It has been almost 4 months since W. defeated Kerry and there's no draft, no calls for the draft from the White House, nobody calling for a draft on the right. Conservatives told you there wasn't going to be a draft and we were right.

So don't you chicken little libs who were trying to convince people there was going to be a draft before the election think it's time you admitted that you misled a lot of voters? Don't dodge the question, don't change the subject, just go ahead and say you were wrong in the comments section. You'll feel better if you get it off your chest...

And Greer said take the tube out.

And they did.

Responding to Bill from InDC: Bill didn't like the accusatory tone I took regarding the "husband," Michael. Well, to be honest, I did try to be reasonably careful about accusations. Still-- the fact remains, if someone has a conflict-of-interest, we don't let them make life and death decisions, and we don't just take their word for what a person unable to speak for herself might have said.

Especially when that claim comes years and years after the the stricken wife has gone silent.

The circumstances raise suspicions inherently.

I am a bit perplexed by those who still insist on saying that Terri's "family" wants her to die with dignity.

Her "family" does? You mean-- the husband-in-name-only who is now living with another woman and siring children by her?

The husband has left Terri, guys. As I took pains to point out, that hardly makes him a monster; most, including me, would do the same. But it does make him no longer "family," and I find it absurd that people want a non-family-member's wishes to prevail over those who remain family.

Think back to all your ex-wives or ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends... they're ex's. They may have cared the world for you at one point, but they no longer do. Most of them are, I'm guessing (unless you have to keep in contact due to joing custody of children), more or less complete strangers to you a few months or a few years after the parting of ways.

Would any of you wish an ex to decide your fate rather than your parents? What sort of sense does that make?

A best friend, sure-- best friends tend to remain best friends. A brother, a sister-- okay, as a general matter (unless they are compromised by some financial gain, of course).

But someone who in fact divorced Terri years ago? Yes, he never has bothered to fill out the paperwork; but he is effectively divorced from Terri. And yet the court still finds: Well, he's her husband on paper; let's pretend he's still the closest family she has on earth.

He's not.

And as for suspecting his motives: Why hasn't he simply divorced this abandoned, brain-damaged woman and married the woman he's living with? She can't be happy about raising children in bastardy; why has he resisted what must certainly be her wish to marry to the father of her children?

Just so he could continue fighting for Terri's right to die with dignity? Hang on; we'll get to that.

Add in the fact that he has refused time and time again to grant the parents' wishes for an MRI, for real physical therapy, etc. If you were in his shoes, with your wife's parents' begging you for a simple medical test or a round of physical therapy, wouldn't you grant their wish? Just so they would know that everything had in fact "been tried," and so that they could learn themselves it's time to give up?

If I am too suspicious of his motives, let me ask Bill et al.: Why do you lack any suspicion whatsoever? Do you honestly believe he's been on a ten-year legal crusade to end her life ("with dignity") just because he's so very much in love with her still?

I don't know. I don't buy that. At all. I put myself in his shoes: a wife I've abandoned and moved on from, parents begging me to let her live so that they can care for her. And to me-- even if I thought it were best that she die, I wouldn't be 100% stone-cold positive of that, and I think I would just say, "Okay, guys. She's your daughter. I think you're making a mistake, but I defer to you, chiefly to comfort you rather than to help her. I will withdraw as guardian. Good luck to you all."

I just find it strange behavior that the man is so hell-bent to pull the tube. And yes, I find that strange even if I assume what I actually doubt-- that they had a one conversation in which she expressed a preference not to remain on "life support."

A feeding tube doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that most people think of as life support-- not to me, at least. I have to eat and drink everyday; that's not life support. And people who've lost the capacity to swallow (let's say from mouth cancer) but who are otherwise alert and healthy are certainly not on "life support" just because they draw nutrition from a tube.

So why do I suspect his motives?

Because he is acting contrary to how I would act in the same circumstances. Strangely contrary. Perplexingly contrary.

Maybe Michael Schiavo just is the most dedicated ex-husband in human history, selflessly campaigning for ten years to honor the wishes of his abandoned, although still deeply loved, wife.

I kind of doubt it. It seems like a rather abstract interest to animate someone to fight for so long. When people fight this hard for this long, call me a cynic, but I suspect self-interest plays a role.

And I don't believe anyone still loves anyone after a couple of years of abandonment. Things fade after a couple of months.

After 15 years? Give me a break.

This content is being used with the permission of Ace from Ace of Spades. You can read more of his work by clicking here

Texas Democrat Al Edwards -- and you can tell he's a Democrat because he's proposing something embarrassing and the article at ABC discussing it doesn't mention his party affiliation -- wants to ban sexy cheerleaders:

"The Friday night lights in Texas could soon be without bumpin' and grindin' cheerleaders. Legislation filed by Rep. Al Edwards would put an end to "sexually suggestive" performances at athletic events and other extracurricular competitions.

Under Edwards' bill, if a school district knowingly permits such a performance, funds from the state would be reduced in an amount to be determined by the education commissioner."

Now I know what many of you are thinking right now:

"Hawkins, you should side with the crusty Democrat -- who probably reminds most people of the reverend in Footloose who wanted to ban dancing -- as he tries to use the power of government to determine routines high school cheerleaders are allowed to do."

But, no, I'm going to be gutsy, I'm going to be bold, and I'm going to stick up for the attractive young ladies who are doing their best to entertain football fans. If attractive women "shaking their behinds" is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Who will stand up for the cheerleaders against pushy, prudish, puritanical Democrats like Al Edwards? I will, that's right -- I will!

Now, who's with me?

*** Update #1 ***: RailGunner nails it in the comment section:

"While I don't think it's right for underage girls to be sexually suggestive in cheerleader routines, I sure as hell don't want the government involved.

Besides, isn't preventing their daughters from acting like sluts the job of the PARENTS?"

Bingo! Why should the government be getting involved in something like this? It's ludicrous.

Besides -- who knows what Al Edwards considers to be "sexually suggestive?" Apparently, whatever these kids are doing isn't disturbing their teachers, parents, or fellow students -- so how much of a problem is this anyway?

