Welfare For Seniors: It's just disheartening to see our senior citizens standing around with their hands out demanding what is for all intents and purposes welfare from their fellow citizens for no other reason than 'we want it and we're old!' These poll numbers you are about to see are a disgrace...

"The Senate's failure to pass a Medicare prescription drug benefit will be a factor for many Americans age 45 and up when they vote in November, according to a survey by the influential AARP retirees group released on Thursday

...More than six in 10 surveyed were "angry" that the two parties could not reach a compromise and almost one third were "very angry."

Keep in mind that we're talking about legislation that will probably cost something like 50-60 BILLION dollars a year right off the bat. Furthermore, we know from experience with Medicare and Social Security that costs and the number of people covered by the program will explode in coming years. There is absolutely no one who can truthfully say that they're for financial responsibility and keeping the deficit under control if they want this program to come to pass. Yet we have 6 out of every 10 people polled who are 'angry' about this legislation not being passed and 3 out of 10 who are 'very angry' about it. How did our society produce so many leeches who believe they're owed a large slice of everyone else's paycheck merely because they made it to a certain age without kicking the bucket yet? This is nothing but the fable of the "Grasshopper & the Ant" played out on a national level with people who didn't plan well enough (if at all), who are cheap, or who are just freeloaders wanting everyone else to pay their bills. I wish more people were willing to speak out against this huge boondoggle because we'll NEVER be able to get rid of it once it's passed.

Cheney and the CEOs: Charles Krauthammer absolutely destroys all the Democrat's charges against Dick Cheney over Halliburton. This whole "scandal" is almost as much of a complete nothingburger as the Bush/Enron scandal (if that was possible.) Read this one and remember it well because it'll come in handy when you hear the Democrats lying about Cheney & Halliburton again...

Feel The Hate: Obviously I have some VERY STRONG opinions and there are some people I vehemently disagree with politically. For example, Noam Chomsky, Bill Clinton, Robert Fisk, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, etc, etc. Now I have no problem with taking some vicious shots at them in print and in certain situations I wouldn't even be that bothered if they received a beating. But I can't say that I would be rapt with joy if they were afflicted with some sort of horrible malady. If Michael Moore got cancer tomorrow, you wouldn't be seeing a cheery column from me celebrating it as a "happy occurrence". If Al Sharpton had kidney failure next week I wouldn't be putting up jokes about Sharpton being on dialysis. I might hate enemies of America like Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden enough to do that sort of thing, but seeing as they'd kill me if they could just for being an American I consider them to be fair game.

That being said, I've already noticed that the cheap shots at Charlton Heston have begun after his announcement today that he may have Alzheimer's disease. I have to tell you that I'm surprised that there are that many people out there who are so consumed with hate for Heston that their first instinct after hearing that he might have Alzheimers was to immediately write triumphant jokes about him forgetting who he was and losing control of his bowels. Again, I might make those sorts of jokes about Osama Bin Laden, but then I'd kill him if I had a chance to as well. Has the left in this country gotten so obsessively eaten up with hate about differences in opinion with their ideological adversaries with right that they look at us the way we look at Bin Laden? Apparently so...

The Most Loved And Hated Nation On Earth: It's nice to see a story like this one once in a while to go along with the seemingly endless carping about America.

My World View Has Changed: Natural Born Killer Woody Harrelson's latest comments in the Daily Mirror have completely changed the way I look at the world. I just never realized how BRAVE being against the war was....

"But now Woody Harrelson has taken another brave step - he's passionately defended George Michael over his anti-Bush and Blair single Shoot The Dog.

"The war against terrorism is terrorism. The whole thing is just bullsh*t. What you guys have done is very brave."

