Well, that's all the posts I've got time for tonight. If I didn't get to your question, sorry, but there are only so many hours in a day =D This was a lot of fun and I got a lot of questions, so I will probably try this again in 2-4 weeks. If you think that's a good idea or if you don't, let me know in the comments section of this post and I'll take your opinion into consideration.

Question: "I want to know how many lives can be sacrificed for the war to still be considered moral. Where is the line that when crossed it could be said that it wasn't worth it; that more harm than good came out?" -- P_Stick

Answer: Imagine if in WW2 Patton was rolling towards Germany and Ike called him and said, "We just crossed this casualty line and that means this war is no longer moral. Turn it around and bring the men home". There is no such line because wars don't work like that.

Before you start the war, you have to ask whether it's worth spilling American blood over, how important it is, whether you're willing to do what it takes to win, etc, etc. Once the decision to go to war is made, you do whatever it takes to win.

Then once the war is won and things sort themselves out, history will have to be the ultimate guide as to whether it was worth it or not.

But, off the top of my head, the only wars America has fought that probably weren't worth it in my eyes were the "War of 1812", the "Philippine-American War" / "Philippine Insurrection", & Vietnam (which would have been worth it had Lyndon Johnson, who was probably the worst President of the 20th century although Jimmy Carter would give him stiff competition, fought to win).

Question: "When someone says to you "Haliburton is evil and they sneaked past all the bidding wars and got exclusive rights to Iraq because of Cheney" how are you supposed to respond? Any facts to back up a different viewpoint then that?" -- LordJezo

Answer: Look, Dick Cheney has nothing, zero, nada to do with the bidding process. The VP does not pick up the phone and say "Hey, I want my old company, Haliburton, to get this contract". It just doesn't work like that.

Next, while Haliburton does still pay Cheney a deferred salary from when he was their Chief Executive, that's unaffected by current deals. Cheney also still has Haliburton stock, but all profits from the stock are given to charity. So, whether Haliburton loses or makes a billion dollars this year, Dick Cheney isn't effected one iota.

You must also remember that Haliburton is a competent firm, with government security clearance, in an industry with few competitors (at least for some of the things they do). That's why they were able to get no bid contracts in Iraq and that's why the Clinton administration gave them a no-bid contract in the Balkans back in 1997.

Now if people hear all that and still want to insist that every time Haliburton gets hired, it must mean it's part of some sort of nefarious "Dick Cheney scheme," there's nothing much you can do to enlighten them at that point.

Question: "Rush limbaugh made an editorial about the events at Abu Ghraib being no worse than mild hazing. Surely he did not knpow that hazing is a crime in most states if not all and most schools have rules forbidding hazing. Isn't Rush an embarrasment to the RW'ers with his drug addiction and his past stories coming out about his homosexuality. And then his latest assertion about an event that Bush said disgusted and disgraced him, but that Rush said was no more than just the crime of hazing?" -- John7714

Answer: Let me take these out of order. First off, I've been hearing about "past stories coming out about (Rush's) homosexuality" on left wing message boards for years now and I've never seen any of them that had any substance to them. They all turn out to be "Oooh, Rush was friends with someone who was gay" or "I heard about some guy who once said Rush was gay" type posts. It's pure libel that impresses lackwits without basic fact checking skills.

As far as Rush's pain killer abuse goes, while I do have more sympathy for someone has difficulty managing pain and gets addicted to drugs like Oxycontin than I do someone who say gets addicted to crack, heroin, or even marijuana. But if it turns out that Rush goes to jail for breaking the law, I won't be one of the people complaining. I am strongly in favor of the drug war, I believe in harsh sentences for offenders and dealers, and if it turns out Rush ends up in the pokey over it (although that looks unlikely at this point), so be it.

Next, I have only been able to listen to Rush intermittently of late, so I don't know everything he has said about Abu Ghraib. However, I have heard him downplay the torture that occurred there and I've noticed that Newsmax is doing the same thing. I understand where they are coming from, some of the things that went on could be fairly compared to hazing, but I don't agree with their conclusions. Hazing is voluntary, what happened at Abu Ghraib was not. Also, there were people beaten to death at Abu Ghraib and forced to crawl over glass. Rapes were threatened, people's families were dragged into it...it was loathsome, something that the responsible soldiers should spend time in a jail cell over.

With that being said, I disagree with the way the mainstream media has handled this just as much as I do with what Limbaugh and Newsmax have said about it. The media has obsessively focused on it, grossly overplayed the significance of what happened, & unfairly used it to attack our troops and President Bush. I think how Limbaugh and Newsmax handled things is a direct result of that, although I still don't agree with them on this issue.

In any case, I like Rush a lot, he had a great deal of influence on me during my college years, and I'd still strongly recommend listening to him.

Question: "Anyway John, what's your opinion on NASA? Do you think we should continue to federally support it to ensure that America continues to lead in spaceflight, or do you hold the view that private organizations will do it for us?" -- jchristopherfeng

Answer: I don't have a problem with private organizations getting involved in spaceflight and I think it will eventually become more common, but it's currently so expensive and difficult that the government is going to have to take the lead if it's going to be done properly. And because of the scientific advances inspired by the space program, knowledge we've gained, and the move towards space based weapons, I believe the government needs stay on point in space.

Question: "When a working democracy comes about in Iraq and ultimately brings some degree of peace to this deeply troubled region, do you think Bush will get the credit he deserves?" -- Archangel

Answer: Peace in the Middle-East, even if Iraq were to turn into a prosperous, functioning, democracy in a relatively short time frame, still isn't close at hand. In fact, what we're trying to do in the Middle-East is create instability and revolutions, not stability and peace.

