Today in America there are very few things that liberals and conservatives can agree on including the follow:

1. Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election (just as Kerry did).

2. The Iraq War was a huge miscalculation and a mistake.

3. Capturing Ben Laden is all but meaningless in a global war on terror (it will change nothing), Islamic terror pre-dates Ben Laden and will be with us long after his death.

4. John Kerry and company are nothing more than elitists, paternalistic, racist grandstanding do-nothings (any minority who supports the modern Democratic party is little more than a house slave bound to the plantation just as those slaves who remained loyal to the master).

5. Donald Rumsfeld’s micromanagement of the Iraq war has turned a bad idea into a horrible one.

6. The Iraq war had nothing to do with oil, but it was no less misguided.

7. The federal government has no business passing amendments on gay marriage or flag burning or English only provision. Either this is a federalist system or it isn’t.

8. Conservatives and liberals alike secretly applauded the Kelo (eminent domain decision) decision recently handed down by the Supreme Court. Conservatives heralded an opportunity to hand over land to the wealthy developers and financial contributors, while liberals scoff at the notion of private property in the first place and welcome any chase to raise tax revenue.

9. The war on terror has been used as justification to erode our civil liberties, though illegal combatants are not nor should they be afforded the same constitutional guarantees as US citizens.

10. Requiring voters to show a valid photo id is not racist, nor does it discriminate against any minority group or socio-economic class.

11. Liberals support illegal immigration because it provides a base of new voters which allow them to maintain their positions of power.

12. English only laws are racist.

13. The best weapon in the war on poverty is a condom.

14. No one can raise a family on minimum wage, nor should one try to do so.

15. Sex offender registries are a waste of time, if these people are still dangers to society then they should remain in jail and if they aren’t then leave them alone.

16. Only an atheist can support the death penalty.

17. A child age 16 is too young to drive a car.

More to come…

Conspiracy theorists are quick to point to the dangers of a one world government. For this reason many have blasted the UN and its predecessor, in spite of the kookiness of these theories such fears are proving to be far less outlandish as Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts has called for the creation of a global financial regulator. Perhaps such calls would not be cause for immediate alarm if not for the fact that Frank and his leftist cohorts are poised to retake Congress from the equally inept GOP.

Cooperation is essential, Frank contends, as markets become increasingly globalized and exchanges transcend national boundaries. Such talk highlights the fundamental flaws of the socialist party in America, it’s not enough to impose greater government control over the economy, now we must have transnational government control. Such control presumably, will bring America more in sync with our socialist counterparts around the world, particularly in Europe.

The creation of a global regulatory body, will further strike at American sovereignty. Not only will the US economy be more susceptible to the whims of foreign entities but who will this regulatory body answer to? How will it be selected? How will it be replaced, if necessary? Under what authority will it operate and what regulatory powers will it have? Such questions have yet to be answered, but the answers spell certain doom for the American free enterprise system.

While a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives will not be sufficient to secure US support for Congressman Frank’s proposal, his elevation to Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee will provide a bully pulpit from which Frank can promote his socialist designs while sowing the seeds for inevitable change once the Dems take the White House in 2008.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cf698368-679b-11db-8ea5-0000779e2340.html

For the most devout of Muslims, it is desirous that women be covered from head to toe, that women remain uneducated and tied to the home, and that women dare not speak without a man’s position.

Above all a woman should never tempt a man, because Muslim men are not responsible for their actions. Women should be covered for fear that men lose their self control and force themselves on exposed, unaccompanied women. If a Muslim man does lose his self control, it is the temptress, the woman, who is to blame, after all men are absolved from personal responsibility in Islam.

Such is the message of Islamic clerics since the dawn of the fabled religion of peace and such is the message from Australia’s most senior Islamic cleric. According to Sheik al-Hilali, five Muslim men recently convicted of rape in Australia were not responsible for their actions because their victims swayed “suggestively,” not to mention their choice of dress and make-up.

In other words the women were to blame for their being attacks. Under such logic if a person in desperation were to exclaim “I wish I was dead,” someone would be justified in killing that individual. The Sheik likened such immodest women to uncovered meat.

Women are used by Satan to control men, the sheik iterated and thus women must be kept under the man’s thump. Woman must be deprived of any personal liberty and are deserving of any measure of abuse or mistreatment. Such mindless depravity underscores the danger posed by radical Islamists and the fate envisioned for a helpless world as radical clerics seek to export their terror on a global.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=412697&in_page_id=1770

Never let it be said that the government can’t come up with new and clever ways to waste time, money and resources.

