The Mystery of Leftist Thought, Part 2

(Unpublished in May, 2007**)

Why is it that liberals often have such difficulty with simple English vocabulary? Words that the average fifth-grader can easily comprehend often seem to confuse Leftists and Democrats. They frequently misunderstand the proper meaning and usage of such words as:
MAJOR, USE, PUBLIC (that one is especially troublesome) , PRIVATE,
MASS, COMMON, WEAPONS, GENERAL, PROVIDE, SPEECH,
FREE, CENSOR, PROMOTE, FAIR, FREEDOM, DISCRIMINATE.

Take, for example, a simple phrase from very early in our nation's history: "...provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare..." which is from the preamble to our Constitution. Now, this example may represent more than just a simple misunderstanding of a few words. The liberal misinterpretation of the words provide and promote may be symptomatic of a common leftist ailment, constitutional dyslexia. In their view of the government's role in our lives, they often transpose the two words, and think it proper for the government to provide for the welfare (consisting of all basic needs) of people (housing, food, clothing, medical care, education, job training, employment, transportation, daycare, etc.) and they seem satisfied, increasingly so, with our government merely promoting our common defense.
Worse yet, they have obviously changed the use of the word common to mean individual, to accurately describe the type of Welfare that the government is now providing for millions of people.

Another pair of words that liberals have come to interpret for the opposite of their original constitutional meanings are public and private. Owing to their collectivist worldview, liberals tend to desire that nearly all property be as publicly accessible as possible. This is related to, but not the same as, their confusion with large private properties (like shopping malls or many sports stadiums) actually being privately owned, even though the "public" is usually the primary visitor to these places. They would prefer that the government just go ahead and take as much private property (the good stuff, anyway) away from selfish, greedy capitalists as possible, since government would be much wiser and fair in determining the use of that property.


**(I think this piece was prompted, in part, by the atrocious Kelo vs. City of New London decision at the US Supreme Court.)

Rep. Delahunt happy to expose patriot to al Qaeda

We had an elected Leftist in our House of Reps that was actually HAPPY to expose and identify one of our own public servants (fighting against our enemies in the GWOT) to our enemies.
Thank God Bill Delahunt (D) Massachusetts, is no longer serving in the US House, but he should have been impeached for his enemy-sympathizing activities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEDR7ghl7AU

***(From 2008)

Party affiliation is a matter of convenience

Or: Why Barack Obama isn't a Socialist

One reason that many conservatives don't register as Libertarians, or join the Constitution Party or the American Conservative Party is a matter of having an effective voice in the political landscape, although some Republican standard-bearers haven't been particularly articulate about the conservative message lately. It's unfortunate that Newt Gingrich is so misunderstood and disliked by a great many apolitical Americans (and hated by Democrats), as he's a brilliant messenger of conservative principles and the ideals that made America the greatest country in the world. (Which is why he's demonizd by Democrats.)

Most conservatives might feel very welcome in the aforementioned parties, but they wouldn't accomplish much, just like any 3rd Party in America currently. They'd be simply too insignificant, numerically. And that's as it should be. Third parties in American politics are only spoilers to the serious and practical participants in the legitimate competitions to determine how we govern ourselves. They only succeed when there's an extraordinary ingredient in an election like celebrity (Exhibit A: Jesse Ventura) or wealthy self-financing. (Exhibit B: Ross Perot. Oh wait- that's right, Perot didn't win; he only spoiled it for Bob Dole, a fine man and devoted servant of his country, but a lackluster and weak messenger for conservatism.)


***(I'm not sure when I wrote this. I carelessly saved a spacing-edit before noting the   original date. No matter, it's timeless.)

Victim-Victors make lousy winners, lousy policy

CLEANING OUT DRAFTS. Here's another post I started, but didn't get back to punctually. Began January 30, 2009. Updated at posting.


Gone are the crowds of adoring supporters, some of them fainting from the sheer euphoria of being in His presence. That was then, this is now. The Oval office is a much lonelier place than the campaign trail, especially when not everyone agrees with you, when not everyone jumps on the bandwagon. Having little real experience governing, and no experience as an executive, perhaps Barack Obama can be forgiven for not knowing the difference between campaigning and governing.

We shouldn't really be surprised that class warfare continues from Democrats, even though they won the election and now control everything in Washington. But the derisive attitude they continue to express should be avoided by the White House, at least, and one hopes that an air of graciousness would start to permeate the President's public pronouncements.