That may seem counterproductive at first, but I shudder to imagine a Middle-East 20 years from now, with Wahhabism unchecked, the Muslim nuclear club being joined by Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, all those above nations still being run by the same groups of despots or their families, and a quickly dimishing supply of oil revenue flowing into the region as the world switches over to alternative fuels. If we don't make moves now to help/encourage/force these societies to democratize and modernize, I suspect the world is going to get a really ugly, reoccurring, first hand look at what nuclear jihad looks like. Despite the fact that Al-Qaeda has already attempted to kill an estimated 80,000 people in Jordan with a terrorist attack featuring WMD, most people won't take it seriously until the first nuke explodes in a city. What President Bush is trying to do is make sure it doesn't come to that.

But ultimately, when things eventually sort themselves out, will President Bush get the credit he deserves? From conservatives and perhaps historians yes, from liberals, doubtful. Remember that there are still left-wingers trying to claim Reagan didn't engineer the collapse of the Soviet Union =D

Question: "How do you explain the seeming anomaly of Louisiana as a Democratic stronghold in a very conservative deep south region?" -- huckupchuck

Answer: My best guess would be that there is a higher than normal concentration of conservative, yellow dog Democrats (Democrats who'd rather vote for a "little yellow dog" than a Republican) up in Louisiana who probably should be voting Republican, but vote Democrat instead. You can still find good old boys in the South who are conservative as the day is long, but keep pulling the levers for the Democrats because they were raised not to vote for those "bleepity bleeping Republicans". However, yellow dog dems in the South are a dying breed and judging by how close the GOP has managed to keep things in Louisiana of late, I think in a few years time that state will start to regularly slip over into the republican column.

Question: "A while back I seen you had ICP's 'The Wraith' CD on your wish list. I was wondering if you often listen to the Insane Clown Posse. If so, then thats great! That means there's a whole 2 Republicans that listen to ICP!" -- LotusClown

Answer: Yep, I'm a big ICP fan. I have a bunch of their CDs and ICP, along with the Cure, are my two favorite bands. The Insane Clown Posse does seem to be kind of an odd band for a conservative to listen to, but I guess I was desensitized to violence and obscenity in music by listening to so much NWA, Geto Boys, and Luke Skyywalker and The Two Live Crew when I was a teenager.

Question: "I'd like to see you comment on the sarin and mustard gas findings in Iraq. Finally some actual chemical weapons and not just leads, yet the liberals are saying they don't count as evidence of weapons of mass destruction because they are most likely from the time of the first Iraq war." -- Entropy

Answer: After David Kay's told the public what he found, I had almost written off the idea that Saddam had in stockpiles sitting around (although Hussein was working on a Ricin program and had restarted his nuclear program after the inspectors left in 1998). However, between the recent mustard gas and sarin finds, and the attempted VX nerve gas attack in Jordan perpetrated by Al-Qaeda terrorists coming out of Syria, I now think it's entirely possible that Saddam sent his stockpiles over to Syria before the war or simply has them buried somewhere in the desert like those MiGs the Aussies found. In any case, Saddam did have WMD programs going right up until the war and we have found WMD in Iraq, including enough sarin in that one shell (3-4 liters) to kill thousands of people. As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough to justify President Bush's concern about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Question: "Does John McCain still belong in the Republican party, or can we work out a trade of him for Zell Miller?" -- Rastus

Answer: I like Zell Miller much more than that ego maniacal, left-leaning, blowhard, John McCain, so I'd love to make a trade. But, Miller is retiring this year and McCain's still hanging around, so regrettably, it's no deal.

Question: "John, do you actually read the comments? It seems that you only make comments about our comments every once in a while. Do you just post and sit back and watch what happens? Or do you just post and occasionally check in on what we're talking about?" -- bungoman85

Answer: I probably read about 90% of the comments, but sometimes when there are several large threads on the front page, I don't get around to reading through them all. I'd actually like to add a couple of moderators to make sure nothing inappropriate sneaks in under the radar, but Movable Type doesn't have a setting that allows people to only add and delete comments.

Also, I usually don't chime in because I figure that if I'm going to be writing, I should do it on the front page where everybody is going to see it instead of in the comments section where I'm going estimate...oh..let's say 10-15% of RWN's readers are going to catch what I said. If I'm going to pump out a thousand plus words a day on RWN -- which isn't unusual at all -- I want the maximum number of people to read it.

Question: "Something that has been frustrating me a lot lately is that the left, along with the "international community" has been screaming bloody murder because the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were not treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Now, I don't condone torture, however, do not the Geneve conventions only apply to UNIFORMED military personnel as compared to the "insurgents" and terrorists that we have been fighting that dress to blend in with civilians? It seems supremely unjust that our troops are required to wear uniforms to be treated humanely if captured, whereas the rest of the world can take potshots at them regardless of their attire and be afforded the same treatment. Is this simply another double-standard instituted by American liberals and international terror apologists intended to undermine the US military? How do you think this should be approached by the US military?" -- drunkenmaster

Answer: As far as I'm concerned, the only thing anyone really needs to know about the Geneva Convention is that the United States has never fought an opponent who has treated our troops in accordance with it, nor are we likely to face such a foe anytime soon.

Therefore, we should stop even making a pretense of abiding by the Geneva Convention. Instead, we should make a decision, in line with our own moral code, keeping in mind that our own soldiers will be treated AT LEAST as bad as we treat others, about how we're going deal with prisoners and how far we're willing to go to get information. Once we make that decision, we should let the world know where we stand and make sure all of our troops are informed about what will and will not be tolerated.

That would certainly be preferable to continuing to pretend that we care about an antiquated code of conduct that was never truly designed to deal with a war fought against an enemy that wears no uniforms, that usually doesn't distinguish between soldiers and civilians, and that follows no rules of war.

