Why we find the national spelling bee so riveting is a mystery to me. Maybe it's because these kids are so advanced beyond any of us regular people, and because they each have little idiosyncrasies and rituals they go through to spell a word...I don't know. My wife and I were watching last night when this happened...
Since ESPN covers it as a sport, I'll bet it's the play of the day over there.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Weekend reading assignment
I love this guy! This is Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the world's most vocal bellwether against global warming hysteria. Charles Krauthammer wrote an article this week about the insidious, though ignored by the MSM, goals of the modern environmental movement, in which he quoted Klaus..."The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."
If that tidbit doesn't tantalize you to read Charles' article, then you are a liberal twit and you should go back to your composting activities in the back yard. For all others, inbetween mowing the lawn, trips to Home Depot, and grilling animal flesh this weekend, try to take a minute and read it. You'll be glad you did. It validates the points I rant about here daily. Specifically that the radical environmental movement of Al Gore and others is not so much about Mother Gaia as it is about fleecing money from you and controlling the day to day minutae of how you live your lives.
Many have promised, few have gone
Hollywood dingbats regularly promise to leave the country if the American voters don't do as they say. Here's the latest....
Actress Susan Sarandon has vowed to move abroad if Senator John McCain is elected to the Presidency of the United States.
Columnist Liz Smith reports that the comely Sarandon, who will be 62 this year, is not pleased at the idea of another Republican regime occupying the White House. Sarandon told Smith she won't have it.
Smith claims the outspoken liberal Sarandon says that if John McCain is elected, that she will move to Italy or Canada.
Sarandon tells Smith, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."
I recall Alec Baldwin, who's even stupider than Sarandon, promising to leave if Bush got elected, yet he's still here enjoying the wealth and freedoms of the greatest country ever, and even thinking of running for office. He was then, as Sarandon is now, a witless blowhard who thinks the American voters care what they think. We don't!
Here's Sarandon lecturing an audience. Would we really miss her if she fell off the face of the Earth?
Actress Susan Sarandon has vowed to move abroad if Senator John McCain is elected to the Presidency of the United States.
Columnist Liz Smith reports that the comely Sarandon, who will be 62 this year, is not pleased at the idea of another Republican regime occupying the White House. Sarandon told Smith she won't have it.
Smith claims the outspoken liberal Sarandon says that if John McCain is elected, that she will move to Italy or Canada.
Sarandon tells Smith, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."
I recall Alec Baldwin, who's even stupider than Sarandon, promising to leave if Bush got elected, yet he's still here enjoying the wealth and freedoms of the greatest country ever, and even thinking of running for office. He was then, as Sarandon is now, a witless blowhard who thinks the American voters care what they think. We don't!
Here's Sarandon lecturing an audience. Would we really miss her if she fell off the face of the Earth?
Sometimes a scarf is just a scarf
I'm all for resisting the Islamification of mainstream America, but not everything can be attributed to subversive attempts to infuse Islam into our culture.....Rachael Ray recently appeared in a Dunkin Donuts ad wearing a scarf that is causing a major firestorm. The kind of scarf is called a keffiyeh, which is traditional wear for Arab men.
Fox News' Michelle Malkin blogged, "The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons."
I'm a big fan of Michelle's but, finding radical Islamic undertones in a checkered scarf, just because Yassir Arafat wore one on his head, is a stretch. If DD was promoting a new line of Turkish coffee with baklava, then maybe. I will agree that there is a tendancy of the Left to adopt into the mainstream the peculiarities of our enemies as a perverse gesture of cultural submission in the hopes that they will stop hating us, but I think this time, Rachael Ray's scarf was just a scarf.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
In Stepford, you will conform
It seems we read this headline about once a month....CLERMONT, Fla. -- A Central Florida war veteran faces a lawsuit [from the home-owners association] for flying the American flag on a pole in his front yard.
These associations think they have the power to dictate to people how they can use their privately owned property. I understand that the association can lay out guidelines about upkeep and maintainence, holiday displays, etc. but federal law clearly allows the display of the flag, and federal law cannot be superceded by association law. Here's the law:
The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 prohibits a
condominium, cooperative, or real estate management association from adopting or
enforcing any policy or agreement that would restrict or prevent a member of the
association from displaying the flag in accordance with the Federal Flag Code on
residential property to which the member has a separate ownership interest.
Far too many people let themselves be intimidated by busy-body neighborhood associations whose jobless members drive around looking for the smallest violations so they can assert their dominion over the homeowners. That's crap! With the possible exception of basic maintainence, they practically have no real legal right to tell you how you can pursue happiness on your property. You might argue that it's a private corporation and because you pay dues, it's a private club and as such, can enforce anything they want if you're a member. You would be wrong. The private property rights of individual US citizens cannot be superceded by an association. If the association doesn't like the federal laws guaranteeing private property rights, it should have organized in another country.
What's bizarre is normal, and what's normal is bizarre
I blogged on the transgender issue a few months ago and got in big trouble with Jen Burleton over at Transfusion, a transgender advocate blog. Click on the link of you want to read what she told her readers about me and some of my regulars. Anyway, I found a post over at RightWingNews, about a bill making it's way through the Colorado legislature which would in effect make all public restrooms in that state open for anybody to use which ever one they wanted regardless of gender....
A new "transgender nondiscrimination" bill pending in Colorado, which would make it illegal to deny a person access to public accommodations including restrooms and locker rooms based on gender identity or the "perception" of gender identity, is one signature away from being law.
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, has one week to sign or veto Senate Bill 200, recently passed by both the House and the Senate. The bill, titled "Expanded Discrimination Prohibitions," holds this definition:
"'Sexual orientation' means a person's orientation toward heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender status or another person's perception thereof."
According to the bill, business owners and managers of restaurants, gyms, barber shops, massage parlors, etc., and managers of "public [facilities] of any kind whether indoor or outdoor" cannot deny a person employment or access to a facility based on gender identity or that "perception."
With all due respect and delicacy to Jen and the gals over at Transfusion........this is a load of crap! What do these gender-confused people think, that they live in Hedonism-III or somewhere? You can't just let everybody choose on the fly which bathroom they want to use each time they have to go....which is exactly how this'll turn out. It may not be the intent of the bill but that'll be the result. Remember, Lefties don't care about results, they define themselves by their intentions.
"But Ed", you'll whine, "normal people can use their assigned bathrooms just like always, but this allows people who don't know what gender they are, or who can't decide how they feel about their gender that day to chose which bathroom they'd like to use without anybody hasseling them about it."
Wrong! It allows anybody to use any bathroom they choose, whenever they choose. If there's a lock on the door and it's a single person room, I don't have a problem with coed bathrooms.....see, I'm not the prude you think I am. What about group showers at schools? Or large restrooms at ball parks, concert arenas, meeting halls, etc? Are guys, girls, and inbetweens going to be using the bathroom together....in front of each other? It's the whole "perception" word that makes it completely subjective as to which bathroom you choose that day.
