Reader Mail

Alert reader freedom2learn wrote in with this question: I have an OT[off topic] question.....
What does the price of gas have to do with the presidency? Will prices be lower if a democrat is elected in November?

Excellent question for an election year, especially when gas prices are the highest they've ever been.

Answer: In the short term, the president has absolutely nothing to do with gas prices. Politicians will use high gas prices to fuel dissatisfaction toward and resentment of the party that currently holds the office, but that works only because democrat voters, as always, want somebody to blame for their problems, and then fix them.

The President can, however, do something to exacerbate the situation. Look no further than the disastrous presidency of Jimmy Carter. When gas prices went up, he defeated the entire supply/demand/price structure by instituting price controls which any private or home-schooled child will tell you, creates shortages.

Gas prices are set by the world crude oil market. China and India, enjoying economies that are roaring along at 10%-20% growth, are demanding more and more oil. The world's oil exporters will sell their oil to who ever will pay the highest price....as they should. And that in turn, creates a tightening of the oil supply in the US, which causes prices to go up.

Actually, there is not so much of a shortage of crude oil in this country as there is a shortage of refineries. The nutty environmentalists have protested and maligned the petroleum industry to the point that politicians haven't allowed a new refinery to be built in this country in 20 years. There's enough crude oil, but our refining capacity cannot meet the demand with adequate supplies of gasoline. High demand + low supply = high prices. It's really that simple, and the President has absolutely nothing to do with it. I wouldn't let gas prices affect my choice of president, unless that person has promised to "do something" about gas prices. Then vote against that person because whatever they do will be a disaster.

Islamic Rage Boy says, "If you watch movie, I kill you!"

Liveleak pulled the Fitna video because of death threats to their personnel. Let me guess, from enraged Muslims? I respect their decision but, we here at TRR will not be intimidated into self-censorship. Alert reader freedom2learn found the 15 minute movie here. Be sure to watch it and then forward this link to all your friends.
This is the world's most famous, and hilarious, jihadist...Islamic Rage Boy. He's a professional protestor who shows up enraged at Muslim protest marches, always in defense of some imagined insult to Islam. Evidently by the look on his face, he heard TheRightRant was linking to Fitna.

Mmmmeeeooowwww...........lunch!

It's been a while, but I thought it was about time we had another story regarding people stupidly believing that wild animals see them as friends and not as a meal.....and then are proved comically wrong...

WELLINGTON, Fla. - The owner of a wildlife sanctuary was attacked by two cheetahs and hospitalized with about 40 puncture wounds to her extremities and back, authorities said.

Judy Berens was airlifted Saturday to Delray Medical Center, but it appears her injuries are not life-threatening, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said.

She was conducting an exhibition with two male cheetahs in an enclosure on Saturday when one became distracted by a ball being bounced outside, the sheriff's office said. The cheetah moved toward the ball quickly and knocked her to the ground.

The cheetah then pounced on her and began biting and clawing her, said Gabriella Ferraro, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman. At some point the other cheetah attacked her as well, Ferraro said.


I realize you're probably thinking that I'm a callous jerk for mocking somebody who's dedicated to preserving wildlife and caring for animals. Well, you'd be right. But you also have to ask yourself, who in their right mind handles top predatory carnivors believing that the animals are doing anything but biding their time until they can eat you for lunch? Top predators exist for only one reason, to kill and eat. It's what they do. People never learn, and as long as they, through their own stupidity, keep getting attacked by wild animals, I'll keep making fun of them for it.

Does this cheetah look docile and friendly to you?

Earth Hour exposes idiots

This is easily one of the stupidest things I've seen in months...

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

If you want to use fewer lights in order to reduce your power bill, that's great...I do that at my house. But if you stupidly believe that you are somehow slowing global warming by living in the dark, then you need to be medicated and institutionalized. THERE IS NO MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING!!! It is a hoax conjured up by flim-flam artists like Al Gore to swindle the stupid out of their money.

That said, Saturday(tomorrow) at 8:00PM(your local time), turn ALL your lights on. Make your property an island of light in a sea of darkness and show that you appreciate living in the 21st century in which we enjoy the comfort of electricity. Make your property so bright, people come from near and far to see what shopping mall is staging it's grand opening. Create such a glare that the local astronomy club complains that they can't see the night sky. Emit so much light that if a pilot of a passing jet glances down, his night vision will be ruined. Show the dumb environmentalists who long for 17th century lifestyles that you think they are idiots.

Required viewing

We all know what happened to Theo van Gogh in Holland when he made a movie critical of the Religion of Peace....he was stabbed to death by a Muslim. Geert Wilders, another Dutch film-maker, made a short movie called Fitna which warns of the Islamization of western democracies and of radical Muslims' willingness to commit unspeakable crimes as commanded by the Qaran, in order to realize their destiny of world domination. With shocking imagery and straightforward commentary, he exposes Islam, as it's practiced today, as the radical cult it's practitioners have turned it into. Predictably, the government in Holland is terrified of the hundreds of thousands of practicing Muslims who will surely burn the country down if this movie is shown on Dutch TV. So it may be available for a limited time as the US government may ban it also so as not to offend our Muslim community.

This is the movie in it's entirety. It's only 15 minutes long but worth the time investment. I warn you, there are some very disturbing images and video clips so clear the kids out of the room and be prepared.



UPDATE: Freedom2learn found this link since Liveleak removed their copy of the movie.

The Spitzer Example

If you want to know how backwards most law-makers are when it comes to the Constitution, look no further than this tidbit from South Carolina...

COLUMBIA, S.C. --
Exotic dancers would have to stay six feet from strip club customers and those businesses would have to close at midnight under a bill being considered by House lawmakers.
Scott Bergthold is a Tennessee-based lawyer who told a House subcommittee on Thursday that late operating hours for strip clubs creates more crime and problems for police.

Bergthold says stripper dances may be protected by courts, but not when they touch customers, which is commonly known as a lap dance.

He says there's no constitutional right to lap dances.

What a puritanical, ignorant moron! There's no constitutional basis on which to ban lap dances either, which means they're legal. Clearly this dolt hasn't read the Constitution. If he had, he would know that it limits the scope and power of the federal government, not the individual. Sure, lap dances can be regulated, but only because they tend to occur in places of business where liquor is being sold. If somebody's wife or girlfriend wanted to perform a lap dance somewhere else, there is no law stating that they cannot, unless it violates laws prohibiting lewd, public behavior. And even then, what qualifies as "lewd"?

