Your tax dollars funding porn.....now that's a "stimulus" bill!

I enjoy classical music and going to museums to view the art whether it's modern, old-school, or whatever but, should the federal government be taking taxpayer money to underwrite artists or the presentation of arts if any kind at the local level? I say no!

The National Endowment for the Arts may be spending some of the money it received from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act to fund nude simulated-sex dances, Saturday night "pervert" revues and the airing of pornographic horror films at art houses in San Francisco.

The NEA was given $80 million of the government's $787 billion economic stimulus bill to spread around to needy artists nationwide, and most of the money is being spent to help preserve jobs in museums, orchestras, theaters and dance troupes that have been hit hard by the recession.

Why should money that's taken from me be used to fund any artist, much less "art" by soulless deviants like Robert Mapplethorpe or vintage porn revival like Thundercrack?

"But Ed", you whine, "what about the symphony orchestras? Surely you can't object to federal tax money funding that?"

Why yes, as a matter of fact I can. If federal money is used by the NEA to fund local orchestras and ballet troupes, then to be fair, they can take money from me to fund "porn art" in San Francisco. I'd rather no art be funded at the federal level than have any body's tax money go to whatever nonsense a smarmy bureaucrat with no oversight at the NEA feels like funding. Federal funding of the National Ballet, National Museums, etc are fine but, we don't need a bloated bureaucracy to manage them. If I could cut one bureaucracy out of the government, it would be the NEA.

How far the mighty have fallen!

Life in the ridiculous nanny-state we used to call the UK, just keeps getting stupider and stupider...

Swimmers at a council pool have been banned from doing lengths for health and safety reasons.
They have been told they may only swim across the width of the pool as it makes it easier for lifeguards to ensure their safety.

I guess we can forget about England's Olympic swim team in 2012 being able to compete in the big-boy pool.

With infantile obtuseness, Dan Rather laments the decline of the mainstream media and pleads with his personal lord and savior Obama, for a bailout...

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.

Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive.

At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

He's right that the republic is at stake but, the answer to saving the dinosaur media is simple...stop with the advocacy reporting, leg tingling, and heavy breathing whenever a liberal speaks and report the news in an even handed manner, and Americans will start consuming your product again. The news business is like any other private industry, you compete for consumers or you go out of business. The main-stream media decided to choose sides in their reporting decades ago and consumers of news quit reading their liberal propaganda. Now they want money taken from the same people who don't consume their news to bail them out of insolvency...incredible!

It is hilariously ironic that Dan himself gave us what is perhaps the worst example of advocacy journalism when he reported as fact, Bush's phony National Guard record story in the lead up to the '04 election. He wanted badly to destroy Bush and help get Kerry elected. Is this reporting the news, or becoming the news, Dan? I would trust a blogger in his PJ's to deliver fairly-reported news and analysis sooner than I would trust any of the three network anchors.

This image of Dan Rather snuggling up to Fidel Castro is precisely why nobody in the mainstream media can be trusted to deliver the news fairly. They long ago abandoned any pretense of objectivity and became liberal cheerleaders and in effect, the propaganda wing for the democrat party. This is why they are going out of business and I couldn't care less!

Better living through chemistry

Are you as annoyed as I am by smelly hippies pushing organic food, literally, down every body's throats? Well, this news ought to throw a wet blanket on their hash-brownie and shroom party....

LONDON (Reuters) - Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.

In every one of the recent food scares in which fecal bacteria sickened or killed Americans, the problem was found to have originated with the stupid organic food industry. Hippies eschew productivity, modernity, and technology in favor of the muddled confusion of drug addiction, patchouli incense, and the phony idealism of "natural food" consumption. The problem is when they fertilize their crops with raw, untreated manure, their bountiful harvest of natural goodness goes to market contaminated with e-coli and makes everybody sick. Modern agricultural technology provides us with healthy, safe produce, devoid of contaminants and harmful bacteria because they douse it with a whole range of modern chemicals.

So, the next time you smugly shop at Whole Foods and pay $7 for organic sprouts, remember my $1.29 chemically-treated sprouts are just as nutritious and unlike yours, have no chance of killing me.

The stupidity of stimulus spending

Only a moron or a liar would have us believe that jobs "created" by one-time government spending count as actual jobs. With that in mind, I present President Obama's idea of job creation....

PORTLAND, Ore. — How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program's first three months.

But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state's accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.

Any third-grader can tell you that once the stimulus money is gone, so are the make-work "jobs" it created. When there's no real demand for that work in the real economy, the jobs aren't really jobs, they're nothing but temporary government hand-outs.
But then read the line in bold. Accounting trickeration is how lying politicians like Obama can claim to have created jobs....they just change the definition of "job". If somebody paid you $6 and hour to spackle sheet rock for a week and then told you to go away, would you consider that a job? Obama does.

Stupid, idiot, moron move of the year, courtesy of Alabama ABC Board

This is how utterly stupid, puerile, hypocritical, and moronic people in Alabama are, and I know, I live here...

For some wine lovers a nude nymph is artistic expression while for others it is offensive trash.

A wine label showing a nude nymph is too much for Alabama's liquor control agency, which has told restaurants and stores not to sell the product.

The label on Cycles Gladiator wine, produced by Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif., shows a vintage 1895 advertising poster for Cycles Gladiator bicycles. The French poster features a nude nymph flying beside a winged bicycle.

Bob Martin, staff attorney for the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said the board's license bureau rejected the label last year as inappropriate for sale in the state. Early this month, a citizen sent a bottle of the wine to the board's enforcement bureau to show it was being sold in stores, he said.

Alabama's liquor regulations prohibit labels with "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner," Martin said.

Are you frickin' kidding me!!! This is a vintage work of art! It's not immoral or sensuous in any way. You can go to the local museum and see far more prurient material. How utterly humiliating to live in a state that ranks #15 in porn consumption, is the undisputed illegal sports-gambling capital of the world, spends $200million annually on other states' casinos and lotteries but, we can't be allowed for moral reasons to purchase a bottle of Merlot because the label features a cartoon of a profile of nude, mythological female?....UNBELIEVABLE!!!

