The Noble Pundit

Well, At Least I'm In Good Company

I've mentioned before my desire to see the Supreme Court look only to the US Constitution for guidance, not foreign court rulings. Apparently, Antonin Scalia feels the same way.

I like that we have at least one justice who recognizes that the Court should not "impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans" because "...the practices of other countries are irrelevant because their constitutions are not at issue. International 'notions of justice are (thankfully) not always those of our people.'"

If things continue as they are, I'm still standing by my earlier statement that it may be time to remove a few justices via Article III, Sec. I. Breyer and Ginsburg would be a good start.

The Gutting Of The 4th

Friday afternoon the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans released a ruling that has essentially said the 4th Amendment no longer applies in cases of that "unreasonable search" thing.

I'm normally a law and order type person, but taking away the checks and balances required to get a search warrant is too much. I would rather see a couple of crimes go unpunished than to have the cops able to waltz into my house at any point, with no verified legitimate basis for the search. Especially if one of the reasons that can be given for the search is that the officer fears for his safety. That is much to subjective, unverifiable, and subject to abuse.

I have to put myself in agreement with the two dissenting judges that this is "the Road to Hell." Living in an Orwellian police state would be Hell.

I hope, I hope, I hope that the Supreme Court takes this case up and corrects the wrongs that have been inflicted by this ruling. If it is allowed to stand, what is the point of having the Constitution?

UPDATE: Jack at Random Fate links to a different article from the ABC affiliate in New Orleans that points out just how much worse this actually is. Very soon there will be nothing left of the Fourth to defend. The Bill of Rights were never intended to be negotiable. This cannot stand.

A Government Agency Held Accountable? How Can It Be?!?

Right after 9/11, one of the very actions that government strove to undertake was the creation of a new huge bureaucracy charged with protecting our transportation infrastructure. At the time, there were the cries of "But this bureaucracy will be different!," even as some lawmakers were expressing misgivings about such a bloated government endeavor. In the end, public pressure won out and the Transportation Security Administration was created.

Over the last few years, TSA has attempted to get its act together. It has subjected us to grandmothers being stripped searched, women being forced to consume their own breast milk, and the confiscation of untold thousands of nail clippers. We have been regaled with tales of the difficulties the TSA has had in finding quality personnel to man the checkpoints. We have witnessed TSA firing employees because they were hired without proper due diligence being conducted. We have stood there in line, holding our shoes instead of wearing them, wondering why TSA wasn't using some sort of profiling scheme. But most of all we fumed, because this time - despite the promises and assurances, things were the same.

But lawmakers, probably unintentionally, left us an out. Beginning November 19, three years to the day from the foundation of our newest bloated bureaucracy, airports can apply to opt out of government provided screeners.

The airports would have to hire in their own private security, supervised by TSA, of course. But in return they would have the freedom to staff as needed, when needed. No longer would the airline passengers be forced to adjust their schedule to the vagaries of government agency staffing plans. No longer would there be two screening stations open at 7 am and ten at 11 am (7 am is usually the big morning push, 11 is usually dead, awaiting the 12:30 arrivals). Instead, the airport could require the dictate to the screeners the right staffing for the flight schedule, rather than scheduling staff around the most convenient times for the employees.

The government and the unions have got to be starting to scramble, trying to figure out how they're going to stop the madness. For an airport like Melbourne, FL to go private is one thing - most people will never notice the difference, as they'll never go to Melbourne. But imagine if an Atlanta, a New York, or a Chicago goes private (don't expect to see Boston on that list until the very, very last moment, when John Kerry declares that he's been for security privatization ever since the day after he last voted for federalization). Start showing large segments of the traveling public the benefits of privatization and the game' up.

I'm guessing that when November 19 comes and the applications start rolling in, we'll probably see the unions cut a deal with the TSA to keep the big airports federalized. Some smaller airports will be privatized as a sop to the people, but the government will maintain its hold on the biggies.

And for most people, we'll hear the same refrain "But this time it will be different!"

And once again, nothing will fundamentally change. Accountability will still be a foreign concept to government agencies.

Another Addition To The Pantheon Of Exceedingly Bad Ideas

Here I was trying to avoid politics tonight, and I found one of the most singularly bad ideas I have ever seen proposed by a member of Congress. It violates the most important basic premise of our nation - that each of the three branches of government is governed by a system of checks and balances.

For the short version, Congressman Lewis of Kentucky has introduced a bill to the House that would allow Congress, with a supermajority vote, to overrule findings of the Supreme Court.

I'll agree with the Congressman that judicial activism has gone too far and we need to find a way to reign it in. But is the gutting of the Constitutional seperation of powers the best way to go? Not a chance in hell.

There are two checks on the power of the Legislature written into the Constitution. First, the President (or the Executive branch) can veto the law. That check is not an absolute one, however, with the ability of Congress to override the veto with a, here's an interesting suprise, supermajority vote. The Supreme Court has a more limited scope of things that they can examine, but a contrary Supreme Court ruling has always had the effect of scrapping the law.

If Congress thought the law to be necessary anyways, they have always had the Amendment process available to them to overrule the Supreme Court, but an Amendment requires the buyin of the states.

This bill would essentially circumvent the Amendment process.

First of all, I strongly believe that a simple law will not be enough to put this in force. It changes the basic structure of the Constitution. That, by definition, should require an Amendment.

Second off, I don't believe that we should put that much power into the hands of any one branch. Even the Imperial Judiciary doesn't have this much power. This law would put us at the mercy of a tyranny of the Congress.

Passing this law would take away any pretense of a need for responsible action on the part of Congress. No longer would they be bound by the constaints of checks and balances: they wouldn't have any.

This bill likely has no chance of going anywhere, but I think that its introduction raises some pretty serious red flags. We are going too far in the other direction in our quest to save the country from the Judiciary.

We have to find the proper balance. I don't know what the ultimate answer will be, but I know that this should not be it.

Replacing one tyranny with another is pretty unproductive, all in all.

Souvenirs Vs. Historical Artifacts

There seems to be a big brouhaha brewing over the final disposition of a number of objects from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacks of 9/11. Some folks are understandably upset that a number of items have been appropriated as souvenirs.

If items are taken simply as momentos or some other kind of personal use, then I agree that there is something abjectly perverted about it.

If the taking of a momento puts an investigation or prosecution in jeopardy, then it needs to be punished.

But not all taking of items is wrong. In some cases, a greater good may be found in the effort.

