27 November 2005

The Game is Over

Let's stop pretending that we aren't killing people.

50 Babies a Year Survive Attempted Murder

They are currently not considering pressing chargers against their attackers.

This is it. We've hit the wall. Abortion advocates must now say: a woman's right to choose supercedes a human's right to live. Or they must call it the sin and crime that it is and join the fight to end it.

They tried to avoid answering it before by calling into question whether the baby was viable, whether it was alive, and a number of other half-baked red herrings (half baked herrings are dead, by the way).

The game is over. We are not talking about "pretend" people, potential people, genetic material, or animals. We are talking about people, not merely humans. We are talking about BABIES being MURDERED.

Your turn, NARAL.

22 November 2005

Oh ye of little faith

We mentioned before that this aspiring scholar sees a war between the United States and China as a horrible prospect that would see the death of potentially millions of Chinamen, and in a worse-case scenario, tens of thousands of American. But we would shock and awe them on a scale never before seen. They wouldn't even know which way was up by the time we got done bombing them back to the... uhh... gunpowder age... I'm not sure what kind of "ages" the Chinese went through, but we would definitely not lose a war with them.

The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that
the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed
to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as
Australia, Japan and South Korea.


I contend that we could win conventional or nuclear war against the People's Republic of China, (especially, but not contingent, if those Pacific Doubting Thomases are on our side. And they better be there when steel meets steel, unless they secretly want oppressive governments to dominate the globe.) I'm assuming these nations don't have intelligence services to report on these things, or that their analyses are sheerly numerical.

A billion Chinese will not build a bridge across the Pacific.

04 November 2005

09 October 2005

The Supreme Court (in brief)

Since a hostile anonymous poster requested it, and I see no reason not to oblige, here is my brief post on the Supreme Court:

The far-leftists (i.e., mainstream university liberals) are angry because they had no way of blocking Roberts without further hurting their party (v.g., a time-wasting filibuster). Roberts is one of the greatest legal talents of our day (even if you disagree with him). He is now the Chief Justice of the United States, and may well be so for the next fifty years. Let us hope he is as conservative as Scalia. If it turns out he forgets that his job is to interpret laws against the constitution, and instead, like so many others, becomes arrogant and believes that he is a moral legislator, then I will readily agree that he needs to go.

As for Miers, it's another strange one. She seems to have some kind of conscience, as she has contributed to both parties. This should appease those who claim to want someone who evaluates by issue and not down a party line. She seems to be genuinely born again in the Christ the Lord, which to any Christian is a blessing, and anyone in the Judaeo-Christian tradition should well understand how this will affect her philosophy. She seems to be a judicial conservative (and by this I mean she, unlike the New York Times, realizes that "judicial activism" does not mean "finding a law unconstitutional"). She would not be the first person to sit on the court without previously having been a judge: William Rhenquist himself's first robe was that of the High Court.

I do rather wish that the President had named Scalia to the Chief Justice slot, and battled it out in Congress. But I suppose I am willing to defer to a longer-term possibility, and cross my fingers on his legal philosophy.

With both nominees, only time will tell their true colors. All we can hope for is that they both trust the Lord's judgment, and believe firmly in their stated judicial philosophies.

Dearest antagonizer (whose identity remains a mystery, and I'm sure, makes the task that much more appealing), does that satiate your desires?

20 August 2005

Doomsday Post

I went to DC a few days ago for an overnight trip. Just for fun.

A postal employee blew up on me, said I had a "John Roberts face". I'm not kidding. A postal worker went postal on me. After haranguing my friend and me for about 30 minutes about how other nations handle their capital districts better than the US, and how the US flies in the face of "international law" (that was the phrase that sparked the argument), I eventually said - jokingly of course - "international law? haha, I can tell you're on the left". This is where the explosion started. He yelled at me, told me to sit down (I didn't) and said a lot of nonsensical things. He walked away once, came back, yelled some more, walked away again... and fell flat on his face on the restaurant floor. Seriously.

We saw him again later that night, yelling at someone else in the bathroom at a bar. Kelly's Irish Times bar by Union Station receives a 3.5 out of 5 stars from The Aspiring Scholar (it loses one star for location and a half star for slow weeknights - but I will definitely go back if I'm ever in the neighborhood). It's definitely better than the other bars in the several block radius. We didn't realize how far the metro took us, and ended up trying to walk back from Union Station. When we finally flagged down a police car to ask for help, they told us they thought we had been robbed at gunpoint, because they were very surprised to see two young white males in shirts and ties on that particular street. Many thanks to Officer Hoffman and her partner (5th District, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington DC) for potentially saving our lives.

News... hmm... apparently John Roberts thought Michael Jackson was a bad role model for children, and the Washington Post seems to think that makes him some kind of uber-boy scout. I happen to agree with the man. I clicked Drudge's link to the Huffington Post's post by Cindy Sheehand, entitled Memo to Drudge, et.al. That post in and of itself wasn't too bad, but reading on, I was astonished at the sorts of things the left says. I'd reccomend it for anyone who wants to dance a little with the devil... just make sure your soul is entrusted to the Lord first.

As you can tell, this post is kind of a catch all. Hopefully September will bring some actual news - a welcome change from a protesting left-wing radical camped outside the President's ranch, and irrelevant documents about unrelated policy positions in the John Roberts confirmation process.

11 August 2005

Dear Mrs. Sheehan

Dear Mrs. Sheehan,

We at the Aspiring Scholar are very sorry for your loss. As an army officer cadet and simultaneous member of the New Jersey National Guard, my heart goes to you and the family of every other soldier lost in combat. I dread the day I will have to write or call people just like you.