This exemplifies the hypocrisy of the bible-belt. Everybody self-righteously claims not to drink but, everybody does. Churches fight against the Alabama lottery with money funneled to them from Mississippi casinos, who stand to lose business if we get a lottery. Everybody pretends to disapprove of betting on college football games but, everybody, and I mean everybody knows at least 5 bookies....heck, I've known cops that were bookies on the side.

This is what happens when we elect busy-body do-gooders based on supposedly "moral" grounds and run around pretending, like in a bizarre kabuki theatre, that we don't indulge in any vices. We end up with banned, vintage cartoons for heaven's sake!

A police state.....in Texas?

Every time a hurricane blows into the US, there are people in it's direct path who refuse to leave their homes. These people wind up having to be rescued and/or supplies delivered to them at great cost to the taxpayer and at great risk to the emergency workers. Well, Texas has passed a law that gives the local government the power to forcibly remove you from your home....for your own good....

A new state law will allow police to arrest people who don’t leave town under mandatory evacuation orders.

As it stands, officials cannot compel people to evacuate, only warn that those who stay behind won’t have any emergency services at their disposal. The new law gives county judges and mayors the power to authorize use of “reasonable force” to remove people from the area.

The law, passed this year, takes effect Sept. 1, in the heart of hurricane season in Texas. It also applies to other disasters, such as fires or floods.

It sounds like a common-sense idea on the face of it but, given that governments almost never give back power they've taken, is it a good idea to hand over to the local authorities the power to come into your home, when they think it's necessary, and remove you from it? I don't think so.

If a person wants to ride out the storm in his home, he should have the right to do that but, he shouldn't expect any, ANY rescue services to help him afterwards. Nor should he receive any help unless he pays for it. There should be no law against dying stupidly in your own home, or preventing the suffering by homeowners who refuse to get out of harm's way.

It's just a slippery slope to me, to hand over to the authorities, the power to remove you from your home if THEY see fit to do so. It's a question of balancing the need for public safety versus our Constitutionally guaranteed, individual and property rights. I'll almost always come down on the side of the Constitution over the government.

Ford survives the storm

This is great news from the one American car company who declined to accept bailout money from Obama.....

Ford Motor on Thursday posted a surprise profit of $2.26 billion for the second quarter, ending a streak of four straight quarterly losses.

In recent months, the car maker has claimed market share from its American rivals, General Motors and Chrysler, while those companies struggled to restructure their operations in bankruptcy court.

Ford executives now say the automaker is on track to return to annual profitability in 2011.

Ford's sales were buoyed by Americans refusing to buy a Government Motors(GM) or Chrysler product after they took tax-payer money to fund their continued failure as auto makers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will never again purchase a GM or Chrysler product. If I buy American, it'll be a Ford precisely because it remains a competitive, private company. And I might even give Ford an extra chance to please me when I may have gone straight to Japanese before.

It's good to be the king!

I don't have a problem with this situation....

Governments are scrambling to buy up hundreds of millions of doses of swine flu vaccine but health experts warn the poor may lose out as wealthy countries corner strictly limited supplies.

The World Health Organisation has unofficially estimated that the world's labs may only be able to produce around 900 million doses for the A(H1N1) strain per year, for a planet that is home to 6.8 billion people.

Let the smarmy bureaucrats at the WHO who mourn the disparity between rich and poor countries' access to medicine, be the first ones to donate their sick children's dose of H1N1 vaccine to Somalia, Rwanda, or some other uninhabitable, God-forsaken wasteland. There's a reason rich countries are rich and their citizens can afford to medicate themselves.....they don't slaughter each other by the millions with machete's, they live by a Constitutional rule of law, they chose to live where food can be grown and water is plentiful, and most of them don't have litters of children they can't afford to feed, house, or clothe, much less medicate. When poor countries learn these simple life-lessons, they'll realize their potential, as capitalism pulls them out of poverty and misery, and they'll become self-sufficient nations too.

A virtual cookie to the first reader who can name the source referenced in the title of this post.

The deceit of Obama, illustrated

You know how Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the democrats keep using the number 47million do shock us into supporting their seizure and destruction of the health-care industry of the US? Well, here is a cartoon that shows exactly what liberties with the truth Obama takes when using that number.....

[click to enlarge]

47million is a totally disingenuous number and Obama knows it every time he uses it yet, collectivist drones believe, without question, every word from the mouth of their messiah. What's worse, the media regurgitates the number even though they know it's phony because, they are socialists too and their ideological agenda takes precedence over reporting the truth.

Debt will destroy the republic!

Regular reader BBC sent in a link to the US Debt Clock. If you want to see your hard-earned money that the government robs from you being flushed down the toilet in real-time, click on the link.

People, I don't know how many different ways to illustrate that our government has betrayed us, who they pretend to represent, and betrayed the republic but, this is as stark an example as I can come up with. Thanks to BBC for the heads-up.

The power of moonbattery is effective on the stupid

If you believe in something so blindly and completely, regardless of how farcical it is, you can find evidence of it no matter where you look....

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 26 (Reuters) - A Canadian astronaut aboard the International Space Station said on Sunday it looks like Earth's ice caps have melted a bit since he was last in orbit 12 years ago.

Bob Thirsk, who is two months into a planned six-month stay aboard the station, said he is mostly in awe when he looks out the window, particularly at the sliver of atmosphere wrapped around the planet.

"It's a very thin veil of atmosphere around the Earth that keeps us alive," Thirsk said during an in-flight news conference. "Most of the time when I look out the window I'm in awe. But there are some effects of the human destruction of the Earth as well."

"This is probably just a perception, but I just have the feeling that the glaciers are melting, the snow capping the mountains is less than it was 12 years ago when I saw it last time," Thrisk said. "That saddens me a little bit."

