socialization experiences including interaction with social / ethnic groups.   Another aspect of this criticism is home schooled kids do not experience the school social scene, especially in high school, will never learn how to relate to peers because they are over protected.   When they head off to college or other adult endeavors, they will be incapable of coping with peer pressure and making friends of strangers.
• Other arguments raised by teachers claim homeschooling places a burden upon the formal school system.
• Finally, those arguing against homeschooling claim the approach is isolationist and somehow creates a subculture of maladjusted, poorly educated adults who influence public policy in a negative manner.

I'll address the final argument first because it is more conclusion than premise and lacks any substance which can be analyzed objectively.   If homeschooling provides an adequate curriculum, valid assessment, is taught by persons qualified to teach, provides or doesn't deprive kids of socialization, then this statement falls as a last, desperate attempt to discredit something by conjecture rather than thoughtful analysis.

Secondly, the notion that home schooling creates a burden upon the regular system is complete fallacy.   There are some burdens where school systems have been charged with monitoring the progress of home schooled kids but these burdens are more than met by the savings realized when the system no longer has to provide books, desks, lockers, etc. for kids no longer part of the regular student body.   The complaint is as unreasonable as arguing against having a paid day off from work because now you have to find something to do.

Both prongs of the socialization argument are completely laughable.   Schools across this country are for the most part peculiarly local.   One doesn't generally attend any level of formal schooling with other children from grossly different social environments.   And most kids are not faced with other ethnic groups which are not well represented anyways within their own communities.   We tried bussing kids into different neighborhoods during the sixties and those experiments were disasters.   In places where there is a broad mix of socio-economic groups, the kids generally gravitate to "their own kind" and the typical social forces create worse circumstances.   Gangs are far more prevalent in mixed race schools as the kids form bonds with which to protect and isolate themselves.   This is true even in predominantly single race / economic category schools where social interaction is determined by relative wealth or other measurements.   I know the high school I went to was overwhelmingly white and the range of incomes was not tremendously broad.   Yet the Italian kids hung together, the Jewish kids were closer to each other, the most wealthy kids eschewed "the poor kids" who weren't actually poor but rather less well off than the "upper crusters," the jocks clung together as did the cheerleaders, etc., etc.   Relatives of mine have attended schools which contained mixed races and economic levels and the kids from common backgrounds always seemed to find each other.   The hispanics, blacks, white, and asians formed race-based gangs and never got along with each other.   This argument is contrived at best and never works in the real world.

Also, and perhaps more importantly, kids achieve the same degree of socialization through other vehicles such as organized sports and other outside-the-home activities - the same ones which actually provide the socialization schools falsely lay claim to.   Kids in schools certainly make friends but the bonds are stronger with those who they befriended through other activities participated in outside school.   These experience are not only more important than the opportunities found in school but they are more available when children are not engaged in slow-moving, formal school for most of their waking hours.

The first three elements of the anti-home schooling argument are by far the most important.   Our nation's schools were formed and funded primarily as a means of bringing up the country by education.   This requires a full range of subjects and intellectual experiences, individuals qualified to teach, and an efficient and effective means of measuring progress and success.   On the surface it would appear impossible for parents to provide this academic experience for their own children unless they each are qualified educators with a broad range of academic experience of their own.   But, in practice, that need is being met in creative ways.   And the results speak for themselves.

First of all, parents of homeschooled children frequently band together in community groups to teach children the full array of subjects.   One parent might be skilled at mathematics and/or sciences and handle these aspects while another is more qualified to teach language arts and literature and yet another music or the arts.   And there are any number of organizations providing curriculum guidance and materials to homeschoolers.   A parent needn't go it alone merely because they have decided to go the homeschooling route.

Without citing a specific study, and there are many of them published, in general homeschooled kids outperform their peers on standardized and other forms of testing because their home educational experiences are both broader and deeper than system educated kids.   Indeed, the most recent trend in our nation's colleges is to recruit home educated kids because they are so well prepared and because home-educated student curricula often include many subjects not included in traditional mainstream curricula.

Even among formally-educated kids, the ones who perform studies outside the bricks and mortar classroom generally do better.   For example, Asian kids and many others, including my own, seek out supplemental education.   One example of this is the "Kumon" program for mathematics in which children perform 15 minutes to half an hour of drilling each day.   So-called "Kumon kids" are frequently proficient at levels two grades or more above their formal class.   This phenomenon has much to do with the fact that Asian kids outperform all others across the nation in mathematics and sciences.   I know that my Kumon kids toughest challenge in formal school math is staying awake rather than completing their work.   They can handle the work with little or no effort and mostly ruin the curve for the rest of the class.   If fifteen minutes of self-directed Kumon were their only mathematics education, they would still outperform their peers.

