A Few More Things

Okay... the model who wanted to be a newscaster. If you watch the bumbling locals where I live, you'll know that pretty much any trained chimp could do as well. I don't really care who reads the news. In fact, I'd love to find a way to take people out of the equation, because they all have their own agenda, they don't care about the news, they care how you react to what they tell you. CNN brags about it. But the way every news person talked the story down, it was no surprise the ratings were so bad. We were all told to hate it before it aired. It didn't fail because the girl couldn't do the job. Heck, the people at the station that hosted the show said she did great. She tried hard and brought a positive atitude and good work ethic. Its just that everyone who sits at a news desk like it's a throne, looking down his or her nose at us while they feed us vile propoganda doesn't want us to learn that any trained chimp can do their work. They want us to think that we need them. What a load of rubbish. And I hope the girl has a long career in front of her.... but in a job more respectable than news reading. 

 

 

Michael Vick has apologized... wow. I suppose now, you can kill dogs for profit and sadistic pleasure, and be forgiven. But don't think about posing nude on the internet. No forgiveness for you. If football weren't the dominant religion in this country (followed closely by the hunt for Britney, Nicole, and LIndsay), Vick would never again see the light of day. He's breathing good air that someone else could be breathing, and taking up space and food and water that would better serve someone who weren't the nasty gunk that pond scum can't even stand. Just you watch. He'll be back in uniform and paycheck as soon as possible, because he brings in money. People will take him back, because they have a short attention span (I pointed that out recently), and lawmakers (and judges) don't care about dead dogs.... because they neither pay taxes nor vote.

 

I am shocked! Shocked to find that people in Washington DC are fired for purely political reasons! How could they do this.... and we'll never ever forgive anyone who does it. I mean, no democrat ever fired anyone.... like the entire Whitehouse travel office, for political reasons.

 

 

And again... and again.... and again....

 

 

 

someone.... anyone... tell me how it is that Robert Novak isn't having legal issues over revealing a state secret on television. Valerie Plame. CIA agent. I mean, if it was wrong for Scooter to leak the name privately, why is it not wrong for Noval to do it publicly? I mean, it's not like he killed dogs. That he could be forgiven for. 

Did Anyone Notice?

In the recent midwest flooding, nobody went on television, begging for help, or saying that George Bush hates them, or it was someone else's fault.... in fact, all I saw was people pulling themselves up and getting back to work. But then, they didn't have a history and culture of corruption. And they haven't been told for decades that they can't do anything for themselves....


Just saying.....

Michael Vick is an animal

Michael Vick is a barbaric animal thug. He is a monster who isn't sorry for what he did. He's only sorry he got caught. I'll call him redeemed when he brings the first murdered dog back to life. And if he is ever allowed to play pro football (much less breath fresh air), I'll never watch another game, nor will I ever spend another cent on anything that has anything to do with or takes a dollar from, or gives a dollar to the NFL.... The fact that the NAACP defends this beast just demonstrates how they, like the ACLU, the labor unions, and the UN, have outlived their usefullness. He's an animal, and deserves no sense of happiness or fullfillment, or a good night's sleep again in his pathetic excuse for a life. And I dare anyone here  to defend him.

I've Quit The Republican Party Part One: The Middle East

I remember several years ago, hearing Rush Limbaugh talking about a trial
separation from the Republican Party. Whatever. I've quit. I've come to the
conclusion that neither party actually cares enough about the country and
the people to warrant my loyalty. Because really, is there any candidate out
there who can say that he or she cares more about actually fixing the
problems facing the country than they do about paying political debts or
just further enslaving the American people (and in fact the world, by
extension) just to build their own political power? No. Not that I've seen,
anyway. In fact, I would challenge you lurkers to make a case for any of the
current crop of republocrats. Of course, to start working on a solution, we
really have to start by identifying the problems. And since I don't want to
spend the next five years just doing that, I'll start with just one. The
Middle East. Well, first off, the solution to that is not to quit Iraq. The
growing success of the troop surge proves that we can help by staying there
and actually winning. History (and common sense) shows that politicians lose
wars. Military men and women win them. Liberals like to compare Iraq to
Vietnam, trying to convince the average person that it is unjust and
unwinnable, when in fact the real irony is that Iraq is similar to Vietnam
in a number of ways. It is a problem inherited from a former power making a
mistake, and then walking away. (Vietnam was a gift from France. The Middle
East, including Iraq, was carved up by a British General). The Vietnam war
was run by a Democratic Congress, where Iraq is being strongly influenced by
a Democratic Congress, but also bungled by short-sighted Republicans...
especially Don Rumsfeld. Military successes in Vietnam were largely ignored
by a hostile press, while failures and massacres were highlighted, just as
they are in Iraq. And just as real success was starting to happen in
Vietnam, the Viet Cong forced a propoganda victory with the Tet Offensive
(that in fact was devastating for them) that provided fuel for liberal
naysayers and defeatists to convince the American public that we'd lost, and
therefore sap the last of the political courage of the White House and force
a withdrawal. Now we have Democrats admitting that success in Iraq would be
bad news for their party. Liberals didn't want us to win in Vietnam, so they
forced a defeat. Now they admit that they don't want us to win in Iraq, and
they're trying to force a defeat there as well.

At the same time, Conservatives from Bush down were eager to go in and have
a quick and easy victory in Iraq... for some good reasons. I understand that
Bush imagined Iran being squeezed in between two strong new democracies in
Iraq and Afghanistan. He also knew that Saddam Hussein was a murderous thug
with ambitions involving Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare. That is
a fact that simply cannot be disputed. If you see a man gun down his family,
do you leave him alone just because he's out of bullets? No. He was a killer
who needed to die. But in doing so, they totally blew what was a fairly
stable situation. Iran hated Iraq. Iraq hated Iran. For the most part, that
kept both sides pretty occupied. There is that bit of wisdom that says when
you see your enemy making a mistake, get out of his way. As it is, the
Taliban are trying to make a comeback in Afghanistan, and Iran is working
under the counter in Iraq and Lebanon. And they are pushing ahead with their
nuclear program. So what do we do? We quietly, without telling the damn
press, or the damn congress, tell the Iraqi government that they don't get
anymore holidays. They need to find any damn way they can to agree upon and
impose a set of laws to stabilize their country. And then set a date.
SECRETLY!!!. Tell them that they won't have our help to fix their damn
country forever. Tell them that if they publicize the date, we'll walk, and
just police from the air. If you want our soldiers to bleed to buy you time,
you stop going on vacation, and impose (at gunpoint if need be) order on
your country. Get it done. Use the help we're giving, or we'll leave. And
then we give the military the objective and let them figure out how to do
it.

Then what? Finally, acknowledge that as scummy as the Saudi government is,
they can be convinced to work in our favor. We don't have a more important
ally over there. Not a friend, mind you, but an ally. They're dictators and
thugs, and most of the 9/11 hijackers came from there. But they also have an
influence on the price and steady flow of oil, and right now we need that.
Anyone (like Barack Obama) who thinks he can govern without dealing with
dictators who happen to have an interest in remaining allied with us is
stupid.

