This is a classic example of overreaction. Zero Patience for Zero Tolerance just shows how much of a prison camp our schools have become.

And so, an 11-year-old is taken away in handcuffs for drawing a picture of a gun; an 8-year-old faces expulsion for a keychain that contained a cheap nail clipper; a fifth-grader is suspended for drawing the World Trade Center being hit by an airplane … The stories go on and on.

These are not extreme examples, this is regular, everyday behavior of kids. Well, these are extreme examples of adult overreaction to kids normal actions.

But here’s the payoff paragraph:

In commenting on the study in the journal “National Association of Elementary School Principals,” Roger W. Ashford wrote, “The study concludes, however, that even though there is little data to prove the effectiveness of zero-tolerance policies, such initiatives serve to reassure the public that something is being done to ensure safety. Therefore, the popularity of zero-tolerance policies may have less to do with their actual effect than the image they portray of schools taking harsh measures to prevent violence. Whether the message actually changes student behavior may be less important than the reassurance it provides to administrators, teachers and parents.”

Oh. So Zero Tolerance doesn’t work, but it makes everybody feel safer. That makes it okay. No it doesn’t. When you institute a policy, when you perform any act, you need to have a positive result. If you don’t, you need to reevaluate the process, make changes and try again. You don’t fail when you don’t get the expected result, you fail when you give up trying. Not changing the process after not getting the expected result is counted as giving up trying.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I can attest to this method personally. It doesn’t work. There needs to be a positive feedback loop to continually improve the process. That’s the way you make change and that’s the way you succeed. To do something and not expect success is stupid. And Zero Tolerance is far down that road already.

I happened across this post from the USS Clueless, An American in Spain. It’s a letter from a man who realizes he’s an American. He may have been born in Spain of Spanish parents, but he holds in his heart the ideal of what freedom is, and that it’s worth fighting and dying for. That makes him an American in my book.

It reminded me of “The shot heard ’round the world.” High school history and even Scholastic Rock tells us this shot was fired from the village green in Lexington on April 19th, 1775. It was the shot that started the American Revolution.

What was never covered in my classes was why this particular shot was heard around the world beyond it marked the birth of the United States. But it was more than just that. It was the birth of not just of a new country, but an ideal that has been often copied, but never duplicated. Look at the other democracies of the world. They are that way today because of the United States. We were the first modern democracy. As you look at other democracies, you see that most of them have derived from monarchies of one form or another.

When our great country was founded, it was founded on the ideal that the People control the government, not the other way around. Every citizen has the privilege, the right, nay the obligation to make his wishes known to the government as to how it should conduct its affairs. Those who hold office ignore the will of the people at their own peril.

And that is the difference. Someone from Britain (France/Germany/Japan/Russia, etc.) sees the government in control of things. They have some say in important things, but not much. An American sees the government as a tool, to listen and obey the will of the people. Every two years, people line up and prostrate themselves in front of me and ask for a portion of my power. My power, and the power of my fellow citizens, controls the direction of the government. And when I voice my opinion to my elected officials, I am the one who gets called Sir, and my opinion gets listened to. That is what separates America from the rest of the world.

There is no landed gentry, no elite class that hold the elected offices. Anybody who can pay the filing fee and get enough signatures can run for any office, from dog catcher to the President. While the recent California recall election may have looked like a circus, it is the embodiment of the American way. It was pretty clear almost from the start as to who had a chance to win, but that didn’t stop over a hundred people from trying. Some were in it for the publicity, some were in it for genuine reasons.

It is the idea that the People control the government that gives America it’s true freedom. The Constitution does not give rights to the people, it limits and declares certain things untouchable by the government. This is the meaning of freedom. This is the true meaning of the shot heard ’round the world. It was a call to all who want to be free to come and join us.

This ideal is what has attracted people from every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe to the United States. More and more Americans are being born everyday outside of our borders. Most of them make it here to be part of the family.

I hope Oriol makes it. I’d like to meet him.

A thought came to me while driving my clients around today. It may not be original, but I would still like to point it out.

The Democrats and their screechingly vocal special interest groups have a vested interest in perpetuating problems rather than actually solving them. Democrats have been asking for power since the 60’s so they can solve problems such as poverty, race relations and so on. They say “Here is a problem. Let us solve it.” The bad news is years later the problem still exists, or made even worse.