The scary thing is that if the Obamamessiah gets elected President, and the House democrats gain a filibuster-proof majority, and the Senate democrats increase their majority, what's to stop the nutty liberals in Washington from passing all manner of kooky, politically correct laws that change the lives of all Americans? Good grief! High taxes will be the least of our worries.
Coming to your town more than likely.....if the Obamamessiah gets elected President.
Please don't feed the wild animals
What a way to go.....
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Police say six caged lions left only fingers and intestines after eating a worker giving them water.
The lions attacked the 49-year-old man Tuesday after he went inside their cage to deliver water, police said Wednesday.
The man had been working at the Uitspan game farm in northwest South Africa for at least two years, police said. No one witnessed the attack.
I hate that for this guy's family and all but seriously, to carnivorous predators, we'll never be anything but prey.
This is a pet.....
This is not a pet.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Police say six caged lions left only fingers and intestines after eating a worker giving them water.
The lions attacked the 49-year-old man Tuesday after he went inside their cage to deliver water, police said Wednesday.
The man had been working at the Uitspan game farm in northwest South Africa for at least two years, police said. No one witnessed the attack.
I hate that for this guy's family and all but seriously, to carnivorous predators, we'll never be anything but prey.
This is a pet.....
This is not a pet.
It's Ann Coulter Thursday!
This week Ann mocks BHO's desire to talk with Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket in Iran, as if talking is an end, in and of itself. The media whine about how other Presidents met with our enemies, but the you won't hear this difference uttered from the MSM because they're in the tank all the way for BHO. There are reasons to meet with a tyrant, but none apply to Ahmadinejad. We're not looking for an imperfect ally against some other dictatorship, as Nixon was with China. And we aren't in a Mexican stand-off with a nuclear power, as Reagan was with the USSR. At least not yet.
Go on over to HumanEvents and check it out.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Is this Man the Answer or the Anti-Christ
Posted by Reid
Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun
It's an amazing time to be alive in America . We're in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate;and, a candidate who is the first front-running freedom fighter over 70.The next president of America will be a first. We won't truly be in an election of firsts,however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won't arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics. The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr.Obama is now the front runner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him. Some pundits are calling him the next John F.Kennedy. He's not. He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts. Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential front runner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost. Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant.. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America .But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty.." Start with national security, since the president's most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim JongII, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk. Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush,have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich.." How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare?Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes.Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck. Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have "hijacked" - hijacked - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois , he refused to vote against a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood , and San Francisco values, not Middle America values. The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs. But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and - yes - they're talking about his race.Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton. It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama.In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war. Kind of scary, wouldn't you think According to The Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language,and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA??
Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun
It's an amazing time to be alive in America . We're in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate;and, a candidate who is the first front-running freedom fighter over 70.The next president of America will be a first. We won't truly be in an election of firsts,however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won't arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics. The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr.Obama is now the front runner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him. Some pundits are calling him the next John F.Kennedy. He's not. He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts. Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential front runner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost. Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant.. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America .But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty.." Start with national security, since the president's most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim JongII, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk. Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush,have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich.." How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare?Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes.Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck. Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have "hijacked" - hijacked - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois , he refused to vote against a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood , and San Francisco values, not Middle America values. The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs. But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and - yes - they're talking about his race.Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton. It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama.In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war. Kind of scary, wouldn't you think According to The Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language,and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA??
By the way, apparently the author of this post is a black man. All of this is interesting and very relevant to the upcoming election. FYI.
Calculate when environmentalists think you should die
Australia, once the last great frontier where rugged individualism, personal responsibility, and independence were prized, if not necessary, attributes. Now, it's just another moonbat-infested fever swamp of environmental zealotry. In Australia's government indoctrination centers, children are made to feel guilty about even being born. They're told how their parasitic existance on Earth harms the deity Mother Gaia, and they are given greenhouse calculators so they can find out when they should die so that Mother Earth can live. I'm not making this up. It's not a joke. Children in Australia are actually made to feel guilty about living and feel good about dying.
Go to GreenHouse Calculator and find out when you should have died in order to have used only your fair share of Gaia's resources. There's a pig representing the average consumer, a pig representing the eco-friendly consumer, and then a pig that represents you that grows bigger with every eco-wasteful answer you give. It's kind of fun. Calculate your should-have-died date and post it in the comments thread. We'll compare and see who of us has outlived his usefullness the longest.
I calculated mine, and I should have died at age 4.5. I'm sure many people wish I had.
Go to GreenHouse Calculator and find out when you should have died in order to have used only your fair share of Gaia's resources. There's a pig representing the average consumer, a pig representing the eco-friendly consumer, and then a pig that represents you that grows bigger with every eco-wasteful answer you give. It's kind of fun. Calculate your should-have-died date and post it in the comments thread. We'll compare and see who of us has outlived his usefullness the longest.
I calculated mine, and I should have died at age 4.5. I'm sure many people wish I had.
Jimmy Carter....useful idiot of America's enemies
Jimmy Carter long ago sewed up his place in history as America's worst ex-President, yet he continues to compete by being a horrible person both to the U.S. and her allies. This week he outed Israel's number of nuclear weapons. We've always known Israel was nuclear. It's the only reason it still exists. But nobody knew the extent of her nuclear capability. It's what kept many of her enemies at bay, but not knowing the details gave peaceful NATO countries the latitude to deter radical Islamic nations from developing nukes. Now, thanks to Carter, it's more difficult. Why this dispicable man continues to weild power in the democrat party remains a mystery. He clearly loathes his own country. Remember, this is the man who was directly responsible for the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran which led directly to the rise of radical Islamism and 9/11. Without Carter's stamp of approval, bloodthirsty dictator Robert Mugabe would not have seized power in Zimbabwe and slaughtered tens of thousands of his own people(so much for Carter's humanitarianism). It was Carter who gave legitimacy to gay terrorist Yassir Arafat. It was Carter who, as President, cut ties with free, democratic Taiwan and opened ties with China, still the world's most murdering regime. Since leaving office he regularly sides against the U.S. with murdering dictators like Hu Jintao of China, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Kim Jong Il of N.Korea, and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, not to mention every terrorist state in the middle east against Israel. Carter never met a tyrannical thug he didn't coddle.
I think Carter is still mad that the American voters threw him out on his ear in favor of Ronald Reagan.
Carbon Belch Day!
Now here's a movement I can get behind....Conservative grassroots group Grassfire.org wants people to waste as much energy as possible on June 12 by "hosting a barbecue, going for a drive, watching television, leaving a few lights on, or even smoking a few cigars."
The point: the group wants to "help Americans break free from the 'carbon footprint guilt' being imposed by Climate Alarmists."