No, this hand-wringing do-gooder is trying to get rid of adult businesses by regulating them to the point that they just quit. Have all the other problems in South Carolina been solved that he has time to waste legislating morality by forcing free citizens to conform to his world view? I'll bet if somebody looked at this guy a little closer, we'd find that guilt and self-loathing about his adult-entertainment fetish compels him to rid the world of temptation....exactly like Eliot Spitzer.

It's Ann Coulter Thursday!

This week Ann mocks the MSM for treating Hillary with the contempt they usually reserve for conservatives. She also mocks Hillary for being relegated to playing the role of red-headed step-child to Barack Obama's annointed one. Clearly she enjoys watching the lib's wreck their party. Go here and read her column.

The blame game

African American economist Thomas Sowell pretty much sums up what's wrong with Jeremiah Wright and his divisive, racist, teachings...

While many whites may be annoyed by Jeremiah Wright’s words, a year from now most of them will probably have forgotten about him. But many blacks who absorb his toxic message can still be paying for it, big-time, for decades to come.

Why should young blacks be expected to work to meet educational standards, or even behavioral standards, if they believe the message that all their problems are caused by whites, that the deck is stacked against them? That is ultimately a message of hopelessness, however much audacity it may have.

This, I think, puts in a nutshell the problems facing the black community. If their leaders would preach accountability, personal responsibility, hard work, perserverance and education rather than, all the hardships you face are because white society designed it that way and you cannot overcome them, everything would change in a generation or two. Sadly, human nature prefers the easy way which is blame rather than accountability.

Website/blog of the Day

The site is called Zombietime. It's run by a person apparently living in NoCal who likes to document through photography and video, the antics and stupidity of the anti-war, anti-religion, anti-semite, anti-capitalism, anti-military, anti-deoderant, anti-bra, anti-meat crowd whose world headquarters seems to be San Francisco. He/she gets great shots of the rabble-rousers and provides snide, sarcastic commentary for each one. There are some really funny pictures of dumb, smelly hippies.

Crying wolf

I'm growing a little tired of overly sensitive minorities crying racism over everything. I'm sure you've seen the cover of Vogue this month on which Lebron James and super-model Gisele pose...

NEW YORK - When Vogue announced its April cover starring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen, the magazine noted with some fanfare that James was the first black man to grace its cover.

But the image is stirring up controversy, with some commentators decrying the photo as perpetuating racial stereotypes. James strikes what some see as a gorilla-like pose, baring his teeth, with one hand dribbling a ball and the other around Bundchen's tiny waist.

It's an image some have likened to "King Kong" and Fay Wray.

"It conjures up this idea of a dangerous black man," said Tamara Walker, 29, of Philadelphia.


Gimme a break! It's only racist if you choose to see it as such. Why not give it the benefit of the doubt? These people are reacting as if Gisele was holding a chain attached to a collar around James' neck...that would be racist.

If you're going to point around every corner and cry "racism", people are going to stop buying it. Just because a black person poses for a picture with a white person doens't make it racist. What happened to our supposedly color-blind society?

The Clinton legacy

It turns out Bill Clinton left more of an impact on the DC area than was previously thought. Click on the picture to see how.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day

As you know, Nancy Pelosi is a vile, loathsome wretch. That's how I begin all posts concerning the Speaker of the House. But even vile, loathsome wretches like her can get it right once in a while, and when they do, I'll give them credit for it...

Pelosi was cheered on her trip to India, when she made the first high-level call on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader after anti-Chinese protests led to violent clashes between Tibetans and Chinese police 10 days ago.

"If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in Tibet, we have lost our moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world," Pelosi said.

She's right about the moral authority argument. We can't insert ourselves all over the world on the basis of perceived injustice if we don't at least speak up every time we see it. Just because the offender is hosting the Olympics or is a valued trading partner doesn't exempt them from criticism about human rights.

See, I'm not as myopic when it comes to my opposition of democrats as you think.

Treating the symptom, not the problem

It's just after 9:00 here and already, I've grossed myself out...

I'm not a big fan or anything but even I can recognize talent and potential when I see it. In addition to all her other personal problems, Amy Winehouse is also dealing with complexion issues...

A friend of Amy’s told England’s Daily Star:

“Amy’s sick of turning heads for all the wrong reasons when she’s out. She has tried all sorts of lotions and potions but none works. She is desperately unhappy with her appearance and she is happy to try anything that may clear up her condition. She is praying the urine ointment will work.”

URINE OINTMENT??? Oh, I don't know, Amy. How about putting down the crack pipe, kicking the meth habit, and stop putting cigarettes out on your face? That might help the skin problems. How about starting with that?

Great Britain, stampeding toward lunacy

As if Britain PM Gordon Brown wants his country to resemble a bizarre, barbaric horror movie, his insistence on the passage of The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill may just do the trick...[emphasis mine]

The legislation will permit lesbian couples to be registered as legal parents for the first time, allow the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for scientific research and remove the requirement on IVF clinics to consider a child's need for a father.

It will also give the green light to the creation of "saviour siblings" - children genetically selected to be a donor for a sick brother or sister.

I don't care about the lesbian thing or the IVF issue one way or the other but, human/animal hybrids and savior siblings? I realize that we're talking about hybrid zygotes only, not term progeny, but this research will lead some guy somewhere to attempt to bring a hybrid to term, just out of gruesome, morbid curiosity. Right now all they're doing is replacing the DNA from one species into the empty egg of another species, which is technically not a hybrid. But this opens the door for guys to mix DNA from different species such as crossing a human with a chimpanzee for instance just to see what happens. As Lee over at RightThinking said, if it can be done, it will be done. What happens when you wind up with some grotesqeu lab freak writhing in agony? It's part human, maybe self-aware, intelligent. What do you do? Kill it? Treat is like a child with a horrible disease? Force it to toil in agony and misery for years while you study it and it waits, begging to die? Sounds like a horrible science fiction scenario doesn't it? But so does mixing Britney Spears with motherhood, and this Bill opens the door for it.

And I don't even want to get started on savior siblings. Anybody who creates one human to harvest body parts for another is reprehensible and belongs in hell. I don't care if it's only bone marrow or liver cells. It's a human being with rights. Humans have to consent to being a parts farm.

