Congressional critics of the Bush administration today attacked the president for "the tragic quagmire" at the Baghdad zoo.

The death toll for Iraqi zoo animals continued to climb yesterday, as a U.S. soldier allegedly killed a Bengal Tiger that was injuring another soldier.

In April, American soldiers shot and killed four lions which had escaped from the same zoo. Hundreds of other animals have been killed or released by looters.

"This zoo war was made up in Texas," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA. "The carnivorous cats posed no imminent threat. The whole thing is a fraud."

Mr. Kennedy's Democrat colleagues slammed Mr. Bush for lacking "a zoo exit strategy and timeline."

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin (who is a man) called for the zoo to be immediately turned over to a provisional authority consisting of "the more sentient mammals; chimps, orangutans, and whales."

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

I've pointed out many times over the last couple of years how kooky the 'mainstream' left has gotten. Here's another great example, I grabbed this image off of the front page of Bartcop's Political Humor....

Wow, that is some political humor isn't it? So who's this Bartcop who posts these "hilarious" graphics? Some flake with 12 people reading his website? Oh no, quite the opposite.

A few months ago when I did the 100 Of The Most Popular Political Websites On The Net, he weighed in at a very respectable #56 & today his Alexa rank is an exceptional #26,147. Furthermore, he is linked on prominent left-wing blogs & websites like Eschaton, Eric Alterman: Altercation, BuzzFlash, & The Agonist.

So Bartcop's warped perception of reality may be a minority view on the left, but it's pretty hard to argue that they're "fringe" views. Look at the traffic he gets, look at the people who link him -- this isn't a guy who's perceived as a kook on the left. That's not just scary, it's actually sad..

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Hurricane Isabel roared ashore in North Carolina yesterday, Democrats in Washington DC firmly fixed the blame on President George W. Bush for the ease with which the storm entered the United States, and the destruction it caused.

"Bush's lax support of Homeland security is to blame for this disaster," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma) as he was bundled into an extra-large limo by his aides for a fast trip to the airport. "If only he had tightened our borders properly, this would never have been allowed to happen." Added Senator Kennedy to his driver, "Don't you dare take me to Reagan Airport; I get heartburn every time I go near it."

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) gave a statement to reporters, saying "This Administration's lack of diplomacy is entirely to blame for the strength of this hurricane. If only President Bush had embraced Fidel Castro and dropped all restrictions and sanctions against Cuba, this never would have happened; we would have seen a storm of good-will from the happy people of Cuba instead of this destruction. This President has failed us by allowing this storm to take place." As she spoke, the Representative's aides were preparing a reception for Isabel, including a huge sheet cake with a stylised hurricane and the words "Congratulations on Your Immigration, Isabel!" and party favors consisting of offers of free tuition and drivers' licenses in a variety of names.

Presidential hopeful Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-Mo) was, of course, absent, but sent a prepared statement that "This President is a miserable failure ©". Another Presidential hopeful, Governor Howard Dean, stated that "this President failed in diplomacy... as President, I would have met the storm in advance and made peace with it, making certain to give in to its demands in order to reduce the damage it would cause." When asked how many members of the National Guard he would deploy to help during the emergency, Dean replied "I don't know how many we have, and I don't have to know, but I'm sure that when I'm President, I can always find someone around who knows these things."

Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) took the opportunity to add $100 million in pork barrel spending earmarked for West Virginia federally-funded programs to FEMA's operating budget for next year, to fund such projects as the "White Pillowcase Project", which will insure that all white males in the state are provided with white pillowcases at federal expense. "This President took the opportunity to don the garb of a Gorton's Fisherman," stated Senator Byrd, "in order to declare a state of emergency in a state he was not even in at the time!"

Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry (D-Ma) both voted to fight Hurricane Isabel, then viciously attacked President Bush for doing so. "I only voted for this fight in order to convince the storm the United States meant business," stated Kerry. "Had I known that anyone would actually take my vote seriously, much less act upon it, I might have voted the same way. Or not. I'm a Vietnam Veteran ©, you know."

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) blamed the hurricane on "a vast right-wing conspiracy ©" and stated "This terrible hurricane would never have happened when I was President. I mean, when my husband was President. He would have put together an international coalition to appease Isabel."

California Gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington also made a statement, but whether it concerned President Bush or Hurricane Isabel, no one present could say.

If you enjoyed this satire by Cavalier X, you can read more of his work at Cavalier's Guardian Watchblog.