Question: "What is your position on abortion? Do you think that, as the "Millennial" generation (which many consider to be more conservative and moral than GenX or the Baby Boomers) comes of age and takes over, Roe vs. Wade will be overturned in favor of unborn babies' rights? Okay, that's two questions, but they're related :)" -- Clint

Answer: Since I believe life begins at conception, I personally believe that abortion should be legal only if the mother's life is in danger. If a woman wants to risk her life to bring a child into the world, that's a noble decision, but I believe it would be immoral to force the woman to take that risk.

However, even if Roe Vs. Wade is overturned, I don't expect abortion to be banned in the case of incest or rape. There's just not much public support for that, even among many people who are anti-abortion, because of what an awful thing it is for a woman to have to bring a child into the world under those circumstances. Even I have difficulty opposing an abortion under those circumstances, but I simply can't condone taking a human life except when there is no other choice.

As far as when Roe Vs. Wade will be overturned, that's hard to say. It could be as early as 2006 if Bush wins, a liberal SCOTUS justice retired, and W pushed though another conservative justice. On the other hand, if Kerry were elected and a couple of conservative judges retired, Kerry could get a couple of activist liberals judges on the bench, it could put Roe Vs. Wade out of reach for decades. So basically, there's no way to hazard an educated guess at this point.

Question: "I have been reading your log for two months and it is now my favourite, even ahead of Mark Steyn's, which I began reading when he disappeared from the NATIONAL POST. I would now like to ask you a question. As I am seventy years old [they were not mispent years, I can assure you], I know nothing of the etiquette of blogging and I would like to know the rules so I can take part.I know that one has to have a nickname/nom de guerre/nom de plume but beyond that I am totally ignorant. Can you enlighten me? I promise not to ask how often you clip the dog's claws, I know the answer to this as I have been a dog owner myself. Keep up the "verygood" work!" -- jourdemaine

Answer: Today is your lucky day, because I've written a whole article on just this subject. Check out RWN's Short & Sweet Guide To Creating Your Own Blog to get all the info you'll need to get started. The only caveats that I'd add to the article are that I can no longer recommend Movable Type to new users because of their new Pricing Structure and that there are some other web-based publishing tools that have either been released or gained notoriety since I put that article out.

Question: "Do you think a prisoner exchange would be justified to facilitate the return of Pfc. Keith Matthew Maupin? Especially in view of the evnts that transpired at Abu Ghraib?" -- John7714

Answer: Regrettably, the answer to that is "no". Once you start allowing people to kidnap your soldiers and trade them for prisoners, it'll never end. Yes, it might very well bring Pfc. Keith Matthew Maupin home, but what happens when the terrorists/insurgents kidnap 10 people next week in hopes of trading them for prisoners? Do make the trade or do you try to explain to their families why, in this case when their loved one has been captured, that you're not going to deal?

On top of that, what happens if you release some terrorist and he ends up being responsible for a truck blowing up some children's school? How do you explain to their families why you let the guy out of prison who killed all of their kids? As bad as I feel for Matthew Maupin and as tough this must be on his family, that's not a deal we can afford to make.

Question: "John do you ever play tabletop wargames or (Role Playing Games)? If so which ones? (nice non political question)" -- Polish_Crusader

Answer: I used to be big into Dungeons and Dragons. At one point, I and a group of friends played a lot of laser tag, paintball on occasion, and we'd also play a lot of D&D. I was so into it that I owned the books, ran campaigns, and spent a lot of time on it. We even got up to 10-12 people -- fairly normal people which is saying something given some of the D&D groups I've been invited to play with (hehe). But now? I've lost interest in RPGs and would rather spend time unwinding on the weekend on my Playstation 2.

Question: "Why is Bush doing so poorly in the polls? I read that relative to other presidents at this time in the election cycle Bush is far behind and he has spent $100 million plus on ads. I am a little hopeless." -- conservet

Answer: First off, W's approval rating is lower than it should be. But, if it's 50% at election time, he's going to win. If not, it's either anybody's ball game or a Kerry win. That being said, don't ever get ecstatic or down because of a poll or two. The numbers can vary widely depending on a lot of factors. Personally, I do my poll watching at Real Clear Politics because they post new polls every day from a variety of different source which allows you to get a better feel for what's happening. The latest polls show Bush's number creeping back up. In fact, W. leads in the latest Rasmussen poll.

That being said, there are couple of ideas underlying your analysis that I want to address.

One, when you combine the Kerry campaign spending with the spending of Shadow Democratic Party (Moveon and company), it's roughly even with Bush's spending. However, Bush has a much larger campaign chest than Kerry at this point and the GOP has FINALLY started collecting soft money now that there's no chance the Federal Election Commission is going to step in and stop what appear to be illegal adds by the Democratic 527s. So Bush should be able to outspend Kerry as we get closer to November 2nd when the voters start paying more attention.

Two, while I -- like other Republicans -- would prefer that Bush be well ahead right now, he's still not in bad shape given the circumstances. Polling shows that the voters have not figured out how fantastic the economy is yet, so we have to figure Bush's numbers will improve significantly there. Moreover, despite the fact that people don't get how good the economy is & despite the two straight months of bad news in Iraq, John Kerry -- who is running a horrible campaign by the way -- hasn't been able to gain any ground on Bush.

It's still a dogfight, one that Bush could lose, but I don't think so. I still think W. is a much stronger candidate than Kerry at this point and figures to pick up strength all the way to November while Kerry will likely continue to flounder. Time will tell if I'm correct.

There's a little experiment I've been wanting to try for a while and I thought today would be as good a day as any to give it a whirl.