However, you are on a path to personal destruction. Any cheap Holywood production (like, say, a George Lucas production or a Tom Cruise film) knows that harboring revenge and striking out is not the way to peace. The President met with you in June, and you said you felt better knowing that he is sincere in his crusade for freedom (yes, crusade) and knowing that he is truly a man of faith. Please remember how you felt then and stop this nonsense waste of your time. You cannot expect President Bush to agree to meet with you again, when so far your form of petition has been, "I'm going to sit outside your Texas ranch until you do." Little kids try this all the time, and there is a very good reason parents don't accede to it. Accepting help from MoveOn-dot-org (I spell it out to avoid being accused to linking to them) also does not help your case, as it makes it appear that you are willing to politicize your son's death.

Your family calls on you to stop. They have taken the high road, the road to peace, saying, "The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect." I advise you to do the same. I think if you look inside yourself, and look to the Lord with prayer, you will find the peace you need, and you will definitely realize that your current actions are only hurting you, your family, and Casey's name (God rest his soul).

The nation feels your pain, but we also want to see you gain peace. Vengeance and anger do not beget healing.

God bless you and your family.

Yours in Freedom and in Christ,

The Aspiring Scholar

09 August 2005

Not the brightest stars

(You'll see the double entendre/horrible punniness in a moment)

I haven't felt quite up to working up enough commentary on recent matters. May Peter Jennings - and the thousands of other people who died that very hour - rest in peace.

But yesterday, I read on AOL News that Kate Hudson thinks that monogamy is unrealistic. And I have to admit, for a moment I actually thought she was advancing an argument. "Monogamy is unrealistic" sounds like a thesis, and I actually read the story. There was a picture of her with her singer husband, who looked to be about twice her size and with more hair on his face than she has on her head. And she was saying things like, "Monogamy is just unrealistic... but I think that we, as people, can accomplish it."

No, Kate, monogamy is not unrealistic. In addition to being the mandate of the loving God who walks alongside us, it speaks to simple human decency (which comes from that same God). How incredibly out of touch do you have to be with life and the world, and the American people, to make such a comment? Not only does it sound like a disconnected excuse for immoral behavior, it's a perfect example of people thinking that being famous means being smart. Ms. Hudson is an attractive woman, and I'm sure she's a skilled actress. But she's not an ethicist nor a psychologist, and her views - which she has a right to express - don't count for any more than a high school sophomore who just cheated on his girlfriend. Remember Cameron Diaz's "if you don't vote, you're allowing rape" campaign?

And now Mic Jagger decided to throw his intellectual towel into the ring and write a song about American politics, called My Sweet Neo-con. As usual, I got the story from Drudge. Apparently, Mr. Jagger is using his considerable influence as a political intellectual and renowned analyst to present his carefully weighed arguments to the world - through song.

Despite the invective herein, I actually don't think that stars should refrain from expressing their opinions. I think the last election - with most of the mainstream media, all of Holywood, and half the music industry campaigning for John Kerry - proved that Americans aren't so foolish to be swayed by the opinions of those who have no authority on the matter, especially foreigners like Jagger who once had enough class to hold his tongue.

Next time you see a story about a "star" commenting on political or moral issues, think about what he or she is saying. Chances are it's as ridiculous as "unrealistic monogamy".

25 July 2005

Doomsday Post

Some bloggers randomly post throughout the day, to assure their readers they are in fact alive, I suppose. Some will post a link every hour. Usually, I'll just sit quiet if I have nothing to say.

Rant-in-Brief (I can always rant a little)
So the Italian police are going to try to arrest some CIA agents. And Hillary is playing her stupid "look like a conservative" game, which is so transparent I'm expecting a member of her party to use it against her in the primary, and it will definitely be apparent in the New York Senate race next year. What else... an American has won France's biggest contest for the 7th year in a row. China is still making noise and should be watched, even if it looks like they won't get UNOCAL. Roberts should be confirmed fairly easily.



Doomsday (the important part)
That's enough ranting. The real reason I'm here is to quote this:

So one morning, the Dayak people heard the droning of a slow-flying aircraft. Soon the sky was littered with parachutes bearing pussycats to earth. OperationCat Drop delivered 14,000 felines to Borneo. They hit the ground -- feet first,I suppose -- and began taking care of the rats.
I think you can find the rest of the story here. I don't have a point this time, in case anyone is waiting for it. They should print that quote on t-shirts, like the one about the lion who wakes up in Africa and has to outrun the slowest gazelle, and conversely the gazelle has to outrun the fastest lion. But instead of being a lesson, or inspirational, it's just that: airborne feline infantry.

20 July 2005

Bush granted my request!

(Read my last post). So far, the President hasn't failed to meet many of my expectations. I am rather proud to call him my commander-in-chief.

I find myself tending to be a bit leery as to how Justice Roberts will perform. But I will resist this temptation and trust that President Bush has made the right decision. No more suprises...

And although I think Ann Coulter could stand to learn a little of the same trust, that doesn't mean Wonkette gets any credit for basically snapping her fingers and copping an attitude, regardless of what Andrew Sullivan might characterize as a "classic diss". I suppose it is classic in much the same sense as "your momma" is classic.

At any rate, we have a fine nomination to the supreme court. Now we can only cross our fingers and hope the democrats split their vote on it, effectively confirming Roberts (70-30 or higher will do) and dividing their party even further. Schumer and Durbin should be a little concerned about their upcoming elections.

19 July 2005

Court Supremacy

The President is scheduled to announce his nomination to the Supreme Court at S2100 (9:00 PM EDT).

Some people expect it will be Edith Clement, from the New Orleans federal court. Seems reasonable, from what I've read about her. The court certainly needs a few women on it - as does any council of collective wisdom of such magnitude.

The President is keeping true to form by making his decision and making announcing it soon thereafter. Clement would be a fine choice, but might be a bit too much of a concession. This is one of those "political capital" moments. The President has an obligation to replace the retiring Supreme Court justice: however, he has NO obligation to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. What I mean by this is he is not bound, morally, legally, or pragmatically, to appoint someone who shares her approach, her ideology, or her background. Nor her gender.