I've been thinking of stocking up on incandescent bulbs before they're outlawed by wild-eyed, environmental zealots in Congress. I think on June 12, I'll drive to Home Depot, buy a bunch of bulbs, then idle my SUV as long as possible in a fast-food drive-thru, maybe turn my AC down real low and build the last fire of the season, throw some plastic containers in the regular trash bin, mow my grass whether it needs it or not, and finish off the day with a little exercise so I exhale lots of polluting CO2.
I encourage you to find ways to poke your finger in the eye of nutty envirnomentalists all day on June 12. Don't let them make you feel guilty any longer, simply for enjoying living your life in the wealthiest nation on Earth.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Death by train
In keeping with today's apparent theme of poking fun of people who manage to get themselves hurt or killed by one of my two favorite, totally preventable methods of self destruction, encounters with wild animals or trains, we get this story from Ohio.....
Authorities told News 5's Michelle Hopkins that Chris Schufelt was trying to retrieve scrap metal from near the tracks when he was hit by the Norfolk-Southern train.
I've never understood getting hit by a train, yet it happens with great regularity. It's not like you don't know where they are. They're fairly large and noisy so they can't sneak up on you like a tiger. They don't run up on sidewalks to kill pedestrians. I mean how out-of-it do you have to be to get hit by a train?
This is probably the last thing that guy saw. I wonder why he didn't think to look the other way.
Authorities told News 5's Michelle Hopkins that Chris Schufelt was trying to retrieve scrap metal from near the tracks when he was hit by the Norfolk-Southern train.
I've never understood getting hit by a train, yet it happens with great regularity. It's not like you don't know where they are. They're fairly large and noisy so they can't sneak up on you like a tiger. They don't run up on sidewalks to kill pedestrians. I mean how out-of-it do you have to be to get hit by a train?
This is probably the last thing that guy saw. I wonder why he didn't think to look the other way.
Do the Martians have Blue-ray?
As you know I'm a big fan of space exploration, specifically our imminent colonization of Mars....because I'm a geek like that. With the Mars Phoenix, which touched down on the Red Planet over the weekend, NASA included all kinds of experimental apparati to determine the amount of recoverable water there, plus the garden variety space experiments. But then I read where they included a DVD for viewing.....Attached to the deck of the lander (next to the US Flag) is "The Phoenix DVD", compiled by the Planetary Society. The disc contains Visions of Mars, a multimedia collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. Works include the text of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (and its infamous radio broadcast by Orson Welles), Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life with a map of his proposed canals, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars. There are also messages directly addressed to future Martian visitors or settlers from, among others, Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke. In 2006, The Planetary Society collected a quarter million names submitted through the internet and placed them on the disc, which claims, on the front, to be "the first library on Mars".
The Phoenix DVD is made of a special silica glass designed to withstand the Martian environment, lasting for hundreds (if not thousands) of years on the surface while it awaits discoverers.
Is the purpose of this exploration not to colonize Mars at some point? Maybe in our lifetimes? I could see sending a signal into deep space, or to attach a DVD on a deep-space craft in case somebody finds it, but we're going to be there in a few decades hopefully. I'm sure there's some environmental message warning the Martians not to pollute their planet because we want a pristine environment to rape and pillage when we finally get there.
Why are we surprised by the predictable?
It never fails to amuse me when a caged, carnivorous, top-predator attempts to kill and eat a human with which it is in close physical proximity.....SOUTH BEND, Ind., May 26 (UPI) -- A Potawatomi Zoo worker spent a night in a South Bend, Ind., hospital with injuries inflicted by a leopard during the daily cage cleaning, zoo officials said.
Jerry Ellis was in the middle of her cleaning routine Saturday in the Amur leopard holding area when one of the female cats attacked her, Zoo Director Terry DeRosa told WSBT-TV, South Bend.
When are these people going to learn, aligators, pythons, sharks, and big cats are not their domesticated pets. Regardless of how docile they appear, or how many tricks you teach them, to them, you will never be anything but lunch.
It must be animal day at TRR
That's either the biggest dog I've ever seen, or the smallest, non-midget, proportional human I've ever seen. "But Ed", you incorrectly point out, "it's camera perspective. The dog is closer, therefor he appears larger."
Wrong you are, dumb reader. That's just one huge dog! He's got to weigh like 200lbs, maybe more. What is that, a Bullmastiff?
I found this picture over at CaptionThis.
It's what sharks do
The list of perfectly natural phenomena that are blamed on the global-warming hoax continues to grow....Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida's Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes.
In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. 'I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's a convenient excuse,' Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures.
They're sharks! It's what they do! You cram more and more people into the water and you prevent the removal of seal populations from human areas, and it doesn't take a marine biologist to tell you the sharks are going to dine on people from time to time. If you took a stroll through the jungle in Bangladesh and a Bengal tiger ate you, would you blame it on global warming? It's not global warming....it's nature.
How the mighty have fallen!
This is the natural end result of unchecked, crazed environmentalism.....
Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.
The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain's CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.
Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.
Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven't used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.
Under this authoritarian regime-like society, the environmental authorities have the power to determine the correctness of virtually all our activities. It's really funny when you think about it. These insane Brits are crippling their own economy and creating a virtual environmental dictatorship over a menace that exists only in their own demented imaginations. Look at what Great Britain once was, a force on the world stage. Now, through political correctness, reduced to a laughable, pathetic husk of a nation on the brink of utter disaster.
This is the irritatingly smug face of the hysterical enviro-bureaucracy in the UK.....Al Gore would install someone just like him to oversee and approve the daily activities of Americans.
Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.
The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain's CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.
Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.
Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven't used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.
Under this authoritarian regime-like society, the environmental authorities have the power to determine the correctness of virtually all our activities. It's really funny when you think about it. These insane Brits are crippling their own economy and creating a virtual environmental dictatorship over a menace that exists only in their own demented imaginations. Look at what Great Britain once was, a force on the world stage. Now, through political correctness, reduced to a laughable, pathetic husk of a nation on the brink of utter disaster.
This is the irritatingly smug face of the hysterical enviro-bureaucracy in the UK.....Al Gore would install someone just like him to oversee and approve the daily activities of Americans.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sharon Stone....still trying to be relevant
Hollywood halfwit, has-been raunch actress, and noted geopolitical expert Sharon Stone had this insightful assessment of the earthquake in China...“Well, you know, it was very interesting…I am unhappy about the way Chinese are treating the Tibetans… Then all this earthquake, all this stuff happened, I thought, is that Karma? When you are not nice, the bad things happen to you.”
Kind of like making dreadfully bad movies, and than nobody goes to see them....eeeh Sharon?
Sunday, May 25, 2008
The MSM kicks it into the bleachers
I'm going to do something that I've never done on TRR before.....say something supportive of Hillary Clinton. This week she answered a question about calls for her withdrawal from the electoral race thusly....."My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it,".