Here's a human/animal hybrid that may have already been created...



Hat tip to Dailymail.

Hippie stupidity

I'm all for home-schooling, self-determination, parents-rights, personal responsibility, etc....but this is taking it too far....

SAN DIEGO — In a highly unusual outbreak of measles here last month, 12 children fell ill; nine of them had not been inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, and the other three were too young to receive vaccines.

The parents who objected to their children being inoculated are among a small but growing number of vaccine skeptics in California and other states who take advantage of exemptions to laws requiring vaccinations for school-age children.

I'm sorry, the miniscule risk your child faces from being innoculated is by far outweighed by the risk he will impose on other children if he contracts some horrible infection, one that could have easily been prevented. Despite most public schools being dreadfully poor educational institutions but wonderfull liberal indoctrination centers, if you take advantage of free education, you have only one responsibility as a parent.....get your kid vaccinated so he won't make other kids sick. How does your right to stupidly endanger your child make it OK to stupidly endanger somebody elses child? If you have religious objections to innoculations, then send your dumb kid to a religious school where he can infect only other dumb kids.

If you're one of those earthy-crunchy Birkenstocks and granola types who lives an "all natural" lifestyle, free of processed food, artificial materials, modern conveniences, and soap, then I'm embarrassed for your child, but you can't impose your hippie wrecklessness onto others.

Global warming is over, but not for Goreacle's zealots

Remember these poor, endangered polar bears that weepy environmentalists are using daily to convince dumb Americans global warming because of man's CO2 emissions is destroying the planet? Well, not so much as it turns out. Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs had this answer to the question, "Is the Earth still warming"?

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

You'd think this would make the news wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. You see, the media, politicians, teachers, activists, and Goreacle's zealots are too invested in the myth of global warming to come out and admit that their dire predictions of global devestation and mayhem were completely and utterly false. They won't tell you that the destruction of the world's leading, successful economies is their ultimate goal, that and making sure that poor, third-world peasants remain mired in poverty, misery, and despair.

There are three basic goals of modern environmentalists:

1: to hamstring the world's leading economies with CO2 restrictions based on populist Marxist ideals of social equality through which the powerful countries are brought down to the level of the impoverished
2: To keep the world's impoverished, poor, destitute, and unindustrialized because elitist environmentalists in America think it's quaint for other people(not themselves) to be living with starvation, disease, and poverty
3: To elitist radicals like Al Gore and his followers in the church of modern environmentalism, humans are a disease which infests Mother Gaia.(Al and other rich white elitists don't see themselves as part of the disease because they buy carbon credits) These environmental aristocrats see themselves as the healers of Mother Earth. If millions of Africans, and others around the world, die every year because of the poverty and hunger associated with their third-world existence, well that's a good thing. Whatever we do to pretend to care like sending aid packages, we cannot let them become industrialized or they'll be contributing to global warming. The more humans who are expunged from Earth, the better.

If you have annoying neighbors or friends who take too much pride in recycling, composting, or driving hybrids, alert them that the crisis is over and they can go back to being normal people again....and see how they react.

Black Liberation Theology

In light of Barack Obama's trouble concerning Rev. Wright's anti-American preaching, I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at Black Liberation Theology. What is it? What are it's origins? Why is it part of black religion in 21st century America?

First the history, from GotQuestions.org.

Liberation Theology is an attempt to interpret Scripture through the plight of the poor. It is largely a humanistic doctrine. It started in South America in the turbulent 1950's when Marxism was making great gains among the poor because of its emphasis on the redistribution of wealth, allowing poor peasants to share in the wealth of the colonial elite and thus upgrade their economic status in life.

Since those who had money were very reluctant to part with it in any wealth redistribution model, the use of a populist (read poor) revolt was encouraged by those who worked most closely with the poor. As a result, the Liberation Theology model was mired in Marxist dogma and revolutionary causes.

Liberation Theology has moved from the poor peasants in South America to the poor blacks in America. We now have Black Liberation Theology being preached in the black community. It is the same Marxist, revolutionary, humanistic philosophy found in South American Liberation Theology and has no more claim for a scriptural basis than the South American model has. In the same way that revolutionary fervor was stirred up in South America, Liberation Theology is now trying to stir up revolutionary fervor among Blacks in America.

In practice, BLT is centered more on the social injustices and tribulations of blacks at the hands of a white-dominated society than it is about salvation, or any other traditional religious message. As we heard from Rev. Wright, BLT perpetuates the notion that blacks continue to be the victims of institutionalized and government racism that prevents them from achieving true social, economic, political, and personal freedom. In many black religious circles, the concept of Christian salvation is synonymous with liberation. You can't have one without the other.

I understand there is lingering resentment among blacks about how they or their parents were treated in years past, but to convince significant numbers of blacks that the government invented HIV to kill blacks, that the government is building prisons specifically to incarcerate blacks, that the levies in NO were intentioally breached to kill as many blacks as possible during Katrina, and that the crack epidemic is an FBI program specifically designed to keep blacks down and dependent is reprehensible! It is, therefor, perfectly justifiable to question the judgement of a man who would be President, if he associates himself with people who have these beliefs, and questions them only when it's politically expedient to do so.

Have another hit, dumb hippie

If smelly-hippie war protesters stay this stupid, then we've probably got very little to worry about from them.

Hat tip to Moonbattery.

Government incompetence

So I just got back from the DMV where I stood in a 10-person line for about an hour while I watched three tellers shuffle slowly between chatting in the supervisor's office and eating biscuits in the break room, only occasionally helping customers. If any company in the world were run as incompetently and inefficiently as the DMV, it would go out of business in days. By the time I left, the line was 30 people long and moving even slower.

See, this is what you get when you award workers with fabulous salaries and benefits without the threat of dismissal. They have no incentive to perform. Only miserable government bureaucrats can get away with utter ineptitude, laziness, and apathy.

Doctor, why does my butt hurt?

Now here's a headline you don't see every day...

Woman Goes for Leg Operation, Gets New Anus Instead

A German retiree is taking a hospital to court after she went in for a leg operation and got a new anus instead, the Daily Telegraph is reporting.

The woman woke up to find she had been mixed up with another patient suffering from incontinence who was to have surgery on her sphincter.

I'm usually a critic of litigation but this is one suit that is probably warranted.

