Celebrating Thurmond's Death: Whether it's Michele Catalano or the Democratic Underground, it shows a real lack of class to mock your political opponents when they die.

I could understand being pleased at the death of our country's enemies, but if you're all jazzed up because someone who you dislike politically passes away, then I think it says something about you as a human being -- something not very pleasant. You're not going to see me figuratively dancing on the graves of Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, or Jesse Jackson when they pass on, because I think it's malodorous to take cheap shots at someone over something as petty as politics when their friends and families are at the height of their grief.

Life is bigger than politics folks. If you're so consumed with hatred for people you dislike politically that you can't even show respect for the dead, then maybe you should step back and try to get some perspective on what type of person you've become...

***Update***: More from Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog along these same lines...

Spike Lee Has To Put His Money Where His Mouth Is: I have been following Spike Lee's Court Battle with Viacom over "Spike TV" since the story first broke. Here are the nuts and bolts of the case for those who aren't familiar with it...

"(Spike Lee) is suing Viacom's TNN over plans to change its name to "Spike TV." Lee maintains that the name, along with the network's marketing itself as "aggressive and irreverent," could mislead people into thinking he's affiliated with it."

So basically Spike Lee is claiming that he's so well known, so famous, so important, -- so "aggressive and irreverent" (snicker), that anyone who hears the word, "Spike" is going to automatically associate it with him.

Of course, that is ridiculous. There are 13 entries found for spike in the dictionary, 3,140,000 uses of the word "spike" on Google, Spike Jonze, the director of "Being John Malkovich", Spike the Vampire from the Buffy the Vampire series, and even the son of Spike Jones who has gotten involved because he fears this case could derail a project he's working on entitled, "Spike". So obviously, the word "Spike" is too common to ever be solely identified with one person -- even one who is so delusional that he believes that the average person associates the words "aggressive and irreverent" with his name.

Now until today, I though Spike had a good chance of coming out of this case as a big winner because the judge had issued a, "preliminary injunction stopping TNN from changing its name earlier this month." So you had to figure that Lee would drag this out as long as possible so he could try rake in a few million dollars when Viacom decided to settle because they couldn't afford to wait any longer to switch the name.

However, things just got much more interesting. You see the judge ordered Lee to put up a, "$2.5 million bond by Monday - money that would go to The National Network if Lee loses his court battle against it." That means Lee stands to fork over a cool $2,500,000 if he loses this frivolous lawsuit -- which I believe he will in the end if he pursues it that far.

I gotta tell you that I like this and I wish this or some other variation of "loser pays" system was common all across our legal system. If you file a frivolous lawsuit against someone, you're inconveniencing them, wasting their time & costing them money. So why shouldn't you be responsible for compensating them for their trouble if you lose the case?

Although a "loser pays" system in common in Europe, a lot of people fear having such a system in the US because they think it might discourage poor people from filing legitimate suits. But, there are things we could do to lessen that concern. We could exempt certain types of cases from the "loser pays" system, we could have required pre-trial mediation in some instances where you only risk having to pay your opponent's fees if your case is found to have no merit and you decide to go forward, etc, etc.

We can can put safeguards into a loser pays system that would protect people with legitimate grievances from getting soaked, while discouraging parasitic lawyers and their unprincipled clients from playing "lawsuit lottery" -- and we should. Especially since it's not just big companies being taken for a ride by these people, it's all of us. After all, these corporations don't just eat these lawyer fees & settlements, they pass the costs on to us and we the consumers pay for all these lawsuits in the end...

Immigration Is Destroying California By Alan Caruba: There was a time when America needed immigrants to work in its factories, to help build its infrastructure of roads, bridges and tunnels, to go West to farm its plains, and all the other tasks necessary to nation-building. That era is over. Now immigration, especially illegal immigration from Mexico, Central and South America, is the source of major economic and social problems. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has just declared the Mexican government's "Matricula Consular" card, issued to Mexicans living in the US, to be an unreliable form of identification, posing a criminal and terrorist threat. (Cont)

Frank Discussions: Democratic Presidential Candidates By Frank J: Sometimes you feel like a nut (Democrat primary), sometimes you don't (general election). So which Democrat candidate will be nutty enough to win the primary, winning that hearts of the Democrat base of drooling idiots? And will he make himself too nutty to be viable in the general election?