Of course the MSM got it's shorts in a bunch over her invocation of the "A" word...assassination regarding their messiah, Obama.
Hillary did not suggest that Obama might get killed to explain her staying in the race. She was merely listing all the times, and for various reasons, that the nomination process lasted through the month of June. RFK's death was but one of the list. The MSM delights in hysterically over-interpreting sound bites from politicians, and they've certainly done that here. I'm no fan of Hillary's, but she didn't say anything wrong here.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Global warming.........on Jupiter
Man-made global warming is so catastrophic, it's even affecting the weather on Jupiter.......The newest red spot is on the far left (west), along the same band of clouds as the Great Red Spot and is drifting toward it. If the motion continues, the new spot will encounter the much larger storm system in August. Jupiter's recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to large scale climate change as the gas giant planet is getting warmer near the equator.
Well, what's the explanation for this? Are there little Jovian free-marketeers driving around in SUV's polluting the planet? According to Al Gore the science is unequivocal. Only man's activity can increase the temperature of a planet. Maybe the Galactic Senate could lower the Jovian speed limit to 55parsecs to reduce carbon output. Or better yet, increase the taxes on Jovian free-enterprises in order to stifle production, thus rescueing Jupiter from certain overheating from the activities of evil capitalists.
Al Gore had better put a lid on this story and quick, or else somebody might put two and two together and realize that maybe solar activity, natural Earth cycles, and other completely natural phenomena can affect planetary climates.
In America, everybody's a victim
POST REMOVED BY BLOGGER
Allright, I don't see the point of going further wth this. Aside from hurt feelings, there's nothing taking place here except a reluctant/friendly understanding between regular reader Kevin and wendyb, freeper, and marty....at least there's that. If you all would like to continue the thread, you'll have to do it elsewhere. There are other things to discuss and I hope you guys will bury the hatchet and join in.
the management
Allright, I don't see the point of going further wth this. Aside from hurt feelings, there's nothing taking place here except a reluctant/friendly understanding between regular reader Kevin and wendyb, freeper, and marty....at least there's that. If you all would like to continue the thread, you'll have to do it elsewhere. There are other things to discuss and I hope you guys will bury the hatchet and join in.
the management
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Justice Clinton? Heaven help us!
Assuming Hillary doesn't pull a rabbit out of her hat between now and the dem convention in Denver, after Obama accepts the nomination, what will become of the smartest woman in the world? Senate Majority Leader? Vice President? Senior Senator from New York? Each would be appealing to her for various reasons.
Last night on the news, Brit Hume tossed her name into the hat for the next justice on the Supreme Court. I about fell off the couch. As detestable and loathsome as Hillary's politics are, the damage she does as a senator can be mitigated by veto, partisan compromise, or legislative defeat. As a Supreme, her radical liberal agenda will cause the Court to lurch dramatically to the Left and her wretched socialist legacy will haunt our childrens' children. I can't imagine a worse pick. She'd be far worse than RBGinsberg. The republicans are going to lose bigtime in both the House and Senate. If the Obama-messiah wins the WhiteHouse, he'll be able to install any nutjob he wants onto the bench. Everybody knows that's what Ginsberg, Breyer, and Souter are waiting for. I prefer a Hillary presidency to a Justice Hillary.
You will conform! You will obey! You will become part of the collective! Resistance is futile!
Last night on the news, Brit Hume tossed her name into the hat for the next justice on the Supreme Court. I about fell off the couch. As detestable and loathsome as Hillary's politics are, the damage she does as a senator can be mitigated by veto, partisan compromise, or legislative defeat. As a Supreme, her radical liberal agenda will cause the Court to lurch dramatically to the Left and her wretched socialist legacy will haunt our childrens' children. I can't imagine a worse pick. She'd be far worse than RBGinsberg. The republicans are going to lose bigtime in both the House and Senate. If the Obama-messiah wins the WhiteHouse, he'll be able to install any nutjob he wants onto the bench. Everybody knows that's what Ginsberg, Breyer, and Souter are waiting for. I prefer a Hillary presidency to a Justice Hillary.
You will conform! You will obey! You will become part of the collective! Resistance is futile!
Our national obsession
This picture more than any I've seen in a while, captures the vapid stupidity of Hollyweirdos and by extension, the mind-numbed Americans who worship them. With a glance, you can tell there's not a single lucid thought rattling around in that air-filled head of Madonna's. Yet, Americans can tell you more names of men Madonna's had sex with than names of Supreme Court justices.....it's sad really.
It's Ann Coulter Thursday!
This week Ann pokes fun of democrats and liberals in the MSM who got the vapors over Bush comparing Obama's appeasement policy toward Iran with Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Chamberlain went over and talked to Hitler in exactly the way Obama says he would "talk" to Achmadinnerjacket in Iran. Right after Chamberlains "talk", Hitler proceeded to try to take over the world. After President Obama talks to him, I wonder what Mahmoud would try? Maybe wiping Israel off the map?Here's the best line...Liberals haven't been this worked up since Rev. Jerry Falwell criticized a cartoon sponge.
Sarcastic and entertaining as always. Head on over to HumanEvents and read the whole thing.
The start of cap and trade
Out in the fever swamp of liberalism known as San Francisco, they've already begun the disastrous process of limiting industrial CO2 production, but then allowing companies to trade carbon credits. It's a scheme known as cap-and-trade in which feckless legislators arbitrarily limit carbon output in obeisance to global warming kooks. Here's the gist of it.....
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's board of directors on Wednesday approved new rules to charge businesses a fee for the pollution they emit.
The group's board of directors voted 15-1 on unprecedented new rules that will impose fees on factories, power plants, oil refineries and other businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
The agency, which regulates air pollution in the nine-county Bay Area, will be the first in the country to charge companies fees based on their greenhouse gas emissions, experts say. The new rules will take effect July 1.
The modest fee -- 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide -- probably won't be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.
The imaginary menace of global warming will not be avoided by capping harmless carbon output......because global warming is IMAGINARY! Carbon is not a pollutant, it's a necessary building block of life. Plants consume it, how can it be bad?
That J.Mac. has advanced this idea as a way to limit global warming is preposterous and gives me great pause before I get on his bandwagon. How can I vote for a President who naively believes that man has anything at all to do with climate change? I'm starting to think the idea of a wake-up call in the form of a huge republican defeat, both Congressionally and for President, has merit.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's board of directors on Wednesday approved new rules to charge businesses a fee for the pollution they emit.
The group's board of directors voted 15-1 on unprecedented new rules that will impose fees on factories, power plants, oil refineries and other businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
The agency, which regulates air pollution in the nine-county Bay Area, will be the first in the country to charge companies fees based on their greenhouse gas emissions, experts say. The new rules will take effect July 1.