I hope the President's nomination is a complete surprise. I'll be very disappointed if the media isn't clamoring over it tomorrow. I hope we can even get the New York Times to run a headline like "Bush Shows Partisan Favoritism in Court Pick" or something equally ridiculous. It's still not news, but at least it breaks up the monotony of the usual lack of news reporting we've come to expect from the mainstream outlets.

Secret Agent Woman: Chapter II

The American media... sigh...

I guess they used to get away with reporting one thing to the public, and another to the courts. After all, in the past, who was going to report it? Now that the nexus of power has shifted out of their hands (although they will not admit it), and independent and responsible news reporting can be conducted by any private citizen with a computer and 15 minutes a day, this kind of thing will not go unnoticed anymore.

We're all familiar with the media shark frenzy over Karl Rove. You know, the one in which they confuse the president's statement "if the person has violated law" with "I will fire Karl Rove if you ask me to do so, blatantly disregarding my principles in exchange for appeasing the ailing mainstream media powerhouses". And the one in which we are relying on shady, half-baked claims from a shady, attention-hungry former ambassador who has contributed to democrat campaigns and been basically outed as a democrat operative. (To the mainstream press: contrary to the your belief, it is not a crime to out a democrat operative, even if he is masquerading as an objective source to accomplish your political agenda.)

Now, what most people don't realize, and should, is that the press has already admitted that we're right (and by we I mean Americans with at least half a brain). As Bill O'Reilly so eloquently stated, most people just don't care, but for those that do, this is interesting reading.

The press dispatched an amici curiae brief to the D.C. Federal Appeals Court, in which they insisted that no crime was committed in the revealing of the name of Valerie Plame, in addition to other ridiculous claims about the press being a 4th unofficial branch of the government designed to check the other three. (Apparently, the electorate gets shafted in such considerations). Some of the highlights of this brief:

...the explanation by a White House official to Robert Novak that Joseph Wilson had been sent by the CIA to Niger because his wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA represents a single fact which has been an enduring and crucial news story for the past two years - i.e., did the Bush Administration invade Iraq with a reasonable, if mistaken, belief that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction? As that story unfolded, the nation's focus migrated from questions about the failure of America's intelligence operations, to "leaks" from the intelligence community that embarassed the Bush Administration during a presidential election, to the President's housecleaning of the CIA after the election.


We'll go for this one first, although it isn't really related to the Wilson debacle. I just thought it interesting that, while most of the nation seemed more interested in fighting terror and protecting our borders and freedom, the press still claims to speak for the nation with absurdities. They might as well say the nation's focus shifted to quantum electrodynamics after the apparent failures of string theory. What they mean by "the nation's focus migrated" is really "our attacks shifted".

Another bit of gold from the brief is the section in which it rattles off 9 conditions of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, including "the person disclosing the identity knows that the information so identifies the covert agent" and "the disclosure is intentional", among others. Immediately following is the real gem, though. The brief points out that the law offers exclusion in the case that the agent's identity has previously been exposed, and that "Congress intended to criminalize only disclosures that 'clearly represent a conscious and pernicious effort to identify and expose agents with the intent to impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States".

Andrew McCarthy in an article for National Review Online, points out that Plame/Wilson's "cover" has been blown for decades. I will not attempt to steal his analysis, but will instead direct any readers I might have to read his article. It is very well written and I actually printed a copy to tote around with me, so useful is the commentary.

The brief is priceless in light of what the press is now saying. Watching the news really does leave a bad taste in your mouth for republicans, but then you find out the facts and realize that the press is, well, just lying.

18 July 2005

Secret Agent Woman: Chapter I

With Michael Jackson a free man, and Saddam not quite arraigned just yet, the media is making up another grand story. I guess with two of their favorite people in trials where their guilt stinks up the court room, and where the outcomes are known far in advance, the media has to concoct a trial for their most hated enemy, Karl Rove.

We'll get back to the media in a bit. We have a much bigger problem with the focus of the situation. The outcry should be over Joseph Wilson IV's derangement. After watching him on Meet the Press going toe to toe with Ken Mehlman (chairman of the RNC), and saying pretty much nothing that made any sense - despite the fact that Russert was clearly on his side, I am convinced of his derangement. Let's take a little review of the facts:

Before we start with the Wilson mess, In September 2003, President Bush said the following:


"And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of. "

So then this chain of nonsense begins, mostly thanks to Joseph Wilson's actions as a democratic operative:

1. The CIA needs someone to go to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had purchased heavy uranium from the African nation.

2. A CIA agent named Valerie Plame, whose identity was no longer secret, recommends her husband be sent.

3. Joseph Wilson IV, the husband of Valerie Plame, travels to Niger on an unpaid mission and apparently finds that the nation did not sell uranium to Saddam.

4. British Intelligence indicates that Saddam sought uranium from Niger.

5. President Bush relays this information to the American people in his State of the Union address.

6. Joe Wilson writes an op-ed for the New York Times, apparently conflating the term "British intelligence" with "Joe Wilson" and "bought" with "sought". He also indicates in this op-ed that the Vice President sent him.

7. Columnist Robert Novak wrote indicating that CIA operative Valerie Plame had sent her husband on an unpaid trip, apparently publicly releasing her name.

8. Matt Cooper has a super secret email conversation with Karl Rove, who suggest he has also heard that it was Wilson's wife who sent him.

9. Michael Isikoff (of riot-inciting Newsweek fame) finds out that Matt Cooper heard this from Rove.

10. The media smells Karl Rove's blood and goes for it, insisting Bush fire him, claiming that he originally claimed don't have access to the super secret White House transcript, available worldwide here.

The argument from the left (for the purposes of this posting, the left includes democrats, the print media, and broadcast media minus the Fox News Channel, and Hollywood) is that Karl Rove leaked the name of a CIA operative and should be fired, because the President said he would fire anyone who leaked information...

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is, I'm sure, a little confused as to whether the mainstream media has been assigned to take his place in investigating the matter.

Especially considering the Amici Curiae brief filed by 36 major news organizations - but this deserves a post all its own.


Thanks to JustOneMinute for leading me to the White House transcript.