To find these answers I talked to the candidates themselves.

* * * *

John Kerry:

Frank: Being a haughty, French-looking man from Massachusetts, what do you think makes you qualified to be president?

Kerry: Well, having served in Vietnam...

Frank: Everyone knows you served in Vietnam. You don't have to keep mentioning it.

Kerry: Sorry, but having served in Vietnam...

Frank: See, there you go again. Anyway, you said the president lied to you about the war, but you voted with him, which seems to mean you fell for it. Since so many people think President Bush is dumb, how dumb does that make you? Does that affect either your haughtiness or your French-lookingness?

Kerry: Well, serving in Vietnam...

Frank: Is this like a form of Tourette's syndrome?

Kerry: Vietnam! Me served in!

Frank: So, what is your military experience, if any?

Kerry: Uh... well... Bush's tax cuts were for the rich.

Frank: Nice talking to you.

Nuclear Bombs Knocked Down The WTC: The kooks at Serendipity have a novel theory to explain what happened on 9/11. It seems that WTC may have been destroyed by small nuclear weapons. Here's their theory of what happened on 9/11...

"(A)lthough some kind of "black" technology may have been used in the demolition of the Twin Towers, we do not need to establish this, since their collapse can be explained as a controlled demolition brought about by explosives.

...This, together with numerous small explosives detonated at every ten or so levels of the supporting steel columns, would explain one observation which the official story does not explain: Why were the lower parts of the massive supporting steel columns not left standing after the collapse?
"

Well then why crash planes into the WTC?

"Since the Twin Towers could be brought down by the use of explosives, why bother to crash commercial jets into them? The reason is that the demolition expertise required is certainly beyond the capabilities of any Arab terrorists (especially if nuclear devices were used). Had the Twin Towers simply been demolished in the way that they were then many questions would have been asked as to how this happened. A story that Arab terrorists detonated explosives which completely destroyed the buildings would not withstand criticism, so some other "plausible" explanation for the collapse of the towers had to be provided and this was done in the form of the plane impacts and subsequent fires."

What happened to the Pentagon then?

"An examination of the evidence, as above and as done in other websites, shows that (i) the Twin Towers were not brought down by the plane impacts and the fires but rather by massive explosions and (ii) what caused the damage to the Pentagon was certainly not a Boeing 757 but more likely an F-16 jet or a cruise missile."

So who's responsible?

"The enormity of the atrocity of the attack on the Twin Towers is made worse by its being perpetrated, not by external enemies of America, but from within - by a secret group of traitors who may be American-born but who care nothing for American national pride since for them control of the U.S. is just a means toward total control of the planet. For at least forty years this group of traitors (most of whom are present or former occupants of the White House or are working or have worked in those U.S. government organizations whose activities are hidden behind a cloak of "national security", or are high-level military officers) has controlled the U.S. government by subversion of its democratic institutions, has manipulated a gullible American population and the political leadership of other countries by the skillful use of propaganda (with the help of shamelessly compliant - and Jewish-dominated - "news" organizations)...

The machinery of the New World Order is already in place. The Office of Homeland Security (and its Stasi-plan for making 5% of the American population informers upon the rest) is only the most public manifestation of it....While most of the citizens of the United States remain as ignorant as sheep (mostly because they don't wish to know) their cryptofascist government is hell-bent on taking control of the entire globe by the use of its military forces. All countries, if they are not already, will soon be under the threat of annihilation by a supposedly invincible American military superiority. At the same time the U.S. secret government, the prototype for a global dictatorship, will be extending its Satanic legal system (including civil asset forfeiture laws) to the entire world either by forcing all other countries to sign "treaties" committing them to (in effect) submit themselves to American legal jurisdiction or by ensuring the dominance of fascist elements within other governments. And with control of Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil (if the U.S. achieves this) all other countries will have to submit to American demands or see their people go hungry (like much of the world already does) and cold in winter (with rioting in the streets put down by the usual brutal methods). Welcome to the New World Order - what they used to call "The Thousand-Year Reich"."

Know what their Alexa Ranking is? 45,763 -- conspiracy theories sell on the net.