Today, President Bush signed into law the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This bill authorizes construction of 700 miles of fencing along the US-Mexican border. 700 miles of fencing along a border that is over 2000 miles long? What sense does that make, or perhaps it’s a byproduct of the poor math education today’s public school students receive.

This strategy makes about as much sense as France’s reliance on the Maginot Line in the opening days of WWII. If the mathematical miscalculation wasn't foolish enough, the fact that the Secure Fence Act of 2006 provides no funding construct this fence, is truly the pinnacle of stupidity, Presumably locals will give from their own pockets to build the fence, maybe if they are lucky, Uncle Sam will at least provide some of the supplies…maybe a couple of hammers or a nail or two...

This meaningless symbolic piece of legislation will do little if any to secure our porous border with Mexico and any constituent who is fooled by this smokescreen surely deserves the representatives they have in Congress.

In spite of its uselessness, the border fence is not without its critics, principally leftists who rely on a steady stream of low-income workers to placate in order to maintain voting strength in their constituencies.

Then there’s the Mexican government, which likens the fence to the Berlin Wall, while ignoring their own militarized border with Guatemala. Given the track record of this smokescreen obsessed Congress it should come as no surprise that the crowning achievement of this legislative session is a fence that keeps no one out, with no money to be built and only 1300 miles too short.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-26-bush-immigration_x.htm

According to President Bush, the US is winning the war in Iraq. Is message rings about as true as it would if President Lincoln had declared after the Battle of First Manassas that they had the rebels on the run. At the present time such a claim is ludicrous.

Perhaps, in the long run the US will triumph in Iraq, from where we stand today, however, the most that can be said of the Iraq War is that we have achieved a stalemate and even that is wishful thinking. One thing is for certain, we are Not winning in Iraq, we aren’t losing, but we are certainly not winning.

Iraq is no closer to standing on it’s own that it was 1 year ago or 2 years ago. The rule of law has been all but forgotten in Iraq and savagery has no become the order of the day.

Is it possible to win in Iraq? Yes, but it will require a major shift in strategy and policy, it will also require a more concerted effort to get the Iraqis to quell the violence committed by Iraqis against Iraqis. Above all, the United States must cease shouldering such a sizeable burden for the security of Iraq. The Iraqis must somehow figure out the security equation and the US must find an out.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/news/ci_4552277

Today, yet another state has weighed in on the matter of homosexual marriage. The New Jersey Supreme Court in a ruling just handed down asserts that gay couples have the same right to marriage as traditional couples under the New Jersey Constitution.

For many, particularly conservatives, this issue is about as toxic as abortion. In both cases, they have attempted to regulate this matter in the Congress. Under our federalist system the US Congress should have no voice in these matters, especially on the issue of marriage. Unfortunately, those who claim to support our federalist system only do so, when it is politically expedient, especially when it come to the so-called homosexual agenda.

While New Jersey has made its ruling, this issue is no closer to finding resolution as those who oppose gay marriage will seek new means to impose their moral will on others, perhaps another gay marriage amendment, or an effort to take this fight to the US Supreme Court?

The fact remains that those who truly cherish liberty in this country number in the hundreds, compared to the demagogues on the left and right whose, never ending quest for political power drives an ongoing effort to legislate matters of personal choice, whether it’s saving for retirement or relations between consenting adults.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/10/25/jersey.samesex.ap/index.html

Today on the aptly named “Today Show” the increasingly tabloid-esque program discussed the fact that gas prices have begun to decline just in time for the November elections…the assertion: The Bush administration is manipulating gas prices to curry favor with voters and boost support for embattled Republicans.

The assertion is ludicrous, but the mere suggestion that it is possible that the government is manipulating petroleum prices and the fact that NBC is devoting time and resources to examine something they know to be untrue further demonstrates the silent agenda of today’s media.

The actions of NBC News are not unlike that of a defense attorney who makes an objectionable comment in court merely to plant the seed of doubt in the mind of the jury. Even if such a comment is withdrawn, it can’t be withdrawn from the minds of those charged with handing down a judgment in a case and the same holds true for the yellow journalism that passes for serious news at NBC.

Those who embrace the ridiculous concept of petroleum manipulation are simply too ignorant to vote in an election for dog catcher much less state or federal elections. But sadly they too vote, and what are they voting for, more government, more waste, less individual responsibility and inevitably, serfdom.

The fact that so many people believe these leftist inspired conspiracy theories highlights the economic ignorance of a growing number of Americans.