Some would characterize him as still being in campaign mode, with allusions to "the last eight years", etc, because Barack Obama does seem to have difficulty expressing his ambitions for our country without the context of contrasting them with Bush or that old straw man, "some people". He imfamously chided, (according to reports) Republican John Kyl, "I won", when asked about his seeming disinterest in hearing views from the other side of the aisle. That's a tad too similar to the playground kid demanding the game be played "his way" because he brought the ball.

In his inaugural address, Obama gloated “On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." He assigned "petty grievances and false promises...recriminations and worn out dogmas" to those who preceded him, and referred to their legitimate policy differences as "childish things".

He accused his predecessors of "protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions", and self righteously promised "We will restore science to its rightful place…".

Perhaps his hubris revealed itself most when he charged us all to "...begin again the work of remaking America". Remaking America?! He makes it sound as if the entire country, how it operates and what it stands for, is broken down, dysfunctional, and in need of a complete overhaul.

He dismisses honest policy disagreements between parties as "...the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long" and declares that they "no longer apply…". Is he signaling an end to free speech within the halls of Congress (and without?), that he'll not tolerate any dissent from his stated goals and agendas? The kind of dissent he and other Dems claimed was "the highest form of patriotism", when it came to opposing the Bush Administration, especially on the war in Iraq?

A line from his speech that he probably thinks is right up there with "Ask not, what your country can do for you..." and "With malice toward none...", is one that his VP, Joe Biden, liked so much that he repeated it today at the announcement of the T.F.M.C.W.F. I suspect, however, that the line, "...a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous", will not, despite it's poetic ring, be chiseled into the marble of the future Obama Monument, because it's premised on a false accusation about our nation: that we favor only the prosperous. The prosperous are favored by prosperity itself. Our economic system (capitalism, as of 3:00pm CST 6/9/2009- Check back in a week to see if we're still capitalists...) does, by design, favor success. Successful ventures prosper. Favoring the prosperous does not mean that we neglect the unprosperous individuals in our midst, but they can't be "favored" more than successful, productive ventures and people now can they?

The use of the unnamed straw man "some people" is a popular one for Obama and Biden (and some journalists), as well as vague allusions to past affronts by others. Proclamations of "we will restore" and "we are ready to lead once more", with references to "starting today" and "once again", and "the time has come" crop up frequently in the president's speeches.


"The measure of our success will be whether the middle class once again shares in the economic success and prosperity of the nation," pontificated VP Joe Biden. When our nation is economically successful and posperous, so IS the middle class. I suppose regrettably from the progressive perspective, many in the middle class cease to be middle class when there's shared prosperity, and those folks move into the upper class. By definition, the middle class remain as prosperous as at any time- that's what put's them in the middle.

It's all about CONTROL (#1)

I began this post in January, 2007, and procrastinatingly, have only reviewed it a few times since then. Pathetic.
I finally decided today, as I was reminded of the Tiananmen Square Uprising, that I'll just throw it out there, as unfinished as anything I've done, just to get the ball rolling. Anyway, as most bloggers seem to do brief but frequent updates (almost like sticking Post-It Notes on your screen) about what's only topical that day, even the very hour of posting, I'll have this foundational piece from which to build, as topical events warrant. There's always something occuring that resonates with this battle over control, and boy-oh-boy we've seen our fill of that lately, have we not?



***This is the 1st stab at a Hydra-like subject (and I ain't Hercules!) that I'll revisit and expand on periodically, with NO preplanning about subject order, frequency, or duration. I'm too impatient to wait for all that.***


This post's heading could well be the title of a book somebody should write.
The premise being thus: throughout history, the battles for human freedom have seen two basic philosophies (world views) pitted against each other- "I want to control you" vs. "Leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone"
Often, at least for generations of modern times, the battles are so subtle (or mischaracterized) that they are hardly detected, and sometimes the combatants are almost indistinguishable.

To begin with, a common assumption about conflicts between peoples, when taking a long backwards glance at history, is that people are always fighting to control each other. Ancient battles pitting one kingdom against another or country vs. country seem to be turf-wars over land and power, entered into mutually; "to the victor goes the spoils", and the winner gets to "lord it over" the losers (if there are any survivors). The truth is that almost every single war ever waged has been initiated by a greedy, unrighteous aggressor, desiring to control or even vanquish it's victims. The decision on the part of the aggressor to attack another (whether the victim be a nation, kingdom, or individual) can accurately be characterized as the embodiment of all of the Seven Deadly Sins.

The aggressor greedily lusts after and has envy for another's status or posessions. A prideful conceit convinces him that he deserves to posess (and better utilize) that which another owns. This unsatisfied desire grows into a wrath unleashed upon it's victim. And all because the slothful sinner was too lazy to acquire that which he desired through righteous industry, and gluttony blinded him from being satisfied with what he already had.