In the middle of the article there is a few short paragraphs:

The report also states the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe Clark, contacted FBI officials in New York requesting a piece of debris to display in an exhibit dealing with hate crimes. A 100-pound piece of steel was sent to Clark, the report said.

The report stated FBI agents who worked in New York repeatedly expressed their disgust that visiting agents and supervisors would seek souvenirs from the terrorist attacks.

Many interviewed regarded the debris as sacred, the reported stated, "and were disgusted by the fact that anyone would want to take items, including pieces of the building which were contaminated with blood and human body parts."

The implication is that there was something wrong with Mr. Clark's request. But I honestly don't believe that there was.

His intention is not to put the piece in his personal collection. His intention is not to try to profit either financially or emotionally from having the piece. Rather he is using it to try to educate.

9/11 is part of our history - an important part. It is not an event that can be ignored. It is not event which should have all evidence of it destroyed. There need to be a few pieces out there where people can see them. There need to be a few pieces out there to remind us of the horror of that day - and of the resolve and unity that followed.

There need to be a few unsanitized pieces, ones that still show the human toll of that day. 9/11 was not clinical. Neither was our reaction.

On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem the Palestinians have set up some museum to the people killed in the fighting on and around the Mount itself. Most of the museum is displays of guns or rocks or flags, with lots of text panels.

But the last display showing a few of the bloody shirts of those wounded or killed on the Mount grabs the visitor. I probably learned more at that last display than I did in the entire rest of the museum.

Was it wrong to display the bloody shirts? I don't think so. History is not always happy. Sometimes history is brutal. Sometimes history is bloody. That part of history needs to be confronted and studied just as much as the Renaissance or the Reformation.

I would commend Agent Clark for trying to make an effort at gaining some good out of such an awful tragedy. Maybe his exhibit won't influence a single person; maybe it will influence countless numbers. We don't know and probably never can or will know. But at least an attempt is being made.

When I look back through my photo albums, I come across a picture of me standing on the observation deck on the top of the Center in 1986. I look at that photo and then I see images from the destruction of the Towers and it makes me sick.

But over time the impact of photos has a tendency to fade. Images can be manipulated. Images can be denied. In the end, they are but colors and patterns on paper that create a representative record of a moment in time. But they are not real.

It is much easier to deny a photograph than it is a block of steel. It is much easier to deny a memory than it is a bloody shirt. It is much easier to deny a textual account than it is a real and tangible artifact of the event. Holocaust deniers can deny the photographs and records of Dachau, but they cannot deny its existence or that of the ovens. We need to keep the memory of 9/11 alive by keeping pieces and parts of the horror where people can see them and remember for themselves their individual horrors of that day.

Now what about Rumsfeld and the piece of metal he keeps on display on a table in his office? That's a little bit tougher.

I would like to see the piece out on display where more people can see, but I don't think we can really pass judgment until he leaves office. If he takes the piece with him, that would be wrong and contemptible. If he leaves it behind as a permanent memorial, then I don't really have any problem with it except for its location.

When we look back at history, we see days of abject tragedy. We remember and try to learn from those days so that the mistakes that brought them on are not made again.

But for the battles we best remember we have physical reminders. It may be the fields of Gettysburg or it may be the hulk of the USS Arizona sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. But with 9/11, the Pentagon has already been repaired and the WTC is going to be rebuilt. There is still the field of Shanksville and there will certainly be some kind of memorial park or stone in Lower Manhattan, but for most people, the physical reminders of that horrible day will be erased. The day will become but a memory, with all the deniability that memory entails.

There is a difference between souvenirs and historical artifacts. I can empathize with the families of the victims of 9/11 in their disgust over the former. But I can also see and appreciate the need for the latter.

We owe it to the victims to not let their day become nothing more than a bad memory.

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty & Guilty

Those were the verdicts on the four remaining charges against Martha Stewart. After the judge threw out the most serious charge, the jury nailed her on the other four.

And I think that they were right.

Martha Stewart was not just a happy homemaker investing in the market. She was an astute businesswoman; she was a former stockbroker.

Got that?

A former stockbroker.

That statement right there, I believe, changed the whole set of standards by which she should have been - and was - judged. When I earned my Series 7 license back in the day, I was told that passing the 7 was the same as proving that you knew more about investments, investment law, and the regulations surrounding the stock market than 85% of the population. After having done my tour of duty as a broker, I believe that it is pretty close to an accurate statement.

For the 7, and the Series 63 blue sky exam (which allows you to be registered in different states), one of the biggest focuses of the law portion of the exam is insider trading. Martha has to have known the laws - which is why she was able to concoct a good enough story to beat the insider trading rap (it was never filed).

But what she forgot is that by virtue of having been a broker, she is held to a higher standard. My 7 lapsed last week. But still, I have a filing cabinet full of papers related to various trades, actual or considered. I have anything that might be considered pertinent if there was ever a question as to why I made a particular trade. Martha should have had the same. It's part of the ongoing price to pay for having played in the industry.

And that's why I feel no real sympathy for Martha. She had an opportunity (neigh: obligation)at the time of the trades (and before) to accumulate the documentation and reasonings that would have proved her contention - if it were true.

But instead, she failed to do what was required of her. She allowed herself, likely through neglect, to arrive in a situation where she could be endangered by a person's word. She had an opportunity to give herself an airtight defense, but instead she allowed herself to be impeached by a 27 year old drug user.

Do I personally buy the story of the stop order at 60? Not really. I would have expected the broker to do more than to make a handwritten notation in Martha's position statement indicating the sell order. Maybe it's just me, but if that is what Bacanovic really did, I would almost say that he's guilty of a breach of fiduciary responsibility (a very bad thing in the investment world, believe you me).

There are just too many things that don't add up in the parts of the story I've been able to follow. Martha's explanation just doesn't really seem to be up to snuff.

Hopefully her Jailhouse Living edition will be.

Gay Marriage Dealt A Setback In NY

Finally, a government official who understands his duty. Eliot Spitzer, the Attorney General in New York, has come out and said that he personally supports the gay marriage movement, but that he is required to uphold the law as written - despite his personal beliefs.

Spitzer is absolutely correct in his position. His attitude towards the existing law should be the attitude that every member of the executive branch, whether they be President, Governor, AG, or mayor.

The proponents of gay marriage keep pushing this issue all the wrong ways. Instead of trying to change the law from within, they are attmepting all these extralegal manuevers which I think are doing nothing more than seriously polarizing the issue. The advocates for gay marriage had a relatively favorable environment for making their case a year ago. When the general population was relatively apathetic towards the issue, it was easy to swing the fence sitters to the pro-marriage side. But through their actions, the proponents have mobilized the anti-gay marriage forces and have given them ammunition to use in the form of the legal end-arounds.

