I am going out of town this weekend. I'll just leave an open thread. Everyone have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Immigration.

You guys know that I have agreed with Bush on the guest worker program because of my sympathy for those who wish to have a better life. The arguments on the Senate floor are really starting to make me reconsider. It's some powerful stuff.

Michelle has it all.

Exactly.

From NRO:

"On Monday I noted a report on Drudge that suggested that Al Gore and his entourage had driven 500 yards to his premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Gore's team denies this and I'm willing to take their word that the former Vice President and his staff did walk to the premiere. However, this Reuters story says:

Last week, Gore and his team were seen driving the 500 metres or so from a hotel to the Cannes festival headquarters in several cars. The representative said that arriving at events like photocalls and news conferences in cars was normal practice in Cannes. And Gore walked the shorter distance from another hotel to the festival for the movie's screening.

Well that's better, then, isn't it? Normal practice. Just like the normal practice of everyday life that Gore wants us to change so badly?

Gore's representatives also stress that they are making the film "carbon neutral," which is done by sponsoring tree planting and other projects that offset carbon emissions in some way. All very well for the rich like Paramount Pictures or Al Gore for that matter. They can afford to make things carbon neutral. The ordinary worker who needs his car to get to his job generally can't afford to offset his emissions. Think about the implications for a moment - Al Gore, Laurie David et al can continue to use the benefits of fossil fuels because they can afford to offset them. The rest of us can't. Welcome to the new aristocracy, ladies and gentlemen."

This is just so typical. Not only Gore taking a car a short distance to the festivities over a movie he narrated about global warming, but also the fact that it was SEVERAL cars. They want us all to "cut back" and "conserve energy," but heaven forbid THEY do it. At least with Republicans we make no bones about the opportunity for success in this country. We invite everyone along for the ride. (excuse the pun) But the Democrats in congress want higher salaries while you pay more taxes. They want you to have universal health care while they have private care. They want you forced to save money in a government program called Social Security, when they don't have to. They want to regulate businesses and tax corporations more while they sit in a nice cushy government job.

Aristocracy is just the perfect word for the Democratic leaders.

Read all about the in "The Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell.

Update on fake soldier story.

Michelle sums the whole thing at Townhall. If you think this isn't interesting enough to read, take a gander at an excerpt from the "soldier" and his experience and then think about how the anti-war left just took this story and ran with it because, after all, wouldn't that be just what you would expect from our military?

In his 20-minute Internet video interview at peacefilms.org, which promises that watching the video "will change your life," MacBeth (who also claims to have served in Special Forces) says:

-- Superiors told him "our job over there is to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqis . . . to be brutal and to not feel" and that "the Geneva Convention doesn't mean crap."

-- He would "do night raids, pull people out, on their knees and zip-tied," and if a man didn't answer the way he wanted him to, he "would shoot his youngest kid and keep going."

-- "By my hand alone . . . almost 200 people were taken out by me. That's just a rough estimate. A lot of them at close range . . . they would actually feel the hot muzzle of my rifle on their forehead . . . we'd do stuff that would scare them first . . . beat 'em up or kick 'em or hit the wife . . . slaughtering 30-40 people a night sometimes, women and children . . . I was trained, you know, in all the Ranger school, 18 months of that crap . . . I got disappointed in my country . . . but I didn't say anything because I would have been locked up."

-- "Other things they told us to do, man, we were ordered to go into a mosque. This really hurts me a lot. My nightmares come mostly from this . . . we infiltrated the mosque . . . a couple hundred of people of all ages were praying . . . we started slaughtering them, we started shooting them, started taking them out . . . we would burn their bodies, hang the bodies from the rafters . . . after a while, it's just sickening to think that I took part in that . . . "
-- "Kids threw rocks at us before and the guard command officer told us to take them out . . . Our job was just kill, kill, kill."

-- "I'm so disappointed in my country. I'm ashamed to have actually served in Iraq."

Al Gore's Penguin Army

Too funny.

h/t Dave

Related: Fact Checking Al

Doggy Pics!!

Jewel in the top pic and Shaq in the bottom pic. Aren't they adorable?

Let's have some fun.

I was listening to my country music station this morning while running, and they were having people call in and say which song tells or best represents their life. Here is mine. Tell me yours.

Who I Am

by Jessica Andrews

If I live to be a hundred
And never see the seven wonders
That'll be alright
If I don't make it to the big leagues
If I never win a Grammy
I'm gonna be just fine
Cause I know exactly who I am

I am Rosemary's granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done my momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am

So when I make a big mistake
And when I fall flat on my face
I know I'll be alright
Should my tender heart be broken
I will cry those teardrops knowing
I will be just fine
Cause nothing changes who I am

I am Rosemary's granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done my momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am

I'm a saint and I'm a sinner
I'm a loser; I'm a winner
I am steady and unstable
I'm young, but I am able

I am Rosemary's granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done my momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends that love me
And they know where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am

Sex ed or no? No.

