Happy 4th of July!!!!!!

I will be gone for two weeks but I am leaving my blog in the capable hands of my friend BigDog. He is tons smarter than I am, so be ready for that.

I have some really personal posts that I am going to link here for you to read while I am gone. They are kind of long, but some of my favorites. My regulars know them, but I thought any new readers might like them.

This Life.

My First Love.

This one is about pro-life protesting.

This is about a very special man I knew.

Why I am pro-life.

My dream.

Why I am Catholic.

If I can get to a computer, I will repost some of my favorite military posts back when no one was reading me! Enjoy BigDog and have a blessed and wonderful 4th of July!!!

And here we go. This will not be fun.

Tony Blair and Bob Geldof. This one MUST be captioned!

Ah Yes. Another Texas Governor who says what he thinks. Heh.

"From Channel 13’s Ted Oberg:
Governor Rick Perry had some parting words for an Eyewitness News reporter that may raise your eyebrows.
It was an innocent enough interview about the special session beginning in Austin. But the way it ended is where the questions begin.
Our questions were not recorded on tape, but in saying goodbye I told the governor, "Try as I may, Governor, I guess I can’t win this one."
Eleven seconds after he said goodbye, the camera crew was getting ready for the next interview with another station. That’s when Gov. Perry repeated what he thought I’d said, and added a few words of his own with his microphone on and tape still rolling.
"Try as I may, Governor, I’m not going to wait that long," Gov. Perry said. "Adios, Mofo." This is the kind of thing I want the Governor to say. But I want him to say it to David Dewhurst."

PBS Funding. Is it worth It?

Many of you have been asking to see my PBS funding post that they deleted over at UPC. I didn't have a copy of it, so I re-wrote it from memory. It has some changes, but most of it I could remember. Ironically I had no desire to write on PBS, but Goosefive who was posting that same day asked me to counter his. So I did. I am sure it wasn't just this post that got me kicked out. UPC and I just couldn't agree on anything. It was that simple. Anyway, it just so happens luckily that since UPC changed over to a new site they failed to delete my 3 posts from the old site. So I copied them and I have them as well. If any of you didn't get to read them and would like me to re-post them here, let me know. Anyway, here is the post on PBS.


The recent fight in Congress over reducing PBS funding is centered around the liberal politics of PBS. As Peggy Noonan says, "arguing over whether PBS is and has long been politically liberal is like arguing over whether the ocean is and has long been wet. Of course it is, and everyone knows it."

Peggy argues that PBS's programming should be reserved art and science and history. It is when they approach politics that it has the liberal reputation it has. Works of Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neil would never be shown on prime time TV. We need these programs. I recently watched a musical symphony called "Celtic Women" and it was one of the most moving and beautiful things I have listened to in a long time. But partisan politics diminishes what should be educational.

For example, I watched the last program of "Now" that Bill Moyer's hosted. (his new replacement is simply a young Moyers ideologically speaking) Moyer's last program was about the vast rightwing conspiracy. He began the program being dishonest. He called Sean Hannity of Fox News an "anchor." A total lie. As we all know, Hannity is a partisan commentator and has a liberal counterpart on the show, Allan Colmes, which Moyers conveniently never mentions. Brit Hulme, Chris Wallace, and Shepard Smith are "anchors." They give us the hard news, the "fair and balanced" news. Moyers was obviously not able to come up with any indication of those anchors being partisan though, so he used Hannity to make it look as if he were an anchor. This wasn't a small mistake either. It was deliberate. He put clips of Brit Hulme and Sean Hannity side by side. Then he goes on to show Hannity on his tour before the election being all "partisan." As if it were like Peter Jennings going out before audiences and telling people to vote for Kerry before the election. Hannity has never claimed to be anything but what he is, a devout Republican partisan pundit. He is certainly no anchor of news.

Moyer's also insisted that a lie was put out by the rightwing that Saddam was somehow connected to 9-11. He had no clips to show because that, of course, was never said nor implied by Fox News or Bush for that matter. Moyers proves it though by saying that 41% of those surveyed thought Saddam had something to do with 9-11. I hate to break it to Moyers, but 41% of the American people can't tell you where Poland is or who is the Sec. of State. Not because they are ignorant, but because they just don't care. How he figures it is Fox's fault that people believe that is beyond me.

It is that kind of programming that needs to be eliminated. Hillary stands in front of the camera protesting the cuts with Clifford the Big Red Dog behind her as if cartoons will cease to be if funding is cut, when in truth, all she is worried about is the liberal mouthpiece of PBS being shut down.

I say we fund PBS, but with rules and conditions of fair political balance if they insist on politics. In my opinion William Buckley Jr. was the only real conservative PBS ever had and he has been long gone.

Taxpayers fund PBS. Why ask Republicans to fund the opposition? We all fund it, let's have balance then.

Love Is A Battlefield.

The following is a re-post from the end of September of 2004. I have an update at the bottom.

Sometime between teaching my son to drive and throwing my daughter's Britney Spear's CD away, ("why mom???!!", "Uh.. lets see, when she is not dressing like a prostitute, she looks like white trash. She sings a haunting melody about masturbation and she is so stupid she couldn't get a clue from JLo to NEVER marry one of her dancers!") I realized that I am a mom of teenagers.

When did that happen? Wasn't I just 17 a few years ago?? I feel like I have been thrown down a time tunnel.

In my daughter's whines I hear something familiar, something I know I have heard before. Then it hits me. ITS ME! Is this some sort of cosmic revenge? I have to relive my own overdramatic totally unreasonable emotions? Yes I do. And I can't even complain to my Mom, she just giggles uncrontrollably.

When my daughter was almost 13 I asked her, "please don't be a bratty teenager, please stay the sweet little angel you are now, don't change!" She hugged me tightly and said, "Of course I won't Mom!!".......LIAR!!! After 2 yrs of slammed doors, tears, and proclamations of how I am ruining her life, I asked her "Is my sweet little girl EVER coming back? Huh? Is She? I want to know, because I really really miss her!" My daughter rolls her eyes in disgust, clearly wondering how she lives with such stupidity.

Sometimes when we are arguing a little voice in my head says,
"Whats wrong with a coed pajama party??? Oh, let her wear the skimpy halter top, you had one just like it!! When did you lose your sense of fun, your sense of adventure??" Hmmm.... I'm pretty sure I lost it when I saw "American Pie."

The other day a convertible pulls up with her friends ready to go. I rush outside and tell them to turn down the music so they can hear the traffic, buckle their seat belts, don't even think about drinking, and for God's sake button the top buttons of their shirts! My daughter closes her eyes hoping I will disappear in a puff of smoke. What she doesn't know is that I would give anything to hop in that car with them, turn up the music, have a beer, and remember what it was like to be young and carefree without the worry of motherhood.