There is one more thing we can do to take away a lot of the power these
psychos have over the rest of the world. Devote the whole damn country to
getting us off of oil. Completely. Anything, including Ethanol, that still
uses oil is not good enough. The only weapon that can really make any
lasting difference in the Middle East is economics. Make the oil
meaningless, and they lose most of the hold they have on the world. Then if
they want to hack each other to pieces, well, let them.

Big words, and I'm just a guy with a Blog. I don't have a political career
to think about, or votes to buy, or lobbyists to satisfy. Sadly, none of the
Republocrats can say that. Democrats want to run every aspect of your life
(because they need you to believe that you can't live without them), and
Republicans are far too hostage to the most radical right wing of the
conservative movement to do the country any good (you need moderate common
sense to do that). Both sides have shown that they will say anything to get
a vote. So none of them will get mine.

So... what are the girls up to? Britney Spears. Lindsay Lohan. Nicole
Ritchie. I don't know, and I don't care. Barry Bonds isn't important. Rosie
O'Donnell doesn't seem to have a career anymore. Oh, and Rush Hour 3 took
the top spot in the box office.

USA Riddled With ADD!!

I was going to say that the whole world is riddled with ADD, but quite
honestly, do you think that in any other country in the world, less than six
years after a horrendous attack on their soil they would even question
whether or not they were at war? I don't. Democratic presidential hopeful
John Edwards thinks that the war that was declared in 1993 (remember, they
tried to bring down the World Trade Center once before) is nothing more than
a political bumper sticker slogan. I guess he didn't know (or know about, or
care about) any of the 3,000 people who were killed on 9/11. Fine... but
don't try to run my country. Maybe he's counting on the fact that while
radical Islam is alive and well in the heart of America (Hezbollah openly
rallies in Dearborn, Michigan, and who objects?), most people here don't
seem to care, because it's got nothing to do with Britney, Lindsay, Nicole,
or Harry Potter. Sounds like a case of mass Attention Deficit Disorder. Only
thing is, if Joe and Jane Public had nothing but typical clinical ADD, we
could give them a shot of Ritalin, and they'd be fine. But what they've got
is far worse. They've got an attention span that doesn't last more than an
hour. They've forgotten 1993. They've forgotten 9/11. They've forgotten Iran
attacking our embassy. (Ahmadenijad has been recognized as one of the
'students' who took those hostages). They've forgotten Iran's pledge to wipe
us out. They've forgotten that Al Qaeda has killed countless Americans, as
well as free citizens all over the world. They even tell us that they're
planning another. Maybe if Bin Laden or Al Zawahiri posted on youtube,
people would care. Maybe if they produced greenhouse gases, we could get
Sheryl Crow and George Clooney to join the war. But no. It's just a bumper
sticker. And an old one at that. So tell me something. When the next bumper
sticker shows up in the form of a dirty bomb, say in Los Angeles, will it be
an issue again? I suppose that depends on what Britney Spears is up to that
week.

Don't think, by the way, that I blame Britney for distracting us from the
war. I think she's no more or less important than anyone else, and I think
that if it weren't for her and her peers, the paparazzi would actually have
to work for a living. Most of the trash magazines (Us, Life and Style, and
so on) wouldn't exist, and we'd have a few more trees to produce oxygen. And
the vampires at TMZ might just shut down. So yeah, these girls are obviously
attracting the attention of the blood-suckers I've named, but they still
have the choice to print their rubbish or not. You know, if a rapist says
"she was asking for it", we rightly condemn them. If a scandal rag says the
same thing, we agree, and buy up their filth like its going out of style.

What has one thing got to do with the other? 3,000 people get slaughtered by
an enemy who promises to do more and we call it a bumper sticker. A girl
gets drunk, and we splash it all over the front page and ask ourselves "How
could this happen?". As a people, we've got a pitiful attention span. We are
riddled with ADD on a mass scale, and odds are it'll take another massacre
on our soil before we remember we're at war.

Bat Boy Was Last One Out!

When Government agents stormed the offices of the Weekly World News this
past week, the staff were not unprepared. Billions of files had already been
uploaded to a ship docked with the International Space Station... or so they
thought. Pictures of two-headed teddy-bears and psychic fish, along with the
identity of thousands of resident extraterrestrials (at least they're
legal!) were packaged up for burst transmission as reports began to come in
that government agents, working in concert with rival alien cabals were
getting ready to silence the only voice of truth on earth... and indeed,
aside from the venerable offices of the Encyclopedia Galactica on 40
Eridanii A, the only voice of truth in this spiral arm of the galaxy. Was it
the Black Arm of Time, orginating on Capella 4, or the extra-dimensional
Googleflaxomaniacs of the Dadaroo Galaxy? Could it have been the Evil Comet
Empire? Whoever it was, they were working tentacle-in-hand with the
Department of Homeland Security, utilizing the much-feared investigative arm
of the Onion to wipe out the shining beacon of truth that was the Weekly
World News.. And when government agents kicked down the door, it was none
other than the heroic Bat Boy who pushed the 'send' button. But what he
wasn't counting on was an electrical storm over Las Vegas that scrambled the
signal. As a result, the ultra-classified files didn't end up safely in the
memory banks of a docked Stealth cruiser. No... they were scattered across
the internet. And what of the heroic Bat Boy? He was last seen clinging to
the landing struts of a privately owned UH-1 'Huey' chopper as it fled for
parts unknown.

So who do we turn to in this dark time? Britney Spears? Nicole Ritchie?
Harry Potter? No. We turn to the same beacon of truth and impartiality that
exposed the evil robot Osama Bin Laden, and conspiracy to expose the attempt
to defraud the man who was the model of the great face on mars. The same
place that has shamelessly included the names of celebrities like J K
Rowling and Lidsay Lohan... even Dick Cheney and Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton, Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter and Ted Turner, just to
attract search engine hits. That's right... turn right here. Kapact's Rant.
The Only Reliable Blog on the Internet.

Open letter to Glenn Beck and Robert Novak (AKA The Prince of Darkness), as well as any lurkers here

Please Glenn, tell me something. Setting aside the politics, and people
formerly in the employ of the government named "Scooter", do you agree that
exposing the identity of CIA agents on the air is a bad thing? I'm not a
republican, or a democrat. (In fact, can we just call them all
Republocrats?), but I am a thinker. And I think that Scooter had nothing to
do with outing Valerie Plame. I think it was Robert Novak, AKA The Prince of
Darkness. The guy who was on your show Thursday the 26th of July. I mean, if
it wasn't a bad thing to expose the identity of our intelligence agents,
would we even know about Scooter? I don't think so. That still counts as a
national secret, especially during a time of war. So please, tell me why
Mister Novak can brag, yes brag about doing just that? He made it public!
Just because he's a journalist, does that mean he can expose any secret he
gets wind of? Is there no accountability? Freedom of the press is important,
but just like anything else, it isn't absolute. It comes with
responsibility. Maybe that's okay. I don't know. Maybe there's a reason a
journalist (and I'm not a journalist. I'm just a writer. And a thinker) can
expose state secrets and guys named Scooter can't. Please explain this to me
Glenn. Because I trust you. You're a thinker.