I think the failure of the CO2 scrubber on the ISS affected this guys brain by oxygen deprivation. This moron is supposed to be a scientist and he's saying stuff like, "I just have a feeling"? This shows just how permeated into mainstream thinking the global-warming hoax has become. Even supposedly intelligent astronauts are spouting about it.

Idiot!!!

The funniest clip of the stupidest hippie you'll see all weekend

Like, I um found this like posted over at um, like Hotair? Seriously, this is worth the 3 minutes it'll take to watch.....


You tell me which is funnier, "vegetable trees" or "...the food is free, all we have to do is pay the farmer."

If this cretin is a product of the California, public education system, then no wonder their state voted for Obama and no wonder California's in the crapper.

Vegetable trees.....priceless!!!

Welcome to the Magic City!!!

In order to avoid criticism from the media, many government offices are being encouraged to hold their conferences in cities that don't seem to be "too fun". They have been told to avoid places like Reno, Las Vegas, and Orlando.....

Instead, employees at some big agencies, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are being encouraged to host meetings in more buttoned-down places.

Cool! Now maybe Birmingham can get some convention business. We certainly fit the description of "not fun". If you play golf, it's the best place in the world but, if you don't, there's only drinking and eating left to do.

The awful mainstream media

Of the 44 politicians and officials that were arrested in New Jersey this week on numerous corruption charges going back many years, all but one of them are democrats but, you'd be hard pressed to find that out listening to the main-stream media. I watched report after report and only the names and offices of the perps were reported. Wolf Blitzer even imagined that it was a bipartisan corruption scandal and said this...

“Dozens of public figures, including mayors, are caught in a stunning corruption sweep. They belong to both major parties.”

Wrong Wolfy, only one belongs to the GOP. This was 97.7% a democrat scandal. If more of the officials had been republicans, their party ID would have been front and center as evidence of rampant corruption within the party. I swear, the media have totally abdicated their responsibility to report the news, instead choosing advocacy "journalism" and outright leftist propagandizing.

It's Obama who acted stupidly

I'm sure you've all heard about the Harvard professor and friend of Obama, who got arrested for disorderly conduct after Cambridge police responded to a 911, possible-robbery call at his house, into which he and his driver had broken because he lost his keys. Here's Obama answering a staged question about it during his Health Care sell...



First, how can he say that he doesn't have the facts but, then say the cops acted stupidly? Regardless of whether the guy was in his own house, if he then acted disorderly, he deserves to get arrested. And for Obama to wedge this issue into the health-care press conference just came across as weird.
And second, why stage a question? Why not just come out and say that you want to comment on the arrest of your friend? Why bother to create the charade of having a reporterette pretend to ask a question for which you've already arranged? It's Kabuki theater at it's most ridiculous, and the servile media pretend that it's not happening right in front of their face.
Finally, if the cops respond to a 911 call about two guys breaking into a house, is that racial profiling as the professor accused? And if he was conducting himself disorderly, does he not deserve to be arrested whether it's his house or not? Once the misunderstanding had been cleared up, he should have been saying thank-you to the cops for showing up so fast, not accusing them of racism and profiling.

Whatever you do, don't get hospitalized in July

Throughout the US this month, recently graduated medical students are buying their new lab coats, new stethoscopes to hang around their necks, and burnishing their god-complexes in preparation for residency programs. It is widely accepted that it's probably not a good idea to go the hospital for something during the next couple of months because you'll be poked, probed, and used as a teaching tool for new residents who don't have a clue what they're doing yet. I don't know about you but, I don't want to be seen by my doctor with a half dozen, child-like residents staring at me and making jokes. I realize, that might be a slight exaggeration from watching too many shows like Grey's Anatomy but, still.

TRR helpful tip of the day: delay if you can, traumatic injuries and illnesses that require hospitalization until at least the Fall.

If you and your kids love animals, you shouldn't be supporting the circus

When humans are cruel to each other you figure, well, that person might have done something to deserve it but, there is never any excuse to be cruel to animals. That's why I don't visit zoo's much, and I abhor the circus, mostly for the clowns but, the animals can't be happy either. And here's why.....

The world-famous Ringling Bros. circus faces fresh accusations of animal abuse today after undercover videos show handlers beating elephants before they enter the ring.

The tape, made by a man who posed as a stagehand for six months, is likely to stir outrage and give animal rights activists new ammunition in their campaign against the circus that bills itself "The Greatest Show on Earth."

The animals are seen herded together, wearing headdresses, while trainers stand around, appearing to randomly whip them with bull hooks across the head, legs and body.

Loud cracking noises can be heard.

In one scene, a handler curses an elephant, saying, "F--- you, fat ass" before using his whip to nonchalantly strike its trunk.

The elephants are led with a bull hook - a long pole with a metal point at the end - used to pull them by the trunk.

I wouldn't give a rat's ass if they shut down Ringling Bros. completely. And all you hypocritical parents who drive stupid hybrids in order to save the polar bears and then take your dumb, animal-loving kids to the circus to see the lion tamer, and the elephant parade, and the ridiculous trained monkeys deserve to be traumatized when one of these animals mauls, attacks, and crushes, then eats it's handlers, right in front of you.

I'd like to see more of this sort of thing happen to circus handlers.....

Please help me!!!

Posted by Reid:

My name is Erin Andrews (see photo attached). I have been victimized. Some moronic, recidivist deviant has filmed me in the privacy of my private hotel room. Unfortunately for me I wasn't smart enough to wear clothes as I was parading around. Please help me find this low life and retrieve my dignity. I know now that when I darken the hallowed sidelines of this falls best SEC classic football games I will only be detracting from the games as many male attendees will forgo their ritualistic team bravado to jeer and deride me, sending me quickly to my hotel room to relive this travesty again and again. Please help me!!!

If only the President can find a way to outlaw video peephole cameras the world would be a safe place..

Some people need to get a new hobby

As any boy scout can tell you, to make fire, you need three things....air, fuel, and an ignition source.
When you have saturated yourself with gasoline vapors, and you run at the police who have Tasers, bad things are bound to happen....

