Sharp Knife

Advice for the love-lorn:

The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like a ham & eggs breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'.

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

O, Canada!

This was broadcast 30 years ago on a Toronto radio station:

"The Americans"

"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped."

"LET'S BE PERSONAL"
Broadcast June 5, 1973
CFRB, Toronto, Ontario

But it's gotten much better since then!

The National Institutes of Health

is spending $26,000.00 on a sexual arousal conference at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington next month. That's on top of, so to speak, the 147K already spent to show women porn and measure their responses with a plethysmograph.

First of all, why the plural 'Institutes'? I'm thinking one is plenty. Or why not 'Institutes of Healths'? That has a nice New Age ring to it.

Whatever they call themselves, it's plain that they can't be trusted with the tax-payer's money; they asked for the 26K in fresh crisp one dollar bills "for garter gratuities".

And they had an entire 8 years to hook up a device to Bill Clinton for free, and missed every opportunity...unlike Bill. And what the hell is a 'plethysmograph', anyway? It sounds like a dinosaur.
Speaking of, it's probably not too late to attach one to Strom Thurmond. As John Tower noted "When ol' Strom dies, they'll have to beat his pecker down with a baseball bat in order to get that coffin lid closed."

However, since the Neverland Ranch is booked that weekend, the Kinsey Institute is a perfect setting for this dubious expenditure. Mr. Kinsey was a fish-net fraud, hiding his agenda behind a pseudo-scientific veneer. He was a pervert who spanked his monkey until it fell off, whereupon he died, having no reason to live any longer. 'Sui-Flagellatus Simian Necrosis' read the autopsy. Hey!...maybe we could get some federal funding to stop this terrible epidermal epidemic!

Northwestern University psychology professor J. Michael Bailey, author of "The Man Who Would Be Queen", will be a featured speaker. He will speak about "Gender, Age & Sexual Orientation" on the last day of the four-day conference. Perhaps he will inform the tax-payers what they got for their last $147,000.00 porn-viewing extravaganza. Perhaps not.

That's a grand total of $173,000.00 down the tubes...I mean, down the hole...wait...wasted. Do they understand someone had to get up and go to work to pay for this? At a REAL job?

Couldn't these clowns (sorry, clowns!) just hole up at a motel in Bethesda, grab a six-pack, order a pizza & watch a few X-rated movies on cable.
And send the savings to a children's hospital...an ACTUAL 'Institute of Health'?
On second thought, maybe it's worth 26 grand to know the whereabouts of these people over a long weekend.

Expect Barry Lynn to protest; "This violates the sacred 'Wall of Separation' between Genital Worship & State!" I know how you feel, Barry; I'm aroused, too.

In fact, I'm going to rent some midgit-porn right now.

I'll send you all the bill for $9.95.

Of course, the pizza, beer & motel room will run you 172,990 dollars. and 5 cents. Alright, alright...keep the nickel.

You're welcome, taxpayer.

Historian Paul Johnson

examines Empire, American & otherwise, at the New Criterion:

"It is not surprising that the Saudis have directly financed and indirectly sponsored Moslem terrorism, just as their predecessors supported slave-trading and piracy."

"For America, September 11 was a new Great Awakening. It realized, for the first time, that it was a globalized entity itself. It no longer had frontiers. Its boundaries were the world, for from whatever part of the world harbored its enemies, it could be attacked, and if such enemies possessed weapons of mass destruction, mortally attacked."

"... imperialism became a derogatory term only during the Civil War, when the South accused the North of behaving like a European empire... up to 1860 “empire” was not a term of abuse in the United States. George Washington himself spoke of “the rising American Empire.” Jefferson, aware of the dilemma, claimed that America was “an Empire for liberty.” That is what America is becoming again, in fact if not in name. America’s search for the security against terrorism and rogue states goes hand in hand with liberating their oppressed peoples. From the Evil Empire to an Empire for Liberty is a giant step, a contrast as great as the appalling images of the wasted twentieth century and the brightening dawn of the twenty-first. But America has the musculature and the will to take giant steps, as it has shown in the past."

"One thing is clear: America is unlikely to cease to be an empire in the fundamental sense. It will not share its sovereignty with anyone. It will continue to promote international efforts of proven worth, like GATT, and to support military alliances like NATO where appropriate. But it will not allow the UN or any other organization to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it sees fit..."

That is not a given, unfortunately. Had Gore succeeded in stealing the election, we'd still be begging at the UN, implementing Kyoto, stuck in the SALT Treaty, asking the ICC to read us our Miranda warning, etc.

Read all of it here.

And don't miss

The Director's Cut, where Steve H. of Little Tiny Lies and I post our favorite humor pieces from each of our blogs.

Sort of a Greatest Hits collection, 'tho I try to throw in one or two new jokes.
Steve doesn't have to; he got it right the first time.

Humor is a funny thing.

L'il Dicky Gephardt's Gavel-Envy

The mono-browed, translucent, non-voting legislator from Missouri, caught a lot of flak for saying he would over-ride 'bad' Supreme Court decisions with Executive Orders.

Translation: "If the Court slips up and actually follows the Constitution, I'll fill in for them 'til they return to their senses."

Dick comes from an interesting background: Although he's reasonably wealthy, his mom is always pennies away from eating dog-food, taking the dog's medication and sleeping in the yard, all because of those nasty Wepubwicans. His dad was a union milk-deliveryman, who sang union ditties as he made his rounds; except Dick's brother remembers their dad hated the union. His daughter suddenly discovered she was gay and walked out on her husband & children, just in time to advise Dick's campaign on the new family values. His rich constituents all beg him to raise their taxes and his poor constituents all beg him to return tax money they never paid in the first place. He thinks the affluent should pay high taxes on their second homes, except for that certain beach house in N. Carolina. And Dick was always pro-life. Until he wasn't.

So if he stumbled on the truth, it was purely accidental.

Presidents, and Congresses, not to mention citizens, also have a say in the meaning of the Constitution.

Yes, I know; It was all supposed to be decided by Chief Justice John Marshall in 'Marbury v. Madison'. Marshall was a truly great American.
But it's always seemed to me that letting the Court decide that the Court always has the last word on the Constitution is sorta' like putting out an APB on the real killers based on a description provided by OJ.

Here is another take on Marbury by a former Atty. General:

"Some Americans have erroneously been led to believe that courts must always have the sole and final word in interpreting the Constitution and that state governments, and the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, must accept judicial rulings without question."

"The Constitution, however, does not grant the courts such supremacy; indeed, as President Lincoln expressly noted, the logic of self-government denies it. The Founders of our nation feared that if any one branch of government seized supreme authority to control the meaning of the Constitution, that branch would gradually expand its own powers and encroach on the legitimate authority of the other branches. This is why the Founders crafted the Constitution around the idea of a balance and separation of powers, not on executive, legislative or judicial supremacy."

"In the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, which was the first major exercise of judicial review, Chief Justice John Marshall argued that all three branches have power to interpret the Constitution: “[I]t is apparent that the framers ... contemplated that instrument as a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the legislature,” Marshall wrote, adding that “courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.”

And here is what Linclon said after 'Dred Scott':

"If it is “the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, that [constitutionality] be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, then the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” "

" In 1861, Lincoln announced that his administration, while respecting the result in Dred Scott, would recognize that case only as “binding … to that particular case,” and would not accept the principle of the broader rule of law the Court was trying to create in the decision. This was important because the Patent Office in Boston had denied a patent to a free black, citing Dred Scott that blacks were not citizens, and the State Department had denied a passport to a free black to travel to Europe on the same grounds. Lincoln ordered these executive branch departments to reverse both decisions, saying that he would not apply the legal principle of Dred Scott to these cases ..."

The oath taken by the President (& Congress) are more than pretty words. If the Constitution has been seriously breached, The President has a DUTY to defend it. He then takes the consequences; Impeachment, voted out of office or swept to popular re-election. Same with Congress.

Imagine the Court ruled that our signature on the UN Charter prevented us from going to war without the Security Council's permission. Trans-nationals in the Senate had enough votes to prevent the removal of those Justices. Is the case closed? The scenario is far-fetched--I hope.
But a President would have the duty to over-rule such a Court.

Just as all Presidents from 'Plessy' to 'Brown' should have stood up against 'Separate but Equal'.

Yes, it's messy. Yes, half the Congress wouldn't recognize the Constitution if their paychecks were printed on it & their pensions depended on it. And yes, it's hard to take a bold stand when Liberty is taken in tiny increments, day by day.

But Freedom is messy. And a Balance of Powers helps protect the rights of a free people.

I'll say it again:

The Court does not 'own' the Constitution.

Or, as Patrick Henry famously said; " Give me Liberty or give me a narrowly-tailored penumbra...whatever."

L'il Dicky Gephardt couldn't have said it any better.

And didn't.

Contempt of The Governed

If only the Court had legislated, say, new Federal Blood Alcohol Standards,

this could be called the "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash" session.

