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?

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.

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

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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!

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.