SYDNEY — A man whose relatives say had been sniffing gasoline burst into flames after a police officer Tasered him as he ran at officials carrying a container of fuel, police said Tuesday.

Gasoline vapors, air, and electricity don't mix, sadly for this idiot.

In other news, apparently gasoline vapors can make you high? Who knew?

To balance the national pride regarding the 40th anniversary of Apollo11.....I give you the national embarrassment, Ted Kennedy

On July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy killed Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick.

Teddy got sloshed as usual and took an intern for a ride in his car, only to drive it into Lake Chappaquiddick, 40 years ago this week. The hero Kennedy, swam for his life, then ran to his bungalow where he made dozens of calls to his political handlers and Kennedy-family lawyers to find out what to do, as Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in the lake. Only the next morning, once he had established a plausible alibi, did he bother calling the police. Nice guy! Below is a satirical advertisement for Volkswagon that makes fun of Teddy.



I wonder how much longer Teddy's pickled liver can keep him alive. I mean at this point, he's little more than a drooling collection of organs bent on but one task, the metabolises of alcohol.

A special weekend edition of "Reader Mail"

Regular reader BBC sent in a link to an article in FrontPageMag regarding the most radical of Obama's shadow-government of czars. He tapped John P. Holdren as science advisor and though all of Obama's czars are radicals, none is more off-the-deep-end and Orwellian than Holdren. Here's a chilling excerpt from Ben Johnson's article....

Holdren is a globalist who has endorsed "surrender of sovereignty" to "a comprehensive Planetary Regime" that would control all the world's resources, direct global redistribution of wealth, oversee the "de-development" of the West, control a World Army and taxation regime, and enforce world population limits. He has castigated the United States as "the meanest of wealthy countries," written a justification of compulsory abortion for American women, advocated drastically lowering the U.S. standard of living, and left the door open to trying global warming "deniers" for crimes against humanity.

Though the czars have all the power of the executive branch in terms of policy setting, they are not answerable to the legislative branch the way cabinet secretaries are. They are entirely protected by executive privilege and in this way, Obama and his puppet-master Rahm Emanual, have circumvented the Constitution....yet again. And still not a peep from the servile, sycophantic media.

It's worth the few minutes to go read the whole article. Click on over to it here.

Cyclists get shot.....finish stage!

Professional bike racers have the reputation for being kind of fragile. They break easily in crashes. Well, I have new found respect for them after reading about this....

COLMAR, France (AP) - Two Tour de France cyclists were slightly injured Friday in what their teams suspect was an air-rifle shooting.
New Zealand's Julian Dean and Spain's Oscar Freire, a three-time former world champion, were struck while riding in northeast France during the 13th stage.

Dean's right index finger was injured. Freire's team said he was hit in the thigh with a projectile that was removed. Both were expected to ride Saturday.

Seriously? What idiot shoots a cyclist with an air rifle? These guys were descending which means they may have been going as fast as 70km/hr. Oscar Freire got shot in the leg and finished the stage with the peloton....dude, that's bad-assed!

It was probably some stupid, punk kids but, they could have killed somebody. The authorities had better find whoever did it and make an example of them. If the riders don't feel safe from the spectators, how successful will the Tour continue to be? If they wanted to shoot somebody, how about shooting the Muslim youths who riot in the streets of Paris regularly? They'd deserve to be shot with an air rifle.

Morons! I swear!

Indescribable stupidity, or suicide?

I'm sorry for the family and friends left behind by people who die because of their own stupidity but, as long as there are morons who manage to take their own lives by accident, you know I'll be there to mock them for it....

Family Of Woman Killed By Train Demands Pedestrian Bridge

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Family and friends of Lorena Contreras, who was killed while crossing the train tracks near the intersection of San Leandro Street and Fruitvale Avenue have vowed to get a pedestrian bridge built where she died.

Come now, is getting hit by a train really that difficult to avoid?

Listen up people, train-tracks are long, flat, and clear of visual clutter. They are not like city streets...you can see a really long way down them....perhaps miles. How hard is it to look both ways before spending the 3 seconds it takes to cross them?

Czar #33?

The atrociousness of the Obama administration was cemented from the get-go when the American people allowed the feckless media to install into the white house, an inexperienced, senate back-bencher, card-carrying socialist, and skeevy community agitator as President. That he's created a shadow government with 32 czars who answer to no one but himself makes it all the more absurd. But for the government to hire a humor czar, plunges it from absurdity, fully into the realm of insanity......

The purpose of this announcement is to seek qualified contractors with the capability to provide presentations for The Department of Treasury.

The Contractor shall conduct two, 3-hour, Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life. Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot. The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about DOT jobs.

I'm guessing the Humor Czar's first order of business will be to outlaw all jokes at Obama's expense as not-funny and prosecute violators for hate-speech crimes.

This is Doo Doo the Clown. He'd make the perfect Humor Czar for Obama.

The homeless have important business too

Regular reader David sent a news story in to me. It's about that public assistance program through which homeless dudes can get free cell phones in like 17 states so far. To save my life, I don't know what a homeless dude needs a cell phone for....perhaps to call his dealer? To call other homeless dudes to see which plasma lab is giving the best deal on blood donations? Or maybe to keep tabs on traffic patterns to make identifying the best intersections for pan-handling easier? Whatever, here's the money-quote from the article....

The idea is to convert Safelink users to regular cell customers as they are weaned from the public dole.

"As they are weaned from the public dole" And just how exactly does giving a homeless guy a free cell phone help to wean him from the public dole? All it does is make life on the street a little less uncomfortable and make him a more entrenched derelict and permanently dependent on handouts.

Somebody please tell me if you can, a single way the government is weaning people off the public dole.

Reader Mail

A regular reader of TRR sent this in to me and I thought you'd enjoy it.....

So I said to him, "Barack, I know Abe Lincoln, and you ain't Abe Lincoln."

You know how democrats are always invoking Abraham Lincoln as "their" President? Well, read this famous Lincoln quote and see if this sounds like today's liberal democrats or today's conservatives.....