The gay marriage proponents need more Eliot Spitzers and fewer Gavin Newsoms or Jason Wests. Too bad it's probably already too late.

This Should Be Happening In More Places (Like San Francisco)

The mayor of New Paltz, NY has been criminally charged for marrying homosexual couples in his town.

He only faces $500 in fines and potentially a year in jail (which I would seriously doubt will happen), but it still sends a pretty strong message - and one that needs to be sent: the laws must be obeyed, even when they are disagreeable.

The mayor of a town, a burg, a village, or a metropolis has no right to decide to violate a law with impunity. He is as bound to them as the rest of us. No person is above the law.

I really hope that they do throw Mayor West in jail. It would set a powerful and chilling precedent for other potential righteous mayors.

Some people will have a problem with that statement saying that it would also cast a chilling effect on the national debate surrounding gay marriage. I disagree.

Just as we must seperate the illegal marriage cerimonies from the debate, we must also seperate the consequences of the illegalities. The issue is distinct from the acts that are occuring.

Where this really needs to happen, though, is San Francisco. Gavin Newsom needs to be charged like this. He, like the mayor of New Paltz, has openly and deliberately violated the law. A criminal act is a criminal act. Period.

D.W.W.TV?

I'm rather stunned that there is actually a charge for driving while watching television.

That one just strikes me as bizarre. Who would have thought that we needed to explicitly outlaw driving an automobile while watching the boob tube?

Now this guy also managed to take the concept of driving while watching the boob tube to a new level by getting pulled over while watching porn. He was caught because the cops could see the film showing on the headrest mounted screens.

Maybe it's time to come up with a new charge for situations like this: driving while being undeniably stupid. It would certainly be easier than trying to make sure that you are charging with the use of the proper banned electronic device.

Driving while watching television. That is just too funny.

This Pretty Well Sums It Up

If this isn't reason enough for removing Gavin Newsom from office in San Francisco, I don't know what it:

Yet what really matters to Mayor Gavin Newsom is what they're saying in the neighborhoods of San Francisco - that his decision to buck California law and grant marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples makes him a hero. (emphasis mine)

"At the end of the day I sleep well, and in life there is nothing more important than that," Newsom said Saturday during an interview at City Hall, where nearly 3,200 same-sex couples have taken vows in the last 10 days. "What matters is doing the right thing and being true to yourself and standing up on principle." (emphasis mine again)

He claims to have based his decision "based on his reading of the California Constitution."

Now would this be the same Constitution that provided for a seperation of powers in the government? Would this be the same Constitution that he is essentially ignoring based on his view of "doing the right thing?"

Gay marriage is not on par with murder. Right and wrong is not as clear cut, no matter how much the extremists, like Mr. Newsom, might want us to believe. I'm sure that Mr. Newsom would complain vociferously about a marriage amendment being an imposition of someone else's morality, yet what he has done is to impose his vision of morality on his city. What makes his version better? What makes his vision superior to everyone elses?

Mr. Newsom needs to understand that there are ideals in our government that are more important than his status as a "hero." Our system of government is far more important than Mr. Newsom's ability to sleep better at night.

If he's willing to act the little tyrant for pride, then Mr. Newsom has no business being in office.

Right Idea, Wrong Time

So the city of San Francisco has decided that now it is time to sue the State of California in order to have the same sex marriage ban declared unconstitutional. I'll give the city credit for realizing how the process should have worked from day one, but it still doesn't make the actions of the mayor right.

Even if the law is declared unconstitutional, it doesn't change the fact that the mayor still willfully and knowingly violated it. It doesn't make the mayor right and it does not change the fact that I believe that the mayor should be removed from office for violating the law.

The mayor has a responsibility to enforce all the laws, not just the ones that he agrees with. If he disagrees with a particular law, he has the right to appeal to the court to have the law overturned - that is the essence of the system of checks and balances, two branches of government can overrule the third to keep power from investing itself in any one branch.

But the mayor did not use a legal recourse in approaching this matter. He instead chose civil disobedience. That is certainly his right, but he needs to acknowledge that violating the law, even as part of a peaceful protest, has consequences. If you're a politician in power, that should include involuntary removal from office.

It's nice that the city finally decided to act in a legal, responsible manner, but in my opinion, it is too little, too late to be able to save the mayor. He needs to be forced from office.

Does The Phrase "All-Volunteer" Mean Anything?

Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution has written a column in which she decrys the unfairness of the all-volunteer military claiming because we don't have a draft that affulent whites are being given a free pass on military service.

I guess the concept of "all-volunteer" escapes Ms. Tucker. In a volunteer force, no one is compelled to join the military. For minorities, they may find the military to be a haven of non-discrimination, and the poorer among us may find the military to be a respectable and reasonable path to middle classdom. But everyone who joins does so of their own free will. In some way, shape or form, they have decided that the military provides the best answer to their needs at this point.

If the military meets the needs of these people - and these people meet the needs of the military - where is the problem? Not everyone is suited for the military. If there is a problem here it is because we are not making the military an attractive option to everyone.

I find Ms. Tucker's assertation that 500 American soldiers have died in Iraq with scarcely a mention to be very odd. The deaths have been examined in almost excruciating detail in the media. In wars past we would hear, say, 25 soldiers died this week - and that, plus a list of their names, would be it. In this conflict (and the peacekeeping that has followed) we not only learn about each and every soldier that dies, we also learn the manner of their death, the events surrounding it, theorizing about failures that may have led to the death, the reaction of the family and friends - all of which stands in stark contrast to conflicts past. Each death is much more personal. And our resolve to make sure that they are not in vain is that much greater.

For Ms. Tucker to claim that we are where we are because of a lack of affluent soldiers is preposterous. We are where we are because of Saddam Hussein and the dithering of previous administrations dating back to 1991.

I would really like to know what Ms. Tucker's solution to this "problem" would be.

OK, This Is Too Much

First we had the slutty dress defense against rape - you know "The way she dressed, she was asking for it" - and now we have a new version - "He was so attractive, I couldn't help myself." This is not only the stated defense, it was the successful defense used by a gay man who bought crystal meth for an undercover cop in Ft. Lauderdale!

Had the argument been that he had been badgered into doing something he might not have otherwise done, I might buy it (he was apparently asked multiple times to do so). But no, instead they release the guy because he was entrapped by "nonverbal communication."

Give me a break.