Sorry; those laws may have been archaic, silly or unenforced, but they were not unconstitutional. There is a big difference. The Scali-ator:

"...the Court is referring... to...its famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage: “ ‘At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life’ ”... I have never heard of a law that attempted to restrict one’s “right to define” certain concepts; and if the passage calls into question the government’s power to regulate actions based on one’s self-defined “concept of existence”, it is the passage that ate the rule of law."

"This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Justice O’Connor seeks to preserve them by the conclusory statement that “preserving the traditional institution of marriage” is a legitimate state interest. But “preserving the traditional institution of marriage” is just a kinder way of describing the State’s moral disapproval of same-sex couples."

"Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda.."

"It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as “discrimination” which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”; that in most States what the Court calls “discrimination” against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such “discrimination” under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress.."

"Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts–or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them–than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. "

"One of the benefits of leaving regulation of this matter to the people rather than to the courts is that the people, unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion. The people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough to disallow homosexual marriage, but not strong enough to criminalize private homosexual acts–and may legislate accordingly."

Or we can have the Court legislate for us. Yet again.

Nino says "No-no"!

I already posted Justice Thomas' opinion on 'Grutter'; here's another:

Opinion of Scalia, J. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

The University of Michigan Law School’s mystical “critical mass” justification for its discrimination by race challenges even the most gullible mind. The admissions statistics show it to be a sham to cover a scheme of racially proportionate admissions.

If that is a compelling state interest, everything is.

The “educational benefit” that the University of Michigan seeks to achieve by racial discrimination consists... of “ ‘cross-racial understanding,’ and “ ‘better preparation of students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society,’ all of which is necessary not only for work, but also for good “citizenship,”

This is not, of course, an “educational benefit” on which students will be graded on their Law School transcript (Works and Plays Well with Others: B+) or tested by the bar examiners (Q: Describe in 500 words or less your cross-racial understanding).

It is a lesson of life rather than law–essentially the same lesson learned by people three feet shorter and twenty years younger than the full-grown adults at the University of Michigan Law School, in institutions ranging from Boy Scout troops to public-school kindergartens.

If properly considered an “educational benefit” at all, it is surely not one that is either uniquely relevant to law school or uniquely “teachable” in a formal educational setting. And therefore: If it is appropriate for the University of Michigan Law School to use racial discrimination, it is appropriate for the civil service system of the State of Michigan to do so.

There, also, those exposed to “critical masses” of certain races will become better Americans, better Michiganders, better civil servants. And surely private employers should be praised if they also “teach” good citizenship to their adult employees through a patriotic, all-American system of racial discrimination in hiring.

The nonminority individuals who are deprived of a legal education, a civil service job, or any job at all by reason of their skin color will surely understand.

Unlike a clear constitutional holding that racial preferences in state educational institutions are impermissible, or even a clear anticonstitutional holding that racial preferences in state educational institutions are OK, today’s Grutter-Gratz split double header seems perversely designed to prolong the controversy and the litigation.

Future lawsuits will focus on whether the discriminatory scheme in question contains enough evaluation of the applicant “as an individual,” sufficiently avoids “separate admissions tracks”, whether a university has gone beyond the bounds of a “ ‘good faith effort’ ” and has zealously pursued its “critical mass”, whether any educational benefits flow from racial diversity...others may challenge the bona fides of the institution’s expressed commitment to the educational benefits of diversity...

Tempting targets will be those universities that talk the talk of multiculturalism and racial diversity in the courts but walk the walk of tribalism and racial segregation on their campuses–through minority-only student organizations, separate minority housing opportunities, separate minority student centers, even separate minority-only graduation ceremonies.

And still other suits may claim that the institution’s racial preferences have gone below or above the mystical Grutter-approved “critical mass.”

Finally, litigation can be expected on behalf of minority groups intentionally short changed in the institution’s composition of its generic minority “critical mass.”

I do not look forward to any of these cases.

The Constitution proscribes government discrimination on the basis of race, and state-provided education is no exception."

That was a Constitutional Fisking, my friends.

That does it.

A supremely ungrateful bitch named Purvi Patel chose the day of her citizenship to lecture us knuckle-dragging Americans on our vast shortcomings in an opinion piece in The San Fran Chronicle.

If you are averse to to the foulest kind of profanity, avert your eyes now. This sow gets the full-frontal fisk.

"Immigrants in battle, in jail and indignant --Welcome to America-- Citizen in a strange land"

Purvi Patel --Sunday, June 22, 2003

"For five years, I maneuvered through the halls of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, sometimes forgotten, and occasionally harassed. But I had not felt my intelligence so insulted as the day I was to become a U.S. citizen."
WELCOME TO MY PARTY, BITCH. SORRY YOU WERE INCONVENIENCED IN ANY WAY.

"Claude, the emcee at the oath ceremony on Nob Hill I attended recently, beseeched my 2,000-odd compatriots and me to join him in a cheer: "Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? INS! INS! INS!"

The request that I sing for membership reinforced a growing resentment I felt toward the United States."
OMIGOD! SOMEONE ASKED HER TO SING! AND THE PENALTY FOR NOT SINGING?...NOTHING.
" The American government, in pursuit of an illegal war and a post-9/11 assault on civil liberties, seemed more a police state than a democracy."

THAT MAKES YOU THE FIRST IDIOT IN HISTORY TO VOLUNTARILY JOIN A POLICE STATE, DOESN'T IT? "
"Was this the America to which I would swear allegiance?"
AS WE WILL SEE, YOU DIDN'T.

"I was born in India but grew up in a proud New England town where Paul Revere was still a local hero. My childhood feelings of patriotism later gave way to more skepticism about this country. Like many American citizens,"
STOP RIGHT THERE. YOU WERE NOT A CITIZEN. YOU WERE A GUEST.
..."I felt entitled to criticize this country,"
YEAH, WHEN I'M A GUEST IN SOMEONE'S HOME, I SURE FEEL ENTITLED TO CRITICIZE THEM. THE ONLY THING YOU WERE 'ENTITLED' TO WAS TO HAVE THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT.
..." but I also couldn't shed the vulnerability that plagues those who nervously cling to green cards. In pursuit of real security, I finally applied to become an American." OH, LUCKY US.

I sensed that quite a few of my fellow citizens-to-be at the ceremony had similarly practical motivations. The steady din of polyglot chatter went unabated for much of the morning. It became blatantly irreverent when Claude, foreign-born himself, fustily admonished the group to be sanitary: "We like clean citizens," he said in a thick accent.
OH, THE SAVAGE INDIGNITY! QUICK; CONVENE A NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL!

Felix, the fellow next to me, stopped listening and got on his cell phone. If immigrants can be treated so derisively, I thought, it is not surprising that many feel some detachment toward the United States. I took to the exit for a rest room break to wash my hands.
WASH SOME MORE; IT STILL STINKS IN HERE.

"Immigration officials elsewhere were not diplomats either."
YOU'RE NO FUCKIN' PRIZE YOURSELF, HONEY.
"I submitted my citizenship application in Houston, where Hispanic workers ring the building in serpentine lines, braving heatstroke to compete for entry. I have watched chagrined as officials refer to these men as "boys," and I have seen them return awkward smiles."
YOU STUPID SLAG...EVER HEARD THE EXPRESSION "GOOD OL' BOYS"? EVERYONE IN TEXAS GETS CALLED 'BOY'! EXCEPT THE GIRLS...HON'.

The local congressman's office, after my file was lost twice",
MAYBE THEY WERE TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING.
..."and my application delayed for four years,"
YEP, THEY WERE.
..."implied that some of my own problems should be attributed to my ethnicity. I'm not Muslim or Arab, but in the current climate, any substitute will suffice."
BULLSHIT. THE 'CURRENT CLIMATE', AS YOU DISMISSIVELY CALL IT, HAS A NAME: IT'S CALLED 'A STATE OF WAR'. THAT'S WHEN PEOPLE TRY TO KILL YOU, YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR NEIGHBORS. SO YOU TRY TO KILL THEM FIRST. AND IN CASE YOU HADN'T NOTICED, SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE FROM PLACES LIKE, OH...KASHMIR. THAT'S IN INDIA, MS. REVERE.

"Last year, I had my fingerprints taken, for the third time." TOUGH. "My file had "congressional inquiry" stamped on it," GET OVER IT. "so the director of the center quickly ushered me to a technician to have my prints taken." TOO BAD. " After his boss left, the technician didn't take my prints, but did harass me." GROW UP. " Suspicious of why I was living in San Francisco, he asked me if I ever "played with knives," and explained in detail that the fingerprints would allow the FBI to follow me 'anywhere I went'." WE'RE EVERYWHERE! " As I was leaving, I saw the evaluation card (of him) I had vengefully filled out slip quietly into his pocket."
YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU'VE GOT A SACRED COW-CHIP ON YOUR SHOULDER THE SIZE OF HUSSEIN IBBISH. YOU SHOULD REALLY, REALLY WORK ON THAT RESENTMENT THING.