16 July 2005

Good Stuff

Read this. Just read it, it's hilarious. I thought it was a news piece at first, but then it delved straight into the editorializing with "The Clinton administration's national security efforts involved the right blend of 'experience' and 'strength,' Begala said, an assertion with which the 9/11 Commission apparently disagreed."

Good stuff.

15 July 2005

Chinese Chess

This China situation is starting to get a little disturbing. It was first disturbing how many conversations about China's future contained the caveat "That's if we don't go to war with them by then", or something similar. This was only augmented by tensions over the Republic of China, which the People's Republic of China (PRC) and related entities (i.e., the American media) insist on calling "Taiwan", which is the name of the island the RoC occupies.

Let's take a minute on that. When the communists ran out the nationalists in the 40s, the nationalists fled to the island of Taiwain and established the Republic of China, never intending to be ruled by the Maoists in Beijing. Since then, PRC has been trying to convince the world that RoC is just a small internal problem that they will deal with in time. The small internal problem equates to a nation of almost 2 billion being ruled by a small minority of communist dictators seeking to spread their police state to a people who desire their independence.

Now they are building their military, in an apparent plot to invade the Republic of China and annex it to their nation. This is known as "conquering" and it is something of which the world has been accusing the United States ever since we started spending billions of dollars to free people across the world. Now that China is fairly well convinced of the American resolve, they have sent one of their crazies out to make it sound like an American involvement will set off a nuclear war. One of their loony generals:

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China's National Defence University.
“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”
Not only is that foolish, as we control vastly more nuclear assets than the rest of the world, it is clearly bluster intended to make us think twice about defending freedom in the Pacific. So they move their queen's bishop to put our king in check. We could move to take out the bishop, and risk prolonged war, perhaps involving WMD. Or we could move our king and try to avoid the whole unpleasant mess, allowing China to impose communist rule on an otherwise free people.

What we're forgetting is the chessboard is much larger, and their side is cluttered with panws and no real king (our king can move anywhere on the board undetected, greatly reducing the chance for being put in check), whereas we have dozens of queens (division control), each with bishops (air support), rooks (artillery), and knights (yeah, the friggin cavalry). Not to mention the thousands of infantry pawns. Not to mention the carrier battle groups we operate off the chess board, some elements of which are under the table. We also have pieces operating far over the chessboard. Our pieces are better armored, better equipped, better trained, better paid, and better fed. We also have a God to whom we can pray for wisdom and support, which is more than their communist godless society provides them.

Now, no one wants millions of Chinamen to die in a war for their evil masters, but people need to stop talking like they have some secret to victory. Yeah, if they could land their 7 billion soldiers on our soil, we'd have a problem. But we can see all their boats, and the Navy can probably destroy most of them without redelploying any assets. Not to mention that if they started to get close, they'd have to deal with our actual homeland defenses. They would be moving within range of hundreds, maybe thousands, of aircraft. They would be met on the shore by armor and artillery the likes of which they've never seen. That's assuming they even try to come here. Otherwise, we'll just have the bomb the living hell out of them until they realize it just isn't going to work out for them.

Maybe we can convince the Chinese people that there is a better way to live. Maybe not.

Either way, freedom is something for which this nation, and its brave soldiers, will fight for years to come. And China is not exempt from what I consider the real Bush Doctrine.

10 July 2005

Last Word on Guantanamo

Just got back from Fort Knox after 4 weeks at the Leader's Training Course for ROTC. Sorry to my one or two readers who had to live without me for that duration.

Before, there were some questions about Gitmo. Now there aren't.

Some of you may have forgotten, but Amnesty International and some other folks were saying that detention camp in Cuba was akin to a Soviet Gulag. Some US Senators even said it was comparable to a concentration camp. They seemed upset not that we were detaining terrorists unfairly, but that we were detaining terrorists, at all, in the first place. They called for its closing and a bunch of other nonsense, all based on the ungrounded claims of a radical leftist organization that apparently seeks "amnesty" for terrorists.

Now the chief of the Senate Intelligence Committee has gone to Cuba himself, and seen the horrible living conditions. Ann Coulter wrote about this in one of her recent columns. A memorable quote is in my AIM profile right now:

It's not torture if:
- The same acts performed on a live stage have been favorably reviewed by Frank Rich of The New York Times;
- Andrew Sullivan has ever solicited it from total strangers on the Internet;
- You can pay someone in New York to do it to you;
- Karen Finley ever got a federal grant to do it;
- It's comparable to the treatment U.S. troops received in basic training;
- It's no worse than the way airlines treat little girls in pigtails flying to see Grandma.

... [a little later in the column] So they're not exactly raping the detainees with dogs at Guantanamo.


I'm not sure why congress wants to waste money moving the prisoners to another prison when they are living better than they ever have before as it is. Does anyone in the world have any further objections?

10 June 2005

Aww

Democrats are cute when they get mad. My little brother, Franz, who has countless issues related to being the youngest of four and unnaturally cute as a baby, acts like this sometimes. He'll simply refuse to talk about something he doesn't want to discuss. He's a smart kid, smarter than me probably, but he's 10, and he has an excuse.

The Democrats, not so much. From the social security story in the last post:
Democrats have said they won't work with Republicans on bipartisan legislation
until Bush and the GOP abandon their call for personal accounts paid from
payroll taxes.

Don't give us what we want, we'll shut down the Senate. Remember that? I think it was Byrd (the Kleagle) - but it might have been another dem - that once said something like "If I have to change the rules to do..." to do something or other, he was going to use the majority to change the Senate rules.

When Republicans want to change one rule which is borderline unconstitutional and certainly nothing but disruptive, suddenly we're tampering with tradition.

Franz gets annoyed when we call him a baby. Maybe if we keep saying it to the democrats, they'll all start acting like Howard Dean.

Babies.

A Thought on Social Security

In case it hasn't smacked you in the face, my modus operandi is to look at the headlines (usually on Drudge) and come up with some sort of commentary on them. This post is no exception.