I don't believe that the "victim" was truly entrapped. He willingly bought the narcotics. His motive may not have been the most idealistic (he was apparently doing it in an effort to further his relationship with the cop), but I would also find it very hard to actually convict the guy of selling narcotics (if that was indeed the charge, rather than simple possession) as it doesn't sound like he expected the cop to pay, at least not monetarily. Convict him of being incredibly stupid and desperate. Maybe even convict him of possession.

But remember he chose to act this way of his own free will, regardless of the attractiveness of the cop in question.

This Is Inspiring

So someone had the bright idea to try to ask NASA how much the mission to Mars is going to cost. NASA's answer? Don't know and don't want to know yet.

For some strange reason, I'm guessing that beyond the general idea of sending a man to Mars, NASA probably has no idea how they're even going to begin to approach this challenge.

I'm sorry to say it, but at some point NASA has got to quite thinking in abstracts and start setting limitations on the scope of the project. I would even be so bold as to venture that a good place to start would be to set a date. From there we can start working backwards to determine what technology exists that would be useful and also what technology needs to be developed and by when.

At that point we could start having real discussions with the Russians about how they might be able to contribute (As they want to and as they should. We need to tap this willing and able resource).

NASA needs to accept that the Mars mission will not be the blank check, cutting edge program that they fantasize about. It's going to have to be a practical program, gently pushing the boundaries, rather than pushing them farther than imaginable. The mission to Mars will be special, not because of the sheer magnitude of it, like the Apollo missions, but simply because it is a taking our exploration to a new level.

The mission to Mars is a worthy and admirable goal. It is one worth pursuing. But it needs to have some definition besides "Going to Mars." Effective goals contain an element that makes them specific and makes them measureable. Our current statement of the goal is too vague. It needs to be better defined.

Of course, you do realize that once we're successful in this venture, as my father points out, the feminists and trial lawyers will be getting together to force a mission to put a woman on Venus. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise....

The Depravity Of Some People

Hey! I'm still alive! Or at least I think I am. Been working myself to death the last few weeks and spending what free time I have with the family which is the reasoning for the minimal posting, but this one this morning really got me going.

I was supposed to have an appointment early this afternoon, but it was changed to Monday, so I was sitting home this morning thinking that I would have a nice relaxing free day, maybe even updating the site. But then I got a phone call. Not just any phone call. This one was from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department (for reference I live in Seminole County about 150 miles to north) asking questions about a friend of our oldest child.

As it turns out, the moron (I've thrown him out of the house a couple of times already) was one of the two perpetrators in the beating of a homeless deaf-mute in Jupiter.

What possesses a person to do something like this? As a point of irony, CSI: Miami Monday night had as part of the storyline the beating (to death in that case) of a mentally handicapped person.

Now I'll admit that I am not the best person in the world when it comes to the mentally handicapped. More often than not, I find myself at a loss for how to act properly. There are times when I have very liitle patience and I generally feel very awkward and tried when trying to work with a mentally handicapped person (not always true, but more often than not unfortunately). But never, even in my greatest fits of frustration would I even consider hitting, much less beating to critical condition, someone - not even a person completely in command of faculties. Yet that is exactly what was done here.

For the record, the jerk in question tried to tell the cops that he lived here and that our oldest would bail his sorry butt out of jail. I told the cops that as far as I was concerned, if he was trying to use our address, he was homeless because he most certainly does not live here and that our daughter would be in now way, shape, or form coming down to bail his sorry excuse out.

One of these days, I'm going to make my fortune by figuring out what possesses people to be such idiots. God only knows I've got enough study subjects around me.

Slavery?

Geesh. Accusations of slavery in Florida are flying once again.

If the accusations are true, it would be truly deplorable. I am interested in finding out if we have a bit of hyperbole going here, though.

Slavery is a serious accusation and needs to be investigated and prosecuted as such.

Al Gore Busted For Smoking Pot!

Well, actually it was his son, Al Gore III, but it still makes for a good title, no? As it turns out, Gore #3 was cruising around Bethesda, MD with his lights off, his sunroof and windows open, in the freezing cold middle of the night. Cops found, besides a driver who was very likely wasted out of his mind, a partially smoked joint, a box with some extra weed in it, and the "odor of marijuana coming from inside the car."

Gore has been charged with misdemeanor possession of pot, as have his two male passengers.

I'll be interested to see how the Gore family reacts to this issue. When Jeb's daughter had her issues, she ended up in rehab. Will Al Gore end up there also? Inquiring minds want to know!

When Flag Burning Is Not Free Speech

Getting away from Saddam for a while, we have an article about a man banned from the Columbia, SC courthouse grounds for burning a Confederate flag.

Flag burning is a protected act, right? So why is this guy being punished for engaging in a protected act?

Burning a flag is protected speech, and should be, provided the flag is yours. The problem that this guy really ran into was that the flag belonged to the state.

He is now complaining that his sentence is restricting his right to petition his government. Well, it does. But he abused that right by destroying public property. His right to petition has not been denied. He may not have his favorite avenue available to him, but he is still permitted to petition for redress.

The best part of the story though: he burned the flag - dressed as a black Santa Claus. Got to give him creativity points for that one.

What A Wierd News Day!

OK. Today has definitely had a few odd articles floating around.

First we have Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, actually praising the fight against terror. He also agrees that the obstructionists like France and Germany don't deserve to get any reconstruction contracts. Did we ever expect to hear any Saudi official make such blunt statements?

And then, courtesy of Opinion Journal's Best Of The Web today, we find out that some of our friends over at Democratic Underground are actually upset that the economy is starting to show signs of rebound! And then to make it even better, is their link to a post from Lance Collins in whcih he bemoans the fact that low income folks like Republicans too. So according to these two, the Democrats are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Such is the state of confusion amongst their ranks. And they wonder why Dean, who seems to be pandering to both sides, sounds like he contradicts himself so often...

Saudi's supporting the war on terror and Democrats admitting that they don't want the economy to rebound solely for political reasons. What an odd day!

More Gun Violence

How long before the anti-gun nuts latch onto this story about a homeowner who attacked a teenager with a Revolutionary era musket? They will, of course, fail to mention that the kid was breaking and entering into the guy's home or that the kid was merely clubbed, not shot.

Too bad that the kid probably still didn't learn his lesson.

Just one more example of how having a gun in the home can help to promote home safety.

Outing Activist Teachers

The Sierra Times has a great column todayexposing some of the ways in which activist teachers try to indoctrinate our kids in school.