If we dare to ask whether home schooling is a reasonable alternative to formal schooling, we have to ask why our current formal system exists, whether it accomplishes its mission and whether these accomplishments are met or surpassed by home schooling.   It seems obvious to me that home schooling achieves every major policy goal a formal system does, does so with even greater success, and does so far more cost-effectively.   The socialization argument has largely arisen because the other, more fundamental arguments fail.   But it too fails because it exists upon a mythical premise.

The bottom line is our school system today actually exists for two reasons.   The system exists today because there are vested financial interests in keeping it going and because it is the only way to offer any sort of education to poor, impoverished kids living in the inner city.   The vested financial interests are the teachers unions and school boards which are government fiefdoms unto themselves.   The poor, impoverished kids reason, while valid, is not enough to justify the way schools are run today.   In fact, our nation's educational system largely fails poor, impoverished, inner city kids while spending nearly twice as much per child than the successful suburban schools do.   And as more and more religious folks eschew the secularist, perhaps atheist, curriculum in favor of home schooling, there are bound to be serious debates in the coming years.   Home schooling is growing, especially among religious folks.   Colleges are recruiting home schooled kids because they are academically superior.   And as the tidal wave grows, the unions will feel more and more threatened.

The issues which need to be addressed have little to do with whether homeschooling is bad.   Rather they involve an analysis of the forces which are making it grow and what our schools can learn from the phenomenon.   We shouldn't be so much asking what our educators are against but what they are for.

New Jersey's state government under Governor Corzine wants to put an end to hunting as a means of controlling the state's bear population.   Hunters' groups are taking the state to court arguing EPA Commissioner, Lisa Jackson, overstepped her authority when she cancelled the hunt.   A recent decision on a relatively minor legal issue went against the hunters but they persist in trying to have the state's ban overturned.   For her part Jackson says she would like the state to focus on "nonlethal ways to control the bears such as teaching people to properly dispose of garbage so it won't attract bears."

Not to point out the obvious, but disposing of garbage properly is something you want to teach campers, dare I say hunters, in bear country, not something you want to teach 8 million people living in the world's most densely populated state.   Proper disposal of garbage does nothing to control bear population.   Leaving them to their own devices will eventually lead to a vast abundance of bears.   Then they won't much care how well we dispose of our garbage.   They'll simply spill into the suburbs the same way deer have.   Then we'll have a devil of a time controlling their population in "nonlethal ways!"   What will the EPA Commissioner do then?   Will she start sterilizing wild bears or locating pregnant ones so the state can begin government funded wildlife abortion?   That ought to make environmentalists happy!

California has lived with the lie that cougars don't actually hunt humans for long enough to have an out of control population of that predator.   Now they're paying the consequences as bikeriders and joggers are hunted and eaten.   New Jersey can do everything in the state's power to prevent the killing of bears for now but when the population gets really out of control, more bears than ever will be treated to lethal population control.

I was feeling rather gay the other day.   No offense, Rosie O'Donnell, I mean to say I was happy.   I'm sorry if my comment was insensitive to homosexuals.   I suppose it could be construed as homophobic.   Poor choice of words on my part.   I should really watch what I say more closely.   I can totally understand how you might be offended when I, a heterosexual man, use a word like "gay" so carelessly.   I really should always think about the possibility that any single word or action on my part might offend homosexuals generally, even those who don't yet admit they are homosexuals.

If you don't know what I'm referencing here, check out the latest celeb feud, this time between Kelly Ripa and O'Donnell

Has the US celebrity worshipping culture not had enough yet of Rosie O'Donnell?   Why must be be subjected to this loud-mouthed, obnoxious, brain dead alleged comedian?   Some of the elements of Rosie's comic routine include a recent claim that terrorists shouldn't be feared because "they're mothers and fathers."   Rosie also claims "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

I suppose Rosie was busy making the other molecules laugh the day Gaia handed out brains.   Is that an insensitive remark to all stupid people?   So be it.   I can't spend every waking moment of my life worrying about not offending people like O'Donnell who almost constantly offends me.

On the one hand, yesterday many nations signed an agreement to build an experimental fusion reactor in France,   The United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea agreed to jointly fund the $12.8 billion experiment.   Forbes Magazine notes that "the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, or ITER, recognizes that no single country can afford the immense investment needed to move the science forward."

On the other hand, a high school senior became the 18th amateur in the world to create nuclear fusion.   He did it in his basement using materials he purchased on ebay and some other places he found on the internet.

Who says government creates waste?   Who says science needs governmental funding to move forward?

By the way, the high school kid hopes to someday work for the federal government just like his grandfather did!   I suppose then he can get his supplies more easily - on the science dole - and pay double the fair market value for them.

Is Nancy Pelosi simply inept or is she corrupt?