Meanwhile, back in the real world we get career employees in the State department, disgruntled Colonels, intelligence agency bureaucrats, and Democratic staffers leaking classified information to the papers every day of the week. Hell, we can't even invade another country without having the invasion plans show up in the New York Times in advance.

Given all that, how can anyone possibly believe that there's some massive conspiracy pulling the strings or that we could lace the WTC with explosives and even nuclear weapons without it getting out to the world? How these people think -- or rather don't -- simply boggles the mind.

Rick Santorum Deserves An Apology: I'm not going to endlessly pontificate about the SCOTUS decision in the Texas sodomy case, although I believe that it was little more than six justices overturning a law based on their personal beliefs, dressing it up a little, and twisting the Constitution to try to justify their decision. Our Constitution dies a little bit every time the SCOTUS decides the, "ends justifies the means" as they did in Lawrence v. Texas. Whether you agree with sodomy laws or not (and I don't), the SCOTUS should have let the people of Texas decide whether this law should stay on the books.

Furthermore, I thought it was worth pointing out that there are a lot of people who should be apologizing for their hysterical attacks on Rick Santorum. Scalia raised many of the same concerns in his dissent (Adobe Acrobat File) that Santorum was viciously attacked for pointing out...

"State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding."

Moreover, in the dissent written by Clarence Thomas (Adobe Acrobat File), the non-existent right to privacy in the Constitution -- something else Santorum was excoriated for mentioning -- came up...

"Like Justice Stewart, I can find neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a general right of privacy, ibid., or as the Court terms it today, the liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions, ante, at 1."

As I said at the time, Santorum was right on target with his concerns and the people who publicly flogged him for comments were wrong to do so -- although I doubt that you'll see any of them admit it...

The Democratic Underground Post Of The Day -- Defending The Windshield Killer: Most of you have heard of the 'Windshield Killer's' unthinkably hideously cruel murder of a homeless man. Here are some details just in case you've forgotten...

"Former nurse's aide Chante Jawan Mallard was found guilty of murder Thursday morning in the death of a homeless man she left to die while impaled in the windshield of her car.

During the three-day trial, Dr. Nizam Peerwani, the Tarrant County (search) medical examiner who performed the autopsy, testified that Biggs probably lived two hours after being hit and could have survived with medical treatment."

Here are another couple of gruesome details...

"...And we have heard a little bit about his injuries today and the prosecutor said that he basically bled to death. That his leg was nearly severed but he had a lot of other cuts and fractures, and he did continue to moan and talk and even, Chante Mallard has talked about how she would go into the garage and she would talk to him and apologize to the victim and explain to him that she didn't know what to do."

Deliberately leaving a man impaled on a windshield with a nearly severed leg to bleed death in your garage is about as vile as it gets. You would think that someone like this would have no defenders except for perhaps her family and her lawyer, neither of whom would exactly be unbiased. But there's at least one person standing up for her at the Democratic Underground...

greenwow: ...This poor woman was tried and found guilty by the thugs in blue long before she had her day in court. This sort of activity by the police is disgusting. She never had a chance to have a fair trial.

The racism displayed by the media and the government in this case is disgusting."

So he blames the police, the media, the government, -- everyone except the woman who left some poor man to die in her garage. I pity anyone who's mind has been so poisoned by viewing the world through the prism of race that they actually believe this...

My 20 Best Sources On The Net: Earlier today, I was wondering...

"If I were only able to read 20 different websites on the net to come up with all the posts and daily news links on RWN -- What would they would be?"

The list I came up with follows. Do keep in mind that these aren't necessarily my favorite pages, they're just the sites I think are best for news or giving me ideas about things I want to discuss...

-- Blacksheepnews
-- Croooow Blog
-- Daily Pundit
-- The Democratic Underground
-- The Drudge Report
-- Fark
-- FrontPage Magazine
-- Inoperable Terran
-- Instapundit
-- Jewish World Review
-- Little Green Footballs
-- Lucianne
-- National Review
-- Newsfilter
-- Newsmax
-- The Obscure Store And Reading Room
-- Real Clear Politics
-- A Small Victory
-- Town Hall
-- WorldNetDaily

Of course, I hit 2 to 3 times that number of pages in an average day and many of the pages I simply enjoy reading didn't make the list, but those are my top 20 sources...