When you look at the poverty problem, the only thing Welfare has done is perpetuate (yes, I know I repeated myself, but it’s the best word to use) poverty into multiple generations. After almost 40 years and $5 trillion, the same percentage of the population is still in poverty, with no end in sight. Well, the Republican Congress forced President Clinton to sign Welfare reform which did what was supposed to have been done in the first place.

Race relations are at its best since the end of segregation. But if you listen to the NAACP, I mean really listen, they are calling for segregation all over again. They want the races to be separate. That’s so (in their eyes) Blacks can get a better chance than everybody else. I mean, after centuries of slavery, then another century as second class citizens, then 40 years as being equal, they want to be (thank you George Orwell) more equal than everybody else. And only as long as there exists this controversy do they have a job, telling other Blacks how “oppressed” they are and how they deserve two bites at the apple instead of just one.

Look at the 9 Democratic candidates. They were all against the tax cut. They all positioned themselves so they could only take advantage of a bad economy. Because only if there exists a problem can they complain about something. The signs of a recovering economy have been around for a while. Economists have been hinting at this for months. They have been cautiously optimistic up until the numbers really started to take off lately. The more economists have been pointing this out, the more shrill about the bad status of the economy the 9 stooges have become about it. When the numbers were undeniable, they switched to “jobless recovery,” and still didn’t listen to the fact that the jobless rate always lags other indicators. So they got bit twice by this.

Now look at the Republicans. They solve problems, then point to their accomplishments. They say “See what we’ve done, let us build on what we’ve done and do more.” They work hard on tax cuts because this is the third time it’s been tried and it’s the third time it has worked big time. Republicans give incentive to Welfare recipients to get off of the government dole so they can be productive members of society, being tax producers instead of tax consumers. Republicans have more minority and women members in high ranking positions than Democrats ever did.

The Contract With America is a classic example. Here was a list of sore points for Americans. Republicans promised, “Elect me and I will get this to the floor for a vote.” Some passed, some didn’t. But every item on the list was brought to the floor of both houses for a vote.

The fact that those of President Bushs judicial nominees that have been blocked are women and/or minorities is not a coincidence. They are being blocked because they are minorities. I said so here.

Republicans solve problems, Democrats perpetuate problems. Once you realize that I’m right, things will go a lot smoother.

This was a preventable tragedy. Concealed Carry Permits Fire up Debate Over Workplace Shootings

Javelle distinguished himself that day by trying to delay and disarm the gunman, 42-year-old Michael McDermott, before being killed. But Javelle might have saved his own life and at least four others if the concealed handgun permit he held in New Hampshire had allowed him to carry a weapon on his job in neighboring Massachusetts, according to one of Javelle’s friends and numerous firearms policy experts.

If this citizen had been legally armed, the incident would have stopped, before as many people died as there was.

Let me say this again: this was preventable. If the shooter was confronted by a legally armed citizen ready to stop this rampaging madman, less people would have died. Either the madman would have laid down his weapons and surrendered, or he would have been shot by the legally armed citizen.

This is a classic case that 911 is a government sponsored Dial-A-Prayer. Don’t let this happen to you. If you are of the mind that you will do anything necessary to protect yourself and your family, I suggest you explore this option. It is better to have and not need than to need and not have.

There ain’t no such thing folks. Candidates Confused on Gun Ban show that the Democratic candidates are trying to blow smoke up your butt.

The bans have now been in effect for almost a decade, without any evidence of any benefits. Increased crime is not the biggest danger arising from not extending the law. Politicians who have claimed such dire consequence from these mislabeled “assault weapons” have put their reputations on the line. If the extension fails, a year after that voters will wonder what all the hysteria was about.

I have already brought this up here. But it’s time to go over it again.

The Assault Weapons law banned a specific list of “evil looking” weapons by manufacturer and model number, and any weapon that has certain cosmetic features, such as a separate handgrip or a bayonet lug. All manufacturers had to do is change one cosmetic feature and their weapons were legal again. When a law can be as easily circumvented as this one is, it is a classic example of bad lawmaking. This law was passed to make everybody look good for having passed such a law, but it really does nothing.

Stuff like this makes me sick.

I am no conspiracy nut, but I found this interesting: Some Relevant Facts About the JFK Assassination.