I never realized it was so BRAVE to write off the deaths of almost 3000 people as an acceptable loss. Silly me, I thought people like Todd Beamer, the firemen who went into the WTC on 9/11, and members of our military who are out in the field fighting terrorists in Afghanistan were BRAVE. Yet I now see that actors, singers, and journalists who sit on the sidelines and think that sort of thing is 'bullsh*t' are actually the BRAVE ones. This new concept changes everything. I now understand that Neville Chamberlain, not Winston Churchill, was actually the BRAVE one. Those tiny dogs who lay down and show their throats to bigger dogs when they growl? Incredibly BRAVE. Tom Cruise who said he was going to run off to Australia because he was too frightened to stay in America? BRAVE. We can only hope Harrelson will enjoy talking to his BRAVE new friends at the Daily Mirror and BRAVE pop-singer George Michael so much that he'll decide to stay in Britian where he can spend his time finding other likeminded souls to call BRAVE.

This Is A Surprising Statistic: According to this Fox News article, percentage wise, more women turn out to be deadbeat moms than men turn out to be deadbeat dads...

"The percentage of "deadbeat" moms is actually higher than that of dads who won't pay, even though mothers are more consistently awarded custody of children by the courts.

...But men also still pay much more in child support. The Census Bureau last month also released numbers showing fathers paid an average of $3,000 to custodial moms in 1997. Women paid little over half that. Moms also get about 60 percent of what they are owed, whereas dads only get 48 percent."

According to the stats in this article there are roughly 9.3 women getting child support for every man who does which gives you a pretty good idea of how incredibly biased the family court system is against men...

Richard Jewel Redux?: The way the media casually destroys people's lives is sickening at times. Whether we're talking about Linda Tripp, Paula Jones, William Kennedy Smith, Katherine Harris, Gary Condit, etc, the media can loot, burn, and pillage someone's reputation and character like Rome destroyed Carthage. Now you may say some of these people brought the media attacks on themselves by doing things that they knew would draw the media's attention. That's a fair point but it doesn't make the media's vile smear campaigns any more ethical. But when you have a private citizen, someone who never sought the spotlight, who's picked out & savaged by the media I think it's repulsive. Take the case of Dr. Steven J. Hatfill for instance. I've seen several stories about this guy, all of which painted him as a lying, anthrax slinging, whacko. Why so?

"...The FBI has identified Dr. Steven J. Hatfill as one of 30 scientists and researchers with the expertise and opportunity to conduct the anthrax attacks.

Investigators have not classified him as a suspect, only as a "person of interest."

So because the FBI has searched him the media is all but fingering him as the culprit in the anthrax mailings? Has anyone in the media ever considered that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't start tossing this guy's name around and detailing his life story for the public when the FBI hasn't even CHARGED him with anything? But it gets worse for Hatfill...

"He claimed to have served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was discharged after his plane was shot down and he broke his back. However, his military record showed none of that to be true.

In a 1997 resume, Hatfill claimed to be a member of the special forces. But Walter Solkowski, spokesman at Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, said Hatfill attended special forces training in 1976 but failed after a month. "He flunked. He was in training for only about 30 days," Solkowski said."

So now Hatfill is the guy who probably sent anthrax to everyone as well as a pathological liar. If you read this about the guy, would you hire him? How many of his friends do you think are no longer returning his calls? How many people are now snickering and laughing at this guy behind his back? Do you think he's getting death threats? What about his job?

"Hatfill has denied being involved with the anthrax mailings and has complained that the media attention led to his firing from a defense contractor.

Because of the FBI investigations, he was recently put on paid administrative leave for 30 days by Louisiana State University's National Center for Biomedical Research and Training — where he worked as an associate director"

The article tosses in a little more suggestive criticism near the end just in case anyone might have a sympathetic view of this guy...

"Several of his colleagues described Hatfill as bright, but abrasive and difficult to work with.

"He was unpopular because he just did not respect other people's lives and their work and their needs in the lab," said Lothar Bohm, professor of medicine at Stellenbosch. "He was the sort of person who would go in the labs late at night at take pieces of equipment without asking."

