The Noble Pundit

A Tyranny Of The Minority & Distinctions

I tried this one early this morning, but my computer crashed before I could save it, so I'm giving it another shot.

I want to try to tie together two separate themes I've discussed in the past: hate crime laws (here and here) and the coarsening/loss of expression in the English language (here and here). I think the combination of the two are pushing our society in a direction that is not the way we want to be heading.

As I've mentioned before, one of the greatest threats arising from the loss of ability to express oneself in our language is leading to a loss of cognitive distinction. When people can no longer express themselves verbally, they lose the ability to distinguish between right and wrong; between good and evil; between people and the act.

To be truly fair to another when making judgments, we must be able to separate the act from the person (see Leni Riefenstahl); the person from the group (suicide bombers among the Palestinians); and the group from the society (al-Qaida from the Muslims). At the same time, we must be able to separate the society from the group (the Soviet Union was evil, but not all Russians are); the group from the person (not all Muslims are anti-Semitic); and the person from the act (sometimes good people have are forced into distasteful acts). Distinction is a key to protecting our society from tyranny.

But with our language being debased as it has, too often the distinctions are lost. And people who can make the distinction get branded as racists or hate-filled people. And the arguments against the charges are ignored, no matter how logical or well constructed, because the average person can't understand or comprehend the distinctions required to understand.

The racist tag has become one the most feared labels thrown around in our society these days. People will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid being labeled as such. The EU's recent decision to squash a report is a prime example. The report essentially reported a statistically verifiable and intuitively accurate fact: most anti-Semitic acts in Europe are committed by Muslims.

The EU backed away from confronting this fact because it might be considered to be anti-Islamic. Never mind that they have published three reports on anti-Islamic activities in Europe just since 9/11. Forget the fact that facing this fact is but the first step in the process of confronting a real problem. They're too afraid of being viewed as unfair or racist for reporting a fact.

A fact is a fact. Whether you like it or not; whether it is fair or not, it is what it is - a fact. It can be researched. It can be verified.

It is not racist. It is not biased. It simply reports what is. To shrink from the truth is to show the ultimate in weakness.

And that is being exploited to the max by special interest minorities. They are using the loss of ability to cognitively separate people, acts and groups to make it easy to brand huge swathes of society as racist. With their new power granted to them by the vague and expansive hate crime laws they are actually beginning to terrorize the majority.

Think about how many words can no longer be spoken, because they have been branded as racist words. Think about how many ideas have been branded as racist. Actions. Symbols. Concepts. Nearly everything can be considered by some group as racist - except for what the minorities pass approval on.

By passing hate crime laws that are abused by the PC police, we are chipping away at our freedoms. Freedom of speech? Have you seen a campus speech code lately? Freedom of association? Freedom of religion? They, too, can be hamstrung by hate crime activism.

Hate crime laws take away the very freedoms on which this country was founded. Yes, we want to avoid the tyranny of the majority (which is why we have a republican form of government, not a pure democracy), but in our effort to "protect" the rights of the minority, we are actually creating a tyranny of the minority.

They now dictate what we can say, where we can say it, when we can say it. They dictate what symbols we can display. All without hate crime legislation.

Passing a new hate crime law will only strengthen the hand of the minority. It will only make their tyranny worse. It will give them a better ability to further reduce the functional vocabulary of the English language, which will only exacerbate the problem.

Hate crime legislation is simply another step down the slippery slope to the loss of our freedom, our society, and ultimately our nation.

Quick Links

Unwanted Penis Web Ads Prompt Calif. Spam Rage - I don't condone what the guy did, but you just kind of knew that it was just a matter of time before this happened. I only surprised that he simply threatened and didn't act. The spammers are really destroying the usefulness of the internet.

Congress poised for antispam vote - It's a nice token gesture (though very watered down at this point). It's just too bad that nothing will really change. The spammers are generally offshore and outside our reach.

Computer citations coming to Mississippi - I'm guessing that there will be a lot of people upset over this, but if it allows the cops to do their job better and more efficiently allowing them more time for patrolling and making the streets safer, then so be it. This is a good use of the technology available.