When it comes to defending freedom and spreading Democracy, liberals today are all talk and no action. Charles Krauthammer has the details:

"...(G)oing back at least to the Spanish Civil War, the left has always prided itself on being the great international champion of freedom and human rights. And yet, when America proposed to remove the man responsible for torturing, gassing and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, the left suddenly turned into a champion of Westphalian sovereign inviolability.

The international left's concern for human rights turns out to be nothing more than a useful weapon for its anti-Americanism. Jeane Kirkpatrick pointed out this selective concern for the victims of U.S. allies (such as Chile) 25 years ago. After the Cold War, the hypocrisy continues. For which Arab people do European hearts burn? The Palestinians. Why? Because that permits the vilification of Israel -- an outpost of Western democracy and, even worse, a staunch U.S. ally. Championing suffering Iraqis, Syrians and Lebanese offers no such satisfaction. Hence, silence."

For every Christopher Hitchens or Jeff Jarvis on the left, there are 10 Michael Moores and Ted Kennedys who are so morally bankrupt that if they were given a choice between seeing tens of millions of people freed from a despot or a politically damaging Bush foreign policy failure, they'd happily choose the latter.

Also, check out Harry Potter & The Clothes Hanger Of Womb Ripping.

Hat tip to ITookTheRedPill from FreakingNews for the graphic.

Congressman Henry Waxman on the baseball-steroid hearing:

"Given this problem, we've got to do something about it," Waxman said. (Link)

Look. It's bad enough that the House Committee decided to hold a publicity stunt hearing on this topic. But if all the Congressmen were doing was abusing their investigatory powers so as to get some free TV time, I wouldn't mind (too much, anyway). But why does the federal government have to get involved in what is basically a labor relations issue? Why not devote their time and effort to a real problem, such as - oh, I don't know - the freaking deficit?

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

It has been almost 6 months since I last ranked the best opinion columnists in the business, so I figured it was time to do it again. So here's my current faves in order...

35) Ralph Reiland
34) Hugh Hewitt
33) Phyllis Schlafly
32) Bill O'Reilly
31) Joe Scarborough
30) Cal Thomas
29) Mona Charen
28) Brent Bozell
27) Michael Barone
26) Linda Chavez
25) Tony Blankley
24) Heather Mac Donald
23) P.J. O'Rourke
22) Dennis Prager
21) David Limbaugh
20) Kathleen Parker
19) Robert Novak
18) Jack Kelly
17) James Lileks
16) Brendan Miniter
15) Larry Elder
14) Dick Morris
13) Jeff Jacoby
12) Ralph Peters
11) Rich Lowry
10) John Podhoretz
9) Michelle Malkin
8) Charles Krauthammer
7) Victor Davis Hanson
6) Jonah Goldberg
5) John Leo
4) Walter Williams
3) Thomas Sowell
2) Ann Coulter
1) Mark Steyn

Deacon from Power Line makes a great point about today's Democratic Party:

"Things seem a bit curious these days over at the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton is re-positioning herself towards the center to the general acclaim of her party. Meanwhile, though, the party's dominant left-wing attacks Joe Lieberman, the Democrat who most prominently occupies the ground toward which Hillary purports to be moving. This despite the fact that Lieberman remains a fairly reliable liberal voter (yesterday, for example, he voted against new oil exploration in Alaska). It now looks like Lieberman may well face a challenge in the 2006 Democratic primary. Perhaps the Democrats think Hillary will look more like a centrist if the true party centrists are purged."

So why is Joe Lieberman despised by so many liberal Democrats when Hillary Clinton -- who has been trying to appear to be almost as moderate as Joe of late -- is well-liked by those same people? For that matter, why do many of the same libs who hate Joe Lieberman, love Mr. "life begins at conception," the shotgun wavin', religion talkin', Senator from Massachusetts -- John Kerry?

Here's the little secret that they're desperate to keep from the American people: When liberals like Hillary and John Kerry pretend to be moderate, it's simply so that they can scam the voters. They understand that an openly liberal candidate cannot win the presidency and so they have to hide their ideology.

The base understands that as well and they know that the Halloween mask would come off if someone like Hillary or Kerry were elected and they'd start acting like liberals again. Phony moderates, the base accepts because of political necessity, but real moderates they detest. Remember that in 2008...

When we have the President of Mexico in essence saying that we should tear down walls on the border because it's getting in the way of their citizens illegally immigrating here, there should be outrage on Capitol Hill:

"President Vicente Fox said Wednesday that walls along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as one approved last month by the U.S. House of Representatives, "must be demolished" because they are "discriminatory" and "against freedom."

"No country that is proud of itself should build walls . . . it doesn't make any sense," Fox said at a news conference ahead of next week's meeting in Crawford, Tex., with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin."

Oh, they're "discriminatory" because they keep the people in his country from having the "freedom" to illegally enter our country?

You know why the Mexican government can get away with saying things like this, putting out comic books for illegals, and generally encouraging their citizens to illegally cross our borders?

Because we let them.

If Mexico refuses to secure their borders with the US, let's make them pay for it. We should estimate how much their citizens are dodging in taxes and send them the bill. Then if they don't want to pay, we can threaten to slap an "illegal alien" tariff on their goods, hold up Mexican trucks carrying goods to the US at the border, or cut off the foreign aid we send to Mexico every year. Either Mexico should be forced to fall in line on this issue or we should put the screws to them economically and diplomatically until they do. The time for using kid gloves with Mexico on this issue should be long since over.

If you've cruised the net over the last day or so, on the right or left, you can't help but see ANWR, ANWR, ANWR everywhere. The 51-49 vote in the Senate to open drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is causing Liberal Democrats to gnash their teeth in grief and conservative Republicans to get more excited than the kid in that Numa Numa Dance video.

We can learn a lot about the priorities of conservatives and liberals by watching their reaction to ANWR.