Now is this the guy who sent out the anthrax letters? I don't know and neither does Jeremiah Marquez, the reporter who wrote this savage attack on Hatfill's character that's being passed off as a news story. But how do guys like Marquez sleep at night after aiming this type of character assassination at someone who hasn't been charged with a crime, who has never sought the spotlight, who may very well be totally innocent of any charges? If Hatfill does turn out to be guilty of sending out these letters no one will bat an eyelash about his reputation being sullied like this but what if he did nothing wrong? How does he get his life back after dirtbags like Marquez & company have moved on to juicier targets? The answer is that he won't and that's what's wrong with this sort of "journalism."

Where's The Press Coverage?: The story Bob Novak just broke would be on the front page on every newspaper in America in today in three inch high letters...if a Republican were involved instead of a Democrat...

"The Commerce Department's painful report last week that the national economy is worse than anticipated obscured the document's startling revelation. Hidden in the morass of statistics, there is proof that the Clinton administration grossly overestimated the strength of the economy leading up to the 2000 election. Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books?

Through all of President Bill Clinton's last two years in office, the announced level of before-tax profits was at least 10 percent too high--a discrepancy rising close to 30 percent during the last presidential campaign. Most startling, the Commerce Department in 2000 showed the economy on an upswing through most of the election year, while in fact it was declining."

Does this pass anyone's "smell test"? The economy is almost always the biggest factor in a Presidential election and what do you know, some key numbers were off by not 10%, not 15%, not 20%, not 25%, but 30% in Gore's favor when he was running for election. If it could be proven that the Clinton administration cooked the books that much to help Gore's chances in the 2000 election it would be almost as big a scandal as Watergate.

I find it very interesting that a story that could potentially be this big isn't even making the news when something like the 'Bush - Enron scandal' was on front pages across America for weeks. We still don't even know what the charges were in that scandal but it must have been terribly serious because the words 'Bush, Enron & scandal' were mentioned endlessly.

Yet here we have some VERY FISHY government accounting that looks more suspicious than anything Arthur Andersen ever did, that occurred during an election year and that greatly helped the election chances of a man from the administration that was responsible for the numbers. So where's Woodward and Bernstein? Why isn't Dan Rather on the case? They should be humiliated that it was Bob Novak who broke this story. But this is an election year, and a couple of weeks worth of stories speculating about shady Clinton administration accounting wouldn't help the party that almost all the mainstream press will be voting for. Keep that in mind when you're looking for the reams of press this story should be receiving.

If R. Kelly Is Your Hero You're In Deep Trouble: In the last story I blogged, Bobby Bowden was catching heat for trying to motivate his players by using a phrase made immortal by American hero Todd Beamer. But some people apparently aren't shooting that high...

"Before R&B superstar R. Kelly arrived at Cook County Criminal Court on Wednesday, a yellow school bus dropped off 40 children who donned pro-Kelly T-shirts.

"Kids need something to reach for--they have no role models," said Janet Edmond, who helped organize the bus with the children."

R. Kelly is a freaking SINGER. Even if he wasn't on trial for boinking a fourteen year old who was actually younger than some of the kids who were mindlessly cheering for him he wouldn't be a role model. I can just see these kids at 35,

"My name is Doug Smith and I grew up worshipping the ground R. Kelly walked on. Now I work at McDonald's making hamburgers to keep the money rolling in until my musical career takes off. When I'm not hanging out around the junior high trying to pick up young girls, I spend my time singing R. Kelly songs at a Karaoke bar in an effort to get discovered. Thanks for my great life R. Kelly and Janet Edmond."

You Tell 'Em Bobby: FSU coach Bobby Bowden has caught a lot of flack for using the motto 'Let's Roll' for his team's motto in 2002. Bowden slammed critics of his use of the phrase...

They have to be unpatriotic to say what they are saying in my opinion. Anything that you do, someone is going to find the other side of it. We’re proud of what we are doing.” ...Bowden called the criticism “stupid.” “I would say that’s (being) picky-picky,” Bowden said."

Bowden also received some public accolades from about the best source he could have hoped from...