Their main tactic is to promote the idea of "critical thinking," but while critical thinking is important to developing your own beliefs it does not neccessarily mean a complete and total rejection of values previously held. Too often, teachers talk about critical thinking, but instead push for the student to take up a position in line with the values of the teacher.

There seems to be a real and genuine identity crises going on in the educational world between the teachers who truly want to teach and those who want to be intellectual parents. The teachers want family to be involved, want parents to help guide their children through life. The activists want to indoctrinate, which means that they really want to cause a schism between the kids and the parents so as to make the reeducation easier. Anymore, it seems like the members of the profession can't decide who or what they should be.

There need to be more administrators, like the one in the article, who recognize the problem for what it is. Parents need to spend more time being involved in their child's education.

But most importantly, we need to figure out how to rein in the activists.

The Mayoral Imperium In Orlando

Yesterday, I expressed my anger with the vote of the Orlando City Council to allow the demolition of the Jaymont Block in downtown Orlando. Today, I actually found myself in agreement with Orlando Sentinel columnist Myriam Marquez and her assertation that Mayor Buddy Dyer is acting like he possess the purple.

What he did was even worse than I had originally thought. At first, I must have overlooked certain words in the original articles I linked to as I thought that the City Council vote the other night was a real vote on the action. Turns out that it was simply a non-binding resolution. Even if the City Council had voted against the demo work, the permits were already pulled; the preliminary work had already begun. How secret was His Majesty Dyer's dealings with the developer? City Council members who voted for the resolution even expressed surprise at how advanced the preperations and such were.

Dyer claimed that we should accept his process because the public was allowed to comment. Unfortunately, the public comments meant just as much as the Council resolution - not a damn thing. Dyer claims that the process was open and public, yet he allowed everything to be hidden with confidentiality agreements and stifled any potential public debate by allowing the destruction of the property before anyone could use the courts to try to reign in his Imperial Mayoraldom.

Like I said, I rarely agree with Mrs. Marquez when it comes to opinion pieces, but in her column today she levelled some pretty serious factual charges. Conflicts of interest. Skirting of the State Sunshine Laws (laws in Florida designed to make sure that all government meetings are open to the public so that backroom dealing is minimized). Attempting to bypass the checks and balances in place to prevent an executive imperialism.

Buddy Dyer is an arrogant, apparently ethically challenged politician, who is in desperate need of a recall. Reviewing his actions, I would have to seriously question if he has the best interests of the citizens of Orlando at heart. If I lived within the city limits, I would be leading the charge to throw the bum out of office.

Buddy needs to have his imperial arrogance taken down a notch or two.

And People Wonder Why There Is No History In Orlando

Orlando's City Council laid a giant egg last night, voting to allow the complete demolition of the historic Jaymont Block in downtown with a mere "promise" to try to preserve the terra cotta of the old Woolworth's facade and with no attempt to save the 1942 facade of the old McCrory's building - one of the more familiar and unique storefronts in the downtown area.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to progress or even to redevelopment of the Jaymont Block - one of the prime downtown real estate parcels. I just think that there should be more of an effort made to preserve the history of Orlando as much as possible. Sometimes that might require making compromises. In this case, I think a fair compromise would have been for the developer to incorporate the historic facades into the new complex.

But instead, we have the midnight demolition. Mayor Buddy Dyer says the public had ample time to make their point of view heard - 4 hours during a City Council meeting. I think that he's wrong. He claims that the whole process was conducted openly - yet he allowed the City Preservation Board to be bypassed and asked Council members to sign confidentiality agreements before seeing the details of the plan a few weeks ago. Is that open? Or does it fail the smell test? Personally, I give it a big, fat F.

So now the Jaymont block facades go the way of the San Juan Hotel, the Beecham Theater, and numerous other historic structures in the city. Orlando has little history outside of Church Street because our city leaders are too weak to try to keep something of our past around. Progress is important and should be given priority, but not at the complete expense of heritage and history. Orlando deserves better.

Oops! Not Looking Good For The Wal-Mart Lady

Helpful things to keep in mind. If you're going to go after a store like Wal-Mart, it is not a good idea to have the media figure out that you've sued 16 times in the past.

It's kind of sad that she has turned herself into a professional victim. It's even more sad that in her scams she seems to be netting around $400. A good scam artist would at least figure out how to get something worthwhile out of the deal.

I'm starting to believe that this woman should be the poster child for punishing filers of frivolous lawsuits. I'm not going to comment on the accuracy or legitimacy of this complaint - my mother was trying to get the same DVD at another WalMart and had a less than stellar experience - but I really have to believe that this lady is gaming the system. She's been so obvious that she had one case thrown out in 10 minutes.

What this woman did was shameful. She managed not only to bring the glare of the spotlight on WalMart (that in and of itself is not a bad thing - the way they conducted the sale was deplorable - but her method was wrong), but she has given rise to the whole "Christmas is too commercialized" crowd. She became their poster child.

It's time to make her another.

Illegal Bologna Smuggling

Gee, first it was illegal aliens, then it was illegal narcotics, now people are trying to smuggle bologna across the border.

How did someone think that a border agent wouldn't notice the 756 lb car seat in the back of the truck, even with the kids sitting on it? Are they really so unimpressed with our border security that they think that they can smuggle over a third of a ton of bologna without getting caught?

I can understand the Customs point that the bologna was potentially dangerous. After all who would want to eat bologna that little kids had been sitting on (in addition to the refrigeration issues)? But why are they only going after the guy civilly? What not find some way to charge him with something like endangerment?

We're now smuggling bologna. What's next?

More Banned Computer Terms

Remember how Los Angeles wanted to ban certain computer terms? Well, BBSpot has a list of other computer terms banned by Los Angeles County, along with suggested replacement terms:

11. SCSI - Cleanliness impaired
10. Killer App - Socially Maladjusted App
9. USB - USA
8. Floppy Drive - Erectile Dysfunction Drive
7. DIP Switches - Mentally Challenged Switches
6. HyperThreading - Attention Deficit Disability Threading
5. Heat Sink - He/Sheat Sink
4. Winmodem - Funmodem
3. ATAPI Device - Native American Device
2. Motherboard - Non-gender Specific Parentboard
1. Cancel/Retry/Abort - Cancel/Retry/Allow Woman to Choose

You're A Mean Pair, Messrs. Grinch

"Twas three weeks 'til Christmas and all through the town, not a Rotarian was stirring, not even a clown. When in the night rose such a clatter, Grinch 1 and Grinch 2 stole the club Christmas trees, it did not matter.

Into their van they did cram and stack and then off on their quest they left, looking for crack.