What exactly is her connection to "Dirty Murtha?"

To find out, try going to Google and searching: Nancy Pelosi Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Presidio Partners

Does this all begin to sound like the newest season of "The Democratoes" is about to start on HBO?

So, what's next for the pristine Democrats led by Pelosi and, um, Hoyer?   I suppose that aside from trying to remove our troops from Iraq, they'll also want to make quick work of establishing the direction for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.   Pelosi's pick is Alcee Hastings, Rep. from Florida.   Hastings is one of the seven judges to ever have been removed from office via the impeachment process in the entire history of the United States.   He was impeached by a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives!   The Democratic-controlled US Senate convicted him og taking a $150,000 bribe.   His conviction and removal were upheld by the then very liberal Supreme Court.   But Pelosi has one problem.   The ranking Democrat on the committee, Jane Harman, knew about the wire tapping program, supported it, and kept quiet about it.   She's a bit of a hawk especially with respect to homeland security which is an important part of committee responsibilities.

So now, the "woman who has come to clean up the House" is appointing not someone who might be bought, but rather someone who definitely can be bought for relatively little money, to the single position in Congress which most impacts each of our security and safety.   I'm so happy the culture of corruption has been removed from power.

It's a con job for sure!

The AP reports, "consumer confidence climbed to a two-month high as a good jobs climate, lower fuel bills and the outcome of the midterm elections brightened peoples' feelings about the economy and their own financial fortunes."

Really?   Americans' confidence picked up one week after an election?   Were not the good jobs climate and lower fuel costs evident in October?   What about the democrats taking power has enthused Americans?

Was it the minimum wage increase?   What percent of Americans benefit directly from that?   The Bureau of Labor statistics says 2.7% of all hourly-paid workers are paid minimum wage or below minimum.   Qhen all workers are included, that figure drops below 2%.   So what impact could that possibly have on general consumer confidence.

Maybe it was pending repeal of the marriage penalty.   That will effect about 25 times as many people, driving their tax bills up by thousands.

The unemployment rate is actually dangerously low right now.   4.4% is below what some economists believe is "full employment."   The last time we hit this point, under Reagan, employers suffered significant problems.   I remember the place I worked at had incredible trouble finding people to fill positions.   We doubled our wage and still couldn't find anyone.   Then we finally found a couple people to fill two of four open positions but they turned out to be crooks - I mean that literally.   They robbed our place of about $6,000.   Later we discovered they were part of a ring which was taking advantage of the worker shortage.   That kind of stuff happens more frequently when you hit full employment.   And wages will probably rise well above the minimum as the kinds of places which hire for these kinds of positions will have to offer more to attract workers.   Wal-Mart is going to have trouble hiring enough people over the nbext several months.

But it is extremely sophomoric of the Associated Press and the RBC Financial Group, who released the poll, to conclude this had anything to do with the election.   This is more Bush's economy than the internet bubble was Clinton's.   Yet the media was quick to give Clinton credit for a decent economy.   Why do they absolutely refuse to give Bush credit for this fantastic one?

So, what about this movie "Bobby?"   Why was it made?   Is it worth seeing?   Is it historically accurate?   I pondered these questions late last night as I watched the TV commercial play for the fiftieth time in a couple hours.   Maybe I should go check this out.   No doubt the fact that liberal elitist Emilio Estevez made the film is no accident.   So I read a bunch of online reviews written by professional film critics as well as everyday people like me.   What I found was no explanation of why it was made though some suggested it was to take advantage of the general discontent Americans have about their government right now.   About 10% of the reviews in my unscientific poll said the film was worth seeing.   The rest said it was awful.   While there isn't enough historical context to judge accuracy, some suggested that Kennedy is portrayed as an icon of the civil rights movement.   The script makes no reference to Kennedy's belief Martin Luther King was trying to subvert the government nor his resultant wiretapping of the leader.   There's no doubt liberals would like to raise Camelot in order to propagate the myth that the Kennedys were both far left liberals and extremely popular.   But even lib.s have panned the film as seeming painfully longer than its almost two hour running time.   I think I'll take a pass.

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat
Please to put a penny in the old man's hat;
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you!

Christmas is coming?   The very phrase is offensive to Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and others.   The geese are getting fat?   That's because evil corporations are over-feeding livestock housed in cages.   Put a penny in the old man's hat?   That promotes age bias.   And it's time to repeal Bush's tax breaks.   God?   Come on now!

So what are we left with for this rhyme?

The winter solstice is approaching, organically grown food is ripe for harvest
Repeal the tax breaks for the rich, increase minimum wages
If you can't pay your taxes, we'll put you in jail
If you don't pay taxes, may you evolve favorably

By the way, modern poetry doesn't rhyme.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident:"
"that all men are created ..."
"that they are endowed by their creator ..."