Someone Needs To Monitor The Monitoring Centre

The EU Monitoring Centre has squashed a report on anti-Semitism in Europe because it acknowledged that most of the acts in Europe are being committed by Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups. The report is being called "too inflammatory."

It's official. The EU is now officially scared of the truth. Verifiable facts are ignored and dismissed. Rather than confront the ugly truth before them, they try to soft-sell it and to push the blame off on more broad based groups.

A spade is a spade is a spade. Arguing over the definition of anti-Semitism instead of confronting it head-on is kind of link arguing about the finer points of the definition of murder while the murderer walks free. The argument does nothing to further the cause of justice. Without fair justice, impartial and rule bound, society will collapse. To fail to call a spade what it is, the EUMC is ignoring the societal need for justice.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that most (but not all) anti-Semitic acts these days are being perpetrated by followers of Islam. It may be unfortunate; it may be disappointing; it may be disheartening; it may even be painful to acknowledge. But a fact is a fact. There is simply no getting around that.

Are there anti-Islamic acts taking place in Europe today? I'm sure that there are. Since 9/11, the EUMC has even published three reports of anti-Islamic activities in Europe. But still they protest and call for "fairness" when it comes to a report on anti-Semitism. Imagine the outcry if someone had called for fairness and balance in one of the anti-Islamic activities.

Someone at the EUMC needs to get a clue and to recognize that not everyone in the world is nice and friendly and that sometimes the self-appointed job of monitoring people involves pointing out difficult to swallow observations. Like the demographics of the average anti-Semitist in Europe. It may not be nice and it may not be fun, but it is supposedly what they're getting paid for.

And they wonder why the Americans don't want to take them seriously...

Why I Don't Like Hate Crime Laws

A few days ago I linked to an article that pointed out that the federal government was close to passing a federal hate crime law. At the time I mentioned that I mentioned that hate crime laws in general are too vague which could lead to potential abuse.

Now today, I find an article about how the Australian hate crime laws are being perverted and used for religious persecution. Currently they have a case pending against two Christian pastors for "vilifying Islam" while a witch has filed a complaint against a councilman, claiming that he made warnings about potential occult activity.

Common denominator? The law is being used to attack Christians.

That's why I don't like the hate crime laws. They are being used by the out of power organizations, whether they be Islamic or Wiccan, to destroy the effectiveness of the primary religious institution in the region. Rather than competing for adherents and power on the basis of responding to the needs of the people, they try to drag Christianity down.

That's the basic problem with the hate crime laws, they are not a tool for the government, they are a tool for weak and unpopular special interest groups to attack and tear down the foundations of our society through the court system, since they cannot compete in the court of public opinion.

Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy are enabling this kind of behavior here with their proposed federal hate crime law. If it passes, I can't wait for the first time that one of those two complains about the overcrowding of the court systems.

I'm Still Here!

Don't worry! I'm still alive, sort of.

Today was a mess of a day. I was up until about 1 last night due to one of the kids ending up in the ER. Our outstanding local hospital sent her home saying that they didn't want to do an ultrasound there (she has a lump forming in her chest), but that she would be better served by seeing her doctor and having him write a referral for the procedure (which in normal circumstances will push the actual test back a couple of weeks). In the meantime, today the lump got larger, so she has a doctor's appointment at 9:45 tomorrow and hopefully we can get this ball rolling a little quicker, m'kay?

On top of that, today was also my first day at my new job! More money, better work environment, and a more focused job. I kind of felt like I did the first day I worked in the brokerage industry: questions and answers flying at me from all directions with me standing there in the middle trying to figure out what's going on. This job is requiring me to learn a new product (for me at least), billiard tables. I don't play pool. Before last week when I picked up the first brochures to start studying, I had absolutely no idea what to look for in a pool table. Today, one of my first phone calls was from a two-time female world champion billiard player. One of first questions: "Don't you know who I am?" My answer: "No ma'am, I can't say that I do. Sorry." That's rough. It did give my boss a good chuckle though.

Tomorrow should be a better day. Thursdays we're open til 7; Fridays until 6, so I should get home in time to do some reading and blogging before bed. I may also start trying to get a post up early in the morning since I don't have to get there until 10, but that'll have to wait until I figure out how long it's going to take me to get there.