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

.....Abraham Lincoln

Does it still count as molestation if you enjoy it?

I'd like to go ahead and cast my vote for the luckiest dude in all the world....

Police in central Sweden are on the hunt for a gang of tattooed women who sexually molested a 50-year-old man as he was riding by on his bicycle.

"The girls ran up to him and pulled the bicycle down so he fell," Örebro police spokesperson Annika Haaster told the newspaper.

As the man was lying defenceless on the ground, the women proceeded to pull off his trousers and underwear and molest him sexually before fleeing the scene.

According to police, the 50-year-old was not otherwise beaten or physically assaulted by the gang of five girls.

Don't you just hate when that happens?....................yeah, me neither. And did anybody get the address of that park? Just wonderin'.

Obama's birth certificate.....the story that won't go away

I thought this story was basically dead, and it is according to the MSM but, turns out, it might have legs after all....

A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

The US Constitution says that to be eligible to hold the office of President, you must be 35 years old and have been born in the United States. There has long been a rumor that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya, rather than in Hawaii as he and his defenders have long argued. Maybe he was but, why has he not produced a certificate of live birth from a hospital in Hawaii?

Now, this major in the Army refuses to deploy on the grounds that it is a violation of the Geneva conventions for him to accept combat orders from an illegitimate President, and rather than receive a court-martial as should happen, his orders get mysteriously rescinded? Why? I've never given much credence to the birth-certificate rumor but, Obama's own behavior keeps prolonging it.

Or perhaps it's as we've always suspected, Obama was born the son of an immaculately conceived mother and that trumps any bothersome Constitutional questions.

The Fuzz get foiled again

As long as there have been cops, there have been people who try to outsmart them.....

Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras.

That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints.

"I think that's the whole point of this program," she told The Examiner. "It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives."

The new technology streams to iPhones and global positioning system devices, sounding off an alarm as drivers approach speed or red-light cameras.

With every advancement in law-enforcement technology, there have been inventions to counter them. The radar detector that alerts speeding drivers of radar guns up ahead is the most obvious example. Alerting other drivers to speed traps by flashing your bright lights is the low-tech example of this. Who couldn't have predicted that the iPhone would eventually develop and app. for intersection-camera detection? Now it's the cop's turn to figure out how to defeat the iPhone.

This is just the long, storied game of cat-and-mouse that we scofflaws play with the cops. We try to get away with stuff, and they try to catch us. It's the natural way of the world...just like dogs chasing cats.

Oh, and don't let the cops fool you. Intersection cameras are not about public safety, they're about finding new ways of generating revenue without a cop chasing you down to write the ticket.

Silence is Golden (HA!)

Posted by Reid:

As the general public watches (in horror I hope) the newest Supreme Court Nominee plays a bad game of politics. Time and time again, she has been told that her approval is a done deal, but Ms. Sotomayor still refuses to let the American folks know... Whats Going On (kudos to Marvin Gaye)!

She staunchly refused to answer questions yesterday about the 2nd amendment and her interpretation of it. Adding to that insult to our forefathers, Sonia "The Great" has today stonewalled on abortion and its implications. She expressed outrage that her soon-to-be-new-boss (Obama) guaranteed she would support abortion rights. She has yet to give any citizen, forget the Senators, any inkling of her agenda. I will state that I am opposed to her elevation to the Supreme Court, but I am more upset by her disdain for the people she is set to serve (for life). It appears to this witness, that Judge Sotomayor doesn't give a plugged nickel about the American people as a whole, and that all this is about is her minority upbringing and how she has overcome that obstacle to achieve greatness. What kind of crap are we about to buy? Where will our highest court move? Are we sure that we can afford to angle the face of the nation to allow this person to start the avalanche of our rights and this country's greatness. It was once said that "America was great because its people are good. When the good goes, away goes the greatness." I think we stand on that very precipice as we speak. Watch and learn folks. its gonna be a long haul........

One less pollutant in the gene pool

Something's not quite right here....

LUCILLE HAMILTON paid $621 to have her "spiritual grime" removed by a voodoo high priest in an ordinary townhouse on a winding street in Camden County, a friend said.

Hamilton, 21, a male living as a woman, flew in on Friday from her home in Little Rock, Ark., to the house on Loch Lomond Drive in Gloucester Township, friends said, to take part in a three-day spiritual cleansing referred to on the priest's Web site as "Lave Tet."

By Saturday night Hamilton was dead, and authorities are awaiting results of an autopsy and toxicology tests to determine exactly what happened. No charges have been filed.

'A male living as a woman'? It looks like a male, living as a pirate to me. I mean the idea of living as a woman is to look like a woman, or did that change when I wasn't looking? I mean if you want me to see you as a women, how about catching a shave? And what self-respecting tranny would use a voodoo witch-doctor he found on the internet?

Light posting today

This is about what I feel like today....so posting will be light. Thanks for checking in though,

The Management

Obama to dictate where we live now

Not satisfied with seizing control of every other facet of life in America, Barack Obama now has his sights set on reversing, by government fiat, urban sprawl, as if the productive class intentionally abandoned the shiftless class in the inner city....

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Monday that federal policy has encouraged urban sprawl, has hurt city residents and damaged the environment.

Pledging a top-to-bottom review of how the United States deals with cities and metropolitan areas, Obama invited political leaders and policy experts to the White House to solicit their ideas for a national urban policy. Citing the connection between education and employment figures, transportation and pollution, White House officials said their next budget proposal would address how to remedy long-festering policy questions about the pace of urban growth.

I thought this was a free country. Or at least it used to be. People may live where ever they chose, if they can afford it. If BO wants to slow the rate of urban blight and decay and lure wealthy people back to the city, how about lowering taxes on small businesses and individuals? How about cleaning up the drug dealers, hoodlums,and prostitutes that litter every urban neighborhood? How about creating an economic environment in which businesses can thrive?