It's Ann Coulter Thursday!

This week Ann distills the race issue down to it's nitty-gritty. She rightly questions the contradiction of blacks constantly imploring us to get past race, all the while perpetuating racial stereotypes. As usual, Ann has the stones to say what most people are thinking but are afraid to say. A must read.

Mad dogs and Englishmen

As the old saying goes, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon-day sun. Well, apparently Englishmen wearing their dogs do too. As if the Brits weren't PC enough already, this couple is wearing sweaters made from the actual hair of their dead pets as a way of recycling.

Guns save lives

As the Supreme Court ponders the Second Amendment challenge from DC about private ownership of hand-guns, I wonder if they'll hear about cases like this one....

If a DeKalb County home invasion suspect thought an elderly Tucker couple would make an easy target Tuesday night, he thought wrong.

Now the suspect is now dead, and DeKalb police say the 81-year-old homeowner will not face charges for shooting and killing the man.

But for that hand-gun and the owner's willingness to use it, both of those seasoned citizens might be dead right now.

Website/blog of the day

I thought you might enjoy this site called 2Spare. It's probably where most of those funny lists your friends forward to you in a batch e-mail come from. They've got the 40 funniest Seinfeld quotes, pictures of incredible ice caves, and the worst childrens' book covers ever....plus tons of other funny and interesting lists. So if you need a break from your crap job and you're suffering from political overload, check out 2Spare for a few minutes.

Obama's do or die speech

This morning in Philadelphia Barack Obama gave a speech about race in America. He wouldn't be giving the speech at all except that the story about his racist preacher Jeremiah Wright grew legs and won't go away. BO is between a rock and a hard place right now. If he claims he never knew about the true white-hating nature of his spiritual Svengali of twenty years, it makes him the dumbest guy on Earth. If he claims that he knew about it but stayed for 20 years anyway, it shows startlingly bad judgement. Both things, stupidity and/or poor judgement make BO wholly unqualified to be CiC. How will he wriggle out of this one?

You know Hillary is sitting quietly somewhere in rapt shadenfreude at this moment. When your opponent is self-destructing, shut up and get out of the way. Meanwhile J.Mac is polling way ahead of either BO or Hillary, so he's enjoying this moment too.

Website/blog of the Day

John Hawkins over at RightWingNews has established himself as one of the web's leading conservatives. He keeps his finger on the pulse of conservatism in the blogosphere by interviewing bloggers on all the pertinent topics of the day, and offers his own informative commentary.

He operates another site called ConservativeGrapevine which is a clearing house of conservative thought and liberal exposure featuring columns and news stories from around the world. There are also links to some fun stuff like online games, interesting or unusual polls, and a little something for the guys down at the bottom. I stop by there everyday and so should you.

Website of the Day

Over at the National Anxiety Center, Alan Caruba ridicules global warming, the religion of peace, the UN, and dreadful public education among other topics. The articles are well-written, entertaining, and short enough that your boss will not likely catch you reading them. There's lots of content, links, and information you can use to humiliate and belittle your liberal PC friends at the next neighborhood block party.

The ethanol hoax

For the regulars at TRR, you already know that the ethanol hysteria sweeping the country like a swamp fever, is based on pure dementia in the minds of zealots in the church of modern environmentalism. President Bush, other PC republicans, and most democrats are on board with the idea that somehow ethanol will save the planet from the imaginary menace of global climate change.....it won't. For you believers in ethanol, a column was written by brilliant economist Walter Williams detailing the idiocy of putting our food in our gas tanks rather than in our bellies. Here's an exerpt you must read...

Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel -- oil and natural gas -- to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers -- all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.

Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers.

Everybody points to Brazil's ethanol-based fuel economy as the model to follow, but Brazil's ethanol is produced from sugar cane which is much more efficient as a fuel and much cheaper to produce. This is why ethanol is profitable in the marketplace in Brazil, and it's an utter failure in the American free market. If corn-ethanol fuel was worth a damn, Bush wouldn't have to employ the power of the federal government to mandate it's use. Any time the imperial federal government mandates something, you can bet it would be a colossal failure on it's own...and you should stay away from it, both from a use and an investment standpoint.

If after reading this, you still stupidly believe that corn-ethanol is good for the environment, the economy, water conservation, rain forest preservation, world hunger, etc....then you should not be allowed to breed.

Hat tip to TownHall.

Is guilt by association legitimate?

Unless you are an Al-Qaida operative living in a cave in Pakistan, by now no doubt you've seen the footage of Jeremaih Wright, Barack Obama's pastor for 20 years, railing against America, white people, CIA, Hillary, absurd conspiracy theories, you name it. Obama has come out recently and condemned the rantings and distanced himself from Rev. Wright. The question is...is this enough? Should Obama be held responsible for what Wright said, given that he's publically disavowed association with it?

MovieReview

We watched a movie last night, August Rush, which, unlike the usual reprehensible tripe we've come to expect from the vapid liberals in Hollywood, turned out to be pretty good. It's about an orphan who turns out to be a music prodigy, and uses his gift as a means to search for his birth-parents. It stars Freddie Highmore and Kerri Russell, with Robin Williams brilliantly playing an Artful Dodger type character.

I know, I know what you're thinking. But Ed, this doesn't sound like a guy movie. What gives?

Look, there are no car chases, explosions, or guns, but it's still a feel-good story that If you're a guy, I recommend you watch with whatever girl is in your life....it's not really a guy flick.

Harry Reid--awful human being!

Harry Reid is a vile, disgusting maggot! As Senate majority leader, he delayed a vote on a temporary earmark(pork) ban, pushing it back until around midnight, a sleazy tactic these guys use when they don't want the press covering it. As you know, pork is the bread and butter of American politics. If it weren't for pork spending, craven democrats would have no means with which to buy votes from their dumb, hand-out voting base.

As if that weren't bad enough, the Reid-led Senate elected not to renew some of Bush's tax cuts, opening the door for huge tax hikes if a democrat wins the presidency.

Obama and Clinton both promise to reverse Bush’s tax cuts for wealthier taxpayers, but the Democratic budget they’ll be voting for would allow income tax rates to go up on individuals making as little as $31,850 and couples earning $63,700 or more.

