It has been fun, but that's all for today! Hope you enjoyed the 12th Q&A Friday...

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a particularly high opinion of the folks over at the Daily Kos, but I never fully realized what a group of sewer trawling scumbags they really were until I read this post from DavidNYC.

After getting angry at Greenspan for taking positions he doesn't like, DavidNYC advocates not just trying to dig up dirt on Greenspan -- which would be bad enough -- but he wants the kossacks to go after Greenspan's FAMILY. Just take a look (emphasis mine)...

"As you've probably noticed, there have been several Alan Greenspan-related posts on the main page in just the past day or so. In one of those threads, blogswarmer Bob Brigham suggested that we "unleash the blogosphere" on Greenspan. It's a brilliant idea - no one is more worthy of having a halo-ectomy than St. Alan - so let's have at it.

...And, to make it amply clear, this is emphatically not a call for a "smear" campaign. This is a call to reveal the truth about Alan Greenspan (and his associates)."

Oh, it's not a smear campaign because they say it's not a smear campaign. Got it. And this "one-degree-of-separation" business? They're gonna go after his wife and presumably any close relatives Greenspan has? This is what happens when you have people with no morals, no class, no sense of decency and turn them loose in the political arena. You get people like Kos and DavidNYC whose attitude is, "Well, they're in the way, so let's try to dig up dirt on their personal life and destroy them."

Furthermore, keep in mind that the Daily Kos is as mainstream as it gets on the left. It's the biggest political blog out there and Kos has even consulted for the DNC Chairman, Howard Dean. So, I guess that's how it's done on the left now. If you can't beat 'em, try to dig up dirt on their family. These people are truly swine...

Question: "Have you had any job offers from the written media? And would you ever consider becoming a journalist / columnist if someone like national review, or the weekly standard made you a pitch?" -- Chairman_Mao

"Lastly, what methods are you currently considering for making RWN self-supporting? As I said in the blogad poll, I depend largely on RWN's right-hand column for news, and I find the comments sections both entertaining and informative, so I would prefer that you keep the site itself free. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind paying a fee to register (and thus to make comments) or perhaps paying a fee per comment. (Side benefit: That would certainly keep trolling down.)

And I wouldn't mind, of course, if you sometimes chose to waive those fees for constructive participants like CavX, C_T, Friedman, Liberty, or even HuckUpChuck (during his lucid periods...) so we don't become an echo chamber, like Kos et al. -- Grognard

"Do you have any plans for opening up a political forum here on the site, and if so, when?" -- brian1969

Answer: Here's what I've got on tap for the page.

-- T-shirts: I have a graphics guy who is going to help me punch up designs and I'm looking for the right place to distribute them. My goal is to have them on sale in the next couple of weeks.

-- Blogads: They're the primary revenue source on the page. I have a couple of things in mind to help me maximize revenue from them, which you should see over the next few days.

-- Text ads: I'm toying with the idea of selling text ads in the support section at $20 a pop. I used to have them over there before, but I stopped selling them when I went to Blogads. That may change.

-- Fund Raiser: In retrospect, I probably should have done a fund raiser when I announced that I was going full-time on the page. Even without requesting any donations, I still raked in $500 which was surprising given that I bet you I've pulled in less than $250 in the entire history of the page. I still may do a fund raiser at some point, but I haven't set a time.

-- Book: I've got a book on tap that's going to be a combination of material I've already written and new material. How much money I can make off of that is anyone's guess, but from what I've seen, I can't count on making a lot of money off it.

-- Columns for a magazine: I would be delighted to write for National Review or The Weekly Standard, but no, there has been no interest from them so far. I'm going to be making a real effort to get published in some of the "A-List" conservative mags over the next few months, so hopefully that will change.

-- Forums: If I could figure out a way to make money with forums, I'd consider it, but right now, I'm not planning on doing forums.

-- Project X: I have a "secret" project coming up. I don't want to talk about it until it's ready to go, but I'm hoping it's going to make a big splash.

-- Growth: Last but not least, success always depends on growth. If you have enough eyeballs looking at what you write, everything else will fall into place. That's what it's all about.

Question: "Recent reports by the good ol' UN state that by 2050, the world's population will be about 9.1 billion, with more citizens living in India than in China. The question is, should we really instead be looking towards India as our eventual competitor instead of China, and if not, why not?

And in that vein, will India and China be forced to out-gun one another until only one of them is left standing to deal with the United States? That would be absolutely catastrophic." -- Mitsurugi

Answer: I'm not worried about India. They're a relatively friendly Democracy. China on the other hand, is a militaristic, totalitarian state that views the US as an enemy nation. They are a danger to us and it is possible that we could come into conflict with them over Taiwan. While some people might believe that China would never forcibly try to take Taiwan, I can't help but note that they're gearing their military up for exactly that purpose. Let's just say that I think we'd be very foolish indeed to ever put ourselves in a position where we couldn't handle everything the Chinese military could throw at us across the strait and then some.

As far as the future goes, yes, both nations have a lot more people than we do. I'd also note that much of India and China are mired in grinding poverty. For example, if you look at the Gross Domestic Product (nominal) per capita of India, China, and the US you'll find the following:

United States: $42,076
People's Republic of China: $1,352
India: $652

Remember that over the long-term, they can only move so fast as they try to catch up to us economically and militarily because of that. In other words, yes, they're going to grow and become more competitive with us, but it's hard to stay on the cutting edge of technology economically and militarily when your people live in huts and have nothing to eat. So when, and even if they're going to catch up with us isn't as much of a sure thing as people think.

Last but not least, there's probably a better chance of India and Pakistan going toe to toe than India and China...at least for the moment. And if China ever did try to invade India, well, that's part of the reason that India keeps nuclear weapons on hand. China might believe they can duke it out with the US over Taiwan without nukes being launched, but I doubt if they have any such illusions about the results of sending troops into India.

Question: "The democratic revolution is unfolding all over the world. Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, now Lebanon. What regime do you think is next to fold, and how long do you think it will take for the entire Middle East to face transparent democratic elections?

I vote Syria, before the year ends. And that's being conservative! If I play liberal, and you gave me good odds for betting, I'd put it down at just after Lebanon's elections in May." -- UnknownWanderer

Answer: Don't count your chickens before they're hatched =D Freedom has some momentum in the Middle-East for the first time...well, ever. But, do keep in mind what Ralph Peters wrote in his latest column is right in target...

"FOR three years, this column has shot down the pessimists who warned we were bound to fail in the Middle East. Now those of us who see our confidence vindicated must beware a premature euphoria.
There's plenty of work ahead.

Excessive euphoria would only play into the hands of those who wanted freedom's campaign to fail all along. If our rhetoric becomes too exuberant, even positive events on the ground could be dismissed as falling short of our promises.

Lebanon isn't free yet, nor is Egypt, and quite frankly Syria and Saudi Arabia don't seem to be all that close to becoming liberated. Sure, things could start moving quickly like they did in the old Soviet bloc, but it's too soon to tell yet.

So we should be encouraged by what's happening, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'd say we should get behind the Bush administration's efforts to keep the cauldron boiling in the region, support freedom where we can, when we can, with what we have, and keep our eyes on the ball. We're in the "red zone" in countries like Egypt and Lebanon, but the ball hasn't been plunged over the goal line yet...

Question: "Great site and a great opportunity to ask a question I've always wondered about. Why is it that so many conservative Christian republicans cite the Washington Times when it is owned by Sun Myung Moon, a definate non-Christian with questionable veracity? Everytime I hear Rush (I haven't listened to him in a while) or some other republican tout the Washington Times I cringe." -- jchristman

Answer: Just to put things in perspective, a lot of conservatives don't like CNN, but our main beef with them is their liberal bias, not the fact that wacky Ted Turner is their founder. Given that, why write off the best conservative newspaper in America just because the owner is a flake? If the Washington Times ever starts shoving the Unification Church down their readers throats, I may change my mind. But until then, the Washington Times is OK by me.

Question: "What the hell in Vince McMahon thinking. The WWE is in horrible shape, he doesn't even talk to "The Rock" about renewing his contract. HHH and JBL are the champions, both are the worst champs and heels in a long time. WWE has done away with the high spots that used to draw viewer away from the WCW. Wrestling itself is in horrible shape. What can be done to bring the fans back to Professional Wrestling?" -- Cheese187

"Oddly enough, I'm with cheese. What happened to wrestling? It's lost virtually all status in pop culture, no one is talking about it, and it seems like there's absolutely no marketing or promotion going on.