I read a book some years ago, called Mortal Error in which only the ballistic forensic evidence is examined. The book is out of print, so let me summarize the findings:

• First shot: By Oswald. It misses, hits a curb and the bullet fragments, one part of which hits JFK. (“I’m hit” he says)
• Second Shot: By Oswald. It hits the President in the back, causing a fatal wound. He wouldn’t have died right away, but it was fatal.
• Third Shot: By a Secret Service Agent in the car behind the President. This was the head shot that sealed JFK’s fate.

In the book, the shot by the Agent was deemed accidental, since no Agent could even be considered to have done this on purpose. Again, the book only looks at the ballistic evidence, it doesn’t get into why the shots were fired, only where and when.

With this information out, it re-opens some questions as to the motivations of the shooters, or LBJ was the luckiest SOB on the planet.

I’ll leave it up to you.

Well, it looks like somebody is taking action on this. Congress Targets the Patriot Act and it looks like they are tightening it up. I have already spoken on this, here and here.

The Craig-Durbin act, dubbed Security and Freedom Ensured (SAFE), focuses on four issues: wiretaps, access to library records, surveillance of citizens and multi-jurisdictional warrants.

One of the things that I like to collect is the little witticisms that put essential truths of life into few words. Here are a couple on this subject:

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal. Well meaning but without understanding. – Justice Louis Brandeis

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. — Patrick Henry

These comments seems to be spot on concerning the Patriot Act. I’ll let their words stand by themselves, because I doubt I can say anything as profound as these men.

I thought it was time for me to weigh in on this again. Same-Sex Ruling Causes Democratic ‘Heartburn,’ Says Political Analyst is going to definitely cause some tap-dancing to be done for the Democrats. I have already spoken on this subject here.

“Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to gay marriage. Democrats, many of whom are opposed to gay marriage, [still] favor [same-sex] civil unions, and most Americans don’t see the difference between the two,” Sabato added.

According to Sabato, the eventual Democratic presidential nominee will have to try and parse the difference between support of homosexual civil unions and the more comprehensive issue of same-sex marriage. The Democratic candidate will also have to balance the support of homosexual lobbying groups with the views of the general electorate, Sabato predicted.

This decision has opened a rather large can of worms for every state across the nation. The other 49 states will now have to make the decision to support or deny recognition of Massachusetts gay marriage licenses. This is a polarizing issue for the American people. It’s not a subject for the single issue voter, but it is enough to push an undecided voter one way or the other. And while you can’t necessarily say the Republicans win, but the Democrats will lose for sure.

Here is a wonderful example that the Democrat party truly is the party of diversity. Why Dems borked Estrada, in their own words.

For those who don’t remember, when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was being voted on in the Congress, Democrats were against the bill. The party of diversity, the party the Blacks suck up to, wanted to keep them in their place. Never forget that.

November 7, 2001/To: Senator Durbin
“…They also identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible. [emphasis mine]”

There is a major difference between the Conservative and Liberal appointees that are or have been filibustered. Liberal judges look to furthering Liberal agendas that can’t pass the legislature. Conservative judges look to interpreting the law and nothing more. Personally, I like judges that interpret the law as it stands instead of drawing on their own views to impose on the rest of us.

This article, Dems Tout Second Amendment, but Voting Records Show Hostility shows the contempt Liberals have for citizens.

Here are a couple of facts for your consumption:

• There are bad people that want to do bad things to you and your family.
• The police have no obligation to protect you.
• Armed citizens prevent 2,500,000 crimes a year.

Now, the leaders of the anti-gun movement aren’t out to get rid of guns, they are just against you having guns. They have armed guards wherever they go. They are important enough to need firearms for protection, but you aren’t. Don’t you find that hypocritical?

It shows that liberals don’t trust you. The liberal reporters try to feed you your opinion by shaving news pieces. Liberal politicians don’t trust you to vote for them. Liberal anti-gunners don’t trust you with the power to protect yourself. And so on, ad nauseam. They try to sway you by appealing to your emotions and ignoring facts.

Conservatives, on the other hand, appeal to you by presenting you facts and then trust you to make the decision that fits you by yourself.

Who would you rather trust?

I must be more careful about who I watch on the Sunday morning news shows. General Wes Clark was on MTP this morning, and I spent a good part of the show yelling at the TV. There was so much garbage coming out of his mouth I’m surprised it didn’t pile up to his chin.