After Sept. 11, discrimination has become a national sport.
SPORTS? MAYBE YOU CAN SUE UNDER TITLE IV.

Many immigrants have endured much worse than I did because of the 2001 Patriot Act, which gave the government vast powers to perform secret searches and wiretaps, and detain people without pressing charges, under the guise of national security.
TOO BAD YOU SLIPPED IN UNDER THE WIRE, SNAKE-LADY.

"At the annual meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights this spring, one panelist, an Irish human rights lawyer working in the United States, said that the government had tried to prevent him from renewing his visa because of his legal work here." HIS IRA MEMBERSHIP PROBABLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, HUH?.
"Another panelist, a Pakistani Canadian medical student studying here, was pulled out of his classes, strip-searched, put in solitary confinement for five months, beaten and, upon his release, wrongly accused of a visa violation. The U.S. government deported him to Canada, putting him on a plane in a jail suit, after taking all of his possessions."
GOSH, THAT'S A SHAME. HAMAS OR HEZZB'ALLAH?

"Such attitudes are reflected to a degree in how the government treats new citizens."

"Back at the citizenship ceremony on Nob Hill, immigration officials were trying to corral their audience,"
CORRAL? WELL, WE'RE ALL COWBOYS HERE.
..."which by now was running pell-mell through the building. The crowd became more orderly when the judge finally appeared. Felix reluctantly turned off his cell phone. The two Italians behind me didn't stop chattering, but lowered their volume. We rose for "The Star-Spangled Banner." I sang the last few lines from the heart, feeling the tingling remembrance of a happy childhood in New England."
IN ZEE FUTURE, YOU VILL REPORT ALL SUCH COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY FEELINKS TO ZEE ZAMPOLIT, COMRADE SISTER!

"I listened incredulously"
NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL, YOU SMELLY GASH.
..."as the judge ignored how the civil liberties I had studied as a fifth grader were now under assault."
KISS MY ASHCROFT.
"She delivered a trite homily on the "wonderful freedoms" Americans have "to speak" and "to move."
TRITE...YOU'LL LIKE IT!
"I thought of all of the Pakistani Americans who, unable to live here even in silence, are now moving in droves to Canada."
IF THE JUDGE WAS IGNORING ANYTHING, IT WAS THE STENCH COMING OFF YOUR ATTITUDE. IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE FREEDOM TO 'SPEAK' AND 'MOVE' HOW DID YOU GET HOME AND WRITE THIS ARTICLE FOR THE CHRONICLE? HOW ARE "PAKISTANI AMERICANS", (WHOM I REFER TO AS 'AMERICANS'), MOVING TO CANADA ? AND WHY THE HELL DON'T YOU GO WITH THEM?

I was mulling over exercising my freedom "to move" by walking out, but then one participant in the ceremony, a native San Franciscan of Korean descent, delivered a rousing speech. He praised American democracy, but deplored its use of intimidation and violence to fight terrorism."
MAYBE WE COULD FIGHT TERRORISTS BY TAKING THEM TO DISNEYLAND AND BUYING THEM FLUFFY BUNNIES AND ICE CREAM CONES.
" He urged the audience not to fear, not to feel threatened, and to speak openly despite the current atmosphere. Felix and I eagerly joined the crowd in the day's first applause."
THEN WE BROKE OUT IN A ROUSING CHANT OF 'HO, HO, HO CHI MINH!'

"As this country wages war on innocent civilians in the name of terrorism,"
THAT'S A GOD-DAMNED LIE.
..."we have, in our amnesiac way, forgotten the fragile position occupied by America's foreign born. But only Americans possess the influence and the authority to reclaim the freedoms upon which this country was founded. Without them,"
'THEM' IS 'YOU' NOW...TRY AND PRETEND.
..."an oath sworn to God, or George W. Bush, will make a true citizen of no one."
YOU KNOW FULL WELL THAT NO ONE SWEARS AN OATH TO GEORGE W. BUSH, ASSBITCH. MAYBE YOU WERE IN THE BATHROOM WASHING YOUR HANDS AT THE TIME, SO LET ME REFRESH YOUR MEMORY OF THE OATH YOU JUST TOOK:

"I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

ANY OF THIS RINGING YOUR COW-BELL, ELSIE?
'SUPPORT & DEFEND'?... 'ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN & DOMESTIC'?... 'WITHOUT ANY MENTAL RESERVATION'?
YOU THINK THIS COUNTRY IS A POLICE STATE? HELL; YOU'RE A WALKING 'MENTAL RESERVATION'. YOU LIED YOUR SKANK-ASS OFF, DIDN'T YOU? YOU SORRY DOUCHEBAG.

"On this day, I had to answer in writing, for the third time, that I had not recently joined the Communist party, practiced polygamy or solicited prostitution."
RECENTLY? NO; SOUNDS LIKE YOU JOINED THE PARTY A LONG TIME AGO. AND MAYBE THEY ASKED YOU THAT OTHER STUFF 'COS YOUR NAME IS 'PERVY'.

At the end, our fairy godmother swung her mallet and pronounced all of us changelings "American."
IN YOUR CASE, SHE WAS MISTAKEN.

-Purvi Patel graduated in May from the University of San Francisco law school.

BINGO! MONEY QUOTE!--"GRADUATED IN MAY FROM U. OF S.F. LAW." LEMME GET THIS STRAIGHT:

THIS COUNTRY LET YOU COME AND STAY HERE. YOU WEREN'T YET A CITZEN, BUT IT EDUCATED YOU. IT EVEN GAVE YOU, INSTEAD OF AN AMERICAN, A SLOT IN A PRESTIGIOUS LAW SCHOOL, UNDOUBTEDLY WITH RACE & GENDER PREFERENCES.
YOU GRADUATED WITH A DEGREE IN THE LAWS OF A COUNTRY STILL NOT YOUR OWN. AND EVEN WITH THAT LAW DEGREE, YOU HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT AN 'ILLEGAL WAR' IS.

YOU DECIDE TO GRACE OUR POLICE STATE WITH YOUR CITIZENSHIP, EVEN THOUGH YOU PLAINLY DON'T BELIEVE IN THE OATH YOU TOOK.

YOU ARE A CORROSIVE CURRY OF RESENTMENT, AMERICA-HATRED, ETHNIC GREIVANCE AND ENTITLEMENT.
THE WORLD IS FULL OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD GIVE EVERYTHING TO BECOME AMERICANS; YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN EVERYTHING AND HAVE NOTHING TO GIVE IN RETURN BUT SCORN FOR AMERICA.
THE WORST PART IS THAT YOU TOOK THE PLACE OF AN IMMIGRANT WHO WOULD HONOR AND RESPECT HIS OR HER NEW HOME.

YOU REPRESENT ALMOST EVERY PATHOLOGY IN MODERN AMERICAN LIFE. I'T'S TRULY PATHETIC; YOU FELL IN WITH A BUNCH OF SELF-LOATHING AMERICANS AND HAVE NOW BECOME ONE YOURSELF.
PERHAPS YOU CAN USE YOUR LAW DEGREE TO REPRESENT YOUR FELLOW A.I.N.O.S (AMERICANS IN NAME ONLY).
THAT WOULD MAKE YOU A.I.N.O.-LLY-RETAINED...PERFECT!

IN ADDITION TO BEING A SPOILED, PAMPERED, PETULANT ADOLESCENT, YOU REPRESENT A NET LOSS TO THIS COUNTRY.

FRANKLY, YOU SUCK, BITCH.

YOU CAN KISS MY AMERICAN ASS.

I MEAN, 'OUR' AMERICAN ASS.

OH, AND WELCOME,

FELLOW "CITIZEN".

Happy Birthday to Justice Clarence Thomas

who has more class in his little finger than all his detractors combined. I don't know if you have ever heard the man speak, but he is a quality human being. And we are lucky to have him.

Rather than my ranting on the Plessy-Lite debacle of today's mixed decisions, let's just go to the video-tape:

(and get ready; this isn't just an opinion; it's a Fisking!)

Opinion of Thomas, J. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Frederick Douglass, speaking to a group of abolitionists almost 140 years ago, delivered a message lost on today’s majority:

“[I]n regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us… . I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! … And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … [Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.”

Like Douglass, I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators. Because I wish to see all students succeed whatever their color, I share, in some respect, the sympathies of those who sponsor the type of discrimination advanced by the University of Michigan Law School . The Constitution does not, however, tolerate institutional devotion to the status quo in admissions policies when such devotion ripens into racial discrimination.

Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution to the self-inflicted wounds of this elitist admissions policy.