I was never much of a fan, but it's not tough to see that wrestling's totally fallen off the radar screen. Can someone who knows the industry explain what the heck happened?" -- Mike_M

Answer: Believe it or not, back in my Brass Knuckles Webzine days, I used to write a wrestling column. I even did some interviews with people like Steve Corino (remember him in ECW?) and Bobby Heenan who was the biggest jerk I've ever interviewed.

Some people would probably tell you that wrestling is down right now because it's a cyclical business or because they don't currently have any huge stars like Steve Austin or The Rock who can carry the show. But personally, I think the WWE has just gotten lazy and complacent since they buried and bought out their competition (WCW & ECW). Let me explain:

Although a lot of people who aren't pro-wrestling fans don't get it, "wrasslin'" is a soap opera for guys. But instead of romance and somebody's lost brother dying of an incurable disease before his "big secret" is revealed, wrestling focuses on smack talkin' and people hitting each other with chairs. So for wrestling to be entertaining, it still requires at least a simplistic plot (What are the plausible reasons why these people want to kill each other?), witty dialogue ("On top of all that, look at this guy? I mean he's a idiot, he's 7 feet of pure idiot. You put his brain in a parakeet... zing! It'll fly backwards." -- The Rock) and a group of wrestlers who do more than walk through their matches. The WWE doesn't have any of that right now which is why, for the most part, I've stopped watching their shows.

But, hey, there's always TNA Wrestling. They may have 1/3 of the WWE's talent and 1/10 of their budget, but if you ask me, they put on a better show than the WWE in almost every respect.

*** Update #1 ***: In my original post, I left readers with the impression that Bobby Heenan had passed away. That is not the case. I was thinking of Freddie Blassie when I wrote that. My apologies.

Question: Is America polarized as red state / blue state diagrams would have us believe? Or are most Americans moderate as my PoliSci professor (an admitted Republican) would have me believe. What is the true state of the electorate? -- billlava

Answer: Yes and no.

If you're talking about political junkies -- and if you're reading this site or other blogs, you probably qualify -- yes, it's very polarized.

On the right, The Goldwater/Reagan wing of the party has triumphed over the Nixon/Rockefeller "Country Club Republican" set. On the left, the Vietnam war protest movement got the Democrats moving to the left from McGovern on and they've gotten progressively more radical, especially over the last few years.

For conservatives, it has worked out pretty well. The same can't be said for liberals.

Personally, I expect the Democratic Party to continue to slowly but surely decline until they reach a general consensus that the problem is they've gone too far to the left (Note: They're nowhere near this point yet, although if they lose the presidency again in 2008, I think it's possible that could be a tipping point for them). Then they'll actually start to move back to the center (really move, not just spout empty rhetoric) and start gaining ground on the GOP again.

In either case, there is an enormous gulf between what the conservative and liberal mainstream believes these days, one that is much, much larger than it used to be in, let's say, 1960 when both ideologies were much closer together on foreign policy and social issues.

On the other hand, for all the "Red State" and "Blue state" talk, many Americans are not all that into politics. Sure, they might watch the evening news and read the paper, but they don't follow day to day political events or get "all wound up" about most issues. They don't know who "Jeff Gannon" is, ans they don't really care about "memogate," the "nuclear option," or what's going on in Lebanon or Iran right now. For these people -- and always remember, they are a majority of people in this country -- the "red/blue divide" isn't any big deal because they just don't care as much as many political junkies do.

Question: "John: What advice do you have for conservative students who have BLATANTLY liberal prof.'s who want to "tell their prof a thing or two"? And if you have any information on the good points of Bush's social security plan that'd rock because he's always ranting about that. Thanks." -- LotusClown

Answer: Here's my advice about telling your "prof a thing or two": Don't do it.

It might be one thing to tell the professor off or show him up if there was nothing he could do to you. But remember, you're talking about someone who not only has the power to lower your grade, but who may be able to do so for very subjective reasons depending on the class. And if they're "ranting" about Bush in class, that tells they take their politics very seriously. Now, do you really want someone like that looking over a paper that may decide whether you pass or fail a class and thinking:

"Oh yeah, that's the little Bush loving "rethuglican". He's probably a bigoted, homophobic, Nazi, warmonger! I'll show him!"

Take it from someone who believes his grades were lower than they could have been in certain classes in college because he openly disagreed with the kooky views of his professors: keep your politics under wraps when you're in class.

Question: "Hey John. First time I've posted a question. My grandmother from conneticut was visiting out here in California (one of the redder areas) and said with absolute belief and a straight face that the Jews control the media and "all" (I'll accept that as meaning a significant quantity and not literally all) the money. Do you know good resources that state the opposite?" -- Chris_RC

Answer: I've written about this subject before in a column called, "Take My Word For It, Jews Don't Rule The World." Here's what I wrote about the fantastical idea that Jews control the media:

"Some people will tell you that it's because "Jews control the media in the United States" and give the American people a misleading picture of Israel. But, that's not true in the least. While there are certainly many powerful Jews in the media & entertainment industry, percentage wise their numbers are quite small. Furthermore, just because there are a few Jews who're editors of important newspapers & magazines or because there are Jews somewhere in the chain of command of the mega-corporations that own most of the media in the US, doesn't mean that you should conclude that they're actually controlling how Israel is portrayed. You have to keep in mind that the average American has access to not only ABC, NBC, & CBS, but to the cable news networks, talk radio, and the internet. In today's political climate where complaints about media "Bias" of all types are practically an everyday thing, it's impossible to slant the news one way or the other without a lot of people calling you on it and getting out the opposite point of view. So even if you have the cockeyed belief that Michael Eisner forces ABC News to only give favorable coverage to Israel, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. That's because Fox, Rush Limbaugh, CBS and many, many other sources would cover the same ground and wouldn't put the same spin on it. In a country like America that has a free press, what Barnum said is quite applicable; "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Moreover, even if you bought into the idea that Jews could control the news, the idea that all Jews would slant stories in identical ways because they're on the "same team" is simply ridiculous. There are tremendous differences of opinion in the American Jewish community, not only about Israel and the war on the terrorism, but about any number of things. So while there are plenty of Jewish hawks who were for removing Saddam Hussein, there were also influential Jews who were against the war in Iraq and there are even Jews who want to "dismantle" Israel itself. Gee, wouldn't you think that if Jews were going to "rule the world by proxy," that they would at least all get on the same page?"

As to the idea to the "all the money," I don't know exactly what she means by that, you don't know, and heck, she probably doesn't know herself. In any case, while there are certainly plenty of rich and influential Jews, there just is no evidence that there is a cabal of Jews out there somehow controlling the world's economies for their own sinister purposes.

Now, can you convince your grandmother of this? Honestly, I doubt it. It's like trying to tell someone who believes that breaking a mirror is seven years bad luck that it's not true. That's not a belief that they came by rationally and I've found that it's very difficult to reason someone out of a position that they didn't come to by using reason in the first place. But, good luck anyway...

If you have five minutes, how about taking this Blogads survey? It's not that long and having this information in hand helps blogads appeal to advertisers. Also, on question #16, if you could put in Right Wing News, it'll enable them to trace the results back to RWN. That would be helpful.

Today is Q&A Friday #12 at RWN.

So, 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, literature, or TV.

Then, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them. My posts will probably be a little shorter than normal, but expect more posts than normal from me.

So ask away!

Oh, yeah, we're REAL serious about enforcing immigration law in this country. So serious that we catch illegal aliens and then just let them go...

"State police at Somerset released a vanload of 15 illegal aliens after federal immigration officials didn't want to go out in bad weather this week.
Cpl. Robert F. Johnson said in a news release that he stopped a van carrying the aliens at about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday on a section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Stony Creek Township, Somerset County. He then couldn't get U.S. immigration officials to travel to the Somerset barracks of the turnpike, he said.

Subsequently, an immigration spokesman conceded that his agency handled the situation and communications with police poorly."

The whole idea that the police shouldn't "detain (illegals) unless they commit a crime" is ludicrous. If there are illegal aliens in the United States, then their very presence here means they've broken the law.

Once illegals are captured by the police, they should not be freed for any reason until they're shipped back to wherever they came from. Letting these illegals go is an insult to our border patrol and the private citizens who are risking their lives to keep these people out of our country.