At the moment, this job sucks. First, its never fun anymore. Second, I am ALWAYS the bad guy, and third, I can't even get drunk. ( Ok, I know I CAN, I just don't think I should) Maintaining my wise and "lets always do the right thing" attitude is wearing me out. It could just be my situation, but girls are alot harder. People tell me that they return to sanity around 22 or so. Good, just old to enough to pay for my stay in the mental ward. Where I will probably sit in small room with a telephone by my bed muttering "Why hasn't she called? Where is she? She is dead in a ditch! I know it!!"

Luckily my 3 boys seem to stroll through life happy and content. My oldest was born 30, I think. He has just always gotten it. He goes with the flow and obeys the rules (with the normal exceptions). The other two are young, still in that "Gosh, my mommy is so terrific!" stage that is the best part of being a Mom. So, I guess I have the best and the worst parts of being a Mom going on. If anyone has suggestons on how to handle the worst not requiring medication, I would appreciate it. Right now I think I will crank up my old LP of Pat Benatar, "Love is a battlefield." That girl rocked, didn't she?

*Update: After making a few changes, letting her earn my trust and grounding her when she loses it. I have to say that this last year has shown a vast improvement. I knew I needed a way to connect to her again, but we never seem to be able to be together. This year she asked to be in beauty pageant a couple of her friends were going to be in. I had never even watched a beauty pageant nor thought much of them, but then I realized that it would take alot of time getting ready for (and boy did it!) and that we could spend some quality time together. It absolutely worked! We had so much fun shopping for the clothes and makeup. I took her to some classes to prepare. We got to talk in the car a lot. We really just got to know each other again. (She will be competing in the Miss Texas Teen USA pageant at Thanksgiving with the title of our town, which I don't want to give out, but it will be on national TV and I will let you know closer to it)

She matured so much this year. It's nice to have my sweet girl back! We still argue over curfew and such, but for the really important things she has her head on straight.

I know she had to find her own way, I just didn't want her to have regrets. One day when she came home all mad because some people at school had been insulting her faith and she ran to get her Bible and typed up a bunch of verses about what they were arguing about, and brought them to school the next day to show them, I knew that the worse was finally over.

Love is a battelfield, but real love always wins the battle.

A Picture from the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.

"The parade spilled into an afternoon festival near City Hall, where the decidedly diverse crowd gathered, with a cable car full of gay San Francisco cops and a booth staffed by an expert butt-spanker. Flesh was on wide display, but only camera-toting tourists seemed shocked." via SFgate

An expert butt spanker??? Do gay people really want to be represented this way? Seriously.

This must be the expert:

"Sex was on open display in some areas of the festival. In Leather Alley, "Daddy" Howard Hyatt, 53, spanked a young man on his bare butt -- first with his hand, then with a paddle, then with a brush -- as the man heaved with pain but didn't ask Hyatt to stop. The demonstration was meant as a safe introduction for newbies to dominance and submission."

Oh, feel free to caption. Who could resist?

Captain's Quarters live blogged the President's speech and has an excellent roundup.

Ok, this is in bad taste, but still funny:

"In a surprise move expected to send shock waves through the world of TV journalism, CNN, the original cable news network, and NBC, which owns cable channels MSNBC and CNBC, announced a deal to consolidate their news divisions into a single giant network. The new network, to be called Where the White Women At or WWWA, is set to debut this week. CNN spokesman Jack Little explained the deal at a press conference Monday."

What is wrong with the headline of this article?--

"Brian Williams Explains Why NBC Will Air The President's Address Tonight."

I mean shouldn't the "Big 3" explain why they aren't showing it, if they are not? This is the President of the United States after all. We are at war. Isn't that kinda important?

Isn't this SWEET???

Well, it seems the Unpaid Punditry Core has fired me. So I won't be blogging over there anymore. They deleted all my posts, so that is why the PBS funding post isn't there. I had been asked to join to provide another voice from the right. But I seemed to generate a lot of anger over there though.

It saddens me that we on the both the left and the right can't seem to get through to each other. I think the idea of their blog is great and I hope they can make it work.

This week I am helping to host The Cotillion. A beautiful bunch of conservative women who don't mind speaking their mind! My co-hosts this week are Knowledge is Power, NotADesperateHousewife, and MaxedOutMama.

You are welcome to join the dance by reading:

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy grows weary of the anti-war rhetoric and the damage it may be doing to our men and women in uniform.

Merri Musings wonders how burning our flag is somehow free speech. I have often wondered that myself.

Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room tells you men basically to NOT cheat. Seriously. You will regret it.

MaxedOutMama gives us an excellent analysis of the definitions of liberal and conservative from several voices that explain where liberals go wrong.

Knowledge Is Power asks if this is revenge or justice. I'll tell what isn't justice. SondraK not living in Texas and being my best friend....;-)

Little Miss Attila gives us the sadness of the choices we make in her usual very personal and well written fashion.

Portia Redicscovered has more on gitmo and how liberals have no room to make value judgments.

Reasoned Audacity asked us to let Big Bird fly on his own. The PBS saga of budget cuts.

KelliPundit reminds us of the history of anti-Semitism and what it proves to us.

NotADesperateHousewife discusses overmedicating our children in this society.

RightThinkingGirl looks at the relationship between journalists and confidential sources.

The Greatest American.

AOL Television and the Discovery Channel has had the American Public voting for "The Greatest American." The winner is Pres. Ronald Reagan!! (I couldn't agree more)

I also agree with the runners up: 2) Abraham Lincoln 3) Martin Luther King Jr. 4) George Washington 5) Benjamin Franklin.

But here is how some over at DU explain it. You know. Same old song. We are all just so stupid:

"Re: Reagan winning "Greatest American" -- I am **AMAZED** . . . . . . that anyone actually watches the Discovery Channel. But seriously, here's why he won:
1) The poll was conducted by AOL. Hence, it was most heavily advertised on AOL.
2) AOL is the country's most popular dial-up service.
3) With broadband internet becoming steadily more popular and less expensive across the nation, the largest group of AOLers today are probably rednecks -- or, more broadly (and more politely), those who live in rural parts of the country where broadband is not available and cheap.
4) Rednecks vote Republican.
5) There was only one real Republican in the top five. Everyone else was on our side."

You gotta love the consistency of their arrogance.

Isn't it interesting though that "Rednecks" would vote Martin Luther King Jr. in 3rd place??? No rednecks I know would. Such is the liberal logic over at DU.

via Resurrectionsong

Amazing.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court struggled in a pair of 5-4 rulings Monday to define how much blending of church and state is constitutionally permissible, allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed outside the Texas state Capitol but not inside Kentucky courthouses."

The article goes on to say:

"In effect, the court said it was taking the position that issues of Ten Commandments displays in courthouses should be resolved on a case-by-case basis."

Well how about that! Imagine. The black robes on high don't get to decide for everyone????? You mean we actually get to look at each case and decide for ourselves in our own state???

Wow. What a concept.

Do you want to know what is in the new 'The Truth About Hillary' by Edward Klein, but don't want to give the guy money? PunditGuy is reading it for us! PunditGuy works in the publishing industry. He has decided over the next few weeks to take us through the book a few chapters at a time. (with his perspective, of course!)