Following is a list of some of the original topics I thought I'd be reflecting on in this CONTROL thread. I added the last one today.

welfare, 1st amendmant issues, environmentalism, free-markets vs. regulations, abortion?, shared-space, health issues, nutrition vs. freedom-to-eat-whatever-I-want, universal healthcare, terrorism-threat response, progressive (punitive) taxation, property rights and abuse of the "takings clause", the "Fairness Doctrine", campaign finance "reform" that inhibits free speech action. Government takeover of Too-Big-To-Fail companies


Well, now that this old post is finally published (and I FINALLY published anything!), I can hopefully revisit this frequently, with the battles raging over which direction this great nation will go. My apologies for once again being so absent.

The battle we wage

Where the hell have I been for almost four months?

Giving the new Messiah a chance.


So.... how's he doing?

Well, I offer this new blog post on my Twitter page. It's miniblogging, 140-or-less characters at a time.
Read it from the bottom, up, starting with the one that begins "I just realized why libs REALLY hated Reagan."

Let me know what you think. If you think.

Too big to let fail: The Sequel

Where does it end?


Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli,
GM CEO Rick Wagoner






The "Big Three" American automakers were insisting to Congress yesterday & today that if they don't get an immediate infusion of $25,000,000,000 in taxpayer money, there'd be "severe and debilitating ramifications"; and that "the societal costs would be catastrophic". "It's about saving the U.S. economy from a catastrophic collapse," said GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner. They warned that not forking over the money would "undermine our nation's ability to respond to military challenges", and therefore, it "would threaten our national security." And (most importantly) they'll be out of work. Oh, and the UAW tagged along to add "Yeah, what he said!"




Wagoner explained how the $25,000,000,000 would be used: “We’ll use this bridge to pay for essential operations, new vehicles and powertrains, parts from our suppliers, wages and benefits for our workers and retirees and taxes for state and local governments...". They insisted they need this bailout urgently, just to get thru to the end of this year.







And then what, pray tell? This is November 19th! Six weeks to financial Armageddon, and then what? What will magically change after that? I mean, the Messiah won't take office til the 20th of January, so how will they survive after the $25,000,000,000 is burned thru?





Since they don't recognize the costs of union wages & benefits as a primary cause of their financial ills, do they think the credit-crunch (which they cited as the main cause of their current crisis) will be resolved and the rest of the economy will be back on track by January? That's a little too much optimism to be relying, on as a consideration for loaning $25,000,000,000 to an industry with such an antiquated business model. Or, do they really not naively think the nation's financial troubles will be resolved by then, and this is just the latest installment in public money for them?




Detroit's financial woes began long before the recent nationwide monetary meltdown. And they're due in large part to the manufacturing costs weighing them down as a result of the inordinate income, benefits, and pension plans that the UAW secured for it's members.
Predictably, Democrat Rep. Barney Frank immediately defended the union, contending that it was not any part of the automaker's problems.

When the option of restructuring the various companies' finances under Chapter 11 protection was suggested, Barney Frank responded "We already have too much union busting and too much income inequality for workers". That's alot like the Phillip Morris company insisting that an emphysema patient's smoking habit has nothing to do with his illness.

The research I've done shows a consensus of estimates that the cost to our Big Three is over $2000 (some say $2600) per car for their burdensome union contacts. How can they expect to compete with non-union car companies with those kind of built-in expenses?

Where, indeed, ARE we headed?

Well, the American people have spoken.

An energized and idealistic movement of people were inspired to vote for Barack Obama in great numbers by the eloquent and lofty rhetoric written for this great speechifier, and he delivered those speeches with great skill. He's got one helluva speech writer. Even this 106 year old nun, who hadn't voted since 1952, was captivated by his charisma.



I've read many of his speeches over the course of the last several months, many of them from before he even threw his hat in the ring. (Officially, that is.) Several of them have a poetic grace and rhythm similar to long-famous words attributed to some of our greatest orators. This one, for instance, is filled with several stanzas that truly stir the soul and lift the spirit.


I have no idea which spiels were written by whom, but the author behind his speeches is less important than the principles behind his policies. Hillary was on the right track when she analyzed Obama's initial attraction by saying "We have one speech in 2002 versus a record of accomplishment and a record of action." And that ingredient to his attraction only grew during the primaries and the final campaign, with more great speeches. However, there's more to governing than giving speeches.