You know, you always hear these ridiculous claims that the United States -- the world's only Super Power, a country with satellites, Predators, radar stations, and enormous amounts of manpower and money -- can't safeguard our own borders. Yet, when you look into it, you always find that this sort of incident is the rule, not the exception. Everybody involved in keeping illegals out of this country from top to bottom is either dramatically underfunded and undermanned or treats the issue like a joke. If we want to get rid of illegal aliens -- and polls show that overwhelmingly the American people do -- then we have to start getting serious...

Among the more notable speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last month, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) described a United Nations treaty that the Senate is attempting to ratify without a floor vote and with the blessing of the Bush administration. The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) (Treaty Doc. 103-39) cedes absolute control of 70% of the earth’s surface, extending from the seabed to the airspace above, to a new UN regulatory agency called the International Seabed Authority. Through the treaty, that body could potentially derive powers to interfere with aspects of U.S. sovereignty from our corporations to the operations of our blue water Navy. The treaty would also create an international court with jurisdiction over nearly everything having to do with international waters.

LOST is not a new idea. Negotiated during the Carter years, it was still an open item when Ronald Reagan became president. President Reagan listened to his advisors debate the pros and cons of the treaty before he interrupted the debate and rejected it completely in 1982 and fired the negotiators who negotiated it. Reagan understood its impact to national sovereignty and refused to have any part of it. President Bill Clinton gave it new life when he signed it in 1994. Fortunately, Senator Jesse Helms saw to it that it never came before the Senate, so it never became US law.

But now, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) is determined to get LOST past the Senate. On February 25, 2005 Lugar sent it from the Foreign Relations Committee with unanimous support; however, he never allowed opponents to testify during the hearings. He has been trying to avoid a floor debate and vote, preferring to engineer its ratification using a Senate procedure known as “unanimous consent”. This process would allow ratification without the troublesome complication of having a public record of who opposed or supported the treaty and how each Senator voted.

LOST would give the UN a new agency with which to browbeat the United States, much as the other UN commissions like the Human Rights Commission and the Security Council. The aforementioned International Seabed Authority would administer all fishing, mining and drilling operations, charge fees for exploration, and demand that all exploration and mining technologies be defined in detail. That would allow other nations to effectively steal the patented secret technologies of US corporations and the military. ISA will also demand that the exploration company provide all engineering and research data for TWO sites, then will decide which one it wants to keep for itself, and will possibly grant a permit on the other site, but is not bound to issue any permit. Additionally, the United States would be required to fund 25% of the ISA’s operating budget. So we will get more UN-led abuse, paid for by the US taxpayer.

The LOST treaty also includes some very troubling provisions relating to our national defense. Some provisions prohibit sub-surface navigation or collection of intelligence information without permission from the world body, so our submarines would be breaking the treaty if they were operated as they were designed. The brand new Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Jimmy Carter, ironically reported to be an advanced intelligence-gathering powerhouse, would be a boat without a mission—unless we get permission from Kofi Annan to use it. This would also give the world body the exact locations of our nuclear submarine fleet at all times. So much for President Bush’s statement that he will not seek a permission slip to protect our vital interests. LOST would also make the Proliferation Strategy Initiative (PSI) illegal because it would not be permissible to board, inspect, or confiscate materials from ships at sea found to be smuggling weapons and/or terrorists. PSI has been instrumental in dealing with North Korea’s weapons smuggling industry and played a role in disarming Libya. Why would we willingly give that up?

Just ask LOST’s proponents. The Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney writes, “The short answer seems to be that a number of special interests have come together to urge ratification. The Navy thinks LOST will lighten its responsibility for assuring freedom of navigation with an ever-smaller fleet. Oil and gas companies think it will facilitate offshore exploration and drilling. Curiously, for their part, environmentalists expect to be able more tightly to regulate the oceans and to bar activities that endanger the health of their waters, flora and fauna, such as drilling and mining. And the State Department, which never saw a treaty it didn't like, contends membership in LOST will help President Bush improve ties with Europe and other foreign powers.”

So, it’s all a matter of single-issue groups wanting a flawed treaty to advance their narrow agendas. Business as usual in Washington, but this business can effectively end American sovereignty.

Finally, radical environmentalists may find ways to use the LOST to promote their own anti-capitalist and anti-American agendas They face no obvious obstacles, and all of the radical environmentalists have endorsed the treaty. That should be enough to increase one’s skepticism right away. David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation says, "Maintaining the oceans as a common heritage demands that the oceans be protected from contamination by nuclear pollutants; that they not be used in a manner to undermine basic human rights, particularly the rights to life and to a healthy environment; and that the oceans not be allowed to serve as a public preserve for those states that believe their own security interests demand the endangerment of global human survival."

In time, LOST will be used to regulate industrial activities taking place on land, in the name of environmental protection. An official U.N. brochure marking LOST’s 20th anniversary says it as plainly as possible:

"The greatest threat to the health of the marine environment comes not from oil spills at sea or ocean dumping, but from human activities on land."

All of these components of LOST threaten our national security, our national sovereignty and our economic vitality. Given the American people’s understandable contempt for the United Nations, it is no wonder that LOST’s proponents want to keep this treaty quiet. This treaty is dangerous, and the motives of its supporters are suspect. Further, on its face LOST violates many of President Bush’s core beliefs.

The Bush administration must torpedo the LOST treaty.

(JS contributed significantly to this post)

This content was used with the permission of Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

A while back, Henry Farrell offered this prediction:

As political blogs become a more established part of the political landscape, they will increasingly be treated as another means of political expression, advocacy and fundraising - and the current regulatory regime will, one way or another, be extended to cover them. The only question is how the balance between free political speech and the need to regulate organized political activities is struck. (Link)

It looks like he's right. C-Net interviews Federal Elections Commission Chairman Brad Smith, who believes the FEC may well be forced by judicial decisions in cases brought by McCain and Feingold to regulate a vast swath of internet activity, including blogs!

What would you like to see happen?
I'd like someone to say that unpaid activity over the Internet is not an expenditure or contribution, or at least activity done by regular Internet journals, to cover sites like CNET, Slate and Salon. Otherwise, it's very likely that the Internet is going to be regulated, and the FEC and Congress will be inundated with e-mails saying, "How dare you do this!"

What happens next?
It's going to be a battle, and if nobody in Congress is willing to stand up and say, "Keep your hands off of this, and we'll change the statute to make it clear," then I think grassroots Internet activity is in danger. The impact would affect e-mail lists, especially if there's any sense that they're done in coordination with the campaign. If I forward something from the campaign to my personal list of several hundred people, which is a great grassroots activity, that's what we're talking about having to look at.

Senators McCain and Feingold have argued that we have to regulate the Internet, that we have to regulate e-mail. They sued us in court over this and they won."

If Congress doesn't change the law, what kind of activities will the FEC have to target?
We're talking about any decision by an individual to put a link (to a political candidate) on their home page, set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet.

Again, blogging could also get us into issues about online journals and non-online journals. Why should CNET get an exemption but not an informal blog? Why should Salon or Slate get an exemption? Should Nytimes.com and Opinionjournal.com get an exemption but not online sites, just because the newspapers have a print edition as well?

Sigh. How hard is it to understand those simple words of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech...."? No law!

Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black was no saint (KKK member in his younger days and all that), but in his prime there was nobody more sound on the First Amendment:

Without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write. (Link with more great quotes)

Surely that proscription ought to apply to political speech more fully than any other sort. And without any damned "ifs, buts, or whereases."

Yet, the oddity of campaign finance regulation is that we have ended up in a place in which pornographers apparently have greater constitutional protection than political bloggers. It's like we live in the First Amendment's Bizzaro World.

You can email John McCain here and Russ Feingold here. Please let them know that some of us still believe in free speech.

BTW, please don't blame Brad Smith. Polipundit called Smith a "powerful, unelected government official" and, at least by implication, suggests Smith is a party to "this crushing of free speech and the destruction of American liberty."

In fact, Brad Smith is a First Amendment hero. As a law professor before he joined the FEC, Smith wrote many law review articles condemning campaign finance regulation. As a result, when Smith was nominated to the FEC, McCain and Feingold orchestrated a massive smear campaign against him. Since then, even while faithfully enforcing the statutes his Commission oversees, Smith has consistently been on the side of free speech.

So don't blame the messenger!

This content was used with the permission of Stephen Bainbridge of ProfessorBainbridge. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

They may call themselves GOPInsight, but this post calling the murder of a judge's family "good news" is abhorrent, not insightful.