The Washington Post relayed an AP Story which relays that Republicans in the Senate are considering raising the social security retirement age.

And... it's about time. As much as I would love to retire at age 62 or 65, or whatever it is these days, with full social security benefits, it just isn't right. Yes, 40 years is a long time to work. But the point of social security is to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves, not create an entire caste of elderly citizens who live on the government dollar for, and this is pure wild speculation, probably a median of 15 years.

I've heard that when King Franklin I did his New Deal, a significantly smaller percentage of Americans lived to collect these benefits. The President has said that some years ago, 16 working Americans were working to support 1 social security recipient, and that currently every THREE working Americans support one recipient. It is expected that, certainly within my parents' lifetime, one working American will support one non-working recipient of social security.

Senator Hillary, big momma of the destructively socialist HillaryCare program, has said that something like "It's almost as if he's trying to undo the New Deal!" First of all, this is so whiny in its very nature that it's like a small child saying, "It's almost like they're taking away nap time!"

I thought it was apparent to 8th grade graduates (we've yet to see Hillary's elementary school records, so she may be excused from this qualification) that the New Deal was a colossal distractoin that basically put the citizenry to work on government sponsored labor... sort of like conscripted labor. FDR just threw out a hundred different organizations, created an ugly bureaucracy, and every President since has been trying to untangle the knot he made!

Social security should remain a system to ensure the security of a way of life for those who cannot secure it for themselves. It is not a government sponsored method for retiring well before your working years are behind you. This becomes apparent when you notice that certain disabilities merit collection of social security.

The people with whom FDR made the new deal worked until they were 55 and then dies. The ones who made it to 60 couldn't work anymore, and so the rest of us agreed to take care of them. At the start of my financial career, I willingly renew this agreement. I do not, however, consent to pay for perfectly able 65 year-old Americans who will be able to play tennis for the next 20 years but expect me to pay for their retirement.

If this sounds cold, go back to 1937 and ask a coal miner what he thinks of the deal. It's a fair deal, it's a good deal, it's an honest deal, and it requires older Americans to keep up their part.

No where in the founding principles of this nation does it say, "It shall be the right of the people to retire at an age determined by previous generations under different standards of longevity and different working conditions."

My parting thought: what if life expectancy doubles in the next 25 years (we vaccinated Marburg, don't doubt modern medicine)? Will we expect Americans age 18-70 to pay for Americans age 71-140?

08 June 2005

Here is one of the Things I Won't Read

I've never been the most masculine man. But Drudge recently reported something that offends even my virility, with this headline:


REPORT: The dawn of the 'hybrid man'; macho is endangered species...

Certain elements of mainstream society want you to THINK this is happening. Don't let them fool you.

I refuse to click the link, but this is the same sort of insult the media levels at men with their "Queer Eye" attitude. Is it impossible for heterosexual men to be wine aficionados, or to groom themselves well? Are there not more straight male chefs in the world than gay male chefs?

I am happy that being a man does not mean eating raw meat and having to watch NASCAR. It doesn't even mean being agressive or 'rough'. But this is ridiculous... if the sole contention of that report is that men can wear goofy things and still be men, then they should go back about three thousand years and tell that to the Egyptians and Greeks.... or the French. Haha. *insert masculine grunt accompanying France is weak joke*

This goes right up there with the Vagina Monologues. I'd rather not be able to have an informed discussion about it: that gives the matter far too much dignity.

Grass's Follies

The story about the Cubans trying to get to America has it's funny side. Specifically the part about Senor Grass and his several attempts to turn automobiles into watermobiles.

But what isn't funny is that they are so desperate to escape their government - which, as some of you may have forgotten, is a communist despotism - that they would try to power across the channel in a bright blue taxi. I know liberals like to think of Fidel as some glorious revolutionary, but that was the problem with Saddam's special republican guard. They were duped.

Cuba has always been our nearest communist neighbor (unless you count Canada, who is coming close). We should not forget that communism, despite its promises in theory, is not a free system. No where in the world has communism allowed freedom, and Cuba is a glaring example of such a totalitarian state.

It's no wonder Cuban-Americans vote more Republican than other minority populations. The last democrat President seized a small child from the home of legal US citizens and shipped him back to his Castro-supporting father. Democrats support communism whenever they can get away with it. Freedom loving Cubans know that the only chance for the oppressed peoples of the world is strong Republican leadership of this great nation.

James Earl Carter! Get back in your room!

Is this the same Jimmy Carter who was eclipsed by Ronald Reagan? The same one who was dancing around in Cuba before, stirring up problems? The same one who was denied the Nobel Peace Prize? The same one who oversaw shaky elections in some underdeveloped nation recently?

He seems like a nice enough fellow.

But then there's this. In the AP story, the former president says, "The U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation ... because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo." Apparently he thinks we should shut down the detention facility...

And send them to another one? What is he thinking? He had to deal with the media circus when he was president, don't you think he would appreciate the administration's position and not inflame already inflated reports - fed by media lies (Newsweek) and slander from 'human rights' groups (Amnesty).

Got some news for you Mr. Carter... we're treating them pretty well, considering we give them the very literature they use to incense violence and martyrdom against innocent Americans!

Ol' Jimmy was kind enough to give us this:

Despite his criticism of Guantanamo Bay, Carter said Amnesty International should not have called the prison "the gulag of our time" in a report last month. President Bush has termed the report by the human-rights group "absurd."


Gee, thanks.

Oh it keeps getting better

Now that the President has been gloriously re-elected, there have been some interesting developments.

John Kerry refused for a long time to release his military records despite his insistence that it would exonerate the SwiftBoat Veterans' claims. In some blundering statement he claimed the Department of Defense was releasing things that weren't pertinent to his service, but really, what was he worried about?

Senator Kerry also refused to release his transcripts from Yale.

We saw the venerable Dan Rather attempt to slander the President's record with falsified reports produced in Microsoft Word... in the 70s...