Gas prices are influenced by market forces, particularly supply and demand. The president no more deserves the credit for low gas prices than he deserves the blame for prices when they are high.
Link to video segment from NBC News

The scene is one that has been repeated in major cities across the country, with a few exceptions like Detroit, where even the most devout advocates of gentrification haven’t dared to venture. From LA to Dallas to Miami to Atlanta, developers are converting once seedy urban centers into new homes for the upwardly mobile, as condos and lofts replace drab low-rent apartments.

In LA where the farce of rent control is the order of the day the scene has been especially stark for that city’s poor. In a recent article appearing in the LA Times, the Sanchez and Ibarra family of Echo Park in LA were highlighted, they recently faced the prospect of having to vacate their $662-a-month apartment, while finding a new home for themselves and their six children. That’s right six children. Here we have yet another example of how the poor continue to make equally poor decisions, which exacerbate and perpetuate their condition in life.

The Sanchez and Ibarra family are not alone, across the country, millions of people, with more children than they can scarcely afford must cope with minimum wage jobs and poor living conditions all because they have squandered one opportunity after another.

While the purpose of the LA Times article was clearly designed to evoke sympathy for the poor LA residents who can’t find affordable housing, the inevitable question again goes unasked. Why does this family have six children? Why is this family living in one of the most expensive cities in one of the most expensive states in the country? While it’s certainly possible that the Sanchez and Ibarra family could have once afforded to provide for their growing family and suddenly fell on hard times, it is more likely that they never could afford these things yet stubbornly and selfishly chose to grow a family in abject poverty, while refusing to make the necessary sacrifices to ensure their family’s survival.

As gentrification takes hold in yet another neighborhood, one inevitably hears the howls of racism and discrimination, while in reality it is simply the free market which grants the same opportunities to the rich and poor alike, as the poor have many opportunities to become wealthy and the wealthy have many opportunities to remain so or lose that wealthy entirely.

In the case of the Sanchez and Ibarra family, they were given $10,000 to vacate their apartment, more than suffiencient to supplement housing costs or finance a move to a more reasonably priced community, but sadly reason is a quality sorely lacking among America’s “working poor.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-apartment24oct24,0,7422913.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines

Illinois Senator, Barack Obama let it be known this weekend that he may consider running for the White House in 2008…and a collective sigh goes up across America. Obama a relatively inexperienced Democrat from Illinois was only recently elected to the US Senate in 2004, but has been urged to consider a run.

Of all the prospective Democrats running for office, however, Obama seems far more palatable than Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and worst of all John Kerry. Obama, appears to have a more pragmatic style to governing, rather than the slash and burn political style of his Democratic contemporaries.

There are some certainties that we can expect with the next presidential election. The next president, barring some extreme political misfire, WILL be a Democrat. The question thus remains to be seen as to how leftist that individual will be.

For decades the left has taught many Americans that they should rely on government to solve their problems, a strategy which over time has become so implanted in the American psyche that it is now assumed that government was created to save us from ourselves, while personal responsibility is to be shirked at all costs. Meanwhile the political right in this country has worked overtime to drop every political ball they are handed from government spending, to social security, to a seemingly insatiable desire to legislate morality, while destroying the very principles of federalism they claim to cherish.

For these reasons the next presidential election is one for the Democrats to lose, better it be a seemingly pragmatic Obama than a demagogue like Gore or a socialist in moderate clothing like Hillary Clinton. Obama does have some huge liabilities and the most significant of those is apparent when you notice him. As Black member of Congress, Barack Obama is already an anomaly, as president it would be unheard of. For all the talk among many Americans of tolerance and openness, quite a few Americans (including many leftists in particular) will have a difficult time voting for a Black man as president, though they will make other excuses to veil their bias.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-22-obama-president_x.htm

Everyone’s heard of John Mark Karr, he’s the man who didn’t kill JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old Colorado beauty queen, whose death has been over exposed for over a decade, while other child deaths have gone by without so much as a whisper.

Recently John Mark Karr moved in to his father’s home in a upper middle class Atlanta neighborhood. The response to Karr’s presence there, however, doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

The president of the local community association (Chastain Park Civic Association) emailed residents notifying them of Karr’s presence. Meanwhile neighbors have made their position on the issue clear. One resident said she would call 911, if she so much as saw Karr. Others were begrudged by the fact that Karr was not in jail. Apparently these women are of the belief that we live under some fascist regime where people can be arrested at will for no offense save the fact that they are disliked. One resident noted that she didn’t expect Karr would remain in the neighborhood long, “I think somehow it will be uncomfortable for him to stay. His quality of life will not be so good," said Michelle Collins.

