The water war between Georgia, Alabama and Florida continues…as the Secretary of the Interior steps into the fray in an attempt to defuse the powder keg of a situation. The principle problem lies in the fact that Metro Atlanta’s two principle reservoirs feed a water system that eventually flows through Florida and Alabama. These two reservoirs are controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has been release billions of gallons of water (in excess of the natural flow) since the 1990s to support the habitat of mussels living downstream in Florida. This practice has been largely overlooked in the past, but with Georgia facing the worse drought in a century, state officials have been complaining louder and louder that the state’s water resources are being wasted, sacrificing the lives and livelihoods of 5 million people in Atlanta for an untold number of mussels in Florida. Meanwhile, some environmentalists have blamed the state for the crisis, apparently Georgia has a secret weather machine and has been lax in its use…these environmentalist claim that the state’s uncontrolled growth as led to the problem.

These Fascists keep talking about uncontrolled growth...what nonsense...Is it uncontrolled growth that’s leading the Corps of Engineers to release billions of gallons of water downstream every single day, well beyond what would be the natural flow and how exactly would our state's Fascists have us control growth. Since when is it a legitimate role of government to dictate where people should move, how many children they should have and how large of a home they should have...if this is the type of government our environmental friends want why not move to Russia, "where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy." –A Lincoln

Lets assume for the sake of assumption that uncontrolled growth was the principle cause of the increased strain on our state’s natural resources, (naturally ignoring the worse drought in a century as a cause), then what is the solution, because we have grown we should be condemned to go without water because of past mistakes…is that the generous solution proposed by our Fascist friends? Death?
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=105663

Remember 2005, in the wake of the much hyped Category 3 (that’s right Category 3) Hurricane that struck New Orleans, we were warned by the likes of Al Gore and other environmentalist that Katrina was only the beginning.

We were warned that 2006, 2007 and so forth would see stronger and stronger hurricanes leaving more devastation in their wake…well its nearing the end of the 2007 Hurricane season and once again the warnings have proven to be much ado about nothing.

Just as the with the 2006 hurricane season which saw no major hurricanes strike the US Coast and only 2 major hurricanes in the entire Atlantic, the 2007 hurricane season can also be remembered for the absence of any major tropical cyclonic activity…In fact the 2007 hurricane season has turned out to be the least active of the Atlantic hurricane season in 30 years…but then again never let truth stand in the way of a good argument…perhaps the 3rd time will be the charm for the jet setting Nobel Laureate and company.
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/

Well this chart certainly says it all...George W. Bush is the biggest spender since LBJ, a revelation that should comes as a surprise to absolutely no one...so much for the concept of being a fiscal conservative.

Is it possible that George Bush has been the greatest Republican disappointment since Warren G. Harding?

That's a matter that's up for debate, but one fact cannot be debated: politicians on both sides of the aisle simply cannot be trusted as stewards of the public money and with a constantly expanding federal government we can certainly expect more of this trend with just about every candidate vying for the top job in the 2008 election.

According to a survey conducted by USA Today over 1/3 of adults age 18-29 have tattooes, while nearly 1/4 of thirtysomethings have tattooes, perhaps we have finally found a barometer that can be used to disenfranchise those Americans too ignorant to vote.

Unless of course we opt simply to exclude high school dropouts, those on welfare, and those with substandard IQ scores as a means to save the republic from the inevitable march toward socialism.
www.usatoday.com

What’s the biggest problem with opponents of Gun Ownership Rights? They foolishly assert that when an individual is confronted with a possible life threatening situation they should flee, call 911 or submit to the will of the assailant. Such people feel that if an intruder were to enter your home or place of business one should simply hope the police arrive in time before someone is raped or murdered.

This is the type of mentality born of leftist ideology which holds the state as the sole means of support and salvation and the answer to any and all problems we may face as citizens. The premise that a person has the right, indeed the obligation to take action on their own in defense of life or liberty (much less property) is preposterous after all we are to be subservient to the state anyway.





