Three Men and a Blog

Paul Begala Is an Idiot

2005-07-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

One of Clinton's closest advisiors, a television "pundit" and most recently an invited speaker at a young liberals meeting is out of his mind. The fact that he was invited to speak by this group makes them insane by association. Just why do I say he is an idiot and likely lacks serious reality testing capability? Mostly because of the following rant, which apparenlty summs up his view of the Bush whitehouse policy on everything from the war on terror to taxes to social issues:

Begala's presence on the panel created a stir when he declared that Republicans had "done a p***-poor job of defending" the U.S.

Republicans, he said, "want to kill us.

"I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on Sept. 11, 2001. "I had friends on that plane; this is deadly serious to me," Begala said.

"They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Begala said. "That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that."

So now you know where the crazy left stands. And they wonder why they have a hard time connecting with the average American?

Karl Rove, Whistleblower He told the truth about Joe Wilson

2005-07-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

OpinionJournal adequately sums up the backassward view that the mainstream press has been serving up regarding Joe Wilson, his wife and his attack on the Bush campaign disguised as a CIA report.

Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."
In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.

No More Complaining - Logan Darrow Clements of Freestar Media Takes Action Against Judicial Misaction

2005-06-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

After tearing down personal property rights with the Kelo/Eminent domain case, many of us wondered just how to get back at the Supreme Court for their supreme elitism. Logan Darrow has done it with actions. He has filed a request to condemn the land that Justice Souter's house sets on with the intention of building a hotel and museum dedicated to the continuing loss of liberty in this country. Let's hope he succeeds.

Press Release
For Release Monday, June 27 to New Hampshire media
For Release Tuesday, June 28 to all other media

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."

Clements' plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.

# # #

Logan Darrow Clements
Freestar Media, LLC

Phone 310-593-4843
logan@freestarmedia.com
http://www.freestarmedia.com

Excellent!

Oliver North: Words have meaning

2005-06-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

Those on the far left are employing the same kind of rhetoric and tactics that worked during the Vietnam War -- where overheated rhetoric and the most vile slander are acceptable if they tarnish the president and hurt our war effort. They have no shame. They play politics like the Islamo-fascists conduct warfare -- dirty, ruthless and reckless, with no discernible rules, no regard for fact and no compunction about stabbing people in the back.

So true. And only now are those who played the same game during Vietnam (ie Jane Fonda) realizing just how dangerous their rhetoric was.

Larry Elder: If Bush is dumb...?

2005-06-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

It just keeps getting better. Not only did Kerry make up his 'war stories', his intellectual prowess was also a big lie.

After promising during the campaign and then refusing to do so, Kerry finally signed Form 180, which authorized the military to release all of his records. (One of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, John O'Neill, says the records are incomplete and mysteries still remain.) The recently released records appear to back up Kerry's account of his activities and injuries in Vietnam.

Kerry's military records also include his college grades. (The New Yorker printed Bush's grades in 1999, but Kerry consistently refused to release his.) It turns out that "dummy" and fellow Yalie George W. Bush made better grades than did brainy, intellectual John Kerry. Under Yale's grading system at the time Bush and Kerry attended, grades from 90 to 100 meant an A, 80 to 89 a B, 70 to 79 a C, and 60 to 69 a D. Kerry received five Ds, including four in his freshman year, with a D in political science! Bush, during his time at Yale, got one D, in astronomy. Overall, Kerry finished Yale with a cumulative score of 76. Bush finished with a score of 77. So who's the dummy?

In fact, Bush himself jokes about his mediocre grades. At the 2001 Yale commencement ceremony, the president said, "To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students -- I say, you, too, can be president of the United States." Can we expect similar self-deprecating humor from Kerry?

For what it's worth, Thomas Stanley, author of "The Millionaire Mind," says that most millionaires come from the ranks of B and C students. Their success comes from the "people skills" to manage, lead and inspire. That sounds like poor George W. He got elected and re-elected governor of Texas. And then elected and re-elected president of the United States.

Not bad . . . for a "dummy."

This is the perfect example of the elite left - they think they are smarter and better than the average person.

Congress should give workers back their extra Social Security taxes - WSJ.com

2005-06-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

A very interesting idea to reform social security which has a twist on the personal accounts.

Instead of spending this retirement money, the reformers would allow individual workers to divert every surplus Social Security dollar--from now until the extra cash runs out in 2016--into personal retirement accounts.

For the past 20 or so years, the federal government has collected $1.67 trillion more in payroll taxes (and accumulated interest) than it has paid out in retirement benefits to senior citizens. But not a penny of this money has been saved for any worker's retirement

DeMint-Ryan would allow workers to create individual personal retirement accounts and place marketable government bonds worth their portion of the Social Security surplus into these accounts. Think of this as creating 140 million "lock box" accounts, one for every American worker. After three years, workers could trade these Treasury bonds and invest instead in higher-return mutual funds containing a combination of corporate stocks and bonds.

As for the politics, this calls the bluff of Democrats who claim to be the sole protectors of the Social Security trust fund but have done nothing to stop depleting it. Do they want to protect it or not? And by investing only surplus payroll taxes into private accounts, the proposal blunts the (specious but politically potent) attacks from AARP and the left that personal accounts will endanger the program's solvency. The DeMint-Ryan plan enhances solvency by preventing raids on the trust fund, which is a practice that has long infuriated senior citizens.

Softball: On the fast track UA's Hollowell, Lowe selected for U.S. National Team

2005-06-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Candrea knows how to pick em!

University of Arizona softball players Caitlin Lowe and Alicia Hollowell will play this summer at the sport's highest level.

Lowe, who will be a junior outfielder, and Hollowell, a senior pitcher, were two of 18 players selected for the U.S. National Team, which will be led by UA coach Mike Candrea.

Two former Wildcats, both holdovers from the 2004 gold-medal winning Olympic team, are also on the team - pitcher Jennie Finch and infielder Lovie Jung.

Forty-five players competed at the camp, with 16 players selected for the elite team, which also will compete internationally this summer.

Two other former Arizona players also were chosen for that squad - outfielder Nicole Giordano (who was an alternate on last summer's Olympic team) and catcher Mackenzie Vandergeest.

Cheer Up, Conservatives!

2005-06-22T20:03:00.000-07:00

An interesting piece putting into perspective some recent conservative based criticism that things aren't going our way.

The biggest advantage of all for conservatives is that they have a lock on the American dream. America is famously an idea more than a geographical expression, and that idea seems to be the province of the right. A recent Pew Research Center Survey, "Beyond Red Versus Blue," shows that the Republicans are more optimistic, convinced that the future will be better than the past and that they can determine their own futures. Democrats, on the other hand, have a European belief that "fate," or, in modern parlance, social circumstances, determines people's lot in life. (And judging by some recent series in newspapers on the subject, the party appears to have staunch allies in American newsrooms at least.)

If the American dream means anything, it means finding a plot of land where you can shape your destiny and raise your children. Those pragmatic dreamers look ever more Republican. Mr. Bush walloped Mr. Kerry among people who were married with children. He also carried 25 of the top 26 cities in terms of white fertility. Mr. Kerry carried the bottom 16. San Francisco, the citadel of liberalism, has the lowest proportion of people under 18 in the country (14.5%).

So cheer up conservatives. You have the country's most powerful political party on your side. You have control of the market for political ideas. You have the American dream. And, despite your bout of triste post coitum, you are still outbreeding your rivals. That counts for more than the odd setback in the Senate.

Michelle Malkin: Debunking another Gitmo myth

2005-06-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Malkin, addressing the complete misrepresentation by the media and both sides of the isle with respect to gitmo.

Treating foreign terrorists like American shoplifters -- with full access to civilian lawyers, classified intelligence, and all the attendant rights of a normal jury trial -- is a surefire recipe for another 9/11. That is why the Bush administration fought so hard to erect an alternative tribunal system -- long established in wartime -- in the first place.

Every single detainee currently being held at Guantanamo Bay has received a hearing before a military tribunal. Every one. As a result of those hearings, more than three dozen Gitmo detainees have been released. The hearings, called "Combatant Status Review Tribunals," are held before a board of officers, and permit the detainees to contest the facts on which their classification as "enemy combatants" is based.

Gitmo-bashers attack the Bush administration's failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions. But as legal analysts Lee Casey and Darin Bartram told me, "the status hearings are, in fact, fully comparable to the 'Article V' hearings required by the Geneva Conventions, in situations where those treaties apply, and are also fully consistent with the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in the Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case."

Walter E. Williams: Do we want this?

2005-06-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

In response to those who think that the Canadian socialized health care system is a good idea...

"I wonder just how many Americans would like to import Canada's healthcare system, which prohibits the purchase of private insurance and private healthcare services. In British Columbia, for example, Bill 82 provides that a physician can be fined up to $20,000 for accepting fees for surgery. In my book, it's medical Naziism for government to prohibit a person who wishes to purchase medical services from doing so. But let's not look down our noses at our northern neighbors, for we too are well along the road toward medical Naziism.

Plaintiffs Jacques Chaoulli, a physician, and his patient, George Zeliotis, launched their legal challenge to the government's monopolized healthcare system after having had to wait a year for hip-replacement surgery. In finding for the plaintiffs, Canada's high court said, "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital healthcare result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness." Writing for the majority, Justice Marie Deschamps said, "Many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times."

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute keeps track of Canadian waiting times for various medical procedures. According to the Fraser Institute's 14th annual edition of "Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (2004)," total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 17.7 weeks in 2003 to 17.9 weeks in 2004. For example, depending on which Canadian province, an MRI requires a wait between 7 and 33 weeks. "

Radio DJ wins $10.6 million in stink over perfume

2005-05-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

This pisses me off in so many ways, I can barely type. $7 million for punitive damages and $2 million in mental damages - you would think this women was beaten and then forced to watch the slow torture of her entire family. I wonder who is going to pay for this malingerer's lottery win - Infinity Broadcasting, or the consumer?

Democratic Senator Kennedy Condemns Filibuster

2005-05-23T03:49:00.000-07:00

Radioblogger, Hugh Hewitt's red headed stepchild, has posted transcripts of Teddy Kennedy, on the senate floor, denouncing the use of filibusters against judicial nominees and calling for the senate to stick to the traditional (and constitutional) 'advise and consent.' As can be expected, this was a PB (pre-Bush) speech about the republicans holding up nominees in committee. As usual, 'the process' is only sacred when it is working in their favor. This week the dems should search long and hard before refusing an up or down vote on these judges and their subsequent threat to shut down the senate. If this happens and one obstructionist policy is followed by another - god help them in the next election cycle.

Charles Krauthammer Sets The Record Straight on Bush, The Democrats And Social Security Reform

2005-05-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

As usual, the democrats have done nothing but obstruct and object without offering any alternatives. Bush has now offered at least four plans for keeping Social Security solvent - the democrats have offered none. Not only is their claims that there is nothing to worry about now with Social Security laughable, it goes right in the face of claims made by Clinton on other high ranking Democrats just five years ago. In order to seem less obstructionist, the democrats claim they are willing to negotiate - but only if personal accounts are off the table. I'm not sure what the dems think 'negotiation' means but demanding that one of the cornerstones of the Bush plan be thrown out before talks begin is no type of honest or genuine negotiation.

Krauthammer points out that all the proposing so far has been by the president and received by an obstinate left:

To be sure, the president started all this on his own, first proposing personal accounts. Democrats objected that this did nothing about the really important issue, namely solvency. So Bush offered five solvency alternatives in his State of the Union address (four first proposed by Democrats) and welcomed any other ideas. The Democrats answered: "You go first." On April 28 the president did go first, proposing a remarkably progressive reduction in the rate of growth of benefits.

The Democratic leadership, supported by misleading headlines around the country, denounced these "cuts" as the work of a party that never did believe in Social Security and now wants to kill it.

The dems are in such a knee-jerk reflex mode against everything Bush proposes, they do not even realize he has proposed a system where the rich pay more and get less back:

Yes, these are cuts, but only in the growth of promised benefits in the future -- based on formulas written in the pre-baby boomer retirement era that so inflate benefits that they are entirely unsustainable. They cannot possibly be paid by the taxes of the fewer workers in the future who will be supporting the many retirees.

To simplify somewhat, the amount of your first check upon retirement is based on your average wages during your lifetime. Then a formula adjusts that number to wage inflation -- which generally amounts to price inflation plus about 1 percent annually. The Bush proposal is to preserve this ever-increasing, ever-compounding benefit formula for poorer Americans, while gradually phasing out the extra 1 percent as you move to wealthy wage earners.

No one gets cut -- either in nominal or real dollars. Everyone gets at least as much or more than any retiree today, with the poor getting progressively more every year.

So everyone continues to get an increase in their benefits. The wealthy do not get as much of an increase but continue paying the same social security taxes. The poor and middle class get the same increase as always.

Don't be fooled by the word 'cut'. Remember that in Washington D.C., if a plan calls to double funding of a project every year and then a decision is made to only increase the budget by 80% - this will be decried as a cut, despite the fact this means a one million dollar budget would still increase by $800,000.00. To be sure, this is not a cut to the average citizen.

Finally, as to the solvency question: while the democrats want you to put your head in the sand and not worry about the impending doom, the problem is closer than we may think:

And Democrats have a wonderful smoke screen. These "cuts" are not only destructive but unnecessary, they claim, because the insolvency does not kick in until sometime in mid-century -- the Democrats' latest comically precise number is 2052 -- when the "trust fund" runs out. (So much for their month-ago concern about solvency.)

But things are worse than that. The fiscal problem starts to kick in not in 2017 but in 2009. The Social Security surplus, which Congress happily spends every year, peaks in 2008. Which means that starting in four years (and for every year thereafter) a budgetary squeeze begins, requiring new taxation or new borrowing.