Karr has been convicted of no crime and is entitled to his privacy. The kooks and paranoids of this neighborhood would be well advised to pick up a copy of the US Constitution, perhaps then they may learn that this is a nation of laws, at least for the time being…
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2006/10/20/1020karr.html

Chastain Park Civic Association:
http://chastainpark.org/intro.htm

The war in Iraq perfectly illustrates why Americans should not be committed to fighting on behalf of others, who aren’t American. If Iraq is to be pacified, it must come under the umbrella of Iraq’s security forces, such as they are. While the people of Iraq may have once rejoiced as our forces toppled the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein, it has become increasingly apparent, that there can be no true peace in Iraq along as there is a foreign military presence, no matter how noble the cause may be. Democracy cannot be imposed upon another nation, they must embrace it from within. The question remains whether the Iraqis are eager to embrace democracy, but it is certainly clear that they will gladly accept the killing of Americans at the drop of a hat.

The US must, once and for all abandon the role of global policeman; it doesn’t fit with our character, nor is it reasonable to expect long term success, especially in an era where every single casualty is micro-analyzed by an overzealous media eager to bring down the president by any means. While it is clear, to rational and objective minds that Saddam was a threat, it is questionable whether a massive invasion was the necessary course, when more covert or surgical options were available.

There are some on the left who argue that the war was concocted for oil or other outrageous claims, such arguments are devoid of fact or reason. Nonetheless, the war has been managed poorly in a style reminiscent of LBJ’s Vietnam micromanagement.

With so much at stake now, the question is what to do? Clearly the present course has failed to render the desired results. Remaining in Iraq as we are will only lead to the further effusion of blood, with Iraq no closer to democracy than they were 3 years ago. If we cut and run as the Democrats demand, Iraq will quickly drift into lawlessness, but then again when was the rule of law ever embraced in Iraq? A withdrawal from Iraq will undeniably be viewed as surrender and weakness, on this count the president is correct, just as Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territories has been manipulated by the extremists there. Regardless of its appearance, withdrawal may soon become a bitter pill that the US may have to accept, chalked up as a lesson learned.

In the future the US should be more prudent in its use of force and in accordance with the Powel doctrine, when force is needed, bring an overwhelming military force capable of destroying an enemy and securing the peace quickly. Rosy predictions of quick victories are usually meaningless and when one promises “shock and awe” one had better deliver. In the wake of an Iraq pullout, be it today, next month or next year, one can rest assured that the terrorists will rejoice, but if wise heads prevail, that moment can be used to strengthen our capabilities in intelligence and clandestine operations and overwhelming military capability to strike at terrorists quickly and massively. Peace through strength is the lesson we must learn, but a hard lesson for sure.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2590134
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6066578.stm
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20614792-601,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1769674.htm
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/World/2006/10/20/2077604-sun.html

One can’t help but admire and disdain Jimmy Carter at the same time. Here’s a devout Christian committed to peace, non-violence and cooperation, noble causes to be sure, but at the expense of security and freedom? During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia Governor, declared Human Rights to be a hallmark of his foreign policy. That fixation came with a price, including a growing threat from radical Islam and a ruinous economy. Three decades later and Carter is no less fixated on that singular goal of peace at any price.

According to the former president, threatening North Korea will serve only to harden the tyrannical regime’s resolve leading to a full-scale nuclear confrontation. Carter’s remarks came on the heals of Secretary of State Rice’s appearance with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, at which time Rice declared that the US would use the full range of its capabilities to defend Japan. Apparently, in Carter’s mind, a pledge to defend Japan can be regarded as bullying or threatening to North Korea. Perhaps Carter would have been satisfied had Rice stated that the US would do nothing to support Japan if that nation is threatened or attacked. If anything Carter should be praising the Secretary of State, her message to Japan was designed to scuttle rumblings in Japan over whether or not that nation should go nuclear, which they should.