To celebrate the fact that IMAO's hilarious "In My World" series is almost one year old, I put together the best quotes form the series. Read & enjoy! (Cont)

If you've been paying attention to the news for the last couple of days, you probably noticed some education statistics that have been making the news. It seems that the US spends more per pupil than anyone else, but we're in the middle of the pack when it comes to scores.

That's no big surprise to conservatives who've been pointing out that our schools are not under funded, they're under performing. I've also pointed out that I don't think our teachers are underpaid. This study also seems to bear that out when you look deeper into the numbers. Only one country significantly outspends us (and the rest of the world) on teacher salaries and that's South Korea.

Let me show you how things break down with a chart. Unfortunately, they don't have a median teacher salary breakdown, so I had to use the "Primary education at the top of the scale with minimal training" numbers. While of course, they're not exactly the same thing as median salary numbers, they do give us a pretty good way to compare teacher salaries across multiple nations.

Now you'll notice that Switzerland, Poland, Japan & South Korea outspend us on teacher salaries. But, as I alluded to earlier, only South Korea significantly outspends us on teacher salaries.

Which brings up an interesting point; how is it that we're spending more per pupil than any other nation, far more than most of them in fact, and yet our teacher's salaries don't seem to reflect that spending?

For example, how is it that we can outspend South Korea by almost $6000 per pupil and yet they can pay out an extra $18,000 per teacher? How can Japan be spending $3500 less per pupil than us and be paying their teachers more? What about Poland? We outspend them by more than $8000 per pupil and they still pay their teachers more than we do. I also find it fascinating that countries like Japan, South Korea, Finland, & Britain, who we outspend by anywhere from $3000 to almost $6000 per pupil, can consistently put up higher test scores than our students do in math, science, & reading.

Where is all this money that we're spending actually going to? Why aren't we getting the bang for our bucks that other countries are? What changes are we going to make to get our scores up? These are the questions we should be asking instead of, "How much more are we going to spend on education?" We're spending plenty of money on education, we're just not getting the performance we're paying for.

I think this story is great job of showing how ridiculous the Luddites in the environmental movement have gotten...

"Environmentalists sued the federal government Wednesday to get the Gentry indigo bush -a rare type of shrub - listed as an endangered species.

"The service's listing budget is broke," spokesman Jeff Humphrey said. "Anything that's not ordered by the courts isn't getting worked on, and the center is a large part of that backlog."

So we have a bunch of environmental whackos trying to hold up a 70 million project not save any fluffy animals, but to supposedly save some shrubs. How powerlines can possibly threaten the survival of a species is shrubs to begin with is beyond me. But I'm sure the whackos have concocted some farfetched scenario to explain it. You know, maybe Klingons are actually real and want to conquer earth for our powerlines and because of that, they might show up and fight with the US military, which would cause the shrubs to be destroyed in the crossfire. Who knows?

But back in the real world, where we just had a huge blackout, where we're supposed to have natural gas shortages this summer, where California spent last summer struggling to get enough power, these nutballs are filing countless nuisance lawsuits that delay these projects for months of years and cost untold millions of dollars. All because they're dogmatically opposed to any power source that isn't natural (think anything that generates more power than 5 or 6 rats running around in a hamster ball). Ok, the hamster ball comment was a little cheap, but I'm telling you, if these people got their "perfect world" that's powered by wind, solar power, & fuel cells, it would cause a titanic power outages and an economic collapse so severe that we'd long for the "good old days" of the Great Depression.

If they want to live like that, let them buy a plot in Montana and write fan mail to Ralph Nader & Michael Moore by candlelight in a shotgun shack. But the rest of us like computers, reliable electricity, TVs, Stereos, refrigerators and all the other conveniences of modern life that are only available on a wide scale because of oil, nuclear power, coal, & natural gas. If only the environmental whackos and the Democratic politicians who cater to their every whim would just accept that and act accordingly.....

Here are some excerpts from what I wrote about the French on Sept 9th...

"...(The) French and German governments would rather see Democracy fail in Iraq rather than succeed. It would be a humiliation for America and as a bonus, they'd have a much better chance of restoring their economic ties with a dictator than a free Iraq that remembers and resents the nations that tried to aid Saddam. If the Iraqis move too fast towards Democracy, their government will be too weak to survive and a civil war or even perhaps an invasion from Iran or Turkey could easily happen. If that sort of chaos broke out, the world would likely forget about Democracy in Iraq and would probably help another Iraqi strongman gain power in order to restore stability."

Well, believe it or not, noneother than Thomas Friedman is making almost exactly the same point I made about France in today's NYT....

"It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.

France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened U.S. will pave the way for France to assume its "rightful" place as America's equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs.