Quick Links

Sorry about the dearth of posts today. It was last day at my job and I start my new one tomorrow morning. I also have a kid over at the ER right now, so I'm not really in a great blogging mood at the moment. I need to start trying to get some rest so that I'm not tired for the first day. So here are some of the articles I had been thinking about:

Only U.S. Strength Can Defeat Islamism - Excellent essay and I have to agree with the conclusion that Arab honor/shame is by far the biggest stumbling block to peace in the Middle East.

Israel’s Sacred Places - I don't agree with all the statements in this one, but I know that when I went to the Wall, I experienced many of the same feelings Mr. Shapiro describes. It is absolutely incredible.

Yasser Arafat is the Big Winner - A column detailing how Arafat has manipulated Oslo and made himself out to be the champion of peace in the face of the war-mongering Israelis.

Enough is Enough: Let’s Take This Country Back - How can you pass up an article with this paragraph: "Mormons used to have multiple wives. They can probably have them again, I suppose. Moslems already do in places. What if I wanted to marry every unmarried or divorced woman in Oregon? Would my employer have to provide health insurance coverage for all of them? If you can marry somebody of the same sex, what about bisexuals? Could they wed one of each sex at the same time? What if I wanted to marry a burro? Would my employer have to provide veterinary coverage?"

Apollo 11 Moon Landing Footage Out-take - For the tinfoil hat crowd.

Ancient Buddhist temple uncovered in west Afghanistan - One good thing about the Taliban, they were so inept at most anything besides terror that they weren't able to accomplish any of their other "goals." As a result, they missed this Buddhist temple. Despite their best efforts, even they couldn't completely destroy history.

Quick Links

India to deploy Israeli planes along border with China and Pakistan - An Indo-Israeli military cooperation. That has got to be worst nightmare of the Islamists in between.

Trade without borders - A not-so-flattering look at globalization, NAFTA and the effects on the workplace.

Ancient Jewish village uncovered in Jerusalem - A really cool find, but I'm most amazed by the order given to the priestly class to drive around the site until an underground separation is built. That's one of those things I never would have thought about.

Italy Is Catching On

Italy has announced plans to expel a Senegalese imam who has been running around making anti-Italian and pro-terrorism comments.

It's unfortunate that Italy is having to resort to expulsion, but I've got to give the Italian authorities credit, they are pro-actively taking steps (in this case, at least) to protect the interests of their citizens. The primary purpose of a national government is to provide for the safety and security of the people it represents. If that requires expelling foreign nationals, well then that's what they need to do.

Every resource and capability of the government needs to be brought to bear in the fight against terrorism. Immigration laws are just a small part of the toolbox that the government has to use.

I'm glad to see the Italians taking an affirmative action to reduce the threat of terror in their nation. Let's hope that they stay the course on it.

Progress!!!

If only this were true:

....Chairman Yasser Arafat said. He added that this was a result of the decision by the PA's security council to implement law and order

They're going to implement law and order? They're going to implement law and order! <dejection>They're going to implement law and order?</dejection>

I'm sorry, but Arafat saying he's going to implement law and order is a joke. The man does not understand law and order except to know that it only exists somewhere else. How can he possibly expect to enforce a concept with which he is totally unfamiliar?

It's nice to see the Palestinian Authority finally at least paying lip service to the idea, but it's going to take more than lip service and roadblocks to create a real environment of law and order. It is going to take a fundamental shift in the behavior and propaganda of the Authority.

I suppose we should be happy and thankful that Arafat has seen the light enough to justify such a proclamation, but I just can't help thinking that, like all the other politically expedient pronouncements he's made in the past, he won't actually follow through.

He did not know how and if the PA would punish the shooter if they apprehend him.

And therein lies the rub. They may catch the perpetrator. They may take a murderer off the street, but they don't know if they would punish him. If Arafat and the PA were truly committed to "law and order" there would be no question of if. The man would be prosecuted and sentenced regardless of public opinion or religious fatwa.

What good is arresting a criminal if you're not going to punish him?