The modest fee -- 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide -- probably won't be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.
The imaginary menace of global warming will not be avoided by capping harmless carbon output......because global warming is IMAGINARY! Carbon is not a pollutant, it's a necessary building block of life. Plants consume it, how can it be bad?
That J.Mac. has advanced this idea as a way to limit global warming is preposterous and gives me great pause before I get on his bandwagon. How can I vote for a President who naively believes that man has anything at all to do with climate change? I'm starting to think the idea of a wake-up call in the form of a huge republican defeat, both Congressionally and for President, has merit.
Ted Kennedy--senator/athlete
So my wife and I are watching the news this morning about Ted Kennedy's brain tumor and the NBC reporter said it was good that Kennedy was athletic......athletic? The last time I remember TK doing anything athletic was the night he swam away from his car while Mary Jo Kopechne drowned, then walked a mile or two to his bungalow to concoct an alibi with his lawyer before calling the cops. Yeah, he's a real Olympic hopeful.
Hat Tip to.......
First order of business today is to give a huge HAT TIP to John Hawkins over at ConservativeGrapevine for the TRR mention on his website. If you're like me, the first sites you check every morning are Drudge and ConservativeGrapevine to see what's going on in the world. Thanks again, John.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Character
Sometimes it is important to see someone through anothers eyes. I am not soloiciting support here, just passing along info about what appears to be a fine, moral ,and decent man. I was once told that character is defined by how people act when no one is looking, if that is so, then this guy has plenty.
Getting to Know John McCain By Karl Rove The Wall Street Journal
It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day.The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honorrecipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the HanoiHilton. As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain t hat were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because theytold me things about him the American people need to know. And troublingbecause it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals torun for president in history.When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know moreabout a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, thevalues ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to knowmore about him personally than he has been willing to reveal. Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves whathappened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war.When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "Itold you I would make you a cripple." The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison onthe hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to flyagain. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out ofhis arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm wouldheal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, henever would have flown again. But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment,Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard touse as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerkedthe broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his ownwounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place. Former POW Earnest Brace describes conversations with John McCain <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120965615907859607.html?mod=Commentary-US> through the walls of a Hanoi prison. Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatmenthe'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain whodeserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again. Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving asone of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after beingshuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most seniorofficer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administerreligious services to the other prisoners. Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons."He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "andsounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons tookas its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what isCaesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellowprisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the bestpeople they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them inprison an d Caes ar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor. Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice oftorturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, andthen leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that tothis day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head. One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of hiswatch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on ChristmasDay, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a crossin the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned toVietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted tomeet was that guard. Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept specialtreatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr.McCain knew the Vietnamese wante d the propaganda victory of the son andgrandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn'tcorruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptibletoday." The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor. For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage inBangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage couldnot provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain broughtthe child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband,who asked what all this was about. Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years ofrehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband.Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget. I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris,is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back . She ended up beingadopted by a young McCain aide and his wife. "We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and"five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearingthe only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she boughtin the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr.Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care. A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been writtenabout, such as in Robert Timberg's 1996 book "A Nightingale's Song."But Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail. There is somethingadmirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it. Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates whoare uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. But if Mr.McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up. Americans need to know abo ut his vision for the nation's future, especially hispolicy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the momentsin his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-onlycampaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free campaigneither. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences ofhis life that show his character, integrity and essential decency. These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter asAmericans decide on their 44th president.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to PresidentGeorge W. Bush.
Getting to Know John McCain By Karl Rove The Wall Street Journal
It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day.The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honorrecipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the HanoiHilton. As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain t hat were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because theytold me things about him the American people need to know. And troublingbecause it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals torun for president in history.When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know moreabout a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, thevalues ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to knowmore about him personally than he has been willing to reveal. Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves whathappened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war.When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "Itold you I would make you a cripple." The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison onthe hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to flyagain. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out ofhis arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm wouldheal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, henever would have flown again. But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment,Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard touse as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerkedthe broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his ownwounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place. Former POW Earnest Brace describes conversations with John McCain <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120965615907859607.html?mod=Commentary-US> through the walls of a Hanoi prison. Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatmenthe'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain whodeserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again. Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving asone of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after beingshuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most seniorofficer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administerreligious services to the other prisoners. Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons."He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "andsounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons tookas its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what isCaesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellowprisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the bestpeople they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them inprison an d Caes ar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor. Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice oftorturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, andthen leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that tothis day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head. One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of hiswatch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on ChristmasDay, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a crossin the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned toVietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted tomeet was that guard. Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept specialtreatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr.McCain knew the Vietnamese wante d the propaganda victory of the son andgrandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn'tcorruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptibletoday." The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor. For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage inBangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage couldnot provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain broughtthe child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband,who asked what all this was about. Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years ofrehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband.Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget. I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris,is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back . She ended up beingadopted by a young McCain aide and his wife. "We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and"five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearingthe only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she boughtin the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr.Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care. A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been writtenabout, such as in Robert Timberg's 1996 book "A Nightingale's Song."But Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail. There is somethingadmirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it. Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates whoare uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. But if Mr.McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up. Americans need to know abo ut his vision for the nation's future, especially hispolicy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the momentsin his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-onlycampaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free campaigneither. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences ofhis life that show his character, integrity and essential decency. These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter asAmericans decide on their 44th president.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to PresidentGeorge W. Bush.
Monday, May 19, 2008
One man's trash is another man's lunch
I'm sure you've heard of these smelly hippies who have good jobs and can afford a comfortable life, but choose to dig through garbage in New York looking for food to eat. Across the pond, the TimesOnline chooses to characterize this lifestyle as a necessity in an America on the brink of collapse..... Soaring food prices have led to a growing number of middle-class New Yorkers joining an unusual organisation that “dumpster dives” in rubbish bins for food.
The trash tours form part of a growing movement called “Freegans”, which is rapidly increasing in popularity as New Yorkers find it harder and harder to make ends meet.
Using perverse liberal logic only they understand, scrounging through dumpsters and eating the food that rats and roaches were just eating, is somehow romantic. The Eurotrash media seem to delight in the idea, though wrong, that America is struggeling to the point that we've been reduced to eating garbage. They don't acknowledge that these stupid hippies just like dressing up and pretending to be vagrants, degenerates, and shiftless bums.
Mussolini would be proud
Despite the likelihood that an Obama presidency would provide us bloggers endless material with which to ridicule him, it's sobering statements like this which make his seizure of the reigns of power horrifying....
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.
"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.
So under an Obama regime, the State, not the free market, would dictate which vehicles are approved for use. The State would decide how full our tummies would be at the end of each meal. And the imperial State would determine the approved temperature of our homes. Let's hope the prolonged Obamagasm the mainstream media are having ends soon and people wake to the spectre of modern-day fascism in America, disguised as environmentalism.