If it is self-evident that mankind was created by a creator, why do we have any discussion about "In God We Trust" or "One Nation, Under God?"   Yet recently student government representatives at Orange Coast College voted to remove the pledge from their agenda because it contains the phrase "under God" which goes "against some students' beliefs."

Don't they teach logic in colleges anymore?

There is a flap growing over a children's book which tells the story of a "same sex penguin couple" who adopt a fertilized egg and form an "alternative family."   Parents of children who are provided free access to the book by our government are upset because they do not want their children taught that homosexuality is not deviant behavior.   And they're right.

Deviant is defined as "differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society."   There are any number of studies which claim to identify the approximate percentage of the population which are homosexual. The percentages, depending on the country examined, general range from about 2% to 5%.   Non-homosexuals generally have nothing but disdain for the sexual habits of homosexuals.   Any behavior which is limited to such a small percentage of the population is, by definition, deviant.   The founders of this country made sure to set up certain protections for freedom with respect to the practice of religion and other behaviors.   Sexual deviance was not one of them.   But that aside, never in the history of the world has a government over-reached so far as to actually advocate a deviant behavior, at least not until now.

Homosexuals have been the most militant minority on record.   They seek not merely acceptance nor tolerance for their lifestyle.   They seek governmental advocacy and societal embrace of their lifestyle.   We have reached the limits of our tolerance and now the pendulum is swinging back the other way.

Jack Murtha voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2002.   Early last year he said, "A premature withdrawal of our troops based on a political timetable could rapidly devolve into a civil war which would leave America's foreign policy in disarray as countries question not only America's judgment but also its perseverance."   Later the same year he said, "The direction has got to be changed or it is unwinnable" and "The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily."   Questioned about his use of the term "redeployment" by Tim Russert, Murtha said, "We can go to Okinawa.   We can redeploy there almost instantly."   Murtha's relatively new anti-war stance has positioned him well for a shot at the number two Democrat majority House position.   This is a huge mistake for Democrats.

Some conservatives question Murtha's bravery because he is advocating what Republicans call "cut and run."   I don't question the man's courage.   Courage is a characteristic we often associate with battle.   It isn't often something we speak about in terms of generals because generals do not stand on a line with weapon in hand and get shot at.   Generals have other qualities which make them effective leaders of those who do.   The best soldiers do not always make the best generals just as the best athletes do not make the best coaches.   Often it is the guy of average ability who has other qualities which make him capable of leading those who do the work.

In business, people start out in lower level position and work their way up.   Along the way, many who are considered stellar performers stall out their careers in mid-level management positions because, while their lower-level abilities make them valuable employees, they just don't cut it when higher-level, leadership-type responsibilities are assumed.   Often it is the very qualities which make a lower-level person successful which cause them to fail at higher-level endeavors.   The cracker-jack salesman is often bored by supervisory responsibilities.   The merger specialist might be good at identifying opportunity in already established enterprises but he cannot see the forest for the trees when it comes to the mundane everyday operational decisions a company President must handle.   The best factory floor supervisor is not capable of re-designing the layout of a manufacturing line.   You need engineering skills for that and the engineer often is not the hardest working day-to-day guy.   He needs to see the bigger picture and find ways of reducing labor - something the hard-working guy seldom seeks.   So it is with business, sports, the military, and just about every other aspect of life.

So, Murtha's bravery under fire has little to do with the man's ability to assume a leadership role in the U.S. Congress.   Does he have other qualities which might fill the need?   Probably not.   What Jack Murtha lacks is moral conviction and real leadership ability.   Liberals might say the man had the moral conviction to speak his mind once he turned against the Iraq War.   Also they might say he has a long track record of being a powerful Congressman and if that doesn't prove leadership, nothing does.   But we don't look at these things in a vacuum.   And we need to engage in closer scrutiny before we hand over one of the most powerful positions in the world.

Jack Murtha's big problem has to do with that little old Abscam thing.   Liberals are quick to point out that Murtha was never indicted.   He was an "unindicted co-conspirator."   That suggests Murtha was innocent, something nobody is willing to actually say and for good reason.   If you don't remember exactly what Abscam was, try taking a moment to read an Abscam primer.

Too often I have read about Abscam being a sting set up to catch government officials taking bribes.   That hardly states the case.   Abscam began as an FBI criminal investigation which had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with politics.   The thing morphed into a political sting not because the FBI was looking for dirty politicians but rather because when they started sprinkling cheese around the trap, surprisingly some of the rats who popped out of the walls just happened to be politicians.   As more and more rats came out, more and more politicians did too.   Then the king rat appeared and his name was John Murtha.