Think of this as "Open Line Friday" on RWN. If there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective, heck it can even be about movies, music, TV, and film if it's interesting enough and I'll try to root through the questions and answer some of them tonight, starting at 6 PM EST.

My posts will probably be a little shorter than normal and I won't be able to get to every question (so don't even bother asking fluff like "what is your favorite color" or "How often do you clip Patton's nails"), but I'll probably spend a few hours on this tomorrow night.

I may never try this again, so if you have a question, this might be your only chance to fire away...

As I checked the blog of Dizzy Girl today, I was saddened to hear that her nephew, Jeremiah Savage, a marine, was killed in Iraq.

I wished Gennie and the rest of Jeremiah's family and friends my condolences in the comments section, but I also wanted to share with you a speech given by Captain R.S. Weiler, USMC at Jeremiah Savage's memorial. I found it to be a moving tribute to hero who died too young. Here's what Captain Weiler had to say...

"Today, we honor a fallen Marine from Livingston, Tennessee that enlisted in the Marine Corps in May 2001 and joined 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines later that year in November.

Semper Fidelis"

There will be no comments allowed on this thread because I want to make sure nothing untoward or political is said. However, if you'd like to give condolences to Gennie you can do it here. Also, I have turned off trackbacks for the post. If you'd like to link to Captain Weiler's speech, please do it here at Dizzy Girl. If you'd like to know more, I found an article in the Tennessean about Jeremiah's death.

On Monday night at a Constitution Hall event in Washington, in front of Kweisi Mfume and other self proclaimed "black leaders," Bill Cosby laid down the truth just like he was Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell. Here's what Cosby had to say....

"Cosby said, according to Leiby: "Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids – $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.'

"These are not political criminals," he said. "These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

Now if Bill Cosby would have generalized his comments and made them to a group of white people, it wouldn't have even been a story. That's because saying that poor people need to spend money wisely, that you need to learn to speak properly if you want to succeed, and that criminals who get shot while they're breaking the law don't deserve a lot of sympathy is just plain old common sense. That's why the reported reaction to Cosby's remarks was "astonishment, laughter and applause."

But the article also notes that,

"When Cosby finally concluded, Leiby said, Mfume, Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert and NAACP legal defense fund head Theodore Shaw came to the podium looking "stone-faced."

Kweisi Mfume, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton are despicable race warlords who make their living, a very good living I might add, ginning up racial grievances & telling people their own poor choices aren't their fault. That's why they were "stone faced," because if everybody thought the same way that Bill Cosby did, the race hustling poverty pimps would be out of business. I can't speak for anybody else, but that would suit me just fine.

After meeting for an hour to discuss issues related to the upcoming presidential election, independent candidate Ralph Nader said that Democrat John Forbes Kerry should withdraw from the race and rally his party around Mr. Nader's candidacy.

"If Al Gore had pulled out and endorsed me in 2000," said Mr. Nader, "George Bush would be a full-time brush cutter in Crawford, Texas today. John Kerry knows he can't win, but he's staying in it just for the publicity. He's the classic spoiler."

Mr. Kerry rejected the allegation, saying he remains in the race to foster a national debate on some important issues.

"If it weren't for my candidacy," said Mr. Kerry. "There would be no discussion over my role as a Vietnam war hero or my valiant efforts after the war to reveal the atrocities that I, and others, committed against innocent civilians."

Although he acknowledged that he might "steal votes" from Mr. Nader, the Senator from Massachusetts added that "without a Kerry campaign the excitement would drain out of the political process. People need a candidate who sets their hearts on fire with enthusiasm and hope for a better tomorrow. If I quit, all that charisma is gone."

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

It's time to take another trip into the moral equivalence sewer that so much of the American left seems to enjoy frolicking in these days. So put on your rubber galoshes and get ready for these quotes from the Democratic Underground thread called "Are Americans supposed to be better than Al Qaeda?"

---

DrWeird: Are Americans supposed to be better than Al Qaeda Because it's awful hard to tell the difference between the new pics and the Berg beheading.

htuttle: At least we're still better than Stalin! Right?....................................right?

MrSlayer: Yes. We are supposed to be better but unfortunately we have failed to be. And the orders came from the top to be as bad if not worse.

MikeG: Remember Osama chuckling over the WTC deaths? Now look at the new picture of the girl smiling over the dead Iraqi body. Any similarity?

HypnoToad: Purportedly. Everything going on, by both sides, is atrocious. But "the other side" is supposed to be the terrorists. We, as a civilized country, have a higher standard, especially when Bush* shovels out the "We are compassionate" mantra all the time. We're only proving how we are really like those we hate. Possibly worse.

We've ruined our own reputation by our own soldiers, possibly even by those who run the country - particularly if they support all this in any way shape or form. We've enraged the world and have added fuel to the fire, thereby creating more REAL terrorists. As Bush has said a lot of things about this being a long war, could this be a part of his plan - to create more terrorists by any means necessary to ensure that only (his idea) of "peaceful people" remain?

Senior citizen: How could we be? Al Queda is a faith-based organization, and Bush is on a mission from God. I always have difficulty trying to assign positive values to religous fanatics and zealots, even if one is the clear underdog. All I know is that if I try to intervene and stop two mad dogs from fighting, they'll probably both try to rip my throat out. My understanding is that the age of enlightenment and the establishment of a haven from religious persecution in America, was supposed to lead the world out of the then-ubiquitous holy wars and into reason and peace. Returning to the dark ages and matching jihad with crusade means going backwards.

oblivious: I have seen no convincing evidence that Al-qaeda even exists. So I can't compare Americans to a myth.