The majority upholds the Law School’s racial discrimination not by interpreting the people’s Constitution, but by responding to a faddish slogan of the cognoscenti. Nevertheless, I concur in part in the Court’s opinion. First, I agree with the Court insofar as its decision, which approves of only one racial classification, confirms that further use of race in admissions remains unlawful. Second, I agree with the Court’s holding that racial discrimination in higher education admissions will be illegal in 25 years... I respectfully dissent from the remainder of the Court’s opinion and the judgment, however, because I believe that the Law School’s current use of race violates the Equal Protection Clause and that the Constitution means the same thing today as it will in 300 months.

The Constitution abhors classifications based on race, not only because those classifications can harm favored races or are based on illegitimate motives, but also because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all. “Purchased at the price of immeasurable human suffering, the equal protection principle reflects our Nation’s understanding that such classifications ultimately have a destructive impact on the individual and our society.”

Contained within today’s majority opinion is the seed of a new constitutional justification for a concept I thought long and rightly rejected--racial segregation.

I will not twist the Constitution to invalidate legacy preferences or otherwise impose my vision of higher education admissions on the Nation. The majority should similarly stay its impulse to validate faddish racial discrimination the Constitution clearly forbids.

Considering all of the radical thinking that has historically occurred at this country’s universities, the Law School’s intractable approach toward admissions is striking.

The Court will not even deign to make the Law School try other methods, however, preferring instead to grant a 25-year license to violate the Constitution. And the same Court that had the courage to order the desegregation of all public schools in the South now fears, on the basis of platitudes rather than principle, to force the Law School to abandon a decidedly imperfect admissions regime that provides the basis for racial discrimination.

I must contest the notion that the Law School’s discrimination benefits those admitted as a result of it.

The silence in this case is deafening to those of us who view higher education’s purpose as imparting knowledge and skills to students, rather than a communal, rubber-stamp, credentialing process.

The Law School tantalizes unprepared students with the promise of a University of Michigan degree and all of the opportunities that it offers. These overmatched students take the bait, only to find that they cannot succeed in the cauldron of competition.

And the aestheticists will never address the real problems facing “underrepresented minorities",instead continuing their social experiments on other people’s children.

”These programs stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop dependencies or to adopt an attitude that they are ‘entitled’ to preferences.”

The Court’s civics lesson presents yet another example of judicial selection of a theory of political representation based on skin color–an endeavor I have previously rejected.

The majority appears to believe that broader utopian goals justify the Law School’s use of race, but “[t]he Equal Protection Clause commands the elimination of racial barriers, not their creation in order to satisfy our theory as to how society ought to be organized." (Douglas, J.)

The Court also holds that racial discrimination in admissions should be given another 25 years before it is deemed no longer narrowly tailored to the Law School’s fabricated compelling state interest. While I agree that in 25 years the practices of the Law School will be illegal, they are, for the reasons I have given, illegal now.

For the immediate future, however, the majority has placed its imprimatur on a practice that can only weaken the principle of equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Equal Protection Clause. “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting). It has been nearly 140 years since Frederick Douglass asked the intellectual ancestors of the Law School to “[d]o nothing with us!” and the Nation adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. Now we must wait another 25 years to see this principle of equality vindicated. I therefore respectfully dissent from the remainder of the Court’s opinion and the judgment.

Justice Thomas also notes that it is argued that Historically Black Colleges need non-diversity to have their students thrive, yet the Court just held the opposite. Indeed, the Court holds both diametrically-opposed opinions at once.

I would also note that this Court didn't give the Fla. Supreme Court 25 years to decide the Bush/Gore election.
( "This is Dan Rather. ELECTION 2000: Day 154,681...our coverage continues..." NOOOOOOO!!!!)

Sadly, this divisive, counter-productive, un- & anti-Constitutional mish-mash has prevailed for the moment.
There is no way to count one person as 1 & 3/5ths of a person without counting someone else as 3/5ths. It can't be done.
And while quotas are nowhere near as destructive as the evil Jim Crow regime, in one sense, they are worse:

We should know better by now.

"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." -Frank Zappa

Yes. Such as their lives. People are funny that way.

Judging Chucky

Sen. Chuckles Schumer up-chucked a novel proposal to nominate judges:

He'll pick them.

He has deigned to give the President "advice & consent" over the Senate's choices. That's gracious of him.
This turns the process on it's head, but, hey, what's one more on-the-fly amendment to the "Living" Constitution?

He sent a letter to the White House naming the 'short-list' of Supreme Court nominees acceptable to him. And has proposed a commission, half named by Daschle & half by the President, to choose nominees. Which points out the obvious; a man with that little respect for the Constitution has no business anywhere near the process.

The Constitution says "He shall nominate, by & with the advice & consent of the Senate...". Chuckles may hide behind the 'by advice' clause, but it says 'He', not 'they' shall nominate. Bye-bye, commission.

The Senate has a right to make it's rules and a duty to 'advise & consent' on nominees.
The filibuster puts these two provisions at odds.

By requiring 60 votes to end a filibuster, the Senate is effectively changing the Constitution to require "super-consent". The Constitution is supposed to be changed only through the Amendment process. If the Framers had wanted a super-majority requirement, they would have included it, as they did with Treaties. (Theoretically, under the status quo, the Senate's rules could allow just one Senator to filibuster and require 99 votes for cloture!).

Of course, the Supremes would be more than mega-reluctant to rule on the Senate's prerogatives. It would take a Court full of actual Constitutionalists to do so (even they, reluctantly). At present, such a Court is not possible...due to the filibuster. The perfect Catch-22.

The real-world answer is for the President to street-fight for his nominees...and to elect more Senators.
If we do ever get 60 decent Senators, they should repeal the filibuster rule immediately.

Donks cling to courts because 'their' judges (and many of 'ours') "pass" laws that they can't otherwise get passed by legislatures. Which proves their claims of 'centrism' false. If their positions were popular, they would be legislated by elected officials instead of unelected lifetime appointees.

Maybe we should amend the Constitution to have judges elected. I'm going to push for that amendment.

Hell; all I need is one or two judges to rule in favor of it.

Since we're on an American History jag,

here's an interesting piece by Claremont's Richard Samuelson on John Quincy Adams & Islam.

"Adams observed the first chapter of this conflict in the 1820s, when the Greeks revolted against their Turkish masters."

"Adams feared that Western statesmen failed to appreciate the Christian roots and context of liberalism. In America and increasingly in Europe, religious freedom had found fertile soil in the Christian notion that religion is primarily about belief and only secondarily about action. Hence, people could be left free to think whatever they wanted so long as they submitted peacefully to the laws. Islam is different; it is fundamentally about law, not about belief. The wish of Islam is that the whole world follow the Law of the Koran. Finding a genuine idea of toleration in a religion that is about law and wants to be universal would not be easy, Adams argued."

"Pat Buchanan and other present-day isolationists are fond of quoting Adams's July 4, 1821, oration. Regarding the Greek independence movement, Adams said that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." That was not his last word on the subject, however..."

Have a look here.

Benjamin Franklin

evidently had his own Fict-U-Lizer & MoDoBrand(tm) hidden microphones.

In this last public writing of his life, the abolitionist Franklin savages the pro-slavers, asking, in effect; "How would YOU like it?".

He revives his delightful device of writing as a character; here, as 'Sidi Mohammed Ibrahim'. This was a technique he had used successfully even as a teen-age writer.

And, although the quoted 'letter-within-a-letter' is entirely fictional, it contains 96.8% more truth than, say, your typical Clinton auto-biography.

{I've taken the huge liberty of editing this slightly, to give it a wider reading. Forgive my hubris...if you can.}

On the Slave-Trade: To the Editor of the Federal Gazette, March 23rd, 1790.

Sir,

Reading last night in your excellent paper the speech of Mr. Jackson in Congress against their meddling with the affair of slavery, or attempting to mend the condition of the slaves, it put me in mind of a similar one made about 100 Years since by Sidi Mohammed Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers, which may be seen in 'Martin's Account of his Consulship', (pub. 1687). It was against granting the petition of the sect called 'Erika', or purists who prayed for the abolition of piracy and slavery as being unjust.
Mr. Jackson does not quote it; perhaps he has not seen it. If, therefore, some of its reasonings are to be found in his eloquent speech, it may only show that men's interests and intellects operate and are operated on with surprising similarity in all countries and climates, when under similar circumstances. The African {Muslim}'s speech, as translated, is as follows:

"Allah Bismillah, etc. God is great, and Mohammed is his Prophet."

"Have these abolitionists considered the consequences of granting their Petition? If we cease our cruises against the Christians, how shall we be furnished with the commodities their countries produce, and which are so necessary for us? If we forbear to make slaves of their people, who in this hot climate are to cultivate our lands? Who are to perform the common labours of our city, and in our families? Must we not then be our own slaves? And is there not more compassion and more favour due to us as Muslims, than to these Christian dogs?