If in 2010 tax revenue and spending remain exactly the same as in 2009, the Treasury will not end up with the same size deficit. It will end up with a larger deficit, because the amount of money it was receiving free and "borrowed" from the Social Security surplus will have shrunk.

That surplus shrinks from its peak in 2008 to zero in 2017 and goes negative after that. That is a very serious fiscal problem that starts not in 50 years, not even in 12 years, but in four.

This is a huge problem. Yet not one plan, proposal or suggestion by the lefty democrats. Instead they are filibustering in the congress and using scare tactics with the elderly and poor citizenry to block this necessary reform. We can only hope that the obvious politics of obstruction are noticed by Jane and Joe voter.

Candrea Named USOC Coach of the Year

2005-05-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

More accolades for the man who has built the biggest UA dynasty. Don't get me wrong, a small part of me will die the day Lute Olson retires, but there is just no denying that the strongest sports dynasty at the UA for at least the last 10 years has been the softball team. Mike Candrea took over 20 years ago and has 1000 vicotries and an 0.85 winning percentage to show for his hard work and first class coaching.

Candrea by the Numbers

Year at Arizona: 20
Overall record: 982-191
Pac-10 games: 298-73
NCAA games: 95-26
NCAA Regional : 50-6
WCWS games: 45-20
WS Champs: 6
Olympic Gold: 1
All-Americans: 69

Just don't tell anyone about this:
The Candrea File
Years as a Coach: 29
Birth date: Aug. 29, 1966, New Orleans, La.
College: Arizona State, 1978
Advanced Degree: Master’s, ASU, 1980
Children: Son, Mikel (25), daughter, Michelle (23)

Boston Globe's Seal Hunt Story - Another MSM Blunder

2005-04-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin reports on the seal hunt story many of us read last week. It seems as if the greusom story of the seas running red with baby seal blood was reported and published in the Boston Globe - a few days before the hunt opened - by an author with a source who was not there. Apparently, the seal hunt opening day was postponed due to weather but the fact-checkers at the Globe missed that and published the story anyway which included descriptions of apparent eye-witness descriptions of the event. Not surprisingly, the article is no longer available at BostonGlobe.com but here is the copy from the google cache:

Canadian seal hunt resumes
Animal rights organizations protest strongly

By Barbara Stewart, Globe Correspondent | April 13, 2005

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia -- Over the vigorous protests of international animal-welfare organizations, the largest seal hunt in a half-century resumed yesterday off Newfoundland and Labrador. Hunters on about 300 boats converged on ice floes, shooting harp seal cubs by the hundreds, as the ice and water turned red. Most of the seals were less than 6 weeks old.

Below the Globe post, Malkin also has linked many other instances of the MSM either making up stories or publishing articles before the events actually happened. We should not be surprised given the sorry state of the MSM these days. A particularly bad problem lately is that many so-called news pieces are actually written by special interest or advocacy groups and then run on MSM newpapers and television as a real story. Rarely does the MSM bother to check these stories, which are really biased press releases, for accuracy. If you still feel you are getting unbiased or even accurate information from the average MSM news source, you may need to re-think your position.

Mark Alexander On Income Redistribution Day 2005

2005-04-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Mark Alexander makes several good points regading our tax system and spending. Currently both are bloated from speciatly group add-ons. Pork barrel spending continues to grow out of control and we can no longer blame just the Democrats, the Republicans are as guilty as the rest. The tax code has so many loopholes and special tax breaks for so many special interest groups and demographic groups that it is simple un-understandable for many Americans. For the last year our economy has thretened to get out from under the Clinton recession. However, as the deficit grows due to uncontrolled spending, the economy is having a hard time getting out from under the shadow of $7.8 trillion. As conservatives, we need to support smaller governmnent, lower taxes, and less spending. The first two can't happen without the last part.

From Alexander's article:

In fact, the cost of spending and regulation now exceeds $24,000 per person per year. The total combined public and intergovernmental (so-called "trust-fund") debt is approaching $7.8 trillion. Not content to rest on their laurels, the FY 2006 House and Senate budgets will rack up an additional $365 billion in debt.

On top of the current '05 budget's bloated social and discretionary spending, there were more than 14,000 clear examples of unrestrained spending (AKA "pork-barrel") projects appropriated at a cost of about $27.3 billion. Case in point: Consider the $80 billion Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief (H.R. 1268). It includes $103 million for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program; $55 million for wastewater treatment in Desoto County, Mississippi; $25 million for the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery in Montana; and, well, you get the picture.

All that changed in 1913, however, when the central government started taxing income. At that time, federal taxes were equal to 3% of GDP and the entire tax code was two pages. Now taxes are in excess of 20% of GDP and the tax code is more than 46,000 pages (including 481 separate tax forms). Additionally, taxpayers will spend a cumulative 6.5 billion hours complying with that code, and due to its complexity, more than half of taxpayers will rely on "professional preparation," costing them more than $200 billion.

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker warned recently that, once again, America is “skating on thin ice” because of federal budget deficits (read: unrestrained federal spending) -- and we are headed for another an inflationary cycle similar to that of the 1970s.

As for tax rates, we are reminded of these supply-sider words from a former president who crusaded for tax reduction: "Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased -- not a reduced -- flow of revenues to the federal government. ... The present tax codes ... inhibit the mobility and formation of capital, add complexities and inequities which undermine the morale of the taxpayer, and make tax avoidance rather than market factors a prime consideration in too many economic decisions."

Ronald Reagan? Nope. Try John F. Kennedy.

University of Arizona News and Notes

2005-04-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

Perusing the AZ Daily Wildcat and Tucson Citizen this week...

Arizona men's basketball head coach Lute Olson thinks Adams will stay for his senior year. Any of you who stayed tuned to watch the post-game press conference (I could only bring myself to watch it days later with my subscription to azathetics.com) saw Lute predict that after a spectacular second half of the season, Hot Sauce would forgo his senior year. Apparently, Lute and staff polled several of the pro scouts who thought that while Hassan looked great recently, he still needed some extra fine-tuning. Adams has not made any specific statements but with the expectation that Nate Robinson will announce he will enter the NBA draft (as well as Ike Diagou), the Wildcats may have a great chance at cleaning up in the Pac.

The Wildcat baseball team had earned Pac-10 honors for four straight weeks. Currently the team is ranked 6th nationally and seems to be building on their unexpected trip to the college world series last year. Yesterday, they crushed Washington State 13-0. Could this be a return to the heyday of the Jerry Kindall years - let's hope so.

As frequent readers know, I believe the real dynasty at the U of A has been the incredible Women's Softball team. Last Thursday, powerhouse Alicia Hollowell struck out 15 scum devils on the way to a 1-0 win. While the softball cats have struggled offensively and lost yesterday to the Beavers, tonight they were able to put up 8 runs (in a live ESPN 2 broadcast) in a late scoring run capped by a grand slam homer by senior Jen Martinez.

Arizona coach Lute Olson has been occasionally outspoken (far less outspoken than he should be in my fanatic opinion) about officiating and the methods used to pick the NCAA tournament seeds and bracket locations. Last week Olson blasted the coverage of Pac-10 basketball by the Fox network. Among other complaints, Olson criticized Fox's over coverage and advertising of their Sunday night ACC games and their under coverage of the Pac-10 Thursday/Saturday games. Olson called for a Wednesday "rivalry game" which will fall on a day that historically has fewer D-1 basketball games. He proposed moving one of the Saturday games to Wednesday for increased exposure and coverage. Olson's comments come with just one more year left in the Fox-Pac 10 television contract and at a time when AZ athletic director Jim Livengood is preparing to take over the Pac-10 television committee.

In non-athletic news, two U of A professors - both from the U of A College of Medicine - have earned Physician of the Year awards. Dr. Ronald Weinstein and Dr. Anna Graham were awarded for their pioneering work on telemedicine. This technology has allowed docs in rural areas to consult with docs at big medical centers as well as allowing patients in underserved areas to be treated by doctors hundreds of miles away. These innovative uses of modern technology are instrumental in improving the quality of care across the country and especially for those patients living in underserved areas.

Finally, no Arizona alumni can forget the largest student run fair in the country - Spring Fling. You may also remember the constant complaints from local neighborhoods regarding the size and noise of Spring Fling. This has been apparently solved. With the last few years seeing our signature grass mall turned into a dirt and mud pile due to construction, the fair has been moved to Rillito Park and will stay their despite the mall construction completion. This year will be the largest Spring Fling ever. The move has reportedly increased the attendance at this yearly event. I wonder how many bread sticks you could sell this year???

Unions Using Pension Plan Money to Oppose Personal Pension Plans

2005-04-04T06:27:00.000-07:00

From John Fund's Opinion Journal piece:

The problems with all this are many, starting with a rich irony: Unions are using the clout they've acquired from investing in the stock market to oppose a plan to let individuals invest their own tax money in the same market. According to a Tax Foundation paper, of nearly $2 trillion in public employee pension plan assets, 55% are invested in corporate equities. Labor leaders don't mind stock-market investing when it enhances their own political leverage, but for individual workers to build their own wealth is too "risky."

This is just another example of the unions using their members' money to support democratic/liberal causes and/or oppose conservative/republican ideas. It is time that the unions are seen for what they are: a politial party - one which forces membership no matter your political affiliation.

Jesse Jackson is a Publicity Whore

2005-03-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

Is there anything Jesse Jackson won't do for publicity? Really, what does he have to do with the Schiavo vs. Schindler case? What does he have to do with Terri Schaivo's life? Not a damn thing.

For the record, Terri Schiavo's been dead for 15 years. She has no life to speak of. Doctors, medical experts, courts have all come to a consensus on this. The only people who disagree are emotional blood relatives, religious zealots and wackos with no life (see the movie PCU for the definition of a "Causehead"). For Jesse Jackson to join the fray reeks of a pathetic publicity stunt.

A friend of mine called a couple of years ago with an odd question. It went something like this:
F: If I were brain-dead due to a car accident, or some other reason, would you pull the plug?
M: After everyone said their goodbyes? Of course!
F: When would you do it?
M: About 10 seconds afterward.
F: That's why you're the new executor of my living will.

Was my response callous and uncaring? Nope. My friend knew that I would respect his wishes and put him to rest before medical bills ate all of his family's savings. We agree that if you aren't brain alive, then you might as well be body-dead. He knew that I was rational enough to execute his wishes without family-type emotion. I wish that the Schindler's could understand this position.

I hope that I'm never in a persistent vegitative state. I'll say it here, now, so that there's no doubt. If I'm ever in a state that my brain is gone, and my body's still alive due to technology, pull the plug. Let me die with dignity. And for heaven's sake, do it before jackasses like Jesse Jackson or Randall Terry catch wind of it.

Terri Schiavo vs. Elian Gonzales

2005-03-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

John Fund compares the Schiavo case with the Elian Gonzales events of five years ago.

Not surprisingly, the same groups that praised and supported the federal governments reversal of a Florida state court ruling followed by an armed removal of Elian to Cuba - now are flabbergasted by the federal governments intervention in the Schiavo case. No matter your opinion on either case, the politics of these two cases are too apparent to ignore. Sadly, in both situations, an individual who is incapable or at least poorly capable of explaining themselves has been exploited in the name of political posturing. Intelligent individuals on either side of these two cases have valid points. Layer in a healthy serving of strong emotion mixed with religion and both the Schiavo and Gonzales sagas are both compelling and divisive. The main problem in both cases is that the Federal government acted with pure political intent. Congress (Schiavo) and the Clinton/Reno Justice Department (Gonzales) would have you believe that they were acting to protect civil or constitutional rights. The only problem is that, on a daily basis, scores of people are sent back to Cuba and people are removed from life support, but there is no congressional investigation or intervention by the president or attorney general. Unfortunately, in these two cases, the federal governments intervention only served to aggravate these situations rather than work towards a consistent policy based on precedent and law.

From Fund's article:

Of course, there are differences between the Gonzalez and Schiavo cases. But clearly many of the people who approved of dramatic federal intervention to return Elian to Cuba took a completely different tack when it came to the argument over saving Terri Schiavo. Rep. Frank makes a compelling argument that Congress took an extraordinary step when it met in special session to create a procedure whereby the federal courts could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's rights were being violated. He may have a point when he accuses Republicans of "trying to command judicial activism and dictate outcomes when they don't like" rulings. But where were Mr. Frank and other liberals when the Clinton administration decided to sidestep a federal appeals court and order an armed raid against Elian Gonzalez? While Mr. Frank allowed that the use of assault rifles in the Elian raid was "excessive" and "frightening," he also defended the Justice Department's view that "of course [agents] had to use force."
According to some reports, Gov. Jeb Bush considered seizing Mrs. Schiavo, à la Elian, and taking her to a hospital so she could be fed. But he did not do so. "I've consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it," the governor says. Janet Reno and the Clinton administration showed no such restraint when it came to Elian Gonzalez.

Governor Bush should be commended for his actions. He has publicly supported the re-insertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube but has limited his actions to those legally granted by the Florida constitution and state law. He has made - at least in this case - the Florida executive branch an example of how the federal government should behave.

Images: U of A over OK State

2005-03-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

If you missed the game - or not - the Tucson Citizen has an awesome montage of game photos. Most of them are wallpaper-worthy.

UPDATE: Video highlights available here, including Salim's last second winner. Warning: may cause goose bumps.

Huge Breakthrough In Octopus Research

2005-03-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Research funded by the National Science Foundation (read: you tax dollars), has uncovered shocking new news about tactics used by octopi to evade being eaten.

A UC Berkeley researcher has observed octopuses, known for using camouflage to avoid predators, apparently trying to sneak away by walking on two arms while pretending to be a bunch of algae.

The movements were discovered by Christine Huffard of the University of California, Berkeley, who was studying underwater video camera tapes of the animals.

I thought this sounded familiar, so I called the laboratory of Christine Huffard.