From Bill Pirkle at GOPInsight:

"Good News - Federal Judge's Husband and Mother Killed

So, back to my title, it IS good news in one sense. When things like this happen, the lawmakers are motivated to (finally) do something about crime, especially when it happens to one of their own. Everytime an event like this occurs a few more people join the conservative movement. A few more people wash their hands of liberal policies that allow criminals to wander the streets at will terrifying law abiding members of society. I am terribly sorry that this is the process that we use to protect the decent members of society but it is none the less...."

Is there not a way for this guy to get his idea across about the government not truly responding to the needs of the people unless there is a crisis without referring to the heinous murder of two innocent people as "good news?" Even if there is a point to be made there, it's lost in Pirkle's ghoulish and repugnant attempt to capitalize politically on their deaths. Come on, show a little more sympathy for the dead...

Hat tip to Right Thinking Girl for the link to the story.

WASHINGTON, DC - In a far-reaching decision that will likely create complicated consequences for the American livestock and wedding-planning industries, the Supreme Court this morning ruled 5-4 that all US marriage dowries "must include three non-diseased oxen."

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited "the weight of the expansive penumbra surrounding the historically emerging and prevailing opinions of tribal shamans from Lesotho to Myanamar" in issuing the historic ruling in American Cattleman Association vs. Modern Bride, Helverson, et al.

In a scathing and sometimes caustic dissent, Judge Antonin Scalia wrote that "Holy. Freakin'. Sh*t."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which had filed an amicus brief in the case, praised the decision as "an important first step in insuring that American grooms will eventually share the same access to bovine property rights as the rest of the international community."

"The decision underscores the principle of Federalism by creating uniformity in our notoriously inconsistent state dowry laws," noted Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe. "For example, Iowa grooms are entitled to $300 and a two-night honeymoon trip to the Wisconsin Dells, while just across the border in Missouri, grooms only get $200 and a set of air shocks for their TransAm. Thankfully, the Court has brought some sanity to the situation."

Besides expanding the rights of male clanspeople in dowry disputes, the sweeping 600 page Supreme Court opinion clarified U.S. law across a broad spectrum of civil, economic and traffic codes. Among the highlights:

-- Citing EU and Belgian case law, the Court declared that signage on U.S. Interstate Highways must be translated to both French and Flemish by 2007.

-- The Court also reconciled a number of conflicting Japanese/US traffic standards, ruling that starting Friday, motorists may drive on either side of American roads.

-- In another civil finding, the Court noted prevailing Nepalese-Canadian-Yemeni standards in opening the way for legalized stonings at arranged gay marriages.

-- The ruling overturned a 7th Circuit decision by declaring "The First Rule of Fight Club" unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

-- By a 5-4 margin, it reversed death sentences for prisoners convicted of crimes committed while juveniles; however, the Court ruled that states may voluntarily terminate prisoners as "extremely late-term abortions" under Roe v. Wade.

-- Overturning a previous decision by a European panel, the Court declared Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg winner of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest.

-- In a surprise finding, the Court ruled itself unconstitional; but, citing the tradition of international courts ignoring US court rulings, said that this ruling itself was unconstitutional.

Attorneys for defendant John Helverson said their client "would make a good faith effort" to comply with the decision, and said he was already constructing an oxen feedlot in the back yard of his Glendale, CA home in anticipation of the May wedding of his daughter Ashley, 25.

"Though we are disappointed, we and Mr. Helverson respect the Court's decision," said attorney Mark Epstein. "With another case under review, we can't afford a contempt citation."

In a related case, the Court is expected to rule sometime in late March whether Ashley Helverson and fiance Jason Garcia can be extradited to Saudi Arabia to face the death penalty for fornication.

If you enjoyed this satire by Iowahawk, you can read more of his work by clicking here.

There has been a lot of talk about the "nuclear option" of late. What is the "nuclear option" you may ask? Here's an excellent explanation from a column at the New Yorker:

...“The Founding Fathers knew how to create a supermajority requirement when they wanted to,” (Orrin Hatch) told me. “They did it with amending the Constitution, they did it with ratifying treaties, which both require two-thirds of the Senate. And just a few lines below that they said ‘advice and consent’ on judges—no supermajority requirement. By using filibusters on the judges, the Democrats have essentially imposed a supermajority requirement, and we are entitled to stop them. This would not affect filibusters on legislation, which could still take place.”

"...Although more than two hundred of Bush’s nominees were approved by the Senate in the past four years, Democrats used the filibuster to stop ten appellate-court choices. As a result, some Republicans are pushing to alter the Senate’s rules so that a simple majority could cut off debate on judicial nominees. With the Senate now split fifty-five to forty-four (with one independent) in favor of the Republicans, the change could render the Democrats almost powerless to stop Bush’s choices, including nominees to the United States Supreme Court."

Everybody have a solid grasp of the "nuclear option" now?

Good, then let me be the first to say that the GOP has almost nothing to lose by going forward with the nuclear option....well, let me rephrase that: Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy might not be quite as enthusiastic when they wave to Chuck Hagel and Susan Collins as they pass by in the halls, but that's it.

Let me quickly address the two incredibly unconvincing reasons why Republicans are often told that they shouldn't pursue the nuclear option, even if they have a Constitutional right to do so.

#1) The Democrats won't cooperate with the Republicans on anything in the Senate if the GOP uses the "nuclear option!": And this will change the current state of affairs in what way? Just look at the biggest piece of the President's domestic agenda: Social Security. How many Democrats in the Senate are cooperating with George Bush on Social Security? None, right? The second "big change" Bush had been talking about pushing this term was flattening out the tax system. How many Democrats are going cooperate with him on that? None, right?

The Democrats aren't cooperating with Republicans on anything much of significance as it is, so what difference does it make if they publicly declare that they're throwing a tantrum and blocking everything Bush sends down? Who does that hurt? Not the taxpayers who are generally lucky when the government is tied up in gridlock. Not the Republicans, who'll suddenly have a great campaign issue for 2006, "We Republicans wanted to be bi-partisan, but the Democrats insist on being obstructionists." Let 'em do it and we'll see if the GOP can get up to 60 seats in 2006 at which point the Democrats will become almost completely irrelevant in the Senate anyway.

#2) Well, what happens when the Democrats are back in charge some day?: Yes sadly, the Democrats will likely control the White House & the Senate again and if they want to ram some Ward Churchill clone through, Republicans may not be able to stop them.

However, given how radical the average liberal judge is these days, I'm not sure it makes any difference. We already have the 9th Circuit Court claiming the Pledge of Allegiance is illegal and half the Supreme Court ignoring the Constitution and making decisions based on foreign law.

In other words, if we end up with the "Honorable Judge Michael Moore" one day, how would his rulings be all that different from ones made by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens? Sure, Stevens might be able to give a bit more eloquent explanation of why he decided to ignore the Constitution and make a ruling based on his liberal ideology, but in the end, I bet you'd see 90% overlap in the decisions made by "Judge Moore" and Judge Stevens.

Also, keep in mind that if the GOP doesn't use the "nuclear option," that doesn't somehow preclude it from ever being used. Who's to say that when the Democrats get back in power some day that they won't use the "nuclear option" themselves now that they understand it's possible? You think the same Party that has Howard Dean running around the country saying, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for..." is going to get all upset about making the "other guys" angry like John McCain and Arlen Specter? Give me a break!

So let's pull the trigger on the nuclear option the next time the Democrats try an unconstitutional filibuster and then the Dems can stamp their feet and throw a tantrum because they're not getting their way for as long as they want. Republicans aren't in Washington to make pouty Democratic Senators happy, they're up there to do what's right for this country and it's essential that we put more judges into play who respect the Constitution and believe in judicial restraint, especially on the Supreme Court.

James Taranto of Best of the Web noted an incredible exchange between Jon Stewart, who's adored on the left, and former Clinton aide Nancy Soderberg. The reason I call it an "incredible exchange" is not just because Stewart seems to be grasping and acknowledging the shockwave of freedom that Bush got started in Iraq, but because Soderberg is so forthright in admitting that she hopes that freedom fails in these countries because it'll be good for the Democrats politically (Emphasis mine)...

"Stewart: This book--it talks about the superpower myth of the United States. There is this idea, the United States is the sole superpower, and I guess the premise of the book is we cannot misuse that power--have to use it wisely, and not just punitively. Is that--

Stewart: Really? Hummus for everybody, for God's sakes."

It's encouraging to me to see a lightbulb start to come on for someone like Stewart over the war in Iraq: that sort of, "I didn't support the war, but now I think we just may be on to something really big here" line of thinking.