If you didn't know, the category [couples earning $63,700] includes pretty much every couple in America. That Reid forced the Senate to vote on the earmark ban when nobody was watching shows his disdain for the American taxpayer, and he thinks that your money is his money for the taking, to spend it any way he sees fit. That Nevadans continue to elect this vermin is embarrassing.

If you pay taxes in America, this is what democrat Harry Reid thinks of you.

Website of the Day

As you probably know, I peruse dozens of websites and blogs each day, ferreting out the interesting stories of the day so you don't have to...'cause I'm selfless and thoughtful like that. In my wanderings I've come across some sites that are interesting, entertaining, and informative. I'm going to have a new feature that I'll try to renew every day called Website of the Day where I'll link to one of these sites and give a brief synopsis of the author's general topic of discussion and my thoughts on it.

So today's Website of the Day is Libertyzone. Nicki is a military veteran and strong proponent of the 2nd ammendment, as am I. She covers mostly gun rights issues but delves into politics regularly too. Her posts are concise and to the point. It's easy to click on over and read a few of them, leave a comment or two, and get back to work in like 5 minutes. If you think I'm acerbic, you'll enjoy her writing. Check it out when you have a minute.

The Spitzer Hypocricy

The Spitzer Hypocricy ---sounds like the title of a Robert Ludlum novel.

OK, I think this is probably my last Spitzer post. If you're as tired of the coverage as I am, I hope I don't think of anything else to add.

We discussed earlier this week why Silda Spitzer, or any self-respecting wife would stand publically by her cheating husband. Already, Eliot has made a complete mockery of his career of fighting prostitutes. It seems Silda has made an equally embarrassing mockery of her statement 10 years ago about Hillary standing by Bill....

March 13, 2008 -- A decade ago, as she watched then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton humiliated by her intern-loving hubby, Silda Wall Spitzer made clear her intentions if Eliot ever cheated.
"That would never be me. I'd be gone," Silda told friends, a pal told The Post.

So both the Spitzers are shameless hypocrites. If, as many have wondered, Silda is staying for security and/or lifestyle reasons(if she left with the girls, any judge in the world would award her millions), then how is she any different than Kristin, Eliot's $1000/hour prostitute? They both are willing to put up with humiliation, shame, and degradation from Client #9 in exchange for what amounts to cash, for without it, there is no security or lifestyle.

This post isn't so much asking about the Spitzers as it is asking...if you take "the kids" out of the equation, are there not plenty of wives, who would otherwise leave because of infidelity, who stay with men in exchange for security and/or lifestyles? What makes them superior to girls like Kristin?

Moobs

Generally I post a picture with all my rantings, for those of you with child-like intellects who don't like to read much, but I elected not to for this post....you'll thank me.

I'm not a huge fan of reality TV(I'm proud to say I've never seen a single episode of Survivor, Big Brother, or Real World), however there are some reality shows that for some reason have appeal. The Biggest Loser is one of those. You watch these otherwise normal, intelligent people struggle to make better lives for themselves and their families as they train and compete to lose wieght, something with which we can all identify...except Reid, he has a god-like physique. Most reality TV, on the other hand, focuses on vapid, narcissists bickering amongst themselves about whatever silly, personal minutae vapid, narcissists bicker about.

If you've watched the show, you know that at the end of each episode, there's a weigh-in, in which the contestants see who lost the most weight as a percentage of their total. The guys, who started the show in the high 300's or low 400's, regularly take off their shirts to weigh, revealing their enormous man-boobs. The first time we watched the show, my wife and I actually exchanged uncomfortable glances during the weigh-in. You get that same awkward, stunned feeling like when you were a kid and accidentally walked in on your grandparents making out naked. You know you didn't do anything wrong, yet you reflexively look away as if you saw something private you shouldn't have seen.

Having said that, the last couple of shows featured the weigh-ins with the men wearing their shirts. My question is, would you find that awkward and do you think the network told them to wear their shirts because of viewer mail pleading with them to?

For the not squeamish, here's what I'm talking about. SFW, but just barely. If you vomit a little bit in your mouth, don't say I didn't warn you.

It's Ann Coulter Thursday!

Based on the title of Ann's article this week, I was looking forward to a wickedly sarcastic free-for-all at Eliot Spitzer's expense, but it never really takes off. It's almost as if she pities him. Anyway, you can to over to HumanEvents and check it out.

Democrat culture of corruption?

By now you've all heard about disgraced NY governor Elliot Spitzer, who in the richest of ironies, got busted arranging for a rendezvous with a prostitute, after spending a career as a DA busting prostitutes. Watching this story last night and this morning got my wife and me wondering...going back to all the recent political scandals, NJ governor McGreevy admitting he's gay, Larry Craig and the creepy airport bathroom, and of course Bill Clinton's seemingly endless parade of sex adventures...what compells these wives to take the stage at the excrutiatingly uncomfortable press conferences?

In Hillary's case, it was the raw pursuit of political power that led her to marry Bill in the first place. Why would his escapades with trailer-park floozies cause her to deviate from her mission of seizing the US presidency? It wouldn't because hers is a marriage of political expediency and necessity. Bill's sexcapades are less of a marriage betrayal issue, and more of a political damage-control issue. (though I'll wager if she loses the current race, she kicks Bill to the curb). But why would Silda Spitzer humiliate herself further by taking the stage at the press conference yesterday? I think it's because of money and maybe the kids but, Elliot probably promised her millions if she stuck it out until the inevitable trial is over. Why else?

Why do you people think they stick around?

p.s. When Larry Craig got caught in the airport bathroom soliciting gay sex, Pelosi, the democrats, and most of the media echoed the "republican culture of corruption" canard to score political points. Has anybody heard a peep about that from the MSM about the democrats?

UPDATE: Rush is talking about this very topic today. McGreevy's wife said in her book that she stood with him because she didn't want their kids to hate their dad, which she thought they would do if she abandoned him. There's also the political calculation that if the wife is willing to stand by the politician, surely the public should give him another chance too.