Only Huffards lab assistant, who identified himself simply as "the hempster" was available for telephone interview: "Dude, they like, move and stuff so the bogus predators don't feast on them." When asked about the details of the octopus movement, Huffard's lab tech described a cartoon coyote hidden in a bush with just his legs sticking out of the bottom. He also described other tactics used by the octopus including tying itself to an Acme rocket to move faster and trying to shoot itself like an arrow from a bow - also in order to swim faster. In addition, the octopus being studied also fell off of high ledges and often had large boulders fall on its head. Turning back to the ability of the octopus to sneak away from hungry predators, hemster had this to say: "It's so wild, all you see is this green bush moving around - but if you look close, you can see the coyote's legs ... wait ... wooh... that's cartoon network, not the octopus video!... " It was at this point in the interview that the Domino's pizza guy showed up at the lab door. The lab assistant did not return to the phone to finish the interview. Only the sound of eating followed by a watery-bubbling sound followed by coughing and then laughter could be heard. More details as this story develops.

Leave The Cowards In Canada

2005-03-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Canada Denies Asylum To U.S. Army Deserter (washingtonpost.com) A 26 year old paratrooper from S.D. has been denied protection by the Canadian government. His application for asylum was based on his belief that the war was illegal. Unfortunately for Jeremy Hinzman, Canadian law only provides asylum for people who are likely to be tortured, killed or persecuted on return to their home country. There are also approximately 100 other deserters in Canda - all of whom are surely dissapointed by the ruling of the Canadian government. It is interesting to note that his attorney, Jeffry House, is a deserter from the Vietnam era.

I hope we are not wasting much time, effort or money to get these cowardly soldiers back. Do we really want to have to pay for them to spend time in a military prison? The answer should be to find them guilty in absentia, fine them for all the training, support, clothes and housing provided by the military, then strip them of US citizenship. While they will technically not repay their social debt to society and the military, loosing their citizenship as well as having an outstanding warrant for their arrest will ensrue they become Canada's - or some other country's - problem forever. In addition, they will hardly be living it up elsewhere - take this guy for example, he is working as a bicycle courier.

Minnesota School Killings: No Rich White Kids Dead = No News Coverage.

2005-03-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

You may or may not have heard of the most recent school shooting, a-la Columbine. It occurred on a Minnesota Indian reservation. While this has caused a low hum in the blogosphere, I have seen little except superficial, quick coverage in the MSM. Let me preface the following remarks with the fact that I am the last person to buy into conspiracy theories and vast plots against mankind. Having said that, the undercoverage of this story is simply reflects that the Columbine killings were in a upper class, white suburb and the Minn. shootings occurred at a poor, native american school. I have argued for years that Columbine was a blown out of proportion suburbia anomoly made overly famous and popular by the 24 hour news media and 'movie of the week' producers. Years ago I lived just outside Detroit. We used to joke that the local news in Detroit had to be an hour long because the first 30 minutes were all the shootings and murders. Plenty of those stories took place at or near schools in the downtown, poorest parts of that city. Never did I see these stories retold on the national news. No 60-minutes segment or Dateline expose'. Just dead, poor, minority. Then Columbine comes along and everybody is in shock. How could this happen in such a well to do (white) school? Even the unscrupulous Mike Moore cashes in on the act with a movie. We all need to look at this dichotomous coverage and ask why. Take a close look at where you get your news and wonder if you are actually getting the whole story.

Lawrence Summers and the left's thought gulag

2005-03-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

David Limbaugh says what I could not have said better myself.

Now isn't that special: the intimidating faculty condemning Summers for squelching debate when they just got through blistering him for trying to open academic debate on a subject they unilaterally deemed to be so offensive as to be beyond discussion. I wonder if it ever occurs to them that they work against their own purposes when they adopt this smothering, patronizing attitude about women, treating them as if they're just too delicate to be discussed. Their hypocrisy and lack of self-reflection knows no bounds.

I made similar comments before, David Limbau just puts a point on the hypocritical, elites teaching in Harvard's Arts and Science college.

ProfessorBainbridge: The Politics of the Ownership Society

2005-03-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

ProfessorBainbridge.com: The Politics of the Ownership Society The professor points to a very interesting evaluation of voters in the last presidential election.

Interestingly, Zogby claims that the investor/non-investor dichotomy is far more explanatory of voting behavior than race, income, religion, or marital status. Indeed, eyeballing his data, the only thing I can think of that might come close as a predictor of voting behavior is regularity of church attendance

A very good point. Voters across many demographics - the investors - may be the key to another major re-alignment of voters. Zogby observes:

This stunning realignment is possible by virtue of a new class of American voters--the self-identified "investor class"--which is itself a coalition across a broad spectrum of demographic groups. In their compelling book, "The Emerging Democratic Majority," Ruy Texeira and John Judis outlined a short-term path for Democratic Party success. Their study revealed that key demographic groups that traditionally vote Democratic in national and state elections are indeed among the fastest growing demographics in American society: African Americans, Hispanics, women, singles, creatives, Muslims, and South Asians.

It seems as if social politics are coming in second to the desire of the individual to live - and thrive - independent of government programs. Many of these same citizens may truly feel that the government should be there for the down and out in society. However, it appears a growing sentiment is that most people feel they don't NEED the government and that they may actually do better without the government intervening in their own investment. Sounds very much like compassionate conservatism. My question is, how do the democrats, with their strategy to block personal retirement accounts at all costs and mantra that there is nothing wrong with social security, think they are going to tap into the new 'investor class'? The answer likely is, they can't and won't. Why? Because the democrats have once again (similar to their position on Iraq and terrorism) painted themselves into a corner on social security. With their obstructionist politics and 'oppose Bush at every turn' mentality - they are forced to argue against people 'owning' their social security retirement accounts and are forced to defend the notion that social security is just fine. Both postitions will have long term consequences for the dems. If social security reform does not pass, and get's tabled until the crisis reaches unfixable proportions, there will be plenty of us around to remind the government, the press and the voters, just who derailed the attempt to fix social security back in 2005.

Congress raises stakes over baseball subpoenas -threatens contempt - AND WASTES TAXPAYERS MONEY AND TIME

2005-03-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

Why in the world is this stupidity going on. Prominent members of congress have seen fit to ignore the war in Iraq, terrorists planning attacks on schools and movie theaters, Swiss cheese for a southern boarder, social security reform and the economy to hold hearings on steroids in baseball. What's next, hearings about ecstasy use at raves?

Congress has stepped way out of bounds with this investigation. The House and Senate should hold hearings which are designed to investigate anything threatening the basic framework of our democratic government and our capitalist economy. Such things might include national security, military issues, voter fraud issues, anti-trust or monopoly issues and basic human rights issues. To somehow think that the fate of the nation or it's security is being jeopardized by a few baseball players on steroids is ridiculous. This investigation is nothing but a few congressmen trying to get some attention by stepping into the MLB spotlight. This sham of an investigation is clearly diverting attention away from the real issues of the day.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending steroid use by these players. However, as a physician, I know they are only destroying their own bodies. Testosterone-like substances (aka anabolic steroids) do wonders to bulk up a person. They also have deleterious effects on the gonads, liver, kidneys and central nervous system. And don't forget this: use of anabolic steroids is ALREADY ILLEGAL. So congress is having hearings to investigate the use of illegal toxic substance. I'm sure their report will ultimately make astute conclusions such as: steroid use is a problem, it is harmful to individual health, and should be illegal.

I've never heard of democrat Paul Kanjorski before but I could not agree more.

Critics have accused the committee of grandstanding, and one lawmaker on the panel has questioned whether issuing subpoenas was more of a publicity stunt than a serious exercise in oversight.

"To spend our time calling seven baseball players -- maybe I've missed something, but is this the most important issue in the United States today?" Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., told the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. "It doesn't warrant even a committee hearing, no less the issuing of subpoenas."

To make things more ridiculous, the committee has invoked the "c" word: CRISIS. If this is a health crisis I wonder how they categorize smoking, diabetes, heart diseaes, obesity, cancer and aids.

"It is a public health crisis, and our testimony from medical experts is going to show this," Davis said. "We have the parents of kids who have used steroids and committed suicide. Over a half a million youth are using steroids and these major-league players are their idols."

(Maybe congress should investigate parents who were so univolved or blinded by athletic success that they didn't know their kids were on steroids - just a thought.)

The players union and the league directly challenged the congress' ability to subpoena players for their investigation:

Representatives of the league and the players union infuriated lawmakers last week when they challenged Congress' authority to issue subpoenas, saying that the committee has no jurisdiction over the steroid issue and that the subpoenas infringe on the privacy of both the players and the league.

The players should have challenged the ability of congress to waste this much time and money.

If you have a congressman ignoring your district, your state and your country, please call or email them to get on with the business of running the country.

ESPNU - A Sign Of The Times

2005-03-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

ESPN U has recently been launched by the sports television giant. Besides ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News and ESPN Sports Classic, the new ESPN U will bring 24/7 college sports programming. Why is this a sign of the times? Because the "biggest name in sport programming" has recognized the slow deterioration in the number of fans of professional sports. Or, at least the continued disgust with the big four professional sports. I have no numbers to back me up on this one, but as most of my friends are male sports freaks, I can attest to their - and my - change in sports watching habits over the last few years. As a kid I grew up wanting to be Walter Davis (Phoenix Suns), Steve Garvey (Dodgers) and Roger Staubach (Cowboys). Somehow I could see myslef being those guys. Over the last ten or so years however, I have become less and less in touch with the sports professional. Part of this is the money gap. Another big part is the complete lack of a shared culture. Despite my older age, I just could not picture myself in the schoolyard yelling "check me out, I'm Allen Iverson!". Somewhere between the basketball players negotiating not to be tested for weed, hockey players refusing to settle for a salary cap which would really only limit the number in front of the words "million dollars" describing their salary, and a huge group of baseball players busted for steroids, I just don't feel like I have anything in common with the professional athlete anymore. And I think that the same sentiment is being felt by many sports fanatics.

This is where the college sports comes in. Most of us can remember the good times in college - and long to be back there. Teams and Universities do contract for endorsements, but individual players do not. Most teams also have handfulls of players who barely made the team and who now put out 125% everytime there number is called. Even more inspiring are the non-scholarship athletes who have devoted themselved to the perfection of a sport which is not likely to lead to a profession in that sport. All the while, these kids are going to school. We can all still relate our daily lives to the hard work, dedication and low pay these athletes embody. I can see myself as one of them. This is why Joe sports fan is getting away from the tatoo laden, complaining about their multi-million dollar salary, barely english speaking, drug doing, law breaking, pampered princesses/wanna be gangstas of professional sports. Thanks ESPN - no thank U.

God loves KU

2005-03-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

God loves Kansas. Or played for them. And those who vote in the poll don't want to commit heresy by punishing them in the standings. How the *$%^ else do you explain losing 4 of 6 and remaining in the top-10?

One of the key seeding criteria by the Selection Committee is how teams do down the stretch. Losses to unranked Missouri and Iowa State (AT HOME!) should be an embarassment. While it might be forgiveable at the start of the season, Kansas should be PUNISHED for performing this poorly with an experienced team. Yet they are still playing for a #2 seed!

If I were a stock analyst, I would set a target for KU at #15 and hoping for a #4 seed. Anything else is a crime. If you think otherwise, by all means let us know why.

Maybe God doesn't believe that they play basketball West of the Rocky
Mountains.

Let’s protect the Telecoms!

2005-03-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

Municipalities are now exploring providing their residents with free Internet access. Towns such as Austin, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.
Residents get the benefit of free internet access, (at this stage) the towns get a little free publicity, and the businesses hosting the hotspots get more traffic, and potentially more sales.

When a service is provided by the government, the potential to be a boondoggle is great – even greater when technology is involved (see the IRS and CO Benefits). Couple this with the fact that very few technology projects actually succeed, and you wonder why any local government would even consider attempting to provide Internet access. However, the cost of the technology for wireless access is in the thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars. That wireless router at Best Buy for $70 is similar to the equipment used in these projects. This is a far cry from the $100 million + projects that larger government entities undertake. If the community wireless access project fails, the investment is relatively low compared to the risk. If it succeeds, everyone benefits – except . .

The major telecommunication companies (Verizon, SBC, Qwest, etc.) have spent BILLIONS of dollars building out their wired networks. They will fight to the death to ensure that they get substantial return on investment. While community wireless is only a peripheral threat, depending on the scope of the project, it can become a much greater threat. So what is a major telecom to do when they have little to no influence on local government – they take it to the state level. There they have numerous state legislators who are more than eager to take up their cause. That is why we have now have state bills outlawing municipal wireless access.

Real enlightened, Texas. Same goes for Pennsylvania. I hope those fat campaign contributions offset the fact that your constituents will suffer. The municipalities considering providing wireless access are going forward with a service that the telecoms will be painfully slow to provide (if ever). Thankfully, one of the FCC commissioners gets it. In this statement, Michael Copps states “They are not out there trying to put broadband in the municipality. Where is the competition?” Whether it’s the FCC or Congress, one can only hope that the Federal government steps in and eliminates the stupidity occurring at the state level.

"Thank you, Hollywood" Billboards

2005-03-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

The Professor does some photoblogging. The billboards posted around LA, especially right near the Oscars are just wonderful. I'm sure they are not making us any friends, but were we really trying to bring hollywood to our side or just make them look silly? How about that picture of Chevy - back on the pain killers buddy?

Can liberalism survive? Not Like This.

2005-02-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

USNews.com's John Leo is the next in line to declare liberalism dead - or at least terminal. His thesis is not new and parallels several of my posts on this blog. Below, I summarize my thoughts on the reason for liberalism's impening doom. From Leo's article:

Worse, the cultural liberalism that emerged from the convulsions of the 1960s drove the liberal faith out of the mainstream. Its fundamental value is that society should have no fundamental values, except for a pervasive relativism that sees all values as equal. Part of the package was a militant secularism, pitched against religion, the chief source of fundamental values. Complaints about "imposing" values were also popular then, aimed at teachers and parents who worked to socialize children.