Japan, unlike the United States, is far more at risk, should the bellicose Kim Jong Il fall off his meds. Carter’s words of wisdom serve only to placate an aggressor, just as Chamberlains word’s did at Munich.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
-Patrick Henry

For some Americans, including Carter, life IS so dear and peace IS so sweet to the point that living in fear is an acceptable consequence. Such a philosophy, however, cannot become the hallmark of US foreign policy. Carter’s mission of appeasement in 1994 underscores the failures of such policies, as if the lessons of WWII and countless other examples had not already opened our eyes to the fallacy of appeasement. In Carter’s mind the 1994 agreement with North Korea was sound and it was the Bush administration who precipitated the nuclear crisis. To make such an argument, is to ignore the fact that North Korea disregarded that 1994 agreement from the start and went ahead with its nuclear program in secret, revealing it to the United States in 2002. This effort was done because the US revealed itself to be weak and unwilling to stand up to then tyrant Kim Il Sung, not because of US policy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/18/america/NA_GEN_US_Korea_Carter.php

No it’s not the title for a deranged new sitcom on one of the major networks this fall, but it could be the new reality if a new government report is to be believed. According to some experts, there may be a connection between the Mussolini of Latin America (i.e., Hugo Chavez) and the Mad Mullahs of Islam determined to crush the globe under the yoke of radical Islam.

According to this report, recently made public on Fox News, Chavez is training Muslims to enter the US undetected through our porous border with Mexico. Reportedly these people are being trained in Spanish and given falsified documents in an effort to allow these potential terrorists to pass themselves off as Mexicans or other Latin Americans. Government reports indicate that a number of illegals from Mid-East origins have been arrested along our southern border, some of whom were in possession of Venezuelan documents.

If these reports are true, then Chavez has crossed the line from Saber Rattling Lunatic and tin pan dictator to collaborator with terrorists and thus a principle enemy of the United States. Chavez has long claimed through a great stretch of the imagination that he and his government were targets for a US invasion, through his supposed support for terrorism, this may become a self-fulfilling prophesy and exactly what Chavez wants.

The US government is now faced with a serious dilemma, given the triple threat posed by Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, not to mention the debacle that is Iraq. There is a great deal of blame to go around from the inept foreign policies of George Bush, to the defeatism and coddling of terrorism that is the hallmark of the Democratic party and gross ignorance of many ordinary Americans, who are more fixated with Mark Foley and John Mark Karr than the true dangers we face…
Link to article at Newshounds.us

According to the US Census Bureau, sometime tomorrow the US population will surpass the 300 million mark. In the grand scheme of things the figure is absolutely meaningless. Our government will remain bloated, our citizens and businesses will continued to endure the burdens of over taxation, more and more American parents will continue to send their children to mediocre public schools. Leftists will strive to increase the size and scope of government while conservatives will maneuver to use government to impose their moral and religious morays on society at large. Islamic radicals will have 300 million targets in their sights and slothful and indolent will remain steadfast in their determination to milk the government dry of any and all social services…

The Census figures are an estimate. For all we know the US population could have surpassed 300 million last December or last month or even 2 years ago. And does it really mater if the US population is 300 million or 295 million?

For the most part it makes no difference in the lives of most Americans unless you’re a demographer. To highlight this fact, a local news radio station in Atlanta randomly selected people of downtown streets to gauge their knowledge of the current population and the results were telling to say the least (but in no way surprising). Some respondents thought the US population was 1 billion another said 28 billion, one thought the US had only 10 million people. So while our population may be growing at a steady pace, the collective intellectual capacity of this great nation is showing no comparable signs of steady growth.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/10/13/300.million.over/

As other bloggers and chroniclers of Western political and social decay have noted, there is no first amendment in Europe. Today controversy swarms over the French National Assembly, amidst efforts by the opposition Socialist Party, to pass legislation which would impose severe penalties for anyone who denies the Genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1915.

While there is some doubt as to the scale of the killings, there is no question that many Armenian Christians were killed during this period. Nonetheless, the question of whether or not such an event took place is of no consequence, what is disturbing is the cavalier attitude with which these French politicians have with regard to an individuals inherent freedom of expression. If passed the new French law would impose a 1 year jail sentence and a 45,000-euro fine for those who are convicted of violated to genocide denial law.

In Turkey, which aspires to join the European Union, there is outrage and threats of worsening relations over the passage of this law. In Turkey there is no love loss for the concept of freedom of expression. In Turkey to acknowledge that a slaughter of Armenians took place is punishable just as to deny it may be punishable in France. France as a champion of human rights and an advocate for the UN model finds itself in violation of that organization’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines freedom of speech as a fundamental right.

Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

This new endeavor is but the latest in a serious of initiatives on the part of the French government to deny basic freedoms to its populace. To undermine both thought and expression as in this case is the very antithesis of supporting human rights, but greatly advances the cause of slavery.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6045838.stm

This month the US surpasses the 300 million mark and with this milestone social commentators at home and abroad are assessing the implications. According to the British Newspaper “the Independent,” America’s growth is “unsustainable.” As the paper notes:

On a global scale the average US citizen uses far more than his or her fair share of the planet's resources - consuming more than four times the worldwide average of energy, almost three times as much water and producing more than twice the average amount of rubbish and five times the amount of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming. The US - with five per cent of the world's population - uses 23 per cent of its energy, 15 per cent of its meat and 28 per cent of its paper. Additional population will mean more people seeking a share of those often-limited resources.