A New Site For Me

Don't worry, this one isn't going away. Rather, I've decided to start a second blog site: Unofficial Orlando History Blog where I am going to try to build a site with photos, remembrances, and other stuff about the city in which I grew up and live.

Quick Links

Lots of interesting news stories today, but I'm beat at the moment and getting ready to head off for an early bed. But here are the stories I was looking at tonight:

Limbaugh Promises 'more Honesty to Come' in Radio Return - Rush, for whatever reason, has never been one of my favorites, but it's good to see him back on the radio. He has a lot of rehabilitation in front of him, both personally and professionally. Honesty is going to be the only path to true success for him and he needs to remember that.

Palestinians reprint schoolbooks praising jihad 'martyrs' - Yeah, Arafat wants peace....teaching hatred, muder, and suicide is certainly the proper path to take, right?

Terror futures market back in business - Strikes me as kind of low-class and distasteful, but I guess some people will gamble on anything. Don't know how much help it would really be in combating terrorism, but if it helps, I guess it helps.

Democrat Edwards Promises Higher Minimum Wage, Equal Pay - Let's see. We're in the first stages of a naisscent recovery - and we're going to raise the minimum wage, pricing more people out of the marketplace. And this is good economic policy, why?

U.S. Senate fails to force vote on aviation bill - You know, if the FAA, of all government agencies, is recommending that part of their job be privatized - DO IT! Ignore the unions in this case. The FAA is one of the least efficient agencies in the government and one that will not privatize so long as there is any other even slightly unreasonable reason not to. If the FAA is saying that these 69 towers should be privatized, then they need to be. Heck, even the DOT says there is no difference in safety while there is an improvement in efficiency.

Blogging As A Form Of Networking

Director Mitch over at The Window Manager has an interesting post today about networking, but with a twist. He looks at the blogosphere as it compares and contrasts to social networking.

Kind of an interesting point. I know that personally, I am also much more likely to respond to an email from a blogger (or one of my readers) than I am to respond to an email sent to my generic questions -at- cbnoble.com email address I have for my other site. Why? I don't know. I think part of it is because the fact that I've read your site, or that you've read mine, does give a little more insight into you than someone just randomly out of the blue sending me an email. I may not agree with a thing you've said, but I guess I respect you just a little more because there is a little tiny shred more of a personal relationship there.

Now I know that I only get to see what you expose, and believe me, what you see on this site is only a little tiny fraction of who I am. I don't profess to know you and don't expect you to know me, but at least there is some kind of a common ground there.

I have "met" and conversed with some very interesting people doing this. People that I never would have met otherwise. On those rare occasions that people ask me for help (and it is rare - you guys must know me too well!), I try to give what I can. I've gotten some great ideas for books to buy and for other websites to read. Blogging has certainly made me a richer (in the spiritual sense, not the monetary one) person.

Blogging is certainly a new tool for use in networking and I can see Director Mitch's point as to how it can really be a great advantage. Not everyone is doing it. This gives you one added avenue that the guy out there joining every club in town probably doesn't have. Blogging will certainly give you access to a much wider diversity of expertise and opinion than someone who doesn't know what a blog is.

I had never thought of this as a form of networking, but I guess it is. Anyone know of a good high paying job in the Orlando area that would give me lots of free time for blogging? :-)

Another Outstanding Protest

Chuck over at You Big Mouth, You! has a great series of photos of today's utterly underwhelming protest against VP Dick Cheney.

His "ironic photo of the day" is, well, extremely ironic. It looks like an example of what happens when a protest group tries to hire someone to protest for them. Whatcha wanna bet that they were the first one to jump up and yell: "I'm a lesbian!"?

Go take a look. Some of them are a riot.

Carnival Of The Capitalists #6 Is Up

Professor Bainbridge is hosting this week's edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists. He's now got it up and it is full of excellent posts (and mine) as usual.

Go over and take a look for your Monday morning reading!

Quick Links

Predators at law - Dishonest lawyers? Who'd a thunk it?

Betting on Bulgaria - Bulgaria is rapidly becoming one of the new success stories of Eastern Europe and good friends to us.