"Douglas MacMillan, chief executive officer of the Todd Beamer Foundation, said on Wednesday that the organization was honored Florida State’s football team adopted the saying as its motto. “His use is strictly for inspirational and motivational application,” MacMillan said. “It’s a way to keep Todd’s memory in the forefront of people’s minds.” MacMillan said Beamer’s widow, Lisa, was excited about the Florida State team adopting the motto for its upcoming season. “She said, ‘That’s great,”’ related MacMillan, who plans to bring T-shirts and hats from the foundation to Florida State sometime next week.‘Let’s roll’ for them is a way of really attaching themselves to the patriotic feeling that this nation has adopted more so since Sept. 11,” MacMillan said."

I'm 110% behind Bowden's use of the phrase 'Let's Roll' as his team's motto. Because of Beamer's bravery that phrase will forever more be associated with patriotism, heroism, and doing the right thing no matter how tough the situation is. That's the type of inspiration EVERY American needs, especially a bunch of college kids playing a brutally competitive sport. Don't let 'em get to you Bobby, stick it out and keep that slogan whether the press likes it or not.

Tombstone & International Law: In the movie Tombstone, the Earp family & Doc Holliday had just finished a bloody gunfight with a group of five 'Cowboys' (a gang in the movie) at the OK Corral. They killed four of the five 'Cowboys' and two of the Earps were wounded. As they're limping back to have their wounds tended, corrupt sheriff Johnny Behan comes on the scene. Behan is basically a pretty boy who sides with the 'Cowboys' most of the time as much out of fear as corruption. He tries to place the Earps and Holliday under arrest and Wyatt Earp replies, "I don't think I'll let you arrest us today, Behan"

That's exactly the phrase I think of whenever someone starts ranting about how "we have to get permission from the UN to invade Iraq" or that an invasion would be a "violation of international law." I don't think we'll let the UN arrest anyone from the United States today for violating 'international law.' I think we'll do whatever we need to in order to defend ourselves and remove the threat to America and the 'Axis of Feeble' can either complain about it or can try to convince themselves that it's legal, whichever is easier for them to take. Just remember that Ann Coulter was right when she said, "In the corporeal world, international law is whatever the United States and Great Britain say it is."

Welcome To Harold Wright's Nightmare: Normally when I do an edition of A.C.P.O.T.I, I'm smacking around racists, left-wing whackos, conspiracy theorists, Islamo-fascists, etc. But I ran across a page that was so sick and insane that it existence deserved to be revealed to the masses. So get ready for a glimpse into the mind of one of the freakiest weirdo/stalkers you're ever going to run into....

Nuclear Annihilation Can't Be Confined to the Outer Boroughs: Here's a great excerpt from the latest Ann Coulter column about the New York Times campaign against continuing the 'War on Terrorism' in Iraq...

"In a manly editorial that ought to have been titled, "SURRENDER NOW, GREAT SATAN!" the Times proposed patient suasion with the harmless and misunderstood Saddam Hussein. Demanding that "every available diplomatic option" be tried, the Times urged waiting until a "future link between Iraq and terrorism" can be established.

Liberals are panicked at the idea that America might defend itself by attacking Iraq, but are perfectly copacetic about living in a radioactive world. They seem not to understand that – unlike their other insane policies, such as school busing – their heartfelt desire to keep Saddam Hussein in power will affect their children, too. Nuclear annihilation cannot be safely confined to the outer boroughs."

The 'Axis of Feeble': Cold Fury busts out what may become a regularly used phrase on RWN. The 'Axis of Feeble'...

"Poor, poor Khofi Annan. He and the rest of the Axis Of Feeble (the EU, UN, and appeasement-loving lefties everywhere) remind me of nothing so much as a jilted suitor, pathetically driving past the object of his unrequited affection's house over and over, hoping for a glimpse of her and dreading it at the same time."

The rest of the post is a good read as well but that phrase is pure gold...

Stupid Lawyer Tricks: If you thought the intellectual crotch rot lawyers are foisting on our society couldn't get any lamer than the reparations lawsuits and the suit against fast food restaurants for making people fat, think again...