This mentality is on display for all to see when a local television reporter, Rebecca Aguilar with KDFW in Dallas, Texas confronts a 70 year old man who shot and killed two intruders. Indeed the reporter browbeats the man asking if he was trigger happy or if it was his intent to kill the two intruders. Perhaps the clearly shaken man should have asked the reporter how she would respond if two savages entered her home under cover of darkness, would she gladly submit to assault, rape or even murder in order to avoid using a firearm to protect herself?
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6905.html

As the citizens of North Georgia (and Metro Atlanta in particular) face the growing reality of running out of water in less than 3 months. The states of Alabama and Florida have called on the US Army Corps of Engineers to release more water to supply those states down stream. Environmentalists are also blaming growth for the water woes. And while it is true that rapid growth in Metro Atlanta has placed a growing strain on the state’s water resources that does not justify the Corps of Engineers releasing hundreds of millions of gallons of water every day to sustain the conditions for mussels, as US citizens will soon be forced to go without water.

Where in the Constitution does it state that the federal government may sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of human beings to protect animal species? Where in the Constitution does it state that Alabama and Florida can dictate the use of another state’s natural resources?

The question also remains whether or not the Federal Emergency Management Agency stands ready to provide water to 5 million Atlantans by Janurary, perhaps the citizens of Florida and Alabama can send water as well, considering these states and the Federal government have exacerbated the drought in Georgia it seems entirely appropriate.

Perhaps the Corps of Engineers will finance the construction of massive desalinization facilities to provide water to the citizens of Atlanta as they waste the current supply?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/weather/10/17/southerndraught.ap/index.html

The wildly popular Authoritarian Putin and his fascist Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are meeting in Iran to solidly their unholy alliance. Iran and Russia, the arsenal of tyranny, have always maintained a close relationship. As such the Russians have gone to great lengths to protect the nuclear ambitions of the Iranians, not only because a nuclear armed Iran presents a destabilizing force to Iran but also Iran is a source of great profits to the Kremlin cronies…so much so that Putin and company have consistently ignored the reality of Iran’s true intentions:

Where as only last year the Russians acknowledged the undisputed fact that Iran is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons and vowed to support sanctions, in such an event, but as the chorus of the west has grown stronger, Putin, Russia’s next president for life, has changed his tune, and in the same breath delivered a veiled threat to the west.
http://www.thephalanx.com/2006/04/russia-question.html

According to Russian officials there is no objective data to support the premise that Russia is pursuing such weapons, and as such Russia considers the posturing in the west to be inconsistent with their version of reality.

One should not be surprised by Russia’s actions, it certainly would not be the first time Russia has sold its soul for temporary security, only a few generations ago the Kremlin tyrants signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, only to learn the hard way, so it seems Russia will suffer a similar fate, for if Putin is fool enough to believe that his regime will not (and has not) been targeted by the Islamic Fascists of the world he is a bigger fool than those bare chested Siberian vacation photos would have us believe…
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071016/D8SA9P5O0.html

Apparently you are all Morons, according to the musings of a so-called geneticist. Of course the supposition of the Nobel Prize winning James Watson have no basis in fact and there have been no such studies to corroborate Watson’s viewpoint, but that should come as no surprise…these racialists never need facts to advance their agenda.

Indeed facts are the enemy of truth, why else to such individuals inevitably condemn freedom of expression. It certainly would be interesting to gauge Watson views on why so many “intellectually superior” whites seem to have accomplished so little from an intellectual standpoint…perhaps its another one of those vast conspiracies…
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece

In three months the principle reservoir that supplies water to the City of Atlanta will be empty, unless there is a sizeable amount of rain, which looks increasingly unlikely. In spite of these grim forecasts the US Army Corps of Engineers, which controls the reservoir has steadily released more than 10x the amount of water that flows in to the reservoir every month. So why is the Federal government slowly draining the primary source of water for 5 million people. Why you ask? The answer is simple: Mussels.