But even if Obama can get city mayors to do all these things and get rid of crime, the fact remains, that people with means, like owning homes with yards and some land, away from the hustle and bustle of city life. While it's true, you could lure some Yuppies and DINKS back to the city with economic bait but, there's a limited number of those in every metropolitan area.

I imagine that, rather than lure people with economic incentives, Obama will propose an urban-sprawl tax on the productive people who work in the cities but, who refuse to live there. His redistributive instincts are legendary and any opportunity to take from the achievers and give to the loafers will not go to waste. He'll use class, wealth, and race warfare to advance his urban renewal agenda. And ACORN will be the recipient of all that tax money.

TOTUS commits suicide...RIP!

Sick of the lying, obfuscation, and broken promises of which it was forced to be a part by Obama, TOTUS(Teleprompter of the United States) took the only way out and committed it's final betrayal by throwing itself on the floor during it's master's press conference....



Remember during the Clinton years, Vince Foster "committed suicide" in a park in DC? Hillary immediately rifled through his office to hide any incriminating documents and any investigation into his very suspicious death was squashed by the Clinton machine. Well, I wonder who was dispatched to rifle through TOTUS's office in the West Wing? Who will deep-six the investigation into the highly questionable "suicide" of TOTUS? Did it know too much? Had it betrayed Obama one too many times? We'll probably never know.

The legacy of Obama

The longest lasting legacy of any President's administration is felt with the judges he appoints to the Supreme Court. That's why the Constitution mandates that he appoint them with the advice and consent of the US Senate, being the representatives of the states' interests. The confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee begin today for Judge Sotomayor. She's a sure thing to get confirmed, barring a bombshell that nobody knows about. The job for conservatives on the committee is to make sure the American people know who Obama is appointing to the Supreme Court so that when she casts votes, we know at whose step to lay the blame. And if they can show what a far-left, activist judge she is, maybe the democrats on the committee will think twice before casting their aye vote.

Nature or choice.....penguins muddy the water

Alright, I'm gonna poke a hornets' nest with a stick now but hey, that's what I do....

SAN FRANCISCO, July 12 (UPI) -- Linda the penguin has split up two male penguins who lived as a nesting couple for six years at the San Francisco Zoo, caretakers said.

Male penguins Harry and Pepper had been so content together they were allowed to incubate and hatch an egg laid by another Magellanic penguin last year, zookeeper Anthony Brown said.

Enter the widow Linda, who began courting Harry in her partner's old burrow shortly after his death this past winter, Brown said.

Though Harry and Linda have been nesting in recent months, molting season in late summer tends to reshuffle couples, KTVU-TV reported Sunday.

"It'll be interesting to see if Harry spends any of that time with Pepper," Brown said. "We'll have to wait and see."

OK, no lame San Francisco/gay penguin jokes....way too easy.

If as many believe, and we are told by the gay-rights movement, homosexuality is something you are born into and is as natural as heterosexuality, how is it possible that a life-long gay penguin can be courted away from his life-partner by simple, feminine manipulation. I mean we heterosexual men are well aware of, and practically useless against, the powers of the determined female. Shouldn't gay penguins be immune to the wiley female and her deceptive charms?

On the other hand, is it possible that this penguin who is naturally gay, was fooled by his own genetic need to reproduce, regardless of his rearing offspring already? The basic question therefor is, can one's orientation be trumped by the fundamental, genetic need to reproduce, compelling him or her to abandon the same-sex lifestyle and embrace the hetrosexual lifestyle...as this "gay" penguin seems to have done?

Or is it as I suspect, simply that no man, regardless of orientation, is able to resist the crafty, scheming, determined female?

The problem with policy Czars

These are just 12 of the 30 or so czars that Obama has installed as a shadow government. These people who carry the weight of the office of President behind them, answer only to Obama, not the American people. Normally people with this much power, cabinet members, have to be confirmed by the US Senate just like all other high-level Presidential appointees but, not these people. Read their names....have you heard of any of them? This is what the Constitution says about Presidential appointments.....

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.

This is how Obama is skirting the Constitutional process of advice and consent. He can have these drones do his bidding as he seizes control of every facet of American life, exactly the way the cabinet members do except that, these shadowy automatons don't have to be confirmed by the people, i.e. the Senate, before they are given control over us.

People, what you are witnessing is the incremental, methodical dismantling of the United States and it's devolution into a second-rate, welfare state, managed by diabolically evil socialists who've abandoned the Constitution in favor of political correctness and nanny-State governance.....and we've nobody to blame but ourselves.

Nation-building cannot be successful in Africa

As if Obama hasn't wasted enough of our tax dollars already with corporate bailouts, porkulus trillions, and promises of goody-bags of other peoples' money to the undeserving, now he's going to urinate still more of our blood and treasure down the God-forsaken rat hole that is Africa.....

The US is planning a dramatically more assertive policy in Africa, sometimes backed by a threat of force, to end conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria that are seen as among the principal obstacles to the continent's revival.

Do we really want our sons and daughters dying in Africa trying to bring peace to savages who've been waring and killing each other since the beginning of time? While a vast majority of the people want to be peaceful, productive, educated citizens, their brutal, dictatorial rulers keep them mired in poverty, hopelessness, and despair. The few elected official that exist in these war-torn nations are hopelessly corrupt such that any aid from outside is consumed by the government and it's friends...not the people.

I would support a clandestine, arms-supply program for any competent faction who demonstrated the will to overthrow, regardless of how bloody it's likely to be, the sitting dictators who rule with corruption and violence. But we don't need to waste more money, and now lives, than we already do in a place where it does no good.

Dumb, distracted teen injures self.....blames others

I would pay cash money to see a video clip of this.....and, I'd watch it over and over and over, never tiring of the hilarity....

NEW YORK (CBS)

It was an accident waiting to happen -- an open sewer and a 15-year-old girl who was texting while she walked.

Alexa Longueira, a high school sophomore, was walking along Victory Boulevard near Travis Avenue on Staten Island Wednesday evening when she felt the earth move and was plunged into smelly darkness.