The sting began with an arrest of a con-man who negotiated a plea deal to work as an FBI informant.   The man helped the fed.s nail several small-time crooks but agents quickly realized they needed to set up a complete operation to organize things.   They set up offices and used the fake identity of an Arab sheik as an explanation regarding the source of funds.   They were ostensibly looking for stolen goods and assistance with money laundering.   A con-man caught in the operation made a list of several possible "projects" for the purpose an when the FBI saw that a number of them went through a local politician, they went after him.   That man led agents to other politicians including many in Pennsylvania.   When they got involved with politicians, the front for the scam remained Arab Sheiks but their motivation changed a little.   They were looking for help with "private immigration."   Enter John Murtha.

I'll leave you to read or listen to Murtha's actual words.   But let's just say that the son of a bitch not only could get things done, he also seemed pretty apt at hiding his trail.   You might even call him an experienced crook.   He was cagey, a little too cage.   He didn't want the money, not right now.   And whereas he now claims he was seeking investments in his district, he said something about wanting to put a little money into banks which had done him favors.   How does one "put money in a bank" as investment?   Banks only take deposits and do so in the name of a person or a business.   But the point is, Murtha seemed to have a practiced hand at hiding bribes.   Murtha was the heavyweight among all the politicians Abscam uncovered.   He was a leader.   But his judgment as leader seems to have been pretty bad, one might even say corrupt.   Murtha avoided prosecution primarily because of a back room political deal.   When the decision (deal?) to not indict him was made, the head of the investigation quit the next day.

Before we put John Murtha into one of the most powerful positions on Earth, we really need to do our homework on both the Iraq War which put him in this position and his past rise through the political ranks.   On Iraq, we have a man who voted to put our troops into a war but who wants to pull them back out again in a full retreat which will ensure defeat.   He may very well be a man who was courageous on the battlefield but that doesn't make him a good general.   His words demonstrate he is incapable of that higher-level responsibility.   If you claim Murtha is a proven leader, you have to also inject that he was a leader in what can only be described as organized crime and corruption.

No, Colonel John Patrick "Jack" Murtha, Jr. is not well suited for a high-level leadership role in American government.   But if Democrats make this huge mistake somebody will benefit from it.   It just isn't clear whether the beneficiaries will be Iraqi insurgents, corrupt politicians, terrorists or the Republicans.

________________________________________________

Follow-up posting:

It seems Democrats have seen the light and voted for Steny Hoyer over Jack Murtha.   It remains to be seen what sort of straight-shooter Hoyer is.   Hoyer, while not differing with the President on Iraq, as any self-respecting Democrat must, is far more supportive than Murtha was.   We'll have to see how this plays out in a few months.

Hillary Clinton warned us on Monday, "Health care is coming back.   It may be a bad dream for some."   Just who has bad dreams about Hillary's health care plans?

On September 22, 1993, President William Jefferson Clinton presented a 1,000 page plan which was to be the main thrust of his first term, health care reform.   The plan had been the invention of Bill's wife Hillary.   The plan's main thrust was a requirement for employers to provide HMO coverage for all employees.   Liberal Democrats applauded wildly at the proposal.   The rest of us booed and the Democrat controlled Congress killed it.   The Democrat-controlled Congress killed "Hillary care."   Clinton's political clout was substantially weakened.   Congress hit one of its worst cases of gridlock in history.   And Republicans won control of Congress.

Some pundits view this historical event as the result of a well organized campaign waged by conservatives and business to sway the public against the proposal.   I remember it a bit differently.   At the time, I had just taken a position with a start-up company in Manhattan.   I was having some fairly significant health problems which my doctors under my previous employer's HMO couldn't seem to help me with.   My new employer had pretty could health insurance coverage but it was a traditional indemnity plan.   I was free to choose my doctor.   So I gathered up my pennies and sought out one of the most well-respected specialists in the area I was having trouble with.   He fixed the problem but I had to pay big time for it.   His charges were about the same as my previous doctors' charges and my insurance covered everything.   But I had to pay with my ears.

My doctor was a staunch liberal New Yorker.   He advocated Democrats at every turn.   But he told me he was sorry he had ever voted for Bill Clinton once he saw the health insurance proposal.   The man had been a significant pioneer in his area of specialization.   He had established treatment methodologies for one of the biggest killers facing Americans up until that time.   He turned that problem into a routine matter with a 99% fix.   He was also a teacher at a prestigious medical college.   Years later I would find that every subsequent specialist in this area had been mentored by the man at one time or another.   He was also extremely outspoken.   He read me chapter and verse about how exactly "Hillary care" would destroy the medical profession and ultimately result in downgraded patient treatment.