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An Interview With Ann Coulter: Unless you've been living on a desert island, you know who Ann Coulter is. Her books like "Slander" & "Treason" sell like hotcakes, her columns make waves all over the net, & you can barely turn on Cable News without seeing her face when she's promoting a book.

Well, I was lucky enough to score an email interview with Ann Coulter and -- wow -- it was Coulter at her best. She was funny, outrageous, & controversial. I think you're going to really enjoy the interview...

America Sucks -- Hooray I'm A Citizen!: Writing a column like this just after you've become a United States citizen is the equivalent of saying, "I did it" right after the statute of limitations runs out. Isn't America lucky to have a new citizen like Purvi Patel who wrote the following...

"...(IT) reinforced a growing resentment I felt toward the United States. The American government, in pursuit of an illegal war and a post-9/11 assault on civil liberties, seemed more a police state than a democracy. Was this the America to which I would swear allegiance?

...I listened incredulously as the judge ignored how the civil liberties I had studied as a fifth grader were now under assault. She delivered a trite homily on the "wonderful freedoms" Americans have "to speak" and "to move." I thought of all of the Pakistani Americans who, unable to live here even in silence, are now moving in droves to Canada."

Just what America needs -- another person who uses her Freedom of Speech to whinge about our country. Excuse me if I don't send a fruit basket to Ms. Patel to welcome her into the US...

Hat tip to Dean's World for finding this article.

Teaching Hawaiian Separatism To Our Kids?: According to an article on FrontPage Magazine, there are a group of anti-American Hawaiian separatists trying to set up their own little apartheid state in Hawaii where, '"Hawaiians are...entitled to political and economic supremacy" over all non-indigenous Hawaiians."'

Here's a poem written by one of them, a college professor named Haunani-Kay Trask at the University of Hawaii. As you read it, remember that your tax dollars are helping to pay her salary...

"Racist White Woman":

Racist White Woman

I could kick

Your face, puncture

Both eyes.

You deserve this kind

Of violence.

No more vicious

Tongues, obscene

Lies.

Just a knife

Slitting your tight

Little heart.

For all my people

Under your feet

For all those years

Lived smug and wealthy

Off our land

Parasite arrogant

A fist

In your painted

Mouth, thick

With money

And piety

===

Lovely eh? At a certain point, you have to balance academic freedom with the fact that this person is a teacher and is influencing young skulls full of mush. If this teacher deserves to keep her job at a public university, then is there any such thing as going too far? I mean do you hire someone from the KKK who advocates not letting blacks and Jews vote or someone from the Nation of Islam who says whites should be denied their right to vote because a spaceship will be coming to destroy the "white devils" soon anyway? Universities, especially public universities, should not allow hatemongers like Trask to influence a bunch of naive kids with their twisted philosophies. If Trask wants to advocate this kind of rubbish, that's fine, but she shouldn't be doing it at a public university...

In My World: Attack of the Belgians Part II: (Part 1 is here) "I just want assure everyone that the Belgians have not captured the president," White House Press Secretary announced.

"My question was about the tax cuts," said the befuddled reporter.

"Whatever." Ari took a big drink from his flask of whiskey. "Oh, and if anyone is mountain climbing and happens to see the vice president, please give us a call."

"You lost the vice president on some mountain top?" exclaimed one reporter.

"I did not say that," Ari answered, "Why do you people always have to read into everything I say?" Ari took another big drink of whiskey. "God, how many more days to I have to do this."

Iraqi Info Minister Denies He's Been Captured By Scott Ott: Muhammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister, denied reports in a British newspaper that he has been captured.

"I am not wearing these handcuffs," said Mr. al-Sahhaf during a collect call to an unnamed Reuters reporter. "I have completely eluded capture, and have also committed suicide about two months ago. I triple guarantee that I am not in a secret location being guarded by heavily-armed soldiers who are telling me that I have to hang up the..."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Big Interview Tomorrow: I don't normally preview what's coming up on RWN, but just this once I thought I'd give you a hint. I'll be posting a big interview tomorrow with...well, maybe I shouldn't let the cat out of the bag. Let me just give you a few hints....

1) She's hot
2) She's very Conservative & very blonde
3) She has a popular new book out
4) Her last name starts with a C
5) No, it's not Hillary Clinton just in case you were wondering

The interview is really funny & I'm sure it will be quite controversial as well. I plan to have it up at 12:01 AM tomorrow so make sure you head back to check it out. You won't want to miss this interview...