That’s right the Army Corps of Engineers is mandated to release a continuous flow of water (in the 100s of millions of gallons) in order to maintain the habitat of a species of mussels downstream near Florida's gulf coast.

Apparently these mussels must be protected from the drought, meanwhile 5 million Atlantans will soon be reduced to bathing in and drinking mud…thanks to the federal government for always keeping its priorities in order.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/10/10/wateruse_1011.html

A family traumatized by the fact that their 1 year old nearly lost his life when he wondered away and fell in the backyard pool...is now being traumatized again by a greedy opportunist.

This opportunist just happens to be one of the child's rescuers, who apparently slipped a fell on some water in the home when she came to assist the child (perhaps she really came to pick their pockets).

Sgt. Andrea Eichhorn, a low-life if ever there was one, is suing the Cosmillo family, asserting negligence, for having a puddle of water lying around in their home, I suppose if your child has nearly drowned and you pull them in from the water, before administering life sustaining CPR, you should change their clothes and clean up any water. Perhaps the Cosmillo family should be fortunate the child wasn't bleeding imagine the suit Sgt. Eichorn would have filed then...

If we are going to have Good Samaritan laws that protect rescuers and other Samaritans from frivolous lawsuits in this country, perhaps we should also consider "helpless victim" laws to protect the injured and incapacitated from being sued by their supposed rescuers (or is it tormentors).
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/orl-mdrown1007oct10,0,6825213.story?track=rss

If only the Phalanx had been first to discover this quote from C.S. Lewis regarding public education...but no matter the message is clear, the monopoly held by the state in the education of our youth presents a dangerous reality for all who care...at lets be frank, the average American couldn't care less, so long as there is a continued and unfettered access to news about Hollywood and other inane topics...nevermind the fact that our children are paying the price.

"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how 'democracy' (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.'

Children who are fit to proceed may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's [of the same age] attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when 'I'm as good as you' has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.

The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway, the teachers -- or should I say nurses? -- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men."

-C. S. Lewis

Dare we say it but truer words have never been spoken...

We can debate the merits of the Iraq War day and night until we are blue in the face with neither side coming close to the opposite position. On the right, we hear such familiar arguments like: Saddam Hussein gave refuge and support to Al Qaeda and presented an immediate threat to the United States – WRONG. On the left we here that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction – WRONG. We here that Iraq was a central front in the war on terror – BOTH WRONG AND RIGHT. We also here that the war in Iraq is the cause of increased terrorism in the world – ABSOLUTELY WRONG!

Regardless of which side you may find yourself, the fact is we can’t go back in time to the Spring of 2003, the war now underway has become a central pillar in the war on terror. Failure in Iraq will serve only to embolden the very enemies seeking to do us harm. So why then are so many Democrats dreaming, perhaps lusting for defeat, so much so that they will do and say almost anything to ensure that reality?

The defeatist (and hypocritical) mentality of so many Democratic politicians is well known, but according to a recent Fox News survey, this paradigm is shared by the leftist masses. Apparently 1/5 of those Democrats surveyed believe the world would be better off if the US were to fail in Iraq, in other words if radical Islamists are victorious in establishing another Taliban-esque regime in Baghdad the world would be better off. And these are the people who will decide the fate of the free world in just over a year…woe to all who value freedom and prosperity.

In the Democratic mind peace is equated with an absence of conflict, even at the expense of freedom and liberty, if peace means living on your knees…so be it, as long as there is peace. Such a point of view, however, should not come as a surprise, after all these are the same people who reject the values of individual responsibility in school choice, social security or health care, why should national security be any different, not when sacrifices are required.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,299374,00.html

An article appeared in the local Atlanta newspaper about a child who had his mouth duck taped at school by a teacher. Apparently the child was being disruptive and the exasperated after school tteacher decided to take the seemingly desperate measure of taping the child’s mouth shut. Naturally, the child’s mother, upon learning of the incident was not amused. The mother complained to the principal and filed a police report as well. I ask you…is this over kill?