Conservatives are happy because they believe we're about to start tapping into a major, new domestic source of oil even if it will take years to get the crude flowing out of the ground. That means new jobs for Americans who handle the drilling and build the pipeline to Alaska. It also means that we're going to acquire more of the substance that powers our economy without having to pay out our money to less than friendly countries like Saudi Arabia & Venezuela. Best of all, the oil is in the absolute middle of nowhere, so we don't have to inconvenience anyone to drill ANWR. To the right, developing ANWR is all upside, all positive, an idea that is so fantastic that they can hardly understand how any rational person could oppose it.

On the other hand, liberals are enraged that it looks like we may be drilling ANWR. Part of that is because of their free floating hostility to the oil industry, but their real beef is that ANWR is such a remote area. Conservatives may consider that a feature, but to liberals it's a bug. The very fact that it's a godforsaken region that almost no one visits makes it so rare and valuable to them that it's worth leaving billions of dollars worth of oil in the ground and forsaking tens of thousands of jobs just in case someone wants to ever see what the boonies are like in the future. Oh, and we mustn't forget, they claim that the pipelines, roads, oilmen and people going back and forth might -- and I say might because this is heavily disputed -- disturb the animals. The fact that you could make the exact same argument about every populated area in North America seems lost on them.

Now you tell me: who's looking out for everyday Americans on this issue? Conservatives who want more jobs & oil for their fellow countrymen or liberals who are concerned about future back-packing trips for an infinitesimal percentage of the population and maybe happier caribou and polar bears, maybe not. That's not a tough call...

A San Francisco County judge, who struck down California's ban on homosexual marriage, today ruled on the same basis that separate restrooms for men and women are unconstitutional.

Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer likened the division of washrooms to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be "no rational purpose for denying women access to men's facilities and vice versa."

"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional," Judge Kramer wrote. "The court finds that the legal principle of lavatorio proportio [potty parity] offers inadequate protections. In practice, it leaves women stranded in line while men swiftly accomplish their objectives. Beyond practicality, the idea that you can bar access to some citizens from restrooms which are open to others smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts -- separate but equal."

The decision was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Organization for Women (NOW).

"This ruling offers recognition that men and women are not only equal, but identical," said a spokesman at a joint ACLU-NOW news conference. "The bigoted era of sex descrimination is over. From now on, the United States is one gender, under God, indivisible."

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

The king of all conservative dogs, Patton, stares at his paw as he drifts off to sleep -- and yes, he's doing great.

Hat tip to Knowledge Is Power for the graphic.

Before Blogads hit the scene, nobody in the blogosphere was making any money selling advertising. But now, thanks to Henry Copeland and Blogads, there are a number of bloggers (myself included) making decent money blogging.

So, I was happy to get a chance to do a mini-interview with Henry about advertising in the blogopshere and where it's going. You can read what Henry had to say by clicking here.

Pollster John Zogby, a Democrat, argues that President Bush's plan to reform Social Security will likely fail but that it's nonetheless shrewd politics.

"Why would the president risk his political capital on a plan that appears doomed to failure? I think the answer lies well beyond the politics of any single reform plan. And the president may end up a winner if his call for personal accounts ultimately fails. After all, he has raised a serious issue that needs attention--the very solvency of Social Security--which Democrats have never touched. Huge majorities of voters understand that the current system is in trouble. He will, at the very least, get credit for trying to reform the program previously referred to as the "third rail of American politics"--even if he achieves more modest change than he now proposes.

But there is a much bigger picture. The president's real prize would be a significant realignment in party politics. It has been no secret that Mr. Bush and Karl Rove have their sights set on a political realignment not experienced since FDR built a coalition of urban ethnics, liberal ideologues and Southern conservatives under the Democrats' big tent. Like the New Deal, the president's "ownership society" is a compelling new vision and veritable redefinition of a society less dependent on government largess, of a middle class more independent and more capable of securing financial security on its own.

[...]

Zogby International's post-election polling reveals fascinating differences between those voters who call themselves members of the "investor class" and those who do not see themselves this way. We see the table below how this response to a single question--"Do you consider yourself to be a member of the investor class?"--is a far greater determinant of how they will vote and how they see their world than income, religion, race, marital status, or size of individual portfolio.

[...]

Self-identified investors comprised 46% of the total vote in 2004, a significantly higher figure than pre-election polls suggested. The group is neither dominated by the wealthy nor do members necessarily aspire to become wealthy. According to a series of polls we did on behalf of PBS's "Wall Street Week with Fortune," this group tells us they simply are saving for a retirement that maintains their current lifestyle and for college for their children. Importantly, their worldview remains middle class, modest, and basically conservative. They are a group I have followed closely since 2000 and will, for obvious reasons, continue to watch.

To the president and Republicans: You may lose the battle over Social Security personal accounts, but ultimately you may very well win the war over party realignment. To the Democrats: Just saying no is not a policy and demographics are not destiny. Ignore the "ownership society" at your own peril."

And, of course, this investor class will grow tremendously if people are able to invest part of the money currently diverted to Social Security IOU's in private retirement accounts. This is an interesting finding, indeed. Steve Antler, tongue-in-cheek, observes that this confirms Marx: "One's political consciousness, the numbers say, is mostly informed by one's relationship to the means of production!" The chart matches up quite well, too, with Weber's Protestant work ethic.

As yesterday's symbolic vote in the Senate suggests, Congress is at least coming around to the realization that they have to do something. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan testified yesterday that cuts in Social Security benefits for the baby boomers are all but inevitable owing to the sheer mathematics involved.

"The Fed chairman told the Senate Special Committee on Aging that the nation has about three years to work out a fix. "In 2008, the leading edge of what must surely be the largest shift from retirement in our nation's history will become evident as some baby boomers become eligible for Social Security," he said in his prepared remarks. By that date, the population 65 years and older will be more than one-fourth of the adult U.S. population, Greenspan said, referring to forecasts by the Social Security trustees. That would be up from 17 percent currently. "This huge change in the structure of our population will expose all our financial retirement systems to severe stress and will require adjustments for which there are no historical precedents," he said."