I was subjected to such a deluge of reasons why so-called universal health care would cause irreparable harm to American society that I can't exactly remember everything he said.   Suffice it to say that the main thrust was you can offer highly motivated individuals the opportunity to earn a very good living by taking care of those who can pay and volunteering their time to take care of those who cannot, or you can give everyone the lowest common denominator in which case the poorest will get no better care than they do already.   When you regulate an industry like health care, what you end up with is far lower pay - read far lower motivation.   The Canadians and Irish are well versed in this simple fact.   They stand in line to get significantly reduced treatment, in a less timely manner, provided by fewer and less motivated doctors.   That is why wealthy Canadians come to the United States for complicated diagnoses and procedures.

There is a myth in American thinking that some go without any health care because they don't have insurance.   This just isn't true.   There are certain problems the poorest face but complete lack of medical services isn't one of them.   That's because our government already does provide health insurance for these folks - they pay hospitals directly for services to the poor via entitlement and other programs.   And when they don't completely cover such services, you can bet the rest of us pay when we meet our hospital obligations and pay our health insurance premiums.   That's as true for all citizens as it is for non-citizens.   Just ask the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of illegal Mexican immigrants who flock here specifically for health care.   A very large portion of these illegals do not just happen to be here working "menial jobs Americans won't do," but rather come here specifically for health care, particularly during pregnancy.   They have neither insurance nor funds to cover costs and they are NOT turned away nor given inferior care.

So I wonder who Hillary was talking about when she said her ideas about health care may be a bad dream for some.   Quite obviously husband Bill would have bad dreams about it.   I imagine my doctor would too.   Presumably Democrats in general would lose sleep worrying about the possible ramifications.   Wealthy Canadians seeking higher quality care might have a few nightmares trying to find doctors under a universal plan for Americans since the number of doctors would drop.   Mexicans would still come.   But maybe its really the rest of us who should be having nightmares.   If we don't, we might wake up and find ourselves in a bad dream reality.

Conservatives watched as the liberal Democrat establishment seemed to be in complete disarray.   There was so much posturing, back-biting, and the party's platform seemed scatter-shot in so many different directions nothing could possibly ever be accomplished.   Nobody seemed capable of fully understanding the results of the election, the will of the electorate was completely misunderstood.   Was this in the wake of the Democrats' loss in 2000 or 2004?   No it was after the victory of 2006!

First, there was Nancy Pelosi claiming liberals would not pull the troops out of Iraq.   Rather, Democrats would seek "a new direction."   What direction?   Nobody was saying, or, more precisely, everybody was.   The trouble is that everyone had a very different idea about this "new direction."   Murtha wanted "redeployment" to far off Asian bases - in other words a full retreat.   But many Democrats, both liberal and conservative saw the idiocy of anything short of victory.   And they weren't about to hand Congress right back to the Republicans by proving their accusations correct.

Harry Reid declared the Senate would re-engage in its "oversight responsibilities" or, in other words, begin investigating everything the executive branch has done, is doing, or might do.   Obviously this would have the deleterious result of completely handcuffing the President and the entire executive branch, including, notably, homeland defense.   This would open the door to all sorts of departures of people in key positions, breakdowns in security protocols, and result ultimately in fertile ground for another attack.   Reid can say what he wants but the most important investigation in his future has to do with Abramoff.

There was the battle between ethically challenged candidates for majority leader.   The battle got so severe that it teetered on the verge of civil war.   Neither of the candidates seemed capable of doing less than reinforcing the Washington culture of corruption.

Then there were the larger party issues.   This came to light when Clinton's man, James Carville, said, "Howard Dean should be fired."   But how can they fire the guy right after the party won control of Congress?   It seems like a more difficult fight than Iraq.   Even a victory by Carville would seem to be Pyrrhic.

The day after the elections I wondered if Republicans would show themselves as bad at losing as the Democrats were in 2000 and 2004.   To my surprise, the Republicans acted in a dignified manner.   But the Democrats showed themselves to be worse at winning than they were at losing.   Guess who pays the price for this?

San Francisco's school board has decided to cancel high school junior ROTC.   One of the reasons offered had to do with the US military's stance on gays, the so-called don't ask, don't tell policy invented by the Clinton / Gore administration.   But let's face facts.   The "don't policy has been around for a decade.   There's nothing magical about this moment in time.   Another explanation had to do with the $1 million total cost of the program.   Board members suggested they could spend the money in better ways though they didn't offer any suggestions as to how that would be accomplished.   Hey, a million is a lot of doe-ray-me unless, of course, you divide it by the nearly 2,000 students who participate in the program which yields $500 - $1,000 per kid.   And in a city with the out of control gang problems the city by the bay suffers, it is a small price to pay to give a little discipline and structured thinking to youths who might otherwise fall by the wayside.   The bottom line is San Francisco wants to make a statement regarding the city's anti-US-military philosophy.   They feel emboldened by the Democrat congressional victories last week.   They want to make sure the volume of anti-Iraq-war voices is not turned down until we completely exit the country.