1000 Visitors!

Actually, I was number 1000... but all you lurkers got me there.....

I'm Giving Away the Harry Potter Ending!

Nah, really I'm not. If you're that worried about it, you know already. But
I want to comment (for all you lurkers out there) on the absolute insanity
over the Harry Potter secrecy. I don't care about Harry Potter. I read the
first one. It was well-written, and got kids to read. Fine. But when a media
machine actually respects the secrecy of a book, but doesn't think twice
about printing state secrets for any terrorist or declared enemy of a
country... at war, by the way (They never tire of talking about it... they
just don't know how to win it), I just think the whole pack of them need to
be strung up with piano wire... preferably by the genetalia. Please note,
I've mentioned Harry Potter and genetalia in the same paragraph. :) You
know, it wasn't Scooter Libby who outed Valerie Plame. The person who said
the name on the air was CNN's Robert Novak. Yeah. If Novak had talked about
the Manhattan Project during WW Two, he would probably have been killed. Now
he's a hero. What the hell has happened (and by the way, I loooove the fact
that I'm out of the once awesome Dannevirke News, because I can say what I
want) to our country? When Marines landed in Somalia, there were damned
cameras there, and lights! So, just in case you all didn't know it yet,
we're invading you. What's next? Pay Per View? Oooooh..... Harry Potter,
genetalia, and Pay Per View.... You know, the search engines are just gonna
love it. Let me throw in Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton.
Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, Osama Bin Laden... (Obama, Osama. Osama,
Obama. Who hear is remembering Letterman's Uma, Oprah. Oprah, Uma?. I am) As
I was saying.... We just don't give a damn about military or national
secrets, but whatever you do, don't give away the Harry Potter ending. And
if you're one of THEM, well, before you go to Walmart for your pirated
Chinese discount Harry Potter (that was probably printed in a sweat shop in
Wang Ching), download the Morpheus file sharing program, do a search for
Harry Potter documents, and download the book before everyone else waits in
line at midnight to get it honestly.

Her True Colors...

I found the following quotes provided by Mr. Tom Kuiper, who is the author
of "I've Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton In Her Own Words." There
really is no doubt about the kind of president she would be, nor how she
compares to one of our greatest.

Health Care

"The campaign goes on to bring health care in America out of the free market
and into the protective custody of government. Those who brought us the
postal service and Amtrak are anxious to provide medical service of the same
high caliber." -Ronald Reagan, as cited in "Reagan In His Own Hand"

"We just can't trust the American people to make these types of decisions.
.Government has to make these choices for people." -Hillary Clinton circa
1993, speaking to Rep. Dennis Hastert on the issue of who should control the
allocation of money in her health care reform plan

The Face of Evil

"Let us be aware that while [the Soviets] preach the supremacy of the state,
declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual
domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the
modern world." -Ronald Reagan, from his famed "Evil Empire" speech of 1983.

"I believe in evil, and I think that there are evil people in the
world." -Hillary Clinton, in 1993, stating her opinion not of the terrorists
who had just bombed the World Trade Center, but of those who opposed her
health care reform plan

Economic Freedom

"Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will
always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning
process." -Ronald Reagan, as cited on RightWingNews.com

"The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in
American life in the last generation." -Hillary Clinton

Freedom of the Press

"I've always believed a free press is as vital to America as the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A probing, responsible press not only
keeps the public informed about what's going on in government, it can keep a
watchful eye out to uncover corruption, waste, or mismanagement." -Ronald
Reagan, "An American Life"

"We're all going to have to rethink how we deal with the Internet. As
exciting as these new developments are, there are a number of serious issues
without any kind of editing function or gate-keeping function." -First Lady
Hillary Clinton, in 1998, days after the Monica Lewinsky story was reported
on the Drudge Report

Taxes

"We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring
for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one. ... But
we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who
view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social
structure." -Ronald Reagan, in his 1981 speech to the National Alliance of
Business

"We're saying that for American to get back on track, we're going to cut
[the Bush tax cuts] short and not give it to you. We're going to take things
away from you on behalf of the common good." -Hillary Clinton, in a 2004
fundraising speech to wealthy liberals in San Francisco

Bipartisanship

"Our two-party system has served us well over the years, but never better
than in those times of great challenge when we came together not as
Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans united in a common
cause." -Ronald Reagan, in his second inaugural address

"You have got to hand it to them, these people are ruthless and they are
relentless." -Sen. Hillary Clinton, just a few months after 9/11, giving her
opinion of Republicans

Leadership

"A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one,
must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going
gets rough." -Ronald Reagan, as cited on RightWingNews.com

"It's important to have core principles and values, but if you're going to
be active in policy and politics, you have to be a realist." -Hillary
Clinton

Big Government

"Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar
period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential
to economic development." -Ronald Reagan, as cited on "The American
Experience: Reagan"

"We can't afford to have that money go to the private sector. The money has
to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend
that money better than the private sector will spend it." -First Lady
Hillary Clinton, in 1993, regarding health care reform

Religion

"Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God,
democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one
nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." -Ronald Reagan,
speaking at a Dallas Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in 1984

"I have to confess that it's crossed my mind that you could not be a
Republican and a Christian from time to time." -First Lady Hillary Clinton,
"joking" in a speech with religious leaders in 1997

Blaming America

"We are not the cause of all the ills in the world. We're a patient and
generous people." -Ronald Reagan, accepting the Republican presidential
nomination in 1984

"I pledge allegiance to the America that can be." -Hillary Clinton,
reluctant to say the Pledge of Allegiance, according to Chris Matthews

Core Beliefs

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children
this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take
the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let
our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief
moment here. We did all that could be done." -Ronald Reagan, from his famous
"A Time for Choosing" speech in 1964 on behalf of Barry Goldwater

"At least Reagan had some core beliefs. They defied logic, but at least he
had them." -Hillary had some trouble getting her super-size brain around
Reagan's outlandish beliefs: lower taxes, smaller government; peace through
strength and the defeat of communism

Imagination

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's
just that they know so much that isn't so." -Ronald Reagan, from his "A Time
for Choosing" speech in 1964

"The fact of the matter is, I've always been a Yankees fan." -Senate
candidate Hillary Clinton, soon after launching her campaign in 1999, and
ignoring prior public statements about growing up as a Cubs fan in Chicago

There you go. Anyone who thinks that it'll take Hillary to 'restore our
image abroad' would do well to take a good hard look at her image.

Blood Sucking Vampires...