Social Security as we know it is simply unsustainable. Congress will have to fix it sooner than they'd like. Part of that fix will involve the creation of private accounts.

This content was used with the permission of James Joyner at Outside the Beltway. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

Don't let Susan Estrich or any of the caterwauling feminist professors at Harvard see the statistics on women policemen in the latest Ann Coulter column or it'll be yap, yap, yap =D:

"The inestimable economist John Lott has looked at the actual data. (And I'll give you the citation! John R. Lott Jr., "Does a Helping Hand Put Others at Risk? Affirmative Action, Police Departments and Crime," Economic Inquiry, April 1, 2000.)

In addition to the obvious explanations for why female cops are more likely to be assaulted and to accidentally shoot people – such as that our society encourages girls to play with dolls – there is also the fact that women are smaller and weaker than men."

These statistics are not going to be a shock to anyone who doesn't put pushing a feminist agenda ahead of acknowledging some of the obvious differences between the sexes...

Jeff Jarvis and Michelle Malkin are having a little back and forth over this statement that Jarvis made:

"Don't judge the blogosphere only by 100 blogs on top of some list. That's so old media. There are eight million blogs -- and 7,999,900 of them that get more traffic and more links and more interest than those mere 100."

This is worth digging into because I keep hearing fantastic numbers being tossed around -- like these from Technorati's Dave Sifry (which I check daily by the way) -- and they give a lot of people who don't really understand the story behind the statistics a false impression of the size of the blogosphere:

"Technorati is now tracking over 7.8 million weblogs, and 937 million links. That's just about double the number of weblogs tracked in October 2004. In fact, the blogosphere is doubling in size about once every 5 months. It has already done so at this pace four times, which means that in the last 20 months, the blogosphere has increased in size by over 16 times."

Now is this untrue? No, I'm sure that Sifry is right and all these blogs are being created. But are they active? Want to know my opinion? Of course you do!

The overwhelming majority of these blogs are inactive. They feature blogs set-up on a whim, that aren't updated and nobody ever even knew they existed other than the blog's creator, their mother, God, & Google. They're not drawing any interest, having any sort of coversation, or doing much of anything other than being an electronic member of the living dead, doomed to forever to be hosted on free servers, despite the fact that there's no life in them.

So how many active blogs, particularly political blogs, are out there? Sifry says 45% of the blogs technorati tracks haven't been updated in 6 months, but that's too loose a definition of "active" for me.

If you asked how many conservative blogs are out there that let's say have been averaging an update a day, 5 days a week, for let's say two months, then my gut instinct is that you'd talking about 1000 or so blogs (and that's probably high). But let's double that number -- just to be safe -- and we'll say 2000 blogs. Then add in another 2000 blogs for the left, and we have around 4000 or so "active" political blogs.

Now some of you may be thinking, "But Hawkins, NZ Bear's ecosystem has more blogs listed than that!!

Well, start clicking on the blogs from 2501 on back and see how many of them are being updated daily. Percentage wise, you'll find that it's not very many (*** I hit 8 and none of them were being updated daily ***).

So it's a good news, bad news sort of thing. There are a lot less active blogs out there than most people think, but that's great news if you're a blogger. It means if you're posting every day, you're already beating 99% of the blogosphere...

You can read more about this topic at Dignan's 75 Year Plan .

Globe hopping cutup P.J. O'Rouke has written a nifty little piece for the WSJ about the boondoggle known as mass transit. It's a must read piece because if knowledge is a weapon, P.J. is armed for bear with stats like these:

"...There are just two problems with mass transit. Nobody uses it, and it costs like hell. Only 4% of Americans take public transportation to work. Even in cities they don't do it. Less than 25% of commuters in the New York metropolitan area use public transportation. Elsewhere it's far less--9.5% in San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, 1.8% in Dallas-Fort Worth. As for total travel in urban parts of America--all the comings and goings for work, school, shopping, etc.--1.7 % of those trips are made on mass transit.

...The Heritage Foundation says, "There isn't a single light rail transit system in America in which fares paid by the passengers cover the cost of their own rides." Heritage cites the Minneapolis "Hiawatha" light rail line, soon to be completed with $107 million from the transportation bill. Heritage estimates that the total expense for each ride on the Hiawatha will be $19. Commuting to work will cost $8,550 a year. If the commuter is earning minimum wage, this leaves about $1,000 a year for food, shelter and clothing. Or, if the city picks up the tab, it could have leased a BMW X-5 SUV for the commuter at about the same price."

Isn't it nice to be reminded that your tax dollars are being used to fund things like light rail lines in Minnesota that we know from experience will probably be lightly used and never break even? Only people who aren't spending their own money, like the government, would keep throwing good money after bad on a product that the public has been proven to have so little interest in using over the years...

* If a corrupt, bloated bureaucracy can't solve it, then it's best left festering.

* Genocidal dictators, beware our harshly worded letters.

* Having discussed at length almost every major crisis in the past 60 years.

* If our baby-blue helmets don't scream seriousness, then are non-binding resolutions do.

* Chosen by 4 out of 5 oppressed peoples for peacekeeping over Sprite in a blind taste test.

* Try our world famous cheesy fries.

* Defeating evil... as long as the cowardly French and the evil Chinese Commies don't use their veto power.

* Pointless squabbling brought to an art form.

* Check with our job opportunities center for great benefits and embezzlement opportunities.

* If troubles abound, we'll be nearby doing nothing.

* You can't spell "unethical" without U.N.

* Honest; those people were raped before we got here.

* If you don't like us, our 156-4 vote says it’s the fault of Israel.

* Ignoring the irony of cronies of pissant dictatorships voting in a democratic fashion for 60 years.

* If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial America.