We were also privileged to secretly recorded conversations in which President Bush, in which he said nothing incriminating and seemed even to re-affirm himself as a bold politician and a strong Christian.

And now this story in the Boston Globe. This is the lead, and kudos to the Globe for publishing it:


During last year's presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

These are the Kerry highlights:




The grade transcript, which Kerry has always declined to release...The transcript shows that Kerry's freshman-year average was 71...Kerry's weak grades came despite years of education at some of the world's most elite prep schools


And the blurb on Bush:





Bush went to Yale from 1964 to 1968; his highest grades were 88s in anthropology, history, and philosophy, according to The New Yorker article. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy. Bush has said he was a C student.


Well. The honesty and frankness speaks for itself. The slogan "Don't blame me I voted for Kerry" should be replaced with "Don't give me any credit..." you get the idea.

And I have to say it. Just look at the pictures!

07 June 2005

The Media is High

First of all, this is still very strange to me. I am no legal scholar - only an aspiring one - but I am very uncomfortable with a law being enacted by the legislature and reiterated by the high court, while enforcement authorities seem to have no intention of enforcing it. Matt Drudge summed it up best with his headline: the attitude of the law towards smoking marijuana seems to be "whatever".

What is more annoying is having to read things like this, in the above story:

The ruling could be an early test of the compassion Attorney General Alberto Gonzales promised to bring to the Justice Department following the tenure of John Ashcroft.

Now, I'm no journalistic scholar - and hardly even aspiring to that - but that doesn't strike me as proper reporting, or news at all. It also could be a case of foot-in-mouth disease by the Washington Post. Can I write that in my newspaper? In fact, the whole marijuana thing could be indicative of a degradation of the moral fabric of society. It could be the result of subversion attempts by al-qaeda [possible sic]

Or it could just be a tension between one end of the spectrum of the war on drugs and the other: weakening marijuana laws undermines the fight against fatally adictive and violent crime inducing heroine and cocaine.

Ever think of writing that, Mark Sherman of the Associated Press?

Dr. Dean at it again

If this guy isn't a Karl Rove plant, then God really must be on our side.

Another nail in their coffin.

After his shouting stunts, his "we're going to Arizona and we're going to Arkansas and we're going to Washington DC TO TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE!" (paraphrased) and after he, a licensed physician, went on the record to ridicule a patient who had become addicted to pain medication, he pulls something like this.

It's no wonder the ambulance chaser former Vice Presidential hopeful didn't want him speaking for the party. Honestly, if they're going to say Dobson's a little too far right, they need to reign this guy in first.

Decriminalization

I still remember being struck by the idea of something being "decriminalized" but not legalized. Despite the fact that it is a violation of federal law to purchase or use marijuana, the states are still allowing it to a degree by simply not enforcing their restrictions on it, and apparently only leaving the Federal government discretion to bring the charges as they see fit.

I wonder how this really fits within a coherent constitutional republic...

05 June 2005

Growing up with a healthcare professional - my mother is a nurse practitioner - this is of great interest to me:

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canadian and U.S. scientists have developed vaccines that protect monkeys from the deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses and show promise for humans, a study published in Nature Medicine magazine said on Sunday.

It's about as close as we can hope for a full scale cure, given the conditions:

The data would suggest that instead of 100 percent chance of dying, they would have an 80 percent chance of survival," [Canadian researcher Steven]Jones told reporters.

Score one for us.

The Media as Usual

vs.

From the US Army's website vs. Winner of a Pulitzer



As an Army guardsman and an officer cadet, I ask you all to read GaijinBiker's analysis of the pulitzer winners. See his collection of photos from the Army's website showing some positive aspects of the war, as well.



US Army Photo was displayed on army.mil

AP Photo: Fallujah - A U.S. Marine leads an Iraqi prisoner during fighting in the center of the city. (Photo by Anja Niedringhaus, November 12, 2004.)

European Commonsense

The Telegraph has posted a replacement for the European Union. Section III is very American states' rights - a nice touch to be sure. My addition (this is more conceptual, so it belongs more at the beginning):

Section X: Member states shall be free to determine their own relationships with and attitudes toward the United States. It is the intention of this endeavor to ensure a spirit of constructive competition, both in terms of a free market and a free society, wherein two great civilizations [ancient and venerable Europe and powerful, industrious, responsible America] might bring humanity to a new height of flourish.

A bit too flowery, as most things I write. But this is the general attitude we need to adapt. If a United Europe and a United States have a competing market, competing arts, competing sciences, the world will rise to new heights. It seems the United States takes some stewardship of developing South America, Europe has a vested interest in Asia, and the whole lot of us takes care of Africa to a certain - although inadequate - degree.

I've always dreamed of a Federation of Allied States. The United Kingdom and The United States are two very powerful and very influential nations, and I'd like to have seen Prime Minister Blair and President Bush capitalize more on their strong relationship. Perhaps in the next 4 years we'll see some encouraging developments.

Until then: heu, vae victis.

Drudge Headline

It's hard to believe this is going on in America. I have a feeling we'll see a lot more of the same as the federal crackdown continues.

I wish Amnesty would be a little more constructive in trouble making. From Reuters via Drudge.

Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn't "know for sure" that the military is running a "gulag."

No kidding, jackass.

04 June 2005

Tip of the Hat to John Leo

John Leo is probably my favorite columnist.

Read his latest work of genius, about the way democrats are subverting democracy. Coming from someone like him, once an editor at US News and an eminently reasonable commentator, the left should probably take heed.

Condi 2008?

Thanks to one of my readers (perhaps my only one) for this look ahead about the 2008 race. Some wonderful speculation.

Unfortunately, we may have to let the Dems run Hillary while we run a strong male candidate... it's not as though the Dems need many more nails in their coffins. Dr. Rice and Guliani would both make excellent Presidents of this great nation, although Condi hasn't been elected to any major office in the past. Rudy should get in the Senate, Condi should run as VP alongside a good republican WASP (Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney?), and the Condi/Guiliani ticket could take the White House by storm in 2012.