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What Were You Thinking On 9/11/01?: As I was perusing the Democratic Underground, I ran across a thread called "What were you thinking on 9/11/01?" Apparently there were quite a few paranoid left-wingers who were driven over the edge that day -- or maybe they were always this loopy. In any case, get ready for another edition of ACPOTI (anyone can post on the internet) featuring those crazy kids from DU... (Cont)

Note: This thread is now in their archives and apparently inaccessible. The last post was on Jun-24-03 11:31 AM and clicking on the post currently produces a 404 error.

I've Never Heard Of Those Guys: This story doesn't really have a point, but it was so bizarre I thought it was worth mentioning....

I'm talking to this girl today and she notices I'm holding, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire." Here's about how the conversation went from there and I'm not exaggerating...

Clueless Girl: What is that book about?

John Hawkins: The Roman Empire...

Clueless Girl: What's that?

John Hawkins: It's about Rome -- The Romans?

Clueless Girl: (Blank look)

John Hawkins: Ya know -- Caesar, Marc Anthony & Cleopatra, the coliseum, people being thrown to the lions, Nero...

Clueless Girl: (Blank look) So it's like a country?

John Hawkins: Ehr yeah -- They were based out of Italy...

Clueless Girl: (Blank look) Italy?

John Hawkins: (Thinking that maybe she's not understanding what I'm saying for some reason). Yeah, Italy -- ya know I-T-A-L-Y?

Clueless Girl: (Blank look) Hmmm...

John Hawkins: (Thinking she must be joking and then realizing she's not) Italy, it's in Europe...

Clueless Girl: Oh Europe! I can't believe you are reading such a thick book! I don't read much....

Scary. Well, she did have an accent so at least I can hold out hope that America's public education system isn't responsible....

Gephardt Issues Order Making Himself President By Scott Ott: Just a day after announcing that he would use executive orders to overturn Supreme Court decisions, Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-MO, announced today that he has appointed himself President of the United States, effective immediately.

"I have duly sworn myself in as president," he said. "Instead of having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court administer the oath of office, I just issued an executive order effective retroactively in advance."

President Gephardt has already issued an executive order making it illegal to "challenge the constitutionality of my reign as president."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

So The First Amendment Means There Are No Consequences For What You Say & Do?: I find this to be an odd interpretation of the First Amendment...

"(New York) city violated the First Amendment rights of two firefighters and a police officer when it fired them for riding on a parade float in blackface in 1998, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Chris Dunn, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling "sends a message that city employees can't be scapegoated to serve a mayor's political agenda and that's exactly what happened here."

Here's a little more info on what the two fired police officers actually did...

"Those on the Labor Day float in Broad Channel, Queens, threw watermelon and fried chicken to paradegoers and made it appear as if one of the men in blackface was being dragged, the city contended. The controversy erupted the same summer that James Byrd Jr., a black man in Jasper, Texas, was dragged to his death from a pickup truck."

These men didn't have their right to free speech abridged. They were able to get on that float and do their racist minstrel show. However, the First Amendment does not promise that free speech should come without consequences. If you cheat on your wife, you can't tell her about it and say, "The First Amendment Guarantees that you can't get mad at me". If you take out a full page ad in the local paper telling the world that your boss is an ignorant jack*ss, then it's ridiculous to claim that it would be unconstitutional to fire you. Last but not least, if you work for the city of New York and you engage in highly offensive racist behavior in a parade, there's nothing in the Constitution that prevents the city from firing you so their image won't be tarnished by your revolting behavior.

Presidential War Lies By Frank J.: Some people are now accusing Bush of lying about WMD's. I think he was telling the truth and they just haven't found them yet (hint: try checking in the camel humps), but, even if it is a lie, it will probably be soon forgotten. Presidents have told lies about pretty much every single war, and no one remembers them now:

* Revolutionary War: George Washington helped rally colonists to fight against the British by saying that the British has nuclear weapons they were planning to use on the colonies. After the war, though, he was unable to show any evidence of nuclear weapons or even explain what one was.

* War of 1812: President Madison said calling it the "War of 1812" was only temporary and they'd eventually come up with a really cool name for it.