Here is a excerpt from the first part:

"The prologue opens with Monica Lewinsky showing up to Bill's fiftieth birthday party in August of 1996. By the time I read the second paragraph, I knew what kind of book this was going to be.

Creepy.

Icky.

Klein recounts a moment when Monica, with her back turned to Bill, reaches behind her and, touches the former president, uh, well...

Yeah, I was grossed out. Straight ahead gratuitousness on the part of Klein.

Once I recovered, it was pretty clear to me who Monica Lewinsky was during this time in her life. She was a hopeless loser. She was the scorned woman, not Hillary. Klein wastes no time proving to his readers that Monica was obsessed with Bill Clinton. I'm talked OBSESSED. Over the top. If even part of the story in the prologue is accurate, Monica is lucky she wasn't put down by Secret Service agents. Obviously, Bill wanted her kept close."

Yeah, it's like looking at a horrible car wreck as you drive by it, you just can't help but slow down and look even though you know you should just keep moving along.

Adam.

National Geographic give us this fascinating news:

"New DNA studies suggest that all humans descended from a single African ancestor who lived some 60,000 years ago. To uncover the paths that lead from him to every living human, the National Geographic Society launched the Genographic Project, headed by Spencer Wells. The quest for "Adam" is the subject of a new television documentary that airs on the National Geographic Channel in the U.S. this Sunday."

Read the rest. It is pretty cool.

Blair's son to work for Republicans.

BBC News gives us this:

"Euan Blair, the prime minister's eldest son, is to work in Washington DC as an intern for Republican politicians."

Interesting.

Although a spokesman said that Euan would also seek an internship with a Democrat politician, it seems what is upsetting to Democrats is the committee that Euan is interning for is the Committee on Rules in the House of Representatives. The Democrats see this committee as highly partisan.
h/t Simon

Political Memories.

I thought I might share some of my political memories in Mississippi. I mentioned one time that my father was asked to run for Governor many times. He was Circuit Clerk of Hinds County at the time. But he always refused. He always said that level of politics was too ugly for him and boy was he right.

When I was a teenager in 1980 my family was rooting for a man for Governor named Bill Allain (a Democrat of course) and a few days before the election the news interviewed 2 black transvestites who claimed to have "been with" Mr. Allain.

Now that might not seem so unusual today, but this was freakin 1980 in the south!!! It was almost comical actually. Mr. Allain ex-girlfriend had to go on TV saying that he had completely normal sexual drives. CRAZY! Well, he won. **

I was gone after that and had nothing to do with politics for a while.

Then in 1992 Republican governor, Kirk Fordice was stopped coming back from Memphis for speeding. It ends up he was in Memphis visiting his mistress. He was divorced soon after.

My brother went to law school with the man who was Governor in 2000. A Democrat named Ronnie Musgrove. During his tenure his wife just up and left the governor's mansion never to be heard from again. Rumors were flying about affairs, but nothing was ever proven.

And then there is this one bizarre memory I have as a kid. My father was a wonderful man as anyone who has read my post on him knows. It wasn't unusual for the mayor or senators or any politician to end up on our doorstep for advice from my father.

When I was around 14 I awoke in the middle of night to see a man at my window. I screamed and I heard him say, "Could you go get your Dad?" Well I shot out of bed and ran to my Mom and Dad's room. Dad rushed out of bedroom and I hid behind the staircase and listened. It was a former senator, who had another elected position now, I can't remember what now. He was completely drunk. I heard my Dad talking in low tones to him at the back door and the man speaking loudly back slurring his words. All I could understand is that the man was in some sort of legal trouble and it seemed my Dad was the only possible person who could save him. ( my Dad had been a lawyer) Anyway, Dad called the man's wife to come get him and the man did end up in federal prison, but I can't remember what the charge was. I just remember my Dad referring to him later saying, "Poor guy, but he was guilty as hell."

And Finally, at my wedding reception I have on tape many prominent Mississippi politicians competely DRUNK making hilarious toasts to me. At the end of the tape after my husband and I had left to catch a plane in New Orleans, the mayor is heard on the tape saying, "Lets make a call and get them stopped in Delo," which was a small town outside of Mississippi. They wanted to "scare" us with a traffic stop. (Great use of political power, eh?) But my Mom can be heard clearly in the background, "NO! No! Just leave them alone! Let them get there."

Isn't political life fun???

** I did get the name wrong on Cliff Finch as one RUDE commenter pointed out. It was Bill Allain the Democratic Governor after Finch that that happened to. I may have gotten it confused since during the governship of Finch, he was shot (not dead) and the speculation was that his wife shot him. But it was never proven. Hard to keep the scandals straight just from memory.

*cross posted at UPC

Blog Law.

Naked Law brings us some interesting news on blogging around the world.

"There is no doubt that, at least in some parts of the world, blogging can be a risky business. Iranian bloggers were taken to prison and fined for "insulting the country's leaders and making anti-government propaganda"; Chinese bloggers using Microsoft's MSN Spaces site will find themselves censored if they try to use words like "democracy" and "freedom". Even in the US and UK, there have been some salutory reminders that a post on a blog is a publication that can give rise to real world consequences. First there was the sacking of air hostess "Queen of the Sky" for posting pictures of herself in uniform; then Joe Gordon, writer of the Woolamaloo Gazette, was sacked by Waterstones for comments he made about his employers; then Apple forced bloggers to reveal their sources for leaks about the company's new technology."
h/t Simon

Here’s this week’s Gravitational Pull-Up over at UPC:
At what age do you think you’ll retire at, and where do you plan to retire to?

My husband I have saved 20% of his salary since we both were working at 22 yrs old. It wasn't easy in the early years. I stayed on a tight budget. Hard work, no debt, and savings brings rewards. Good investments brought us even more savings. (one reason I feel so strongly about private accounts in Social Security) I would say now that 50 yrs old could be possible.

I want a beach house in Mexico. The homes there are actually leased through the government and a very nice beach home can be had for around $100,000, much less than the value of the home we live in now. I figure my kids will live in Texas, which is a short plane ride to the Mexican Riviera. I figure they and my grandkids will visit often, don't cha think?

And please no one give me that rich Republican crap. I was a poor Republican for a long time. And believe me when I say I help this economy along as much as I can now....;-)

There. I said it.

In watching the exchange between Kennedy and Rumsfield today I finally figured some things out. One thing I figured out is that Rumsfield has a lot of class. When Kennedy said "Isn't it time you resigned?" Wouldn't the perfect response have been, "Isn't time that you resigned Senator Kennedy?"

But Rumsfield chose the high road and simply stated that he had in fact offered to resign twice and President Bush had refused it.

But this was the main thing I figured out. Conservatives in general strongly disagree with liberals and fight against them for what we believe is right.

Liberals, on the other hand, don't just disagree with us, they hate us. A deep seething hate that was clearly shown on Senator Kennedy's face.