Exactly. France is engaged in what Friedman refers to later in the editorial as "Operation America Must Fail". They are not our friends & they do not want to see Democracy take root in Iraq.

Now why is that? While many people on the left would claim, "it's the Bush administration," it's not true. Even Friedman will admit that after taking the obligatory cheap shot at Bush...

"Yes, the Bush team's arrogance has sharpened French hostility. Had President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld not been so full of themselves right after America's military victory in Iraq — and instead used that moment, when the French were feeling that maybe they should have taken part, to magnanimously reach out to Paris to join in reconstruction — it might have softened French attitudes. But even that I have doubts about."

Yes, I know it doesn't make a lot of sense to offer France & their allies at the UN decision making power in Iraq (and that's what France has consistently demanded if they're going to participate) given that they don't want us to succeed, but that's leftist thinking on foreign policy for you.

So what's going on with France? It's all rooted in the end of the Cold War. Once the Cold War ended, no one in Europe was obliged to cooperate with us in order to guarantee that they wouldn't get pinned under a Soviet boot. Now that they don't feel that they "need us" anymore, some nations, like France feel free to oppose us in ways that that would have been considered unthinkable during the Cold War. That's not surprising, it's human nature. Look to Pre-WW2 Europe and you'll see the same sort of behavior. Luckily for the planet, Europe isn't as full of heavily armed & belligerent nations as it was then -- at least for the moment.

It is, "time we Americans came to terms" with what's going on not only in France, but to a lesser extent in Europe as a whole. We are not going to have the same sort of relationship with them for the foreseeable future that we did during the Cold War. It's no longer "us against the world" like it was back then. That doesn't mean every European nation is or will become our enemy, it just means that things are still sorting themselves out. Over the next few years, we'll start to get a much better idea of who's with us, who's against us, and who is willing to be bought by the highest bidder -- at least as long as the quasi-Fascist super state so many European bureaucrats dream of doesn't actually come into being.

That's what the post 9/11 world is going to be like & we'd better get used to it.

Have you read the latest stories on Foreign Policy magazine?

The End of the American Empire?

In 1976, French researcher Emmanuel Todd predicted nearly to the year the fall of the Soviet Union. In his latest book, Après l’Empire (After the Empire), he warns of the imminent breakdown of the "American System."

The Falseness of Anti-Americanism

Pollsters report a rising anti-Americanism worldwide after Sept. 11 through its arrogant unilateralism in Iraq controversial. Fouad Ajami, argues that anti-Americanism was already entrenched in the world's psyche—a backlash against a nation that comes bearing modernism to those who want it but who also fear and despise it.

Get two years of FP for the price of one! Click here to subscribe to Foreign Policy magazine now and get a FREE gift!

A merchant ship cuts through the water off the coast of North Carolina in 1705. Behind them appears none other than Blackbeard himself! He's quickly closing the gap between their ships and time is getting short. Only the actions of new captain Jebediah Rall, the great-great-great-great-uh-great-and a bunch more greats grandfather of Ted Rall, can save the crew now with his liberal leadership! Let's look in.... (Cont)

Here are some excerpts from an editorial by ultra-popular left-wing columnist Ted Rall on ELF & SUVS...and yes, you're reading it right, he's trying to make it perfectly clear that he approves of eco-terrorism without explicitly saying so...

"The environmental crisis is, hands down, the most important matter facing humanity today. Who cares about peace in the Middle East if the region is under water, stricken by famine or choked by dust storms? Weather systems are becoming increasingly violent and unpredictable, species are going extinct and virgin-growth forests are vanishing at an alarming rate. While smog has diminished somewhat in places like Denver and Los Angeles, air pollution is getting worse nationally. Ohio's EPA, for example, announced that 2002 was the most toxic summer on record in 14 years.

...In an ideal world, American consumers could be convinced to do the right thing through an appeal to logic with public service messages like the "What Would Jesus Drive?" TV campaign, but the kind of people who would buy a car that increases the risk to other motorists in an accident can't be reasoned with. They're selfish and stupid. It's unfortunate that drivers must worry that their SUVs are being targeted by insulting stickers and Molotov cocktails, but one thing's for sure: It couldn't be happening to a more deserving group of people."

So, "It's unfortunate that drivers must worry that their SUVs are being targeted by insulting stickers and Molotov cocktails, but one thing's for sure: It couldn't be happening to a more deserving group of people."

Now, maybe it's just me, but the is the left not UNBELIEVABLY, INCREDIBLY, HAIR-TRIGGER, sensitive to people on the right who say things similar to this?