This is Obama's vision of America. Apparently this poor guy must have bought the wrong car, ate too much, or felt comfortable in his home and deserved a State-approved beating.
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.
"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.
So under an Obama regime, the State, not the free market, would dictate which vehicles are approved for use. The State would decide how full our tummies would be at the end of each meal. And the imperial State would determine the approved temperature of our homes. Let's hope the prolonged Obamagasm the mainstream media are having ends soon and people wake to the spectre of modern-day fascism in America, disguised as environmentalism.
This is Obama's vision of America. Apparently this poor guy must have bought the wrong car, ate too much, or felt comfortable in his home and deserved a State-approved beating.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Wood or aluminum
The outcome of this case will ripple throughout youth sports across the U.S......
The family contends metal baseball bats are inherently unsafe for youth games because the ball comes off them much faster than from wooden bats. The lawsuit will also be filed against Little League Baseball and a sporting goods chain that sold the bat.
Here's the thing: Point 1--this aluminum bat issue has been around for years. There's no way the parents can claim they didn't know baseballs hit by aluminum bats go faster and farther than off wooden bats, or that pitchers and third basemen are at the highest risk for injury. Point 2--all sporting goods stores sell chest protectors for little-league pitchers to prevent this exact thing--my son wore one for a season or two. Point 3--all youth sports come with the rare, but inherent risks of catastrophic injury. Point 4--every ball park in America makes parents sign a form stating acknowledgement of the risks of participation. Point 5--if being in possession of all this information, the parents still allowed their son to pitch without protection, do they not bear the responsibility for their son's injury more so than any other party?
Their smarmy lawyer will wait until the jury is seated, dramatically wheel the poor kid into the courtroom, give the grieving mom the cry cue, and then argue that there is a reasonable expectation of safety for a kid playing baseball, but is there? The answer is no, there isn't. All youth sports are dangerous to some degree and we as parents have to weigh the risks against the benefits, the same as we do with all activities. They knew the risks yet took no steps to protect their child. I don't see how the manufacturer can be held financially responsible for their failure to parent.
Somehow I doubt the twelve emotional dummies in the jury box will see it that way. They'll feel sorry for the mom and the kid and award them millions. As a result, aluminum bats will be banned in most ballparks for fear of liability.....all because this family decided to take their shot at hitting the lottery rather than accepting the responsibility for their kid's injury.
Friday, May 16, 2008
TRR weekend poll question
The big news this week was the court-ordered removal of the gay-marriage ban in California. Of course gays in the land of fruit and nuts are rejoicing even as they race to the courthouse to exchange vows. Conservative traditionalists meanwhile, are lamenting this abandonment of societal mores as proof at least, of the decline of western civilization if not a sure sign of the Apocalypse. At TRR, we fall somewhere in the middle. That said, here's the TRR weekend poll question for your enjoyment....
Friday funny
I found this pearl of wisdom over at RightWingNews. John Hawkins is answering a question from a reader about the liberal freak-out when Obama got criticized for suggesting that we talk to our enemies rather than fight them. His point is that liberals are appeasers through and through and left to their own devices, would destroy our country by letting it be destroyed...
......Put another way, if the entire population of the United States was replaced with 300 million liberals -- in 20 years, most of them would be dead and the country would be in ruins because they literally don't have as much common sense as a wild animal, that will at least fight if you back it up into a corner and try to kill it.
less common sense than wild animals........I swear, that's priceless!
......Put another way, if the entire population of the United States was replaced with 300 million liberals -- in 20 years, most of them would be dead and the country would be in ruins because they literally don't have as much common sense as a wild animal, that will at least fight if you back it up into a corner and try to kill it.
less common sense than wild animals........I swear, that's priceless!
Congressional crocodile tears
Ron Paul is catching some heat for this but, I'm on his side...This week when a Congressional resolution came up for a vote merely offering "condolences and sympathy" to the people of Burma affected by the recent deadly cyclone, Ron Paul, the millionaire, was the only member of the entire House of Representatives to vote "No."
The vote was 410-1. So what? This stupid resolution was nothing but an exercise in rhetorical fluff....something our representatives have become embarrassingly good at. It doesn't commit a single can of baked beans to the peasants who're dying in Burma. It is infuriating to me that our representatives waste time on this sort of nonsense when they could be lowering my taxes.
As for Ron Paul, he's being absolutely consistent by voting against any resolution that involves the U.S. meddling in the affairs of other sovereign nations, whether actual meddling or rhetorical meddling. Whether you agree with him or not, he's far more consistent than any other representative and it's refreshing to see a politician not caring about public opinion, but standing by his convictions.
Any publicity is good publicity
Are you offended by Starbucks' new logo? Yeah, me neither but, somebody is...Seems that one person's smut is another person's morning latte.
A Christian group based in San Diego found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style logo for Starbucks Coffee.
The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."
Oh, good grief! This logo is a Norse wood carving of a Rubenesque, twin-tailed mermaid. The Resistance clearly needs some attention and Starbucks always likes a little controversial publicity. The only offensive thing about this cup is that I'd have to pay $7 for the burnt coffee that comes in it.
Tough love works
I'm sure you've heard about this story today....the one where the judge told an underage drinker that he might as well go ahead and save everybody some trouble and kill himself because that's where he was headed....
NOVI, Mich. — A decision has not yet been made on possible disciplinary action against a Novi magistrate who suggested to an underage drinker that he commit suicide.
Novi District Court Judge Brian MacKenzie said Wednesday his office still is looking into comments made April 10 by Judith Holtz.
Holtz had told Michael Robert Dickey of Farmington Hills that it would be cheaper, faster and less painful for the people who cared about him if he took his own life.
Court transcripts obtained by WXYZ-TV in Detroit show Holtz suggested Dickey jump from the roof of his house or slash his wrists as she chastised the 20-year-old for a third charge involving alcohol. He was being sentenced for being a minor in possession.
I am totally in favor of that judge saying what she did. This stupid kid doesn't need his self-esteem coddled, he needs to be shocked into seeing the dangerous path down which he's traveling with the drinking. The media talking heads, including some on FOXNEWS, are all upset because she may have hurt the kids feelings, saying that she shouldn't say things like that to a minor.
That's EXACTLY what she should have said to this dumb@%s while he's still a minor, still alive, and can be helped! How is telling him he might as well kill himself any more harmful than showing him this picture of a car crash in which kids just like him died from drunk driving? You touchy-feely liberal parents who protect your kids from all aspects of reality are not only failing to properly raise your kids, you're harming them. Good for this judge! She obviously cares more about this repeat offender than his parents do.
NOVI, Mich. — A decision has not yet been made on possible disciplinary action against a Novi magistrate who suggested to an underage drinker that he commit suicide.