I notice this in my blogging and reading of the blogs. I read leftie blogs that I totally disagree with or think they are completely wrong, but I never feel hatred toward the blogger. I may leave remarks that show my side, but I don't personally feel a need to insult them. There have been times on this blog when commenters have offended me so much that I have gotten angry and shot back something, but that was a reaction. Liberals don't even need a reason to hate us personally. They just do.

I usually get angry when someone says something personal or denigrates our country, military, or our President. But the liberal commenters here get angry over a simple post of my beliefs. I mean really angry. I cannot imagine myself sending a mean personal hateful e-mail to someone over a post on an issue, no matter how much I disagree with them. I just find that strange.

So I will go farther than Rove here. I'm speaking in general, of course, when I say that we may dispise what liberals believe, but they dispise us.

Move over Bill Cosby.

I disagree with Barack Obama on many things, but in this Father's Day sermon Sunday at a South Side church in Chicago he gets it:

"The first is setting an example of excellence for our children.... If we are to pass on high expectations to our children we've got to have high expectations for ourselves. It is wonderful if a black man has a job, but it's even better if a black man owns a business.... It is a wonderful thing that you are married and living in a home with your children, but don't just sit in the house watching "SportsCenter" all weekend long....We know that our children's future is in education. The day when you could walk into a steel mill, and if you had a strong back and were willing to work you would be able to support a family--those days are over. Our children are competing against not just folks from Indiana ... our children are competing against folks in China,... playing the world game, which means we have to achieve the highest educational levels.Sometimes I go to an 8th-grade graduation and there's all that pomp and circumstance and gowns and flowers. It's just 8th grade, people. They've got to get out of high school, then they've got to go to college, then they've got to get a graduate degree if they want to compete. ... An 8th-grade education is not going to cut it! Just give them a handshake. Congratulations, now get your butt in the library.

He goes on:

We have to get beyond making excuses if we are going to be full-grown.... To be full-grown, you have to live out your values, and teach your children to live out your values, not just give them lip service to your values. You can tell what's important to somebody, not by what they say, but by what they do. Where they put their bite, where they put their energy, where they put their time...."

Great sermon.

Now on another note. Can you imagine if Rick Santorum gave a "sermon" at a Church on Father's Day with his take on values? I'm thinking it would be headline news. Liberals screaming for separation of Church and State. Why is there a double standard here?

Kawaiti's First Female Minister Sits In Parliament. I think I LOVE her attitude! Is that cool, or what??

This one just begs to be captioned!

Apology Accepted.

Senator Durbin apologizes tearfully on the Senate floor yesterday. It takes courage to apologize and admit you were wrong in this political world of high tension. Heaven knows the left sure as hell was not encouraging him to apologize. All they could do was defend the indefensible.

Durbin saw he was wrong and said he was sorry and said our military "was the best."

That is enough for me.

Kofi Annan extolls the progress in Iraq. He gives a lot of the credit to the U.N. of course, but hey...it's a start.

via Ace.

What The News Might Look Like.

AP: Today brought another car bomb in Jackson Tennessee near a police station killing 34 officers and 20 civilians nearby. This is 97th car bomb since 9-11.

In the last three years our country has had to endure the murder of 172 of our schoolchildren in 12 different schools across this nation by Islamic fundalmentalist homicide bombers. 943 church and synagogue members have been victims of homicide bombers as well. Our souls are crushed, our tears neverending.

There are protests daily outside the White House. People carrying signs saying "Bush, why didn't you protect us???" As President Bush has explained many times, he felt if the Patriot Act had passed then we would have better intelligence and could have prevented some of these horrible bombings. But the people aren't buying it.

The closing of Guantanamo is another factor the President cites. He insists that the ones we knew in this country that were dangerous should have been locked up and interrogated. He also says that the Homeland Security department he pushed, but was dismissed as not necessary, would have prevented these tragedies. But his words ring hollow. His "this might have worked" scenario's do not help us or comfort us as we bury our children.

There is a feeling of deep hatred for our President. He should have done more. After Afghanistan he took the easy road and said that we had killed those responsible for 9-11. That Osama was probably dead. He bask in the glory of that victory and easily won re-election.

Then hell descended upon us.

Our military is consumed now with border protection and paroling our streets. But it is almost impossible to circumvent these monsters who casually walk into our schools, churches, and police stations and blow themselves up.

There is talk now of a military invasion in the Middle East, but we have enough on our hands here at home. No one feels safe. We are prisoners in our own homes. Parents are scared to send their children to school.

How could this have happened?

There must have been a way to protect us. We are lost in fear now and the ending of it seems no where in sight.

Dispelling Myth From The Left.

How many times have you heard from the left how our invasion of Iraq created so many of the terrorists? How many time have you heard that our presence in Iraq caused the hatred??

Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent paper proving that not true.

He reports how the International Herald Tribune and the Washington Post interviewed a Syrian smuggler of jihadists to Iraq, Abu Ibrahim and he describes "that two weeks after the (Sept. 11th) attack, a celebration was held in his rural Syrian community celebrating the mass murder, and thereafter continued twice-weekly." And he goes on to quote Abu, "that Syrian officials attended such festivities, funded by Saudi money with public slogans that read, "The People ...Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All."

Abu says "that the goal of the jihadists is the restoration of the ancient caliphate ("The Koran is a constitution, a law to govern the world") and that " September 11 was "a great day."

There is much more, so read the whole thing. But this is the key point:

"First, there was always radical Islamic anti-American hatred that preceded Iraq. Indeed, celebrations were spontaneous immediately after September 11 on the mere news of slaughtered Americans."

So we need to dispute this false message that the left keeps putting out there that we are creating the terrorists.

But Hanson hits the nail on the head with this last paragraph:

"This is a dangerous trend. Despite murderous Syrian terrorists, dictatorial Saudis, crazy Pakistanis, and triangulating European allies, and after so many tragic setbacks, we are close to creating lasting democratic states in Afghanistan and Iraq — states that are influencing the entire region and ending the old calculus of Middle Eastern terror. We are winning even as we are told we are losing. But the key is that the American people need to be told — honestly and daily — how and why those successes came about and must continue before it sours on the entire sorry bunch."

Just when I think I can't find anything weirder on the net, I find this site for jewelry made of Barbie body parts. Most interesting? The Barbie boob necklace.

If you order anything I don't want to know.

William Kristol does have a better idea than censure for Senator Durbin as Hugh Hewitt and Newt Gingrich are suggesting:

"Why not put the burden on the Democrats? When Sen. Trent Lott made a far less damaging, but still deplorable, statement two and a half years ago, his fellow Republicans insisted
he step down as their leader. Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership? Shouldn't conservatives (and liberals) legitimately ask Democrats to hold their leader to account, especially given the precedent of Lott?"

Sounds good, but don't hold your breath. There is a pack mentality in the Democratic party that no amount of misdeeds can pull apart.