"Wisconsin Passes abstinence Law for Unmarried Couples"

"Republican Sen. Mary Lazich, a bill"s sponsor, said sex education teachers can still teach about birth control, but must emphasize that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method to avoid health risks."

You would think this would make me happy. But it doesn't. I don't think sex ed has ANY place in the classroom. No more than teaching religion does. Both should be taught by parents and church. If we need classes for anyone, it should be the parents on how to teach their kids.

Parents are the first and foremost teachers of their children. It is THEIR values that must be passed on, not some educational beaucrat's. When one argues that sex ed isn't being taught by parents and therefore the schools must take up the slack, I argue that religion isn't being taught by many parents either, so let's teach that in schools too.

Sex and religion should be taught by parents or a church the parent chooses PERIOD. One of the biggest fights I ever faced was fighting sex ed in my Catholic school. Long story, but even they were getting it wrong as far as my kids were concerned.

Plus, how long does it take to teach the above reference?..."sex education teachers can still teach about birth control, but must emphasize that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method to avoid health risks." Because that is IT. That is the basic facts right there that all kids need to know. Abstinence is the ONLY 100% effective method to not get disease or get pregnant. That took all of 5 seconds to type and even less to say.

We aren't talking adults here. We are talking CHILDREN. If parents aren't doing the job, then let's teach THEM how to do it right.

Oh snap!!!

WASHINGTON, May 23 — The Senate Intelligence Committee overwhelmingly endorsed Gen. Michael V. Hayden today to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, with all but three Democratic members of the committee voting to send General Hayden's nomination to the Senate floor.

Do I really need to say more?

How did I miss this story???

An "Iraqi War Veteran Against The War" who isn't a veteran and never went to Iraq.

HotAir has it all! I love this site!.

Remember...

that little thing I mentioned in my "I want to apologize as well" post about not trusting the media? Well this is why....(It's from The Captain)


"The AP ran an earlier story on the Osama bin Laden tape that included an admission implicating two Gitmo detainees in the 9/11 attack. However, the the AP later ran "excerpts" of the Bin Laden tape, that admission curiously went unreported -- even though it would have a significant impact on the debate over the fate of Gitmo detainees.

This is what ran in the original piece by Maamoun Youssef, which I have also cached here:

The terror mastermind did indicate that two suspects had links to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon: "All the prisoners to date have no connection to the Sept. 11 events or knew anything about them, except for two of the brothers," bin Laden said [emphasis mine -- CE]. But he did not provide names or elaborate further and it wasn't possible to determine if or where they were held.

However, that passage cannot be found in the AP excerpts. It does, however, include this:

"And then I call to memory my brothers the prisoners in Guantanamo — may Allah free them all — and I state the fact, about which I also am certain, that all the prisoners of Guantanamo, who were captured in 2001 and the first half of 2002 and who number in the hundreds, have no connection whatsoever to the events of September 11th..."

Note the strategic appearance of the ellipses at the end of the quote in the later article. The AP wants to cut off Osama before he admits that Gitmo holds two accessories to the 9/11 attacks. One would think that a news organization might have found that somewhat, oh, newsworthy."

Bad Karma....

be gone! Way too much bad vibes in the comment sections. I will lighten up. Today is my birthday! Feel free to cyber sing me "Happy Birthday!"

My most memorable birthday was when I was 10. As you all know I am a huge animal lover and I wanted a cat or dog so badly. But my father didn't like them in the house. We had some hunting dogs he kept in the back yard, but I wanted an indoor pet. I woke up on the morning of my birthday and there was a line of confetti leading out of my bedroom door. I followed it to the garage and there was what looked like a white styrofoam box with a bow. I bent down and saw there was a little door in the front with a piece of paper taped over it that said "Open me." I tore the paper off and there was a little black kitten. I was so excited I screamed like a maniac and scared the poor cat to death! I named her "Charcoal."

Oh, how I loved that cat.

Which reminds me, now that I have the scanner thing down, I'm going to show you some newer pictures of my newest dog, Jewel, that I got from a rescue shelter recently, and some of my older dog, Shaq. Probably tomorrow.

Open thread. As a present to me, I want everyone to say one nice thing about someone with whom they have disagreed with here. No snarky remarks. No backhanded compliments. If you can't find something to say then say something nice about someone in the political arena with whom you disagree.

If you haven't read these yet...

Read them:

Katrina What The Media Missed.

Revisionist History.

Good Times.

Here are some excerpts from Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report that tells us about them:

"First, economic growth. In 2005, as in 2004, the world economy grew by about 5 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF projects similar growth for several years to come. This is faster growth than in all but a few peak years in the 1980s and 1990s, and it's in vivid contrast to the long periods of stagnation or contraction in history. The great engine of this growth is, of course, the United States, which produces more than one fifth of world economic product and whose gross domestic product has been growing at around 4 percent--4.8 percent in the latest quarter. "

"Free-market economic growth is enabling millions of people to rise out of poverty every year, even more than the experts expect. As the IMF writes, "The momentum and resilience of the global economy in 2005 continued to exceed expectations."