That said, even if Obama were to be the steady, thoughtful, listening, intelligent, competent, serious-business president that we all hope he'll be, it doesn't change the fact that his policy initiatives and the political philosophy that guides them, are from the "progressive" leftist wing of the Democratic Party. A brief perusal of some of the issues under the AGENDA tab on his new transition website gives us a glimpse of where we're headed:
***10/10/08 UPDATE: Those sneaky bastards disabled all the topics under the AGENDA tab!! The quoted excerpts below were there a few days ago. Perhaps they're "tweaking" their grand scheme a bit... Will their designs on your life be better, or worse when they reappear? We'll see.....! ***


“Obama and Biden support a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.”

Wasn't that the essence of the immigration bill that was previously killed by a massive outpouring of grassroots citizen opposition?

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a
plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high
school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.” (my emphasis)

Did he get this idea from Castro, Chavez, or Mao Tse-tung?

“Obama and Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and
powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.”

Completely eliminated? The tougher sentences for crack were a response to the crime wave of street violence that were destroying urban areas in the '80's, especially gang activity. As Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami, said: "It is clear that crack cocaine and white powder cocaine had a very different impact in terms of not only the lives of the users but the impact on the community." However, leftists like Obama ignore historical context and insist that the sentencing disparity is only another example of "institutional racism" that was designed to unjustly target African-American drug pushers.

"Obama and Biden will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in areas that
have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student
academic achievement in cities across the nation. The Promise
Neighborhoods will be modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone,
which provides a full network of services, including early childhood
education, youth violence prevention efforts and after-school activities,
to an entire neighborhood from birth to college."

Well, at least it's not cradle-to-grave, only cradle-to-college. Is this really the responsibility of the Federal government, bureaucratically controlling entire neighborhoods across the country, experimenting to see if centralized-service-saturation of a community will produce Utopia? Talk about being a community organizer! The department overseeing this program might be called Central Planning.

Where are we headed?

On the eve of perhaps the most transformational election in our nation’s history, let us hearken to the ominous prediction of Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party USA’s most successful presidential candidate (and founder of the ACLU): "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Most people seem to scoff at the suggestion that Barack Obama is a socialist, or that his “spread the wealth around” and “bring about redistributive change” comments indicate socialist leanings.

I don’t.

I acknowledge that he’s not a member of the Socialist Party USA. He doesn’t have to be. He’s a Democrat, a progressive Democrat, and the most liberal Democrat in the US Senate. Why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free? Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is the only senator that may be to the left of Obama, and is an Independent (but caucuses with Dems, of course). At least he’s honest enough to admit his intentions. Barack Obama is not.

I don’t hold out much hope for this election because, sadly, the electorate’s voting trend over several decades may give credence to an observation Norman Thomas made near the end of his life: “The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly.” (Recent example: Bipartisan support for the financial bailout.)

Too many Americans have become too comfortable with government providing too many services to too many people. And it may be too late to stop the progressive juggernaut.

The Democrats owned the White House, the Senate, and the Congress in 1933 when FDR’s New Deal legislation flew thru his famous Hundred Days (with Republican support).

The Democrats owned the White House, the Senate, and the Congress in 1964 when LBJ’s Great Society legislation installed another round of progressive programs.

If the Democrats own the White House, the Senate, and the Congress in 2009, will BHO embark on yet another ambitious agenda to create the Amerika that he envisions?

Never mind that many of those programs were intended to be temporary to address problems-of-the-day and retired when things got better; as the brilliant economist Milton Friedman said “There’s nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”

The one thing we can be thankful to Comrade Obama for, although it hasn’t seemed to matter to so many Americans who just want “a chance to make history”, is that he hasn’t denied the permanence of his Universal Healthcare dream or his return to highly progressive tax rates. (The latter will most likely result in an actual reduction of proceeds to the Treasury, as the reverse of the principle that a significant cut in tax rates usually increases real collections.)

In summation, I fear that an Obama victory portends a bleak future for the formula of free market entrepreneurial capitalism, individual responsibility & autonomy, and voluntary personal charity that have made this country the greatest experiment in human governance of all time.
As P.J. O’Rourke put it, “America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.”

Obama wants to use diplomacy with these people?

Israel National News recently reported that Hamas' "Minister of Culture", Atallah Abu Al-Subh, called our Secretary of State a "black serpent" in a local TV interview. "With the arrival of that black scorpion with a cobra's head, Condoleezza, I began to worry that she would use her venomous fangs and hiss to kill this initiative and new spirit that we should protect," he said.