"Major corporations fear they are facing a wave of lawsuits seeking to hold them accountable for political oppression in the countries where they operate."

"We suddenly have a critical mass of cases," said Dan O'Flaherty, vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council, adding that the lawsuits are becoming a "cottage industry" for lawyers."

Does everyone understand how insane this is? The majority of nations in the world "persecute" people in some form or fashion or practice different types of human rights abuses. China anyone? Heck, a lot of Europeans will tell you the United States itself abuses minorities and is barbaric because we have the death penalty. In fact, South Africa itself has a lousy human rights record even today.

Now chances are this case isn't going to get anywhere in the courts. So why bring the suit at all? It's just another Jesse Jackson style shakedown. The lawyer's real strategy is, "Either pay us money to go away or we'll try to make you look bad in the press." This, like Jesse Jackson's shady enterprises, are really nothing but high stakes blackmail and should be illegal. At the very least, the loathsome lawyers that are bringing this case and their clients should be responsible for paying a portion of the companies legal fees for wasting their time with this sort of nuisance lawsuit but that would require tort reform..something the Democrats and their trial lawyer constituents are preventing.

Time Magazine's 'Clinton Plan' Fish Story: Time Magazine broke a story on August 4th which claimed that the Clinton administration was ready to go to war with Afghanistan and al-Queda over the Oct. 12, 2000 USS Cole bombing. But you see Bush was about to take over and,

"With less than a month left in office, they did not think it appropriate to launch a major initiative against Osama bin Laden. "We would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office on Jan. 20," says a former senior Clinton aide. "That wasn't going to happen."

I've Been Interviewed: Dawn Olsen of Up Yours - And More Helpful Tips interviewed yours truly in a long rambling chat that covered everything from my views on sex, to abortion, to why I'm a Conservative. Those of you who are sensitive to occasional cursing, lewd talk, and PG-13 pics should probably avoid Dawn's page.

Why Should We Get Rid Of Saddam?: Jane Galt commented on her blog that,

"I am uncomfortable with much of the blind hatred we've displaced onto Iraq as a result of 9/11. But I have yet to hear a single compelling justification for allowing Sadaam Hussein to continue to breathe, much less leave him in control of Iraq. I'd like to see both sides step out of the echo chamber and into the ring for a reasonable debate instead of silly straw-man arguments."

Well, it was Right Wing News to the rescue! Here's most of the email I sent her explaining why IMO we should hit Iraq...

Saddam is just a stepping stone, not the end game. The reason we should hit Saddam is essentially the same reason that we may need to invade Iran, Syria, Lebanon, & Saudi Arabia: Because they support terrorist groups and they hate us. (North Korea is a slightly different case although to be fair they were on the State department's terrorist-sponsoring nations list before 9/11 and still are.)

If we want to break the back of global terror organizations then we must convince the nations that support, protect, and aid them to cease doing so and actually turn against them. Unless that's done, we cannot make significant long-term gains in the 'War on Terrorism.' As our experiences with Iraq & Iran have proven, economic sanctions can't get the job done. So we have to use our military if we're going to make it happen.

Furthermore, Iraq is our natural first choice for invasion. Hussein hates us, deals with terrorists, and is pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, we can use the fact that he is technically in violation of the terms of the agreement made after the Gulf War to give us some cover for hitting him. Moreover, Iraq is strategically important for a number of reasons. Getting rid of Saddam gives us another source of oil that will help us cut our ties to Saudi Arabia, will help isolate the Palestinians, and also gives a land base we can use to launch attacks into Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and even Saudi Arabia if need be.

Last but not least, If Saddam goes down we may be able to give the people of Iran just enough help to overthrow the mullahs without having to do a major invasion. Then with Iraq and Iran in our camp, I think Syria, their puppet state Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia will turn on the terrorists & terrorist supporting entities they support rather than risk meeting the same fate as Iraq and Iran.

So we should hit Iraq? Absolutely. They're next...but they're not the last in line.