A Muslim Scholar Raises Hackles in France - Tariq Ramadan defending himself against accusations of being a demagogue and anti-Semite.

Gloomy French offered grim reading on nation's decline - This aren't looking to good in France these days and DeGaulle's quote: "France can only carry out reforms via revolutions" doesn't make it look any too promising.

Same-Sex Smooch Gets High School Girls Suspended - I got to agree with the school on this one: the way she handled the kiss, shouting it out, jumping on a tile, and then keeping it going for 12 seconds can certainly legitimately be labeled as disruptive.

Scan shows how brain suppresses latent racism - So does this imply that racism can be scientifically tested for?

Limbaugh's return to the microphone: Will his signal fade? - The true rehabilitation of Rush starts tomorrow.

Why Microsoft wants to buy - then trash - Google - A conspiracy theory to make the conspiracy theorists proud.

Closing the books on Arafat - Corruption in the PA? Say it ain't so!

A short history of PA corruption - Yep. I guess there really is. Gee, what a surprise.

Flying Into The Past

Delta has announced that they will test an "innovative One-class product in the Atlanta-Houston and Atlanta-Kansas City markets. Essentially, they are going to offer a flight in which all the seats are their business class seats: leather with a 36" (almost usable) seat pitch.

Let's see...An all "first class" flight...Where I have seen that before?

Well, Midwest Express has been doing it for years on their flights, but it actually is not a new concept for the airline industry. Used to be that every flight was all first class.

Unfortunately, I don't foresee Delta (or any airline other than Midwest Express) expanding this program. It may be wildly popular and even successful, but it introduces a number of operational issues to an already complex daily flight plan.

The aircraft being used are all of a different configuration than every other airplane in the fleet. In order to maintain the schedules, they're going to have to keep at least one, possibly two planes in reserve. Those aircraft will pretty much be unusable on any other route.

If this is successful, Delta is going to face a difficult decision: they can either expand the experiment and move more aircraft out of the mainline fleet or they can cut short the experiment and reintegrate the dedicated aircraft into the mainline fleet after scrapping the program.

Given the additional layer of complexity that this adds to fleet planning, fleet scheduling, and dealing with the various weather events that face airlines every day, I would say that the smart plan would be to either significantly expand the program in very short order or get rid of it altogether.

But Delta doesn't do it like that. They'll probably go at it half-heartedly hampering the effectiveness of the program and adding to the potential disruptions to service for the rest of us when we fly.

This sounds like a great idea - a response to a perceived need - but the implementation I think is going to be more of a problem than Delta is anticipating. But remember, none of the major's low cost division have been very successful and this is just a variation on the theme, going after service instead of price.

Is Peace With The Palestinians Possible?

So the question of the day. Is "peace in our time" between Israel and the Palestinians possible? Harry Weber doesn't believe so and I tend to agree with his assessment.

The Palestinians have had everything they demanded offered to them - in Oslo in 1993 - yet they rejected it. All of their demands were to be fulfilled in return for the recognition of Israel's right to exist in the Middle East. But Arafat and his cronies showed their hand unequivocally at the time, refusing to give up the written goal of pushing the Jews back into the sea.

As long as Arafat and the Koranic literalists are running the show, nothing will change. Israel is an affront to the fifteenth century interpretation of Islam. Free Jews, with their own nation and their city on the hill, Jerusalem, are absolutely evil and must be eliminated from the landscape.

Terrorism by the Arabs and Palestinians against the Jews has been a fact of life in the region, even before the creation of Israel. And things are getting worse, not better. The Palestinians are now objecting to UN resolutions introduced by Israel to help protect Jewish children. They claim it is too political, despite the fact that it very closely copies the one that was passed to protect Palestinian children a few days earlier.

The Palestinians have still yet to learn respect for the lives and rights to life of the Israelis. Until that happens, until the Palestinians show even the slightest bit of concern, "peace in our time" is as much a pipedream as it was at Munich in 1938.

And we can just look back at the experience of Neville Chamberlain to see how that worked out. You cannot appease a nation or a people with designs on imperialism. And Israel is viewed as being merely a roadblock on the path to the new Muslim Empire.