But all this is wishful thinking. Of course, I'd still like to see Arnold do a tour in the Senate and maybe hold a cabinet position.

Take a look at the Looking Ahead post and let me know what you think of these candidates. Perhaps we'll hold a pre-election rally here at the Aspiring Scholar. Champagne will be on us, of course.

A Request for the New York Times

Dear Sir or Madame,

I am sure your newspaper has already taken note of the following bit of information, but I would like you to use it in the same way you and your colleagues use information that is embarassing to our President of defaming to our country. If you could also please ask Newsweek to run the same thing as a cover piece, I will be very grateful.

[Brigadier General Jay] Hood [commanding general of the Gitmo detention area] also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. “These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran,” Hood’s report said. It offered no possible explanation for those alleged abuses.
In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18, 2005, allegedly ripped up his Quran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several of the guards witnessed this, Hood reported.


Much love,

The Aspiring Scholar


P.S.
Then we go find those demonstrators and make them do their angry little hate dance against terrorists. We should use this incident to prove to the world once and for all that it isn't our actions they hate, it's just us. For no reason. They claim to be upset because we descrated the Koran, but they won't lift a finger or say one word against their own kind when they do it.

These are the kind of irrational fools with whom we are forced to deal. People need to open their eyes to this babyish behavior from these adult militants.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Update
Austin Bay has this to say:

I would like to know something about the men who had these Korans. I’d like to know their prison record– are they rude? Do they spew anti-American, anti-Semitic, and/or anti-Christian epithets? What were these men doing when they were captured? Did they beat women in Afghanistan who failed to meet the Taliban dress code? Did they break the heads of men whose beards were too short? (That was another Taliban abuse that Newsweek seemed to have forgotten.) Were any of these characters involved in the destruction of the Buddas of Bamiyan? Did they steal food from World Food Program aid convoys? And if they did, how many times did they commit these crimes against the Afghan people? Yes, call Amnesty International. The investigation seems to be glaringly incomplete.

Here here!

Annoying Cache of Lawyers United

Drudge reports:

American Civil Liberties Union has been shredding documents over repeated objections of its records manager and in conflict with longstanding policies on preservation, disposal of records... Developing...

I thought they were infallible...

To tell you the truth, the most annoying thing about this group is that they do everything under this righteous guise of "defending civil liberties". Somehow, their defense of athiests, pedophiles, and nazi civil liberties seems to bump up against the rights of Christians, little boys, and European Jews.

Is this a rare of case of a conservative being too sensitive? Liberals flew into a frenzy of SpongeBob SquarePants being called gay (don't get me wrong, the show isn't bad, but the little sponge does act fruity), and have a conniption when one of our congressmen seems to have taken a trip without telling everyone who paid for it. Let's compare causes... taking an undisclosed-finance trip vs. raping one woman and molesting others; calling a cartoon character gay vs. accusing the Lord of Creation of being responsible for violence, or accusing those who invoke his name as part of their personal religion as a violation of civil liberties.

In fact, SpongeBob means so little to us that liberals can have him as long as they just go away for real.

02 June 2005

Amnesty International?

Granted, I have not done much reading on the group. Morton Winston, one of my professors, is heavily involved with the group (Former Chair, Standing Committee on Organization and Development, Amnesty International; Former Honorary Chair, Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA). He is very liberal - he griped about "Jesus Land" the day after the president won re-election - but is a generally amiable and reasonable individual. But this just raises more questions, and I digress.

First, what's with the name? Amnesty basically equates to mass pardons. Is that what they want? Large hordes of criminals excused by authority of the state?

No, their website tells us they want "internationally recognized human rights". An admirable goal, to be sure. Other than basic rights to food and water, and a most minimal rights to psychological stability, I don't know three philosophers who will agree, let alone a whole world full of politicians and activists.

The Washington Post always does me favors with their articles. This one, about Amnesty's recent comments about Guantanamo, has these two quotes, both written with the same matter-of-fact and unpretending voice:

A verbal feud between Amnesty International and Washington has escalated since Amnesty last week compared the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the brutal Soviet system of forced labor camps where millions of prisoners died.

The United States holds about 520 men at Guantanamo, where they are denied rights accorded under international law to prisoners of war.

Now, there might be one or two rational folks over at Amnesty other than Dr. Winston, but their voices aren't being heard. Need we remind their enterprise that WE GAVE THEM KORANS! We didn't have to do that. Frankly, it wouldn't be surprising if other nations simply refused to take prisoners and killed their enemies in battle. The United States is indeed held to a higher standard, what with our role as the leaders of the world, but does that mean we have to treat these terrorists like American citizens? We already accomodate their religion, the same religion they use to incense violence against our women and children.

"Secret" memos (the Bybee memo sent to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales) have been "exposed" and have demonstrated the evils of the Bush administration. Frankly. the White House was only doing what Amnesty ought to have done. They were trying to define torture so it could be AVOIDED. The very fact that they were trying identify something they felt was morally wrong should speak volumes for the kind of leadership we are dealing with in the White House.

[Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Zubaida] Khan rejected a suggestion that Amnesty's use of the emotive term "gulag" had turned the debate into one over semantics, and distracted attention from the situation in the detention centers.

For Amnesty to dare liken the United States to Stalinist USSR is a discredit to their organization. Stalin once said something along the lines of "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic". I've also heard that he was responsible for as many as twice the deaths as Adolf Hitler. So yes, Khan, we do take exception to your remark.

I have two requests for Amnesty: First, change your name. Amnesty is probably a bad thing most of the time. Second, stop promoting the American liberal agenda if you want the American people's support.

31 May 2005

Downtime

Well, the aspiring scholar gets its first officially recognized downtime in deference to my experience with the military entrance processing today. The whole blood-taking thing always gets to me, and it doesn't help to do it running on like 1 hour of sleep.

In the meantime, we finally know (or so we're supposed to believe we know) the man behind the elusive DeepThroat. I'm sure I don't have anything to say about this.