U.S. Borders Still Porous As Sieves: I just read an article from World Net Daily about how abysmal our border security is. Not only are we not doing enough to get rid of the illegal aliens in our country, we're not doing enough to stop new illegals that are coming into the US. Let me make a few suggestions about how we could start to get the situation under control...

1) Put the military on the border: This should be a temporary measure until we can up our full-time personnel on the border but it should greatly reduce the number of illegals sneaking over the border.

2) Up the budget for the INS and border patrol significantly: This is exactly the sort of thing that our government SHOULD BE doing. Not spending hundreds of billions of dollars on corporate welfare for farmers and prescription drug plans for medicare.

3) Significantly increase penalties for businesses that hire illegal aliens: If you cut off the jobs, you cut off a big part of the reason illegals come here.

4) Ban illegals from receiving any government services except emergency medical care: No school, no government programs, nothing but emergency medical treatment and a one way ticket back home.

5) Encourage the police to arrest illegals: The INS is too overwhelmed/incompetent to get rid of illegal aliens in the US. That means we need to get the police involved to help.

6) Set up a worker program with Mexico: There's nothing wrong with allowing millions of Mexicans to come into the US, as long as they're paying their taxes and we are capable of monitoring their actions.

7) No amnesty for illegals: Giving illegal aliens in the US amnesty would be sending a terrible message. Not only would we be rewarding illegal aliens for breaking our laws, but we'd be encouraging tens of millions of illegals to sneak into the US so they be around the next time we give "amnesty." We may say we'll never do it again but our actions would say otherwise.

If you want to stop illegal immigration into the US and control our borders, this will get the job done.

Surgeon General Announces 'Operation Reverse Psychology': I have to wonder if the tobacco industry is already doing this. Have you seen the 'tobacco is wacko' commercials? What about those "the truth" ads? Every time I see the irritating kids in these commercials annoying people in the lobby of a tobacco building or yammering on about ammonia I just want to smack them. I also have to wonder if a bunch of nerdy kids planting flags in 'poop' is going to convince anyone to stop smoking. Anyway, enjoy the article...

The Gloves Are Finally Off: If I were Crown Prince Abdullah and I read this Washington Post article I would get really nervous...

A briefing given last month to a top Pentagon advisory board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that U.S. officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States.

...One administration official said opinion about Saudi Arabia is changing rapidly within the U.S. government. "People used to rationalize Saudi behavior," he said. "You don't hear that anymore. There's no doubt that people are recognizing reality and recognizing that Saudi Arabia is a problem."

Before you get too excited remember that things could change in the drop of a hat. Maybe the Saudis will get scared by this story and some of the other rumors coming out of Washington and they'll give us access to their bases and then all will be forgiven...for a while. But there are a lot of signs that point to a coming break with the Saudis if you know what to look for. We're filling our oil reserves up, we're starting to bring in oil from the Russians, and we've also moved our military headquarters in the Middle East out of Saudi. Furthermore, once we take Iraq it's quite possible that we'll have a significant new oil source we can use to continue to decrease our dependence on the Saudis. Iraq will also give us a base of operations we can use to launch strikes against Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia itself as well as well as an oil supply that makes them less important. Furthermore, the dictators in the Middle East respect brute force and if we crush Saddam and his men and we start making demands they'll be much more apt to listen than they are now. Crown Prince Abdullah has been paying more attention to the forces in his own kingdom who want to promote terrorism and radical Islam more than to us but that is going to change once Hussein is gone.

Bonus Theory #1: I wouldn't be surprised if the Bush administration leaked this story deliberately to shore up support from Conservatives who were wondering if he was going soft on the 'War on Terror' after his initial anemic reaction to the Hamas attacks that killed five Americans and the story in USA Today that said senior Bush admin officials had assured Congress that there would be no Iraqi invasion until after the elections. I'm still hoping that story was a plant and we're aiming to hit Hussein in late summer/early fall but this story is a nice little morale booster either way.