* Civil War: President Lincoln said the South had an army of mutant, man-eating cotton plants they planned to unleash on the North, though only one was ever found.

* Mexican American War: President Polk told the American people the Mexicans eat babies, but the only evidence he produced was a large tortilla waiting for an unknown filling. That wacky Polk; who knows what mischief he would have gotten us into if he ran for a second term.

* African Diamond War: Completely made up war so that Teddy Roosevelt could go on safari.

* WWI: President Woodrow Wilson said there is nothing more fun than trench warfare.

* WWII: FDR told Americans that once they liberated France, the French would be eternally grateful, when, according to intelligence he had, he knew the French would be grateful for three and a half hours at most.

* Korean War: President Truman said the Korean War would be forever remembered with reverence and would never be the subject for a sitcom.

* Vietnam War: Lyndon Johnson told American troops that they would win the Vietnam War, no matter how smelly, filthy, hairy, and moronic the war protestors were.

* First Gulf War: President Herbert Walker Bush said that their victory would be so complete that the war would never be known as the First Gulf War.

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J, you can read more of his work at IMAO.

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The Best Jonah Goldberg Quotes From The Last Year -- June 21, 2002 - June 21, 2003: I'm a huge Jonah Goldberg fan and I've been meaning to put together a list of his quotes for quite a while. At first, I was going to do the "best quotes from Jonah Goldberg", but that turned out not be practical given that he writes multiple columns per week and has editorials stretching all the way back to 1998 on National Review. Fan or not, there are only so many hours in a day =) Besides, if I put all of the Goldberg quotes up now, how could I do a, "Best Quotes from Jonah Goldberg Part 2" article later? In any case, Goldberg reeled off some great quotes and I think you'll enjoy them....

Affirmative Action Lives On: The Supreme Court rendered its decision in the Michigan Affirmative Action case today and it was a split decision. While the SCOTUS did shoot "down a point system used by the University of Michigan's undergraduate programs" they refused to accept the obvious, that Affirmative Action violates the, "Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." How you can discriminate against one person in favor of another based on race and then claim that the victim has not been denied, "equal protection of the laws" is beyond me.

Despite the fact that Affirmative Action was barely scathed by this ruling, the Democratic candidates for President had a fit. Dick Gephardt got so upset that he for all intents and purposes promised to bypass the Constitution and overrule the judicial branch if they disagreed with him...

"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day."

I find it highly amusing that Democrats who shout "brown shirt" & "1984" at the slightest provocation aren't even batting an eye at Dick Gephardt threatening to ride roughshod over the Supreme Court unless the toe they Democratic Party line. John Kerry weighed in as well...

"We deserve a president of the United States who doesn't call fairness for minorities special preferences and then turn around and give special preferences to Halliburton or to Enron to write the energy policy."

Let's be totally honest here -- Affirmative Action isn't "fairness for minorities", it's institutionalized racial discrimination against white people and it is just as morally repugnant as Jim Crow laws were even though in all fairness it has nowhere near the same level of impact. It's too bad that there so many Americans who support racist policies as long as they're aimed at the right race.

If the supporters of Affirmative Action believed in rewarding people based on merit instead of on the color of their skin, our country would be much better off. Instead we live in a bizarro world where Conservatives who believe in a color blind world are called racists by liberals who believe in discriminating against people based on skin color. That may be twisted, but until justice is done and Affirmative Action is ended once and for all, that's the reality we'll have to live with.

In My World: Attack of the Belgians By Frank J: "There's nothing better than a game of golf, is there, Agent Smith?"

"I wouldn't know, President Bush," Secret Service Agent Smith answered, "I've never played. I just stand here in the sun and watch you. Rather asinine, if you ask me."

"Yep, nothing better than a good game of golf," Bush said as he adjusted his cowboy hat, and then prepared for a swing.

"President Bush!" yelled out a voice.

Startled, Bush screwed up his swing, sending his ball into the brush. "Grrr!" Bush yelled, "Agent Smith, whoever just messed up my shot I want you to inject him in the neck with that stuff that makes it look like he had a heart attack."

"That stuff ain't cheap, sir," Agent Smith reminded him.