This is a positive development, especially compared to Soderburg's "I would like to be happy for these people but it's bad for the Democratic Party if these people become free" reasoning.

Sadly, from what I've see from the left-side of the blogosphere, I think that the Nancy Sodenburgs on the left far outnumber the Jon Stewarts. Let us hope that will not always be the case...

The United States Supreme Court yesterday proved how utterly out of touch they are, from the Constitution of the United States and the general welfare of the people.

In the case of Roper, Superintendent, Potosi Correctional Center v. Simmons, the USSC ruled 5 to 4 that a murderer who kills his/her victims before the felon reaches his/her 18th birthday, cannot be executed for that crime, regardless of any factors meriting such a punishment.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority decision, and in so doing cited the 8th and 14th Amendments were violated in assigning the death penalty to Christopher Simmons, for the crime of premeditated murder. Not only did Simmons admit he planned the murder beforehand, bragged about it afterwards to numerous persons, he also recruited Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer into the crime with the specific promise that ‘they could “get away with it” because they were minors’. In short, Justice Kennedy assisted a murderer in his effort to suborn the consequences of his crime.

Justice Kennedy claimed a “national consensus against the death penalty for juveniles“, but failed to cite compelling supporting such a claim. Further, Kennedy failed to address the clear distinction between a child being put to death, against the fact of a man not even arrested and tried for the crime until he was legally an adult, as in Simmons’ case. Kennedy cited a 1968 sociology book as if it were empirical evidence (Identity: Youth and Crisis, by E. Erikson ©1968) , and demanded that the United States submit to International Consensus (”the Court has referred to the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive for its interpretation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments“). Kennedy even cited treaties to which the U.S. is neither signatory nor participant!

Justice Stevens concurred with Kennedy, claiming that “our understanding of the Constitution does change from time to time“, going so far as to claim that Alexander Hamilton, were he alive today, would agree with Justice Kennedy.

Justice O’Connor dissented, stating bluntly ”The Court’s decision today establishes a categorical rule forbidding the execution of any offender for any crime committed before his 18th birthday, no matter how deliberate, wanton, or cruel the offense. Neither the objective evidence of contemporary societal values, nor the Court’s moral proportionality analysis, nor the two in tandem suffice to justify this ruling.” O’Connor went on to note, “the Court has adduced no evidence impeaching the seemingly reasonable conclusion reached by many state legislatures: that at least some 17-year-old murderers are sufficiently mature to deserve the death penalty in an appropriate case. Nor has it been shown that capital sentencing juries are incapable of accurately assessing a youthful defendant’s maturity or of giving due weight to the mitigating characteristics associated with youth.”

Justice Scalia also dissented, stating “What a mockery today’s opinion makes of Hamilton’s expectation, announcing the Court’s conclusion that the meaning of our Constitution has changed over the past 15 years–not, mind you, that this Court’s decision 15 years ago was wrong, but that the Constitution has changed“. Scalia went on to observe “the Court says in so many words that what our people’s laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter“. Scalia also noted “the basic premise of the Court’s argument–that American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world–ought to be rejected out of hand. In fact the Court itself does not believe it. In many significant respects the laws of most other countries differ from our law–including not only such explicit provisions of our Constitution as the right to jury trial and grand jury indictment, but even many interpretations of the Constitution prescribed by this Court itself. The Court-pronounced exclusionary rule, for example, is distinctively American".

The damage is done, and here is where we stand now:

[] Convicted murderers have their lives and health protected to a degree they have never enjoyed before, even as the unborn child has no legal protection whatsoever, innocent as it is;

[] The United States Supreme Court has sent the clearest possible message, that they do not consider themselves bound by the restrictions and responsibilities that other branches of government must accept. Accordingly, there can no longer be any doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court must be reformed to redress this violation of the Constitutional apportionment of powers.

In case you wondered if it still matters who you vote for in Senate of Presidential races (2006-2008-2010), consider where we will be if certain parties or ideologies win these races.

This content was used with the permission of Polipundit. If you'd like to read more of DJ Drummond's work, you can read him at Polipundit by clicking Polipundit or at his own website, Stolen Thunder, by clicking here.

Apparently there were some sort of protests in Lebanon yesterday. They were either all about kicking the Syrians out or keeping them in the country -- whatever -- just check out this hot protestor. Whatever side she's on, I'm with her. Wow...

In all seriousness, the people of Lebanon deserve the support of all Americans in their push for freedom. Democracy is destiny, not just in Lebanon, but across the world. But, the question is always, "When will freedom come?" Let's hope that with the example set by the Iraqi people and the pressure applied by the Bush administration, that the people of Lebanon will become free sooner, rather than later.

Hat tip to Instapundit for the link & AOL for the picture.

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*** Update #1 ***: The slot is filled.

One day after the signing of a controversial deal calling for Russia to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran, Iran’s vice president said that it only sought the fuel because it plans to build the world’s first nuclear-powered birdhouse.

At a press conference in Tehran today, Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh
showed reporters extensive plans for the birdhouse, which, if constructed, would be the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

Calling the state-of-the-art birdhouse a potential boon for Iranian tourism, Mr. Aghazadeh said, “We believe that people will come from far and wide to see this awesome birdhouse.”

But shortly after Mr. Aghazadeh’s press conference, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said that the plans for the birdhouse, while “impressive,” were still cause for international concern.

“At this time we can see no rationale for building a birdhouse ringed with intermediate-range nuclear weapons,” he said.

In response to Mr. ElBaradei’s comments, Iran’s vice president seemed to change his tune, saying that Iran was only planning to build the nuclear-powered birdhouse “for a science fair.”

“For some time, Iran has been curious about what effect living in a nuclear-powered birdhouse would have on birds used to living in a normal birdhouse,” he said.

In Washington, President Bush announced the U.S. would shortly announce a science fair project of its own, which would involve measuring the effect of Tomahawk cruise missiles on nuclear-powered birdhouses.

Elsewhere, actor Sean Penn explained his behavior on Oscar night, saying that he was preparing for his next film in which he plays “a pompous @ss.”

This satire was used with the permission of Andy Borowitz from the Borowitz Report. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

In the past, to inspire people to suggest new music that I might be interested in and just for entertainment's sake, I've posted the music I was currently listening to on RWN. But, thanks to wonders of modern technology, I can now tell you which songs I listened to the most over the last month.

Here's the list for February...

1) Green Day: Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
2) Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama
3) Tomoyasu Hotei: Battle Without Honor or Humanity
4) Modest Mouse: Float On
4) Ok Go: Get Over It
4) Motorhead: It's All About The Game
4) Fun Lovin' Criminals: Scooby Snacks
8) Godsmack: I Stand Alone
8) Trey Parker: America, F*ck Yeah!
8) Eve 6: Inside Out
8) The Insane Clown Posse: Hokus Pokus
8) N.E.R.D: Lapdance
13) Smash Mouth: All Star
13) Aqua Teen Hunger Force Theme Song
13) Rob Zombie: Dragula
13) Pink: Get the Party Started
13) Filter: Hey Man Nice Shot
13) Elton John: Still Standin'
13) Uncle Kracker: What You Looking At?

If you want to suggest some music that you think I should check out, feel free to post it in the comments section...

I've traded in some old PS2 games at Blockbuster and have built up some store credit and I'm looking to pick up some used PS2 games.

I'm a big fan of the Ratchet and Clank games, the Wrestling games, and State of Emergency was a blast. On the other hand, I'm generally not a big fan of racing or sports games -- other than Madden 2004, which I picked up for a song as part of the trade-in, and I couldn't stand "Grand Theft Auto".

Keeping in mind that I really haven't played all that many PS2 games, how about giving me some suggestions and telling me why you think I should grab those games? Do keep in mind that I refuse to spend any cash on this =D & I'll probably be more partial to the older games than the brand new ones because they use up less store credit.

Regrettably, I have to disagree with Michelle Malkin, one my favorite bloggers who's particularly in my good graces right now because she actually suggested that her readers chip in to RWN,

"By the way, Hawkins is quitting his job and will be blogging professionally. If you've got a little extra dough, please consider sending some his way."

Michelle has a phenomenal blog and if you like RWN, you'll probably like Michelle's blog as well. Make sure to bookmark her....ah, that's enough talking up Michelle's blog. Anyone who can get gigs filling in on Hannity & Colmes doesn't need my help to build her traffic =D

Anyway, Michelle wrote a post called, "How Many Americans Read Political Blogs?," that basically concluded blogs have a much smaller audience than people think. Here's the crux of her argument,

"According to the Wall Street Journal, "Some eight million Americans now publish blogs and (4.8) million people read them, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project."