He made a big deal of WMD, again. Let’s revisit that subject and see why the democrats are dead wrong on this issue.

There are four facts in evidence:

• Saddam had chemical weapons at one time.
• Saddam had used said chemical weapons.
• Communication intercepts indicated that permission was granted to field commanders to use chemical weapons.
• There exists no evidence that he got rid of any of his WMD.

Given the above facts, taking the position that Saddam did not have WMD would have gone beyond stupid, it would have been suicidal. When you are talking about the lives of up to 50,000 American citizens, how can you not take the position that he continues to have WMD and is willing to use them, or give it to people who are willing to use them against us?

There was several reasons we took on Iraq. WMD made it a #1 priority. It was easy to take out. It is the central Arab state. By setting up a free democracy in Iraq, we start knocking over a long line of dominoes that will cause a large scale positive change in all of the Arab states. We are seeing that change even today. This change will not happen overnight, it may have a few speed bumps, but it will become a large force in almost no time.

Clark also accused the President of not having a plan. You need to keep your plans close to your chest. Talking about what you want to do and how you’re going to do it will give the enemy the information they need to defeat you. So apparently not having a plan is good. That means we are keeping the enemy off balance and guessing at us and our plans. The strategic plan is working. We have our tactical objectives, but there’s a few bumps along the way.

If we do not defeat the Baathists, I give the new democracy a maximum of six months. Just because the US is no longer in Iraq does not mean the violence will end. In fact, it will increase until the new government becomes unstable, whereupon Saddam will surface, the Baathists will rise behind him and he will retake control of the country. The people who are in the uprising are all united, not against the US, but for Saddam to return to power.

Bookmark this entry and look at it in a year to see if my prediction is right or not.

This article, Local News, Shameful Tactics, shows everything that’s wrong with “sweeps week.”

If I was a watcher of this station, I would have immediately written them a letter telling them I would never watch their station ever again. I would determine what local merchants were advertising on their station and write them as well, advising them to pull all advertising. In this case, the station was WABC, which is directly owned by the network, so sending a letter to the network would have been a duplicate effort.

This effort to boost ratings would backfire big time with me, and with permanent consequences. I can’t tell you how enraged I am over this. I am glad the only ABC I watch is Monday Night Football, and I am considering stopping that because of this incident.

A major trust was broken. I hope they lose big time over it.

Here is a followup to a comment that I posted here. Allegedly Starved Boy Did Have Eating Disorder makes you wonder who is covering their tracks and why.

There were four children (actually, 3 and an adult, Bruce is 19) who are at deaths door due to malnutrition. You can’t tell me that all of them have the same or a similar eating disorder. What puts the final nail in the coffin is the fact that now all of them are in different care, all of them are gaining weight.

Somebody is trying to cover their ass and it won’t hold water. Sure you got medical records on Bruce, but the treatment stopped seven years ago. Either Bruce was cured or the new parents didn’t want to pay for it. And again, the other three had no records of any such disorder. Why are they underweight?

The most damming evidence of all is the fact that all of them are gaining weight now. There was neglect that the NJ DHS, and there was abuse at the hands of the parents. I think the “parents” should go up for attempted murder. Slowly starving children to death is heinous in the extreme.

Well, well, well. For once I’m on the same side of an issue with Al Gore. Both of us are against the Patriot Act. Well, maybe. If you read the accompanying article, Patriot Act Attacked by Gore Mirrors His Own Plan, you see that he’s being a two faced liberal. My prior comments are here and here.

Good old Al called for a consolidation of federal law-enforcement back in 1993. Of course, now that this has been made public, Al has two choices: Either ignore questions on this subject entirely, or say something on the order of “Sure the plans are similar, but I wouldn’t have done it THAT [Bush’s] way.”

Scripps-Howard News Service reported on Aug. 11, 1993, that Gore had “drafted a proposal to transfer all federal law enforcement activities to the Justice Department. The new ‘Directorate of Central Law Enforcement,’ headed by the attorney general, would oversee the FBI, the DEA, Secret Service, Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service, Postal Service and BATF.'”

So the “oppose Bush” idea is still in effect, even when you agree with him.