This satire was used with the permission of Frank J. from IMAO. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

Folks, how about giving my advertisers a few extra looks? Come on -- just a few clicks, that's all I'm asking for. Certainly, if you don't want to do it, I can't convince you. I mean clicking on my ads isn't for everybody. For example, here are some people who probably would not click on my ads:

Noam Chomsky
Ward Churchill
Hillary Clinton
Maureen Dowd
Susan Estrich
Ted Kennedy
Paul Krugman
Michael Moore
Giuliana Sgrena
O.J. Simpson
George Soros

Now, I'm not going to say that you're just like these people if you don't click on my ads....so, hope you'll click on the ads =D

Freedom Stone T-Shirts & Sweatshirts
Michael Moore Hates America
Place A Bet On Iraq
RightTalk Radio
The United Nation Foundation
Ankle Biting Pundits
Crowe Store
Studentcon
Right-Wing Stuff
VitaminUSA
The Nose On Your Face

It's for another scintillating episode of -- drumroll please -- anyone can post on the internet (ACPOTI)! Today's edition of ACPOTI features a website called "The Watcher Files: Human Reptilians, Aliens, Abduction, Secret Government, Black Projects.

Now would be a great time for a Howard Dean joke, but that wouldn't be fair since this is a bipartisan kook website. For example, they ask: Did Bill Clinton Shape Shift? Yet, they also note:

"When will churchdumb wake up and realize Bush is NOT a Bible born again believer? Bush has been 'born again' unto Satan and has never renounced his allegiance to him! Don't fall for the double-speak! You will know them by their fruits! The 13 Illuminati Satanic Bloodlines Guess which one Bush is from?

However, I don't want to give you the wrong idea: it isn't just petty politics with The Watcher Files. No, they have bigger fish to fry:

"We must stand united against Alien Reptilian/Draconian Domination! Fallen Angel Seed that's infiltrated human DNA and taken over entire bloodlines of certain families. These Reptilian families have been working together to create a NWO in which Satan can rule from and control the entire earth!

Wow, they've managed to work reptilians, fallen angel seed, the NWO, and Satan all into one big conspiracy. That's pretty impressive if you ask me.

Plus these guys have all the details on the "The Blue Beam project." Oh...it may sound innocuous, but wait until you read some of the details:

"A fake rapture, a fake alien invasion, a fake threat from outerspace, all to deceive you into thinking the Messiah is coming! Of course it's "their" Messiah the Antichrist himself!"

Personally, my fave part of the site is where they list the names of some famous reptilians. Wait until the National Enquirer hears about this!

"Notable Reptilians: George Bush Sr., George Bush Jr., Richard Cheney, Al Gore, Colin Powell, Queen Elizabeth and all 4 sons including Prince Charles and Prince Andrew."

Here's a break down of Bush's cabinet & advisors although it's a bit dated:

"Attorney General John Ashcroft -- High order Reptilian
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- High Order Reptilian
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson - High Order Reptilian
Interior Secretary Gale Norton -- Alien controlled
Secretary of State Colin Powell --Reptilian of the Highest Order
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill -- Reptilian
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card
Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Mitch Daniels -- Alien controlled
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice -- Alien -- other type

Now it's interesting that both Bush and Paul O'Neill are reptilians since O'Neill turned on Bush during the election. Maybe they got into a big fight over who got eaten the last case of crickets or which hot rock to sun on -- you know, "lizard stuff."

Well, that's about all that "alternate reality" that I think most of you can stomach for one day. So let me end this edition of ACPOTI with a chilling warning from The Watcher Files:

"Satan dominates our governments and world leaders. Not just emotionally, but physically as well..Lucifer uses his henchmen, such as the Reptilians and Greys to control humans. They control them, literally possess them, and now we're seeing the shape-shifting taking place from human to alien form, whatever it is that's possessing them."

Indeed.....sssssssssss....indeed.

"Democrats bluntly served notice Tuesday that they intend to slow or stop most Senate business if Republicans unilaterally change the rules to assure confirmation of President Bush's controversial court appointments.

"Beyond that very limited scope, however, we will be reluctant to enter into any consent agreement that facilitates Senate activities, even on routine matters," Reid said."

The reality here is that Republicans control the Presidency and the Senate by a significant margin (55-44-1). Furthermore, the Democrats have slapped away every attempt at compromise and have broken Senate precedent and for the first time in history have been unconstitutionally filibustering judges who could pass on the Senate floor. Conservative judges like Janice Rogers Brown and Miguel Estrada are being blocked by Democrats precisely because they're conservative minorities who'd be well qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

Moreover, if the GOP allows this to continue, we could even see a situation where Bush is forced to name a non-conservative judge to replace William Rehnquist if he steps down. Imagine the Supreme Court becoming MORE LIBERAL even though we have a Republican President and 55 GOP Senators.

Obviously, the time has come to pull the trigger on the nuclear option. Then, Bush will get to appoint more judges who believe in sticking to the Constitution instead of legislating from the bench.

Furthermore, may I add that I look forward to beating the Democrats like a rented mule with their own intransigence. In fact, I could see the Democrats' hissy fit being turned into THE ISSUE of the 2006 election for Republicans. How many Americans are going to want to be represented by Democratic crybabies in Congress who're pledging to throw a tantrum and shut down the Senate if they don't get their way? I hope to find out in 2006...

I find it ironic that John C. Dvorak, whom I've only heard of because he writes a column slamming blogging every few weeks which inevitably draws stern rebukes from across the blogosphere, has his own blog.

But even more ironic is this egocentric line from Dvorak's latest column:

"Having become a blogger myself, I feel even more inclined to write a column once in a while with various gripes and complaints. But I looked at my readership numbers over the past few years, and the fact is that most people still do not care about blogging. I'm now convinced that blogging is a niche market."

So if nobody cares about blogging, why does Dvorak keep incessantly yammering about it in his PC Magazine column? Moreover, he concluded that blogging was a "niche market" because nobody reads his blog =D? Lol, maybe you're just not that interesting, Dvorak -- ever think of that?

The people at PC Magazine should certainly think about it. If nobody is interested in reading Dvorak's blog despite the fact that he's linking to it from his column in PC Mag, isn't it safe to assume that he's not reeling in that many permanent readers to PC Mag either? So why not replace him with some tech blogger who -- unlike Dvorak -- has proven he can bring in and retain eyeballs?