She said the manhole she fell in to was left open and unattended with no warning signs or orange cones. She said two workers with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection failed to secure the area as they prepared to flush the sewer.

"It was just really gross and it was shocking and scary," she said. "Because of their careless mistake I got hurt."

Longueira has deep cuts and bruises and said she now has nightmares about falling, but she also did admit she was texting at the time.

In what unicorn, fairy world are city streets supposed to be totally safe? There are risks and pitfalls every time you step foot outside your home. Texting while walking down a busy city street is beyond stupid! She says she's having nightmares about falling, and I'll bet her parents are having nightmares about institutionalizing her for being too stupid to avoid a hole in plain sight.

Of course, she blames everybody else, setting herself up for a generous payday care of the New York taxpayers....after all, not taking responsibility for your own actions is the American way.

Stupid electric cars....bad for the environment

How utterly stupid does Germany's Angela Merkel look riding around in an idiotic electric car? 'Cause I'm at a loss for words to describe it....

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel rides in an electric car on her way to a family photo during the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009. Leaders of the Group of Eight major industrial nations and the main developing economies are meeting in the central Italian city of L'Aquila until Friday to discuss issues ranging from global economic stimulus to climate change and oil prices

What these cretins don't understand(scary version--they do understand but, are doing it to us anyway) is that even if you think CO2 is a pollutant, which it isn't, but even if you did, for every low-skill, low-paying "green job" you create by limiting the production of traditional energy, you destroy 2.2 high-skill, high-paying jobs. Spain tried to create green jobs by government mandate, just like Obama will do in the U.S., and Spain's unemployment rate climbed to 18%. Every one of those lost jobs can be traced directly back to the government mandates to limit CO2, or as we smart people refer to it....plant food.

Moreover, let's say that Obama manages to limit the CO2 production of petroleum-feul cars by forcing everybody to drive idiotic electric cars, the resulting increased demand will create more CO2-associated electricity production, so the net CO2 levels will be 0. That's not to mention the strip-mining that's required to mine the Lithium for the batteries.

See? Obama's mandate for CO2 reduction is an exercise in abject stupidity and the American people are falling for it.

Bull in Pamplona, just doing what bulls do

It hasn't happened in like 15 years but, you knew it was bound to at some point....

PAMPLONA, Spain — A charging bull gored a young man to death Friday at Pamplona's San Fermin festival, the first such fatality in nearly 15 years. Nine others were injured in a particularly dangerous and chaotic chapter of the running of the bulls.

The San Fermin festival Web site said the unidentified man was gored in the neck and lung during a run in which a rogue bull separated from the pack, which is among the worst things that can happen at Spain's most popular fiesta.

Running with bulls down 800meters of slippery, narrow street, with no where to escape, is perhaps the stupidest of traditions...EVER! Actually, I'm shocked that somebody doesn't get gored to death every year. That men from all over the world travel to Spain every year, just to do this, alone explains the disparity between life-expectancies of men and women. Scientifically, it's been shown that the risk-aversion part of the brain in men doesn't mature until about age 25, while in women, it matures in their teens. Of course this is evolutionarily advantageous but, risking your life stupidly is beyond the realm of survival of the fittest.

The Obama's double standard regarding their children

Everybody in the media gets hysterically defensive if they sense a hint of politicization of the Obama girls, Sasha and Malia, taking place but, tell me this isn't politicization....

From DailyMail -- Her father had just won agreement from the Russians to cut back on the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
And Barack Obama's eldest daughter was obviously keen to make her own statement on the issue - even if it was merely a fashion statement.

Just 48 hours after the U.S. President signed agreements with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to reduce weapon stores, 11-year-old Malia Obama was spotted wearing not one, but two T-shirts with an anti-nuclear message.

She wore the tops emblazoned with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's famous logo as her father prepared for three days of G8 talks in Italy.

You can't as President, go to Russia, our cold-war enemy, and discuss nuclear disarmament, while having your daughter conspicuously adorned in anti-nuclear garb, and claim that it's just a fashion statement or coincidence. The not-so subtle message from Obama is that Putin/Medvedev should disarm Russia for the children specifically, if not for the world in general. It is a blatantly inappropriate use of his children in a political context but, the media will defend him for it and praise Malia for taking a stand for peace[sticks finger in mouth, makes vomit face].

Al Gore jumps the shark by validating Godwin's Law

As creepy leader of the cult of environmentalism, Al Gore has been struggling lately since people everywhere are getting wise to the idiocy of climate change legislation since it'll cost us all billions, while enriching him. So what's a lying self-promoter to do? Why invoke Hitler of course because, who can argue with you after you've called your opponent a Nazi, regardless of how stupid the comparison?

The former US Vice President said the world lacked the political will to act and invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill by encouraging leaders to unite their nations to fight climate change. He also accused politicians around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid difficult decisions. Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War II.”

A losing argument is best indicated by one opponent calling the other one a Nazi or otherwise comparing him to Hitler in some astoundingly inappropriate way. Thus Al Gore invoking Winston Churchill and WWII in a debate about global warming, is a direct validation of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies which says that, the likelihood of a reference or comparison arising, of one's debate opponent to Nazi's, increases as the discussion or debate progresses.

It is generally accepted that when one debater invokes Hitlerian name-calling in an argument, they have essentially conceded the argument. It's a sign of desperation when logic and reason have failed you utterly and you have nothing else with which to debate....just like Al Gore in the global warming debate.

It's finally come to this

I always suspected that scientists would at some point render the male half of our species redundant but, I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime.....

From the Telegraph: British scientists have created human sperm using stem cells in a medical first that could revolutionise fertility treatment, they claim.

So, if women can literally manufacture their own sperm for fertilization, what is the inevitable end result for men as a co-species? Are we men destined to be anything but a sub-species, relegated to domestic roles like takers out of trash, walkers of dogs, and openers of jars? Let's face it, collectively, women would rather hang out with each other and tolerate men because we are their only source of sperm....and because we'll wash their car. Now, we're not even that useful.