Novi District Court Judge Brian MacKenzie said Wednesday his office still is looking into comments made April 10 by Judith Holtz.
Holtz had told Michael Robert Dickey of Farmington Hills that it would be cheaper, faster and less painful for the people who cared about him if he took his own life.
Court transcripts obtained by WXYZ-TV in Detroit show Holtz suggested Dickey jump from the roof of his house or slash his wrists as she chastised the 20-year-old for a third charge involving alcohol. He was being sentenced for being a minor in possession.
I am totally in favor of that judge saying what she did. This stupid kid doesn't need his self-esteem coddled, he needs to be shocked into seeing the dangerous path down which he's traveling with the drinking. The media talking heads, including some on FOXNEWS, are all upset because she may have hurt the kids feelings, saying that she shouldn't say things like that to a minor.
That's EXACTLY what she should have said to this dumb@%s while he's still a minor, still alive, and can be helped! How is telling him he might as well kill himself any more harmful than showing him this picture of a car crash in which kids just like him died from drunk driving? You touchy-feely liberal parents who protect your kids from all aspects of reality are not only failing to properly raise your kids, you're harming them. Good for this judge! She obviously cares more about this repeat offender than his parents do.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
......You may kiss the other groom.
I know this a bit of a departure from the traditional brand of conservatism I usually endorse here at TRR, but I can't find a legitimate argument in favor of a gay-marriage ban...California's supreme court ruled that a ban on gay marriage was unlawful Thursday, effectively leaving same-sex couples in America's most populous state free to tie the knot in a landmark ruling.
In an opinion that analysts say could have nationwide implications for the issue, the seven-member panel voted 4-3 in favor of plaintiffs who argued that restricting marriage to men and women was discriminatory.
Here are the typical moral, self-righteous arguments against gay marriage:
-Homosexuals are freaks of nature and shouldn't be allowed to force their degenerate lifestyles on children----Britney Spears, Madonna, and Courtney Love are three of the worst heterosexual parents in the world with lifestyles far worse for child rearing than anything a gay couple could expose them to. Having gay parents no more makes you likely to be gay than eating rice makes it likely that your eyes will be slanted.
-God hates gay people and marriage is a contract with God----God doesn't hate anybody, and heterosexuals routinely and casually break that contract with God.
-The purpose of marriage is to rear children and since gays cannot procreate, marriage between them is unnatural----heterosexual couples by the millions do not marry and do not have children. Are they sinning by not having children?
-Gay couples make a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage----Nobody has made a complete mockery and joke of marriage like heterosexuals down through the millenia. How can marriage be so sacred when over half end in divorce?
-Allowing gays to marry elevates their disgusting lifestyles toward equality with heterosexual marriage----It's a free country, not a theocracy and conservatives do not have a monopoly on the word "marriage". Letting gays marry does not make homophobic heterosexuals less straight.
As a libertarian, I examine a person's pursuit of happiness with the following questions: Does this activity limit my, or anybody elses, pursuit of happiness? Does this activity violate anything in the Constitution? Is this activity illegal or harmful?
If the answers to those questions are no, then what right do I have to tell them they cannot pursue happiness in any way they like? I may not morally agree with it or approve of it but, my personal opinion is not a legitimate criterian for whether an activity of an otherwise peaceful citizen violates the law. Same as flag burning....I don't like it and am disgusted by it but, there's no Constitutional basis upon which to ban it.
Save the Polar Bears!
Despite all the evidence showing that Polar Bear populations have doubled since 1960, that Arctic ice sheets have actually thickened in recent years, and that CO2 is not a pollutant...but a vital compound for life, environmentalist retards have succeeded in getting Polar Bears onto the threatened list. Polar Bears are one of only a few animals that actively pursue and hunt humans. Of course this is music to the ears of Gaia-worshipping forest fairies, for whom ANY loss of human life is cause for celebration. (Imagine the near-orgasmic thrill these human-haters got when the cyclone killed a quarter of a million in Burma and the earthquake killed nearly 50,000 in China.)
The point of modern environmentalism is not to save the Polar Bears, but to curtail and regulate the activities of humans to the point that we are basically living 11th century lifestyles. Polar Bears are just the latest tool employed by the whacky Left to indoctrinate our children into becoming mindless zealots in the church of modern environmentalism.
If environmentalists had their way, every living thing except humans would be on the threatened list, including plants.
Here's one of the man-killers now, enjoying his new status as "threatened". If only some environmentalists would wander over there.
The point of modern environmentalism is not to save the Polar Bears, but to curtail and regulate the activities of humans to the point that we are basically living 11th century lifestyles. Polar Bears are just the latest tool employed by the whacky Left to indoctrinate our children into becoming mindless zealots in the church of modern environmentalism.
If environmentalists had their way, every living thing except humans would be on the threatened list, including plants.
Here's one of the man-killers now, enjoying his new status as "threatened". If only some environmentalists would wander over there.
It's Ann Coulter Thursday!
This week Ann exposes the democrat's new, devious strategery for winning elections in districts currently held by republicans. They masquerade as Reagan democrats, complete with cowboy hats, pickup trucks, and guns, then when they're elected, they revert back to being the radical liberals they are. Of course, stupid voters who fall for this charade are ultimately at fault so they have nobody to blame but themselves when their taxes go up, their gun-rights are restricted, and Ted Kennedy has a wind-farm erected in their back yard. Go on over to HumanEvents and read the article.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
One man's trash.....
The insanity of the pointless recycling hysteria, like Ted Kennedy's belt line, knows no bounds....
A council refused to collect rubbish from a 95-year-old war veteran who is nearly blind - because he put a ketchup bottle in the wrong bin.
Lenny Woodward, a former Desert Rat who has lived in the same house for 58 years, was confused by a new regime of fortnightly collections and rigid recycling rules.
Residents have a blue wheelie bin for cans and cardboard, a green box for glass and a black bin for other waste.
Mr Woodward made the mistake of putting the ketchup bottle and a coffee jar in the blue bin when they should have gone in the green box.
Are you freaking kidding me? The enviro-recycling movement has become downright militant, despite the fact that it accomplishes nothing but making dumb liberals feel good about themselves. How long before mistakenly putting paper in the glass bin gets you a fine? I know this is Britain where enviro-radicalism has been choking the freedoms of citizens for a long time, but don't think this nonsense can't happen here in America too. Especially if smug, hand-wringing liberals manage to seize the reigns of power in November.
I'll bet Lenny is wondering what in the world he risked his life in the war for.
A council refused to collect rubbish from a 95-year-old war veteran who is nearly blind - because he put a ketchup bottle in the wrong bin.
Lenny Woodward, a former Desert Rat who has lived in the same house for 58 years, was confused by a new regime of fortnightly collections and rigid recycling rules.
Residents have a blue wheelie bin for cans and cardboard, a green box for glass and a black bin for other waste.