Abu Al-Subh continued: "The arrival of Condoleezza Rice is not a good sign... Condoleezza Rice, you are not welcome. Every proud Palestinian views you as a murderer, and sees the blood of the children of Palestine between your lips and on your fangs. I pray to Allah that you will soon slither away, along with your master who is more Zionist than the Zionists, that murderer and criminal, whose place in history is more advanced than that of Nero, Hulagu, Genghis Khan, Timor the Lame, Hitler, and Mussolini, and before them that of Nimrod -- that criminal murderer, little Bush, who is striving to fan the flames in this region."


How in the world would an Obama administration begin to have diplomatic discussions with such people?


Before addressing the radical mindset that produces such unenlightened thoughts, the crude, 7th century trashtalk itself deserves comment:

What the hell...?!?

What an ignorant, juvenile, archaic culture he's attempting to administer.

The isolated, hateful, deprived and depraved organization that created and nurtured him, and which he now helps to lead, produces that kind of paranoid delusional mindset. Many Palestinians and the people within groups like Hamas are forever blaming the tiny island of democracy that is Israel for all of their self-inflicted pathologies and their stagnant societies.

"Black serpent with a scorpion's head"..."her venomous fangs and hiss"..."the blood of the children of Palestine between your lips and on your fangs"..."I pray to Allah that you will soon slither away." How would Barack Obama even hope to begin reasoning with people that think this way? The truth is, you can't reason with them. You must neutralize or defeat them. Diplomacy doesn't work with everybody. Promoting the dangerously niave policy that we should engage in diplomatic talks with all of our enemies, or our allies' enemies, is one of the many reasons that underscore why Barack Obama isn't ready to lead this country.

New York's Hugo Chavez: Rep. Maurice Hinchey

Pictured to the right of (because it's hard to be to the left of) Phil Donahue

The citizens of the 22nd Congressional District must have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for candidates to represent them in Congress, since they've sent this idiot to Washington DC for eight terms now. Perhaps there are too many hippies still hanging around the "artists' enclave of Woodstock" in his district. Or just chalk-one-up for the power of incumbency. Whatever the cause, Hinchey, (the 1st word to describe him on his home page is "progressive", read: SOCIALIST) is the moron that wrongly, and malevolently, accused President Bush and Karl Rove of orchestrating the Rathergate episode, which I blogged about here.

Today he put his foot in his mouth again, ignorantly making more false claims he can't possibly back up, as well as exposing his collectivist desires.

In a press release responding to President Bush's call for more domestic oil exploration, Hinchey ignorantly claimed "...68 million untouched acres (already leased to oil companies) could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day, nearly double current domestic oil production." With no substantiation for his predictions, he further disgraces himself by citing his Leftist-paranoid conspiracy theory: "The oil companies are simply sitting on those 68 million acres until oil prices rise to $200 or $300 a barrel when they can make even greater profits at the expense of Americans," and that the president is colluding with them in "...an attempt by oil companies to grab as much federal land as they can before one of, if not the most, oil-friendly administration leaves office."

When asked about the subject of oil refinery capacity (because leftist tree huggers like Hinchey haven't allowed any new refineries to be built in 30 years), Comrade Hinchey endorsed the Socialist goal of taking over and nationalizing the privately owned oil refineries in this country. Such a power grab would draw either warm applause from fellow traveler Hugo Chavez, or his ire because of Commie-competition, which is a bit of an oxymoron, and rather ironic.

If Comrade Hinchey and Rahm Emanuel happen to know where to drill on those 68 million acres to get at the oil deposits that may or may not be there, perhaps they should tell us. What geological survey can they cite that indicates the oil companies are greedily sitting on known reserves? Like his source for knowing that President Bush faked his own would-be-damaging National Guard records, Hinchey "just knows it".

It's hard to decide which is worse: the hypocrisy of Leftists whining about gas prices when they are the ones who've blocked any expansion of domestic discovery and building refineries (not to mention nuclear power stations), or the Socialist tendencies to have the government take control over anything they want use of.

As if the government would run the refineries more efficiently...?!?

06/19/08 UPDATE: I just ran across this PRICELESS video of the CLUELESS Maxine Waters (by the way, who the hell keeps electing this mentally-challenged fool?) threatening Big Oil to take'em over!
A MUST SEE!

Rest in peace, Tim Russert- you did Buffalo proud

At just 58 years old, Tim Russert leaves this world way too early. His gracious, good natured, diplomatic, and yet tenacious approach to interviewing political guests on "Meet the Press" acheived, as well as anyone could, the principle of unbiased watchdog journalism.

God bless his family, his wife and son, and his father, "Big Russ", especially on this Father's Day weekend.