"Trade the trees for crack or food" is what they told the cop, being more stupid than rude.

"The sad part of it is that anyone would steal Christmas trees," the Rotarians did deplore. But their $350 of trees and stands are on the lam no more.

No one knew if the two had retained attorneys that night, but one thing was for certain, Grinch 1 and Grinch 2 had had their brains squeezed a little too tight.

Guns Drawn, No Drugs Found

Nothing like a little overzealousness on the part of law enforcement. In a scene reminiscent of something that would happen in the little town I live in, 14 officers raided a high school looking for drugs. During the raid 12 to 14 kids were restrained with plastic handcuffs, 3 officers drew their weapons, and no drugs were found.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the idea that the cops should be able to enter a public school and to search kids for illegal narcotics. And by no means do I expect them to be successful in every search.

The officers were there based on school officials’ suspicions of pot sales. If the cops had conducted a normal, reasonable search, then I would have been cheering this as a wonderful example of the school system and law enforcement working together trying to clean up the schools to make them safer for everyone.

But what justification could there be for drawing weapons in a hallway inside a school? There are no reports of weapons being found on any of the students. There are no reports of students getting violent or threatening the safety of the officers. It sounds more like a couple of cops with a John Wayne syndrome going on, probably overreacting to a kid with a fresh mouth (surprise that would be).

I'm going to have to watch this one, looking to see what the Solicitor in the county has to say. I'm guessing that unless there is absolutely clear cut, unavoidable evidence of illegalities on the part of the cops, he'll probably decline to press charges. But the tone of his report, and any suggestions of imprudent action by the officers, will be interesting to see. I think that it will tell us more about what really happened in that hallway than anything else.

What Goes Up....

You know, I don't know who is the stupider party in this story, the guy tied to the tree with a noose around his neck or the moron firing live rounds into the air.

Joining the Klan or not, what would possess a man to willingly allow a noose to be placed on his neck as he's tied to a tree? From the sounds of it, the only difference between an initiation and a lynching is where the rope is tied to the tree.

And didn't the guy firing the gun understand basic physics? You fire a live round, that lead slug has to come down somewhere. It doesn't just harmlessly disappear into thin air if it doesn't hit anything on the way up. Hell, even the Palestinians have figured this out - they at least hold their AK-47s at a slight angle when they fire off their celebratory shots. Is it extraordinarily unlucky that Jeffery Murr ended up getting hit in the head with a bullet from heaven? Yes. Was it unforseeable? Not to anyone who had passed eighth grade science (which as I think about it is probably doubtful for Freeman).

God Almighty these guys are clueless.

Link via: A Small Victory

Well, Boo Hoo

Seated in the cabin was a 22-year-old New York City resident plucked from his bed in Queens who had just opened his own cell-phone store on the Upper West Side and thought he was legal until agents raided his family's home before dawn last winter.

A few rows away sat Mohammad Akbar, 48, who had befriended beat cops and other customers over coffee at the 7-Eleven where he worked in suburban Philadelphia. He submitted in April to the administration's "special registration" for men from Muslim countries, only to be shackled before the afternoon was out.

Not far from him was a supervisor of car-wash workers who was caught dozing in his car behind a Schaumburg office complex. Authorities detained him on a nearly 8-year-old deportation order. He's now jobless in Pakistan while the wife he left behind in a suburban apartment struggles to pay the bills....

Nearby, a teenager carried a cell phone to alert his mother the moment his older brother was home safely. It was the brother's string of jobs at Baltimore gas stations that had been the family's lifeline.

"[He] was our only hope," the young man said. "Now they're sending him back, so God knows what will happen."....

Those deported through the campaign, he predicted, will say: "We were a good ambassador to this country. We worked hard. We paid our taxes. We committed no crimes. And they kicked us out."....

All had been in the U.S. illegally (emphasis mine)

The Chicago Tribune is apparently deciding to run one of those long series in which they essentially bemoan the fact that people breaking the laws got caught and had to pay the price.

I feel bad for the genuinely good guys here that got deported for visa violations. Those who had jobs and were trying to become productive members of society should have the right to immediately reapply for their visa and their efforts in the US should be rewarded with an easier path to getting their visas. They have already proven that they aren't freeloaders and they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

That does not, however, excuse them from consequence from violating the law in the first place. They broke it, pure and simple, and for their violation, the law requires deportation. It may be unfortunate; it may be inconvenient, but it is what has to happen.

The Trib is making it sound as though there is some sinister dirty dealing going on here. They make it sound like Bush and Ashcroft got together to figure out the easiest way to deport the greatest number of Muslims.

I'm really sorry that the Tribune writers seem to have such a great problem with our laws being enforced. Is the enforcement targeted? In this case, yes. But it is also being done in response to a perceived national security threat. If a few hundred illegals get deported earlier than they might otherwise be, well that's just too bad. It may not be karmic justice, but that's not the goal of our legal system. We seek legal justice. That's a big difference.

In my opinion, if the Tribune wanted to provide these men with a real service instead of simply trying to spread an anti-Bush agenda, then they would be looking at ways to expedite the return of the gainfully employed deportees.

But this is not a problem solving article or series. It is merely a political hit piece disguised as news.

About the only thing they were missing was the "Oh, the humanity!" statement.

A New Federal Hate Crime Law?

Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy are trying to push through the Senate a new Hate Crime law allowing the Federal government to step up the penalties on people who commit a crime against a protected group.

The hate crime laws, both the proposed federal version and the existing state versions, are, in my opinion, overly vague and a distortion of the "equal under the law" ideal. What is the objective determination of a hate crime? Where is the standard written down?

I don't think it exists. Too often, talking heads or reporters can legitimately say "This might be classified as a hate crime." That's a problem. There should be no "might." There should be no question one way or the other. It either is or it isn't.

But under the current hate crime law regime there is a subjective component. Not everyone is assured of being treated equally. What is a distasteful, but non-hate act to one prosecutor may be a hate crime to another. Without an evenly applied objective standard, it is not right.

The law appears to be designed to allow the targeting of unpopular ideas. One of our core beliefs is that unpopular ideas should be allowed as much as the popular ones. The First Amendment was designed in part to protect unpopular speech. The hate crime law would not only subvert that ideal, but it would allow a tyranny of the minority by giving every minority the right to declare virtually any perceived slight as a hate crime worthy of federal prosecution.

There is no need for a federal hate crime law, but then again, there was no real need for the state versions, either. They are merely the results of politicians trying to prove themselves "tough on crime" without ever considering the real consequences of their well-intended laws.