If you criticize some anti-war celebrity for saying something ridiculous, you get left-wingers hysterically claiming that all dissent is being silenced in the US. You have Christine Armanpour claiming Fox News "intimidated" CNN somehow or another. Bill Clinton tried to tie the Oklahoma City bombing to conservatives complaining about government in general on talk radio. Tom Daschle even claimed (among other things) that his family was getting death threats because Rush Limbaugh was calling him an "obstructionist".

So we get all that hysteria, all those drastic over reactions, and then Ted Rall comes along and says that "working within the system hasn't stopped the polluters," SUV drivers "can't be reasoned with," & that people who drive SUVs deserve to have Molotov cocktails thrown at them.

That makes perfect sense doesn't it? Sure, as Rall himself mentions earlier in the article, SUVS make up "more than half of new car sales," but since Ted Rall doesn't approve, I guess they "deserve" to have some eco-terrorist torch their car, right? Who told them this was a free country where they could drive whatever car they wanted without having to get Ted Rall & ELF's approval?

Rall's eco-terrorist friendly editorial will not provoke widespread outrage on the left, it won't cost him his Yahoo column, his cartoon at the New York Times is safe, and I sincerely doubt if it'll even turn off any of his fans.

I guess the ends justify the means for a few -- well, let's call it like it is given the fact that Rall is a popular left-wing columnist -- a lot of people on the left. Maybe they don't want to come right out and say it, but they figure, "Hey, if it takes terrorists throwing Molotov cocktails at people's cars to force them to do what we want, so be it."

Am I wrong? Prove it to me. Rall is as well read on the left as people like Michelle Malkin and David Horowitz are on the right. So show me several left-wing blogs of note denouncing this editorial. Show me the sort of outrage you'd see on the right side of the blogosphere if say a popular conservative columnist advocated torching the cars of anti-war protestors or people who had abortions.

You're simply not going to see it and that is quite telling...

Hat tip to A Small Victory for finding this one.

Calpundit -- unintentionally I think -- touched on one of the primary differences between the left and the right while commenting on the Milton Friedman interview I posted yesterday. Here's the essence of what he said...

"John Hawkins: So would you favor for example a 3/5th's majority to raise taxes like they suggested in the "Contract with America"?

...So: no Social Security, no Medicare, no EPA, no NASA, no foreign aid, no National Institutes of Health, no national parks, no disaster assistance, no housing aid, no FDA, no OSHA, no unemployment insurance, no nothing. Just a big military, some courts, a penal system, and a few other minor symbols of government."

Now of course, we could argue about whether we'd be better off if the government really were that small and the taxpayers had kept their money for all of those years. Some people, Libertarians & Fiscal Conservatives (like myself), would probably say "yes," people on the left would say "no," and other people would probably come down somewhere inbetween with a, "well we could get rid of A, B, & C but I'd rather keep X, Y, & Z". That would be a nice theoretical discussion.

However, Friedman didn't suggest proposing this in 1958 in the interview -- he suggested doing it NOW. That's why it makes little sense to compare implementing a Tax And Expenditure Limitation Amendment in 1958 to implementing one today, UNLESS you believe there are still all sorts of "wonderful new programs" the government has yet to come up with.

Which leads us to a key point, perhaps the essential dividing line between conservatives & liberals (although not between Republicans and Democrats to our nation's great misfortune)...

Conservatives already believe government is far too big and would like to at least slow it's growth or better yet reduce its size. On the other hand, liberals believe government is far too small and want to see it expand.

Personally, I don't believe there are any more "great", new, domestic programs out there that the government needs to start up. So while I am unhappy with a lot of things we currently spend money on from agricultural subsidies, to airlines bailouts, to many social spending programs, I am even more opposed to any NEW programs that aren't related to the most basic functions our Founding Fathers intended that government perform (security, building roads, foreign policy, etc). As it is, I don't see anywhere in our society that the government's tentacles haven't already creeped too far into. In short, there is rarely a time that I look at something that's happening and go, "You know, getting government involved in that portion of our lives is going make things better". Whereas Calpundit & other people on left are looking for government to create the "next Social Security" or the "next OSHA" one day and therefore get very nervous when you start talking about actually limiting the growth of government.

That is a fundamental difference between the left and the right in our country...

"Why are you filming the G.I.’s helping school children?" CNN's Lefty Stevens asked Fox News's Melinda Hawkish, "There's no story there."

"I think people would be interested in how war and destruction has improved the lives of the Iraqis," Melinda answered.