I mean it. I read all the "expert" reports, interviews and columns on Al-qaeda, and they are all contradictory. When you put them all side by side, sort of in table form, you realise that either the experts don't have a clue, or the whole thing is a myth, a cleverly constructed bit of propaganda to frighten the masses and provide a suitable hate figure.

BabsSong: There is a very basic difference. We lie about what we do. Al Qaeda calls up and says "hey, dude, did you catch what we just did??". They actively recruit people to go out and kill Americans. We recruit people and tell them they are "protecting this country" (from what---an explosive camel with a WMD up it's butt??). We tell the world we are the princes of light and are the heart of darkness. They tell the people that they are on a mission from God to kill---at least they are honest about it.

---

To the members of the "hate America left", like the people I quoted in this thread, America is the root of all evil and they will any excuse to attack America for everything that's wrong in the world. Unfortunately, these people are not on the fringes. They are a large, significant, & influential part of today's liberal "mainstream". Don't believe that's true?

Well, then all I have to say is take a look at John Kerry's official blog and guess which page is linked?

When the man who wants to be the next President of United States has you permanently linked from his website, what does that say about whether your opinions are in the mainstream or on the fringes?

Yes, you read that title right. Lynndie England, who's now infamous for mocking naked Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib abuse photos, has a fansite.

And the guy seems obsessed with taking her to Denny's for some reason.

"Yum...I wish I could take her to Denny's for some coffee."

Hey, she has a stint in a military prison that she's going to be serving before she goes to Denny's with anyone. What is it with Denny's anyway?

Then he goes on to say...

"I ran out of room on this page, so the others have been moved. Just click on the other photo page. More photos coming soon as I encounter them. Check Back, SHE RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hang in there Lynndie...there ARE people who support you Ok? The silent majority has spoken!

Oh yeah, real quick...anyone that may have a problem with this site can simply leave the USA. There are lots of terrorists who would love to have you help them plan the next 9-11. Have fun and be sure to wave from the airplane. That is if you're not shot down by an F/A 18...now THAT...I'd love to see on video!"

That "silent majority"? It's REALLY, REALLY silent buddy. And this is just priceless...

"Oh yeah, real quick...anyone that may have a problem with this site can simply leave the USA. There are lots of terrorists who would love to have you help them plan the next 9-11."

I can just see this weirdo, sitting alone in his room and thinking, "Lynndie England? I can get this chick! I'll be the only one who supports her and one day? I'll be on the end a leash she's holding! Yum yum!"

To tell you the truth, I'm surprised there aren't MORE fansites for Lynndie England given our society's perverse fascination with scum like Amy Fisher, Joey Buttafuoco, John Bobbit, Tonya Harding, and what the heck, Ted Kennedy. Hell, a few years from now, England will probably end up living with in a house with Vanilla Ice and Gary Coleman on some Fox Reality show. If so, I can promise you that I won't be one of the people watching it...

In the wake of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow transsexuals to compete as women, Carl Lewis announced that he had always been a girl at heart.

“When the boys played outside with their GI Joes and the girls played inside with their Barbies, I always felt more comfortable staying indoors, combing Barbie’s hair, or just doing my nails.”

Always fastidious, Lewis never-the-less surprised the assembled media with his announcement. “I never told anyone because I . . . well, because I was afraid of the ridicule sure to follow. Perhaps now, by working toward the Olympics, I will be able to escape some of that."

No longer young, Lewis said he felt age was a matter of how you feel, and “I feel fine. I feel as good as I did at twenty-five. Besides, I’ll be competing against girls. I ought to be able to beat them hopping a hundred meters.”

Transsexual tennis player, Rene Richards, a celebrity better known in the 1970s for having once been a man than for her tennis ability, has condemned the decision saying that the male body –even given the hormones males take – still provides an unfair advantage in many sports.

Lewis acknowledged this and said, “I suppose those women had better train.”

Required to dress as a woman for a year before the surgery can take place Lewis said he would be going to the mall to buy some dresses after the press conference, but that he hoped his celebrity status would allow him to move the surgery up as much as possible. “I know what I'm doing here. I’ve always wanted to be a female Olympic champion.”

He smiled a huge smile, "say hello To Carla Lewis, queen of track and field."

If you enjoyed this satire by Chuck Barber, you can see more of his work at The Spoof!.

Normally, I don't bother to comment about banning someone from RWN because it only encourages them to try to be pests, but today, just this once, I thought I would. You see, I banned somebody today from the comments section and indignation about it was so the over-the-top, that I thought might be entertaining enough to post about.

The person I banned -- for trolling -- was one aptly named "piglettio". Judging by the hysterical reaction from some of the left-wingers who post here, you would have thought I hired someone to break his kneecaps and drag him off to a secret Vast Right Wing Conspiracy run gulag instead of just banning him from the comment section. Here are a few of the outraged -- outraged I say -- comments from lefties who regularly post on RWN...

Rastus posted this message to 11 different threads...

"Well, Piglettio just informed me he got banned. So much for this place being "better than the DU". I'm sure it's "different" in this case, because YOUR motives are above reproach...

Ah, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. Bet I'm next."

Yes Rastus, you may be if you keep spamming across multiple threads. Next up, Huckupchuck opines about the "black anvil of censorship" =D....

"...I don't justify piglettio's foul and crude language. In fact, I think it's unwarranted and counterproductive to civilized debate. But the guy is not calling for a hit on anyone's life or for genocide, for pete's sake. I don't see how anyone can claim any more that, Hawkins' right to do what he likes with his own blog aside, the RWN is a place where freedom of expression of all kinds, even what Hawkins considers morally repugnat, is possible without the fear that the black anvil of censhorship hangs over the blog, ready to drop at the fickle whim of an offended man."