The saying goes "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Well, in our case Hell is an unfree society in which people are prosecuted and persecuted for their ideas. The hate crime laws are but a stepping stone on that road.

UPDATE: Found an article in Penn State's student newspaper that is germaine to the discussion. The Office of Multicultural Affairs at PSU selectively enforces diveristy, which is exactly what would happen with a federal hate crime law. Favored minorities get preferrential treatement, while everyone else gets accused. It is just wrong.

Viagra: A Marriage Killer?

"Nobody had bothered to ask, might there be a downside, a dark underbelly to Viagra?"

Divorce lawyers are running around placing blame for the breakup of some marriages on the husband's use of Viagra. Personally, I find this argument to be intellectually weak and feel that this is more a case of the lawyers trying to build the groundwork for an eventual assault on Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra.

Just as "guns don't kill people, people kill people" Viagra does not cheat on its wife, the husband does. It is very weak to blame the tool for the actions of the person wielding the tool. Viagra doesn't screw women, men screw women. It is not the fault of the drug.

Yes the drug makes it more possible. But the drug does not force him to cheat, it is some greater underlying factor. Maybe the fling was cute; maybe his wife wasn't; maybe there was some other factor that made him want to get out of the relationship. In any event, it is his choice and his alone. It is not Pfizer's choice. It is not his wife's choice. His, and only his.

Perhaps Viagra exposes some of the rifts that would have otherwise stayed hidden in a loveless or faltering marriage. Is that something that Pfizer should be sued for? I don't think so.

Cheating on your mate is not a side effect of taking Viagra. Doing a clinical trial to ascertain if Viagra could create a tendency to cheat would be nearly impossible I would think as it would require an absolute determination of an impotent man's desire to cheat on his wife. It strikes me that making that determination would be an almost unattainable burden of proof.

Seeing as how a scientific study would be nearly impossible to achieve, I believe that some lawyers out looking for a big payday are starting to build an anecdotal case against Pfizer. I'll bet at some point we see a class action lawsuit against Pfizer based on the "evidence" that Viagra was named as a cause of a marriage failure in "X" number of divorce cases, or some junk scientist will publish a report based on "facts" found in divorce proceedings. Some way, some how Viagra being named in so many cases, without a real study or challenge will come back to hit Pfizer.

But for every bit of "evidence" being fabricated in divorce cases nationwide there is also evidence that suggests that the problem really isn't Viagra:

"My wife and I decided to separate. All this time, I'd thought that if I could have sex with her again, everything would work out fine. But it turns out that our problems are bigger than the sex thing. So we're splitting up."

"...our problems are bigger than the sex thing..." So is this proof of Viagra value or its "dark underbelly"? Is it better that these two people split up because he took Viagra and they discovered that their marriage had real problems? Or should they have stayed together longer, becoming more and more miserable together as the tensions mounted, until they either got a divorce or major health problems? Is it better to stay in a failing marriage through ignorance of the real irreconcilable differences or is it better to understand the depth of the problem facing you and then deciding to move forward to either counseling or divorce while there is still time to live life? It's a tough call, but I personally prefer the latter.

Viagra is not the perfect wonderdrug bereft of side effects. But causing infidelity is not one of them.

Viagra is not killing marriages. But failing marriages may kill Viagra.

Dusting Off Greenpeace By Dusting Off The Law Books

Greenpeace is now up in arms over the fact that the US Department of Justice has dusted off an 1872 law against "sailor mongering" to go after the organization. The law prohibits the boarding of a ship before its arrival in port and the conspiracy to do so. This is exactly what Greenpeace did.

They boarded a ship passing up the Florida coast (it's final destination was Charleston, South Carolina) to unfurl a banner protesting illegal logging of mahogany. Greenpeace chose this particular ship because they suspected it of transporting Brazilian mahogany.

Freedom of speech? Sure. Whether the ship was transporting mahogany or not, Greenpeace has an absolute right to protest illegal logging. However, if they choose to break the law, even unknowingly, while doing so, they must accept the consequences.

They broke the sailor mongering law. The law does not require success in the mongering endeavor, it prohibits the boarding. That is the illegal act. And that is what Greenpeace did. They boarded APL Jade.

Civil disobedience is not grounds for an exemption from the punishments associated with the acts. In this case, the DOJ appears to be bringing the charges against the organization itself. It would be hard for Greenpeace to argue that there was no organizational conspiracy to board the ship.

The DOJ seems to be approaching this with the goal of gaining a conviction, not because of the prison time or fines, but instead because they can then go to the IRS using the conviction as the basis for revoking the tax exempt status of the organization.

Is it an attempt to silence free speech? Maybe, I'll even say probably. But Greenpeace is being given every opportunity through the court system to defend their actions and to cast reasonable doubt. The DOJ isn't arbitrarily silencing Greenpeace, it is working the system, just like the protest organizations do.

There are consequences to breaking the law, even if it is being broken with the best of intentions. Greenpeace needs to remember that. They are no more above the law, even the obscure and unused ones, any more than you or I.

Marriage, Lesbians, and Adultery

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has decided, in a 3-2 decision, that homosexual sex is not adultery.

The basis for their decision? The "...definition of adultery in the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary..."

Apparently the decision had to be made after a man sued his wife for divorce, claiming that she had been engaging in an adulterous lesbian relationship during their marriage, which led to the ultimate breakup. He and his lawyer believe that the affair violated the sanctity of the marriage covenant.

I believe that they're right.

The problem I have with basing a legal decision on a strict interpretation of a 42 year old dictionary definition of a word is that dictionary definitions change. I'm guessing that when the Webster's people sat down in 1961 to commit to paper their definition of adultery they probably didn't ask "So is it adultery if two chicks get it on? Or what about two guys?" In 1961, these weren't big questions. Marriage was the norm and homosexuality was viewed as a deviant perversion. In the intervening 42 years, we have gone through a radical revolution in the way in which we view marriage and homosexuality. Which makes the 1961 definition a relic of a time long gone - and ripe for being updated in the next version of Webster's.

In my view, this creates a problem. What happens if the definition of adultery gets updated in the Fourth Webster's? Does that change the legitimacy of this ruling? If I found a more favorable definition in, say, the Second Webster's, could I use that? It strikes me that by basing the ruling on a dictionary definition - a very specific definition decided by a party other than the court - creates a situation in which court decisions could be changed or nullified by the editors of that dictionary.