"Bah! Only stories of failure are news worthy," Stevens answered. Nearby he saw a troop fall to the ground, and he and his cameraman quickly rushed over to film him. "Yet another troop has fallen in this burgeoning quagmire," Stevens narrated.

"I'm alright," said Private Gomer, standing up, "I just done tripped on a rock."

"D@mmit!" Stevens exclaimed, "Well scream for us if you are more seriously wounded."

Right Wing News emailed more than a 125 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a list of who they considered to be the "worst figures of the 20th century". Representatives from 37 blogs responded.

All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-15 ranked selections. The selections were scored based on a weighted scale. A rank of 1-5 was worth (3) points, 6-10 was worth (2) points, & 11-15 was worth (1) point.

So for example, a 1st (3) & 13th (1) place selection would be worth 4 points wheras having three bloggers rank a columnist at 11th (1), 12th (1), and 15th (1) place would be worth 3 points total. Got it? Good.

Also, as an added bonus, I included the number of first place selections each columnist had. The columnists who were picked first on someone's list have the number of #1 votes they received following a "--". Note that some of the columnists who received a #1 vote did not get enough other votes to qualify.

Without further adieu, the "Favorite Editorial Columnists" of the right side of the blogosphere are as follows...(Cont)

***Update***: A few notes...

-- You can read my selections here.

-- I thought it was interesting that neither Bill O'Reilly or Patrick Buchanan received a single vote. In O'Reilly's case, it's a bit odd that someone who sells books and pulls in the ratings like he does has no big fans of his editorial column.

With Buchanan, I'd say the fact that he wasn't selected and the mediocre ratings of "Buchanan & Press" are probably a good indicator of his lack of popularity among Conservatives. While Pat still reels people in on a few issues, he's way, way, out of step with the Conservative mainstream. Were I running a cable network, he wouldn't be in the top 50 people I'd consider for a hosting slot because he doesn't appeal to the majority of people he's supposed to be bringing in. It's like headlining Lollapalooza with "The Cars".

-- On the hand, wow, could Steyn be anymore dominant? He's the Michael Jordan of conservative pundits...

As I've pointed out on RWN, Jews in the US vote for Democrats over Republicans roughly 2-1. Now of course, if you're Jewish and liberal, and the war on terrorism and the fate of Israel don't matter that much to you, it makes perfect sense to be voting for the Dems.

On the other hand, if you're Jewish and the fate of Israel is something that is near and dear to your heart or at least a big enough factor to swing you to one party or the other, then you are CRAZY if you're giving your vote and your campaign contributions to the Democrats.

Without question, George Bush has been the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. While I'll grant you that his policies haven't been perfect (as I've pointed out many times here on RWN), he has strongly supported Israel. He has sidelined Arafat, openly said he won't allow Israel to be crushed, has cut off funding to the Palestinian terrorist groups, and while he has pushed for futile peace agreements, he has also made it clear that he strongly supports Israel's right to self defense against terrorists. Furthermore, the support for Israel is very, very, strong in the Republican party which is quite notable since the GOP does not get the Jewish vote and quite frankly does not expect to.

But what about the Democrats? Well let's look at the front runner, the Dems golden boy, Howard Dean. Recently he said we shouldn't "take sides" in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. So on the one hand, we have a friendly, pro-American democracy that's happy to help out in the war on terrorism and on the other hand, we have an anti-American dictatorship run by the foremost terrorist on the planet, that had celebrations in the street on 9/11, that teems with terrorist groups, and Howard Dean thinks we should be neutral between them?

Dean also called members of terrorist group Hamas, a group that has killed Americans by the way, "soldiers". So I guess Dean equates the Israeli soldiers who are trying to stop terrorism with murderous thugs who believe in blowing themselves up on school buses full of women and children.

Then we have Dean's promise to bring this man back to try to negotiate peace in the Middle-East...

I'm not sure if that's a promise or a threat given that Clinton accomplished exactly nothing in 8 years except Oslo which was a disaster for Israel and the current Intifada which started on Clinton's watch.

Of course, you never really know what a President will do until he gets into office, but Israelis and people who truly care about the survival of Israel should be TERRIFIED of a Dean Presidency. Israel is an incredibly strong, resilient, and vibrant country -- but they're also small and surrounded by enemies. You have to ask yourself -- what would Israel's future look like if they could no longer count on the US? Unfortunately, if Dean were to get into office, the Israelis might get to find out.