Don't forget your daily 16 doses of Drudge.

30 May 2005

The Curmudgeons Clinton

This is not a surprise to those of us who tend to believe that Bill Clinton is a rapist, probably had witnesses 'taken care of' to intimidate his way out of a scandal, and committed perjury.



Matt Drudge has done it again. A new book, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, is a belated exposure of the terrors of the Clinton White House. Lies, yelling, screaming. We already know Clinton is a liar, and it doesn't take too much imagination to see him or his lovely wife yelling and screaming (does anyone remember the news piece that alleged Hillary called someone a 'Jew bastard'?)

In a different day, a defender of Mr. Clinton's honor might challenge Matt Drudge to a duel, what with him breaking the Monicagate scandal, and now this (yes I linked it twice, read it twice). We'll see how the mainstream media and democrat leadership responds.

DeLay's Delayed Reconciliation

Yeah, I made a DeLay pun.

Did the liberals really expect their ploy to work? Smoke and mirrors accusing Tom DeLay of failing to disclose the details of a trip in the somewhat-distant past. As if they hadn't all done the same thing. I wonder if Howard Dean thinks Pelosi should go to jail:

Staff members for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., disclosed 11 prior trips, while staff members for DeLay, R-Texas, had 4. Rep.

Surprisingly, this comes from an AP report, and is relayed to us by the Washington Post. Read the article and call the closest elected democrat and demand they apologize, both for this failed little stunt and for being a democrat in the first place.

The Black Hair Crisis

Men are physically stronger than women. Virginia is warmer than New York. People from the mid-west are more republican than people from the northeast.

What do all those statements have in common?

They are all stereotypes. And they are all commonly accepted truisms (except by the feminist lobby, who doesn't accept anything). Stereotypes are useful guiding principles in almost every area of life. For instance, if one route is generally faster than another, it is expected that a practical individual will utilize that route. The idea of a "concept" (which, incidentally, is pretty much the only way the human mind works) is rooted firmly in the notion of a stereotype. We need stereotypes, to do science, to interact with others, to even think at all. Even the assertion "stereotypes are bad" is based on a stereotype of stereotypes. Here's a stereotype for you: liberals are mentally deficient.

Operating on that general assumption, it is no surprise that the Washington Post reported the evil practice of evil hair salons of charging customers different prices for different services (yeah, for real). The problem apparently arises from the fact that it is more difficult to handle hair typically associated with African-Americans. If this is true, and the article quotes a hairstlying expert who attest thereto, then no rights have been violated and no crimes have been committed. If melanin protects skin, is it then unfair that caucasians have to spend more money on sunscreen?

As an aspiring academic, I am embarassed by the fact that the hairstylist seemed more knowledgeable in his field than this blundering civil-rights expert, Vanderbilt University Law School professor Robert Belton:

"If they're [Dillars Inc.] saying that because of a person's color that it takes more time, then it's obvious that it's race,"

How inept. I suppose you have to be of a certain vein to declare yourself a civil-rights expert. Let me get this straight, Mr. Belton. If hair typically associated with African-Americans is more difficult to manage, the company must abolish its policy of charging based on "the level of experience of the stylist, degree of service, amount of time required and the cost of materials provided to the customer"? That's a direct quote from the company. What do you suggest? A flat rate for services, wherein a 10 year old boy getting a trim is charged the same as an adult woman whose hair extends to her waist and requires weekly highlighting?

At risk of beating an already dead horse, this whole situation smacks of the Lawrence Summers incident. For the unaware reader, Summers was speaking at a private dinner where he remarked on research that suggested that intrinsic aptitude may exist. Liberal faculty were enraged by the suggestion that what is so apparently different might be different in other ways, as well. Summers was basically forced into apologizing and committing 50 million dollars to 'women's issues' or whatever it is they call it these days.

Somehwere along the way, this society was snowed into thinking that all stereotypes are bad. It is much simpler to see stereotypes as themselves a stereotype: something that holds generally true but for which there are exceptions.

29 May 2005

The French are at it again

The long-awaited referendum is complete, and the votes have been counted. According to the Times Online, 56.14 percent of voters rejected the constitution of the European Union, which would have given the EU a centralized President and Foreign Minister, taking Europe one-step closer to statehood, and one step closer to being able to build a state comparable to the United States of America.

But, alas, the French have called a halt to all progress. It was a Frenchman, former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who is credited with authoring the document and engineering the concept as described therein. France was expected to lead the charge toward a united Europe.

The vote, in some ways, makes me chuckle, reinforcing the notion that France is incapable of doing anything that makes them look good. In other ways, it certainly reinforces the notion that the French people are loony. The Washington Post reports this quote:

"This is a great victory," said Fabrice Savel, 38, from the working class suburb of Aubervilliers. He was distributing posters that read: "Non to a free-market Europe."

So apparently the problem is with capitalism. Glenn Reynolds, whose commentary I respect and whose blog my paltry efforts can only hope to emulate, has found the disturbing socialist trend in his research on the matter as well. Read his lengthy entry regarding the vote.

I'll add this: Europe's only chance at coming close to the United States is to break down the socialist pillars that have driven unemployment rates into the double digits, and realize that America hasn't succeeded on spirit alone (although that contributes), but through the power of a competetive and free market.

Genesis

And so it begins, a new era in my voyage dark. The internet and I have a long and twisted history, and this represents the opening of a new chapter therein. I propose a toast, to a long and prosperous life in the blogosphere.

It is a small wonder - and an honor all the same - to join the world's greatest minds in this truly modern phenomenon. I only hope to make a respectable and positive contribution over here. I have no illusions that this will be easy: this side of the aisle - the right side (double entendre intended) - is swarming with brilliant political analysts, legal scholars, and some people who are just plain talented.

Bear with me as I strive to develop the exact mission of this blog and determine what sorts of things will make it to the page. There may be no apparent unifying criterion for several weeks.

Welcome, and enjoy the champagne.

Michelle Malkin