The Unpaid Punditry Corps has a new design! My new post, "The Politics of Sex" is up over there. Here is a lovely related post. h/t WindsOfChange.

Respect Authority.

I am beginning to think that we need public service announcements on TV to remind people how to act when a police officer is speaking to you. It doesn't matter if you think you have been unfairly stopped. It doesn't matter if you don't trust cops. When a cop tells you to get out the car or turn around or put your hands on your head, YOU DO IT! Discussions can happen later.

Because you if you don't, things like this can happen.
h/t SondraK

Let's caption this scary one. I even thought of one--Darwin's theory gone horribly wrong!!!

Why Guantanamo?

Leave it to Ann Coulter to remind us of the obvious. Read the whole thing. It's good. Here is an excerpt:

"There are thousands of Muslim extremists literally dying to slaughter Americans, and only three proven ways to stop them: (1) Kill them (the recommended method), (2) capture them and keep them locked up, or (3) convince them that their cause is lost. Guantanamo is useless for No. 1, but really pulls ahead on No. 2 and No. 3 (i.e. a "purpose")."

If you would like two very different takes on Senator Durbin's recent remarks on the Senate floor, here ya go.

al-Qaeda speaks, but are we listening?.

This is certainly interesting stuff from al-Qaeda's #2 man.

CAIRO (AP) — "al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader released a new video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television Friday, in which he disparaged the U.S. concept of reform in the Middle East and said armed jihad is the only way to bring change in the Arab world.

The message by Ayman al-Zawahri, — his first video since February — appeared to be an attempt by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to co-opt the rising wave of reform movements in the Middle East.
"The removal of the Crusader and Jewish invaders won't occur by peaceful demonstrations," he said in a brief clip shown on the pan-Arab network. "Reform and expelling the invaders from the countries of Islam won't happen except through fighting for God's sake."

He outlined what he called a true program for reform — based on the rule of Islamic law, the end of U.S. and Western domination, and the freedom of the Muslim nation to run its own affairs."

Let's see. Weren't the Muslims pretty much running their own affairs until Mr. al- Zawahri and his gang of monsters decided to bring the fight to US??? Wasn't it al-Qaeda that planned it's big death fest on New York and Washington D.C??? Hey Zawahri! Maybe if you didn't want us "Crusaders and Jews" bothering you maybe you SHOULDN'T HAVE ATTACKED US!!!

The monster continues:

"Al-Zawahri urged them "not to forsake their jihad, not to lay down their arms ... and not to be dragged into the game of secular elections under a secular constitution."

Yeah, don't be dragged into freedom people! Because things bad could happen. Like women not being treated like dogs, like being able to decide which religion you might want to follow, like freedom to think for yourself. It would only be a matter of time before you would be educating yourself about the rest of the world and deciding which laws are archaic and barbaric. You might even start to have good diplomatic relations with the U.S. We might start to understand each other. We simply cannot have that!

It would be CRAZY!! Freedom is dangerous!!

If those Crusaders and Jews have their way you won't have someone like me as your leader. Because never forget! Islamic rule RULES!!!

Think about it. You'd miss the sawing off of heads on TV. You'd miss the shooting of children in the back.

Damn those infidels!!!! They would screw up everything!!!

The horror of rap music torture continues...

Sen. Durbin has revised and extended his idiotic remarks.

This is what he read on the Senate floor on Tues:

"Among the descriptions, the report noted one case in which a detainee was held in such cold temperatures that he shivered, another in which a prisoner was held in heat passing 100 degrees, one in which prisoners were left in isolation so long they fouled themselves and one where a prisoner was chained to the floor and forced to listen to loud rap music."

And this is what he said about it:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.

This is his revised (I bet) and extended remarks later:

"If this indeed occurred, it does not represent American values. It does not represent what our country stands for, it is not the sort of conduct we would ever condone ... and that is the point I was making. Now, sadly, we have a situation here where some in the right-wing media have said that I have been insulting men and women in uniform. Nothing could be further from truth."

Gee, how could "rightwing media" have made that mistake? I mean, when you compare what "Americans have to done to prisoners" to "what must have been done by Nazis." It kind of leads one to believe YOU WERE COMPARING THEM!

Fox News goes on to say:

"Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he had inquired as to whether the FBI's descriptions are true.
"I was trained as a lawyer, many years as a prosecutor dealt with the bureau, have the highest respect. But I do not accept at face value everything they put down on paper until I make certain it can be corroborated and substantiated.
"And for you to come to the floor with just that fragment of a report and then unleash the words 'the Nazis,' unleash the word 'gulag,' unleash 'Pol Pot,' I don't know how many remember that chapter, it seems to me that was a grievous error in judgment and leaves open to the press of the world to take those three extraordinary chapters in world history and try to intertwine it with what has taken place, allegedly, at Guantanamo," Warner said."

This was no error in judgment. It was a well thought out talking point. It was hoped to be taken up by the international press. Because it is more important to people like Durbin, for America to look bad to the world so that Democrats can get back into power, than it its to uphold our values and stand strong in this war.

And that is just the damn truth.

Don't mess with these women! Blalocks's Beauty College (kick your robbing ass) women.

Beauty and the Beast.

Sometimes the robbery goes the right way. Got this from RWN. via ShreveportTimes.com

"An armed robber brandishing a revolver and some tough talk entered Blalock's Beauty College demanding money Tuesday afternoon.
He left crying, bleeding and under arrest, after Dianne Mitchell, her students and employees attacked the suspect, beating him into submission.
Mitchell tripped the robber as he tried to leave and cried aloud "get that sucker" as the group of about 20, nearly all women, some wielding curling irons, bludgeoned him until police arrived.
"You can tell the world don't mess with the women here," said the 53-year-old who manages the Shreveport beauty school in the 5400 block of Mansfield Road.
Jared Gipson, 24, of Shreveport was charged with armed robbery, Shreveport police said. He will be booked into the City Jail once he is released from the hospital.
"He received several lacerations to the head and was taken to LSU Hospital in Shreveport," spokeswoman Kacee Hargrave said. "Nobody else was seriously injured besides the suspect."
About 3 p.m., the workers and students sat around the beauty salon, recounting their tale, like warriors after a great battle.
A little before noon the students and workers were cleaning up when the robber walked up quietly behind Mitchell and said, "This is a holdup," she recalled.
"I thought it was someone just playing, but then I saw that big old gun. He said 'get down big momma.'"
The robber, a tall, thin man wearing a handkerchief over his face and a skull cap, barked out orders to the other people in the school to get down on the floor, Mitchell said.
As the group complied, some of the women began to cry. The robber didn't react kindly, telling one of the women she would "be the first to go," Mitchell said.
After collecting any money the people had on them, the robber pushed one of the employees, Abram Bishop, into the back of the room.
"I thought 'Oh my God, he's going to shoot him,'" Mitchell said.
But instead the robber ran toward the front door to escape.
That's when Mitchell raised her leg.
It was enough to trip the robber, who dropped the gun and tumbled into a wall.
Bishop jumped on the man's back, driving him into the ground. Seizing the opportunity, Mitchell rallied her students.
"We moved some furniture after that," she yelped with joy as she retold the tale.
Arming themselves with curling irons, chairs, a wooden table leg and clenched fists, the women attacked.
Blood and urine splattered from the victim; stains adorned the white paints worn by many of the beauty school students.
Crying in pain, the robber tried to crawl away from the students, Mitchell said.
"I grabbed his legs and wouldn't let him go. I pulled him back. He wasn't going to get up out of here and tell everyone he robbed us. When he came in here, he knocked down a beehive and sent the bees flying all over.
...The gun, police learned later, was not loaded. But there was no remorse from the students.
"He got what he deserved," Renae Collier, 26, said. Collier's engagement ring was broken at some point during the melee."