Such commentary begs the inevitable question, what gives these leftist social commentators or any other self proclaimed authority on sustainable growth the right to determine what is a person’s fair share of energy or food use. These socialist complain that the US uses a large proportion of the world’s meat, paper and other resources, while neglecting the fact that many of these resources are produced domestically for domestic consumption. The implication therefore being that the US, as a wealthy nation is somehow obliged to share its wealth with those who have squandered resources and their competitive advantages in the arena of global trade.

This left wing diatribe, in assessing the amount of trash produced and energy consumed in the United States, also fails to note that the US accounts for over ¼ of the world’s global economic output. What this report does expose is the extent of socialist thinking within the western world, as well as their goals for a new world order, one in which some global entity dictates the use of resources, even within a country’s borders.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1834360.ece

The headlines tell the tale, across the country we are warned that poverty, particularly child poverty is on the rise. We here that more and more children are growing up with limited access to the luxuries that most middle and upper class Americans take for granted each day.

And with these warnings come all sorts of solutions. Most solutions involve taxes, people like former Vice President Al Gore call for a tax on Big Oil, but they aren’t alone, any successful American enterprise is targeted for vilification purposes. Wal-Mart is only the most recent example.

We are told that we must increase social welfare spending; we must increase spending on education and health care and so on and so forth. In these national lamentations over child poverty one question is never asked: why are people with such meager earnings and living in deplorable conditions having children they can’t afford to raise, cloth and shelter?

Exactly who is the irresponsible one: Wal-Mart, who pays a high school drop-out 9.00/hr for a low-skill task like stocking shelves or the stock clerk who has 3 kids with another on the way? Why is it that the poor are excused from the irresponsible bad decision making, which perpetuates their cycle of poverty while the successful are decried? In truth there are certain circumstances beyond the control of most people which can and do lead to poverty, but the vast majority of children who are growing up in poverty today are the children of parents who were impoverished long before these children were born, which begs the question, why? A question, which is never asked. Instead, we are fed an endless parade of lies that government is the answer. We are told that increasing social welfare spending will alleviate poverty. In reality such programs create wards for the state as able bodied Americans become dependent on the state for their very existence. We are told that the European welfare model is preferable, which fails to explain why 1/6th of all German children live in poverty today.

The fact remains that poverty is primarily a derivative of effort (or lack there of) and focus. Those who focus on a goal and make the right decisions, such as not having children while earning minimum wage or staying in school, are destined to break the grip of poverty, while others are destined to pass their sloth mentality down from generation to generation.

Important Links:

www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=26133

www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/15569737.htm

www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060920/NEWS01/609200548

www.frostillustrated.com/news/2006/0920/News/005.html

In a prime example of political hypocrisy, the nation’s Democratic leaders wasted no time in lampooning the president for his policy vis-à-vis North Korea. If the Democrats are to be believed, George Bush test detonated the North Korean nuclear device himself. Leaders from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on down complain that Bush’s refusal to commit to two-party talks with Kim Jong Il’s regime led to the Korean nuclear test.

Such criticism, however, is the height of hypocrisy. After all it was the party of appeasement that allowed Kim to develop the bomb in the first place. In 1994 President Clinton and his special emissary, Former President Carter, negotiated the first agreement with North Korea’s founding tyrant, Kim Il Sung, which led to a series of nuclear transfers to Korea. In exchange the Stalinist regime agreed not to pursue its own nuclear program.

In 2002 it became apparent that this agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, just like every other policy of appeasement from the Betrayal at Munich to the present. Korea secretly and illegally, violated its treaty agreements and developed a nuclear weapons program, later claiming such weapons were necessary.

As the party of appeasement, the Democrats shoulder a sizeable burden for the Korean nuclear menace, but like the true demagogues they have turned out to be in recent years, in true Huey Long fashion, they have turned their failures into criticism. While today’s leftists argue (in retrospect, of course) that the US should have pursued direct two-party talks, in spite of their frequent criticism that the US should defer to the world community in international negotiations, as the president has attempted to do with the six-party talks, apparently the Democrats aren’t the internationalists they claim to be.