"We have now about 50,000 slaves in and near Algiers. This number, if not kept up by fresh supplies, will soon diminish, and be gradually annihilated. If we then cease taking and plundering the infidel ships, and making slaves of the seamen and passengers, our lands will become of no value for lack of cultivation; the rents of houses in the city will sink one half; and the revenues of government arising from its share of prizes be totally destroyed! And for what? To gratify the whims of a whimsical sect, who would have us, not only forgo making more slaves, but even to free those we have."

"But who is to indemnify their masters for the loss? Will the state do it? Is our treasury sufficient? Will the abolitionists do it? Can they do it? Or would they, to do what they think justice to the slaves, do a greater injustice to the owners? And it we set our slaves free, what is to be done with them? Few of them will return to their countries; they know too well the great hardships they must there be subject to; they will not embrace our holy religion; they will not adopt our manners; our people will not pollute themselves by intermarrying with them. Must we maintain them as beggars in our streets, or suffer our properties to be the prey of their pillage? For men long accustomed to slavery will not work for a livelihood when not compelled. And what is there so pitiable in their present condition? Were they not slaves in their own countries?"

"Are not Spain, Portugal, France, and the Italian states governed by despots, who hold all their subjects in slavery, without exception? Even England treats its sailors as slaves; for they are, whenever the Government pleases, seized, and confined in ships of war, condemned not only to work, but to fight, for small wages, or a mere subsistence, not better than our slaves are allowed by us. Is their condition then made worse by their falling into our hands? No; they have only exchanged on slavery for another, and I may say a better; for here they are brought into a land where the Sun of Islamism gives forth its Light, and shines in full splendor, and they have an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the true doctrine, and thereby saving their immortal souls. Those who remain at home have not that happiness. Sending the slaves home then would be sending them out of Light into Darkness."

"I repeat the question; What is to be done with them? I have heard it suggested, that they may be planted in the wilderness, where there is plenty of land for them to subsist on, and where they may flourish as a free state; but they are, I doubt, to little disposed to labour without compulsion, as well as too ignorant to establish a good government, and the wild Arabs would soon molest and destroy or again enslave them. While serving us, we take care to provide them with every thing, and they are treated with humanity. The labourers in their own country are, as I am well informed, worse fed, lodged, and clothed. The condition of most of them is therefore already mended, and requires no further improvement. Here their lives are in safety. They are not liable to be impressed for soldiers, and forced to cut one another's Christian throats, as in the wars of their own countries. If some of the religious mad bigots, who now tease us with their silly petitions, have, in a fit of blind zeal, freed their slaves, it was not generosity, it was not humanity, that moved them to the action; it was from the conscious burden of a load of sins, and hope, from the supposed merits of so good a work, to be excused from damnation."

"How grossly are they mistaken in imagining slavery to be disallowed by the Koran? Are not the two precepts, to quote no more; 'Masters, treat your slaves with kindness; Slaves, serve your masters with cheerfulness and fidelity,' clear proofs to the contrary? Nor can the plundering of infidels be in that sacred Book forbidden, since it is well known from it, that God has given the world, and all that it contains, to his faithful Muslims, who are to enjoy it of right as fast as they conquer it. Let us then hear no more of this detestable proposition, the Freeing of Christian slaves, the adoption of which would, by depreciating our lands and houses, and thereby depriving so many good citizens of their properties, create universal discontent, and provoke insurrections, to the endangering of government and producing general confusion. I have therefore no doubt, but this wise Council will prefer the comfort and happiness of a whole nation of true believers to the whim of a few abolitionists, and dismiss their petition." - Sidi Mohammed Ibrahim.

The result was, as Martin tells us, that the Divan came to this resolution; "The doctrine, that plundering and enslaving the Christians is unjust, is at best problematical; but that it is the interest of this State to continue the practice, is clear; therefore let the petition be rejected."

And it was rejected accordingly.

And since similar motives are apt to produce in the minds of men similar opinions and resolutions, may we not, Mr. Brown, venture to predict, from this account, that the petitions to the Parliament of England for abolishing the Slave-Trade, to say nothing of other Legislatures, and the debates upon them, will have a similar conclusion? I am, Sir, your constant reader and humble servant,

-HISTORICUS.
(Franklin's pen name)

Interestingly, this letter now stands as a rebuke to the Islamic world. I was already in school when the Saud slave-o-crats outlawed slavery in 1962. America was then going through it's civil-rights struggle, a century after abolition. I doubt we can afford to wait 'til 2062 for the Saud Frauds to produce a Martin Luther King.

I was surprised to learn that Twain disliked Franklin for his Main Street boosterism. Both excellent satirists & civil-rights supporters. This work compares well to Twain's...of a century later. As with so much in American life, first there was Franklin.

( And a Tip o' the Knife to John's Common Sense...and Wonder!)

Victor Davis Hanson nails it.

The abridged version:

"Often, a pundit — stung by past refutation of his hysterical predictions of defeat by the Taliban or thousands of dead in Iraq with millions of refugees — will seek to reclaim credibility by gleefully noting that things are no better than before our actions... 'Why don't we just leave them to themselves and go home?' The more systematic thinkers, sensing that such a solution is at best knee-jerk and incomplete, will add, "And then if they still attack us again, we can always hit back, bomb them, and leave."

"The answer to this dilemma is to accept that whatever we do, we shall be blamed for either too little or too much attention. Such are the inevitable wages of envy and resentment that the successful always earn from the weak and failed. That being said, there are also a number of other reasons why at the present juncture we must press ahead, contain our anger, and try to finish the nearly impossible — and absolutely thankless — task of defeating terrorists, and in Afghanistan and Iraq restoring humane government to tyrannized people."

"Leave a Taliban Afghanistan alone or let Saddam's Iraq be, and in a decade you win 20,000 al Qaeda operatives training with impunity and the sons of Saddam re-armed with nuclear weapons..."

"Second, neither is the Islamic world isolationist. Arabs and Near Eastern Muslims in the millions are desperate to emigrate to the United States and Europe."

"Third, we must not necessarily confuse the activities of the...Dark-Age cadres with the majority wishes of the Arab people. Privately, most folks of the region desperately want Western freedom, medicine, entertainment, education, transportation, and consumer goods."

"The key is to allow the Middle East choices — isolation from the West, or peaceful coalition and interaction under their own auspices, or military defeat and subsequent regime change should their terrorists and leaders seek to threaten, attack, or kill Americans."

"Fourth, for all the doom and gloom we are making amazing progress."

"But all that pessimism and self-doubt does not mean that we are failing, or that we should cease our present efforts. In fine, we are now engaged in one of the most ambitious, perilous, and radical undertakings in our history — and we are ever so slowly winning."

And 'radical' it is.

Let's listen to another 'radical':

"Fellow citizens... we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation...We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.”

"...it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other."

If we think of our shrinking world as the "house", our course is decided. The line of division is a dozen centuries; "The War of the Worlds" meets "The Time Machine".

As a conservative, I wish it were not so.

But wishful thinking is the antithesis of conservatism.

"Let's Roll."

"The rights of criminals in the United States exceed those of law-abiding citizens in many other countries."
-Thomas Sowell

"Liberty Enlightening the World"

is the proper name of Frederic Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty.

Concerned about religious freedom after the Russian pogroms, Emma Lazarus writes "The New Colossus". The last five lines are inscribed at the statue's base. The 'Colussus' refers, not to a conquering god, but a liberating idea; not to American power, but the source of that power; Liberty.

The poem has been used to justify unlimited mass-immigration, both legal & illegal, and without assimilation.
This is not an enhancement of our ordered liberty, but a dimunition, as France herself is discovering. Between this, the aristocratic tradition & the choking trans-national socialism of the Euro-elites, liberty eludes there.

Bartholdi to Edouard de Laboulaye, who conceived the project to celebrate the end of slavery:

"Trying to glorify the republic & liberty over there {in America}, I shall await the day they shall be found over here with us {in France}."

Bartholdi awaits.

Attention, Lefties; This is what we call 'Speaking Truth to Power':

Castro: "I can't hear him. I hear certain words. I hear him say Fidel. And then I don't hear anything else. What do you think we should do?"

Ferrero explains to Castro that there was an issue with one of Hugo Chavez's suitcases that got lost when he went to Argentina last month. Castro was there, too.

Ferrero: "Do you know about the lost luggage? It has sensitive material. President Chavez is extremely worried because of that. Now in Venezuela the situation is grave and it has something to do with this. Do you understand?"

Castro: "Correct."

Chavez: "Correct."

Ferrero: "Fidel, we have to investigate this."

Castro: "Correct. I understand. We have to investigate into that."

Chavez: "Good."

Ferrero: "Your agents that were with you in Argentina must make an extensive search. And the people that are responsible for this must be told. Are you informed that this is a number one issue?"

Castro: "I am informed and absolutely in agreement."

Ferrero: "So you agree with the (expletive) that you have done to the island, assassin?"

Castro: "What?"