Just a quick note on the bash fest over Lindsay Lohan. You know, she's a young girl. A kid, with one parent in jail, and the other (who should be in jail) encouraging her to drink and party. You have the idiots who are selling booze to her. They're all bad. But the real blood-suckers are the rag magazines that are exploiting her problem to sell magazines. They are looking down their nose at the girl, all the while making money off of her. I'd like to meet one of them and stick a cross on their foreheads, just to watch the smoke rise.

What does Russia think of Rosie?

Saint Petersburg City... what do you think of Rosie's mouth?

Rosie in a Mouth Trap

 

It isn't very often you actually catch a liberal caught in a trap of their own making... and when it's an overweight lesbian (As I'm sure we can't say 'fat' nowadays), but what a sight it is. Rosie's mouth dug her a hole that even she couldn't scream her way out of. So thank goodness, she crawled away like the cockroach she is. It took a bit of looking to find the transcript of what happened, but here it is. Have a look at an angry liberal.....

 

 

 

 

 

JOY BEHAR: I was watching Al Gore on, on "Larry King" last night and, you know, he has a new book out, Al Gore, where he basically really says that Bush was the worst president that we've ever had in the history of the country. And I noticed that Jimmy Carter, a former president, is saying the same thing. So now if the former president Jimmy Carter is saying it and a former vice president of the United States is saying it and I have a list here of the things that Bush has done. I don't really understand why he's still there. Does anyone have any idea why we can't get rid of this guy who stole the election in 2000, killed the surplus with tax cuts –

 

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: According to Gore he stole it.

 

BEHAR: Wait a minute. It's very long. Wanting to privatize social security. Let me get through the list.

 

HASSELBECK: It's very long, so we might be here for a while.

 

BEHAR: We might be here for a while. I let you talk yesterday. Now I'm talking. And I love her, but let me do this. He withdrew us from the Kyoto Treaty, John Ashcroft. Sat in the classroom after learning about 9/11 --

 

HASSELBECK: So he was supposed to freak out the kids when he was reading to them, I suppose.

 

BEHAR: And read "My Pet Goat" for seven minutes after we were attacked on 9/11.

 

HASSELBECK: Right, he should have definitely panicked the children.

 

BEHAR: He lied to us to get us into the war. He awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton, Abu Ghraib. He promoted his friend Michael Brown to take care of Katrina. Heck of a job, Brownie. Remember that? He doesn't listen to the Iraq Study Group. He choked on a pretzel. [laughter] He waited a week to visit New Orleans and then only to watch some jazz. He stood by Alberto Gonzales, who needs to be thrown out, we all know that, and he stood by Rumsfeld, who some people think is a war criminal. He can't pronounce the word "nuclear." [laughter] These are just some of the reasons -- [Applause] -- That this guy needs to be thrown out of office.

 

SHERRI SHEPHERD: Yes, but he didn't sleep with an intern.

 

[laughter]

 

BEHAR: Yes, but maybe he should.

 

HASSELBECK: No, he did not.

 

BEHAR: I'm just saying something is wrong in this country when we are continuing to support this administration. I am furious today over all of this and Al Gore makes me mad because he doesn't run. Now, he says in the interview yesterday with Larry King that he's not running because he thinks global warming is more important. Well, the president of the United States has more power than anybody in the world and he needs to run for office if he wants to fix global warming and get us out of this mess that we're in.

 

SHEPHERD: You think Al Gore could get us out, Al Gore?

 

BEHAR: Who else could? Who else could?

 

HASSELBECK: I knew I liked you, Sherri.

 

SHEPHERD: No I'm just saying, Al Gore, you know what he's talking about with the Green Peace and everything, but you really think Al Gore is the one to get us out of this mess?

 

BEHAR: Why not?

 

HASSELBECK: What's his plan to keep us safe other than, in terms of the evironment?

 

BEHAR: He has a plan, read the book. He has a lot of plans in that book.

 

HASSELBECK: I'm sure he does.

 

BEHAR: He doesn't just criticize the president. He also criticizes the media. He says when we had that O.J. Simpson trial, he thought that was an aberration and we would not be so stupid as to be watching nonsense like that constantly, that CNN was constantly doing. But it's not an aberration.

 

HASSELBECK: Isn't he using the media to promote his books and films?

 

BEHAR: And we watch "Dancing with the Stars" instead of dealing with what's going on--

 

HASSELBECK: No, not instead of, not instead of. You can watch "Dancing with the Stars" and also watch a lot of things that pertain to world politics, news safety, etcetera, absolutely.

 

BEHAR: How many people watched him speak on CNN? I'd like to know.

 

HASSELBECK: It's called Tivo.

 

BEHAR: I'm just wondering.

 

SHEPHERD: I'm sorry. I wanted to see Laila and Apollo, but I did.

 

HASSELBECK: I don't think you're a bad person.

 

BEHAR: I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm just saying nobody is interested.

 

HASSELBECK: People are interested. They just can do it on their own time. We're in a situation now where technology allows us to do it.

 

BEHAR: We need to be furious. This country needs to be furious with what's going on.

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: It's called the election. You have- here is your opportunity, okay. You have, we're a democratic society, you have the election in 2008 to change things.

 

BEHAR: Do you know how much damage this guy can do in a year and a half? He can invade Iran for all I know.

 

HASSELBECK: With Congress now as is?

 

BEHAR: Congress cannot pass anything because he, he vetoes it and they can't override it because his cronies in the Republican party stick by this president for political reasons.

 

[applause]

 

HASSELBECK: They stick by him for not demanding a pullout date for the troops, which is essentially saying to your enemies, I don't know any team out there. I don't have any strategy that says-

 

BEHAR: He doesn't have a plan.

 

HASSELBECK: -Here is the date that we are going to leave.

 

ROSIE O'DONNELL: To our enemies?

 

HASSELBECK: To our enemies, this is when we are going to pull out.

 

O'DONNELL: The enemies in Iraq?

 

HASSELBECK: Al Qaeda.

 

O'DONNELL: Wait, the enemies in Iraq?

 

HASSELBECK: Al Qaeda.

 

BEHAR: He didn't even go after Osama Bin Laden when he was supposed to.

 

O'DONNELL: Elisabeth did, wait Joy. You just said our enemies in Iraq. Did Iraq attack us?

 

HASSELBECK: No. I'm saying Al Qaeda which is in Iraq.

 

O'DONNELL: Okay did Iraq talk us, Elisabeth?

 

HASSELBECK: Iraq did not attack us Rosie.

 

O'DONNELL: Correct.

 

HASSELBECK: We've been there before. I'm saying our enemies, Al Qaeda, are you hearing that?

 

O'DONNELL: I hear it. But where do you want to go?

 

BEHAR: This is a political discussion. Don't interview each other. Just say what you mean.

 

HASSELBECK: If you're playing a game, okay, if you're playing a game and I'm going to say okay I'm going to throw to my wide receiver, wide right, okay. Do you do that- what does it do for your enemy? It gives them time to plan.