If the Democrats hope to win by confusing the hell out of us, it’s working. Oh, wait a minute. That’s right, logic never was a strong component to Liberal arguments. In fact, they regularly contradict themselves. All we have to do to win is point out where they contradicted themselves and they get apoplectic, ruining any chance of winning the undecided vote. Who wants to vote for somebody who not only contradicts themselves, but who foams at the mouth and screams when caught at it?

This article, Campus left silences opposing views exposes who we are dealing with.

This is the vocal, radicalized minority who will do anything to push their agenda. These people will continue down their path, ignoring facts (after all, if you ignore facts hard enough, they go away) and becoming more shrill as you contest their positions.

There can be no dialog with these people, because no amount of verifiable facts can get them to change their position. All you can do is convince those who are able to be swayed by the facts that these people are full of garbage. Of course, this will raise cries of “censorship” from the leftists, and all you can do is ignore it.

What you must not do is be silenced by these leftists. They know on some level that their ideology is nothing more than blue smoke and mirrors. They can gather people to their cause only as long as you are not out there refuting their positions with facts and the truth. So they will do anything to silence you. And I do mean anything.

Now go forth and give them no quarter, no mercy. Because they will do the same to you.

Lying Scholars Fuel Anti-gun Court Verdicts warns of a significant danger to your rights.

The Second Amendment was clearly meant for individuals to own arms for possible use against the Federal government. Reading the papers of our founding fathers makes that very clear. They had just fought a revolution against an oppressive government and they wanted the citizens to be able to do that again, if the day ever came.

The “collective right” about the National Guard is a fallacy. Get the anti-gunner to agree on the fact that the militia/NG is supposed to overthrow the federal government if necessary, then explain to them the president can federalize the NG with the stroke of a pen. Short of widespread revolt in the ranks, there isn’t anything anybody can do about it. That presents a rather thorny conflict of interest. How can you overthrow an oppressive government if you take your orders from it?

It has also been case law since 1856 that the police cannot be held liable for not protecting citizens. That’s not the job of the police. Personal protection has always rested on the person, and the best and the most effective way to do that is by force of arms. 2,500,000 crimes are prevented every year by armed citizens. in 98% of those cases, once the citizen shows he has a firearm, the bad guys run away. You never hear about this in the news because nothing newsworthy happened. Bad guy threatens, good guy pulls out his weapon, bad guy runs away. End of story.

Don’t expect the police to be there in time if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night. The best the police can do is gather evidence and catch the criminals for the crimes committed. That will be little comfort to you if it includes your murder.

This is not a good sign. Illegal Immigrant Workers Sue Wal-Mart is set to create a very bad precedent.

To give illegal immigrants legal standing is going to open a floodgate of lawsuits. Illegals accept below scale wages because they know they are illegal and can’t complain about substandard wages. This lawsuit (if successful) would give them standing to do such a thing. Businesses take advantage of illegals, that’s a fact. But if the illegals can sue over low wages, the risk becomes too great for the businesses and they would have to start hiring legal workers at legal wages, freezing the illegals out. After all, if illegals can sue over substandard pay, who says they won’t sue over minimum wage? Or the illegals can sue over just being employed by the business in the first place. That way they get money without the backbreaking labor.

Maybe this won’t be such a bad thing after all.

If we want to stop the flood of illegals, we need to freeze them out of any financial gain. No jobs, housing, public assistance. As long as they can get some money of some kind, they will come.

I heard this on Rush’s show Friday, and I even wrote a note to myself about it, then promptly forgot about the note. Well, I found it today and remembered to bring it home.

Walter E. Williams was interviewing Bernard Goldberg. They were discussing Mr. Goldbergs book (whose title escapes me). Search Amazon if you want to.

Anyhow, Mr. Goldberg mentioned three rules for young adults:

• Graduate High School
• Don’t have a child before you turn 20
• Don’t have a child before you get married.

If you followed these simple rules, you had a 94% chance of staying above the poverty line.

If you broke even one of these rules, you had a 79% of ending up below the poverty line. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Beat these rules into your kids, by whatever means necessary. Their future is too important.

I got mad when I read this, Citizens ‘Mugged’ by the State.

These stories and the others documented in Readers Digest are abominable. It isn’t quite as bad here in the Memphis area. Although in one suburb the land developers are on the city council. They managed to convert a large forested semi-swampland into 2 million square feet of mall and multiple strip malls. Then the suburb promptly lost the tax money when Memphis annexed the area.