"It was I who called out your name," said a sinister figure, "Chief Floopergibble of the Belgian international police force." More men in black uniforms emerged from the brush. "I, under the authority of Belgium, am placing you under arrest for lying about WMD's and having an illegal war with Iraq."

"Well, I guess we'll have to go peacefully," Bush said, dropping his golf club, "Wouldn't make much sense to - KILL THEM!" Bush drew his peacemaker while Agent Smith drew his Beretta and they both started firing at the Belgians.

Nothing happened.

"What's the matter?" Bush asked desperately.

"Apparently they're too irrelevant," Agent Smith answered, "Our bullets are going right through them in search of more substantive targets."

"Dammit! Always when I'm finally making par."

The Belgians closed in on them while laughing their evil Belginian laugh.

Nation's School Report Card Shows Taxes Are Too Low By Scott Ott: A decline in reading skills among U.S. 12th-graders demonstrates that taxes are far too low across much of the nation, according to an unnamed spokesman for the National Education Association (NEA).

The teacher's union representative said "huge influxes of cold cash" are needed in the tax-funded, government-regulated school system "for the good of the children."

Only 36 percent of seniors tested at the proficient level in reading, which is down from 40 percent four years ago.

"There's nothing like cash to make kids smarter," said the NEA spokesman. "We believe that taxpayers still have some more money in their pockets. And they could use those dollars to fund higher teacher salaries, more administrative positions, and more school computers so kids can learn how to do PowerPoint presentations."

This week the NEA will launch its "No Dollar Left Behind" campaign designed to ensure that every greenback has a chance to go to school.

If you liked this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Movie Review -- The Hulk: I did read a few Hulk comic books when I was a kid and I also watched the old Hulk TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. So quite naturally, I was looking forward to catching the new Hulk to see what they could do with today's special effects.

Well, I'm sorry to say that while the CGI driven Hulk did not disappoint, pretty much everything else in the movie did. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the movie was just plain old boring the entire time the Hulk wasn't on the screen. Eric Bana who played Bruce Banner was tedious & uninteresting. His character wasn't funny, witty, compelling, entertaining, or sympathetic, he was just there killing time until the Hulk showed up. The other characters that got significant screen time, Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross, Sam Elliot as Jim Ross, & Nick Nolte as David Banner, weren't exactly fascinating either. They did the best the could with the material they were given, but I'm not sure anyone could have done much with the dull and uninspiring script of the film.

Now I'll grant you that the Hulk was impressive (although I'm not sure why they broke from the comic and TV show and made him 15 ft. high). I particularly enjoyed the scenes where the Hulk was duking it out with the US military. Watching the Hulk take on tanks and helicopters was a lot of fun and frankly they should have done lot more of it. Unfortunately, the moviemakers even managed to ruin some of the time the Hulk was on the screen by matching him up with ridiculous opponents. At one point, the Hulk actually fights...are you ready for this...3 giant dogs including a giant poodle. Yes that's right, a giant poodle. I guess all the giant baby dear and humongous chipmunks were all too busy to make it to the movie. The last fight scene of the movie which should have been the grand finale wasn't very good either because again, the Hulk was fighting another substandard opponent (although I don't want to give it away and spoil the film for you). Had they simply played this film more like a Godzilla movie with the Hulk rampaging through cities and brawling with the US military, the action would undoubtedly have been much better.

So to sum it up, a few excellent action scenes weren't enough save the movie from the dreadfully dull dialogue that sucked the life out of this movie. Thumbs down...

Triangulation, Good Politics -- Bad For The Country: If I asked you what the worst thing in American politics was today, I would get a variety of answers. Some of you might say "dishonesty", others recoil from the "negativity" and I'm sure there are plenty of Americans fed up with the "petty partisanship" we're confronted with at ever turn. But me? I'd point to Dick Morris' Frankenstein monster, triangulation.

For all intents and purposes, triangulation is the art of trying to be all things to all voters, or at least getting as close as possible. What you want to do is support things that will fire up your base without alienating the voters in the middle. Then when your opponent comes up with an idea that may allow him to pull away some of your support, you don't fight him, you adopt his idea, whether you agree with it or not. Doing this allows you to pull in the moderates who along with your base which will make it likely that you'll win at the ballot box. In short, triangulation is political akido that allows you to defeat your opponent by replacing your principles and ideology with polling data. (Cont)

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