Get smart and feed the little children

You people know that I think the United Nations is a hideously corrupt, reprehensible, and vile organization. That being said, the UN World Food Program is helping to feed all the little starving children around the world by donating 20(that's right, twenty) grains of rice if you play a simple online vocabulary game. Go to Free Rice and do your part. There's even a heartwarming graphic that shows a rustic wooden bowl filling with rice as you answer correctly....you know like the ones you see the kids eating out of while Sally Struthers, who never misses a meal, begs for your money. I'm proud to say that just this afternoon, I successfully caused 80 grains of rice to be donated to a hungry child in the Congo, Bangladesh, or somewhere. Now I can go home and enjoy the prime rib my wife is cooking for dinner without guilt.....heck, if I think about it and the cat doesn't want it, I might package up the left-overs and send them over there.....because I'm a giver like that.
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-Now, keep your hate-mail to yourselves. That post was clearly tongue-in-cheek. How exactly does my playing an online game result in rice being given to starving children? Will the UN withhold rice if I refuse to play?

If the UN really wants to do something about poverty, then bring economic and individual freedoms, democratic government, and the rule of law to these countries and watch the prosperity and waist-lines blossom.

Hat tip to Neal Boortz.

Reaping what they sowed

About the only story running these days is what's going to happen to the democratic nominating delegates from Florida and Michigan. The DNC is not allowing them to sit at the convention in August for staging their primaries too early. Neither Hillary nor Obama campaigned in either state and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. With Hillary trailing Obama by only 110 delegates, the 300 delegates pledged from those two states could tip the nomination. The tendancy is to feel sorry for the voters in those two states because their vote essentially won't count toward nominating a candidate going into the general phase. But Howard Dean, DNC chairman, told them what the penalty was before they decided to move their primaries up into January and he's sticking to his guns. Predictably those dem. voters and their state officials are whining about being disenfranchized(I hate that word) and their votes not counting, but like my wife derisively and correctly stated this morning...they made their beds and now they're going to have to lie in them.

I can't put it any more succinctly than that.

I guess we're all doomed

By adding 7 more mortal sins to the 7 already on the books, not to mention the 10 commandments, it looks like the Pope has decided that pretty much everybody deserves eternal damnation. I was just thinking that since the fundamental assumption of Christianity is that everybody does indeed deserve eternal damnation, isn't this a little like announcing you've invented loaf bread? I mean seriously, who, after this latest addition, isn't now covered by at least one if not most of the "deadly" sins? Here are the old mortal sins...Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, and Sloth. Man, on any given football Saturday in the SEC, I'm busted for like 3 of those...gluttony, anger, and sloth(as I lie on the couch for hours yelling at the TV and eating chips) and maybe pride if Georgia wins.

Here are the new ones...Polluting, Genetic engineering, Obscene riches, Taking drugs, Abortion, Pedophilia and Causing social injustice

I'll let you write your own jokes about the irony of the Catholic church making a mortal sin out of pedophilia.

Now, if you're as cynical as I am, you rolled your eyes at most of these. I'm respectful of the Catholic faith but a dude in a funny hat telling me that obscene wealth is a sin is preposterous when there are fewer institutions on Earth up to it's eyeballs with wealth like the Catholic church. And "causing social injustice" could be interpreted any number of ways. This is just the Catholic church's attempt to remain relevant by succoming to political correctness and politics. I realize that Jerry Falwell, Jesse Jackson, James Dobson, and Al Sharpton are all guilty of politicizing religion but you could usually count on the Pope to remain more or less neutral.....polluting.....gimme a break!

There will never be peace in the Middle East

I'm sure you saw this atrocity...

Eight people have been killed and nine wounded by a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated a Jewish seminary in West Jerusalem, Israeli officials say.

The attack is the worst of its kind in Israel for a number of years.

The White House has led international condemnation but the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas called the attack "heroic" while not claiming responsibility.

The Palestinians, for the most part, are vile, loathsome, bloodthirsty savages. Or as John Hawkins over at RWN said, they're like Nazi's but without the ingenuity and productivity. They celebrated in the streets when these students were slaughtered. When Israel left Gaza to the Palestinians, complete with food markets, green houses, and comfortable living structures, the Palestinians promptly did what they always do, they trashed it, reducing it to worthless desert land. These people don't know how, nor desire, to be civilized.

I know what you're thinking. But Ed, Israel has killed Palestinian civilians too. Why don't you attack them?

Because Israel only attacks the Palestinians in retaliation for something they did first. Israel doesn't shoot rockets into Palestinian territories, or stage suicide bombings against civilians. Israel only wants to be left alone on her little plot of desert. The Arabs occupy 99.4% of all the Middle-East. You'd think they would accomplish more with it besides selling oil to the West, exporting terrorism, and killing Jews. And all the pageant contestants in the world can call for peace in the middle east but until one side wins, there will never be any. Isreal should once and for all, defeat the Palestinians with swift brutal military action....only then will there be peace.

"Sheer madness!"

That's how Prince Charles described beliefs by people like me, that man-made global-warming is utterly phony. That's funny, I would describe the determination of a modern country to cling to a silly monarchy exactly the same way.
Here's the Prince now. Surely his days as a monarch are as numbered as Al Gore's climate-change movement.

Flashers are patients too

You people don't think we're heading for government-mandated coverage for literally every kooky health anomaly, real or imagined? Read about this...[Emphasis mine]

The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would require health insurers to cover treatments for addiction and mental conditions the same way they provide for physical illnesses.
The bill, which was approved 268-148, would broaden coverage to virtually every type of mental illness.

So everybody from peeping toms, flashers, cross-dressers, kleptomaniacs, arachniphobics, and bogyphobics(afraid of the boogyman), to fibromyalgia, laziness, apathy, chronic joblessness.....you name it. Literally any idiotic "disorder" or "syndrome" a quack doctor can dream up and name for himself will qualify as insurable. And along with psycho-treatment, the "sufferers" will get paid time off work and prescription drugs too. This is every shrinks dream bill.

Hey, here's a sufferer of Canine-Flasher's syndrome. His employer's insurance carrier must be made to pay for the treatment he deserves.

Home-school ruling could affect nation

We'll stick with the education theme today as a California ruling today sent chills down the spines of parents who home-school their kids. Here's an exerpt of the article but seriously, if you're a parent, you really should be up on this...

A California court has ruled that several children in one homeschool family must be enrolled in a public school or "legally qualified" private school, and must attend, sending ripples of shock into the nation's homeschooling advocates as the family reviews its options for appeal.

The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children after the family's homeschooling was brought to the attention of child advocates.

"We find no reason to strike down the Legislature's evaluation of what constitutes an adequate education scheme sufficient to promote the 'general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence,'" the court said in the case. "We agree … 'the educational program of the State of California was designed to promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the personal ideas of any individual in the field of education.'"