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round

Michele at A Small Victory has a post about virtues of exploring the blogosphere through links and blogrolls.

I've got to admit that I was introduced to the blogosphere by a link from OpinionJournal.com to InstaPundit way back in 2000 while I was bored at work one day. From there I would click and click exploring from site to site, finding some good ones and finding some lame ones, but almost always finding something of interest. Several times along the way I almost started my own site, only to back away for one reason or another (usually having to do with concerns about the compliance department at my previous job). Finally in February of this year, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. And I've been exploring even more ever since (I just have to remember to link to more of the good posts I find. A downfall on my part.).

Go through links on some of those blogs and you will come upon entire worlds that you never knew existed. By following one link from one blog that you've never been to, you can be an explorer and discover that the depths of the blogosphere are much, much deeper than you ever imagined. You'll meet authors and artists, mothers and fathers, cops and lawyers, gamers and hackers, cooks and waitresses, humorists and essayists.

This is part of blogging I love the most, just going from site to site to see what interesting stuff is out there. My father also does the same thing and usually ends up finding sites that I had overlooked (Allah Is In The House is the most recent example). Between us, we have found sites and people we never would have known about otherwise. I believe that we are richer people for the experience.

So jump on the bus! Take some time to go exploring. You never know what you might find.

Supermarket Cards

Jay Solo has an interesting post "Please Don't Card Me" in which he discusses the pros and cons of the supermarket customer loyalty cards - and also why he doesn't like them.

I got to agree, they are a pain in the butt. Anything like the loyalty cards, where they demand an address and/or phone number (or a zip code) before I get some benefit, I'm going to screw around with. No one with one of those programs has the right address or phone number for me. The address I always give them is for a PO Box I closed a while back; the phone number is my old one, which has been changed - without a forwarding number being available. Stores that ask for zip codes? I usually tell them something along the lines of 33311 (a South Florida zip code). I figure that if they want to get real demographic information, they need to do some real work for it. Just because I buy a package of hot dog rolls from you does not mean that I want you to know where I live or my phone number. It simply means I wanted a hot dogs for dinner.

Go over and take a look at Jay's post. He hit most all of the upsides and downsides to these kind of loyalty programs. It is well worth the read.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

Spam is such a wonderful thing. Pitches for penis patches, mail order Viagra, HGH, Paris Hilton porn videos, Brittany Spears nude photos, anti-spam programs and everything else under the sun. Reports now indicate that as much as 75% of all email may now be some form of unsolicited spam.

And it's not going unnoticed. The media is starting to take a look at the real costs associated with spam, including a loss of productivity in businesses.

I'm generally not a big fan of government regulation, but the spammers have gotten so out of control that they are threatening the real usefulness of the Internet. Some way, some how they have got to be stopped or slowed, otherwise they will kill the internet through spamicide.

In one 24-hour stretch, Postini's online spam tracker blocked 74,177,271 pieces of spam for its clients.

Over 74 million spams stopped in a 24 hour period by one company. Think about how many spamblocking companies there are. Think about how many people, like me, don't use a spamblocking service (I use other ways to divert about 75% of my spam to a box I never see). Think of how many hundreds of millions or even billions of emails per day that is. Now imagine how much time is spent dealing with spam, even if it only takes 3 seconds per email (on average) to erase each one. And then the time spent in resending emails that were accidentally deleted as spam. The costs to our economy are enormous.

The Internet is a wonderful tool that allows businesses to contact a large number of potential customers with very little cost. For mass marketers, this was an incredible opportunity - and many have exploited it well and responsibly.

But the spammers have no conscience and no concept of ensuring the long term health and usefulness of the Internet. And unfortunately, without external restraint being applied, they will destroy it for everyone.

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.

In South Park They "Blame Canada"; In Mecca, Israel

The Ramabomb in Riyadh has certainly caused a great deal of introspection and soul searching throughout the Middle East as they try to figure out the age-old question "Why do they hate us?" Remarkably, however, the mullahs of Mecca have come up with exactly the same answer as they have for every single other issue that exposes a shortcoming in the fifteenth century mindset of Wahhabism: It's all Israel's (read: the Jew's) fault.