But none of the posts could top the comedic value of this one from Shergald...

"...Therefore, I invite everyone of like outrage, rastus and Pstick, in particular, to join me in a strike of this site until Piglettio is reinstated with full apologies. I happen to know that Blackman will agree. Let them go back to debating the trivia and back-patting that I confronted when I first came here. Silence is the word, and not a word until Piglettio is reinstated."

No, not a...not a...LIBERAL STRIKE AGAINST RWN! Awww...don't get all upset fellas, I'm just putting on a brave face. If you manage to hold out for say 12 - 18 - 36 months, you may very well be able to break me. There's no way to know until you try is there?

Now, I want to you read some of the fine dialogue from Piglettio that apparently some people think RWN can't do without. Keep in mind that all of these quotes come from just the last 7 posts on RWN...

"Masturbate to Ann Coulter all you want. Use blood for lubrication. The blood of innocent Iraqis. I mean, isn't that some kind of insane wet dream for ye?"

"...Compassion must rule the day. Even compassion for terrorists."

"...But back to the point: don't f*cking tell me about patriotism or anything else. A patriot would be the first one to sh*t on the flag. Why? Because to sh*t on the flag is the purest expression of everything it stands for."

"...It stinks. It stinks like the idea that terrorists flew into the WTC. I'd believe it all if I had unequivocal proof. Alas, there is none."

"...Did I mention I p*ssed on a flag last night? Never was the love so warm and free..."

I could easily go on, but you get the idea.

Now, I know some of you may be getting to say, "Yes Hawkins, I see what you're saying, BUT..."

Stop there.

There is no "but". Remember, that this is not a democracy, this is not a republic, it's a blog run by man who at his whim may drop the "black anvil of censorship" on your head if he thinks you're a malcontent who isn't capable of engaging in reasonably civil discourse with other human beings. However, luckily, there are millions of websites out there and many of them have comments and forums. Some of them even appreciate people who like to talk about urinating on the flag or lubing up with blood to masturbate to Ann Coulter. And if that's your idea of normal, everyday, political conversation on the web, may I humbly suggest that one of those websites might be a better place to spend your time.

PS: Over time, I've probably banned a roughly even number of conservatives and liberals for all sort of things including death threats, being incredibly obnoxious, posting comment spam, thread jacking, & making racist comments. 99% of the people who post here don't have anything to worry about, but if you want more details about can get you banned, there's more information in RWN's FAQ.

If there was such a thing as a "Warblogger Magazine," this is about what it would look like...

One of the more bizarre Kerry campaign talking points is the repeated assertion that President Bush "has no record to run on." Kerry even used it himself on Meet the Press. This is nonsense, to the point where you wonder how stupid these guys think the voters really are.

If you take off your partisan hat for a minute, leave aside your view of how good or bad the various Administration efforts have been, step back and ask yourself what the Bush Administration has actually made happen, it's a pretty extensive list for just under three and a half years in office.

Abu Ghraib would never have been a front page story in the first place without the sickening, S&M style photos that the press got their hands on. But now, since it has been awhile and there appear to be no new photos forthcoming, the story is starting to peter out.

So in an effort to keep the story alive, we're starting to see desperate attempts by the press the "sex things up" a little.

Take left-wing hack, Seymour Hersh's latest, oft quoted, column that attempts to tie Donald Rumsfeld directly to what happened at Abu Ghraib. Hersh's piece is almost entirely based on the comments of a large variety of anonymous sources. That alone should be enough to make anyone question the veracity of what they're reading given how spectacularly wrong Hersh's "anonymous sources" have been in the past. That's assuming that all those "anonymous sources" actually exist in the first place. Personally, I find it very suspicious that Seymour Hersh's biggest, headline grabbing, pieces always seem to rely heavily on unverifiable "anonymous sources". How does we know he's not pulling a "Jayson Blair" and just making them up? To be honest, I have suspected as much before reading some of Hersh's pieces, but how can we ever know? Truth be told, we can't.

In any case, after lining up "anonymous source" after "anonymous source" who tries to tie Donald Rumsfeld to Abu Ghraib, Hersh starts to hedge his bets. As Joel Mowbray points out in his excellent column on this subject,

"Buried 3,300 words inside a roughly 4,500-word article is the following exoneration: “Rumsfeld may not be personally culpable.” And further down near the end was another: “The former intelligence official made it clear that he was not alleging that Rumsfeld or General Myers knew that atrocities were committed.

...Maybe Hersh’s piece has quite a bit of truth in it. Even so, the worst that the article actually alleges (meaning with facts) is that Rumsfeld expanded a program that, unbeknownst to him, spiraled out of control.”

In short, Hersh's column was all sizzle and no steak.

Then we move on to this flashy headline at ABC "‘Definitely a Cover-Up’ - Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal."

Wow, that's big news huh? But again, once you dig into the piece, you find out there's not much behind it.

For example, it's very apparent after reading the article that Sgt. Samuel Provance, the man making the accusations, has absolutely no evidence that would indicate there's any sort of actual "cover-up" in progress. Here's what Provance has to say about the "cover-up"...

"There's definitely a cover-up. People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet...What I was surprised at was the silence. The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something."

What is this, "The X-Files"? If you allege there's a cover-up, who's doing it? The investigators? Donald Rumsfeld? The Pentagon brass? Maybe it's so quiet because a lot of people, LIKE PROVANCE HIMSELF, didn't actually see any abuse take place...

"(Provance) said that while he did not see the actual abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners."

So while Provance didn't see any abuse, he heard about abuse from the Mps. Well, what happened when he reported it to investigators? Did they warn him to be quiet and to participate in the "cover-up"? Far from it...

"Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, was assigned by the Pentagon to investigate the role of military intelligence in the abuse at the Iraq prison.

In response, Army officials said it is "routine procedure to advise military personnel under investigative review" not to comment."

So now you see what this is all about. Provance at long last reported what happened and he got in trouble for not letting anybody know prisoners were being mistreated. That's about as far from a cover-up as it gets.

But titling a story "Army investigator believes Abu Ghraib abuse should have been reported earlier" doesn't sell papers, make the front page, or hurt the Bush administration. So the obviously silly "cover-up" allegation gets the headline and ABC's journalistic integrity takes a holiday. ABC and the rest of the media for that matter, should know better...

After the King of Jordan encouraged Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat to "have a long look in the mirror to be able to see whether his position is helping the Palestinian cause or not", Mr. Arafat reported today that he has "seen the face of terror."

"I was shocked and dismayed," said Mr. Arafat. "All of this time I have thought of myself as basically a good guy, working through legitimate means to help the oppressed. But after looking in the mirror, I realized that I am a dirty terrorist who murders innocent civilians to further my ambition for power. I was quite taken aback."

Jordan's King Abdullah, who broke with the Arab world's tradition of unmitigated support for Mr. Arafat, said "once we see ourselves for who we are, it's the first step to recovery."

Both the king and the Palestinian leader will appear later this week on Dr. Phil to discuss Mr. Arafat's "moment of personal enlightenment" and whether King Abdullah and the Arab League may have served as "enablers" to prevent him from seeing "the real Yassir."

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

Once again, it's time to rank my favorite 40 blogs, this time for the 2nd quarter of 2004. You can see last quarter's results here.

Do keep in mind that as the quarter has progressed, some blogs have of course moved and others have dropped, based on how often I visit them, how much I like what I see when I get there, how often the blogs are updated, etc, etc. As per usual, do keep in mind that these sort of lists change frequently over time based on a variety of factors. So don't sweat it if your blog didn't get included....

40) Being American In T.O.
39) Belmont Club
38) Crush Kerry
37) Cam Edwards
36) Electric Venom
35) The Spoons Experience
34) Ravenwood's Universe
33) Democrats Give Conservatives Indigestion
32) Moxie
31) HobbsOnline A.M.
30) Jihad Watch
29) Trying To Grok
28) Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing
27) JunkYardBlog
26) Daniel Drezner
25) Citizen Smash
24) I Love Jet Noise
23) Balloon Juice
22) Damian Penny
21) Cox & Forkum
20) Kausfiles
19) The Bleat
18) Outside The Beltway
17) Roger Simon
16) Tongue Tied
15) Buzz Machine
14) Andrew Sullivan
13) QandO
12) Right Thinking From The Left Coast
11) A Small Victory
10) Political Wire
9) Hugh Hewitt
8) DANEgerus Weblog
7) Tim Blair
6) Inoperable Terran
5) Allah Is In The House
4) Betsy's Page
3) Little Green Footballs
2) The Corner
1) Instapundit

PS: I decided that IMAO & Scrappleface should be ineligible since I use their material so often. Furthermore, since I post columns at the The Command Post, that blog is ineligible as well.

PS #2: Yes, I know it''s a bit early in the quarter, but it seemed like as good a time as any to go ahead and do the rankings

According to a Newsweek poll taken last November, 53 percent of all Independents do not favor George W. Bush. This just goes to show you how misinformed independents are of the costs and dangers which linger if George W. Bush isn't reelected. As an Independent allied with The Right, I urge all Independents to stop listening to left-wing garbage and get with the program. The Right aren't always right, but they ultimately hold the key to survival and success in this great country of ours.

Don't let the left-wing media distort facts, lie, and belittle our country.

Think Fast. Think Big. Think Independent. Think For Yourself.

Visit Think Independent.

It is absolutely outrageous that US Olympic officials have told American athletes not to wave the flag at the Olympics. Here's what US Olympic Committee consultant "Mike Moran had to say,

"What I am telling the athletes is, 'Don't run over and grab a flag and take it round the track with you.' It's not business as usual for American athletes. If a Kenyan or a Russian grabs their national flag and runs round the track or holds it high over their heads, it might not be viewed as confrontational. Where we are in the world right now, an American athlete doing that might be viewed in another manner."

Don't hold our flag high huh? Let me tell you about another time at the Olympic games when Americans weren't supposed to hold their flags high. This is from "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Nazi Germany" and it describes what happened at the beginning of the 1936 Olympic games...

A huge bell announced the start of the parade of the athletes. As always it was a colorful event. Some details, however, were out of the ordinary. Passing below the fuhrer's booth, the Austrian team gave the Nazi salute; the crowd cheered loudly. To the surprise of almost everyone, the Bulgarians goose-stepped by. The French gave a salute that looked like the Nazi one, although they claimed later that it was the raised Olympic salute. The British did not lift their eyes to the "Tribune of Honor" and got booed.

Last in the alphabetical list of the foreign teams was the Vereinigten Staaten, the United States. On passing below the booth, all the previous groups had lowered their national flags. The Americans refused to do so."

Our Olympic athletes didn't lower our flags for the Nazis and we certainly shouldn't be lowering them now. Who cares if a bunch of anti-American swine in the stadium boo? Our athletes should wave our flag and if anyone doesn't like it, they can to go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned.

Today in Massachusetts, gay marriage became the law of the land. Even though Massachusetts is one of the most liberal states in the union, gay marriage couldn't win at the ballot box or in the legislature. No, it won in the courts, where four Massachusetts Supreme Court Justices overrode the will of the people and ignored thousands and thousands of years worth of human history and tradition that says marriage is between a man and a woman.