 

O'DONNELL: If the enemy are innocent civilians, I don't want to play that kind of football.

 

[applause]

 

HASSELBECK: The enemy are not innocent civilians.

 

O'DONNELL: Iraq did not attack us!

 

BEHAR: Don't yell at each other. Please let's have a conversation.

 

O'DONNELL: You know why I don't want to do this, Joy? Let me tell you why I don't want to do this. Because it here's how it gets spun in the media: Rosie, big, fat, lesbian loud Rosie attacks innocent, pure, Christian Elisabeth.

 

BEHAR: Wait a minute. You don't have to, let me do it!

 

HASSELBECK: I haven't heard that line. Listen, I think it's unfair.

 

O'DONNELL: You should watch some of the shows you don't watch.

 

HASSELBECK: You accused me of watching all of those shows yesterday.

 

BEHAR: I'm okay arguing with Elisabeth.

 

O'DONNELL: You're just as sensitive when I'm hurt as I am when you were. Every time you were hurt, did I reach out to you?

 

BEHAR: Why is this personal? There's a war going on out there. It's not personal.

 

SHEPHERD: You know, this is why I like watching "Dancing with the Stars." This is exactly why.

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: I just don't understand why it's my fault if people spin words that you put out there or phrases that suggest things. And I gave you a opportunity, two days ago, to clarify the statement that got you in trouble on all those issues.

 

O'DONNELL: That, that got me in trouble. As a friend, you gave me the opportunity. That was very sweet of you. What I was asking is you, who actually knows me, do you believe I think our troops are terrorists, Elisabeth?

 

HASSELBECK: I don't think that you --

 

O'DONNELL: Yes or no?

 

HASSELBECK: I don't believe that you–

 

O'DONNELL: Do you believe that, yes or no?

 

HASSELBECK: Excuse me. Let me speak.

 

O'DONNELL: You're going to double speak. It's just a yes or no.

 

HASSELBECK: I am not a double speaker and I don't put suggestions out there that lead people to think things and then not answer my own question.

 

O'DONNELL: I have a question to you and you didn't answer it.

 

HASSELBECK: I don't believe that you believe troops are terrorists. I have said that before. But when you say something like 650,000 Iraqis are dead, we invaded them.

 

O'DONNELL: It's true.

 

HASSELBECK: Let me finish, "who are the terrorist?"

 

O'DONNELL: You don't like the facts.

 

HASSELBECK: I'm all about facts. You know that. You tell me not to use facts because you want me to go only on emotion. Guess what? I like facts.

 

O'DONNELL: You cherry pick the facts you like.

 

BEHAR: Did I or did I not give this panel a list of facts?

 

[Applause]

 

SHEPHERD: And you know what? Oh my gosh! We're going to be right back with Alicia Silverstone!

 

[applause]

 

O'DONNELL: No, no, no we're not. Because we have a lot more time.

 

BEHAR: If you want to change the subject, that's something.

 

HASSELBECK: People were criticizing you for saying that because it suggested-

 

BEHAR: Oh, my God!

 

HASSELBECK: I said take your opportunity now. You have a show right now to tell the world --

 

O'DONNELL: I did take my opportunity to tell the world. I wanted to know what people like you, but you are my friend, since September, do you believe that I think our troops are terrorists? And you would not even look me in the face, Elisabeth, and say no, Rosie.

 

HASSELBECK: What are you talking about?

 

O'DONNELL: "I can understand how people are would have thought that, why don't you take this opportunity" like I'm six.

 

HASSELBECK: Because you are an adult and I'm certainly not going to be the person for you to explain your thoughts to. They're your thoughts. Defend your own insinuations.

 

[applause]

 

O'DONNELL: I defend my thoughts.

 

HASSELBECK: Defend your own thoughts.

 

O'DONNELL: Right, but every time I defend them, Elisabeth, it's poor little Elisabeth that I'm picking on.

 

HASSELBECK: You know what? Poor little Elisabeth is not poor little Elisabeth.

 

O'DONNELL: That's right. That's why I'm not going to fight with you anymore because it's absurd. So for three weeks you can say all the Republican crap you want.

 

HASSELBECK: It's much easier to fight someone like Donald Trump, isn't it? Because he's obnoxious.

 

O'DONNELL: I've never fought him. He fought me. I told a fact about him --

 

BEHAR: How did I get out of this conversation? I was in the middle of this conversation.

 

HASSELBECK: I gave you an opportunity to clarify.

 

O'DONNELL: You didn't give me anything. You don't have to give me. I asked you a question.

 

HASSELBECK: I asked you a question.

 

O'DONNELL: And you wouldn't even answer it.

 

HASSELBECK: You wouldn't even answer your own question.

 

O'DONNELL: Oh Elisabeth, I don't want- you know what? You really don't understand what I'm saying?

 

HASSELBECK: I understand what you're saying.

 

BEHAR: Let's go. Come on that's it!

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: I think it's sad. I think it's sad because I don't understand how there can be such hurt feelings when all I did way say, "look, why don't you tell everybody what you said?" I did that as a friend

 

O'DONNELL: All you did is not defend me. I asked you if you believe that I thought--

 

HASSELBECK: You didn't answer your own question. I don't believe that you're defending-

 

O'DONNELL: Elisabeth, every day since September I have told you I support the troops.

 

HASSELBECK: I have done the same for you.

 

O'DONNELL: I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying.

 

HASSELBECK: Did I say yes?

 

O'DONNELL: You said nothing and that's cowardly.

 

HASSELBECK: No, no, no. Do not, do not call me a coward. Because number one, I sit here every single day and open my heart and tell people exactly what I believe. Do not call me a coward, Rosie. I do not hide. I was not cowardly. It was honest.

 

O'DONNELL: It was.

 

HASSELBECK: What is cowardly?

 

BEHAR: Is there no commercial on this show?

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: Asking, asking, I'll tell you what's cowardly. Asking a rhetorical question that you never answer yourself.

 

BEHAR: Who is directing this show? Let's go to commercial. Let's go to commercial.

 

HASSELBECK: I need a drink of water. Let's go to commercial.

 

BEHAR: Man oh man.

 

SHEPHERD: How is the baby? Is the baby-

 

HASSELBECK: The baby's fine.