The words echo the ideas of officials from Germany, where homeschooling has been outlawed since 1938 under a law adopted when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted the state, and no one else, to control the minds of the nation's youth.

Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has said "school teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct, encourages dialogue among people of different beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become responsible citizens."

Specifically, the appeals court said, the trial court had found that "keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children's lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents' 'cloistered' setting."

If somebody can convince me that forced institutionalization in horrid government schools is Constitutional, I'd like to hear it. I agree that home-schooled student must show that they are learning by taking periodical standardized tests, but beyond that, the government has no right to force your child to attend it's indoctrination centers.

In California, in addition to forcing blind acceptance of the global warming hoax and that America is a hateful country, Nazi-like educators have outlawed the use of terminology like "mom", "dad", "husband", and "wife" in schools because they offend people who practice non-traditional sexual "arrangements". In addition, homosexuals, bisexuals, and trannies are actively recruited to be teachers because to educators, they make good role models and teach the children to be non-judgemental, reject bias, and accept alternative lifestyle choices as normal. I imagine the next step is to teach 3rd graders how to masterbate and put condoms on cucumbers. No wonder parents are yanking their children out of public schools by the thousands.

You can go over to WorldNetDaily and read the whole article.

This is embarrassing!

Like we need something else of which to be made fun...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - If $200 laptop computers are good for kids in Peru and Mongolia, why not Alabama?

Birmingham's City Council has approved a $3.5 million plan to provide schoolchildren with 15,000 computers produced by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child Foundation, which aims to spread laptops to poor children in developing countries.

The foundation says the deal marks the first time a U.S. city has agreed to buy the machines, which also are headed to such countries as Rwanda, Thailand, Brazil and Mexico in addition to Peru and Mongolia.

The jokes practically write themselves....

Q: What's the difference between impoverished, illiterate children in the third world, and kids in B'ham city schools?
A: Kids in B'ham have access to better drugs.

Feel free to write your own jokes in the comments thread.

Look, I'm all for kids getting comfortable with using computers. It's a business necessity, but first of all, these are wi-fi units. The B'ham city schools don't have wireless service. Nor do they have the technical staff to train the teachers. To me, this is putting the cart before the horse. That money could be better spent on text books, qualified-teacher recruiting, expanded academic programs, anti-drug, anti-pregnancy, and anti-gang programs, etc. Better fundamentals will yeild the best results, not laptops. Save the computer expense for high-school.

You can put a drassage saddle on a mule if you want to, but he still won't run the hurdle course.

It's Ann Coulter Thursday!

This week Ann makes good on her promise to support Hillary by advising her on how to maintain the momentum for the rest of primary season. Tongue-in-cheek wit and sarcasm as always. Check it out here.

It's a blogger's potpourri!

Folks, there's very little worth blogging on today, so we'll hit the high points for now...

Hillary pulled a rabbit out of a hat last night(possibly thanks to Rush), but she didn't get much closer in terms of delegates. It was more of a momentun swing for her going into the back stretch of the primary season. If she can hang on until the convention in August, she and Barack will have spent all their money and generated so much resentment and animosity from each other's supporters, that J.Mac. will have an easy time winning. And hopefully Michelle Obama will get some of the scrutiny she deserves. The more I read about her, the less I like.

John Colemen, the founder of the Weather Channel, is calling for somebody to sue Al Gore for pulling a confidence job on the American people with this whole global warming/carbon credit hoax. He says that if scientists are forced to testify under oath in court, the facts about climate change will come out and the media won't be able to ignore them. If it can be proved that Al Gore knew the date he was presenting was phoney, then selling carbon-credits to stupid people would constitute the crime of theft by deception. It's interesting. I hope somebody does it.

The you-know-what is about to hit the fan in Columbia/Venezuela. Chavez has amassed many batallions of troops along the Columbian border and both countries have recalled their ambassadors. Who cares...you say? Ordinarily we wouldn't but Columbia is a strong ally of ours in the war on drugs and we hate Chavez. If Venezuela invades Columbia, I don't know what our treaty agreement with Columbia is, but we may be obligated to defend them. You'd think Chavez would be smarter than to hand over to the US a reason to kill him.

Vapid, Hollywood, glitterpig actors are planning a possible strike for all the same reasons the writers struck. They want more royalties and less conspicuous product placements in thier movie scenes. What those dingbats don't get is that nobody is going to see their boring, preachy movies and it's the product placements that pay for the movie to be made in the first place. ...stupid, preening, narcissists.

No wonder the country is in an economic downturn.....gas prices have hit $3.20 where I live. My wife and I carpool every day that we can but still, that's a big slice of the household budget. We're talking about summer vacations and the price of driving somewhere figures into the decision now, when it didn't before.

The county in which I live just had some if it's municipal bonds downgraded by WallStreet to junk status, that's the next level above bankruptcy. The county managers need to come up with like 120million in equity in a week, to secure the bonds or the creditors can call them in anytime. If the county can't secure the bonds, it goes bankrupt. I guess that means no money for county schools, road maintenance, and other county services....bummer!

Rush Limbaugh is taking some heat today from callers as well as conservative journalists and pundits for advocating suicide voting for Hillary in Texas yesterday. The Clintons are like cock-roaches. You have to kill them dead or you risk them magically coming back to life and eating your birthday cake. Keeping the Clintons alive may be playing with fire. Who knows of McCain can beat either Hillary or Obama but I would never count Hillary out...unless she's out.

Comment on any or all of the stories above or introduce any other topic you like. This is an open thread.

We're a country of delicate, hot-house orchids

I'm probably going to be in the minority here but I just don't find celebrities slipping up and using the occassional foul word so objectionable that the network should be fined for it...

The media environment has changed dramatically since the court last ruled on this issue in 1978: Viewers and listeners today are exposed to the more freewheeling cable television, Internet, and "shock jocks" on satellite radio.

The issue before the court now is delicately described as the problem of "fleeting expletives" in over-the-air broadcasts, which are still regulated. Television viewers who watch some of the entertainment industry's award shows may be familiar with the phenomenon.

Rock singer Bono uttered an expletive on a live NBC show when accepting a Golden Globe Award in 2003 for best original song. So did Cher after receiving a Billboard Music Award for career achievement on Fox TV a year earlier.