The company he keeps

For the last twenty years, Barack

Obama has kept company with some radically-minded and angry characters, who don't think very highly of the United States of America, and that's not even counting his wife, Michelle.

Clockwise from lower color photo: Tony Rezko (convicted June 4th on 16 counts of corruption); Bernardine Dohrn (domestic anti-establishment terrorist); Jeremiah Wright (Obama's 20-year pastor); Father Michael Pfleger (pictured w/close friend Louis Farrakhan), (recently-suspended, Al Jolsen-like, "Catholic" priest); Bill Ayers (domestic anti-establishment terrorist)

Below are some quotes by and descriptions of some of Obama's long-term friends. See if you can match them with the friends above:

A.) "America has been raping people of color, and America has to pay the price for the rape!"

B.) "...for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country." (Age: 44)

C.) "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home,kill your parents, that's where it's really at.''

D.) ''Dig it! (Charles) Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach.''

E.) He lived in 15 states, taking names of dead babies in cemeteries who were born in the same year as he. He describes his typical safe house: there were usually books by Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara's picture in the bedroom...

F.) America is a "just downright mean" country.

G.) He writes about his sexual experimentation as they tried to ''smash monogamy.'' They were ''an army of lovers,'' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend.

H.) ''I felt grand juries were illegal and coercive.'' (Hint: She's now a law professor at Northwestern!)

I.) During a protest against Chuck’s Gun Shop (Riverdale, IL.), he twice threatened to “snuff out” the shop’s owner and threatened the same fate for legislators who oppose his position on gun control.“We’re gonna find you and snuff you out,” he said about the gun shop owner, likening the man to a “rat.” “We’re gonna snuff out legislators who are voting against our gun laws and we’re coming for you because we are not going to sit idly.”

J.) Has been on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List".

With friends like this, who needs (political) enemies?

HC & HC: kindred spirits

They share a common disdain for capitalism. They share the same philosophy about their nation's health care system. They've been paired together in campaign ads for a Socialist candidate in Argentina. They even share the same initials.

Look at this appearance in front of a receptive audience at the DNC. And then see what her fellow-traveler has been doing since he acquired the kind of power for which she yearns.

On "This Week with George Stephanopoulos", Hillary said "The last seven years have been really hard on America. If you're welathy, if you're well connected, you've been taken care of. I think it's time we had a president who's going to be a champion again for the American people." (Except when fighting an enemy that has sworn to harm us.)

What's worse, Barack Obama's even a more strident socialist than Hillary.

Off the cuff Obama (or off his rocker?)

Hillary Clinton may have been onto something when she implied Barack Obama's only public policy skill is giving good speeches.
I've read many of Obama's speeches on his website, and he is a good speechifier. However, one begins to wonder if he actually had a hand in writing any of those eloquent speeches when Obama is caught going off-script.

Below is part of Obama's response, from a town hall meeting in Johnstown, PA, to a question about how his administration would approach HIV/AIDS and STD's in young girls. It has sparked alot of criticism for Obama's devaluing of human worth, when in the form of an unplanned child. Almost as insightful as his "punished with a baby" remark, is the inarticulate and clumsy rambling of an Obama-sans-teleprompter, nor a carefully crafted speech.


"So, when it comes to -- when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence only -- should include abstinence education and teaching that children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual.

But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16." (So, Obama equates a baby with an STD?) "You know, so, it doesn't make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and the values to make good decisions. That will be important, number one.

Then we're still going to have to provide better treatment for those who do have -- who do contract HIV/AIDS, because it's no longer a death sentence, if, in fact, you get the proper cocktails. It's expensive. That's why we want to prevent as much as possible.
But we should also provide better treatment. And we should focus on those sectors where it's prevalent and we've got to get over the stigma because understand that the fastest growth in HIV/AIDS is in heterosexuals, not gays. And so, we've got to get out of that stigma that we still have around it.
It's connected also to drug use. So, one of the things we have to do is to start thinking about better substance abuse treatment programs around drugs and not just treat it as a criminal justice issue. Treat it as a public health issue as well.

So -- but this all is connected to the idea of prevention and so my health care plan says, you know what? I don't want kids in the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma. I want them to get a primary care doctor and have regular check-ups and, you know, if we decreased obesity rates back to the rates that existed back in 1980, we would save the Medicare system a trillion dollars -- one trillion dollars because that's what's accounting for huge spikes in heart disease and diabetes and all kinds of preventable illnesses. So we've got to put emphasis on that.