Ferrero: "Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero from Miami, El Zol 95.7 You fell just like Hugo Chavez."

Castro: "What did I fall for you (expletive)? What did I fall for (expletive)?"

Ferrero: "All of Miami is listening to you."

Castro: "What did I fall for, you big (expletive)?"

Ferrero: "What do you have to say?"

Castro: "(expletive)"

Castro: "I won't say anything.... shove it in your mother's (expletive)."

Ferrero: "Miami is listening to you Fidel Castro."

How I love the smell of Guerrilla Theater in the morning drive-time!

Cuba Libre!

Mark Steyn gives 'em the Iraqi Sewage Treatment:

"But everywhere I went I drank the water and, aside from mild side-effects like feeling even more right-wing than before, I’m fine and dandy."

"...he thought the real issue was American power in the world. Fair enough. If you believe that, don’t duck behind non-existent rubbish like rampant cholera and all-about-oil fantasies."

"...the issue for me is the rise of transnational neo-imperialism. I’d rather take my chances with nation-states and great power politics than submit to ‘international law’. I think Nato and the UN Security Council need ‘damaging’, and so does America’s relationship with ‘Europe’. And the jet-set humanitarians...might also benefit from being forced to rethink their act."

Steyn disembowels the anti-American four-flushers.

The North and South Poles of the Revolution speak, on education:

"I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy."
-John Adams

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
-Thomas Jefferson

Some of you Cold Warriors

will enjoy "October Fury" by Peter Hutchthausen (Capt., USN ret.).

It's the story of Russian submariners & the American sailors who chased them during the '62 Cuban Missle Crisis.

It's light on the geo-politics and focuses on the sailor's eye-view, Soviet & American.

There are some interesting insights on how the inherent flaws of communism handicapped the Soviets in all spheres, from technology to command & control. And a really funny incident when an American sailor of Czech descent translates to the Russians.

A good read, and, as always; Thanks, Navy!

Modern McCarthyism

Clive Davis of the London Times Online on Micheal Moore:

"Richard Schickel, arguably America’s most distinguished observer of the cinema, was rather more forthcoming about Moore’s general approach: “I despise our gun laws in the States, too. But Moore’s tactics, I think, give aid and comfort to the enemy. In short, he’s careless with his facts, hysterical in debate and, most basically, a guy trying to make a star out of himself. He’s a self-aggrandiser and, perhaps, the very definition of the current literary term, ‘the unreliable narrator’. This guy either can’t or won’t stick to the point, build a logical case for his arguments. It’s all hysteria — but, I think, calculated hysteria.”

That's how I think about Tail-Gunner Joe. However, McCarthy was right about Commies in government, such as Harry Hopkins, FDR's top advisor.

Anti-Gunner Moore is both wrong and maliciously reckless.

"Have you no sense of deep-fried cheeseburgers, at long last, sir?"

McCarthyism doesn't prevent winning an Oscar these days...it assures one.

Professing Ignorance

The American Association of University Professors has CONDEMNED the Univ. of South Florida.

The crime: not wanting Sami-"The Prof who Blows Up Students"-al Arayan running a blood-soaked death-cult out of the Dean's office.

Let's review some of their complaints, class; The suspension & dismissal of the 'stateless' professor were:

..."well past any real threat to his safety"; What about the safety of those who he helped murder?

..."because of the disruptive activities of others"; Isn't blowing up buses 'disruptive'?

..."violating the professor's right to a pre-termination hearing"; Did his victims get a hearing before they were terminated?

..." based on political issues"; Is a suicide bomber just distilled 'politics'?

..."violating the cardinal American principle of "innocent until proven guilty""; What about the principle of, oh...not murdering children in their beds?

..."resulted in serious professional injury to the professor"; Nice of you to worry about the professionally-injured Professor. How many stitches did he need? Transplants? Surgeries? Amputations?

What's appeasing a little Jew-killing amongst Enlightened academic peers, anyway?

Your Profession is indeed injured, Professors.

Report to Remedal Moral Education 101.

I'd say "Go back to Kindergarten".

But Sami blows them up.

Can't have any more 'professional injuries', can we?

Who are you going to believe;

Sharp Knife or your lying eyes?

NBC News' 'Meet the Press' posted this clearly, clearly falsified transcript of Tim Russert's interview with former NATO Commander, Gen. Wesley Clark.

Fortunately, our hidden MoDoBrand(tm) microphones were there...let's listen in, shall we?

TIM RUSSERT: This morning, my guest is Gen. Wesley Clark. Good morning, General.
GEN. CLARK: Well, just call me 'Dwight David Clark', Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: General, should Israel show more restraint?
GEN. CLARK: Well, they can show restraint. But not too much---and not too little. I think they should show the absolute perfect amount of restraint.
MR. RUSSERT: What can the president do to bring about peace?
GEN. CLARK: Well, in Yugoslavia , we set up the contact group. Didn't take me long to mention the Balkans, did it Tim?... blahblah-bilateral-blahblah...you need a Middle East contact group.
MR. RUSSERT: Which countries?
GEN. CLARK: Well, the usual: Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad & Tobago.
Now, Syria and Iran: that’s where you have difficulties.
MR. RUSSERT: You don't say?
GEN. CLARK: Well, can they be engaged or must they be confronted, or is there some combination that’s involved?
MR. RUSSERT: I ask the questions here, General. Would you consider putting NATO troops in the occupied territories?
GEN. CLARK: In Alberta? Oh...you mean the Middle East. Well, at some point, yes. We need a mandate first, legitimacy first, a mission first, to fix the political situation first. In other words, we wait 'til they aren't needed; THEN we put them in.
MR. RUSSERT: Should the United States position in Iran be regime change?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I think that’s a dangerous position to take right now. When it's a safe position, I'll take it. But those young Iranian girls getting their teeth kicked in should stop stirring up trouble. Eastern Europe was extraordinarily successful. Did I mention I that already?
MR. RUSSERT: Would you consider military action to remove the nuclear threat from Iran?
GEN. CLARK: You mean ours or theirs?
MR. RUSSERT: Theirs.
GEN. CLARK: Well, first we need a really strong and improved inspection regime.(mouths the words: "Hans; Call me!") Military action has consequences that can’t be foreseen. Unlike the pefectly foreseeable & predictable status quo.
MR. RUSSERT: If we wake up six months from now, North Korea has four or five more nuclear bombs, what do we do?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I think the red line’s already been crossed in North Korea, to be honest-like. That red line was crossed while we were engaged with Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Not while we were busy doing Europe's job for them in the Balkans?
GEN. CLARK: Well, Heavens, no!. That red line was crossed while we were engaged in Iraq. { Lie. Rinse. Repeat Lie.} Now, the question is, “OK. So they’ve got the nuclear materials. What can you do now?”
MR. RUSSERT: What am I...a potted plant? Lemme ask the questions!...What can you do now?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I can't do anything. I'm not the President yet.
MR. RUSSERT: But we cannot allow them to sell or transport nuclear bombs.
GEN. CLARK: Well, that’s correct. The question is: Can we physically prevent that? Ask me "Can we?", Ted.
MR. RUSSERT: Can we?
GEN. CLARK: Well, can we? Thanks for asking, Tom. I don’t know.
MR. RUSSERT: And so what happens? We live with the consequences?
GEN. CLARK: Well, we lump it, Tip. North Koreans are scary. But at least I’ve been concerned about the North Korean problem for a long time. And being concerned is important.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. How do you see the situation in Iraq this morning?
GEN. CLARK: Well, mostly on TV. They won't let me anywhere near it.
MR. RUSSERT: No; I mean, what do you think about Iraq?
GEN. CLARK: Well, let me give you a three-part answer,Tom, because that makes me sound like a deep-thinker and definite Presidential material.
I think there are three levels to be looked at:
The first level is organized resistance. There is organized resistance in Iraq.
The second level is superficial. Hey; life goes on!
The third level is the Iraqi culture:

Where are the Shiites heading?
Are the Iranians going to take over?
What about the Kurds?
Why do fools fall in love?