This was e-mailed to me. I take no responsiblity for it.....Heh.

How Liberalism changed.

Tech Central Station has a excellent article explaining the change. Here is an excerpt:

"The original idea behind liberalism -- freeing the individual from being suffocated by traditional institutions -- has fallen to a distant third amongst liberal priorities. Defending the sovereignty of other states and strengthening supranational institutions take priority over protecting the lives and rights of individuals. The supposed enemy of liberalism, President George W. Bush, gives liberal ideals a higher place in his international decision making than most liberals do. (As Beinart notes, President Bill Clinton did undertake a war in Kosovo, "without U.N. backing…in response to internal events in a sovereign country", in contravention of Wilsonian principles, but this never evolved into a liberal doctrine that could be applied to future situations.)

As long as liberals cling to the belief that advancing liberal ends and defending the absolute power of indigenous governments are one an the same, deference to government authority will force liberals to retreat from violent conflicts -- like state sponsored campaigns of terrorism -- that do not involve conventional interstate warfare. The result is the liberal movement that exists today, a movement disengaged from foreign affairs because it is unwilling to confront the conflicting nature of its priorities."

Now This is a homophobe.

I'm pretty sure I saw this guy at Disney World years ago on "Gay Day." A complete nutcase. I hesitate to give him any publicity, but Mustang23 at Assumption of Command has the links and his recent idiocy.

Geek Joke.

There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.

via Grouchy Old Cripple

We have a winner!!!!

Leggo my AK-47!--Ben in Boston

From the Front.

IraqiNow, a milblog, gives his take on the recent press news from the front. It's straightforward and honest. Which is why I like the milblogs. His last line in this post says it all:

"If the idiots in the press corps are still writing stories like this, and their editors are still running them, it shows beyond doubt that they don't understand a damn thing."

Read the rest.

Sadly Schavio

I suppose I have to weigh in on the Schavio autopsy report even though I find it profoundly depressing. But since the left seem to be gloating around the blogopsphere, I have to say something.

"Jon Thogmartin , the Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner, told reporters that the 41-year-old Schiavo would not have lived after her feeding tube was removed even if she had been fed or given liquids by mouth.
"Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin told reporters."via Fox News.

Really? So her parents could have taken her home and given her the comfort and love and water that they wished to, and she would have died a natural death with dignity surrounded by those who loved her the most? You know, the exact thing all the pro-life people wanted.

I never cared what the arguments were over the amount of brain activity, nor did I listen to any gossip about her husband. What I advocated from the beginning is that her parents be allowed to take her home and take care of her until her natural death. It may have taken a bit longer, but as the medical examiner said, she would have died soon anyway.

Then we (not to mention her parents) would have been spared the gruesome 2 weeks she slowly died of thirst.

This was a human being. Her parents wanted to care for her. We forced them to watch her die of thirst.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Oh look! Another stupid Hitler comparison. By a U.S. Senator no less. Why don't we just keep watering down the evil of Hitler until it MEANS NOTHING anymore?
Ugh.
h/t BigDog

The Numbers Game in War.

The latest homicide bomber kills at least 24 including children. This was not collateral damage. No smart bombs are used here. These monsters target their own women and children. They have no sense of conscience.

It's really important that we understand that.

This site-Iraq Body Count, clearly a left leaning one, says (referring to civilian deaths) that there were "up to 7,350 deaths which resulted from coalition military action during the "major-combat" phase prior to May 1st 2003." Let's just take that number at face value for arguments sake. They also say, "On the 2nd anniversary of the Coalition invasion of Iraq, media-reported civilian deaths are approaching 20,000." It goes on to explain the figure banded about by leftwing bloggers:

"The Lancet study's headline figure of "100,000" excess deaths is a probabilistic projection from a small number of reported deaths."

Keep in mind that of the over of 7000 deaths that occurred during the invasion there is no doubt that our military did everything humanly possible to prevent civilian casualties. Even at the expense of their own lives.

So the over 14,000 deaths that have occurred since then, we can safely say that almost all of them were actually murdered by insurgents. This is a distinction that I have yet to see someone using ANY of the number of deaths use. It's an important distinction. Throwing around the number of civilian deaths as if it is our soldiers doing the killing is reprehensible to me and done far too often on the blogs. It is an insult to our soldiers and to our country.

We need to understand something. As awful as anything we may do in war, we do our best to abide by the rules of engagement and those who don't are punished. We aren't perfect, but we sure as hell don't saw innocent people's heads off on video for the world to see. We don't strap bombs to ourselves and drive into a group of children taking candy from soldiers.

So when I hear the number of Iraq civilian deaths being used again without making the distinction of WHO is doing the killing, I will call them on it and I expect you to do the same.

*crossposted at UPC

It is White Trash Wednesday!! It's a redneck wedding cake!

WTW bloggers:
basil's blog
BOBO BLOGGER
Cranky NeoconDangerous Logic
Fistful of Fortnights
HECTOR VEX
It Is What It Is
Mean Ol' Meany
Merri Musings
MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Pirate's Cove
Riehl World View
Rightwingsparkle
Six Meat Buffet
Sortapundit
The Ebb & Flow Institute
The Jawa Report
The Nose On Your Face
THE STEEL DEAL
The Therapist
Vince Aut Morire

The GPU question of the week.

UPC asks:

How do you think the founding fathers would decide on the hot button issues of today?

I don't think they would be capable of deciding. They would be so shocked and appalled at the way we have taken the freedoms that they fought so hard for and twisted them to fit our own desires, they would cry out in anger.

They would be sickened that we care more about what we want than what is best for our society, especially the most vulnerable, our children. They would find so little honor, so little respect for the great nation they provided.

Perhaps their own words from long ago can speak to us now:

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? -Thomas Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

Jefferson could not have been more prophetic with this statement on the Judiciary:

At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823


George Washington's words on foreign affairs (see U.N) could be spoken with equal passion today:

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.-George Washington, Farewell address, Sept. 19th, 1796


Benjamin Franklin could very well be speaking to our welfare state here:

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766

And John Adams could be reminding us of what we have lost:

A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity becoming freemen; a general emulation takes place, which causes good humor, sociability, good manners, and good morals to be general.- John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Dance with me.