What is the purpose of the black crime of killing children and women in the month of Islam, in a Muslim capital, and in a Muslim country, the country of the two holy mosques? They kill and spread destruction. What is the purpose of this crime and how can we explain this behavior?....

What do these killers in Riyadh want? Do terrorists in Israel and Riyadh have the same goal? Is it their goal to kill more Arabs and Muslims and to spread panic, trouble, and violence? Do they coordinate their actions?

Well of course they coordinate their actions. You just know that the SuperJew Osama was on the phone with Ariel Sharon getting the go ahead for Operation Ramabomb just minutes prior to the blast. Watch for the details of the al-Qaida company picnic in downtown Tel Aviv to be made public soon. Surely by now everyone knows that a terrorist organization backed by the Wahhabi government of Saudi Arabia is really nothing more than a front organization for the vast Zionist conspiracy. </sarcasm>

I'm really, really sorry here but I do not believe for a second that the bombing in Riyadh was even remotely connected in any way, shape, or form to Israel. The clerics simply need to realize that the hatred they spread on a daily basis: "O God, destroy the occupier Jews, who are spreading tyranny and corruption." is finally coming back to bite them.

al-Qaida is nothing more than a more fundamentalist, more militant, more violent offshoot of the standard issue Saudi Wahhabism. Like it or not, the Ramabomb attack is nothing more than a conspiracy by a bunch of nutjob Arabs to kill. They don't really care who they kill as long as someone dies as a result of their violence.

Once they learn that al-Qaida is an organization of their own making, maybe then we'll begin to see change. Until then, expect to hear much more about the vast Zionist conspiracy and the infamous question:

"Why do they hate us?"

Maybe The Canadian Health Care System Isn't Nirvana

The [Wall Street] Journal story also notes the outcry that arose when a heart patient died in 1989 after having surgery canceled 11 times....

Tragedies like that one led to a scoring system being put in place in one Ontario medical network to standardize waiting times for heart patients. Patients are assigned a score - a ``2'' should wait only 48 hours for surgery for example, a score between ``5'' and ``7'' can wait 120 days.

OK. So the Canadians have cheaper prescription drugs (and a veritable army of spammers trying to sell them here), but is their health care system really the best model for us to aspire to?

I don't really like the idea of nationalized health care. The last thing I want in my life is an bunch of uncaring, faceless bureaucrats looking at me as a number and then running a strict cost/benefit analysis to determine if I should live or not. My life is worth a whole hell of lot more to me than it is to them where I would be just another piece of paper to push from the In basket to the Out.

Putting a bureaucrat's life-altering (or life-saving) decision before mine or my family's is just wrong. Decisions of life and death are best decided by those involved.

There are very few things in this world that belong to you and you alone. Your health is one of them. We should not voluntarily give up our control over our health. To do so is to expand the powers of our government into the realm of the wannabe-God dictators.

No bureaucrat in America should have the power of life or death over any citizen.

Is Dean Too Liberal For The South?

Dixie Democrats consider Dean 'too liberal' to win

As for the intraparty squabble among the presidential candidates over Mr. Dean's recent remark about reaching out to white Southern voters who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flags on them, very few of the state chairmen were offended by his remark.

"I understand the point he was trying to make, but I don't know if he knows exactly how tall an order recruiting those voters would actually be," said Mississippi Democratic Chairman Rickey Cole.

.....

"I don't think he plays that well in North Carolina. I don't think he will play well in the South, period," she [North Carolina Democratic Chairwoman Barbara Allen, an Edwards supporter] said in an interview. "I'm speaking personally, but I don't think he knows a lot about the South. His remark about going after voters in pickups with Confederate flags rubbed people the wrong way here."

I really think that Dean made a huge error with his handling of the Confederate flag on pickup trucks issue. Basically he grabbed the attention of virtually every white male in the South and proved that he had no spine. For someone who desperately needs the South if he plans on getting elected, it was a blunder on the level of a winter invasion of Russia.

The DixieCrats are right, Dean can't win the South. If they want any hope of winning in '04, they will need to nominate someone else who might be able to carry a state or two down this way.

Let's keep hoping that Dean stays the Democratic frontrunner!