 

 

Revolution

Immigration reform is in the news again, primarily because the new Congress
(that was supposed to have solved all of our problems by now) can't manage
to do anything else and has pretty much made a complete and utter ballsup of
their victory and all that was supposed to do, to rescue the constitution
and the country and end the war just by quitting. And let's be clear on
that. They aren't talking winning. They're talking losing... already lost in
fact, and uh.... we're just gonna quit. And that's supposed to be a good
thing. Don't get me wrong. I hate the fact that we're there. I hate the fact
that our soldiers are being slaughtered over there and their parliament can
take a vacation! Hello! Our blood is buying you time to fix your country.
You don't have time for a vacation! So yeah, I hate that we're losing a
generation of brave people. It really breaks my heart. But we made the damn
mess. We have to fix it. Quitting may get you reelected (and that's all
you're trying to do, isn't it?), but just as with all liberal policies,
somebody else pays for it later. You can't take the easy way out and expect
it to really work. You don't have a plan for the war or the country. You
have a plan to get some power and keep it. That's it. Nothing more. And so
yes, how about immigration reform. Well that's a case where you can appeal
to your voters/slaves, take the easy way, PC way out... and actually take
the best course. And that's because this country has, for so long, ignored
the flood of illegal immigrants, primarily from Mexico, and now we've got a
problem that won't be solved by doing what we should do. Twelve million
illegal immigrants (each one insisting that they aren't criminals. Please
explain that to me. How do you break a law but not be a criminal?) are now a
part of our economy. We need them. And even if they weren't a large part of
our economy, the sheer logistics of forcibly removing twelve million illegal
(non-criminal!?) immigrants makes the idea impractical. Probably impossible.
We'd need all the troops back from both wars to go through every state in
the union to go house to house checking for paperwork that is probably
forged anyway, and marching the illegals back where they came from. It is
impossible. So the best we can do is offer them a good enough deal so that
they'll present themselves for documentation. Then they go on a program that
puts them on a path to legality. Citizenship? Hell no. My wife is from New
Zealand, and she is jumping through hoops just to get a work permit. No way
in hell some criminal gets any easy way to citizenship. Amnesty? Hell no.
You broke the law. Admit it. Why is it you can't say the word ILLEGAL?

Really, what we need to do is look at why millions of mexicans are streaming
across the border... with the aid of the Mexican government. As a country,
Mexico is ridiculously rich, but the government is so corrupt that the
people do not benefit from that until they're trying to leave. It's an
absolute crime, and they've demonstrated through successive administrations
that it doesn't matter who is in charge. Nothing will change. How in hell
they can complain about US immigration policy is beyond me. That's like
Hitler complaining about how easy it was invade France. The fact is that
what needs to happen is a complete militarization of the southern border,
and then a change in Mexico. Not another election that changes nothing, but
in fact a bloody bloody revolution that really changes the country. The
Mexican government does nothing whatsoever to discourage its people from
running away... and they won't, because they're getting rich from that mass
evacuation. Shame on you, Mexican government. And Viva La Raza!

Visitors....

I have to say that I am fascinated to see where readers come from. I see that I have a viewer from Beirut, Lebanon. Please tell me how you found my site, and even if you disagree, what you think of what you see. Communication is really what makes things work in the world...


Kapact

What? He can't be a bigot!!!

Here's something for anyone who thinks that any liberal is a saint, or that a black person... (oh! Excuse me! An "African American"!) Can't, by definition, be a bigot.... It all comes from CNN... I didn't write it. But you should read it. 

 

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who led the charge to have radio host Don Imus fired for making racially insensitive remarks, is now under fire for a comment about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith.

During a debate on religion and politics at the New York Public Library with atheist author Christopher Hitchens, Sharpton said, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that. That's a temporary situation."

On the campaign trail in Iowa Wednesday, Romney fired back, calling Sharpton's comment "terribly misguided." (Watch Romney call Sharpton's words 'bigoted' )

"It shows that bigotry still exists in some corners," Romney said. "I thought it was a most unfortunate comment to make."

Asked if he thought Sharpton is a bigot, the former Massachusetts governor said, "I don't know Rev. Sharpton. I doubt he is personally such a thing. But the comment was a comment which could be described as a bigoted comment.

"Perhaps he didn't mean it that way, but the way it came out was inappropriate and wrong."

Sharpton said his remarks were being taken out of context and that he was responding to an attack by Hitchens, who, he said, had charged that the Mormon Church supported segregation until the 1960s.

"In no way did I attack Mormons or the Mormon Church when I responded that other believers, not atheists, would vote against Mr. Romney for purely political reasons," Sharpton said in a written statement.

He also accused Romney's campaign of engaging in "a blatant effort to fabricate a controversy to help their lagging campaign."

Sharpton told The Associated Press that "[Mormons] don't believe in God the way I do, but, by definition, they believe in God."

Sharpton was licensed as a minister in the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly black Pentecostal denomination, at the age of 9, according to a biography on the Web site of his National Action Network. He became a Baptist in the 1980s.

His debate Monday with Hitchens -- who is on a tour promoting a new book that rejects God -- revolved around religion and politics. Minutes before Sharpton's controversial comment was made, the discussion turned toward the idea of a Mormon running for president, then moved to a conversation about the role of faith in politics.

Romney is a member of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known informally as the Mormon Church. If elected, he would be the first Mormon to serve in the White House.

His religion has come up as an issue in the 2008 campaign because many conservative and evangelical Protestants, who make up an important constituency in the GOP base, do not consider Mormons to be Christians, because of their unique beliefs.

The LDS Church was founded in the 1830s by Joseph Smith -- revered by members as a prophet of God -- who taught that a new book of scripture, the Book of Mormon, had been revealed to him by an angel. Adherents eventually relocated to Utah in 1847, after Smith was killed by a mob in Illinois.

Some church leaders practiced plural marriage in the 19th century, but the church officially ended the practice in 1890 and has since excommunicated polygamists from its ranks.

The church has about 5 million adherents in the United States.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll last year found that 34 percent of Americans considered the LDS Church to be Christian, 35 percent did not and 31 percent were unsure. In a Gallup/USA Today poll in February, 72 percent of Americans said they would be comfortable voting for a Mormon for president, but 24 percent said they would not.

"I think it's sad, honestly," Republican strategist Ralph Reed said of the Sharpton controversy on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." "I don't think there's any place in politics for religious intolerance in any of its ugly forms.

"And I think if Gov. Romney took it that way, then whatever Al Sharpton meant, then I think the best thing to do and the most healing thing to do, so that we can have an uplifting dialogue about faith in the political and civic process, is for Rev. Sharpton to apologize."

Democratic strategist James Carville told Cooper he believes Sharpton when he says he didn't mean to disparage the Mormon faith.

"The main point here is that Mormons have served this country honorably and with integrity for a long, long time, and ... it would be a very big mistake not to vote for someone based on their faith -- Mormon faith or any other faith," Carville said.

Romney said Wednesday that he hears little concern about his religion from voters on the campaign trail.

"Overwhelmingly, the people I talk to believe that we elect a person to lead the nation not based on what church they go to, but based on their values and their vision," he said. "I received very little comment of the nature coming from Rev. Sharpton."

Hello New Zealand?