Whether Dean gets the nomination or not, there's no question that the Democrats can no longer be counted to stick by Israel. After all, if Dean can give every indication of being hostile to Israel while not being the least bit serious about the war on terrorism and can still be considered the leader of the pack, there's no reason to believe another Democrat is going to be much better. Even Lieberman may bend over so far backwards to prove that he's not giving Israel favorable treatment, that Israel may still be in danger. So if you sincerely care about Israel's survival, how can you in good conscience support the Dems in 2004?

Thanks to Josh from Jawsblog for finding that picture for me at the BBC.

Some of you probably noticed all the nifty trackbacks on the post I made slamming the school lunch and breakfast program. While the opinions on that post were decidedly mixed, I'd like to talk about the people who disagreed with me. Here's my impression -- very generalized of course -- of the entire debate....

JH: It's ridiculous that every kid, no matter how rich gets free breakfast in NYC.

Response: You're mean!

JH: What about welfare, food stamps, & private charities, don't they already handle this?

Response: You're mean, mean!

JH: These kids make it fine through dinner, the week-ends, & the summer without getting meals from school. Doesn't that show that the program isn't needed?

Response: You're mean, mean, mean!

To be more accurate, I should have punctuated the "responses" with cries of "you don't know what it's like to be poor," as if being poor in America is some sort of unique experience. Like many, many, other people who are against wasteful government programs, I've been poor before. In fact, my first three years after college were brutal. I could tell you about them, but I'm not into "poor, poor, pitiful me stories". And just in case you were wondering, no, I've never taken welfare, food stamps, or even unemployment compensation. Luckily, my father who spent his childhood in the sort of grinding poverty that reminds me of modern day Afghanistan minus all the warlords and explosions, raised me to believe that it was morally wrong to take government hand-outs and it stuck.

Back to the original post. Unfortunately, when you say, "it's for the children" a certain percentage of people, even conservatives, lose the capacity for rational thought and you might as well be speaking to them in Farsi. Politicians understand this and therefore won't touch this issue with a 10 ft. poll. Even most pundits who agree with me aren't going to step into this minefield because they know they're going to take a beating.

But let me cut to the heart of the matter. I am of the opinion, that if we stopped the school lunch and breakfast program today (which isn't going to happen by the way), terminated it, shot it deader than Uday Hussein, that five years from now we'd barely even notice it was gone. Don't believe it?

Think about what would happen if schools started giving out free clothing vouchers to kids. Maybe you think that's far out, but you could make just as good a case for giving kids free clothes as you could for giving them free food (it's something they need & it's possible their parents may not be able to afford it, etc,).

So what would happen -- assuming these kids could get decent looking clothes with these vouchers? A lot of kids who were somehow, someway, being provided their own clothes before, would start using these vouchers. When you give them away for free, what else would you expect? Over time the program would expand. Currently, kids from families at 130% of the poverty level are eligible for free lunches and some families at 185% of the poverty level can qualify for reduced lunches. Give it a little more time and at some point, some city, like NYC, would just offer these clothing vouchers to all of the kids -- just like they do free breakfast.

Then some conservative, like me, would come along and say the free clothes voucher program isn't necessary and there would be howls of outrage!

"Do you want these poor children to go to school naked? Where's the compassion? Why do you hate children? These poor people will never be able to afford to pay for clothes for their children! I was on the free clothing program when I was a kid and the only reason I didn't have to wear a torn, size too small, power rangers t-shirt I found in the sewer to school every day was because of that program! Oh and I forgot...you're mean!!!"

Yet, only a few years before, all these same people were clothing themselves.

The growth of the school lunch and breakfast program -- in fact, the growth of government as a whole -- happens in exactly the same way. It's easy to get these programs started and they inevitably grow, but when you try to cut into them, the shrieks of outrage could burst a Frenchman's eardrums.

Oh and last but not least, it's easy to pat yourself on the back and talk about how compassionate you are for defending spending someone else's money "on the children". Think about that when one of the NY Yankee's kids is eating a free waffle at the taxpayer's expense in NYC because no one wants to be called "mean" for opposing free breakfasts.

Being a conservative blogger isn't just about getting interviews with Milton Friedman, cash under the table from Richard Mellon Scaife, and backrubs from Ann Coulter (OK, I made those last two up, but I can dream can't I)? It's also about getting email -- so much of it that you'd have to spend hours per week replying to it -- well if you did reply to all of it.

Spam, blog promos, info from the RNC, advertisers, interview request rejects, and dozens of other assorted sundry items -- including hate mail. While I can't show you all of the mail -- and would you really want to see it anyway -- I can put some of the hate mail I get up. It's more interesting anyway and it gives you a good idea of what some of the left is like when don't think the general public is going to see what they have to say...