Let me say one last thing, though. I'm going to use the presidential bully pulpit to start talking about people taking responsibility. We were talking about education earlier. It doesn't matter how good the job the schools are doing, if parents, you don't turn off your TV sets and put away your video games and make your kids do your homework and meet with the teachers, it won't make any difference. And the same is true on health care. I mean, some of us just have bad luck, and -- or genetically, are predisposed to certain diseases.

But, you know, if we're not all making some effort to get exercise and, you know, eat properly and not smoke and, you know, and I know -- I've had my own little battles. You know, I used to sneak a few cigarettes once in a while. My wife cut me off at the pass. She announced on 60 Minutes, she said, you know, "Yeah, he used to smoke (cocaine?) once in a while, and he promised me. So if you catch him, anybody out there" -- but that was good. I think we all have to take some responsibility for these issues as well. That's going to be important."

How can someone so stupid amass such wealth?

To save our planet from global warming, CNN founder Ted Turner insists the country (and "the whole world") needs to approach the problem "the same way we did when we entered WWII, we have to fully mobilize everything we have".



And then Turner warns us of his dire predictions if we don't: "Not doing it will be catastrophic. We’ll have eight degrees- we’ll be eight degrees hotter in ten- not ten- but thirty to forty years, and basically none of the crops will grow; most of the people will have died, and the rest of us’ll be cannibals- civilization will have broken down- the few people that are left will be living in, in, in a failed state like Somalia or Sudan, and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad- there’ll be no more corn growin’. It, it will- it, it- not doing it is suicide- just like dropping bombs on each other, and nuclear weapons is suicide."



Cannibals!? In thirty to forty years? His grandchildren, if they survive the Hades-like eight-degree higher temps, will become cannibals? Not much faith in humankind, I guess. Which is kind of funny, because in the same interview, he said "I mean, I know we're the same people (humans) who did the holocaust, but we also did the Mona Lisa and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony".



Not even the most hysterical climatologists have inferred that global warming, if its man-made, will reach the point of no return in thirty to forty years. (Thank God Ted caught himself on his original timeline of ten years or he may have been one of those cannibals!)





Interviewed on the Charlie Rose show on April 1st--wait just a gall-durned minute now! April 1st? Have I been duped? Was this just an April Fools joke I got snookered by?

No...after reviewing the entire show, I'd have to say that Turner was serious. And Rose is always serious. Sorry about the interruption...



As I was saying, Charlie Rose had "a conversation with Ted Turner" , which I've linked to, on his April 1st broadcast, in which Rose asked him about: CNN, conservation, AOL, journalism, George W. Bush, war, presidential election, cable news, Iraq, Time Warner [keyword links by Charlie Rose], as well as global warming, the Goodwill Games, and Fidel Castro.





When Rose cozies up to Turner with “people listen to you and the views you’re expressing”, Turner replies “They should. I think alot and I’m smart. Ya know, I’ve worked at that, I’ve worked at that.” Which is quite evident, when Turner later says "I love this planet, and it’s worth saving. It’s worth saving." Man, it doesn't get any smarter than that.

That wisdom is bolstered by this brilliant analysis of the Bush Administration (in response to a question about how we should address illegal immigration): “What are we gonna do- shoot ‘em?! Who are we gonna shoot? Our present administration figures that, just, ya know, if ya don’t like the way that somebody’s doin something just start shootin’m and bombin’m! But all that does is mak’m madder!”

"And I don’t like the wall, the wall… I remember we had a president that we all liked pretty much, and he said ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ " Sheer brilliance.



About the Goodwill Games, that he created, Turner says “I spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting peace between the countries, and understanding, and I’m sure that it led-that it was one of the things that led to the end of the Cold War- we’re a lot safer now than we were during the Cold War.” Later in the interview he does, at least, acknowledge that Ronald Reagan “was real instrumental in ending the Cold War”.



Turning the dialogue to the ailing Cuban communist dictator, Fidel Castro, Rose asks “Your friend, Fidel, is near death- or not?... Have you sent word to him, have you sent him a note saying…?” Turner says “I did. Yeah, cuz I’m concerned about him. I offered to stop down and see him, but I didn’t get an answer.”


Rose asks “So, do you think Fidel was a good man or a bad man?” Turner pauses, looking up ponderously, and says "Ah, I, I, I think he’s done a lot of good, and he’s done some bad too, I mean, I- I don’t like, ah, his human rights-" Rose interrupts to challenge him: “I thought you’d be a big 'freedom’ man'.” To which, Turner insists “I am. I am. That’s the thing I’m against. I was just gonna- tryin to say before you interrupted me, again… that I didn’t like his record on human rights and democracy.”