The Mind Meld Man.

As we continue thumbing through this month's Vanity Fair, we come to an article on the Michael Jackson trial where a reporter who was in the courtroom the entire time chronicles the overwhelming evidence of Jackson's guilt. But let's skip that one, shall we?

Then we have "The Power of Rove." Karl Rove does fascinate me. He never seems to want to seek the limelight himself. A recent PBS film on Rove was titled "The Architect." It seems Rove is seen as a mastermind that fills liberals with dread. The well known expression of the Rove "mind meld" is never mentioned though. Political skill is a gift, I think. It's about instinct. Bill Clinton has it and so does Rove.

Rove's past is painful. Soon after his parents break up he discovers that his father is not really his biological father. Then his mother commits suicide. Tough, tough things to overcome. Rove does not talk about it either. But he will talk about President Bush, whom he met when Bush was 27 yrs old. Rove says he was struck by the "huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma -you know, wow." Rove says Bush drove a "purple Gremlin with Levi interior." An interesting tidbit considering how that sort of dilutes Bush's rich boy image.

Rove is known for his dirty tricks. He once handed out free food and drink invitations to the local homeless for an opponent's campaign event. He is best known for his direct mail success in creating the first real Republican data base of supporters in Texas. In 1977 when Rove arrives, Texas is all Democrat. Rove becomes the go to man if you are a Republican. I guess you could say he changed it all for us here. I never knew that before. God bless him!

In politics, it's all about image. Rove seems to know how to create an image. He seems to know how to fly below the radar as well. And, lucky for Bush, he seems utterly devoted to him.

If you were wondering what the Iraqi's were feeling....

"SOCIETY: Samir al-Saboon, the Sunni head of Iraq's National Security Agency, has recently shared the results of latest opinion research in Iraq, taken in May:
Recent polling data shows that fully two-thirds of Iraqis believe their country is headed in the right direction, Saboon said. While a poll in January showed only 11 percent of Sunni Muslims in Iraq shared that view, that percentage has since grown to 40, he said..." via Chrenkoff

Great story. Warms my heart. via Mudville

The Wacky World of Hillary.

The next page we turn to in Vanity Fair is an excerpt for "The Truth About Hillary..." by Edward Klein. Drudge has the most tabloid like excerpt from the book saying that Bill raped Hillary and that is how Chelsea was conceived.

Being that Klein is the former foreign editor of Newsweek former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine, it would be hard to paint him as a part of the rightwing conspiracy, as Drudge points out. But conspirator or not, this crosses the line of decency and pretty much makes it look like a Kitty Kelly book to me. Even if it were true, bringing someone's child into it is just plain wrong.

The excerpt in VF focuses on Patrick and Liz Moynihan's dislike for Hillary and the her obession with power. There are two telling moments in this article. One is when Hillary first gathered her supporters in Manhattan regarding her Senate race. One woman asked, "How are you going to handle Monica Lewinsky?" Hillary replied, "I decided that, because of Kosovo, for the good of the country I needed to stand by the president of the United States, the commander in chief, during perilous times."

Not that she loved him, not that what happens between a man and his wife is private, she didn't even refer to him as a man, just "president of the United States." I find that sad. I don't think anyone disputes that this marriage is bizarre.

The other telling moment is when Hillary visited the Moynihan's home when deciding to run for the Senate and wanted to discuss how to get there. Hillary mentions that she is interested in what the couple have to say on health care because she had a bill that would protect the teaching hospitals and Liz Moynihan interrupts Hillary saying, "Hillary! That's Pat's bill." Hillary replies, "Oh, did he have one, too!"

The article continues:
"Hillary wasn't an elected official, and yet, according to the insider, she was talking as though she had introduced her own bill. And she was looking right at Liz Moynihan and comparing herself to Pat Moynihan, who had one of the most distinguished records in the history of the U.S. Senate." Pat Moynihan gets so disgusted at this point he excuses himself and leaves the room and doesn't return.

I think this part illusrates the massive ego that Hillary possesses.

I wondered why Vanity Fair would put such a hit piece on Hillary in their magazine, but now, after reading the Drudge report, I have to ask myself that if they were going to print something, why not use the excerpt with the juicest gossip???? That is their style after all.

I have to wonder if they knew that the rape story would be too much and the Moynihan story would resonate with New Yorkers who loved him so much. In other words, they wanted to hurt Hillary as bad as possible without using a seemingly outlandish story.

Why?

I can only imagine that they don't feel Hillary can win the general election and they want to put a stop to her before the nomination process.

Nothing else makes sense.

The Dragon.

I have another issue of Vanity Fair to share. Everyone who reads this blog regularly knows my love/hate relationship with this magazine. I love the in depth articles on politicians, the wealthy, and the infamous. But I hate the liberal elite slant and the anti-bush and anti-war rants of the editor. But I will admit he allows other point of views in.

This month is especially juicy though. Flip through with me. This is the first installment. The rest will follow tomorrow.

Christopher Hitchens has a fascinating article on Iran's brutish theocracy. Recently a 16 yr old girl was caught having had sex with a man. Usually this is punished by a hundred lashes, but the rebellious girl tore off her hijab (headscarf) and the judge decided she would hang for that and she did. From a crane for all to see.

It is something we cannot even imagine here. And that was but one example of many describing the sick backward mentality that prevails in the Middle East. Some might keep Iran in mind when they go throwing the word "theocracy" around.

Anyway, Hitchens met with Hossein Khomeini (the grandson of Ayatollah) Hossein tells how he is spending a great deal of time in Iraq. He is a strong supporter of the U.S. intervention. He favors the removal of the the regime established by his grandfather. He wants a complete separation of religion and state. He praises President Bush and says, "Only the Free World, led by America, can bring democracy to Iran."

Hitchens quotes a Muslim woman who although devout, tires of the brutal mullahs and wishes them to be overthrown. She says,"Do you think that the West could here and remove the rulers but only stay for a week and leave?"

A telling statement that reflects the belief of those who wish America to step in to save them, but sees us as too hedonistic too stay.

Hitchens is a brit and an atheist liberal, but has strongly supported this war because of what he sees as the danger of Islamic fundalmentalism. He does not paint a rosy picture of any near change in Iran, but there is a faint glimmer of hope that this democracy idea could spread and perhaps women could be treated as more than cattle and the U.S. would not always be referred to as "infidels."

The article is long and amazing, with so many things I wish I could touch upon, but I came away with this thought:

This far away region called the Middle East, that we never cared about or thought we could ever change with it's sadistic rules and backward thinking, might, just might, stand a chance of slaying the dragon of oppression and torture.

This dragon finally spewed his fire of death on us and now.......

We fight this dragon.

Heaven On Earth.

When I was growing up we had a beach house in Gulf Shores, Alabama. It was long before the condos and the golf resorts were built. The house was old and musty with a screened in back porch and I loved it so.