I think that the dissenters in this decision have an excellent argument:

"We respectfully dissent because we believe that the majority's narrow construction of the word 'adultery' contravenes the legislature's intended purpose in sanctioning fault-based divorce for the protection of the injured spouse. To strictly adhere to the primary definition of adultery in the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary and a corollary definition of sexual intercourse, which on its face does not require coitus, is to avert one's eyes from the sexual realities of our world."

I'm guessing that the three justices didn't want to make a real decision. They didn't want to truly address homosexuality and it's relationship with heterosexual marriages. It was a decision in which no one would end up happy, no matter what the final decision was. So they found a cop-out instead. They passed the responsibility for exercising judgment off to the editors of Webster's in 1961.

What they did was not right, was not fair, was not what they were paid for, and was not surprising given the cowardice of most judges in the face of political correctness.

They shirked from their duty of calling adultery what it is, an unacceptable betrayal of the bonds of marriage.

How To Win Support For Your School

So, if you attend a school that is under attack for being offensive to a large segment of the population would you go and dress up as undercover cops posing as prostitutes for the purpose of robbing the johns? It doesn't strike me as the best way to win over the affections of the general population, but that is exactly what five transgender students have gone and done.

These guys are now going to be the poster children for why this school is not a wise idea. Cross dressing, homosexuality, prostitution, deceit, and illegal activities all rolled into one. Like it or not, they now epitomize all of the objections of the school's opponents.

Now for as much as wonder what the kids were thinking, I really have to wonder what the "johns" were thinking. They actually propositioned underage crossdressers posing as police officers and not only fell for all that, but they willingly turned over their ATM cards and PIN numbers, along with cash. I don't want to say that these guys deserved it (as no one does), but honestly, how clueless can you be?

This seems to be a story in which no one had any semblance of common sense. And unfortunately, I think that a lack of common sense is becoming much more prevalent.

Love The Security In The New $20

Well, it looks like our new redesigned and supposedly better $20 bill isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Two men in Utah were arrested last night while in the process of counterfeiting the new bill in a hotel room. They were caught after a clerk noticed that the counterfeit bills weren't real and the morons paid for a room at that hotel anyways.

Now that sounds like the bill did its job right? Wrong. They were able to pass them off as legit:

Counterfeit bills with the same serial number as the bill on the scanner have turned up in Riverdale, Ogden and South Ogden.

One of the biggest problems with the printing of currency is that people are always looking for a way to make a quick buck. No bill is completely counterfeit-proof and no bill ever will be. Scam artists can always find a way to work around any new security feature.

I'm just surpirsed that these two were able to get working on this so quickly. I still haven't even seen the new Monopoly money, except on commercials and advertisements superimposed on football fields.

I wonder how long before the next redesign?

From Each According To His Ability (To Pay)

The University of California Board of Regents is proving itself once again to be a bastion of Marxism.

In their latest brilliant move, they are considering a plan under which rich kids, those defined as have familial incomes of more than $90,000, will pay up to $3,000 a year more in tuition that a kid whose family income is less than $90,000. The reasoning is pure Marxist - the rich kid is able to pay more, so they should have to.

The University of California is a state supported institution. The folks paying this surcharge have already paid taxes. Why is California going to charge one taxpayer more than another for the same basic service?

Should rich folks pay a higher sales tax? They could afford it. Should they pay more to register their car? They could afford that too. Wealthy people can afford to pay more than poor folks for everything. Is that a justification for deliberately charging them more? No.

I'm sure that somewhere, the University of California has some declaration that they don't discriminate based on, among other things, income level. Chances are, this was put in as a justification for some special tuition assistance program for "underprivileged" people. Well, it cuts both ways. If you can discriminate against poor people based on their wealth, you can't discriminate against rich people based on theirs. Fair is fair is fair.

It's truly a shame to see how bad a mess the state of California has gotten itself into. The bills for all the years of fiscal irresponsibility are now coming due.

No Redneck Days?

This is getting simply ridiculous. First they insisted on diversity and acceptance of cultures "different" than your own. But now some parent up near Pensacola has declared that Redneck Day at school is a celebration of the "ignorant, white racist."

Bull. The term redneck applies to any white manual laborer who works outside. Planting crops, harvesting them, digging ditches, mowing lawns all involve looking down at the ground which has the effect of exposing the back of the neck to the sun. On us white folks, this will normally lead to a sunburn on the neck, hence the term "redneck."

"Redneck" does not connotate racism. We already have a term for that, it called racist. If you don't like that term, we also have an adequate synonym, bigot. If the person is of a lower socio-economic background we have to word poor to append as an adjective. You could possibly even use the phrase low-class. Why the necessity to twist the meaning of a perfectly good word when we already have a decent vocabulary with which to describe a low-class, poor, racist bigot?

Is it because it is a word that is often used to describe white people, particularly some of us in the South?

It doesn't have the historical connotations of a word like "cracker" (which is another I'm not particularly thrilled that they have turned into a racist term) which was a description originally of white, slave owning Floridians - a corruption of the sound, or crack, of the whip. It later, during the last part of the 19th century and into the 20th century became a term used to describe Floridians who wanted nothing more out of life than to sit on the front porch of their cracker homes, watching the world go by and the crops growing.

It doesn't have the undertones of Klansman or supremacist. It's a term to describe a hardworking, low wage earning white person. Why are we looking to automatically declare that person a racist?

At my kids' bus stop in the morning there is a parent like the one who made the racist quote. Everything that might possibly even be thought that it could be construed as a racist comment is over-reacted to and blown completely out of proportion. In this case, the parent is reacting to a stereotyped prejudice against poor, rural white folks. Is that not racism itself?

Kind of sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.

Less Then 300 Ships?

It's official: the US Navy has the fewest number of ships since prior to World War I. What was that Santayana quote? Those who fail to learn from history?

Like it or not, America has been, is, and will continue to be a maritime nation. We cannot function effectively without waterborne access to foreign supplies, particularly of oil. The sea lanes are our lifeblood, without them we lose much of our strength.

As such, we have a real need to maintain the freedom of travel on the high seas. Sure we've got the Coast Guard to help in that regard, but the blue water Navy is still the ultimate guarantor of our unfettered access to the oceans.

The Navy is also critical in quickly, effectively, and forcefully projecting American power in remote parts of the world. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when an overseas crisis rears its ugly head, the President doesn't ask where the artillery is, he asks where the carriers are. Many times, they are still the best, quickest, and most forceful way to make our interests understood by those who don't seem to appreciate the nuances of diplomacy. No one is scared by the sight of C-17s flying towards bases hundreds of miles away, but when you can see that looming mass that is an aircraft carrier on the horizon, you know then that your goose is cooked.

But