...If Alexa's figures are in the right ballpark, the top 100 political blogs, in the aggregate, probably average about 100,000 U.S. adult visitors per day. That's not small potatoes but it is a far cry from the inflated Pew figures cited by the Wall Street Journal this morning."

Even though I disagreed with Michelle's conclusion, I probably would have let it ride on something less important. However...

-- I could see this really discouraging smaller bloggers who might think that even the A-list bloggers don't really have that much traffic, so why bother. Just look at what Fresh Bilge had to say after reading the post,

"Michelle Malkin is probably right (as usual). Weblog readership is still very small. Some bloggers are playing wishful games with half-understood server statistics. The truth is, we put a lot of work into our sites, and we want to believe those big numbers.

-- Then there's the possibility that this might lead to MSM headlines that say something like, "Famous Blogger Michelle Malkin says no one reads blogs." That wouldn't be a good thing either.

So, I emailed Michelle and tried to convince her that she was off-base. Unfortunately, I don't think she bought what I was trying to sell her. So let me try to make my case here.

1) Although Alexa can be quite useful in trying to get a general idea of how popular particular websites are, it is an imperfect tool which uses statistical sampling, not actual counts of traffic. That means stat trackers are ALWAYS superior to Alexa if you're trying to find out how much traffic a website has.

Put another way, Alexa is like early exit polling numbers while the stat trackers that are on the pages of blogs are more like the actual vote. Which would you trust more?

2) If you're arguing based on Alexa statistics that the traffic of blogs is enormously inflated, then you are in effect saying that the entire political sphere on the web is much smaller than people think. Let me explain what I mean. After running the numbers using Alexa, Michelle concludes that,

"Power Line has 19,200 U.S. visitors per day.
Little Green Footballs has 17,700 U.S. visitors per day.
Talking Points Memo has 16,800 U.S. visitors per day.
Wonkette has 15,240 U.S. visitors per day."

However, if you look at The Top 125 Political Websites On The Net Version 5.0, which I compiled using Alexa statistics, you'll find that,

-- Powerline pulls more traffic than Sean Hannity.
-- Little Green Footballs pulls more traffic than Lucianne
-- Talking Points Memo pulls more traffic than The New Republic
-- Wonkette pulls more traffic than the The New Yorker.

Personally, I think it's highly unlikely that influential websites like Lucianne and Sean Hannity's homepage are only pulling let's say 15k /16k people a day.

3) Site meter is not the only statistics tracker out there. There are plenty of other trackers that actually measure unique users. Now, is it likely that a few users get counted twice because they switch computers, change IPs, don't take cookies, etc, etc? Sure, but the stat trackers are not THAT FAR off.

That's why I believe that Michelle's estimate of only "200,000 U.S. adult readers" of blogs has to be very low when you take a look at the broader picture.

According to my statistics tracker, Right Wing News is pulling somewhere in the 7000-8000 unique user range M-F. Now keep that in mind and then take a look at the traffic numbers from blogads (which I believe counts impressions made by users that can see java). You'll find that...

-- Daily Kos is 32 times RWN's size.
-- Instapundit is 13.6 times RWN's size.
-- Little Green Footballs is 9.25 times RWN's size.
-- Eschaton is 8 times RWN's size.
-- Michelle herself is 3.75 times RWN's size.

Heck, if you just took the unique visitors I get per day and multiplied by 32, you'd get more than 200,000 U.S. adult readers for Daily Kos ALONE.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that blogger influence comes mostly from "The Who," Not The "How Many." Furthermore, there's no doubt that there is a lot of room for blogging to grow. However, we're not tiny and practically irrelevant any more either. Maybe that was true at one time, but times have changed...

*** Update #1 ***: Charles Johnson, the web savvy owner of Little Green Footballs, has posted on this issue as well.

The government is by its very nature, wasteful, inefficient, and often provides mediocre customer service compared to private industry. That's no surprise when you consider the reams of red tape, seniority based promotions, and the lack of accountability that we see in most government programs.

So what happens when your health care is socialized and your doctors and nurses are employed by the same bureaucratic leviathan that produces crabby IRS agents and hebetudinous DMV worker?

People die.

Just look at the comparison between our health care system here in the states and the socialized medicine practiced by our British cousins across the pond, and you'll see how many corpses are produced when the government gets into the business of "making you well." Ralph R. Reiland has the goods...

In "Die in Britain, survive in U.S.," the cover article of the February 2005 issue of The Spectator, a British magazine, James Bartholomew details the downside of Britain's universal health care system. Among women with breast cancer, for example, there's a 46 percent chance of dying from it in Britain, versus a 25 percent chance in the United States. "Britain has one of worst survival rates in the advanced world," writes Bartholomew, "and America has the best."

"Having a diagnosis test beyond an X-ray in Britain tends to be regarded as a rare, extravagant event, only done in cases of obvious, if not desperate, need," writes Bartholomew. "In Britain, 36 percent of patients have to wait more than four months for non-emergency surgery. In the U.S., 5 percent do. In Britain, 40 percent of cancer patients do not see a cancer specialist."

Ronald Reagan once said,

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

If we ever get socialized medicine in this country, many Americans will find out how right Reagan was....

Joe Arpaio is called "America's Toughest Sheriff" and that's too bad. I say that because if every jail in America were run like this, I suspect that we'd have a significantly lower crime rate....

From Snopes,

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio has banned smoking, coffee, pornographic magazines, movies, and unrestricted television in all his jails. Those incarcerated in his tent city jail do indeed work on chain gangs, pulling weeds for the city and county, clearing brush, and the like. In 1996 the Sheriff put the nation's first female chain gang to work....he chose that course of action because it suited his beliefs: "I don't believe in discrimination in my jail system. Crime knows no gender and neither should punishment," he said.

...It is on record, however, that inmates in his charge view only selected programming, such as what's on The Weather Channel. ("I think my chain gang deserves to know how hot it is when they hit the streets," said Arpaio.) "

Hat tip to Knowledge Is Power for the pic.

Just as pro-war conservatives predicted, freedom is on the march in the Middle-East. The best pundit in the business, Mark Steyn, elaborates...

"Consider just the past couple of days' news: not the ever more desperate depravity of the floundering "insurgency", but the real popular Arab resistance the car-bombers and the head-hackers are flailing against: the Saudi foreign minister, who by remarkable coincidence goes by the name of Prince Saud, told Newsweek that women would be voting in the next Saudi election. "That is going to be good for the election," he said, "because I think women are more sensible voters than men."

But none of them has much of a choice. In the space of a month, the Iraq election has become the prism through which all other events in the region are seen."

For once, it really is all Bush's fault...

"Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 115" -- Feb 28, 2005

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win." -- Michael Moore, April 14, 2004

---

"A suicide car bomber blasted a crowd of police and national guard recruits Monday as they gathered for physicals outside a medical clinic south of Baghdad, killing at least 115 people and wounding 132 - the single deadliest attack in the two-year insurgency."

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents'...

"...Torn limbs and other body parts littered the street outside the clinic in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite area about 60 miles south of Baghdad."

...or 'terrorists'

"...Outside the concrete and brick building in Hillah, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood pooling on the street. Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic's walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets. Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner."

...or 'The Enemy.'

Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "Allah akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great!" - and demanded to know the fate of their relatives.

...They are the REVOLUTION

"..I was lined up near the medical center, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," Abdullah Salih, 22, said. "Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several meters away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital."

....the Minutemen,

"I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic, and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital," said recruit Muhsin Hadi, 29. One of his legs was broken in the blast.

"and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the attack and pledged to help the Iraqi government track down those responsible. "All civilized people should feel nothing but revulsion for the terrorists who can kill innocent Iraqis who only want to help build a new democracy and a better society," he said.

---

Viva la revolution, right Michael? Somebody ask Michael Moore and his pals on the anti-war left who agreed with him if they still think the terrorists murdering innocent Iraqis are comparable to heroes like the Minutemen who fought and died to make this country free. If there are any left-wing blogs out there that will admit to agreeing with Michael Moore on this, I'd love to read what you have to say...

In another setback for the Bush administration, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told a national TV audience Saturday that he would impose democratic presidential elections on this tranquil Arab dictatorship.