Modern liberalism, says Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel, has emptied the national narrative of its civic resources, putting religion outside the public square and creating a value-neutral "procedural republic." One of the old heroes of liberalism, John Dewey, said in 1897 that the practical problem of modern society is the maintenance of the spiritual values of civilization. Not much room in liberal thought for that now, or for what another liberal icon, Walter Lippmann, called the "public philosophy." The failure to perceive the importance of community has seriously wounded liberalism and undermined its core principles. So has the strong tendency to convert moral and social questions into issues of individual rights, usually constructed and then massaged by judges to place them beyond the reach of majorities and the normal democratic process.

Liberals have been slow to grasp the mainstream reaction to the no-values culture, chalking it up to Karl Rove, sinister fundamentalists, racism, or the stupidity of the American voter. Since November 2, the withering contempt of liberals for ordinary Americans has been astonishing. Voting for Bush gave "quite average Americans a chance to feel superior," said Andrew Hacker, a prominent liberal professor at Queens College. We are seeing the bitterness of elites who wish to lead, confronted by multitudes who do not wish to follow. Liberals might one day conclude that while most Americans value autonomy, they do not want a procedural republic in which patriotism, religion, socialization, and traditional values are politically declared out of bounds. Many Americans notice that liberalism nowadays lacks a vocabulary of right and wrong, declines to discuss virtue except in snickering terms, and seems increasingly hostile to prevailing moral sentiments.

Leo points to some of the major recent downfalls of liberalism. I believe there are three major factors. First is that the liberals have been unable to present any new ideas in years. Kerry, in the last campaign, used as his main theme "I'll do what Bush did, only better." Question after question in the debates and on national news shows, all the Massachusetts liberal could do was complain about the way things were going and never get close to proposing ways of fixing or changing the policies or laws he was whining about.

Second is that the use of moral relativism has abdicated the liberals from standing on a moral ground. That is, unless that ground is "we hate Bush and everything he does." Can you imagine a group of liberals against freeing a nation from a dictator who dehumanized women to the point where they were barely worth killing, tortured and kept children in prisons, allowed the population in general to starve and performed mass executions on a whim? When did the liberals' fight for human rights become completely blinded by their petty politics? I'm not sure when it started but it continued with Clinton and gained a huge head of steam with the 2000 election with prominent liberals and Democrats accusing Bush of fixing the election. (See my previous post on how the liberals have tried to demonize Bush using Saddam tactics.)

Finally, the liberal's have managed to position themselves such that any mention of religion is tantamount to a felony. This goes to the paragraph above, if you refuse to have a moral base on which to stand, you certainly cannot allow religion into your world. Religion has been a cornerstone of US domestic policy since the beginning. In addition, studies have shown that one of the largest liberal strongholds - the African-American voter -is intensely religious and church-going. Another problem with shutting out religion from their party is that they have lost the ability to be the party of compassion. If you have no moral base and have made religion taboo, then where do you draw your strength to be compassionate? Certainly, Bush has lead the Conservative take-back of compassion. While Bush and the Republican congress are trying to enact education, social security and heath care reform to help all Americans (compassion), the Liberals are simply responding by whining that Bush and the Republicans are doing it wrong (no plan of their own).

The liberals could easily bring their party back to America. They must first get away from their rhetoric of hate. They must find their compassionate roots again. This will entail a firm moral stance on issues while allowing religion to help guide their compassion. Finally, they must find a way in which to disagree with middle America by appealing to their goodness, not by insulting their intelligence. Will this happen? Unlikely. Why? Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, Joe Biden ...

Anybody Want To Defend This???

2005-02-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

CBS4 Denver attempted to interview Ward Churchill about his "original" artwork. The response was a flurry of curse words followed by Churchill swinging his newspaper at the camera man and the reporter, hitting the cameraman once. The full video is available at the link above.

Placing Churchill's work beside that of renowned artist Thomas E. Mails and the two look like mirror images. But one is a copyrighted drawing. The other is an autographed print by Churchill.

The following text is a transcription from CBS4's footage of the exchange between Chohan and Churchill on Thursday in the hallway outside his office.

"Get that camera out of my face," Churchill said.

"This is an artwork we've got called 'Winter Attack.' It looks like it was based on a Thomas Mails painting; it looks like you ripped it off. Can you tell us about that?" Chohan asked.

That prompted Churchill to take a swing at Chohan while he held a stack of papers in his hand.

The exchange continued:

Chohan: "Sir, that's assault, you can't do that. Can I ask you about this? It looks like you copied it."

Churchill: "I was just grabbed by the arm. And that (camera) gets out of my face."

Chohan: "Sir, we're allowed to take these pictures, this is a public space."

Churchill: "You're not allowed to grab be by the arm."

Chohan: "He didn't touch you sir, we've got it all on tape. Sir, this is called Winter Attack. It's a serigraph by you. It looks like it was copied from Thomas Mails artwork. Can we talk to you about that please?"

Churchill made the serigraph in question in 1981 and called it "Winter Attack." He printed 150 copies and sold one of them to Duke Prentup for about $100.

"I have enjoyed them ever since, immensely," Prentup said. "They're, obviously, up in my house."

But last month came a stunning revelation. As Prentup flipped through a book of illustrations by renowned artist Thomas E. Mails, he found an artwork of striking similarity.

"It's very obvious that the Churchill piece was taken directly from the Mails piece," Hubbell said. "There's just too many similarities between the two for it to have been coincidence."

Churchill has also been accused of plagiarizing several of his written works. Churchill appears to have stolen entire sections for his works from works of other academics and from the local newspaper. Churchill was attacked back in 1999 for one of his works which apparently has several pages of footnotes to back up his claim of the United States Government giving smallpox-infected blankets to a Native American tribe. Unfortunately for Churchill, a thorough reading of all those footnotes shows no evidence of that claim.

It should be clear to anybody now that Churchill is a fraud and a jerk. Say what you will about his insane rants calling the murdered victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns" - freedom of speech at least allows him to say those things. [Whether or not taxpayer funded Universities should financially support such speach is a topic for another day.] However, no one person in academia can defend plagiarism. Intellectualy property and original ideas are held as paramount in the academic environment and such blatant abuses should be grounds for formal dismissal from Univeristy of Colorado and, perhaps worse, complete bashiment from the circles of academia.

Will Israel's Two Point Plan Lead To Peace?

2005-02-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Charles Krauthammer thinks so. On February 20th, the Israeli government decided to pull out of Gaza. Alone, this may have looked like a cowardly backing away from the terrorist tactics of the Palestinians. However, Israel also choose to complete the wall on the West Bank - a move Krauthammer thinks will eliminate the threat of Palestinian-type terrorism (car bomb, suicide bomber, etc.)

The fence decision makes clear that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is only part of a larger strategy, the first serious strategic idea Israel has had since its period of utter confusion and demoralization at the beginning of the 2000 intifada. The idea is this: Israel must (unilaterally, if necessary) rationalize its defensive lines -- in order to (1) protect its citizens, (2) permanently defuse the Palestinian terror threat and thus (3) open the door to a final peace.

Once Israel leaves Gaza, and once the rest of the West Bank fence is completed, the Israeli and Palestinian populations will be almost perfectly divided in their own territories as defined by this temporary frontier. The fence approved by the Cabinet last Sunday leaves perhaps 1 percent of Israelis on the wrong (Palestinian) side of the fence and perhaps 0.3 percent of Palestinians on the wrong (Israeli) side of the fence. (These figures, calculated by Middle East expert David Makovsky, exclude polyglot Jerusalem.)

Sure, there could be random terror attacks. But that is true of Spain and Indonesia and much of the world today. What changes with the Gaza withdrawal and the fence is that terrorism as a reliable weapon, a constant threat, a strategic asset, ceases to exist.

And once that terror option is removed, the Palestinians will in time be forced to the collective conclusion that the world has been awaiting for 57 years -- that they cannot drive the Jews into the sea and must therefore negotiate a compromise for a permanent peace.

That day may not come immediately. The beauty of the withdrawal/fence plan is that, in the interim, it creates a stable status quo with a minimal level of violence. In that interim, Israel can live in peace and the Palestinians can develop the institutions of their state and begin to contemplate a final end to the conflict.

Will the combination plan by the Isrealis work. If Krauthammer is correct, and Israel is able to feel safe from constant terror attacks while the Palestine state is able to get their political and foreign relation house in order, the move by Israel - lead by Sharon - will go down in history as one of the great diplomatic settlements of all time. However, if the plan takes too long to come to fruition and if the terror tactics by the Palestinians continue, Sharon and his party may fall and be replaced by a much more aggressive party. Time will tell if the move to give up Gaza will be the path to peace or the path to a final great war between Israel and Palestine.

Eminent Domain Explained By Professor Bainbridge and Kelo vs. City of New London

2005-02-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

Professor Bainbridge has been following the Kelo v. City of New London case with two excellent posts here and here. This case deals with what appears to be a most egregious use of the Eminent Domain laws. The city of New London wants to condemn and take away the houses of many people so they can turn around and sell the land to a developer. From what I can tell, the developer is unnamed and possibly unknown - the city's point is that the land would generate more tax money if it were to be sold and then developed in such a way (ie a mall) that it brought in more tax revenue. The Eminent Domain statutes are slippery slope-ish enough, but the City of New London seems to start out at the bottom of this slope. As usual the Professor does and excellent job of explaining the legal problems here.

Instawife Home Safe Albeit Several Hours Late

2005-02-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Glen Reynolds seems happy to have his wife home from the hospital. Glen does comment on the fact that his wife was scheduled to leave at 2pm but was not actually discharged until 8pm. He also appropriately points out that "This was a paperwork issue..." and quotes the blog at Technicalities with ""'So, paperwork takes time to fill out and you enter the world where everything seems to move like molasses (what happened to all that fast action you always see on ER? ... sue Hollywood).'" I will leave it up to Glen or Professor Bainbridge to tell us if there is a case to be made against hollywood, but I can directly comment on the paperwork issue.

Paperwork does indeed take time and can be completely overwhelming, especially with post-surgical hospital discharges and complicated patients. Wonderful new regulations such as HIPAA and those enforced by JCAHO, as well as documentary requirements by insurance companies before payouts, have lead to a gigantic paperwork nightmare. Paperwork has not been standardized and nearly every regulation has it's own form, despite the fact that it may have the same information that the last three forms you just filled out contained. The hospital bureaucracies have also required paperwork over and above that required by JCAHO (if your hospital fails a JCAHO inspection, you cant treat and get paid for Medicare patients). For example, there is a requirement that each patient who is to have surgery has a complete H&P (history and physical) which generally takes 30-60 minutes to perform and another at least 10-20 minutes to dictate. This document must have been produced within 30 days of surgery. If it has been greater than 30 days, a completely new H&P, or at least an update must be done which mentions all the critical areas and whether there has been any changes. Out of fear of JCAHO inspectors, my hospital requires all surgeons to fill out and sign an H&P update immediately before surgery - even when the patient was seen and the H&P completed the day before. As another example, the last hospital I worked at required that two forms and a dictation be done before each patient was discharged from the hospital. Both the forms and the dictation had essentially the same information. Since there was a problem with communication between hospital departments, a one-form discharge had been changed into the two-form plus dictation. Taken individually, one more form here or there does not take up a significant amount of time. Taken as a whole, paperwork is taking time away from patient care.

As a final note on the burden of paperwork to physicians, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery reported on a study performed by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2001. They found that for each hour of patient care there is at least 30 minutes of paperwork and sometimes up to one hour.

...[an]hour of emergency department care resulted in one hour of paperwork; one hour of surgery and inpatient acute care, 36 minutes of paperwork; one hour of skilled nursing care, 30 minutes of paperwork; and one hour of home health care, 48 minutes of paperwork...

So I apologize in advance to all of my patients for being discharged late, I just hope you can wait for me to fill out the appropriate forms so that I may deliver that apology.

Speediest of recoveries to the instawife.

More Academic Hypocrisy: Gonzaga Law School

2005-02-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

God and Man at Gonzaga. Mike Adams addresses the newest in a long series of Academic Elitism hypocrisy, now at the Catholic Gonzaga University Law School. Similar to Harvard and Yale's refusal to allow military recruiters on campus because they believe their "don't ask, don't tell" policy is discriminatory (despite the fact that it is the federal government's policy and has been held up in court on multiple occasions), Gonzaga thinks that Christian based groups are discriminatory (despite the fact that they are a Christian University). The Law School has refused to allow two Christian organizations official recognition (and funding) by the school since these two groups require their leaders to sign a statement of Christian Faith. Apparently the school feels this is somehow discriminatory. The real kicker is that Gonzaga University requires that their President and the members of the Board of Corporations all be Jesuit priests - apparently that policy is non-discriminatory.

Recently, I received a letter from two third-year law students at Gonzaga University (GU) School of Law. The students described your law school as one that is secular and which fraudulently holds itself out to be Catholic. They also stated they had experienced first-hand the school's trampling of the rights of Christian students. Specifically, they accused GU of violating the rights of their first Christian pro-life group.

As a preliminary matter, I understand that your Catholic law school has the words of Matthew 22:35-38 emblazoned on one of its walls: One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question, Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law of Moses? Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. For example, I understand that the only two Christian clubs recently formed at the law school have been refused official recognition. In addition, members of the unofficial Christian club at your Catholic law school have reported that promotional signs have been regularly defaced, and that members have been falsely accused of honor code violations.

I am sure you are aware that, as a private university, Gonzaga is technically exempt from granting students freedom of religious expression under the First Amendment. But you must surely be aware that this exemption functions primarily as a way for religious schools to practice and promote their unique religious faith in all facets of institutional governance.