Boys, this doesn't look good for us.

Another TRR public service announcement

Kids, if I've said it once, I've said it a couple of times, stay in school, don't taunt the wild animals at the zoo, and don't get involved with drugs. This is why.....

This is champion figure skater Nicole Bobek when she was a performer with Campbell's Stars on Ice....

And this is her mugshot after becoming a kingpin in the New Jersey methamphetamine trade.

Any questions?

Pro-tip for fireworks enthusiasts and jack-asses

As funny as it might sound when your friends are talking about it and trying to get you to try it, don't under any circumstances, ever, Eh-VER, put a firecracker in your ass and light it......


'Nuff said!

We at TRR humbly apologize for the graphic nature of this photo but, in the interest of public safety we thought it prudent to show how dangerous, even small-seeming fireworks can be.....plus, we found it hilarious that a grown man would do such a thing. Do you think malt liquor and a shallow gene pool may have played a small role here?

Time for the Tour!!!

It's that time if year again folks, time for the Tour de France. I'm certain that all TRR readers are glued to their sets at night to watch Frankie Andreu and Bob Roll deliver expanded coverage of that day's stage drama. Unless you live under a rock or in a refrigerator box over a steam vent somewhere, in which case you should be out looking for a job instead of reading stupid blogs, you probably know that Lance Armstrong is back in cycling and rides for Team Astana. Of the 8 or 9 guys who have the ability to win the Tour, 4 of them are on Astana. It should be riveting to watch them fight it out in the mountains to establish who among them is the deserving team leader.
Plus, if you pay attention, you get to see some beautiful scenery of the French countryside, it's villiages, and even hear a bit of old-world history of the area....for the inner nerd in each of us.

I hope you enjoy the race every year as much as I do, especially as commentated by Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin, both former professional cyclists.

Burdening everybody on behalf of a few idiots

Here is precisely why the federal government is the worst entity to be running any business......

Through Minneapolis/St. Paul international airport, approximately 34,000,000 people travel each year. Of those, about 20,000 show up at the wrong gate for connecting flights or departures. Based on the complaints of 0.059% of travelers who apparently can't read, the airport will spend about $2.2million to re-sign the concourses. This is on the heels of a $3million renovation project.

First, these idiots who travel in Minnesota are the same idiots who elected jester Al Franken to represent them in the US Senate. Why would anybody think new signage would help people that stupid find the right gate?

Moreover, renovations always end up costing the public at the retail level. Prices for everything at the airport will increase in order to pay for renovations and re-signage like this....as if $17.00 for a tuna-salad sandwich and a beer wasn't enough already.

Last, underachieving, government bureaucrats don't have any accountability for the money they spend the way private managers do. Private businesses lose money when they do something wasteful and somebody gets fired for it. In government, nobody gets fired no matter how incompetently they do their jobs or how wasteful they are with taxpayer money.

There is no business that can't be run 10 times more efficiently by private companies than by government. Whether it's car manufacturing, banking, Amtrack, US Postal Service, national park management, or airport management, private enterprise can do it better and for less costs than the behemouth, federal bureacracy.

Interesting note: the title of this post applies not only to Minneapolis airport management but, also to the state of Minnesota for buredening America with Al Franken.

Sarah Palin: political brilliance or political hari kari?

This news was part of the "Friday dump" cycle....

WASILLA, Alaska (AP) - Even for a nonconformist, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin defies political logic with her sudden, stunning announcement to leave office more than a year early.

Supporters and critics alike say the former GOP vice presidential candidate's resignation, announced Friday afternoon and effective July 26, is an inexplicable move for a high profile Republican widely seen as a contender for a White House run in 2012. A half-term governor campaigning for president?

"If she is thinking that leaving her term 16 months early is going to help her prepare to maybe go on to bigger and better things on the political stage, I think she's sadly mistaken. You just can't quit," said Andrew Halcro, a Palin critic who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to her.

Palin's abrupt announcement Friday rattled the Republican Party but left open the possibility of a presidential run. She and her staff are keeping mum on her future plans.

I don't blame her for wanting the absurd ethics claims by lower-48 liberals to end, or for her family to be spared further scrutiny and humiliation by the brutal, liberal media but, if you have higher, national, political ambitions, you cannot quit your first term as governor with 18 months left to serve. I realize that Obama essentially quit his first term as senator to run full-time for the presidency but he just quit showing up for work, he didn't officially quit. Plus he had the adoring, feckless media to prop him up against any, any criticism. Palin, and sadly her family, have become the punchline to too many jokes for her to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate, unless she sticks out this and one more term as Alaska governor before she runs for CiC, maybe in 2016 or even 2020.

Some people are saying it's a shrewd political move so she can spend more time in the lower 48 giving speeches, raising money for GOP candidates, becoming a serious politician rather than the political oddity she is currently. I disagree. I think it's suicide because she'll always have to defend against the "quitter" charge. What do you think?

Happy 4th to TRR readers!

Everybody have a safe and happy 4th! Try not to get distracted by all the other crap in the news today, instead remember the vision our founding fathers had when they declared independence from Great Britain 233 years ago. And then look around and see how far we've drifted from that. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you were obviously "educated" in dreadful government schools where your self-esteem was stroked and the curriculum consisted of idiotic, environmental propaganda and advocacy sex education. You should run, not walk to the book store and pick up copies of Mark Levin's book Liberty and Tyranny, and/or Glenn Beck's book Common Sense, and educate yourself instead of obsessing over 24/7 Michael Jackson TV coverage.

If you are in a different country, then the US is 233 years old today. Very young by most country's standards but well beyond the 200 year average that most democracies last. It's a tentative cross-roads that we approach here in America. Do we turn left and become a 2nd-rate welfare state like most of Europe, or do we turn right and repel the insidious encroachment of government nanny-statism and embrace the ideals of our founding fathers, which include individual responsibility, limited government, personal liberty, and free-market capitalism? Wish us luck in our struggle, for the ripple effect of a weakened America will be felt around the world.