In truth, this latest round of leftist criticism is little more than Monday morning quarterbacking and underscores the inherent failure of appeasement, the bedrock of democratic strategies from Carter onward….
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=73978

As we had expected Kim Jong Il’s Stalinist regime in North Korea appears to have successfully tested a nuclear device over the weekend. According to reports, sizeable geological activity has been recorded, consistent with a nuclear test and the first such test by any nation since the tit for tat detonations by India and Pakistan in the late 1990s. It is already known that the North possesses a nuclear weapons capability, a fact that is acknowledged by the North as well as many other nations, so claims of a nuclear test are not a complete surprise.

While North Korea claims this test was necessary in order to oppose imminent hostility posed by the US and Japan. In reality the tests were conducted to elicit concessions form the western powers as they have done vis-à-vis Iran, yet another shining example of the inherit danger posed by a policy of appeasement. Above all, North Korea is desperate for aid, but the nation is unwilling to embrace the necessary reforms that would bring about a flood trade and commerce from the West, thus they must resort to coercion, which will allow for such deals without abandoning their Stalinist tendencies.

Now that Korea has done the expected and conducted its nuclear tests, perhaps the doubters and panderers in China, Russia and South Korea will awaken to the new reality and danger of Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian regime, perhaps then again a new round of appeasement will begin in earnest and perhaps we can expect a little of both with nations like South Korea calling for more concessions and nations like Japan moving for swift punitive measures. Only time will tell which strategy will prove successful.
Link to Reuters article

In the world of Russian democracy “V’ is for vengeance or vendetta not voting or voice of the people.

In a country where the people are pawns of the state such a revelation should not come as much of a surprise. In a country where the media is controlled by the ruling elites, where voices of opposition are carted off to jail, where human life is virtually meaningless, it should not amaze anyone to find that the authoritarian Putin is at it again.

Vladimir Putin has once again found a new scapegoat to focus the attention and anger of the Russian populace and further distract from his authoritarian tendencies. This time the enemy is the Republic of Georgia. As Georgia has drifted out of the Russian sphere and moved to embrace Europe and the West, Putin’s Russia has increasingly resorted to bullying tactics as he has done with Ukraine, Belarus and other ex-Soviet Republics. Georgia, always dependent on Russia to meet its energy needs, has seen its energy costs skyrocket as the Russian oil monopoly has more than doubled prices in a effort to weaken the former Soviet state. Russia has also severely restricted trade with Georgia. Russia also has troops stationed in Georgia and though Putin has vowed to withdraw his troops the process has been excruciatingly (and deliberately) slow.

In the latest conflict Georgia arrested and detained four Russian officials on charges of espionage, the Russians were later expelled. The authoritarian Putin reacted 1000 fold for the offense to his Russian pride. Putin has cut off transportation links between the two countries. Railroad traffic has been cut off and even postal delivers have been stopped. In the last two days, the Russian government has rounded up Georgia citizens and deported them, now there is word that Russian authorities have asked schools to draw up lists of students with Georgian names.

The witch-hunt and politics of vindictiveness continues as the petty, child-like, authoritarian Putin demonstrates for the world the characteristics of a true “leader.” And yet we are surprised when Russia supports tyrannical terror loving regimes in Iran and radical leaders in Venezuela.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5412672.stm

Well now we know why Foley did it. Now we know why former US Representative Mark Foley abused his power and courted teenage boys on the internet while shirking his responsibilities as a lawmaker. As it turns out, Foley is an alcoholic, after all alcohol makes a 52 year old exchange perverse sexual messages with a 16 year old boy. Keep in mind alcohol merely eliminates inhibition; nothing Foley did was implanted by the alcohol but already resided in his warped and twisted mind.

Wait a minute it wasn’t the alcohol it was the fact that Foley was a closet homosexual and as well all know, all homosexual men have a desire molest teenage boys (just as all heterosexual men have a desire to molest teenage girls). But actually the fact that Representative Foley was gay had nothing to do with it.

As Foley’s Attorney, David Roth pointed out during a press conference yesterday, Foley was molested by a clergyman as a child and thus he is not responsible for his actions. It’s the Church’s fault or better still its God’s fault. God made Foley into the perverted deviant that he is.

How utterly ridiculous! What the attorney meant to say was Foley is a sick pervert who’s actions defy explanation and he is profoundly sorry (sorry that he was outed by ABC News that is).