These stories are a prime example as to why there should be limited government. The scope of government was properly (and narrowly) defined when the Constitution was drafted, and the state Constitutions were similarly narrowly defined. Then everybody started on that slippery slope into doing more to ‘help’ the people. Now we have stories like this.

I do not have an answer for the solution. Armed rebellion seems a tad too much, but it might become a more popular option as things go from bad to worse. Don’t load up on ammunition just yet, I’ll let you know when it’s time. For the moment, the ballot box is still a better option than the ammunition box.

I found this article, PATRIOT ACT: Law’s use causing concerns where the FBI is using parts of the Patriot Act to investigate a strip club owner and some politicians. I am sure there are already laws on the books to use against this gang, but why they used the Patriot Act is a big question.

I have already spoken on this subject here. The Permalink is not working at the moment, but you can scroll down about 60-70% of the way, it’s the post for 9/20.

Sources said the FBI sought the records under Section 314 of the act. That section allows federal investigators to obtain information from any financial institution regarding the accounts of people “engaged in or reasonably suspected, based on credible evidence, of engaging in terrorist acts or money laundering activities.”

If you make it, they will use it.

I happened across this article, Iraq ‘Fundamentally Different’ From Vietnam, Analysts Say and I am proud that at least some of my commentary about my last post is verified.

“We’re at war, and it’s essential that the people of America not forget the lessons of September the 11th, 2001. We are vulnerable to attack. There are people who hate us and there are people who are willing to take thousands of lives in acts of tremendous violence, and the United States must understand that and adjust to the new reality,” Bush told reporters while inspecting damage caused by wildfires in California.

While the author still talks about an ASAP withdrawal, Unless US forces are there for the long haul, as soon as we start withdrawing, Saddam will show up and sweep the fledgling government aside, and the atrocities we have learned about will start again, this time exponentially worse.

I’ve been told that the Marines have a counter-insurgency manual. If they do, it’s time for them to take a crack at the Sunni triangle. It is the Marines who told Iraqis, “No better friend, no worse enemy."

Just to show that I don’t read just what agrees with me, I found this: Cut Losses: Leave Iraq

I can see how this makes perfect sense to the author, but he’s 100% wrong on this.

Back in the days of the crusades, Christians would torture Jews and Muslims until they accepted Christ. There was no “religious tolerance.” It took the Reformation and people like Martin Luther to change Christianity into what we recognize today.

Today, it is the Muslim faith that has no religious tolerance. To them, any infidel (non-Muslim) is worth less than the dirt under the Muslim shoes. Of course, the vast majority do not heavily invest into this view, but there are enough that do.

Now is the time for this to change. Either this change must come about internally or externally. Since there is no equivalent Muslim Martin Luther to preach moderation and acceptance, we must bring change about externally. If we do not force change, there are but three alternatives:

• Everybody convert to Islam
• Christians accept the constant terroristic attacks
• All out war. Christianity wipes out every last Muslim.

I do not find any of these alternatives attractive. Bringing about a Islamic Reformation is the only reasonable choice if the Christianity and Islamic religions are ever going to exist together.

To do that, we must win in Iraq. We must show Muslims across the world that freedom and religious tolerance works. The only way to win this battle is to win in Iraq. There is no other choice. There is no exit strategy because there can be no exit strategy. Just like we spent 50+ years in post WWII Germany and Japan, so must we spend 50+ years in Iraq.

If we pull out at all, Saddam Hussein will be back in power before the last American soldier leaves. It doesn’t matter if we set up a democracy or not. It cannot survive on its own for years yet. The butchery that Hussein would inflict on the people of Iraq in response to the invasion will make the Holocaust look like a garden party. We would lose so much prestige across the world it isn’t funny. If you thought 9/11 was horrible, don’t worry, you’ll get used to having something like that every month or so, because every terrorist group will be so emboldened by our cowardice that they will make the West Bank look like a day at the beach.

Now that I’ve explained all of this, let me Fisk a bit of this article.

Even if such a plan did not work, stability in Iraq never has been vital to U.S. security interests. The threat from Saddam Hussein’s programs to develop weapons of mass destruction was overstated. And economists from across the political spectrum always have been skeptical that Persian Gulf oil needs to be secured militarily. Yet their views have been ignored by vested interests in U.S. national security bureaucracies.