Mr Woodward made the mistake of putting the ketchup bottle and a coffee jar in the blue bin when they should have gone in the green box.
Are you freaking kidding me? The enviro-recycling movement has become downright militant, despite the fact that it accomplishes nothing but making dumb liberals feel good about themselves. How long before mistakenly putting paper in the glass bin gets you a fine? I know this is Britain where enviro-radicalism has been choking the freedoms of citizens for a long time, but don't think this nonsense can't happen here in America too. Especially if smug, hand-wringing liberals manage to seize the reigns of power in November.
I'll bet Lenny is wondering what in the world he risked his life in the war for.
The Death-Gap myth
Despite the fact that John Edward's Two-Americas theory failed miserably to resonate with voters, lefties at Newsweek have identified a new angle to the Two-Americas meme...the death gap between educated and un-educated.......white men who did not graduate from high school were dying at a rate 2.9 times that of college grads in 1993—and at a rate 4.4 times higher in 2001. For black men, the comparable mortality rates were 2.1 times higher in 1993 and 3.4 times higher in 2001. [similar numbers exist for women of both races]
Conclusion: the widening death gap was due to sharp decreases in mortality from all causes—but especially in heart disease, cancer and stroke, all of which have benefited from new forms of prevention and treatment—among the most educated. The less educated have benefited hardly at all from medical progress.
The poor people in America have no one to blame but themselves and their poor decision-making for their economic situation. In this country, if you stay off drugs, do not get pregnant, finish high school, and then get married, you will not be poor. Educated people have access to better health care because they made good decisions to become educated. Likewise, poor people continue to make the same decisions that made them poor in the first place, so they have the same limited access to health care as they have limited access to everything else. It stands to reason that educated people will generally take better care of themselves and can afford better health care.
Newsweek seems to think that exceptional health-care is a right. Pointing out a "death gap" is their effort to advance the idea that there is unfairness in terms of access to health care. "Unfairness" implies randomness and blame absolution. Once liberals establish the belief among hand-out Americans that it's not their own fault that they have inadequate health care, then it's easy to get them to vote for the socialization of health care. I've got news for them....what happens to you is not a matter of fairness or unfairness. It's a function of your past decisions. We are all of us, nothing but the product of our own decisions up to this point in our lives. There is no big wheel in the sky that determines our lot in life. Our lives are self-determined and we have nobody to blame but ourselves when things don't work out the way we'd like.
The self-inflicted decline of the GOP
It's getting to the point that you can barely distinguish between democrats and republicans anymore. What used to be the party of small, limited government, low taxes, low spending, champions of the free enterprise market economy, is now the party of big spending, crippling regulations, and environmental lunacy. That being the case, we can expect to see more of this sort of thing...In a major blow to national Republicans, a Mississippi congressional seat that once voted for President Bush by a twenty-five point margin elected a Democrat on Tuesday. Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers beat out Republican candidate Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, by a 54%-46% margin, a spread that several Republican strategists on Capitol Hill characterized as a startling wake-up call for a party in dire straits.
The whole idiotic notion of "compassionate conservatism" is a canard for big government liberalism....and true conservative voters are sick of it. It's the very thing that has given rise to liberterian candidates like Bob Barr of Georgia polling around 7% even though he just announced his candidacy this week. Half the country(the stupid lazy half) wants the imperial federal government to be responsible for every part of their daily life so they don't have to make any decisions or be held accountable for their own failures. Plus they resent the fact that some Americans have more than they do, and they relish in the idea of the government taking what others have earned and giving it to them. These degenerates will ALWAYS vote for which ever democrat promises them the biggest goody bags filled with the earnings of better people than them. This class warfare is how democrats get elected. And it means that unless you conservatives want to live out the rest of your lives working to support the shiftless class(translated: democrat voting base), then you had better elect politicians who'll return to conservative principles of self-reliance and personal responsibility.
Republicans are already expected to lose seats in both Houses in November. I'm starting to think that what the republican party needs is a traumatic losses this election cycle to shock them into behaving like conservatives rather than the power-addicted, moderates they've become.
The bottom line is this: unless the republican party seriously returns to it's ideological roots, it might be destined to wander the desert for another 40 years, if not forever. Which brings us to our TRR poll question...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Free enterprize in America has gone the way of the DoDo bird
When the police have nothing better to do than entrap a senior citizen for giving a ride home from the grocery store to a stranded lady, then the crime rate must be absolutely zero.....MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- A man who said he thought he was just helping a woman in need is accused of running an illegal taxi service.
Miami-Dade County's Consumer Services Department has slapped Rosco O'Neil with $2,000 worth of fines, but O'Neil claims he is falsely accused.
The 78-year-old said he was walking into a Winn-Dixie to get some groceries when he was approached by a woman who said she needed a ride.
"She asked me, 'Do I do a service?'" O'Neil said. "I told her no. She said, 'I need help getting home.'"
O'Neil told the woman if she was still there when he finished his shopping, he would give her a ride. She was, so he did.
As it turned out, the woman was an undercover employee with the consumer services department targeting people providing illegal taxi services.
After O'Neil dropped off the woman, police surrounded him, issued him two citations and impounded his minivan. On top of the fees, it cost O'Neil an additional $400 to retrieve his minivan from the impound lot.
There are no prior complaints that O'Neil was providing illegal transportation for a fee.
O'Neil claims he was just being kind and providing a ride to a lady in need, and he never even discussed money until the woman insisted upon it.
Why in the world in America, would there be a law dictating that you cannot receive payment for a service if both parties agree to it? It's not like it's prostitution. There's nothing illegal or immoral about driving your car.
It's because the taxi unions and lobbyists have the state legislators in thier back pockets. This guy was just being nice, but even if he was asking for payment for his driving service, so what? What law was he breaking when both people entered into a mutually beneficial agreement?
The problem here is the imperial government will crack down on ANY unsanctioned free enterprise between two people because IT doesn't regulate and tax it. I'll be damned if this country doesn't slide further and further toward socialism every day. If there's anybody who needs a bullet in the head more than hand-wringing, government regulators, I can't think of who it might be.
The Islamification of America...v2.0
Tyler Hurd had to leave his teaching classes at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota because Muslim students were taunting and threatening to kill his service dog Emmit. Tyler has regular seizures from a head injury he received as a child and the dog carries a pouch with instructions for helpers when he has one. The school is treating this whole thing as a misunderstanding, when it's really about foreigners with whacky beliefs coming to America with the bold expectation that we will bend over backwards to accommodate their radical religious practices. I wonder where they got the idea we would do that? Maybe because ever since 9/11, bureaucrats, especially in education, have been perversely denying their own culture in favor of Islamic culture to show how progressive and welcoming we are to the people who hate us and want to kill us.
I swear! Liberals are going to destroy this country one stupid decision after another.
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