As you can see, Ted, not only do I have questions, but I have queries. Also doubts. Endless, troubling, worrisome, nagging doubts, interrogatories & misgivings. Also concerns, deep concerns.
MR. RUSSERT: Were we properly prepared for the peace, for the reconstruction?
GEN. CLARK: Well, obviously we weren’t.
MR. RUSSERT: Why?
GEN. CLARK: Well,...what was the question again, Kim?
MR. RUSSERT: Nevermind. How long will we be in Iraq?
GEN. CLARK: Well, we should be home by Christmas. I always say that.
MR. RUSSERT: What force level?
GEN. CLARK: Well, depends on how much Anti-Americanism we encounter.
MR. RUSSERT: In Iraq?
GEN. CLARK: Well, no; at the Democrat Convention.
MR. RUSSERT: Can we have true security in Iraq as long as Saddam Hussein stays unknown?
GEN. CLARK: Well, no. Before the war, I said, “Don’t focus on Saddam Hussein. Go in there, take over the government.” About halfway through, when I saw Bush's poll numbers, I realized that if we didn’t focus on Saddam Hussein and move the goal-post, that my candidacy was toast. So I think getting Saddam Hussein is very important.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think he’s still alive?
GEN. CLARK: Well, yes, I am.
MR. RUSSERT: Was there an intelligence failure? Was the president misled, or did he mislead the American people?
GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from around the White House, it came from all over. It came in through the bathroom window & on my fillings, too.
I got a call at my home in the CNN studio saying, “You got to say this is connected to Saddam Hussein.” The White House asked me to lie, Tim! Please, help me make the voices stop!
MR. RUSSERT: I'm trying. The president said that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat...Did the president mislead the country?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I think that’s to be determined. I can't call Bush a liar outright, so I'll do it this way.
MR. RUSSERT: Tom DeLay called you a “Blow-dried Napoleon".
GEN. CLARK: Well, Tom DeLay is a big doody-pants.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you like to be president?
GEN. CLARK: So bad I can taste it.
MR. RUSSERT: So if you did run for president, you would run as a Democrat?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I'm not telling. That's leadership.
I am concerned about many things in the country, not only foreign policy but domestic as well.
MR. RUSSERT: Both?!! Why, that's super-human! You wouldn’t challenge George Bush in the Republican primaries?
GEN. CLARK: You're kidding, right?
MR. RUSSERT: So it would be in the Democratic primary?
GEN. CLARK: Well, right now I'm thinking The Disgruntled Colonels' Junta Party.
MR. RUSSERT: What do you think of the Bush tax cuts? Would you have voted for them? GEN. CLARK: Well...no. I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation. What schoolboy doesn't know the immortal words: "No Taxation without Graduation!" or " Give me Higher Marginal Rates, or Give me Death!"?
MR. RUSSERT: Yes, I've often thought this country began when the income-tax was legalized in 1913. As president, would you rescind the tax-cuts?
GEN. CLARK: Well, blahblahblah.
MR. RUSSERT: In other words, 'Yes'.
GEN. CLARK: Yes. I think that what candidate Clark, if there is such a thing as me, would be for doing the right thing for poor helpless government.
MR. RUSSERT: The evil John Ashcroft wants more powers: apprehending terrorists, identifying people who are giving “material support.”, X-ray vision... Would you support that?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I dunno. I'm a Space Ghost fan, myself.
MR. RUSSERT: You and other former generals filed an amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action plan. If you’re a minority, just for being black or Hispanic, you get 20 points. Many people say that’s not color blind. Why would they say a thing like that?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I don't care, Tex; I've got mine.
MR. RUSSERT: Are you in favor of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military?
GEN. CLARK: Well, don't ask.
MR. RUSSERT: Why were you asked to step down from NATO?
GEN. CLARK: Well, the honest answer is I don’t know.
MR. RUSSERT: Yes...but what's your answer?
GEN. CLARK: blahblahblah
MR. RUSSERT: "blahblahblah"?
GEN. CLARK: Well, blahblah, anyway.
MR. RUSSERT: Oh. blahblah.
GEN. CLARK: Honest!
MR. RUSSERT: They fired your sorry ass, didn't they?
GEN. CLARK: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: Before you go, would you accept the vice-presidency if offered?
GEN. CLARK: Well, which country are we talking about here, Tod?
MR. RUSSERT: This one; the USA.
GEN. CLARK: Well, Tony...
MR. RUSSERT: Well, if you decide to run for president, I hope you come back and talk about the issues for a change.
GEN. CLARK: Well, thank you, Mr. Rustbelt.
MR. RUSSERT: We're done here.

Well done.

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864.
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts:

DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln.

Two glowing reviews

of "Living History: The Lying Continues!"

Steyn, who calculates, bloggers take note, Hillary made $40.00 per word!

and Matt Labash's take: "She is a joiner, and an apple-polisher, the teacher's pet and the queen of the spelling bee--every twit you knew in school that was begging to be taken behind the gym for a game of full-contact dodge ball...Who else could seriously write of her grade-school appointment as "co-captain of the safety patrol" "This was a big deal in our school. My new status provided me my first lesson in the strange ways some people respond to electoral politics.""

Why bother?

At some point, this freak is going to pull out ALL the stops and use every dirty trick in the book trying to become YOUR President.

You'd better be ready.

Tony Rosen

who is Always Right, notes that Canada is confronting the Toughest Issue of Our Times:

Dwarf-tossing!

Now if they'd only do something about that moral-midgit problem...

I would urge you to read

David Frum's "The Right Man".

It's an excellent look inside the White House and goes beyond the stereotypes you'll get in the press to get a clearer look at all the players and what really moves them.

And it's not mere hagiography; Frum came to the White House unsure of Bush, like many of us. And he is not uncritical.

Nor am I. But I'm a grown-up. I don't get everything I want; no one does.
But I think this President has earned our support. I know he's earned mine.

Give this book a look.

Very worthwhile.

There's a big ugly smudge on my map

between Iraq & Afghanistan. called Iran.

But it looks like the people there are going to clean it up. We wish them all success.

While the Saud Oil-ticks have paid for the party, the mullahs have been responsible for hundreds of Americans' murders, sponsoring many attacks almost openly. Die, bastards.

Lefties, take a look. See what real dissent looks like.

Nukes by Russia.
Police batons by France & Germany.
Hessian thugs by Saudi Arabia.

Still they resist.

Godspeed, friends.

Free Iran!

Weekly Standard

reports that after selling super-computers to China, Jack Kemp is trying to cut an oil deal with Venezuela's Chavez.

Chavez is a lying, murdering, terrorist-sponsoring Castro toady.

C'mon, Jack!

Nuke Vet & AnalogKid

have two posts I found interesting:

The EU is about to institute 'equal-time' provisions...for BLOGS!

And The OAS has voted us off of it's Human Rights Council. Advantage: Fidel.

Okay

So I go to the library with my daughter's library card. She asked me to get her some movies. I check some out.

Knowing that she has other items out, I ask for a receipt listing everything so she can keep track of it all.

The librarian tells me that they don't give out that info. Children have rights, you see. They must be protected from their parents who may want to squelch their intellectual curiosity.

One time, I asked them the name of a book I had checked out earlier. They said they had destroyed the records. To protect me from John Ashcroft, no doubt. The Amer. Library Assoc. adopted this standard after the FBI wanted to see computer records at a New Jersey library. It was believed that Islamists were using them to facilitate acts of terror. While I don't want government pawing through my records, as was done, for example, to Clarence Thomas and by Craig Livingstone (*ahemHRC*), the ALA has taken a stance of pre-emptive non-co-operation with law enforcement. They are also absolutist on providing non-filtered internet to minors as well.

This is one more organization that has been hi-jacked by doctrinaire leftists on their Long March through the Institutions. One wonders how long it would take them to call police if one of the Islamists in question had demanded "You there...lowlyfemale; get me book on "How to Burn Down Library"! Now!". I doubt they would be as sanguine.

I once saw Rep. Patrick Kennedy on C-Span, explaining that pregnant teen-agers should have access to secret government abortions because they may have been seduced by their fathers. As if giving them abortions and sending them back home was the answer. I don't know what goes on at the 'Chinatown' compound in Hyannis, but that's beyond outrageous...yet rolled off his tounge like the Revealed Word of God.
We are like the battered spouse; we seem to have gotten used to this abuse.

Somewhere along the line, we decided not only that father didn't know best, he's suspect. Or mothers, for that matter. Government cares more about your children than you do. As P.J. O'Rourke said, 'It takes a village to raise a child; Washington D.C. is the village...and you are the child."

So Happy Father's Day, American Library Association.

The Nanny State Knows Best.

I'll send you the tuition bill.

Dad.

And a Very Happy Birthday to the United States Army!

For 228 years, the finest army the world has ever known has served us well, made us proud and helped keep us free.

From Appomattox to An Najaf, from Bunker Hill to Bagram, Army has answered the call.

Thanks for your service, troopers. Have another piece of cake on us.

Here's some of what your Army has been doing for you recently.

Now that you read that, you might want to write your congressman and ask him or her to support veterans.

Just a birthday thought.

Happy Flag Day to all patriots!

I remember looking in vain for a lapel flag pin in the summer of '01.

Soon enough they would be ubiquitous.

Don't wait...

Show Your Colors...Today!

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-Abraham Lincoln

Ann Coulter mentions this in her latest column:

"Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign." "

"It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium."

We've recently seen the media invent facts, invent opinions, invent photographs, invent whole stories, pay access/protection money & slant coverage to maintain it. They ask loaded questions of the Adminstration and accept uncritically the statements of dictators. Not to mention the grandstanding, sloppiness and good old-fashioned laziness of the herd mentality.

Now it sounds like they've got a professional man-in-the-street.