In those early teen years when one gets introspective and broody, I would walk down to the beach at night and lay on the sand. Looking up at the sky, I would raise my hand and touch each star.

The sound of the ocean immediately calms me even today. The smell of the salt air takes me back to when I had no worries and no one to worry about.

My heart yearns for the ocean. I use to say that I would travel to as many beaches on this earth as I could. And I have made quite a few, but there are still sands my toes have yet to feel.

Those nights laying on the sand, feeling the breath of the ocean in my hair, and hearing the symphony of the waves, I would dream about the vast unknown that was to be my life. I would ask God his opinion and I could hear him whisper back in the music of the water.

Even today, I think there is nothing more beautiful than the ocean at night. The moonlight sparkles across the rolling waves and the stars glitter in the heavens. It is there I feel the closest to what the beginning of this earth must have been like. It is there I find it hard to understand how anyone could imagine that this gift of nature was not given by one who loves us so much that He would create such a thing of beauty and life for us to enjoy.

The future of Catholics online? Heh.

Victor Davis Hanson gives us an EXCELLENT history lesson. In addition, having been one who has never believed the population explosion myth, Hanson hits the nail on the head with this:

"The old idea of a “population bomb” of too many people and too few resources has been turned upside down: The key is not how many people reside in a country but rather what those people do. A billion under a Marxist regime leads to terrible human waste and starvation; a billion in a market economy is actually advantageous — as seemingly endlessly active minds and arms flood the world with cheap consumer goods and rebuild a decaying infrastructure from the ground up."

But that is just a small snippet of an excellent article on how anti-Americanism will soon end. Read the whole thing.

The End Of The World.

I love books. Dean Koontz isn't one of my favorite authors, but he writes extremely well and his books always take you where your imagination didn't go before. I just finished Koontz's "The Taking." This was the first book of his to have religious overtones. It is about what seems like the end of the world where only children and those who protected them survive.

One interesting part of the book describes how everyone is riveted to the TV news because of the global scope of horrors occurring on earth. But then the TV screens of the world began showing the atrocities of mankind. The screen fills with "a chilling montage of humanity in its most debased and savage condition." From murder to pornography. All that diminishes our humanity is shown.

Interesting.

I never listen to end of the world predictions from anyone. It doesn't matter if they have every verse from Revelations to back them up. Because there is one truth to Christ that no other religion can claim.

He was the only one predicted.

Yet even with all the prophecy of Christ's coming thousands of years before he did, man still got it wrong when he did come. They believed he would be a King. They imagined him in rich flowing robes and leading people as a great leader of man. They thought he would create a kingdom on this earth.

But God had different plans.

Christ came as a humble servant. He wanted no crown. He came to save us, to love us, to help us understand who God really was. The only kingdom he wanted to create was the kingdom of God in our hearts.

Christ said the son of man would come again, but doesn't the end of the world occur for each of us when we die? My point is that just as God had different ideas of how the Messiah came the first time, wouldn't God have different ideas of how He comes again?

The idea of TV showing the atrocities of mankind struck me. What if God used movies and TV's as warnings? Or what if the things we see in movies and TV's warn ourselves?

Just a thought that floated into my head. I thought I might share it.

Sad.

PostSecret "is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."

I'm not sure if I believe that all were sent in as they are. But this one and this one especially hurt my heart though.

Reading through them makes me sad for all the pain we go through, for all the broken hearts, for all the lost and weary.
via Beautiful Atrocities

I have another post up at The Unpaid Punditry Core. Y'all come help me out!! I am batting away the moonbats!!!!....;-)

Over at UPC, where I group blog, they have a question of the week that we can answer in our blogs. Here is this week's:

In your opinion, what segment of society or culture or the economy is in greatest need to be reached by political blogs at this time?

I would have to say it would be the 60% of this nation that decide Presidential elections. They are neither Republican or Democrat and they don't decide who they will vote for until the last minute.

In other words. They drive me insane.

I had one friend I knew tell me she was going to vote for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole because Clinton was charming and Dole was dull. I shook my head and said "Are you voting for a President or a DATE???" (not knowing how prophetic that would be)

These are the people we need to reach, but probably won't. These people are just too interested in the popular culture and not the least bit interested in politics. One can hardly blame them either. With both sides yelling outlandish things that no one in the middle believes, they just tune us out.

Our biggest hope of reaching them though, is through their work computers. If they can read up on some blogs during a boring work day then maybe we can get them interested a bit. Maybe we can inform them a bit.

That is what I hope anyway.

ROFL!!!!!

Fox News has this (which I first thought must be a parody)

"Public TV advocacy groups are upset that State Department official Patricia de Stacy Harrison is being considered as the next president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Harrison is now assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs and earlier was acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy. Prior to that she was co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
The Iowa Public Broadcasting board, quoted by The Washington Post, has said hiring a "partisan political activist ... would call into question the motivations of everything we do." And the Association of Public Television Stations says, "it's not in the best interest of public broadcasting to put someone in that position who has a history of activism."

I'm sorry, but how can they say any of that with a straight face? Really. The part I highlighted in red is the most hilarious statement anyone in public broadcasting has ever said. This was the playground of Bill Moyers for decades for heaven's sake.

It's like being at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

This 2002 Floral Flag is 740 feet long and 390 feet wide and maintains the proper Flag dimensions, as described in Executive Order #10834. This Flag is 6.65 acres and is the first Floral Flag to be planted with 5 pointed Stars, comprised of White Larkspur. Each Star is 24 feet in diameter; each Stripe is 30 feet wide. This Flag is estimated to contain more than 400,000 Larkspur plants, with 4-5 flower stems each, for a total of more than 2 million flowers. You can drive by this flag on V Street south of Ocean Ave. in Lompoc, CA.
via e-mail Is that cool or what?????

Hillary and Hillary.

CBS News doesn't let us forget the real Hillary Clinton while the moderate Hillary is pandering to the middle.

"The Hillary you've been hearing a lot of lately is putting on a moderate face - expressing reservations about abortion, appearing at events with Newt Gingrich and being a strong supporter of the war in Iraq."

You heard that my leftie friends, right? A STRONG supporter of the war. Just wanted to make sure.

"While she has made verbal concessions to pro-life voters, nothing in Clinton's voting record or stated views on abortion has changed."

She says one thing to the public and another (and in the meanest way possible) to her supporters. And it is working. Her poll numbers are up.

On the one hand she learned from the master of political strategy and could win this one. (the 08" election) OR the blogs just may be able to hold up her hypocrisy to public view enough for it to work for us.

But we need to remember one thing. We don't need to exaggerate Hillary. Let's keep it on the level and just use her own words against her. It's fun to make fun of her, I know, but we need to keep our eyes on the prize.

Look at my graduate!!!!! So tall and handsome! I had thought of writing one of my mushy essays, but ya'll have been spared. Simply put. I am very proud of my boy. Very Proud.