One thing is for certain all hope of a Republican majority in the House is at an end and perhaps that is a good thing, both parties have clearly demonstrated that when they control both the legislative and executive branches of government, excess is the order of the day….
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2523829

Once again the tyrants of Pyongyang have begun rattling their nuclear tipped sabers, this time threatening to test a nuclear weapon. Ostensibly, the North Koreans argue that such tests are needed to counter the threat posed by the United States, a line frequently repeated by tyrants seeking to distract followers and allies from the true danger (Hugo Chavez being a prime example).

For the most part the world has reacted with condemnation, even the typically reserved South Korea has taken a hard line in opposition to any such tests, arguing nuclear weapons will not be permitted on the Korean Peninsula. The statement, however, is foolish,. However, considering the fact that most everyone acknowledges, including Kim Jong Il, that North Korea already possess a nuclear weapons capability. China is the one exception with regard to the international response, China has called for calm and further diplomacy. Perhaps the same type of diplomacy which led to the North’s clandestine nuclear program in the first place?

So why is North Korea’s Kim making such threats now? For the same reason the North began testing ballistic missiles in the Sea of Japan earlier this year, to refocus international attention on the Korean Peninsula and away from Iran. Their efforts, however, will fail. All parties acknowledge that North Korea possesses such weapons and most no doubt recognize the inescapable fact that the North isn’t likely to give up these weapons. Thus further diplomacy and international incentive packages aren’t likely to be offered to Pyongyang as they have been offered to Tehran. Iran, does not yet have a nuclear weapons capability (or so we have been told, the truth is probably somewhat different) and thus the international community is bending over backwards to appease the Mullahs of Tehran in a futile effort to forestall an Iran nuclear program.

The North, desiring such an economic windfall, would have been wise to string the west along as the Iranians are doing, above all they shouldn’t have acknowledged publicly that they already possessed the bomb. Form this point onward, diplomacy is gradually shifting away from tired efforts to compel the North to abandon its nuclear weapons and are now shifting toward containment and efforts to respond to a North Korean nuclear threat, witness the increasingly bellicose attitude of the Japanese.

If North Korea does move forward with these tests, the US should do nothing, after all nations like South Korea don’t want American help in the first place. The US should sit back and watch as the world finally comes to the realization of how dangerous the North Korean regime truly is. Japan will likely move forward with its efforts to remilitarize and perhaps even the South Koreans will take their collective heads out of the sand.

But then again what does a nuclear test truly mean? Its not as if it we don’t already know that the North has such a capability, such a test already confirms that which is common knowledge: that North Korea is a rogue, unstable, nuclear regime.
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/10/04/afx3065631.html

The populace of Venezuela must be among the most naïve collection of stooges ever spawned by man. For nearly a decade, Hugo Chavez has told his followers that the US is trying to have him killed, without even the slightest shred of proof, yet his stooge-like followers continue to lap it up as if it were cotton candy.

Chavez has the pretense of used this point as a rallying cry to champion himself as the one man who can and does stand up to the Goliath that is the United States. Unlike the boy who cried wolf, Chavez continuously repeats the same worthless tirades, only to be embraced at every turn by his left leaning electorate. Chavez’s claims of being a target for assassination have enabled him to strengthen his hold on power while gradually eliminating his country’s democratic institutions. Not that Venezuela was ever a model for the rule of law.

At a recent rally in Caracas, Chavez repeated the now familiar lines, claiming to have a White House informant, who contends that President Bush has charged his underlings with assassinating Chavez before 2008.

Chavez also accused his political rivals, such as they are, with complicity in efforts to assassinate him, all of these perceived plots and schemes are designed solely to boost popular support for the Mussolini of Latin America’s efforts to change the Venezuelan constitution to allow him to remain in office until 2021 at the earliest. This is clearly the sign of one who cherishes the principles of representative government.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2515529

Late last week Mark Foley a Republican Congressman from Florida resigned once it was made public by ABC News that the lawmaker was apparently sending inappropriate sexual messages to Congressional pages. Foley was the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and was a vigorous and outspoken proponent of government efforts to combat child pornography, an effort, which now seems designed purely to cover his own indiscretions. Since the revelations became public last week, other pages have come forward to denounce Foley.

This latest scandal seems destined to ensure a Democratic victory in November, especially in light of new revelations that key Republican leaders may have known about Foley’s love of boys nearly a year ago.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has called for an investigation, perhaps to deflect scrutiny from his role in the scandal. Many GOP leaders have all but admitted to having had advanced knowledge of Foley’s communications with underage teens. If true, If the Republican leadership did attempt to conceal this scandal solely for political expedience then surely they deserve the trouncing they are likely to receive in November, if only the alternative wasn’t so intolerable to palate.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1780549.ece