So, why then is Gonzaga using its exemption from the First Amendment to punish its religious students? These students merely seek to advance the same beliefs the school's mission statements purport to advance.

The situation of forcing your Christian law students to pay mandatory student fees, which fund secular student groups, while their own club flounders in second-class status, is simply unacceptable. How long must your Christian students sit at the back of the bus? Have you considered separate water fountains for traditional Catholics?

Once again, we face another example of political correctness and elitism run amok on college campuses. At Gonzaga, a private, Catholic University, they are afraid to support the students who most exemplify their charge as a Catholic school. The school supports both a pro-choice club and a gay and lesbian club - both of which are clearly against Catholic law but are supported based on non-discrimination. However, when it comes to supporting a pro-Christian or a pro-life club, the school becomes oblivious to it's own policies and chooses instead to stifle these groups. I wonder how the school would feel if an African-American club required it's leaders to sign a statement of support for the black community. Would that not be discriminatory based on their arguments above. Probably not, because it would not be politically correct to refuse funding and school support to a group of black students. It appears that the policy of non-discrimination can only apply to groups who (according to the liberals in charge) are either minorities or have been discriminated against in the past. It seems impossible to them that one can discriminate against Christians. It is time that the elites learn that non-discrimination needs to be a policy which pertains to everyone - including Christians, whites and males. They cannot continue to arbitrarily dole out non-discriminatory rights based on some perception of past discrimination or under-representation. As I have said before, we expect this type of behavior from social activists, but the same behavior cannot be tolerated in the academic environment where all ideas - even the most ludicrous - must be heard, debated and critically evaluated. This is the basis for rational thought and serves to cultivate young adults into thoughtful people.

Idaho Taking a Page From Protect Arizona Now

2005-02-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

Idaho lawmaker to form immigrant cost-watching group Robert Vasquez is a county commissioner from Caldwell, Idaho. He is proposing a private group which will try to keep track of all the costs associated with illegal immigration. Protect Arizona Now has been watch dogging this issue in Arizona for several years. They proposed and backed the recently overwhelmingly passed proposal to require proof of citizenship to receive certain public benefits. Also, a provision of the bill actually requires government workers to report undocumented workers. Up until now, most of the government services sector has ignored - and even discouraged - reporting illegals.

I think this is a great idea by the commissioner. My impression is that most people do not appreciate the real dollar burden that illegals impart on states like Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. The two most commonly discussed, and possibly the largest areas, are the cost of law enforcement/incarceration and the cost of health care. In 2000, the immigration and naturalization service estimated there to be 283,000 illegals in Arizona. That quarter of a million people has certainly grown since 2000. That same year, the state population was approximately 5 million. So how could the cost of just 5% of the population so greatly affect our economy? We are only paying for emergency medical care and for the INS to throw these guys out of the country right? WRONG.

Here is a list I compiled off the top of my head. These are things we all pay for - usually through taxes, which the illegal population does not contribute to at all but does utilize.

1. Roads. Having another quarter million on Arizona's roads surely has a significant wear effect. The roads don't fix themselves. In addition, road widening and improvement is determined by use, which does not discriminate based on your residency status. The number of traffic police and highway patrol officers are also determined by the number of automobiles - so the need increases due to our illegal friends without them contributing to the tax base.

2. Public Transportation. Ever been on a bus in Phoenix or Tucson? The majority of people on these buses are speaking Spanish. I think we can infer -at least - that many illegals utilize the affordable public transportation. Don't think for a second that the 25 cents they pay for the ride covers the cost of upkeep. Phoenix wants to build a light rail system. Currently I live in Houston where the light rail system was put in for the Super Bowl last year. I live close to a stop and have occasionally taken the train. Guess what? Just like the AZ busses, getting on the Houston light rail is like stepping into a Mexican town. Not only that but I frequently get looks like "what are you doing here?" Our last, and last, trip on the train we were treated to some Hispanic teenager girls shouting "white bitch" at my fiancée. But I digress. Public transportation is 100% public funded and a group who utilizes this public service heavily does not contribute at all to its cost.

3. Public School. No child is denied access to our education system. In fact, at most schools they go out of their way to not ask anything about citizenship. Why? Each school is funded based on the number of students who attend each day. Refusing access or reporting illegal alien students would be biting the hand that feeds each school. In addition, most schools now have to offer some sort of ESL classes or their Mexican born and born to (illegal) Mexican parents students will fail miserably. This is not tolerated in AZ or TX because the teachers get a monetary bonus when their students do well on standardized tests. In fact, this incentive is so great that teachers in Houston were helping kids pass the state standardized test and were fired. Again, the schools are funded by various taxes, to which the illegals do not contribute.

4. Public Land. Both Arizona and Texas have vast areas of Federal, State and City public lands. For the most part, these are open to anyone for use. State and city parks are especially popular for weekend activities. Use of these parks requires thousands of employees to manage the environment of the park, keep the park clean and dispose of the refuse produced by the users of the land. Again, expenses paid by the taxpayer - not the illegal.

I could go on but I think the great number of public services which we take for granted and do not question how they are funded are killing the state budgets. I hope that watchdog groups will help illuminate the unfunded public service usage by the illegal immigrants. This will help put a point on the financial crisis that boarder states are facing. One which could be helped greatly by serious immigration reform.

Gridlocked in Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam

Steroids in Baseball?????

2005-02-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Asterisks? We don't need no stinkin asterisks!
I grew up admiring players on the Boston Red Sox, and Mike Greenwell was one of those players. He was a great baseball player and I clearly remember the 1988 MVP season he had. Jose Canseco has come up with a "shocking" announcement - Baseball players took steroids. Well, let me tell ya, anyone who knows anything about athletic and the body knew these guys were on 'roids. As a teenager, I knew McGwire and Canseco were on steroids. Look at them, HELLO. Wait, Breaking News just in... Barry Bonds .... People wake up. Look at his career, his physique over the years. The physique is the key. Look at Reggie Sanders. He works out. His arms are cut and defined, they are not swollen with water. If you were to squeeze Bonds, Canseco, Sosa, or McGwire they would pop like a pimple. Now these sports reporters want to "break the story" and ooh and ahh on this news. They are the guys who refused to do their job and reveal these users so that they could get as close to the players as possible. They didn't do their job, they looked the other way so they could be "cool" with these athletes they were star struck with. Now, steroids is the hip story and they don't need to be close to these record breakers anymore . So, now they are asking and trying to persuade the public to buy into the asterisk concept. Well, it was completely wrong to place an asterisk next to Roger Marris' Home Run record. That was prompted by the sports reporters who wanted to hold onto the glory of Babe Ruth. The argument was that Marris played more games and that allowed him to break the record. True, but that is the game. The asterisk served to remember something great. If we keep an asterisk next to these cheaters names, we are not punishing them for breaking the rules. They cheated, simple enough. By leaving them in the record books with an asterisk, you dishonor every true legit baseball player who ever played the game as well as every player who followed the rules, did it right, and was cut from the sport. We don't need no stinkin' asterisks, they need to be removed from the record books of Major League Baseball completely.

Gridlocked in Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam

Our Thoughts Are With Tedy Bruschi

2005-02-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

FOXSports.com - NFL- Bruschi recovering after suffering mild stroke In the 1990s Tedy Bruschi was the emotional leader and hard hitting backbone of the Arizona Wildcat desert swarm defense. Tedy has kept up his intense, hard nosed football with the Patriots and has three Super Bowl rings to prove it.

Bruschi apparently suffered a small hemorrhagic stroke on Wednesday which was discovered after he started experiencing numbness, blurred vision and headaches. This type of stroke is not the type of stroke suffered by your grandparents, which is due to blood being cut off by a blood clot or atherosclerosis. Rather, hemorrhagic strokes are essentially burst blood vessles in the brain caused by such things as high blood pressure or weakened blood vessel walls. According to the team spokesman, Tedy is doing fine and they have not mentioned any permanent loss of faculties.

All current and former Wildcats should be proud of Tedy's accomplishment through hard work and unselfish dedication to his team. We here at Three Men and a Blog wish Tedy a speedy and full recovery. Bear Down.

Update: The Tucson Citizen has a more comprehensive report on Bruschi's medical condition. It appears he will do well and make a full recovery.

Howard Dean Remarks A Slight to Blacks and Ignored by Mainstream Media

2005-02-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

NewsMax.com is about the only news source covering Howard Dean's racially insensitive remarks given at a DNC dinner.

During a meeting with the CBC on Friday, Dean joked: "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here."

The flap over Dean's "hotel staff" remark isn't the first time critics say he has crossed the line on race.
During the primary campaign last year, the former Vermont governor repeatedly told audiences that he wanted to be the candidate of "white folks in the South who drive pick-up trucks with Confederate flag decals."

What do you think the MSM reaction would have been if a prominent Republican - let alone the RNC chairman - made the exact same comment. Dean's comments speak volumes of how he sees the average African American: working in a service job and likely uneducated. Just as stereotypical as the pickup truck and confederate flag rant.

There are quite a few of the right-leaning talking heads and pundints who are hesitant to criticize Dean as the new DNC chair. I'm suspicious that most of them agree with me that Dean is a psychopath and will be a disaster for the Democrats - but they are just hedging their bets. Not only has he shown himself to be a loose cannon on several occasions, he has been isolated in the Northeast for his whole life. He has no idea how people think and how things get done outside of Boston. The last election clearly showed that the path the Dems choose was rejected by America. Now they have chosen a DNC chair who lives at the end of that rejected street.

Deans comments have drawn the attention of at least one prominent black politician. Maryland's Lt. Gov. Michael Steele has called for a public apology, calling Dean's remarks " racially insensitive and intolerable." I agree.

American Prisons in Mexico?

2005-02-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

ARIZONA TAKES A STEP FORWARD
Unlike California who refuses to fix 2 holes in the border fence to stop illegal immigration, Arizona adds to their movement to deal with the growing problem. Recall Proposition in November that was passed making people show they are citizens before receiving certain services. It passed overwhelmingly in Az. and even the ACLU (better known as the group without A CLU) took it to court and lost, Arizona has proposed another way of dealing with illegals. The State has even billed the US Gov. We'll need to keep an eye on this.....

Gridlocked in Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam

PreservingThe Benefits Of Student Athleticism

2005-02-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

Below, I talk about a Motivation seminar I attended today, while at times the "Rah Rah Rah" stuff seemed quite cultish, and while the infomercial-esque sales pitches worked on thousands searching "fix" to their lives for $499.00 on another seminar, there were some great speakers. Zig Ziglar, noted speaker worked the room like a Baptist minister. He talked about spirituality, positive thinking, acting and behavior. Walk up to someone and say "good morning" in the middle of the afternoon. See what they will say. I immediately went to Track practice and tried it with 3 athletes. They all responded at 4 p.m. with "Good Morning". The message is simple - you get what you give. I quickly used that to influence their practice work ethic when I was not in the immediate vicinity of their practice.
Rudolph Giuliani: People follow positive people, not pessimists. Courage is making the right decisions despite political winds. He may have been the most impressive speaker this day.
Joe Montana: Preparation - you must have a work ethic based on preparation. The 49ers prepared ad nauseum and that's why we were so good. We worked from 7:30 am until 4 p.m. We never let anyone out work us. Jerry Rice came in as a rookie and couldn't catch a cold. When he finally caught a 10 yard pass in practice he turned and ran 60 yards into the end zone. We all laughed at the rookie and got on him because practice was long enough. But he did it on every catch. It is not a coincidence that he is the NFL's all time leading TD scorer. Soon John Taylor would catch a pass in practice and go to the end zone, then Roger Craig did the same. I knew it paid off when we were playing the Rams in L.A. We had the ball on the 4 yd. line. John Taylor caught a pass on the 10 and went 96 yards for a TD. He would never have gotten into the end zone had it not been for Jerry Rice throwing a block on the far 20 yd line. Next, we got the ball on the 6 yard line and I threw a pass to Taylor and he went the distance again and Jerry was there throwing a block again that sprung John to the end zone. If those guys hadn't practiced that every day and gotten into that habit we wouldn't have won that game.

The real point is, out of the speakers who were there for motivation, not selling something, all but one referred to a coach they once had who motivated or inspired them. Other speakers referred to coaches such as the great Vince Lombardi. Ironically a friend of mine pointed out that all of the referrals were about football coaches. We are in a society today that continues to devalue what our coaches do for our kids. Funding is being cut back. Our leaders played sports. Our feeder elementary schools are removing PE, Band, and Art. Kids are loosing out on those opportunities. With sedentary lifestyle and obesity issues killing higher numbers every year, and countless dollars being spent to fight and treat the results of inactivity and overeating, why are we killing athletics, particularly PE. We push technology to our kids but childhood obesity is as high as it has ever been. Americans spend millions on diet drugs, programs, and anything they can get their hands on. Parents have no problem letting their kids sit home and play supernofriendo while they lose their physical fitness. It has gotten to the point where no funding leads to these cuts and the parents are okay with it. As a result, our district has allowed student to get PE credit for taking 3 years of Band. They also allow over 300 kids per summer to take PE and "get it out of the way". You should see the physical state these kids are in - its pathetic. They cannot run, throw or jump. Not that these are keys to a successful life, but without PE, where do they learn lifelong activeness. We teach bowling, hiking, softball etc. It isn't just about playing a game. It is lifetime fitness and activeness. If the elementary schools lose PE, the parent natural response will be - why should they have to take it in high school. I promise you that is the next step. The obvious loss is physical fitness but there are other consequences.