If the MSM were smart, they'd be doing a lot more of that because if you can build an audience from scratch in the blogosphere, then you certainly have what it takes to help a magazine or newspaper attract faithful readers. However, the reverse isn't necessarily true as Dvorak proves =D

Hat tip to Instapundit for the link to Dvorak's column.

From Lorie Byrd of Polipundit and Byrd Droppings:

Betsy Newmark has an excellent commentary on a Howard Kurtz article about a recent report on journalism. The report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism “purports to show that Fox broadcasters insert more opinion into their broadcasts than the other cable news shows.” Kurtz reports:

In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says.

By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists’ own views.

I will readily agree with that. Fox took the attitude, as the famous reporters during WWII and other wars did, that the Americans were the good guys and the terrorists were the bad guys. Amazingly, many of the other networks decided that was a judgment call they just couldn’t make. I would argue that is bias – the anti-American variety – in itself.

I don’t know how on earth the researchers determined what constituted bias, because the figures for Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews’ shows was extremely low considering what I personally observe when I watch them. Read Betsy’s excellent analysis for more examples.

I concede that Fox’s programming is more personality and opinion oriented than the other networks, but the opinion is expressed as such and a fair and balanced presentation of the other viewpoint is almost always provided. I also admit that Fox News’ coverage is tilted to the right, but certainly no more so than CNN’s is tilted to the left. For those who are concerned about the rightward tilt of Fox News, talk radio, and other new forms of media, I say be consistent. For decades now there has been an absence of conservative voices in the media, so we have a lot of catching up to do. Those on the left should be happily celebrating journalistic affirmative action. Of course, technically it isn’t affirmative action because it is not government mandated. Maybe they would like it better if it were.

From Betsy Newmark of Betsy's Page:

Howard Kurtz reports on research by the Project for Excellence in Journalism that purports to show that Fox broadcasters insert more opinion into their broadcasts than the other cable news shows. While I'll admit that some of their anchors readily express their pro-American views, I would challenge assertions such as this.

Among news-oriented evening shows, journalist opinions were voiced on 70 percent of the stories on Fox's "Special Report With Brit Hume," due in part to its regular analysts panel at the show's end; 9 percent on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann"; and 9 percent on CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown."

As for the most popular prime-time shows, nearly every story -- 97 percent -- contained opinion on Fox's "O'Reilly Factor"; 24 percent on MSNBC's "Hardball With Chris Matthews"

Oh, give me a break. Only 9% opinion on Keith Olbermann and 24% on Chris Matthews? Olbermann expresses his opinions all the time even if only with a raised eyebrow. And almost everything Chris does is opinion-oriented. Have you ever heard the guy ask a question? Every question he asks states his opinion.

And the statistics on Brit Hume's show are very deceptive. One third the show is the roundtable and clearly portrayed as such. And Brit often questions the journalists about what they think is going on with the story they're covering. Such interviews seem fine to me. We can tell that the reporters are giving their opinions and that seems a much more transparent way of doing it than having them cloak their opinions as someone else's view.

But the real issue, which such a survey ignores is topic selection. By choosing certain topics, the news shows demonstrate their biases. When Keith Olbermann devotes countless stories to the possibility that Kerry really won Ohio or that electronic voting machines secretly gave Bush the vote, that is bias. When Chris Matthews has on the New Jersey widows constantly, that is expressing a bias. And when Bill O'Reilly has on someone to talk about Ward Churchill, that is expressing a bias. The choice of topic is the bias even before any of these guys open their mouths. And they all do that. Brit Hume will cover some stories that none of the other shows will cover. That is where I see the bias. But then, it's the same at the other cables. I'd give more examples, but I tend not to watch them at all. And avoiding stories like this is something else I should do.

This content was used with the permission of Betsy Newmark & Lorie Byrd.

Steven Levy's latest column, "Since anyone can write a Weblog, why is the blogosphere dominated by white males?," is like fingernails on the blackboard to me.

After noting that "anyone can write a Weblog" and saying that blogging is "supposed to be the ultimate grass-roots phenomenon," Levy then goes on to quote a bunch of crybaby bloggers I've never heard of who say that the blogosphere isn't diverse enough for their tastes:

"The comment was from Keith Jenkins, an African-American blogger who is also an editor at The Washington Post Magazine [a sister publication of NEWSWEEK]. "It has taken 'mainstream media' a very long time to get to [the] point of inclusion," Jenkins wrote. "My fear is that the overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere ... will return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one."

...MacKinnon is involved in a project called Global Voices, to highlight bloggers from around the world. And at the Harvard conference, Suitt challenged people to each find 10 bloggers who weren't male, white or English-speaking—and link to them. "Don't you think," she says, "that out of 8 million blogs, there could be 50 new voices worth hearing?" Definitely. Now let's see if the blogosphere can self-organize itself to find them."

It would be one thing if Suitt were asking for links to talented bloggers who haven't gotten as much attention as they deserve, but instead she's calling for people to be linked based on their gender, skin color, and what language they speak. As far as I'm concerned, she can take that idea and shove it. Diversity for diversity's sake is pointless. When you link to blogs, it should be because they're good, not so you can dole out a "pity link" designed to fill a quota.

If you want to know why white males dominate the political blogosphere, it's because they outnumber everybody else. There are more white males making blogs, which means there's a bigger white male talent pool, which leads to more white males making the "A-list." There's not much more to it than that from what I've seen of the blogosphere.

More from Jeff Jarvis on this topic.

Content used with permission of Jeff Goldstein from Protein Wisdom. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

Karl Rove, George Bush's hired political gun, has been so successful that he has spawned a number of conspiracy theories in Democratic circles. If something bad happens to a Democrat, you can almost be certain that someone is going to try to pin it on Karl Rove. Here are just a few of the things the left blames Karl Rove for...

Bugging his own office.