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prettyboyluvr29@**********

your rainforest commentary

All that I can say to you is that you are an ignorant horse's @ss....pull your head out of your @ss and try to care about life instead of being such an idiot. Thank you for your consideration....

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manoverde84@*************

Man im not even this conservative. You must be a southener, right? Only a southener could be this corny and racist. You know theres a huge difference between southern conservative and northern conservative. America would be the greatest nation ever in the history of nations if we didnt have the d*mn south always making us look like yokels. We need a new civil war cus the south is rising again.

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sreindl@*******

(This is the tail end of one of the many long, rambling, leftist blatherfests I've received)

Explain to me why a war dreamed up by this administration to avenge an assassination attempt on Daddy Bush and to steal the Iraqi oil and provide profits for Haliburton and Kellogg, Brown, and Root is cheered by the military and all the chickenhawks, while during 1998 the Clinton "8 years of peace and prosperity" administration was booed and harassed by the same military and chickenhawks for having a similar idea. I can explain it to you and the rest of your right wing CommandoEs, because it had nothing to do with William Jefferson Clinton's 100 million dollar c*ck, that you were chasing at the time. A c*ck, that is indeed attached to arguably the best President in the history of the USA, but I still wouldn't give you 100 million for it. Apparently the OIC thought it was worth that. I don't think Santorum would approve of Starr's c*ck
fixation.

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From: keithwarren@**************

"Chickenhawk my boy, you are a narrow minded fool but I dont hate you like so many others do. I can honestly say, I feel sorry for you that you waste so much time spewing your verbal diaherria. Why would you even want to discuss weather or not kids should eat in schools and the pennies that it costs!, I'm not one to type so I'll leave it at that, however, should I ever see you out and about, you had better be ready for the biggest LEFT handed SLAP of your life.

see you soon sh*t pants ."

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JimmyC@whitehouse.gov

Stop mocking my presidency! I am not "history's greatest monster" as you and "The Sampsons" have claimed. If only George Bush had give Kim Jong-Il more compliments on his haircut, he'd make a deal, I just know it! Then there's Yasser Arafat -- I'll talk to him if the Bush administration asks -- Oh, I so long to feel the stubble of his rough beard against my smooth cheek again as we hug.

But it all goes back to what this country needs -- A good long cry and then a few years of asking ourselves, "Why do they hate us?" I spent years asking myself that after the American people hated me so much that they made me a one-term President & you know what I came up with? They're idiots! That's why they hate us, we have a country full of warmongering, cowboy, idiots who don't know that there's a time to give-in, grovel, and beg & a time to well..give-in, grovel, and beg some more.

PS: I know that were I able to hug Osama Bin Laden just once, he would forgive the American people for voting me out of office and all our problems would be solved.

Yours in love, peace, & understanding

Jimmy Carter

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Ok, I did make that last one up -- but the other ones are real. No joke =D

Yesterday, I did a twenty minute interview by phone with Milton Friedman. Of course, Mr. Friedman has an INCREDIBLE resume. He won the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for economic science, won the "Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and received the National Medal of Science the same year".

He was also an "economic adviser to Senator Barry Goldwater in his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964, to Richard Nixon in his successful 1968 campaign, to President Nixon subsequently, and to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign."

There is much, much, more I could add. But I think the fact that Mr. Friedman finished in a tie for the 15 slot when RWN had conservative bloggers select, "The Greatest Figures Of The 20th Century gives you some idea of Mr. Friedman's stature.

Enjoy the interview! (Cont)

The instant they plant their foot on American soil they have broken the law. They are illegal aliens and, from that moment, they become a plague on every American's quality of life. They crowd our schools and don't pay for the privilege. They fill our hospitals, forcing many into bankruptcy. They help to infest our nation with dangerous drugs, destroying our children while the crime rate soars. Thousands sneak across the border in dilapidated trucks, endangering law-abiding Americans on our highways. They flood our welfare rolls, costing American taxpayers as much as $30 billion dollars per year.

As the plague accelerates, few of our elected leaders care to even mention the problem of illegal aliens from Mexico.When you or I break the law in America, we face the possibility of fines, perhaps jail time or at least of getting our cars towed. Nations make laws because they are supposed to be obeyed. Laws give our society structure and direction. Without them we would sink into anarchy, with everyone grabbing for themselves. No lives and no property could be secure. Those who ignore the laws are called "outlaws." A nation that begins to ignore enforcement of its laws soon loses control to its outlaws. (Cont)

I've been surprised by the number of excellent horror films that have come out of late. "House of Thousand Corpses, "28 Days," & "Freddy Vs. Jason," have all been top notch movies (you can see my reviews of each here). In fact, the only horror movie I've seen lately that wasn't up to snuff was Jeepers Creepers 2 & I didn't even bother to review that one.