"But aren't we also living in times of record strife? Actually, no. Just the opposite. The Human Security Centre of the University of British Columbia has been keeping track of armed conflicts since World War II. It reports that the number of genocides and violent conflicts dropped rapidly after the end of the Cold War and that in 2005 the number of armed conflicts was down 40 percent from 1992. Wars have also become less deadly: The average number of people killed per conflict per year in 1950 was 38,000; in 2002 it was just 600. The conflict in Iraq has not significantly changed that picture. American casualties are orders of magnitude lower than in the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and precision weapons have enabled us to vastly reduce the civilian death toll."

I know the left hates to be confronted with good news, but there it is. Enjoy it anyway. That's the wonderful thing about a free economy and a Democracy. We all benefit, even those who don't appreciate it.

via Powerline

My first Michelle Malkin type hate mail!

I've gotten a few hate mails over time, but nothing too bad. Today I got the kind that Malkin deals with daily I suppose.

I feel so special.

Nothing like civil disagreement.

"your occupation is a right wing trailer trash whore. You bedwetters vomit crap about defending the war, yet your are the cowards--why dont you put your phony blond fat ass on the line and go over to iraq. Bush lied and you know it, but being the whore that you are, you try to slime someone who has really shown guts by telling mcclame what she feels to HIS FACE, unlike a little tramp whore like you who does it behind someones back. So typical of the right wing chickenhawks. All mouth. "

Gordon Dolinar

In case you are wondering, I believe this umm..gentleman came from reading about me here.

I want to apologize as well.

Newsbusters has this:

As keynote commencement speaker, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzbergerr Jr."apologized" to graduates at the State University of New York at New Paltz on Sunday for the failure of his generation to stop the Iraq War and to sufficiently promote "fundamental human rights" like abortion, immigration, and gay marriage.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Sulzberger said. "You weren't supposed to be graduating in an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, be it the rights of immigrants to start a new life, the right of gays to marry or the rights of women to choose."

Heaven knows I'm not the Publisher of the New York Times. I'm just a small voice. A wife, mother, caretaker, volunteer, and activist. I'm not powerful and I'm not rich, but I would like to apologize to all graduates this year as well.

I'd like to apologize that our country never let the people decide about abortion, that they allowed a billion dollar a year industry to thrive off the agony of women. I apologize that no one ever listens to the millions of women who suffer from their abortion. My generation hasn't done a good enough job of telling you when the heart of your child starts beating or the horror of abortion on that child.

I apologize that my generation never took the time to stop illegal immigration and now it is an almost impossible task to remedy.

I apologize that we made divorce so easy and made people believe that it wasn't that big of a deal so that even grown children of divorce are still suffering from the pain of their parent's divorce in more ways than we can even imagine. I apologize that instead of seeking ways to solidify marriage for children, we are only looking at more ways to re-define marriage. In doing so, we are opening up a pandora's box of which the family will likely never recover.

I apologize that my party didn't do more to stop these things that hurt our families so. I apologize that men like Arthur Sulzberger Jr. have had such an influence over hiding the negative side of these issues while pretending to be objective. I apologize that our media is so biased and blinded by their own ideology that it took the internet to finally find some truth and balance on issues and news coverage.

I apologize that Mr. Sulzberger sees a tyrannical monster, that abused and murdered women and children, being taken down as "misbegotten." Mr. Sulzberger doesn't see a Democracy in the Middle East as worth fighting for because it doesn't fit his standard what is good for the world. I apologize that Mr. Suzberger doesn't seem to understand why we have not been attacked again by terrorists. I apologize for those in my generation who don't see much of anything worth fighting for, because if defeating terrorism isn't, then I don't know what would be.

We let you down, graduates. Now it is up to you to make sure that men like Mr. Sulzberger no longer try control what you hear as news viewed through the prism of his ideology. It is up to you to seek truth and never trust that the mainstream media is giving you the whole story. Their credibility was diminished long ago.

Encourage debate. Seek Truth. Follow the good. Question everything.

Oh, that culture of corruption....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "FBI agents videotaped Rep. William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, accepting $100,000 in cash they said was intended as a bribe for a Nigerian official and later found $90,000 of the money hidden in his freezer, according to a court document released on Sunday."

What? He spent $10,000 on his way home???

"Jefferson, a senior member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has been under investigation for his role in helping a Nigerian company with an Internet venture."

Hey! I wonder if that has anything to do with this e-mail I've been getting...;-)

Remember this guy? He used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings right after Katrina when they were still rescuing people.

Addition: On a smaller more local note of corruption, a Democrat falls into a water for sex scandal. What will they think of next? via LST

Another Addition: More local corruption from those who are not the party of corruption.

Ok, I was feeling bad...

so I searched and searched for a good recent picture of Al Gore. This was as good as I got. I think it deserves a caption.

The Rove Indictment!

Heh.

Read the comments.

via NRO