Mr. Mubarak -- who has run unopposed every six years since becoming president in 1981 after the assassination of Anwar Sadat -- called for "more freedom and democracy" and asked parliament to amend the constitution to allow "direct, secret balloting, giving the chance for political parties to run for the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them with their own will"

Democrats in the U.S. Congress wasted no time pointing out that White House foreign policy had failed again.

"How is President Bush going to carry out his promise to invade dictatorships and impose freedom if they keep announcing changes like this?" said an unnamed Democrat Senator. "I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a domino effect, with one Arab nation after another falling into the democracy camp, thereby making the Bush foreign policy an obsolete embarrassment."

In completely unrelated news, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled an expected trip to Egypt the night before Mr. Mubarak announced the democratic reforms.

Satire used with permission of Scott Ott from Scrappleface. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

Bill from INDC Journal (who has a great blog which I'd highly recommend) asks for someone who's pro-life to talk about the implications of some abortion polling,

"For a thorny example, I think that it's fair to state that a popular socially conservative goal is the repeal of Roe v Wade, followed by incremental legislation that will restrict (and theoretically eventually ban) abortion. But given the fact that public opinion is largely well-reflected in the current combination of judical and legislative public policy (Only 36% say Roe should be overturned, 66% believe first-term abortions should be legal, 70% are against late-term abortions, nearly 90% of abortions take place in the first trimester), much of the social right's rhetoric and noises about an end to abortion are strategically dissonant; I can't even recall the last time that I witnessed a pro-life commentator tackle the fundamental challenge of these statistics in lieu of simply railing against the judicial activism of Roe. Depending on the measure, why do 2/3 of Americans disagree with a strident pro-life agenda and nearly 8-in-10 oppose an outright ban? And what's really the best way to address that?

Let me begin by saying -- respectfully -- that I believe Bill's premise is flawed. "(P)ublic opinion is" (not) "largely well-reflected in the current combination of judical and legislative public policy."

Were the public's views on abortion accurately reflected by "current combination of judical and legislative public policy," then having Roe v. Wade passed in the first place would have made little difference and whether it was overturned or not would be a matter of little consequence. Yet, "NARAL Pro-Choice America projected that..."

"...19 states would quickly outlaw abortion, and 19 more might follow suit, if Roe v. Wade were overturned. This could happen if two of the justices on the nine-member Supreme Court who support abortion rights departed and were replaced by justices opposing abortions."

Sure they're a pro-abortion group so they could be inflating the numbers a bit, but given the lay of the land before Roe. v. Wade came into effect, I wouldn't be surprised if their numbers are roughly accurate...

"Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion was illegal in nearly two-thirds of the states except in cases where it was necessary to save the life of the mother. In those states (where) it was legal, it was only available under very limited circumstances.

Now, are (and were) all these state legislatures full of politicians who don't understand or care what the people of their states really want? That's the impression you'd get from looking at the polling numbers Bill presented, right?

Well, the reality is that the answers you get when you do abortion polling vary wildly depending on the question that's asked and the language that's used. Here's an example of what I'm talking about,

"For example, one 1980 poll (**From Market Opinion Research, Bailey and Deardourff, (1981). Conducted for the National Abortion Rights Action League**) asked similar questions, worded in two different ways:

"Do you believe there should be an amendment to the Constitution protecting the life of the unborn child, or shouldn't there be such an amendment?" In favor of an amendment: 50%; opposed 34%. Here, the implication is that an abortion kills a child.

Because of the fluctuations in the numbers, it's very difficult to get a true read on the public's feelings about abortion based on poll numbers. However, I believe the pro-life movement has a small but significant edge in raw numbers and passion for what we believe in, over the pro-abortion folks. That's why abortions would likely be hard to come by if state legislatures were allowed to vote on the issue and it also explains why,

"The new chairman of the US Democratic Party, Howard Dean, cautioned his party members to avoid using the term “pro-choice” when referring to themselves, in order not to alienate potential conservative voters.

Dean, making the comments Thursday at the Democratic National Committee meeting, said, “I don't think we should use ‘pro-choice’,” because it brands Democrats as too pro-abortion, according to a New York Post report."

You don't see Dean's counterpart Ken Mehlman telling Republicans not to talk about being pro-life do you?

So personally, I'm looking forward to the day that Roe v. Wade is finally overturned and not just because it's pure judicial activism masquerading as constitutional law. I believe that those of us who are pro-life are in a politically stronger position than the pro-abortion forces and more importantly, we have a moral responsibility to stand-up for the unborn children who are being snuffed out before they can stand-up for themselves.

Let the people who are pro-abortion worry about what happens after Roe v. Wade because once that day comes, it's going to be all downhill for them on the issue from there on out.

If you're looking for a new conservative humor blog, make sure to check out The Nose On Your Face for "news so fake you'll swear it came from the mainstream media."

Perhaps it's because so many left-wingers view the war protests in the sixties as the "glory days" of the liberal movement or because like Ted Rall, they believe that...

"Losing to Third Worlders in PJs led Americans to decades of relative humility, self-examination and taking the moral high ground in conflicts such as Haiti and Kosovo."

...but the left in this country is fixated on Vietnam.

Remember the Gulf War? I was in college back then and I had a liberal professor who told us to prepare for 100,000 casualties and a draft. Know why? Because that's what war was like. Remember Vietnam! (Cont)

A little pressure is exerted, and all of a sudden some people want to play ball:

The Iraqi government said today that it had captured a half-brother of Saddam Hussein, a man who for several years headed the country's domestic intelligence and security service, once the most feared agency in Iraq.

The American government had put out a $1 million bounty for the capture of Sabawi al-Tikriti. The Associated Press reported that he had been captured by Syrian authorities and that he had been turned over to Iraq as a gesture of good will.

Diplomatic niceties and nervous hand-wringing have never achieved results, particularly in the Middle East. The lowest level of motivation is compliance, and there are three criteria that must be met in order to achieve compliance from a party that does not otherwise wish to comply- concern, control, and scrutiny.

When trying to gain compliance with otherwise uninterested and unmotivated parties, they must be sure that you are concerned with the issue at hand and serious in your intentions and proclamations. They must believe that you are able and willing to do something punitive should they fail to comply. Finally, they must believe that you will be able to detect a failure to comply. All three of these elements must be in place- an absence on any one of the elements will result in an unapologetic, recalcitrant, and non-compliant party.

Let's take speeding as an example. Everyone is aware that governments at every level are concerned with speed limits, as this is expressed best by the numerous speed limit signs posted alongside every road. We are all (except for the truly socially deviant in society) aware that the police have the ability and willingness to follow through with punitive action, should we be observed breaking the speed limit.

Why, then, do so many speed? Because we all are aware that the police can't be everywhere. The scrutiny is missing, and we all know it. Everyone reading this knows where the speed traps are in his/her hometown, and likewise where the police never have a presence. With just one of the three elements of concern, control, and scrutiny missing, compliance breaks down. There may be other issues as well - the perception that the punishment is not severe enough is another example.

I am not going to go into detail about the failures of the Clinton administration, and I will leave it to the reader which elements were not present. It is important to recognize, however, how right Bernard Lewis was about this:

These anti-American forces fall basically into two groups. The first, and in the long run the more important, come from the camp of al Qaeda and related religious movements. For them, America is now the leader of Christendom, the ultimate enemy in the millennial struggle which they hope to bring, in their own time, to a victorious conclusion. In the writings and speeches of Osama bin Laden and of his allies and disciples, hatred of America is less significant than contempt--the perception that America is a "paper tiger," that its people have become soft and pampered--"hit them and they will run." This perception was bolstered by frequent references to Vietnam, Beirut and Somalia, as well as to the feeble response to subsequent terrorist attacks in the 1990s, notably on the USS Cole and on the embassies in East Africa. It was this perception which undoubtedly underlay the events of Sept. 11, clearly intended to be the opening barrage of a new war against the Americans on their home ground. The response to this attack, and notably the operations in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, brought a rude awakening, and that is surely why there have been no subsequent attacks on U.S. soil.

When Bush declares that we will not be driven from Iraq, and that we aren't going to run away from tough situations, many on the hard left chide him for 'cowboy' tough talk (or start with the chickenhawk nonsense), and it is their unwillingness or inability to understand the outcomes of their weakness that makes them so dangerous. We have paid a hefty price in both blood and treasure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror, and hopefully we are rounding the corner in the region. When vile and oppressive regimes who have previously thumbed their noses at the United States and the rest of the world begin to re-think their positions, it may be a sign that we are starting to see the real results of our dedication to the cause and our unwavering will.