I've had very little contact from friends in New Zealand, which bothers me.
My relationship with that country has been at times a bit edgy, but I really
love that country and it's people. For those of you silent multitudes out
there who don't know, I'm an American married to a Kiwi lady. I was down
there for almost three years, Sadly for me, it was when America invaded
Iraq. And at the time, a girl I worked with asked me if I hated all Iraqis.
I said I didn't know them, so how could I hate them? I said it was a
decision by my government, really for the purpose of taking out a murderous
dictator and freeing the Iraqi people. She seemed to understand that. But
then there were idiots who threw food at me and swore at me... because of my
accent. My accent. Others backed me up in public and demanded to know how I
voted. There was even a Pastor who accepted an invitation into my home
before launching into a tirade against America and Americans. This was a
religious man. Do you see what I'm saying? I invited the man into my
home.... gave him a cup of coffee and a biscuit just so he could insult me
and my country. I even tried to agree with him, just to settle him down. All
it did was spur him on. And this enlightened, laid back bastion of liberal
love and tolerance treated me like a criminal based upon nothing but my
accent. And even so, I met lots of really nice people, and I'd love to go
back there. But I don't hear from my friends there. C'mon New Zealand! Don't
you have a comment? See, I worry that my rants have alienated my friends in
New Zealand. And I really believe that Islam is going to hit New Zealand,
and in a big way. Its already there, in Palmerston North. You could say that
a Mosque is harmless, but Islam has more than a Mosque in the south pacific.
The Bali bombings weren't accidents, and there were Kiwi's killed there. So
you know, they're close and getting closer. It's come out recently that some
bombings had been averted in Australia. So how can New Zealand just sit
there and ignore the threat that Islam openly presents? Really, what will it
take? Is it going to take a car bomb in Auckland to wake you up? Al Zawahiri
has been in your country. Some of the 9/11 hijackers trained in Palmerston
North. They've already killed some of you. So what will it take? An Air New
Zealand flight taking out the skytower? Al Qaeda bought an election in Spain
with a few explosives in a train station. Is that in the plan for New
Zealand? I'll tell you something that bothers me about what I see there, and
what I see here. At the same time we are really bending over backwards to
appease (and that is the word you should remember.... Google 'Neville
Chamberlain' and 'appeasement'. Toss in 'Adolf Hitler' while you're at it)
Islam, we are pre-judging (Google 'prejudice' too) Christians who are doing
nothing worse than alerting people to a grave threat. David W, you should
know that the Dannevirke News totally discounted your feedback to my column,
based on nothing but the fact that you're a Christian. I guess if you were a
Muslim they'd care about what you have to say. I guess if you preached an
intolerant religion that tells its followers to kill anyone with different
beliefs, you'd be worth acknowledgement. Take heart, Dave. New Zealand
hasn't been overrun. Yet. But the more silence the rest of the world gets
from New Zealand, the less time you have before a bomb goes off on one of
the islands. I will make a prediction, though. When the first bomb goes off,
Islam will not be blamed, even if they claim responsibility. Blame will be
pointed at the average Joe Blog, for not being more sensitive to the needs
of this 'peaceful religion'.

So. New Zealand... what do you have to say to that?

Why We Can't Believe Hillary...

 

 

            [The Houston Chronicle, 1995]

 

            Taking a weekend break from official duties on her Asian tour, the
            first lady escaped already-remote Katmandu and traveled two hours by
            prop plane, land rover and rowboat to the Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge.

 

            Later, she got to meet Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach
            Mount Everest's summit in 1953.

 

            Sir Edmund Hillary, a frequent visitor and benefactor of Nepal since
            his historic trek, had a brief Hillary-to-Hillary handshake at the
            Katmandu airport before Clinton departed Sunday for Bangladesh.

 

            The first lady said her mother had read about the famous climber and
            knew his name had two L's.

 

            "So when I was born, she called me Hillary and she always told me,
            'It's because of Sir Edmund Hillary,'" Hillary Clinton reported.1

 

 

 

            [The New York Times, 1995]

 

            For her part, Mrs. Clinton confessed that her mother, Dorothy
            Rodham, had read an article about the intrepid Edmund Hillary, a
            one-time beekeeper who had taken to mountain climbing, when she was
            pregnant with her daughter in 1947 and liked the name.

 

            "It had two l's, which is how she thought she was supposed to spell
            Hillary," Mrs. Clinton told reporters after the brief meeting on the
            tarmac, minutes before her Air Force jet flew past the peak of
            Everest itself. "So when I was born, she called me Hillary, and she
            always told me it's because of Sir Edmund Hillary."2

 

      Origins:   During a stop in Nepal while on a south Asian goodwill tour in
      April 
      1995, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton engaged in a brief (and reportedly
      coincidental) meeting with Sir Edmund Hillary (who, along with Tenzing
      Norgay, became the first person to reach the summit of the world's highest
      mountain, Mt. Everest, in 1953) and told reporters she had been named
      after the famed mountain climber. The notion that Ms. Clinton's given name
      was inspired by the man who conquered Everest was almost certainly a bit
      of fiction invented for political expediency (as many critics have noted,
      Edmund Hillary didn't become world-famous until six years after Hillary
      Rodham was born), but there are some subtleties to this claim which should
      be considered:
        Hillary Clinton said her mother, Dorothy Rodham, "had read an article
        about the intrepid Edmund Hillary, a one-time beekeeper who had taken to
        mountain climbing, when she was pregnant in 1947 and liked the name."
        Although it is true that Edmund Hillary did not perform the feat that
        made him a household name throughout the English-speaking world until
        1953 (by which time Hillary Rodham was already six years old), it is 
        not true, as many skeptics have asserted, that Edmund Hillary was
        nothing more than an obscure Auckland beekeeper until then. Even before
        World War II he was already a serious mountain climber who boasted to a
        friend that "some day I'm going to climb Everest," and by 1947 he was
        honing the necessary skills on the peaks of the Southern Alps. It's
        certainly possible young Edmund was profiled in some periodical as far
        back in 1947.

 

        However, how likely was Dorothy Rodham, a Chicago housewife, to have
        seen an article about a New Zealand mountain climber? We performed a
        comprehensive search of several major American newspapers (including the
        Chicago Tribune) and found that none of them made any mention of Edmund
        Hillary whatsoever prior to June 1953, so it's fair to say that the
        American media paid him little note prior to his successful assault on
        Mt. Everest that year.
        Whether or not Dorothy Rodham might have come across mention of Edmund
        Hillary in 1947, the story about her daughter's name doesn't quite jibe
        with the circumstances. Depending upon how one interprets Hillary
        Clinton's claim, either seeing Edmund Hillary's name in print inspired
        her mother to name her 'Hillary' (even though she came across it being
        used a surname rather than a first name), or it inspired her to use the
        less-common spelling of 'Hillary' rather than 'Hilary' when naming her
        daughter. However, 'Hilary' (spelled with one 'l') was a common woman's
        name which Dorothy Rodham would undoubtedly already have seen and heard
        hundreds of times before reading about Edmund Hillary, and the two-l
        spelling, while less common, was one she was far more likely to have
        encountered reading about persons (both male and female) much more
        prominent than Edmund Hillary in 1947, such as film actress Hillary
        Brooke and Cornell football and basketball star Hillary Chollet.
        The tidbit of information that Hillary Clinton was named for Edmund
        Hillary does not appear in any news stories about the First Lady written
        prior to her 1995 south Asian tour, and every appearance of it in news
        articles since then refers to that single 1995 account. If Hillary
        Clinton thought an anecdote about the origins of her name was
        entertaining enough to repeat to the press when she met Sir Edmund
        Hillary in 1995, how come she never mentioned it at any other time,
        before or since?