Pretty soon he'll have his own stringers.

And speaking of crime families

Hillary Clinton's official Senate bio claims she wrote all her previous books...wonder which ghost-writer wrote that?

The only thing she ever wrote was a deposit slip for 8 million dollars...money that the publishers will never see again.

Dick Morris calls her on an invented quote and relates another incident where Bill got violent. Hillary asked Morris to lie about it. It's not a bug, it's a feature. I predict others will come forward to dispute her rich fantasy life as well.

And then there's this: 'As a wife, I wanted to wring his neck.' As a wife. That's just weird." Yes it is. But try this:

"As a wife, I wanted to wring his neck...

"but as an anti-tobacco advocate, I was shocked he was introducing young people to cigar-use!"
"but as an artist, I left the camera rolling and joined them, just like the old days at Wellesley."
"but as a feminist, I realized Monica had to explore her own sexuality."
"but as a lawyer, I had to get her signature on the affadavit...like all the others."

I didn't come into this disliking Hillary. Just as I had my 'Bill' moment-of-truth over Mogadishu, my 'Hill' moment came with Travelgate. Rather than just firing Billy Dale and giving the job to her pals, she was willing to have him investigated by the FBI, brought up on charges and rot in prison, rather than take a PR hit for a half-a-news-cycle.

It takes a fascist, bitch.

Ma Barker is an amoral, power-mad, theiving Marxist grifter.

And remains the most popular Democrat in America.

Mona Charen's "Useful Idiots"

is a great primer on the role played by American leftists who unwittingly or otherwise abetted world-wide Communism. I especially recommend it for young people who are often unaware of the magnitude (over 100 million dead & millions more enslaved) of this malignancy on mankind.

But even old guys like me can learn something; we've heard so much propaganda over our lives that it still seeps into our thinking. For example, what is the opposite of 'Communism'? No...it's not 'Capitalism'. It's 'Freedom'.

Many in this country still cling to the precepts, if not the form. And the disdain for America nurtured during the Cold War easily translated to the War on Terror; if you hate your own country, any enemy will do.

It was interesting to read, for example, of Sen. Tom Harkin (who was the featured spokes-screamer at the Wellstone Suttee & Clam Bake) going to Managua. Why? To pressure Violetta Chamorro, publisher of the only free newspaper into accepting censorship by the Sandanistas. In the name of the people, naturally.

Of course not all Democrats are communists...but not all Democrats are democrats either.

Read "Useful Idiots"...because they're still out there & they're still useful.

"It's still not safe to vote Democrat."

Christopher Hitchens

issues a thoughtful, impassioned plea to respect the rights and dignity of artists who, after deep introspection and soul-searching, feel they have no choice, the duty even, to heroically dissent from the madness. When asked about The Dixie Chicks:

"Each day they dig up dead bodies in personal death camps run by a Caligula dictator, and I'm being asked to worry about these fucking fat slags--DO ME A FAVOUR!"

Then he took another sip. Thoughtfully.

(via Ken Layne!)

Over at the Times

MoDo has a column on men's fashion...congratulations on the promotion to the Fashion beat, Mo!

Thomas Friedman says Democrats should refer to tax-cuts as 'cuts in government services' and become 'neo-libs', backing defense spending & a muscular foreign policy.

But I seem to recall Thommy has strange ideas about standing up to dictators and what constitutes good 'government services':

"Yup, I gotta confess, that now-famous picture of a U.S. Marshall in Miami pointing an automatic weapon toward Donato Dalrymple and ordering him in the name of the U.S. government to turn over Elian Gonzales warmed my heart."

I curse your Pancho Villa moustache. Asshat.

Oh, sorry. Those are Mo's beat.

Al Sharpton's SUV has gone missing

and is being repossesed: "Ford Motor Credit Co. has filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court after Sharpton stopped paying $1,127.95 a month in November and bounced a check for $3,600 in February, the New York Post reports."

You know what this means...

"Repo-rations!"

And speaking of team sports,

did you catch this in the Telegraph?:

"Mosque Football Team was Terrorists' Cover"

"Eight Palestinian footballers who played for a team from their local mosque in Hebron have killed 34 Israelis and injured scores of others in a series of suicide attacks during the past two months."

"In the deadliest incident, a bus-bombing in Haifa in March, a midfield player, Mahmoud Hamdan Qawasmeh, killed 16 Israelis. Last month eight people died in the most recent attack carried out by a member of the Jihad Mosque XI, who blew himself up on a bus in Jerusalem."

"The three remaining players have been arrested by the Israeli authorities."

Down to three players...why, they might even have to forfeit their next game against the Tel Aviv Toddlers.
If they played for Jihad Mosque 9, that means there are at least 8 more teams in the Phallustinian Phootball League.

The State Dept. condemned this as "some darn poor sportsmanship".

Tell me again about "roadmaps".

Deb, The Insomniac, seems less than impressed

with the "Palestinians"...and with our beloved former National Matriarch, HILLARY!, and her new book "Diary of a Maoist Housewife".

Remember when Mike McCurry lambasted the press corps during MonicaMadnessDays for invading the Clintons' privacy, photographing them dancing on the beach without music? We all thought he was actually trying to call attention TO the photo, as it said subliminally "I forgive the Goat-boy."

Well, it seems there WERE some pictures taken on the beach that day that the White House wanted to keep secret. In this one, (for alleged-adults only!) Hill meets with her ghost-writers.

Maybe that's why she never pays them.

Now go visit her...No, not Hillary!...Deb!

Beaker is right again;

This IS funny...

The Voice finds the vein on Nurse Bloomberg while performining rhinoplasty on Arthur "Pinnocchio" Sulzburger, Jr..

"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it." -James Baldwin, 1961

Where is he now?

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."
-- Kenneth H. Olson, President of DEC, Convention of the World Future Society, 1977

Haloscan is eating comments.

It usually burps them back up after sending them to Ashcroft to be scanned for subversive content.

Carry on with your business, citizen.

And you thought I disliked Lefties:

Harcourt/Steck Vaughn, publisher of American text-books now forbids illustrations of people using their left hand. Evidently because the Arabic word for 'left hand' is "Charmin".

Memo to Harcourt: THAT'S WHY WE INVENTED MODERN PLUMBING, TOILET PAPER & SOAP, IDIOTS!!!!

Save those text-books for Arabia where they will be an improvement. And think of all the research money you can save money by stopping the History books at the 7th Century!

And have the courage of your convictions; remodel the bathrooms at Harcourt Corporate Headquarters to feature squat-holes...with handicap access, of course.

I'd call this Political Correctness run amok, except politics are also outlawed in many Muslim countries...which is why they come here! That, and the excellent plumbing!

Has it come to this?

Are we really going to cater to every group, tribe, nationality, ethnicity, all 6, 12 or whatever-the-number-is-this-week genders; every species, geographical distinction, cargo cult, witch doctor, Scientologist, snake-handler & moon-god worshipper from every Black Hole of Calcutta, Red Square, Yellow River, Blue Hawaii, Pinkostan, Pakistan or Whackistan?

Researcher Diane Ravitch notes "some major publishers won't mention dinosaurs in their textbooks because it might offend parents who don't want their kids ever hearing about anything to do with evolution. One big publisher won't mention owls because one Native American people regards owls as evil and accursed. Another biggie won't mention mountains. Why? Well, not everybody lives in the mountains...". Well, not everybody lives in a nut-house either, since they emptied the asylums and gave the inmates jobs at text-book publishing houses.

And, while I remain skeptical of the "germ-to-German" Theory of Evolution, I certainly don't expect them to remove all references to a theory. I believe there were dinosaurs and Natural Selection makes sense to me. But what is the phrase most associated with the Theory of Evolution? That's right..."The Missing Link"! Or, to reprise the Bush/WMD argument; "Where's the link? 200 million years and you still haven't found them! Liar! Darwin was Selected, not Elected!". Although I may be forced to reconsider the next time James Carville opens his gills.

This is madness. Why not just ban books altogether? After all, some people can't read. Musn't hurt their feelings...wait; those poor sociopaths have no feelings...and "Feelings" was sung by Julio Iglesias, an 'Hispanic'...which sounds like 'panic'...which means 'hysteria', a sexist term...and 'term' sounds like 'prison term'...and prisoners have rights...but not the right to see left-handed people in textbooks. But I digress.

We can't pad every corner, censor every thought, tip-toe on every cultural egg-shell. This is The United Freakin' States of AMERICA! If you don't like the fact that God, in His infinite wisdom, gave us two, count them, TWO hands, take it up with Him, preferably back in Righthandistan. And ask Him if He has a position on left nostrils, ears, eyes & legs, while you're at it. And take these namby-pamby book-writers with you...they'll make fine servants.

Welcome to Hell.

(via Joanne Jacobs at JWR...who explains why little Johnny can't count--and it's not because he can only use one hand: Math Appreciation classes!)