Well last week-end, I caught Cabin Fever and believe it or not, it may have been the best of the lot. It was like a mix between "Evil Dead 2" & "Friends" with a dollop of "28 Days" thrown in for good measure.

The movie starts with five college students heading out to an isolated cabin for a vacation and believe it or not, the kids really reminded me of the cast from Friends. You have Rachael and Ross before they started dating, a slightly more angry and demented Joey, a more dapper Chandler -- OK, he actually reminds more of Fred from Scooby-Doo -- and a slutty Monica. All they were missing was a an easy Fibi who has a thing for conservative webmasters. But I guess you have to take what you get.

Things start to go horribly wrong when a man infected with some sort of plague, virus, alien spore, (Who knows? They never really explain it) shows up. Then people start getting sick, life starts getting weird, and the murder and virus victims start adding up faster than the bar tab at a Kennedy family party.

While this movie is a horror film, it's a very "clever" horror film. In fact, the only movie I've seen recently that has as many twists, turns, shocks, and little surprises as "Cabin Fever" was "Signs," another movie that I really enjoyed.

So if you're looking for a top-notch horror film that even people who don't normally like horror will enjoy, then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend "Cabin Fever". It's a truly excellent film and it gets a thumbs way up...

Dick Cheney confirmed yesterday, for the first time, that there was an IRAQI connection to the first WTC bombing that Al-Qaeda conducted...

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn’t have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know."

Folks, when we have an Iraqi who is being paid and protected by Saddam Hussein participating in an attack on the World Trade Center, that not only suggests that Iraq and Al-Qaeda have had a long-term relationship, it means that it was highly likely that Saddam and Al-Qaeda were cooperating -- at least at some level -- in their attacks on the US. I bet Jayna Davis who has been saying for years that Saddam was involved in that attack feels vindicated today. It'll be interesting to see how much more information we get about this Al-Qaeda agent in the future and make no mistake about it, this WILL come up again.

Get ready for another big interview that I'm going to be posting tomorrow. Let's see if you can guess who it is. I'll give you some VERY generic hints...

1) This person is a Nobel Prize winner.
2) This person was born before WW2 started.
3) This person to the best of my knowledge, does not write regular editorial columns, has never run for office and after talking to this person, I'm pretty sure he/she doesn't even surf the net.
4) I can't even name the field this person is in, because this person dominates it to such an extent that it would give it away.

That should be enough clues. Each person gets one guess and the first blogger (note that in the post if you don't have a link back to your site in your profile) who nails it will get a link to their blog in a post update.

PS: Legal mumbo jumbo, yada, yada, yada, I reserve the right not to link you if I don't want to, because you're a jerk, you're Al Franken, etc, etc, etc.

PS #2: Oh and the people who I've already told are of course not eligible....

***Update: We have a winner already. Aresian from News Indigestion nails it.

It is Milton Friedman and although I haven't transcribed it yet, my initial impression was that it was very, very, good.

Hurricane Isabel this morning declared her candidacy for the Democrat nomination for President of the United States. According to a CNN poll, Isabel's name recognition exceeds that of all nine existing candidates combined, plus Wesley Clark.

With winds of 150 mph, and gusts over 200 mph, Isabel said she has what it takes to rally the Democrat faithful.

Aiming for the White House, the candidate may first sweep through the south calling for a huge influx of federal government funding and social services.

"Then she'll hit Pennsylvania with a call for new jobs in the housing and public utility sectors," said an unnamed campaign spokesman. "And you'll finally see the word 'recovery' in the headlines."

Isabel's spokesman said no other candidate is in her category.

"She's not afraid to make waves," he said. "Democrats finally have a candidate that can't be ignored."

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

On Sunday night, I got together to discuss the California recall with Scott Ott from Scrappleface, Betsy Newmark from Betsy's Page, Scott "The Big Trunk" Johnson from Powerline, & California resident Madison "Moxie" Slade from The Moxology. Here's the edited transcript of that conversation (Cont)

***Update***: The 9th Circuit Court in San Fran has just moved the recall back until March 7, 2004. I guess McClintock was right to hang in there, huh? How attractive is Arnold going to be by then? Will Davis be able to get back in the good graces of the voters? Will Bustamante renounce MECha beofore then? Will Simon or Peter Ueberroth get back in? Can Gary Coleman build up his support...and most importantly, will anyone still care by then?