So, Turner has to ponder the question and search for a diplomatic answer about the murderous Commie tyrant, and offers up praise to him before begrudgingly criticising his "record on human rights", but he easily accuses- with no prompting whatsoever- that President Bush "figures that, just, ya know, if ya don’t like the way that somebody’s doin something just start shootin’m and bombin’m!" Mensa-like mentality there.

In response to a reference by Rose about communist North Vietnam being a great market for U.S. goods, Turner says "They’re great people. And we just killed three million of’m. If we hadn’t done that, we’d have even more customers over there. We’re killing our own customers!" Hey Ted!: The Viet Nam War was 35 years ago. (Maybe having been married to Hanoi Jane makes it seem like it was just yesterday.)

Turner sums up his To-Do list for America: "So we’ve gotta stop doing the two suicidal things, which are hanging on to our nuclear weapons and then after that we’ve got ta, we’ve got ta stabilize the population..." Rose interrupts, again, with “What’s wrong with the population?” To which Turner continues, “We’re too many people. That’s why we have global warming! We have global warming cuz too many people are using too much stuff! If there were less people they’d be using less stuff.” Plato would be proud of Ted.

As evidence of Turner's hypothesis, he contends, “The natural world is collapsing all around us, and global warming is just one manifestation of that. A few years ago, remember we had the hole in the ozone layer that was caused by CFC’s. We’re, we’re altering the climate and the world in so many different ways. And, and, and, what we’re doing is, is, is reducing the Earth’s carrying capacity, so that, each year the, the, the natural world gets poorer, and, and less able to support the increasing number of people. We have a finite world, but an infinite ability to increase our population, and we’ve got ta, we’ve got ta handle, handle that.”

Ted's solution for that?: “We’ve got to stabilize population. On a voluntary basis, everybody in the world’s gotta pledge to themselves: one or two children is it. And, and, and ah, we’ve got to do that, otherwise all the gains that we make in redoing our energy system are gonna be erased by a population increase.”


How in the world- you may be asking- did a moron like Ted Turner manage to build a financial empire and launch successful enterprises like CNN, TNT, and TBS while remaining so utterly clueless? Well, perhaps the answer lies in the distinct talents for making money that are separate from the conventional characteristics of intelligence. The sort of money-mind that only an economic genius possesses...one that allows Turner to make this sort of analogy to principal vs. interest: “Basically, we’ve got to take better care of our planet. We’ve got to move into a sustainable mode, that we’re living on the interest of the planet and not encroaching on the principal, like we are today.”

Now if we could only figure out what would represent interest, in the way of resources- and what would be the principal...

Half of marriages do NOT end in divorce!!

After hearing this ridiculous claim again tossed out on a news report the other day, I felt compelled to set the record straight, for the edification of the vast galaxy of Writeminded visitors, anyway.

This false statistic is thrown around so casually, it seems that many people citing it are almost promoting the demise of marriage as an institution. Viewing marriage as if it were some kind of archaic holdover from puritanical days of old, they eagerly repeat (without the slightest thought to it's glaring illegitimacy) the notion that half of all the married couples we know will see their promises of lifelong committment deteriorate into bitter, painful divorces.



I've heard Michael Medved address this statistical screwup at least a couple times on his radio show, in which he's pointed out that some really sloppy analysis (so easily corrected) of the stats simply compared the number of marriages to divorces in a given year, as if those marriages were also the ones dissolving that same year!
For example, the National Center for Health Statistics reported 2.4 million marriages in 1981, and 1.2 million divorces.

Now, a moron not prone to giving anything more than a nanosecond of reflection might compute that into a 50% failure rate. But the average 3rd grader would probably be wise enough to immediately comprehend that the many millions of marriages from previous years, going back several decades even, would comprise the pool from which those 1.2 million divorces came.



Here, for those caring enough to inform themselves, is a state-by-state table of the marriage rates, per 1000 people, for eight different years.
Here is a similar table for the divorces in those same years.

In my Minnesota, for example, the marriage-to-divorce rate ratio in 1990 was 7.7 to 3.5, per 1000 people. (Happily, the divorce rate dropped thru most of the proceeding years to 2.8 divorces per 1000 people in 2004.)

But it should be obvious to everyone that the couples calling it quits in any given year were not half of the same couples that just said their "I do"s.

That this common error hasn't been put to rest by the media reporting it, doesn't speak well for their attention to detail and fact-checking. And, the fact that the obviousness of the assumption didn't jump out at those reporters (and everyone else citing it) in the first place, leads one to think that they may have a vested interest in heralding the demise of the institution that is the cornerstone of civilized society.