"The 1986 governor's race was a prime example. The contest between Rove's Republican client, Bill Clements, and the Democratic incumbent, Mark White, was neck and neck, when Rove announced he had found an electronic listening device in his office, and cried foul. The furore swung the election to Clements and to this day Texan Democrats are convinced Rove concocted the whole episode." -- Julian Borger in The Guardian

Scheming To Plant WMD's In Iraq.

"So you just got to figure that any day now, Karl Rove is going to roll out some grand distraction. As BuzzFlash has predicted many a time, the Bush Cartel will plant WMD's in Iraq if they can be assured that they will get away with it. So that's the first thing to watch out for." -- Buzzflash

The Osama Bin Laden tape that showed up just before the election.

"So now the question is, basically, right now, how will (the Osama Bin Laden tape) affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, that he probably set up bin Laden to this thing." -- Walter Cronkite on Larry King

Having Paul Wellstone Killed.

"When I suggest Republicans may have been involved (in the crash of Paul Wellstone's plane), I do not mean the average GOP voter. I mean the troika that runs the government, consisting of Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld." -- James Fetzer in the Duluth Reader

The Forged Memos Peddled By CBS.

"People have been — people in the media have been intimidated. The media has changed in the last four years. People have changed in the last four years. They’ve had a very very direct, aggressive attack on the, on the media, and the way it’s handled. Probably the most flagrant example of that is the way they set up Dan Rather. Now, I mean, I have my own beliefs about how that happened: it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers. Why did they do it? They knew that Bush was a draft dodger. They knew that he had run away from his responsibilties in the Air National Guard in Texas, gone out of the state intentionally for a long period of time. They knew that he had no defense for that period in his life. And so what they did was, expecting that that was going to come up, they accentuated it: they produced papers that made it look even worse. And they — and they distributed those out to elements of the media. And it was only — what, like was it CBS? Or whatever, whatever which one Rather works for. They — the people there — they finally bought into it, and they, and they aired it. And when they did, they had ’em. They didn’t care who did it! All they had to do is to get some element of the media to advance that issue. Based upon the false papers that they produced." -- Congressman Maurice Hinchey

Getting Jeff Gannon Into White House Press Conferences.

"But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the 'boy genius.'" -- Dotty Lynch, CBS

Mailing a video and documents that showed Bush's debate preparation to the Gore campaign.

"During the 2000 presidential campaign, we were obviously treated to more Rove chicanery when the following Associated Press story hit the wires: "A woman who worked for a media company that produced ads for President George W. Bush's campaign was indicted for secretly mailing a videotape of Bush practicing for a debate to Vice President Al Gore's campaign." Yes, that videotape, along with a 120-page briefing book, just happened to turn up in Gore's headquarters as fast as the CD-ROM turned up in Lafayette Park." -- Wayne Madsen, Counterpunch

Spreading rumors about John McCain.

"Seven presidential campaigns later, Rove masterminded a deluge of disinformation against John McCain, whose upset victory in New Hampshire had given him a shot at the Republican nomination. Word was spread among South Carolina voters that McCain had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock (McCain had, in fact, adopted a Bangladeshi girl), that McCain was a homosexual, that McCain's wife had a drug problem and so on." -- Robert B. Reich, The American Prospect

Revealing that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent to the press.

"I have reason to believe that it was the political office that at a minimum confirmed it and the political office was Karl Rove.It was a reporter who told me it was Karl Rove and that's as far as I want to go right now." -- Her husband Joseph Wilson accused Rove of spilling the beans and then recanted

And those are just the columnists. Once you really get deep into the fever swamps in places like the forums of The Democratic Underground, you find posts blaming Rove for planting protestors at the Democratic debates & arranging for SUVs to flip over so Bill Frist can have a chance to get good press by helping the people who were injured.

Whenever something goes wrong, they just blame it on Karl...

Austin Bay thinks that the era of the hard left is over, and the Truman Democrats will reemerge:

"9/11 marked the end of multi-cultural nostrums dear to the Democrat’s hard left. It marked the end of welfare states as we know them –now the strategic game’s either globalize or die. The “die option” bifurcates: either shrink and die slowly, or submit to a fascist tyranny with borders closed by violence.

We have entered the Era of the Armed Liberal. The smartest Democrats know this. The next successful Democratic charge will ride a Truman-Jackson “defense Democrat” horse—and the candidate will be a populist. The candidate (he? she?) will damn the Republicans for fiscal irresponsibility."

Sadly, I have to disagree. The Democratic Party is too firmly entrenched with the far-left radicals to change at this point in time. When Howard Dean is the head of the party, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the Congressional leadership, you don’t have a party that’s concurrent with the mainstream of American politics.

Figures like Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-SD), Gov. Phil Bredesen (D-TN), and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) represent the old Truman/Jackson tradition within the Democratic Party, but they’re a relative minority compared to the more radical fringe. Certainly with MoveOn.org and the Kossacks becoming an increasingly influential subgroup in Democratic politics what little impetus there is to swing to the middle is being overwhelmed by a tide of partisan rancor and defeatism. The ghosts of the 60s counterculture have yet to be exorcised from the Democratic Party, and until they do the Democrats can’t quite embrace their anti-totalitarian roots.

On the other hand, with Hillary scrambling to build up some centrist street cred, at least some Democrats seem to understand which way the winds are blowing. It’s those politicians that have the best chance of electoral success, which will lead the inevitable swing of the Democratic Party back to the vital center — the question being how long will it take them to get there?

Content used with the permission of Jay Reding. You can read more of Jay's work by clicking here.

Liberal hero Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, is mostly known for ignoring California law and illegally allowing almost 4000 gay marriages which were all later nullified by the courts.

But now Newsom has decided to do for law enforcement San Francisco what he did for marriage. From a press release by the SAF:

"The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) today condemned a suggestion by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom that firemen be posted on street corners in violent neighborhoods, at the same time five city supervisors are pushing an initiative to disarm the city's law abiding citizens.

San Franciscans are being asked to approve a measure this fall that would ban possession of handguns in the city. If approved, handgun owners would be required to turn their firearms in to police."