 

        Moreover, none of the many Hillary Clinton biographies we checked so
        much as mentioned the story, not even Living History, her 2003
        autobiography. A staggering amount of information has been published
        about Hillary Rodham Clinton in her lifetime (going all the way back to
        her days as a Wellesley College graduate in 1969, when she was featured
        in Life magazine); that she disclosed a basic fact such as how she got
        her name only once in all that time is rather incredible. (The only
        other mention of Hillary Clinton's connection to Edmund Hillary was made
        by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in his 2004
        autobiography.)
      We opined back in 2003 that Hillary Clinton's claim about being Edmund
      Hillary's namesake might not have been completely false since she didn't
      say she was actually named for the mountain climber, but rather that her
      mother told her she was named for him — a minor but important distinction
      given how often parents make up harmless little fibs to amuse their
      children or misremember past events. Indeed, in October 2006 this was the
      excuse a spokesperson for her campaign provided in officially discounting
      the story:
      For more than a decade, one piece of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's
      informal biography has been that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the
      conqueror of Mount Everest. The story was even recounted in Bill Clinton's
      autobiography.

 

      But yesterday, Mrs. Clinton's campaign said she was not named for Sir
      Edmund after all.

 

      "It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her
      daughter, to great results I might add," said Jennifer Hanley, a
      spokeswoman for the campaign. 3
      We still find this explanation rather incredible. In order to accept it,
      one has to believe that only after Hillary Clinton was nearly 60 years
      old, and only after she had been pilloried in the press for more than ten
      years for claiming she had been named after someone who was virtually
      unknown in the U.S. at the time of her birth, and only after her husband
      had unknowingly presented the fictitious story as true in his own
      autobiography, did her mother finally confess that the "sweet family
      story" she told her daughter wasn't the truth. (Hillary Clinton doesn't
      have the excuse that other people were spreading a falsehood about her, as
      she herself was the one who initiated the claim back in 1995.)

 

 

     

Reagan Wannabes

I saw on the news today that the Republican presidential hopefulls are
holding a.debate at the Reagan library. This is wonderful symbolism... and
worthy of their liberal apponents. They are all claiming the Reagan legacy,
but none of them really seem to understand what it was about Reagan so
great. The Republican party that Reagan took to greatness is not the
Republican party of today. Reagan had courage and vision. He loved this
country, and he loved democracy. He was brave and bold and unapologetic. He
knew that the only way to succeed is to shout your beliefs from the
rooftops, and to have no time for your opponent's attempts to cut you down.
He also understood that even though we may disagree, we are all Americans.
We are all a family, and we all deserve respect from each other. Reagan may
have done battle with his liberal opponents, but he left the fight at the
office. He understood and appreciated the dignity that went with the office
of the president. He looked and acted like a president. He was worthy of the
presidents before him. And I'll tell you something else. He understood how
the world worked. He understood the concept of attacking our enemies
ruthlessly... but effectively. He understood Sun Tzu. Ultimate excellence
lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever
fighting.

Islam at College

I took this straight from the American Congress for Truth. I didn't write it. But you should read it...

 

Is college using a double standard on 'entanglement' with religion?

By Katherine Kersten

Cultural clashes involving Islam have recently made headlines in Minnesota. At the airport, some Muslim taxi drivers refuse to transport passengers carrying alcohol; at Target stores, some Muslim cashiers won't scan pork products. Now there's a new point of friction: Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

Its officials say the college, a public institution, has a strict policy of not promoting religion or favoring one religion over another. "The Constitution prevents us from doing this in any form," says Dianna Cusick, director of legal affairs.

But that seems to depend on your religion.

Where Christianity is concerned, the college goes to great lengths to avoid any hint of what the courts call "entanglement" or support of the church. Yet the college is planning to install facilities for Muslims to use in preparing for daily prayers, an apparent first at a public institution in Minnesota.

Separation of church and state is clearest at the college during the Christmas season. A memo from Cusick and President Phil Davis, dated Nov. 28, 2006, exhorted supervisors to banish any public display of holiday cheer: "As we head into the holiday season ... "all public offices and areas should refrain from displays that may represent to our students, employees or the public that the college is promoting any particular religion." Departments considering sending out holiday cards, the memo added, should avoid cards "that appear to promote any particular religious holiday."

Last year, college authorities caught one rule-breaker red-handed. A coffee cart that sells drinks and snacks played holiday music "tied to Christmas," and "complaints and concerns" were raised, according to a faculty e-mail. College authorities quickly quashed the practice.

They appear to take a very different attitude toward Islam. Welcome and accommodation are the order of the day for the college's more than 500 Muslim students. The college has worked with local Muslim leaders to ensure that these students' prayer needs and concerns are adequately addressed, Davis told me.

Muslim prayer is an increasingly controversial issue. Many Muslim students use restroom sinks to wash their feet before prayer. Other students have complained, and one Muslim student fell and injured herself while lifting her foot out of a sink.

Some local Muslim leaders have advised the college staff that washing is not a required practice for students under the circumstances, according to Davis. Nevertheless, he says, he wants to facilitate it for interested students. "It's like when someone comes to your home, you want to be hospitable," Davis told me. "We have new members in our community coming here; we want to be hospitable."

So the college is making plans to use taxpayer funds to install facilities for ritual foot-washing. Staff members are researching options, and a school official will visit a community college in Illinois to view such facilities while attending a conference nearby. College facilities staff members are expected to present a proposal this spring.

In Davis' view, the foot-washing plan does not constitute promotion or support of religion. "The foot-washing facilities are not about religion, they are about customer service and public safety," he says. He sees no significant difference between using public funds to construct prayer-related facilities for Muslim students and the cafeteria's provision of a fish option for Christian students during Lent.

College officials claim that the restrictions on Christmas displays apply to employees who are state agents, and so are subject to more restrictions, while students are free to express their religious beliefs.

But where the Muslim prayer facilities are concerned, college authorities themselves are consulting with religious leaders, researching other schools, and using taxpayer money to make improvements to facilitate one group's prayer.

Issues surrounding the intersection of church and state and religious accommodation are complex. But the college's treatment of Christianity and Islam seems to reflect a double standard.

It's hard to imagine the college researching and paying for special modifications to the college to facilitate Christian rituals. And the "safety" justification? Imagine if a particularly strict group of Christian students found it necessary to sometimes baptize others in the restroom sinks. Would the school build them a baptism basin because a student hit his head on a sink?