After receiving complaints from angry viewers, the Federal Communications Commission moved to crack down on broadcasters who air "isolated or fleeting expletives" during daytime and early-evening hours.

Look, how delicate are you if you or your kid hears a dumb celebrity utter an unplanned bad word once in a while, and you go crying hysterically to the TV station to register your protest? I mean come on! We live in a populated world where people are allowed to speak freely, within reason. You can't protect your child from life. Use these instances as instructional opportunities about appropriatness, respect for others, decorum, etc. Besides chances are if your kid knows enough to recognize the C-word as uttered by Jane Fonda on the Today Show a few weeks ago, he's hearing it, and worse, at school every day anyway. If your kid is too young to know what he just heard, then why are your shorts all in a bunch in the first place?

Planned, gratuitous obscenities are unacceptable but occassionally, somebody is going to say a bad word when they shouldn't....get over it. No body should be fined by the speech police over it. Is that really the kind of country you want to live in? Today it's speech that some nerdy, dogooders find objectionable. Tomorrow maybe it'll be political ads naming a candidate within 60 days of a general election(already happened--McCain/Feingold). The day after that, it'll be pulling the professional credentials of anybody who questions global warming(hundreds of global warming zealots advocate this already). Censorship is a very slippery slope and one which we must tread only when the situation is egregious enough to warrant it. Janet Jackson's boob-flash, Bono saying the F-word, Jane Fonda saying the C-word.....has any of these things coarsened or in any negative way, altered the lives of anybody? If you say yes, then you are a retard and shouldn't be allowed to watch TV by yourself. Instead you should lie quietly on your bed, surrounded by pillows in case you fall off, and wearing a helmet and elbow pads, listening to the sounds of children playing in the dangerous outdoors.

More reader mail

On holiday until recently (no doubt in some tropical paradise), cranky reader capt. america wrote in concerning this article in the NYT fishwrapper. His question is a follow-up to the incarceration post from last week. He wishes....

...to debate how the US got to be the most criminal - or most effective against criminals - country in the world.---

Thoughtful reader freedom2learn weighed in with her opinions regarding my suggestion that we re-societize(is that a word?) most non-violent "criminals".

---How would you feel if a drunk/ drug addict was arrested several times and released back into society where he ends up killing your child with a car or a desperate attempt to get some cash for drugs?

I don't think these losers would pay child support or in any way contribute to society. They would live on government money either way.---

Ed's take: the US got to be the most criminal of all civilized countries for a variety of complex reasons that are too arcane to investigate, but to sum it up, the US is the most free, unscrutinized society on Earth. Moreover, constitutionally, our police force is reactive, not preventative. Add to that a heterogeneous(different races, creeds, values, beliefs, religions, economic statuses, perceived social strata, etc) population of 300million, most of whom are told at some point that they deserve some of what others have, and you have the perfect storm for criminality. (That's not a rationalization or a justification, but an explanation)

The reason you don't see high crime in for instance Japan, China, Germany, etc. is because they are generally homogeneous societies. They have common religion, rearing, values, beliefs, and economic statuses....with very little diversity. There is little perceived economic injustice. Lazy Americans tend to confuse, with the encouragement of liberals, poor decision-making and shiftlessness with injustice, therefore they are owed something from society.

High crime rates are just something you have to live with in a capitalist, open society where people are free to succeed or fail. It's society's failures(aka democrat voting base) who turn to crime to right that perceived wrong.

To capt's second point, we also have the best police force in the world...effective in spite of the constitutional restraint. My problem is in sentencing. Violent criminals need to be off the streets...period. But there are other, more effective ways of punishing 1st time drunk drivers, 1st time drug offenders, flashers, pick-pockets, dead-beat dads, shop-lifters, etc. Public humiliation, community service, retribution, maybe rehab of some sort. All of these deter more effectively than prison. All prison does to these people is make them violent when they get out.

To freedom's how-would-you-feel-if question... I would be justifiably livid, bordering on homocidal, if a drunk driver, 1st time offender or 10th time offender, killed a member of my family. Would I want him safely tucked away in prison? No, because I would want to kill him myself. (and I'm only half joking about that) Until a guy harms somebody, he's not a violent criminal and those other methods should be tried. Not all drunk drivers are dependent on the state for their livlihood. Most of them, I'd bet, do pay taxes, child support, alimony, whatever, and their imprisonment might make dependents out of their families.

I could go on and on but you get my points. Consider the discussion open and have your take...

Reader Mail

Alert reader Kevin wrote in over the weekend...

---I thought this was rather interesting, and Im interested to see how different people respond to it.---

This sums up the article to which he refers...

Since Jan. 28, the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center has been open only to women from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays.

The change was prompted by a request from the Harvard College Women's Center, which was approached by six female Muslim students, said Robert Mitchell, communications director of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"It was done for religious purposes, but it's not closed to other women who may want to participate," he said.

A logical person might wonder, if these women are such delicate hot-house flowers that they cannot function in normal Western society, why are they in America to begin with? Or...why not find a women's institution at which to matriculate? And...why burden everybody on campus with your nutty religious frailty? This insidious process is called multicultural incrementalism, and it's how radical Muslims are taking over the UK and Europe in general. A little bit of concession here, a little bit of appeasement there by Harvard, and the next thing you know, six Muslims are dictating gym hours, class schedules, dining hall menus, housing arrangements, campus publication topics, approved religious observations, etc.

It's the tyranny of the minority, or as my wife sagely observed last night, "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

What do you think? Should an institution inconvenience thousands in order to cater to a few?

Dumb...and then dumber

This is vapid, Hollywood dingbat and Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard. Who in the heck is that you ask? I have no idea but she showed that she is every bit as airheaded as she looks just days after winning her dumb Oscar. This is her assessment of 9/11...

"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes, are they burned? There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burned for 24 hours.

It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."

Miss Cotillard suggested that the towers, planned in the early 1960s, were an outdated "money sucker" which would have cost so much to modernise that it was easier to destroy them.

Apparently she was not satisfied with showing the world how dumb she is, then she forged ahead into the realm of mental retardation.....

Turning to America’s space programme, she said: "Did a man really walk on the moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don’t believe all they tell me, that’s for sure."

People, anybody who gives this ridiculous airhead a nickle by going to her boring movie might be as dumb as she is.