Content used with the permission of John Cole from Balloon Juice. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

Three things I wanted to note:

1) RWN received a very brief mention in a piece on MSNBC called "What Is A Blog?". You can see the video here.

2) My "Applying The 'Gannon Standard'" apparently went over really well with Jeff Gannon because he linked to it on his homepage. Too bad he sent his readers to my syndicated piece at Men's News Daily because he looks to be getting a heck of a lot of traffic.

3) Thanks to everyone who contributed via Paypal after finding out that I was going to be blogging professionally. I raked in about $450 over the week-end which is pretty impressive given that I bet you I've received less than $250 in donations since I started the blog in 2000.

From the bombastic, blonde, bombshell:

"Much of the left's hate speech bears greater similarity to a psychological disorder than to standard political discourse. The hatred is blinding, producing logical contradictions that would be impossible to sustain were it not for the central element faith plays in the left's new religion. The basic tenet of their faith is this: Maybe they were wrong on facts and policies, but they are good and conservatives are evil. You almost want to give it to them. It's all they have left." -- Ann Coulter

Now, from Howard Dean:

"The issue is not abortion," Dean told the closed-door fund-raiser. "The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do."

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

Say what you want about Ann Coulter, but she has Howard Dean's number?

Might I also add that this would make an even better slogan for the Democratic Party than "(We) hate the Republicans and everything they stand for..."

Hat tip to Polipundit for the Dean story.

Since I'm blogging full-time, making sure my advertisers are taken care of is more important than ever.

Why if all of these advertisers became unhappy with RWN and stopped buying ads, I'd have to go get another job. What would the MSM write then, eh? Maybe something like...

"Blogging doesn't pay for advertisers because readers are too lazy to click on ads."

or maybe just...

"Capitalism Fails! Were the Communists right?"

Is that the headline you want to allow the New York Times to write? Huh, is it? Then you know what to do...

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It speaks volumes about the forgiving nature of our French and German friends that they don't run the Shrub out of Europe on a rail, especially in regards to recent events. Last week, Bush asked for $100 million to help improve the Polish Army. Yup, the KILBASA KORPS! Congress must have thought it was some sort of sick Polack joke. The nation that caused WW2 will have new tanks and planes, and the once mighty French army that led the allies to victory in Europe lies in disuse and disrepair. Even De Gaulle's cherished 4th Armoured Division can no longer afford to feed it's goats, let alone armour them. It's no wonder the whole world hates us, but it explains Bush's weeklong European suck-up-athon. It's time to pay off his corrupt little minions, while at the same time wheedling for support from those he spent 4 years insulting with his swaggering.

Bush was too proud to crawl to our European allies and beg them to be equal partners in this illegal and immoral war before he started it, now he wants them to hop on board when Iraq is in ruins and there's nothing left to loot? He'll have to put a little icing on that eclair if he wants help out of this quagmire. He might have to take some of those lucrative rebuilding contracts he handed out to his Coalition of the Coerced and the Bribed, and give them to our REAL friends...yes, our bestest and most truest friends who stand by us in clear weather and are always there when they need us.

But Bush's tiny chimp brain can't comprehend the concept of "friendship". He thinks that a "friend" is obligated to obediently back your play whenever you pick a fight, or at least not side with your enemy against you. But what if your enemy pulls out a pair of brass knuckles and kicks both your @sses? What will it accomplish for both you AND your friend to be beaten senseless? Worse - what if you defeat your enemy? Who is going to buy brass knuckles from your friend then? Poland? I don't think so. Your poor friend will starve and then you won't have anyone to keep your swaggering in check. Some friend you are!

Friendship is not about "tit for tat" or "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". It's not about demanding your friends fight along side your sorry imperialist @ss in order to cash in on the loot. No, friendship is about giving without the expectation of receiving. In the past week, our NATO allies have made it abundantly clear that as friends, they're perfectly willing to lend a hand with the spoils of war without expecting anything in return - except for maybe control of our military, justice system, and economy.

But that's what friends are for.

Satire used with the permission of Liberal Larry from BlameBush! You can read more of his work by clicking here.

One more thing about Ted Rall's challenge. This part of Rall's latest post is actually ironic given things that Ted has written in the past...

"Suffice it to say, this stuff pisses me off and should not be tolerated by anyone who purports to be a law-abiding American. And again: mainstream blogs like Kos should delete this sh*t as soon as it appears--as should the nasty right-wing sites like Little Green Footballs.

Has the challenge been met? Yes. The scale may not quite be the same, but there is clearly a significant amount of leftie hate speech out there to match the crap the righties put out. I can't shame the righties into doing anything, but to readers who agree with me about anything, please consider what this does to us and how it invalidates our arguments."

This is rich coming from a guy who seems to think people who own SUVs deserve to be targeted by molotov cocktail throwing ecoterrorists...

"...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."

In this column, Rall seems to be coming very close to endorsing left-wing bombings in the United States (emphasis mine),

"The United States is living under ideological apartheid. There are many more of us than there are corporatist neofascists, but as any prison inmate can attest, numerical superiority does not assure victory. Excluded from access to mainstream politics and media, measured and even-toned opponents are ignored and marginalized.

The current situation calls for radical, loud, even ugly, tactics. Nelson Mandela, fighting the racist white minority government of South Africa, resorted to building bombs to loosen the grip of apartheid. Here in America, one unfair, dissembling movie by a liberal loudmouth like Michael Moore, no matter how successful, could never be powerful enough to counter the millions of conservative lies disseminated by thousands of talk radio stations and newspapers every minute of every day of every year. But it's a beginning."

Here are some excerpts from another "peaceful" sounding Rall column, "Smashing Windows for a Better World?"...

"If anyone needed a reminder that violence and publicity for protest movement are directly related, the disruption of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City last weekend provides a classic example of doing good while throwing hard objects at big sheets of glass.

...The struggle against free trade is far from over. But the Quebec protesters gave notice to leaders of other cities that they'll pay a high cost for hosting such gatherings in the future. The anarchokids, with their willingness to break things, put this pressing issue back on the front burner where it belongs."

How can Ted Rall be shocked by "leftie hate speech?" Doesn't he read his own columns? It's very hypocritical for Rall to appear to give the thumbs up to ecoterrorism, throwing molotov cocktails at SUVs, riots, and even bombings and then claim to be shocked and dismayed that his ideological soulmates are wishing death on people. Quite frankly, what Rall has written is worse than the "death threats" he's complaining about -- which for the most part seem to be little more than crude internet versions of the sort of dumb joke John Kerry told about Dan Quayle back in 1988...

"Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they're to shoot Quayle. There isn't any press here, is there?"

In other words, writing "I hope person X gets hit by a truck" in a comments section may be a crass & stupid thing to do, but it doesn't compare to actually endorsing violent acts or the destruction of other people's property in a column or cartoon that's read by millions of people.

So I'm glad to see Ted Rall asking people on the left not to post those types of comments, that's good advice for conservatives or liberals. But while Ted's at it, maybe he should consider what his own writing "does to us and how it invalidates our arguments" and disavow some of the things he himself has written.

Hat tip to The Evangelical Outpost for pointing out the last two Rall columns linked.

PS: This was initially going to be a third update to the original post, but because it was fairly long, it has been more than 24 hours since the original post, and since Ted is supposed to be doing a contest wrap-up on Monday, I thought this should be a separate entry. This was actually posted at 4:07 AM on Sunday the 27th.

*** Update #2 ***: Here's the final word on the challenge from Ted Rall...

"...But back to the discussion at hand. I'll reiterate: I am surprised at the amount of vicious, specific threats of violence directed toward conservative personalities by supposed progressives. That kind of schoolyard bullying makes us no better than the Republicans we claim to despise for their "bomb first, ask questions later" approach to diplomacy. As everybody knows, I don't shy away from harsh language; I rather specialize in it. But I draw the line at threats, real or implied, against people with whom I disagree. Once you start to do that, after all, you've admitted defeat because you couldn't argue against your foe based on the merits of your point of view. And it's a gutter tactic running against the very essence of the First Amendment.

So. Does the left give back as much as the right? In my heart of hearts, I'd say the right-wing challenge didn't change my mind entirely. I think the right does it more. But, as a conservative blogger wrote elsewhere, it's much easier to notice when it's your side being attacked. I notice the attacks against progressives more, so they hurt more. Bottom line: it's impossible to quantify the hatred on both sides and determine who does it more."