Cutting PE & Health classes cuts those teachers out of the school. In addition, most of these people are the coaches at our schools. A sister district school that has a population of students that cannot afford summer school PE has 1000 less students than my school and they have more PE teachers. So what happens when you loose those coaches. Well, ask those gentlemen I disucussed earlier: what influence - good or bad - their coaches had on them? Will we get coaches to replace them? It will be hard, but can be done. Who are these people? There are some great off campus coaches, don't get me wrong. But, they are not educators. There is a huge difference in many coaching aspects when the coach does not have the entire child in mind. Without education in the way, win at all costs prevails and that is certainly not in the best interest of the student/student-athlete. In addition, teachers go through a thorough screening process, and while not perfect, it is better than opening the door to off campus coaches.

Keep athletics and PE. Get involved in what is going on in relation to this issue in your community. Support student athletes and their coaches and find our what your community coaches philosophies are about. Ask how you can help ALL extra curricular activities in you schools. Give tax credit donations to your program. Call you school board and see what they are doing to preserve extracurricular activities. Assist your local school by volunteering at athletic or other extracurricular activities. Being around kids, particularly these kids, is rewarding. They are doing something very difficult that a majority of their peers are not. That is what makes them different, they are striving to be better and enjoy doing a little extra. If everyone does a little, no one has to do it all.

A True American - General Tommy Franks

2005-02-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

Today I had the extreme pleasure of attending a "Get Motivated" seminar in America West Arena here in Phoenix. Among the noted speakers were, Jerry Lewis, noted speaker Zig Ziglar, Rudolph Giuliani, Joe Montana, and noted sales expert Tom Hopkins. More on them later. The day was made with the 45 min. Speech of General Tommy Franks. If you EVER get a chance to listen to this authentic Texan, pay whatever it takes. He is a true inspiration to all Americans. He added great humor to his presentation and was a real "hoot". However, it was not some stand up act. (he could have made a great living doing that) General Franks discussed his 5 C's in working to great relationships. They start with conflicts and end up with cooperation. That was his plan, while commanding 20 countries in the Middle East during our most troubled times in this last decade. I will give highlighted comments from his discourse. Some serious, some reflective, and some ....Humorous.
- I love it here in Phoenix, so many cactus here... where I am from in Texas, all we have are Bushes.
- I saw my high school principal, he said I can't see how you became a 4 star general. Isn't this country great. Where else can you come here, I can come here and we can get ideas, we can express ideas in our system.
- I am proud to be a Clinton 4 Star General (this got about 3 cheers in a crowd of 18,000), yes, I love George Bush, I really do, but that is what is great about our country, no matter the politics... we can be for war/against war, for Presidents or against, but we have the opportunity for discourse here and I am so proud that other places in the world are getting those opportunities. On Oct. 9th, Afghanis got that chance.
- Americans have no business shrugging their shoulders and being embarrassed for what we do, we should hold our heads up high and be proud. Yes I am arrogant because I know what we do is right and it will allow my grand kids and their grand kids to grow up.
- I was asked how I like being a bully, I reply - in 1983 remember Lebanon, how bout 1993 and our airmen in the Ryaid (Saudi Arabia) towers, in 1998 I know you remember our embassy's in Africa, and in 2000 the USS Cole in Yeman. We knew about Osama Bin Laden in 1993 and he was behind the trouble in Somalia ... Black Hawk Down.. We did nothing in 93, 98, 00, and in 2001 after September 11th, we finally did. We have gone down the do nothing road. No we are and if my grandchildren and their grandchildren will continue to be able to come hear to places like this, grow learn, and listen to each other in discourse... I have no problem with what we are doing.
- Believe it or not, I can speak for a while.. there aren't any of those national media people here are there.....................how bout any French.......?
- Then we got a new administration (applause), that's right... we got a woman from Stanford and she is the BEST NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR WE HAVE EVER HAD, we then got a friend of mine, Colin Powell and he is the best Secretary of State we have ever had, and then a guy came on board with nobby elbows, yep, Donald Rumsfeld and he is the best we have ever had.
- I learned to read in Texas, 'bout at age 14, and the first thing I read was Julius Caeser. What I got from that was he talked a lot and was killed, so I'm going to get out of here now.
- One thing I learned from being retired, if you want the car to move, you need to sit in the front seat.
- My wife and I are the youngest people in Tampa Fla.
There is so much more and he was very American, and inspirational. It is clear the media was crude with Gen. Franks portraying him as uneducated, not a good communicator, anti-Bush, and retiring because he didn't agree with this administrations policies. NOTHING could be further from the truth.
If you ever get a chance to listen to General Tommy Franks, GO.

Harvard Professors Demonstrating Higher Education Elitism

2005-02-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Professors at Harvard Confronted Lawrence Summers in a recent faculty meeting. You may recall, Summers had come under heavy fire from libs, feminists and elitists for suggesting that inherent differences in men and women may explain the disparity in representation in scientific fields. This suggestion was made as part of a conference addressing such issues and Summers was asked to provoke discussion with his talk.

The most amazing and hypocritical part of the Harvard faculty's newest attack on their president is their assertion that his leadership is adverse to an open discourse of ideas:

Most speakers took aim at Dr. Summers for what they described as an autocratic management style that has stifled the open debate that is at the core of the university's values. While their comments were respectful, they were forceful and were greeted by strong applause.

I wonder if any of these people who so value an open discourse of ideas are the same people who walked out on Summers' presentation , or any of his colleagues who subsequently berated him in the press, or any of the people who called for his resignation. Apparently the standard is that if you suggest ideas which are considered politically incorrect, you are maligned and forced to retract anything you have to say. If, however, you are one of the smarty elites, anything you have to say must be worth open discourse. Discourse being the complete acceptance of your views and no criticism or debate of your ideas. Any suggestion that an elite's ideas are incorrect is called stifling and censorship. We all know most of university faculty are lefty elites, this just proves that the same holds true at Harvard.

Fellow University of Colorado Professor Thinks Affirmitive Action to Blame in Hiring Ward Churchill

2005-02-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

Professor Paul Campos contends in his rocky mountain news article that Ward Churchill was hired because he stated he was native american.

The privileges created by tenure are supposed to insulate faculty from political pressures in general and censorship in particular. Yet those of us in the academy, if we were candid, would have to admit that few places are more riddled with the distorting effects of politics and censorship than university faculties.

Academics claim to despise censorship, but the truth is we do a remarkably good job of censoring ourselves. This is especially true in regard to affirmative action. Who among us can claim to have spoken up every time a job candidate almost as preposterous as Churchill was submitted for our consideration? Things like the Churchill fiasco are made possible by a web of lies kept intact by a conspiracy of silence.

Professor Campos is absolutely correct. There will probably be more calls for his job after writing up this criticism of affirmative action than for the loon Churchill's job.

Eason Jordan Quits

2005-02-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

CNN News Executive Quits Amazing!!! With little to no MSM coverage of this scandal, Jordan has been forced out. The power of the blogosphere is truly awe inspiring at this point. Not that driving an individual to quit his post is, in and of itsef, a victory. The pressure and influence of the blogs on the truth and keeping the MSM honest is the victory.

Update: Michelle Malkin details the history of this story.

German 'Homosexual' Penguins Spark Gay Protest

2005-02-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

There must be a punchline in here somewhere. Apparently multiple gay rights groups are worried that a zoo in Germany will force some allegedly gay penguins to go hetero. Is it me, or does this group seem to have too much time on their hands. Maybe they are all French where they only work 35 hours per week by law. One thing is for sure, a protest involving the phrase "gay penguin" is not going to increase the credibility of your organization.

A plan by a German zoo to test the sexual appetites of a group of suspected homosexual penguins has sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups, who fear zookeepers might force them to turn straight.
...the zoo concluded the penguins might be gay after seeing male penguins trying to mate with other males and trying to hatch offspring out of stones.
German media reported that female Swedish penguins would be brought to the zoo to test the theory, but when word got out about the plan, the phones started ringing

I'm really not sure what the problem is here. If the penguins are gay, then the worst thing that will happen if they add in female penguins is there will be some female penguins with guy friends that really listen to them. If they are not gay, there will be some really happy boy penguins.

Linked up in Outside the Beltway

Class Action Tort Reform Nearly Here

2005-02-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Senate is set to vote on class action tort reform. The crux of the reform is to take the biggest of these suits from the state courts where payouts have been outrageous. The federal courts are typically much more conservative with the awards. While the origin of the class action suit was noble, they have become a joke for the plaintiffs and windfalls for the plaintiff's layers. The companies and corporations never take the fines and punishment themselves, it is all put right back on the consumer. The only time a company really looses is when it pays the ultimate price - ie Dow for their breast implant judgment. People wonder why prescription drugs cost so much. I refer them to the hundreds of websites promising payouts if you took Vioxx and the slew of television and radio ads to the same end. Check out the examples below and ask yourself who has won and who has lost. The entire profession of lawyering is getting quickly out of control as their ever increasing numbers necessarily mean that they have to manufacture work for themselves. We certainly NEED lawyers to help keep things fair and defend the law of our land. But the next time you meet one of the "good" lawyers, ask that person what they are personally doing to deter and punish their own colleagues from running amok in our legal system. Unfortunately, in my conversations, I have not found one lawyer working to clean up their profession.
Some examples:

A class action case in Illinois against Poland Spring claiming the company's bottled water was not pure. Under the settlement, Poland Spring admitted no wrongdoing, consumers received coupons for discounts on Poland Spring water and the class action lawyers received $1.35 million.
A class action case in Alabama against the Bank of Boston over escrow accounts. At settlement, class members actually ended up losing money to pay the plaintiffs'lawyers fees of $8.5 million.
The settlement of a class action in Texas against Blockbuster over late fees. Class members only received coupons, while their lawyers walked away with $9.25 million in fees.

More Examples:

In 1989, attorneys sued a San Francisco title company because its fees included a $25 charge for a rarely performed physical inspection of the property. (If the company had included the charge as a service fee, there would have been no grounds for a lawsuit.) The company settled the case by setting up a $4.9 million fund representing the revenue from the inspection fees. Class members who filed a written request for a refund received $15. Those who did not file a request received additional insurance coverage.

In 1988, class action lawyers sued the Mt. Konocti Water Company for overcharging lot owners on their water bills in a Lake County, California subdivision. The court ordered the water company to return $1.2 million, but the company only had $500,000 in assets. The real problem, however, was that the water company was self-insured and owned by the owners of the lots. As a result of the judgment, the water company went into bankruptcy, requiring it to pay over $3 million in attorneys' fees for the settlement and a plan of reorganization. The original plaintiff
received $300 as a result of the class action settlement, but will owe $6,000 for the cost of the reorganization.

In 1993, class action lawyers settled a lawsuit in Alabama against the Bank of Boston. The bank had allegedly taken excessive escrow fees from customer accounts to cover taxes and insurance payments. As part of the settlement, the bank was permitted to charge class member accounts for the costs of the litigation, including attorneys fees. One objecting class member got a $2.19 credit on his account and was charged $91.33 for the cost of obtaining the credit.

In 1993, class action lawyers sued a large California bank, claiming that it was collecting an excessive late fee penalty of $3 to $5 dollars and overlimit fees of $10. The bank admitted that it had not done a study to determine whether its fees reflected the actual cost of handling late payments. As a result of the lawsuit, the bank instituted such a study and determined that costs associated with late payments exceeded fees collected. It returned $1 million in overlimit fees, but has raised its late fee charges to future customers. The attorneys who brought the lawsuit negotiated a $450,000 attorney payment. As a result of that type of litigation, several California bank credit card operations have moved to neighboring states. Effective 1995, the California legislature allows credit card issuers to impose late fees of up to $15.

In 1992, class action lawyers sued VIACOM Cable Company, claiming that a $6 late fee charged in several Northern California communities was excessive. The judge concluded that the method used to calculate the late fee at $6, while not perfect, was reasonable. The judge nonetheless approved a settlement reducing the late fee for customers who paid within fifty days of the payment due date, but increasing for those who paid after the fifty day period. The lawyers received $514,000 in attorneys' fees for bringing the lawsuit.

In 1994, in Los Angeles, California, after learning about a lawsuit by Compaq Computer against Packard Bell Corporation, class action lawyers sued Packard Bell for selling computers containing recycled and reconditioned parts in new computers. The suit claimed that the practice reduced the value of computers sold to the general public. The case was settled; the company agreed to place language in its instruction manual for a three-year period with words to the effect that the computer "may contain used or reconditioned parts." In seeking approval of the settlement, both sides agreed that recycled parts have lower failure rates and thus are, in fact, better than new parts. The lawyers received $3.95 million in attorneys fees for a settlement negotiated within two months after filing the complaint.

In 1986, class action lawyers sued several major banks in San Francisco, California, for conspiring to fix credit card interest rates at 18 percent. The evidenceof the conspiracy (in addition to purported statistical probability) came from a Southern California college professor who claimed that an employee of one of the banks, since deceased, told him of a meeting he had attended twenty years earlier. Reportedly, bank representatives discussed interest rates. (The professors motives, it was found, were suspect; he had sued one of the banks unsuccessfully for allegedly stealing his idea for a debit card.) Three banks settled for $55 million (plaintiffs had alleged nearly $2 billion in damages), of which $7 million went to attorneys' fees. The professor himself opposed the settlement as inadequate. A fourth bank refused to settle and a jury, after ten weeks of testimony, found in the bank's favor.

One juror stated that the plaintiffs "had no case." The judge, commenting on the plaintiffs' expert witness, said "I would never let this man testify at a criminal trial . . . and anyone who did would be worthy of discipline."

In 1995, in Portland, class action lawyers sued a west coast lumber company on behalf of homeowners because the company's wood siding was subject to premature deterioration. It was later disclosed that the company itself arranged to be sued in a national class action. The company was seeking to avoid numerous individual lawsuits. Although the settlement could theoretically cost the defendants up to $425 million, collections from class members almost always are less than the total settlement amounts made available. The average payout per class member to date has been $6,300, in spite of the fact that a complete home residing can cost between $10,000 and $20,000. The class action attorneys received $26.2 million in attorneys' fees.