Twenty four years ago when a certain Phalanx editor was in elementary school, his mouth was taped shout by another frustrated teacher who had grown tired of repeated interuptions by the young libertarian…Well the mouth taping seems to have done the trick, the young boy didn’t think much of it after the fact, never even bothering to tell his parents. Though had he decided to do so the reaction of the child’s parents would have been distinctly different. Rather than complaining to the principal or filing police reports, the child’s parents likely would have punished the child for being disruptive and misbehaving in school.

Today’s children have no concept of what is appropriate behavior in the classroom and in many cases parents have become enablers (very often encouraging such behavior through their unwillingness to actually parent). Today parents will defend almost anything their child does, no matter how outrageous or disruptive it may be.

While the teacher may not be excused for their actions, most parents probably would object, though filing a police report seems a bit extreme, but the incident highlights a major problem with children today. Perhaps the teacher may have feared the parents wouldn’t deal with the child’s behavior. Most teachers didn’t didn’t sign on to become a teacher to assume the role of surrogate parent, discipline is a parental matter. I’ve seen students who will curse at their parents in the presence of a teacher and naturally the parents did nothing. So what’s a teacher to do when children don’t even respect their own parents?
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2007/10/03/tape_1004_web.html

An Op/Ed appearing in a recent edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Emory University Professor Lucas Carpenter argued that maintain the nation’s public school system was essential for American society.

Professor Carpenter incorrectly noted that chief among the critics of America’s public schools are members of the GOP who decry these institutions, in reality the Republicans have been equally culpable in enabling the lax quality of education.

They view public education as propagating all kinds of "politically correct" beliefs that denigrate individual achievement, disparage religion and encourage a secular lifestyle where government is the sole source of security and moral authority. They want public schools that convey conservative Judeo-Christian beliefs and "family values" in the curriculum along with a jingoistic patriotism and harsh discipline that produce an easily manipulated electorate.

Carpenter’s assessment of the Republican view is largely correct, there are those that hold such views and there certainly are those on the opposite end of the spectrum who want nothing more than to see this vision fulfilled. In reality, the vast majority of Americans want neither reality. The simple fact that a school is funded and operated by the government doesn’t mean it is inherently evil, nor would it be appropriate for a public school to convey “Judeo-Christian” beliefs or any other faith for that matter.

Public schools, however, are far from the utopian panacea those of the left would have us believe. The simple fact remains that American children are far less prepared for the rigors of the modern world than most children in other post-industrialized nations. In spite of the fact that our public schools spend far more per pupil than most every other nation on other, our children lag behind in math, science and reading comprehension, yet individuals like Lucas Carpenter deride the push for school choice, arguing that it will harm the public schools. Which is more important the public school as an institution or the students these schools were supposedly designed to educate. Why must American children remain trapped in a system of failure and mediocrity, just to protect an institution? Such institutions aren’t worth saving at such a cost to our nation’s survival.

Perhaps if our nation’s schools were the envy of the world such an argument would have some merit, our schools, however, are far from the envy of the world, but the laughing stock. Why in such hotbeds of socialism like western Europe is there school choice but not in America? Why? Why must American children be used a guinea pigs to prove a political point?

…the biggest threat to public education comes from the conservative true believers in the power of the free market to transform society. These free-market fundamentalists want to privatize public education, making it possible for entrepreneurs to assume control and compete with one another for financial profit. However, this commodification of education will invariably produce a plethora of unregulated education "products" of varying degrees of secularism and religiosity, pedagogical orientation and, most significantly, expense.

Translation: Parents cannot be trusted to make the best decision with regard to education on behalf of their children, only our all knowing, all powerful paternalistic national government has the wherewithal to make such decisions.

Even with the Republicans' highly touted voucher systems, which ostensibly provide for equality of access, the inevitable result will still be that more money will buy a better education and the poor will be left with what's cheapest.

If more money buys the best education one certainly can’t tell based on the performance of our nation’s public schools, which spend more on average than most private or home school education environment with paltry results.
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/opinion/stories/2007/09/19/schoolsed0919.html