Wild Bonus Theory #2: There have been a lot of rumors floating around about a power struggle between Abdullah's faction of the royal family and a much more radical / openly pro-terrorism group of the family. There have even been three princes who recently turned up at room temperature lately which fueled the speculation about the coming coup attempt. Well, what if the CIA were the ones helping to stir the pot? At first glance that may seem unlikely, but what do you think would happen if an open rebellion in Saudi Arabia occurred? Well, someone would have to protect the oil fields wouldn't they? Even Europe would have to get behind that rather than risk that that the oil fields would be destroyed which would cause a significant upward spike in prices. Furthermore, we could give one side or the other (probably Abdullah) a little help and they win. But since we'd control the oil fields (after the Crown Prince publicly asked us too of course (**wink, wink**)) and since we'd control the cash flow in and out of the kingdom, guess who would be calling the shots? At that point, Abdullah would use the rebellion as an excuse to wipe out all the royal family with terrorist ties, the big name radicals, and a lot of influential Wahhabi clerics. Then we'd have a Saudi Arabia that was much less terrorist friendly than it is today. I'll grant you that this is a wild theory, but it wouldn't be the first time the CIA got involved in events on this scale and it would allow us facilitate much needed changes in a nation it would probably be very difficult for us to openly invade in the foreseeable future. One way or the other, Saudi Arabia will have to be dealt with unless they make a surprising turnaround and I wouldn't be shocked if something like this were actually on the table.

Court Allows Abortion Over Father's Protest: I've always thought this sort of thing was incredibly hypocritical...

"A judge gave a woman the go-ahead Monday to get an abortion after her ex-boyfriend won an extraordinary order that temporarily prevented her from terminating her pregnancy.

"...A woman's right to have an abortion "is not subject to being vetoed by a woman's husband or partner," said Conahan, who is based in eastern Pennsylvania's Luzerne County. "Neither an ex-boyfriend nor a fetus has standing to interfere with a woman's choice to terminate her pregnancy."

Now if you say something like "If she didn't want to get pregnant, she shouldn't have slept around" you'll be told (and quite correctly I might add) that "It takes two. That woman didn't get pregnant on her own, there was a man involved and he's just as responsible!" I agree completely.

But then if the woman wants to slaughter the child in her womb, all of that "it took two", and "both parents are responsible" stuff goes right out the window the man has no legal standing. They may have made that baby together, but dad has no more say as to whether his own child has it's brains sucked out than any guy on the street corner. Fast forward to the child's birth and legal miracle of miracles, daddy is held morally and financially responsible for that child until it's 18 (which once again is proper).

Even if we set aside the injustice of letting women murder their children Andrea Yates style as long as they're in the womb, how do we justify our legally inconsistent approach and say that the man has no say about the fate of the child in the womb, yet is responsible for providing for the baby after it's born? If let's say the father wants to have the child and the mother doesn't, why shouldn't she be legally required to have THEIR baby if the father is willing to take complete responsibility for it after it's born? If the mother wants the baby and the father doesn't, why should he not be able to sign away his legal claim on the baby along with his obligation to take care of their child?

Instead of being consistent about it, abortion advocates want to have their cake and eat it too. Even if our society is going to allow people to execute their own children in the womb, we should at least give both partners an equal say about what the fate of THEIR baby will be.

Mandatory Paid Laziness: When the first mandatory leave bill was passed, Conservatives warned people that this was going to happen,

"A new vision of the American workplace is emerging in state legislatures from Hawaii to Vermont. With a momentum that began to build two years ago, 23 states are considering dramatically expanding paid leave to ensure that most workers continue to get paychecks when they take time off for situations such as caring for a new child or an ill family member. One bill, in California, has gotten farther than any before."

"To proponents, the trend is part of an acknowledgment of the country's changing workforce: With women a crucial part of the labor pool, fewer people are at home to attend to newborns and the elderly. To detractors, measures like the one now being considered in California threaten to place onerous new demands on the nation's employers – precisely when businesses are struggling to recover from recession."