Here is the Jack Murtha Abscam video, in case you haven't seen it.   I'll let you judge for yourself whether or not Murtha should seek a post-congressional career as Mr. Clean.

Jack Abramoff is the gift that just keeps on giving, though sometimes he apparently gives to the other guy.   Liberals have been going nuts for months about the culture of corruption in the Republican party based in no small part on Abramoff's lobbying efforts on behalf of American indian tribes.   We and other outlets suggested to you that Abramoff's "kindness" did not follow strict party lines.   Now it seems as if this is true in some unexpected ways.   We knew Harry Reid took Abramoff money but we didn't know there would be repercussions.   Well, it appears Reid is the subject of a continuing investigation.   The American public voted out the Republican culture of corruption and voted into leadership Democrats Murtha and Reid!   Please explain to me how this is even a slight improvement?

Rep. John Murtha's quest to become the next majority leader in the House has been widely reported.   For your consideration is the following CNN story:

"Murtha decries 'swift boat-style' attacks on ethics"

Thisis a news story.   Sure, people have their opinions about Murtha's character.   Many on both the left and right claim the man is a poor choice for leader due to his connections to one large scandal and possible inappropriate conduct with respect to his brother.   But the story of his battle for the position is a factual matter.

The CNN story says quotes Murtha as saying "I thought we were above this type of swift-boating attack."   That was accurate.   But the piece goes on to say that Murtha's "swift boat" comment was "referring to the largely refuted but widely publicized attacks on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's military record in 2004."   Such conjecture stands on the wrong side of the term editorial.   The Kerry accusations made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were not widely reported.   And these were not largely refuted.   The issue devolved into he said - he said and there was no bottom of the truth since there was no evidence either way.

But brush that aside for a moment.   Murtha's actions which gave rise to the ethical criticisms are well documented.   His Abscam crude behavior, bordering on criminal, is available for the public to view any time thought the MSM seems averse to running the tape.   The other accusations stand on their own since most people in such a position of authority would never conduct business with a family member so as to avoid even the potential perception of wrongdoing.   Most codes of ethics address such circumstances.   Any smart, nuanced politician ought to understand this on a fundamental level.   But Murtha's involvement with steering business to his brother is well documented.   So, again, this cannot be called "swift-boating" unless you agree the swiftees were dead on with their Kerry concerns.

There are other instances, even in recent memory, in which political smears based on false accusations, which have in fact been completely refuted, have been made.   There was never a single valid document provided which supported one particular politically motivated smear.   The MSM in general and CNN in particular would like to have things both ways.   They want to use the phrase "swift-boated" in order to mark an instance in which serious, but false, accusations are made.   A better phrase for these folks would be "Rathered," as in John Murtha was Dan Rathered today.

Over at DoggieNews, there's an article about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)...

To summarize it, this bill seeks to convict people with a felony if they hurt anyone, damage any property, or conspire to do the same, with regards to an "animal enterprise".

So what is an "animal enterprise"?

It's any kind of business, school, laboratory, pet shop, zoo, circus, breeder, event, county fair, etc., where animals are used in some way. It could be for profit, for entertainment, for education, for work, for anything.

Animal rights groups and vegan groups are trying to stop this bill, because it would make punishments harsher for those who terrorize and firebomb pet shops, breeders, furriers, etc.

Imagine animal rights groups protesting laws that punish arsonists, terrorists, and thugs!

Read the rest of the article, "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act"

Robert Menendez may have one of the shortest careers on record as an elected US Senator.   Federal authorities have reportedly issued additional subpoenas regarding Menendez and a not-for-profit entity.   Menendez collected more than $300,000 in rent from the North Hudson Community Action Corp which receives federal funding, funding for which Menendez had something to say during his tenure in the House.   Can you say "culture of corruption?"

Regular visitors will know that we redesigned the layout of this blog.

We introduced the large ad banner across the top in a shameless attempt to get a few more pennies out of our work.   Our goal is to double the $.30 we earn each day from the site!   That's gross, as in before costs.

But you'll probably notice that many of the ads display messages which favor liberal causes, like gay marriage, destruction of religion, destruction of the family unit, etc.

The reason why you see ads like this is because they are displayed using Google's ad-serving technology.   This scans the text of our articles to determine the general nature of the content and serves up ads which the algorithm considers relevant.   Of course, anytime you rely on a machine to "think," you get a lot of strange results.

You might see an ad with Nancy Pelosi's smiling grill thanking us for our support.   In that case, turn your head and puke.