Quite frankly, today may turn out to be one of the low points in the entire history of our nation. The beginning of the end of the relevance of marriage, the building block of our society.

Today, gays are getting married, soon polygamy will follow. Heck, if you ask me, you can make a better case for polygamy than you can for gay marriage. In fact, if Andrew Sullivan wanted to marry three wives instead of another man, we'd probably be complaining about Utah legalizing Polygamy today instead of Massachusetts putting their stamp of approval on gay marriage.

But, give it a couple of decades and we'll have people marrying the dead as they do in France, animals as they do in India, and you might as well throw adult siblings into the mix because that won't be far behind. Of course, advocates of gay marriage, most of them at least, will deny that. But, hasn't that always been what Americans have been told as they were dragged kicking and screaming down the slippery slope towards gay marriage?

Eventually, as marriage becomes totally debased and meaningless except as a method to get gov't benefits or insurance, most people won't bother to get married and we'll see skyrocketing crime and drug use, single mothers mired in poverty raising their kids, and all the other ills befall our society that go along with illegitimacy.

If all these things happened overnight, it would be easy to get people to understand what the problem is with gay marriage. However, because all of these events will take time, years, and in some cases decades to manifest, it's difficult to impress how urgent it is to fight against gay marriage right now.

We have a fairly limited window in which to act. In all likelihood, what's going to happen next is that some gay couple that gets married will move to a state that has the Federal Marriage Amendment in place. They will challenge it, the case will work it's way up to the Supreme Court level, and it will lose because of the "full faith and credit" clause which will then lead to gay marriage being imposed on the entire United States. Most people simply do not understand that gay marriage will probably become the law of the land without ever winning at the ballot box.....unless, we get a Federal Marriage Amendment enacted to stop the courts from imposing their will on the people of the United States.

I would encourage you to contact your Congressmen and Senators and to support President Bush who's fighting for the FMA. It's not too late to stop gay marriage yet, but the clock is ticking...

Hi everyone. I'm John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for disturbing your busy schedules. Ever since I won the nomination a couple of months ago I have tried to stay out of your way as much as possible.

I am proud to say that my efforts have paid off. A person would have had to try awfully hard to find my name mentioned anywhere in the past few weeks.

Nevertheless, before the election in November you might see my name mentioned here and there on various newscasts and in newspapers. I will try to keep those mentions to a minimum because I don't wish to distract you from your everyday problems.

Surely you have better things to do than think about my positions on Iraq, the budget and various social issues.

Occasionally you may catch an advertisement of mine on television. Just feel free to turn the volume down or run off to get a drink so as it won't get in the way of your viewing pleasure.

Again, sorry for bothering you. Please carry on with what you were doing and just try and pretend that I am not here.

If you enjoyed this satire by the Chortler, you can read more of their work here.

There are those who say we can't help Iraq become a Democracy; they're wrong. They say we should pull out; they're mistaken. They claim it's pointless to continue, but they have no sense of history or perspective.

To those who say...

A lot of Iraqis have soured on the occupation and don't like American troops!: Gee, I wonder how popular American troops were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki a year after we dropped nukes on them? How about in Dresden where we, along with along with the British, firebombed the city and killed 30,000 people? Yet, even though we weren't loved, we still made it work. Certainly, our troops today can do the same thing in a country like Iraq, where our soldiers are dealing with a population that is for the most part, at least grateful to us for removing Saddam. (Cont)

Mark Dubbin, the author of "Shadow Patriot" bought another main page ad on RWN to get the word out about his book. Here's the description of it from Amazon...

"The events of 9/11 affected many things in New York and the Mafia was no exception. Business suffered for Don Remondini after the attack, but he wasn't about to let it go. The cowards who cost him would receive a message from the Family if he had anything to say about it. They would think twice about their actions in the future. That much was certain.

Jim Pearce is Don Remondini's chief of security. As an Ex-Special Forces sniper, discharged from duty with diabetes, he is assigned to send al-Qaeda a powerful message from the Family. Operating outside the law, and using his CIA contacts, Shadow Patriot is a web of action and intrigue where the guilty will be made to pay, and payback can be a b*tch!"

I've done ads for this book before and one of RWN's readers had actually read the book. Jay said the following,

"I bought it after seeing the link to it on Amazon posted on here last time. The book itself is very short, only about 110 pages I believe. It was a little far fetched, but all in all a very good read."

Here's what a couple of intelligent people on Amazon had to say about the book,

Reviewer: A reader from Las Cruces, NM United States

A wonderful story taking a different approach to the effects of 9/11, and how it was dealt with. Rather than sit back and complain about what happened on that eventful day, a plan was set to take out a terrorist cell. Neat idea and easy flowing writing. Makes for a good, sunny afternoon read.

Reviewer: nicothefabulous from Littleton, CO United States

In a world where justice can be hard to come by, sometimes you have to make your own. Reminds me a bit of The Rocketeer, with the FBI agents and Mafia guys fighting the Nazis side-by-side. Maybe more people with the financial means to do so should take note of this story! I want to see the movie. A classic tale of good old-fashioned American payback.

And here's a review that's so silly, the reviewer should be beaten with a shovel...ehr, oh shoot, let's just make it a wet noodle so the lefties who read the page won't take me literally and think I'm encouraging you to beat people with shovels...

Reviewer: 40r74 from Houston

From Darth Vader to Bin Laden the dark side only serves itself. Violence only serves hatred and violence. War begets only war. The story of this book is worth reading for the knowledge but it is not something to be proud of.

That review doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just found it to be such stereotypical leftist drivel that it was actually entertaining.

In any case, if you're looking for some interesting fiction to read, check out "Shadow Patriot."