It's bad enough that we handicap our nation's businesses with our archaic tax structure, reams of red tape, and hordes of bloodsucking lawyers suing for everything under the sun, but now we're going to demand that businesses pay people NOT TO WORK. This will lead to discrimination against women in the work force because not only will they be taking their 6 weeks off when they get pregnant, but you'll have to pay them for that time and pay someone to replace them. Plus, who's more likely to take time off for an "ill family member" or long periods for funerals (that's mentioned later), a man or a woman? Exactly, women are, and paid leave laws will give businesses a huge incentive NOT TO HIRE women.

This doesn't even begin to address the amount of abuse that will happen if you allow people to take what will amount to a long, paid, vacation (**wink, wink**) that they can't be fired for. Worse yet, the amount of pay these workers are given will only increase over time and we will NEVER get rid of this type of program once it's in place. Mark my words, if this sort of legislation is legalized you'll see the amount of discrimination against women in the workplace increase and you may see a jump in the number of companies fleeing the US for more business friendly regions overseas. This is terrible public policy and our economy will be harmed significantly over time if "paid leave" laws catch on nationwide.

The Next Generation: Is this the next step for the Palestinians? If it were possible I wouldn't put it past them...

Lock & Load: Apparently GWB's "furious" reaction to the murder of 5 Americans by Hamas terrorists wasn't just all talk because the FBI are now going to get involved...

"A senior Bush administration official said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had opened a probe into Wednesday's bombing in a cafeteria at Jerusalem's Hebrew University that killed the five Americans and two Israelis.

"We are cooperating with Israeli law enforcement authorities in pursuing the investigation," the official said, adding that the FBI would look into "everything concerning the deaths" of the Americans"

There's also this little tidbit that I found buried in a Ha'aretz story that came out today in Israel...

"Sources at the White House have signalled that the American administration believes the time has come to remove Yasser Arafat from the Palestinian territories, Army Radio reported Saturday.

According to the radio, the Bush administration believes that the Palestinian leader is "more part of the problem than the solution" and that expelling him would facilitate the president's vision for peace, the first part of which is the reform of the Palestinian Authority."

Meanwhile, here's a little message the psychopaths in Hamas gave to the Israelis in a leaflet taking credit for one of their latest genocide-bombings...

"(I)f you want to be safe and secure, leave Israel and go to the country where you came from. Otherwise, everywhere in Israel, schools, universities, markets and houses will be a target for us."

Notice that it doesn't say "give us a state", it basically says "abandon Israel of die." There is no negotiation, no peace process, and no Palestinian state that's going fix this problem. It'll end when the Israelis or Hamas and their supporters are wiped out. There's an ocean of blood that's going to be spilled in the 'War on Terrorism' before it's all over. In Israel, the occupied territories, Iraq, Iran, and maybe Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, and the US as well. We have no more hope of avoiding this fight than the Allies did in avoiding a fight with the Nazis in the thirties. But I fear it's going to take more catastrophic tragedies to make us get as serious about this war as we need to be and that's a shame. As one of my favorite Machiavelli quotes goes...

"One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage."

Bush seems to be moving in the right direction but let's hope it doesn't end up being too little too late.

Vote For The More Patriotic Party: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical had up a great little propaganda poster I thought was worth posting. Those of you who are sensitive to explicit/gross images should avoid heading over to C&S because there's one on their front page...

Why My Grounding Last Summer Is Like The Holocaust And The Occupied Territory Of Palestine: In the 1940s, there was the Holocaust of Nazi Occupied Europe. In the 1990s, there was the Holocaust of Israel Occupied Palestine. There is a 3rd, yet lesser known Holocaust that happened just last year.

The War Against (The Word) Terrorism: Forget the 'War on Terrorism'. It's not worth fighting. What we need is a war on Isolated Incidents. They, after all, are the real killer of Americans since September 11th. Think I'm nuts? I offer you this: there have been no incidents of terrorism since 9-11, but there has been a strange and disturbing proliferation of isolated incidents. Consider the following....(cont)