However, Dave and I think it's kinda cool to have liberals and Democrats paying us money to run their ads in front of a conservative audience.   Well, they're not really paying us directly.   They're paying Google when someone clicks on an ad and Google is sharing with us.   Sharing is the exclusive domain of liberals, who learned everything they need to know in kindergarten, but it still works out the same way as it does under capitalism.

So, when you click on one of these liberal ads, remember, you're costing the Dark Side.

Life is never simple.   It is easy to say the individual winners of the individual races "won."   It is just as easy to conclude the whole Democrat party won.   But the two statements hardly connote the same meaning.   There is no question that Democrats won the congressional elections last Tuesday.   But the question remains, which Democrats?

In the House things seem pretty clear though there are some complications.   While many conservative Democrats won the individual races, these folks come in as freshmen with no particular say in what gets discussed or done.   Incoming congressmen and women have to do their time and climb the ladder before they get to do anything besides back this or that more senior leader.   Democrats generally rule the roost by a fair margin.   But Nancy Pelosi is the ultimate winner in as much as she will set the tone and agenda.   Pelosi is no conservative.   Her agenda is unlikely to reflect "the voice of the people" based upon the campaign promises of the individual victors.   And after Nancy, who else won?   Was it Murtha or Hoyer?   I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.   My money is on Murtha since he is a close ally of Pelosi, has been a leading shoveler in the national spotlight since Iraq became the central campaign issue, and backed several successful campaigns.

The Senate is not quite so clear as the House.   Republicans aren't quite as decided a minority there.   It seems that there is a pivotal Senator, one with more power than all the others.   His name is Joe Lieberman.   And while Nancy Pelosi orchestrated the House Democrat victory, the same cannot be said of former minority leader Harry Reid.   He made a slight miscalculation when he backed Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont.   (Remember Ned Lamont?   You won't have to for very long.   He'll probably get a one-liner in the history books next Lieberman's more prominent position.)   Reid would like to take back his support of Lamont and the only carrot he has to offer is the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairmanship for which he has officially endorsed Leiberman.

That's only the beginning of the wrangling.   There is one other fly in the ointment.   Whereas in the House the emotion is totally against Iraq and the US military in general, the Senate cannot afford to piss off Lieberman by taking that stance.   Joe was a supporter of invading Iraq and not merely because of some questionable intelligence.   Joe is very interested in the position of Israel in the world and, as a result, saw the danger of Iraq long before others did.   He didn't need to find proof of WMD to support overthrowing Saddam.   He may not agree with the manner in which the post invasion effort has been conducted.   But he is not fundamentally against our invasion of the country.

Whereas incoming freshmen member of the House have absolutely no power, in the Senate, Lieberman holds all the cards.   In the Senate the Democrats hold a 51-49 edge.   The Republicans received their collective doctorate in slim majorities under the tutelage of Professor Jim Jeffords of Vermont some years ago.   The Democrats could receive the same degree since Lieberman siding with Republicans creates a tie in which the Republican Vice President would cast the deciding vote.   So Lieberman is the real man of power.   And while the rest of the country might generally be conservative but favor pulling up stakes in Iraq, Lieberman is just the opposite.

Things are just starting to get interesting.

The movie version of Fast Food Nation is hitting theaters on Nov 17.

It's supposed to wake up all of America about the stuff that goes into a hamburger. They point out all the chemicals, the fillers, artificials flavorings and smells.

It tells us how bad this stuff is for our bodies. It tells us how cattle consume so much water, by way of the water needed to grow grain.

It uncovers the truth about people working long hours and earning poor wages, while CEOs and shareholders are reaping in the big bucks.

But didn't we already know this? Exactly what is this movie telling us that we didn't already know about fast food?

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called U.S. The Democrat congressional election win "a victory for Iran."   Now why do you suppose that is?   Do you think he's upset about the two thousand plus brave Americans who died trying to bring order to chaos over there?   Maybe he thinks Bush and Rumsfeld should have put more than 140 K sets of boots on the ground or should have had a better plan to win the peace, to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.   Maybe he harbors resentment against Haliburton.   There's a chance, a slim one, he likes the "ideas" put forth by liberals to gain energy independence or to pump funds into "renewable energy sources."   Perhaps he's a little worried (maybe very worried) about the potential impact of anthropogenic greenhouse warming.   Or perhaps he secretly hopes the US will pump billions into embryonic stem cell research and make Michael J. Fox better.   Maybe he just feels bad for Cindy Sheehan - David Letterman says everyone should and the mullah probably catches the his show on Tivo.   Maybe he's just happy the minimum wage will finally be going up.   Maybe he just feels this will prop up Hillary's run for the Presidency, a job she was born to do, according to her.   I dunno.   There's so many possibilities.   Why do you think al Qaeda and Iran are so damn