Stability in Iraq is essential to not only the US, but to the rest of the non-Muslim world as well. We must stabilize Iraq to produce instability in the rest of the Muslim world. We must show the Muslim world that this can work. Once that is proven, change will come to the rest of the Islamic world. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. And the more change is accomplished, the faster the rate of change will be.

Saddam’s WMD program was only one of several reasons President Bush stated. What stockpiles he had may have been destroyed by others in his regime, but he still believed he had them, and he has used them before. While details about exact things may have been very sketchy, there were three undeniable facts:

• 1. He had had chemical weapons at one time.
• 2. He has used them before.
• 3. He was trying to develop more WMD.

Now I must Fisk a bit of this article.

To preserve U.S. “credibility” nearly 40 years ago, American policymakers pursued an escalated war in Vietnam — when cutting their losses and getting out sooner would have ultimately salvaged more world esteem. The same is likely to be true in Iraq.

There was no way to “win” the war in Vietnam. The best that could have been hoped for was a Korea-like stalemate. Political control over targets and strategies produced the catastrophe that we all remember.

But we must win in Iraq. This foe will not stop at Iraq’s borders if we pull out. These people we fight will fight us wherever we are, be it in Baghdad or Boston. We are in a fight to the death with radical, fundamentalist Islam and the course of that war will be decided in Iraq. If we cannot win there, beat them on their home ground, then the next battle will be here in America. And that will likely involve a mushroom cloud.

Are you still in favor of withdrawing?

CBS got their hand caught in the blender over this, and it looks like they’ve taken the right step. CBS Considers Selling ‘The Reagans’

“This is censorship,” one source told Newsweek. “A pressure group has had a major network rip this movie to shreds.”

No, this is responding to market forces. The only thing that happened was the script was leaked to the internet and when people saw how destructive it was, people responded. When CBS realized how polarized the audience was over this, they saw a threat to advertising income. They are, after all, in business to make money and can’t do it if they can’t get advertisers for the show.

This was a bad decision on CBS’s part. Sure, the writers, producers and director might be good at what they do, but in such a circumstance, you need to examine their political ideologies as well. I’m pretty sure it was a foregone conclusion to anybody who looked at these people politically would have seen right away that there was no chance of this being an accurate portrayal.

Now CBS is trying to dump this albatross off on another network. The result will be poor at best. Even if there are massive edits and reshoots, the best Lifetime could hope for is nobody (except the liberal Left) watches it. At worst they can go through the wringer just like CBS is doing now.

Fox News has a compilation of stories in this article, Dangerous Drawings, Calendar Conundrums, but the one I wanted to point out is “The G-Word” one. Michael Newdow is expanding his rail against God. I have written about him before here. The tags aren’t working right, you must scroll down to the article “UNDER GOD.”

Future targets, Newdow promises, include the national motto “In God We Trust,” its inscription on money and singing songs such as “God Bless America” at any event on government property or at government-sponsored events.

This guy is a poster child for “loser pays court costs” in lawsuits. We as a nation can be irreparably harmed if he prevails. Our founding documents declare that we recognize the Creator and everything comes from Him. We cannot afford to lose against this man.

I spent 13 years in the Navy, and picked up the fine art of creative swearing. When you use the phrase ‘swear like a sailor’ you’re setting the bar pretty high. Every other word was the f-word. I used it, depending on the suffix and where it was in the sentence, as a noun, pronoun, verb, adverb and adjective.

I have since expanded my vocabulary, and my abilities to express myself. I no longer need to use such words. I do not put myself in the company of people who use such words. When I do use the f-word, I guarantee that it is a special occasion.

Along comes this article, FCC: You Can Say That on Television and I am perturbed over it.

“The word ‘f***ing’ may be crude and offensive, but, in the context presented here, did not describe sexual or excretory activities or functions. Rather, the performer used the word f***ing as an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation. Indeed, in similar circumstances, we have found that offensive language used as an insult rather than as a description of sexual or excretory activity or organs is not within the scope of the Commission’s prohibition of indecent program content.”

We are already upset and enraged over the amount of time children watch television and how they emulate what they see. To add this into the mix does no good whatsoever. Just imagine your two or three year old learning such a word, and how difficult it is to get them to stop using it. As long as the TV is on and shows that use such language rerun in the afternoon, your children are at risk. Don’t let them do this.