That's brilliant isn't it? You have a crime problem, so you take the guns away from all of the law abiding citizens and then you put FIREMEN on the street corners. Then if they see any crime in progress, I suppose they can just hit them with an ax or turn the hose on them. Boy, I hope all of those criminals respect the law and turn in their guns or those unarmed firefighters might be in trouble!

But wait....maybe there's a way to handle this! If San Francisco is having a big problem with violent crime, maybe Gavin Newsom should hire some more public servants called policemen. They are trained to fight crime and if the mayor asks, they'll even stand on the corners in violent neighborhoods.

PS: Yes, I couldn't believe that anyone -- even Gavin Newsom -- could be dumb enough to put firemen on the corners in high crime areas. so, I googled the story and yes, it's true. The San Francisco Chronicle has the details:

"San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom suggested Monday that the city park fire trucks and their crews on streets in violence-prone neighborhoods to deter crime.

His idea is to pull the firefighters out of their firehouses, where they're stationed when not responding to fires and medical emergencies, and plant them in their rigs nearby -- visible to the public."

Hat tip to Ravenwood's Universe for making me aware of Newsom's folly.

Friends don't let friends drive drunk, right? Wrong! At least if you're in Waterville, Maine where the police arrest designated drivers:

"Five more Colby College students were summonsed over the weekend and charged with possession of alcohol by a minor -- this, after nine Colby students were charged Friday with similar offenses.

"The police have been forced into a position where we must increase enforcement efforts in the Colby area before somebody gets hurt," Massey said."

So because they're worried about a "significant injury or death by students who are binge drinking," they're essentially going to go after the sober people who are driving the drunks home? How much sense does this really make?

Is the idea here supposed to be that if students can't get a designated driver, they're not going to drink? Doesn't previous experience tell us that they're still going to drink, but now it's more likely that they're going to drive home? Is that not the reason that colleges and groups like MADD hammer home the designated driver concept, because they've found it saves lives?

But now that the "genius twins," Morris and Massey, have made a sober 18 year old who takes his drunk friends out to a club into a criminal, what you're going to see instead are sloppy drunk kids getting behind the wheel and weaving all over the road. The number of underage kids drinking? That probably won't change much. But the number of traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers? Look for a big increase there. Great going, guys -- that's real smart thinking...

Hat tip to The Agitator for the story.

I'm not sure whether buying an ad on RWN was a good idea for the corrupt clowns at the United Nations given the thrashing I gave them for it, but selling the UN an ad turned out to be a great move for me.

So far, I've been linked by Glenn Reynolds and the queen of all conservative bloggers, Michelle Malkin, among others. Plus Malachy Joyce over at HundredPercenter (which is a great website by the way) also did a mini-interview with me on the subject via email.

Make sure to check it out.

Ever since the first bomb was invented 5000 years ago in Egypt by Alfred Nobel, bad people have used them to blow up innocent civilians.

Mainly in Israel.

However, for the first time since then, the The UN has vowed to take concrete action to put a stop to these heinous acts. Secretary General Kofi Annan has promised to think about talking about maybe writing down - ON ACTUAL PAPER, mind you - a treaty which, if adopted, would make murdering people even MORE illegal than it already is.

But until that happy day when all nations stand united in saying "NO! NO!" (instead of merely "NO!", which hasn't yet worked, although it certainly MIGHT, if given enough time), the UN has promulgated some stopgap measures that can be implemented immediately.

So, in the interest of public safety, I offer you (in the extended entry) this:

OFFICIAL UNITED NATIONS COMPLETELY USELESS GUIDE TO FIGHTING TERRORISM

ATTENTION: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recommends that you take the following measures if you are confronted by a terrorist situation:

* Hit the terrorist on the nose with a rolled up newspaper while saying "No! Bad!" in a stern voice.

* Stop. Drop. Roll.

* Surrender (France only)

* Duck and cover.

* Do a little dance. Make a little love. Get down tonight.

* Slip into "bullet time" to dodge the explosion.

* Call his mother - terrorists fear parental disapproval above all else.

* Switch your sword into your right hand while explaining to the terrorist that you are NOT left-handed.

* Pay the ransom (Italy only).

* Get a lap d...[notices dirty looks from IMAO readers]... Nevermind.

* Flee to the Neverland Ranch

* Hey, it's safe. Michael's in court today.

* Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.

* See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Run, run, run!

* Maybe Spot knows something you don't.

* Scowl.

* Wish REALLY, REALLY hard that this wasn't happening.

* Set a spell. Take your shoes off. Ya'll come back, now, hear?

* Quick! Dial 9-1-... [KABOOM!]

* Try distracting the terrorist by throwing a tennis ball.

* Hey - works on my dog.

* Have Calgon take you away.

* Clear your throat while tapping your foot impatiently.

* Yell for help - Hey Culligan Man!

* Try understanding the root causes of the terrorist's anger.

* This should buy you enough time to make out your will.

* Fire up your computer, play solitaire, and await the end. Just like at work.

* If none of the above steps prove effective, have the US Marines come in and save your worthless @ss while you denounce their unilateral interventionism.

World citizens are encouraged to leave additional brilliant plans in the comments.

This satire was used with the permission of Frank J. from IMAO. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

One of the hot topics in the blogosphere over the last few days has been an enormous rift in the Republican Party over immigration. That's a good thing because this is an issue that deserves a lot more attention. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that A-list blogger and popular radio host Hugh Hewitt was right on target when he said:

"After two days of conversations in DC with leading conservatives and officials, it is clear to me that the GOP is the party of expertise and achievement abroad and innovation and new ideas at home, always the superior position in politics. The only serious danger to its leadership is a split over immigration -- the sort of split that destroyed Peel's Conservative Party over the Corn Laws and Gladstone's Liberals over Home Rule for Ireland and Chamberlain's theories of imperial preference."

The reason the sort of split that Hugh mentions is possible is because quite simply, there is no issue, let me repeat, no issue, where the President and our Republican Congress are farther out of touch with what their base and the American people want than on the issue of illegal immigration. (Cont)