In 1993, class action attorneys sued General Chemical Corporation over an accidental release of sulfuric acid from its facility in Richmond, California. At its highest level of concentration, the amount of sulfuric acid released in the onetime event was a small fraction of the daily exposure limit allowed by California safety laws. Plaintiffs' lawyers hired "representatives" to scour the neighborhood. They successfully signed sixty thousand clients. Thirty thousand residents flooded local hospitals but treating doctors claimed that very few had any significant injury.

It was reported that neighbors in adjacent communities came to the area in order to become clients in the litigation. The chemical firm's insurance company settled the case for $180 million, $50 million of which went to the lawyers. The average payment to class members was under $1,000
Linked up in Outside the Beltway

AZ Gov. Wants Feds To Pay $118M For Migrant Costs

2005-02-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Govenor Napolitano is demanding the feds pay up. Many states, mostly AZ, CA and TX, house illegal alien federal inmates for the federal government. In return the feds are supposed to compensate the state department of corrections for the housing costs. Apparenly the feds owe AZ $118 million. While I rarely - I mean rarely - agree with Joe, er - I mean Janet - this is simply a big problem for AZ. We have a great economy and have one of the fastest growing cities in the country and still the state budget is crippled with the cost of illegals in AZ. Health care, education and police inforcement all cost the state hundreds of millions. In return the illegals ship billions back to Mexico. We need a plan now to tighten boarders, make more strict the need to be a citizen or guest worker to have a job and start capturing the income taxes from these illegal workers in order to slightly offset the cost to the AZ community.

On a journalistic note. I find it interesting that the headline describes the illegal aliens as "migrant." My impression that migrant workers are of all decents and are NOT illegal. Apparently this will be the next politically correct term for illegals.

Michelle Malkin Gets Confirmation On Eason Jordan's Accusation of Journalist Assassination By US Troops

2005-02-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

Chris Dodd had his spokesman speak with Malkin and he confirmed what has been previously reported by a few blogs - that CNN's chief of international news gathering had accused the US military of targeting and killing US and other journalists. Dodd's statement:

"Senator Dodd was not on the panel but was in the audience when Mr. Jordan spoke. He like panelists Mr. Gergen and Mr. Frank was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."

Malkin also has spoken with Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and David Gergen who moderated the panel where Jordan leveled these charges.

From Frank:

Rep. Frank said Eason Jordan did assert that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military. After Jordan made the statement, Rep. Frank said he immediately "expressed deep skepticism." Jordan backed off (slightly), Rep. Frank said, "explaining that he wasn't saying it was the policy of the American military to target journalists, but that there may have been individual cases where they were targeted by younger personnel who were not properly disciplined."

From Gergen:

David Gergen, who moderated the Davos panel on which CNN exec Eason Jordan appeared, spoke with me by phone this afternoon about the controversy.
First, Gergen confirmed that Eason Jordan did in fact initially assert that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by military "on both sides." Gergen, who has known Jordan for some 20 years, told me Jordan "realized as soon as the words had left his mouth that he had gone too far" and "walked himself back." Gergen said as soon as he heard the assertion that journalists had been deliberately targeted, "I was startled. It's contrary to history, which is so far the other way. Our troops have gone out of their way to protect and rescue journalists."
Gergen mentioned that Jordan had just returned from Iraq and was "caught up in the tension of what was happening there. It's a raw, emotional wound for him."

Now with the comments confirmed by many, we have to ask about the source. Eason Jordan has been described as the CNN chief news executive and by others as chief of foreign news gathering. Either way, his position amounts to control over the information and stories CNN reporters and news gathers are working on. As many would like us to believe, news gathering rarely starts with a "see what you can find out about such-and-such." Rather, bureau chiefs and execs send out requests like "get me a story about how the Marines are assassinating journalists." So with CNN's news gathering being run by a conspiracy theorist and an apparent anti-military activist, how does CNN expect to keep credibility with it's viewers. No wonder FoxNews routinely creams CNN for ratings. On top of a further loss of credibility for CNN, the complete lack of coverage by the MSM and the lack of any response by CNN except this one, in which they simply state Jordan is being taken out of context has "cover-up a-la Rather" written all over it.

Here is CQ's response to Jordans lame attempt to explain away his accusatory comments. Note the numerous other times Jordan has slandered the US and it's military while speaking to anti-US groups on foreign soil. I'm getting nauseated just writing this post.

2005-02-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

New Big Banner

Stoops Takes UA Recruiting To New Level

2005-02-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

After the Sunday news shows this morning, I decided to log onto Arizonaathletics.com and check out the football recruiting class. I pay about nine dollars a month to get delayed, poor quality video of most of the UA games and the coaches shows, but it's the best I can do living in Texas. Today I watched Stoops' press conference about the 2005 signed recruits. Arizonaathletics.com has the press conference free here (page down to the Wed, Feb 2nd section). One thing is for sure from his comments, he really understands recruiting and has come up with an excellent strategy for recruiting from and in Ariona. Here is the list of UAs recruits.

One of Coach Stoops' first comments was that geographically, UA is strategically positioned to recruit heavily both in California and Texas. This may seem like a no brainer but this mileage-based fact was completely lost on Tomey and Mackovich. As many of you recall, Tomey made a living recruiting from the South Pacific - big boys but he could never make an entire team from there. Tomey usually gave up on California recruiting from the beginning and Texas did not even cross his mind. Mackovich actually tried recruiting in TX but he was hated there almost more than in Tucson, so he was completely ineffective in TX as well as everywhere else he tried to recruit.

Stoops' second point was that his coaches recruited hard in ARIZONA. Our previous "coaches" gave up every year to asu and were lucky to get even a decent Tucson player to stay at UA. Certainly there were enough kids in Phoenix who could morally never play for asu and ended up in Tucson, but not due to aggressive recruiting. I have several close friends who coach football for good teams in Phoenix and, prior to Stoops, they could not hardly get UA recruiting to return their phone calls, let alone evaluate their players. Stoops changed all that and got most of the best players in AZ (who stayed in AZ) to come to Tucson.

Now don't just take my word for it. The 2005 UA recruiting class has been ranked in the top 20 in every ranking I could find. SI.com has Arizona ranked 13th nationally and 2nd in the Pac-10. Fox Sports/Sporting News has UA 14th and 3rd in the Pac. Rivals.com has UA ranked 21st and 3rd in the Pac behind USC and Cal. Scout.com has UA as 14th and 3rd in the Pac. College football news has us third in the Pac. Finally, Si.com's Stewart Mandel put UA in the winners column and summarized the class like this:

Winner: Arizona. The past two years, Arizona didn't even finish among the nation's top 50. This year, they nearly cracked the top 10. Second-year Arizona coach Mike Stoops has brought a level of energy to Tucson unseen in years. He worked his old Big 12 connections to land eight Texas prospects, not to mention top 10 QB Willie Tuitama and several touted receivers.

Last year, I commented on an article "Stoops Brings The Passion" in which I said Stoops brings an intensity to Arizona football which has not been seen in a while. This recruiting class proves his enthusiasm, work ethic and skills as a recruiter and I'd like to think that handing asu's ass to them in the final game of last season proved his coaching ability.

CQ: Update On CNN News chief Accusation Of American Military Intentionally Killing Reporters

2005-02-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

Captains Quarters has an update on this controversy and the total lack of reporting by the MSM.

The mainstream media has spent another news cycle ignoring the Eason Jordan scandal, where he has been discovered to have made repeated claims of atrocities deliberately committed by US troops against reporters. CNN felt that Eason's Fables could be so damaging that they took the unusual step of not only e-mailing a statement to those who e-mailed their complaints, but also to bloggers who posted on the story but never sent a complaint to CNN.

Read the whole post. It seems that the press would be all over this and report it as if it were true. I'm sure they are just fact checking like they did in Rathergate.

Quick, Somebody Call the Associated Press: Osama bin Laden has been captured

2005-02-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

Osama bin Laden has been captured

Too Funny.
(If you don't get it read this post first).

Walter E. Williams: Anti-intellectualism among the academic elite

2005-02-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

Walter E. Williams has written an excellent piece describing the elitism of the lefties on college campuses.

Dr. Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, has been excoriated for suggesting that innate differences between men and women might be one of the reasons fewer women succeed in the higher reaches of science and math. Adding insult to injury, he also questioned the role of sex discrimination in the small number of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.

Professor Nancy Hopkins, an MIT biologist, attended the National Bureau of Economic Research conference titled "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce" where Dr. Summers gave his lecture. She had to leave the lecture, explaining to a Boston Globe (Jan. 17, 2005) reporter, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up." In today's campus anti-intellectualism, it's acceptable to suggest that genetics explains some outcomes, but it's unacceptable to use it as an explanation for other outcomes. Let's try a few, and guess whether Professor Hopkins would barf.

Suppose a speaker said that sickle cell anemia is genetically determined and occurs almost exclusively among blacks. Would Professor Hopkins stomp out of the room, charging racism? What if it were said that a person's chances of being a carrier of the gene for Tay-Sachs disease, a disease without a cure, is significantly higher if he is an Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jew? Would Professor Hopkins barf and charge the speaker with anti-Semitism?

Indeed.

The elitism of the left is basically defined by their belief that any dissenting opinion is the product of racism, ignorance and/or discrimination. Just as Dr. Summer's would not even entertain the words from the president of Harvard, most liberal elites shoot down and disregard as stupid anything they disagree with. This type of behavior is accepted - and even expected - by the political elites, but shutting down ideas without discussion of their merits on college campuses is harmful. Most people would agree that racism is wrong. However the question of WHY it is wrong has to be studied and examined in order to illuminate the subtleties of racism and how those apply to everyday life, our culture and our behaviors. If we are going to have no discussion of any issues in our institutions of higher learning then there is no learning going on at all, just indoctrination. Williams finishes with this:

Suppression of ideas that are seen as being out of the mainstream has become all too common at universities. The creed of the leftist religion is that any difference between people is a result of evil social forces. That's a vision that can lead to the return to the Dark Ages.

Gridlocked in the Beltway Traffic Jam

Eason Jordan - CNN Chief News Executive - Accuses US Military Of Targeting and Killing US and Foreign Reporters

2005-02-04T10:56:00.001-07:00

Rony Abovitz posts a detailed description of a meeting held to discuss medial and the war. During the meeting, Eason Jordan accused the US military of purposely targeting and killing both US and foreign reporters and media personel. I'm sure that there are tons of conspiracy theorists out there who believe this but none are running CNNs news division. The fact that the chief news executive has such outlandish things to say about the US miliary and their actions just puts an exclamation point on the "left and getting lefter" slant which has been CNN since it became Fox New's red headed step child. Hugh Hewitt has posted his radio interiew with Rony Abovitz which expands on the above linked original article concerning Jordans rant.

At a discussion moderated by David R. Gergen, the Director for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, the concept of truth, fairness, and balance in the news was weighed against corporate profit interest, the need for ratings, and how the media can affect democracy. The panel included Richard Sambrook, the worldwide director of BBC radio, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, Abdullah Abdullah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, and Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN. The audience was a mix of journalists, WEF attendees (many from Arab countries), and a US Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd.

During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others.

Democratic Response New Level of Partisan Hackery

2005-02-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

Democrats Give a 'No' to privatized As if Nancy Pelosi was not a hateful and negative enough person, her "No" sermon (Democratic Response) was just more liberal whining. Any second grader could have written their response, it just would have been easier to understand phrased as "nu-uh", "fraid not", and "I know you are but what am I".

Keeping with the recent tradition of loudly protesting every time the President opens his mouth (usually before he has said anything), the group shouted "No" when Bush mentioned the Social Security system is heading for bankruptcy. They also yelled out when he mentioned privatizing a small part of younger workers Social Security withholding.

Congressional Democrats cried "No!" each time Bush said that the Social Security
system was bankrupt. They sat stonily when he suggested allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in private accounts.

The saddest thing is that this is the strategy which lost them the presidential race and legislative seats: go negative and oppose anything Bush says. I swear, if Bush came out on the side of dogs, the dems would immediately become cat people. So what are they really opposing. Bush proposed last night that no change would occur in the current system if you were 55 or older. For younger people, personal retirement accounts would be slowly phased in over years and max out at 4% (yes, a whopping 4%) of your total Social Security withholding. So the democrats are against you keeping more of your own money to fund your own retirement. Apparently they also think that Social Security is doing fine. I wonder when they think we should fix Social Security - wait until 2020, 2040??? The amazing thing about Bush's proposal is that it is completely opposite of most legislative work in that it tries to fix a problem which has not yet reached catastrophic level (but will) and does so slowly, over time so as not to adversely affect many people tomorrow.

Finally, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas - who has never ending uninformed and ignorant comments (and living in TX for the last year I've heard them all) brings up an exit strategy:

"I believe we need to begin to talk about an exit strategy, and I didn't hear
that tonight," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas.

As I've posted before and Bush plainly said last night, artificial dates for an exit strategy do not allow for real time adjustment based on events "on the ground" and simply give terrorist and murderers a reason to wait us out then begin all over again. This Democratic talking point is a dead horse and they need to figure that out before the mid term elections or they will all be labeled as anti-military and loose all over again.

Finally, to add on the negative nellying, here are some of the other particularly partisan and meaningless quotes:

"I had no idea W stood for Wall Street," said Rep. Louise McIntosh Slaughter of
New York.
(Did you stay up all night thinking of that one?)
Sen. Charles
Schumer, also of New York, declared: "We will not allow the president to play
retirement roulette and turn Social Security into social insecurity." (Scare
tactics - always a dem favorite)
And Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California
said: "When it came to specifics of a domestic program, they just weren't
there."(Try listening next time - every camera shot of Feinstein was her talking
to the person she was seated next to)
Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan said
that Bush's Social Security proposal reminded him of "that New Coke from the
1980s the name on the can was the same, but nobody could stomach what was
inside." (must have pulled the all nighter with McIntosh)

Soros, Moore and Carter Speechless - Too Good To Last

2005-02-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently the success of the Iraq elections has the lefties silent. While the silence of the critics of bringing democracy to the middle east is deafening, it will never last long. My suspicion is that these guys spent hours shining their articles or web posts on how just one day after the elections, a marine had been captured, only to find out it was a GI Joe Hoax.

Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros and left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore
were among critics of the administration's Iraq policy who had no comment after
millions of Iraqis went to the polls in their nation's first free elections in
decades. The Carter Center determined that the security
situation in Iraq was going to be too dangerous to send election monitors, so
the Atlanta-based human rights organization founded by former President Jimmy
Carter posted its personnel in neighboring Jordan.

Asked whether the Carter Center had a comment on the election, spokeswoman
Kay Torrance said: "We wouldn't have any 'yea' or 'nay' statement on Iraq."

In fact, their silence has already broken. For the first time that I can remember, the Democrats have delivered the response to the state of the union before the President has given the speech. Now they already told us that they know everything and that we are all stupid, but I didn't know that the Democrats could see into the future. (I realize the text and content of the state of the union have already been released to some but giving the rebuttal before the speech seems just a tad lame)

Oh No! We Suck Again!

2005-02-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

We beat an arguably good team (Washington), which we should do at home. Then we follow it up with a loss AT HOME to Washington State. This is pathetic. We had beaten Wazzu an amazing 38 times in a row. That's 19 years without a loss. I wasn't even in high school the last time UofA lost to WSU. I believe in putting your foot on the throat of an opponent, then pressing down firmly. Never let them believe that they can beat you.

Now a loss is a loss, but a loss at home to a perennial Pac-10 doormat is a bad loss. The NCAA selection committee looks at the quality of losses as well as the quality of wins. If we remain in the 12-16 range in the polls, expect us to be looking at a 5-6 seed, and possibly out of the West region. The Selection Committee has proven itself to be exceptionally harsh on the UofA come seeding time, and this year should be no different. And we should note this loss as the reason why.

Personal Note: wait, this is a blog - it's all personal. Dick Bennett is an ass. He went from Big-10 respectability to Pac-10 doormat. Now he's gloating in his rare win on the road with his boring-ball style of basketball. The last time games went this slow, Dr. James Naismith was hanging up peach baskets before contests. Enjoy it while you can, Dick - cause it won't last.

AP News Tricked By GI Joe Doll

2005-02-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

Little Green Footballs has completely embarrassed the associated press. AP ran a story which was mostly information taken from a militant islamist website that had a picture of a so-called captured American soldier. The only problem is that the picture is of a GI Joe doll, not even a human. It's just incredible how far the MSM will go to spread negative stories about the war in Iraq. Compare the flood of negative stories regarding Iraq with the one day of good news regarding their successful election. Check out the LGF link, they have the AP picture along with the GI Joe - in the box.

Obese Lawmaker Does Not Blame McDonalds

2005-01-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

N.D. Weighs Who's to Blame for Obesity North Dakota lawmakers are taking on the people who blame the fast food industry for their obesity. They are also taking on the trial lawyers who are also to blame for the lawsuits that claim the crafty advertisements of Burger King and McDonalds overpowers one's self discipline and personal responsibility.

"We cannot, and we should not, hold Burger King, McDonald's .... and Taco Bell, restaurants that serve food that people like to eat, responsible," said Rep. Ron Iverson, R-Fargo. "The reason I'm fat is because I make bad food choices, and I don't exercise."

"We need to have personal responsibility for our actions, and we don't want to create an environment in North Dakota where people are suing others for their own actions," he said.

Iverson said restaurants "do not force me to pay for their product, and they do not force me to eat it. I do that."

Hallelujah!!!! Sure that is not the politically correct thing to say but it's so true. In college, thanks to a steady diet of burgers, burritos, beer and the couch, I topped out at 220 pounds. Since then, I have dropped back to a more respectable 180. I never for one instant tried to blame the Student Union (Louie’s Lower Level being the biggest culprit), or any of the all night fast food restaurants for my obesity. Certainly Ronald McDonald had no influence on my lack of any activity which might cause an elevated heart rate.

Let's not forget about our friends the trial lawyers. Now before you jump all over me for attacking an entire group for a complete lack of morals, just ask yourself - of the "good" lawyers you know, how many of them are fighting, or at least outspoken against their rotten colleagues. Anyway, no good "blame everybody else first" lawsuit gets underway without the help of our friends, the trial lawyers. And they see the writing on the wall when legislators try to curb their business:

Paula Grosinger, director of the North Dakota Trial Lawyers' Association, called the legislation a knee-jerk reaction to a New York lawsuit that was later dismissed. The legislation would give the food industry legal protection that other industries do not have, Grosinger said.

Apparently, Grosinger has not read the news that the McDonalds case has been re-opened. She followed with this gem:

"Our juries are capable of making these decisions about the merits of a case," Grosinger said.

Oh sure, trust the juries. No jury have every made a crazy verdict - well maybe that 2.7 million dollars for hot coffee - but none since, right? Wrong - it happens all the time!

You wanted us to pull out when?

2005-01-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

CNN.com

Today marks a historic day in Iraqi history - free elections were held for the first time following the fall of Sadaam's regime. This represents a crucial point in their history - This point will be remembered as the moment Iraqis began to learn again to govern themselves.

While the violence was expected, it was greatly reduced due to the efforts of the joint Iraqi and American forces.

Fortunately, the Iraqi people were able to enjoy free elections due to the character and resolve of the American Government. Thinking back to our recent election, I believe that if we had a leadership change (*cough* Kerry *cough*), there would be no elections, no peace, and no direction for the Iraqi people.

Just remember who got the job done.

When Will They Stand Up For Themselves

2005-01-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

There continues to be attacks killing Iraqi civilians. We all know that most of the terrorists murdering the Iraqi people and coalition forces are not from Iraq. So why won't these people stand up for themselves and say, "enough!" They seem to be just standing around letting their country get torn further apart by the terrorists. Is this due to years of oppression? Is is due to apathy? Do they not want to work for their country? Do they think the US will do it all for them? It's time for all Iraqis to stand up for their own futures, and do it now.

Politial Windbagging Against Dr. Rice Will Hurt US International Relations

2005-01-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

Dr. Rice will be confirmed. Despite this fact - which everone on both sides of the isle agrees, some prominent dems did not miss an opportunity to criticize Dr. Rice as well as the entire Bush foreign policy.

against Rice's nomination in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Rice's answers to her questions were "completely nonresponsive" and raised more issues about her credibility than they answered.

"President Bush in his inaugural address talked about bringing freedom to countries that don't have it. He didn't specify how," Boxer said.

But since the human rights group Freedom House lists 49 countries as "not free," she said, "I worry about sending more troops on military missions based on hyped-up rhetoric. And that's why these questions are so important."

While criticism and debate are of utmost importance in our government. One has to wonder just what good it does to criticize the undisputed future secretary of state. In my opinion this, often personally directed, criticism just undermines both Dr. Rice and the US in terms of future foreign relations.

2005-01-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Our New Banner

Lute gives 1 Million to fight Cancer

2005-01-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

The University of Arizona - Article

How can you not give support to a class act like Lute. A man who was raised with values and character gives back without question. He gets nothing out of this and those who question athletics and their purpose, I ask how much more will be raised because of what he has done and associated his name with. If it were not for athletics, no million dollars. In addition, what is he telling his players, fans, and the community of Tucson.

Redefining The War On Terror ... From The Left

2005-01-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

On Saturday's Meet The Press Russert asked WaPo columninst Robin Wright to comment on the following Bush inaugural speech quote:

PRES. BUSH: We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny, prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder, violence will gather and multiply in destructive power and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

In true anti-Bush/WaPo fashion, Wright used the opportunity to bring forth the new Dem talking point: Bush is trying to redefine the war on terror and Iraq (because they did not find any WMD) and because the war is going poorly. (I disagree but that is their implication).

MR. RUSSERT: Robin Wright, can anyone disagree with that?
MS. ROBIN WRIGHT: Not at all. But it's interesting how the second administration really is redefining the war on terrorism to a war to achieve liberty and to go after the regimes whose unjust rule has led to resistance and the emergence of Islamic extremism. The one flaw in his speech or the one limitation is that he defines it in terms purely of liberty, and he doesn't really talk a lot about human rights law. And there's a big difference. Liberty is achieving, you know, political change. But achieving it is often dealing with the very regimes who are responsible for creating this extremist--Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. There are a number of countries where the United States faces a challenge. As noble as it sounds to take on the cause of liberty, it's very difficult in practical terms to get regimes we count on for the war on terrorism to actually undergo that transition.

Here is where we cannot let the Left decide to portray a consistent message as a redefinition. This entire problem is that from day one, the MSM and the left have defined the entire war in Iraq and on terror as a hunt and retribution for WMD. Those who have followed the president's entire message have known all along that the broad message was that spreading freedom, liberty and democracy will have the long term consequence of making the middle east safer and therefore, the US safer and that is why this is an important war. Iraq is just a segment of the entire war since Saddam and his WMD threat was a major destabilizing force in the region and converting an unstable country to a democratic one lead by the people will conveyyyy stability to the entire region.

Chrenkoff Puts Numbers On The Media Bias

2005-01-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

Chrenkoff posts an excellent round up of the information being disseminated by the MSM about Iraq. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of stories are negative. In order to keep the scales balanced, read Chrenkoff's Good News From Iraq regularly.

Marilyn Kahle, Principal and University of Arizona Graduate, Turns 50

2005-01-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

On a personal note, Aunt Marilyn Turns 50. I was just sent a link to pictures of the birthday party of one of my favorite aunts. I'm not sure about her politics - everyone has more or less the same politics after five of Dolf's margaritas. Anyway, she is a wonderful person who has been important to me since I was a kid. Marilyn spent time with us in AZ when I was growing up. Among other things she convinced a young me that Milky Way candy bars were parachuted in each evening from space and that if you eat liver it all goes into your left leg. Now that I'm a doctor, I know better - liver goes into your Right Leg. Marilyn is also a Wildcat and was fortunate enough to be in Tucson when they got rodeo week off of school and nobody really knew what the drinking age was. She, along with her husband, Dolf and their kids were awesome while I was in medical school in Ohio and I miss seeing them. She is still in Cleveland and it is still cold there from the looks of the pictures. Happy birthday Marilyn, see you in October.

Some Good Satire

2005-01-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Rice Punches Boxer In The Face During Confirmation Hearing I wonder who would win that fight...

Stoudamire stays hot and shoots down Ducks

2005-01-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Salim continues his hot streak. Having been stuck in Houston for the last six months, I have not been able to see much Wildcat sports. Mostly because there are about fifteen hundred colleges here in Texas and they all have to have played early games or be off completely for any west coast/Pac-10 sports to make it into my living room. Fortunately, the moon must have lined up with Venus and I had the full Cats-Ducks game to watch. I was a little concerned early when the Cat's spent the first five minutes down by five. My heart rate returned to normal when we took the lead and extended it to fifteen. Then the Cats let down. It was terrible to see a team which is trying to find it's groove completely let their game plan and intensity go. Up by eleven, Channing Frye takes a three pointer from the top of the arc and I thought to myself - sure we are up by eleven but this is not time to have our center start throwing up threes. Sure enough, a couple of steals later and the Ducks are within one point. Now my heart rate is up again and I'm starting to yell loud enough to wake up my fiancee (who gets cranky when she doesn't get enough sleep) so now I'm angry for two reasons. Fortunately, some decent leadership, some good shots and excellent play by Stoudamire and Adams the cats were able to pull it out. Now a W is a W but this team is just too "on the bubble" to ever let it's guard down. They need to keep the intensity up and beat the crap out of a few teams - then Frye can try some shot from downtown.

Oh by the way. Did you catch Oregon state crushed the scumdevils 88 to 66.

Partisan Democrats Delay Rice's Nomination

2005-01-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

Dr. Rice's nomination for Secretary of State was delayed yesterday with a democrat filibuster which threatened to keep the congress from attending last night inauguration events. The sickening part of this is that while all the dems concede that Dr. Rice will be easily confirmed, they just wanted to hear their voices for a few more hours:

Senate Democrats objected to a full Senate vote on Thursday, saying they wanted more time for floor speeches.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada raised the objection, saying Democrats needed four and a half hours to speak on the matter.

And as to the Democrat's willingness to work in a bipartisan manner, this pretty much sums it up:

While acknowledging that Rice will be confirmed eventually, some Democrats want to show they are ready to fight the president in his second term -- amid grumbling that party leaders did not stand up to Bush in his first term.

So we see that the blowhards from the left are willing to delay the inevitable so they can enjoy the sound of their own pieholes for nine more hours. Ih this case the left has truly lived op to being the party of the ass.

Protester Gets Pummeled For Protesting the Protesters

2005-01-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

Washingtonpost.com has an article about a group of protest protesters. Apparently they were not welcome with the rest of the protesters near the inauguration route and were subsequently beat up by the anti-Bush protesters. Funny how the party who accepts everyone has very little tolerance for dissenting opinions.

On another note. Read this whole article. Read it carefully. What do you find? Well here is an example of actual journalism not filled with opinions, verbal slights and overt partisanship. Why do you think this is the case here? Easy, because it is a story about a group of left-friendly, Bush-haters who perpetrated assault and battery on a group of people who were expressing their first amendment rights. Contrast this with most any story about the war in Iraq which usually begins with the false conclusion that there were no WMDs found, that the war is a quagmire and that we are loosing. The bias reported is all to clear in this WaPo article when compared to the remainder of their work.

You Need A Licence To Cut A Dog's Hair, But Anybody Can Become A Parent

2005-01-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

Man Charged with Choking Son's Hockey Coach Yet another in the many examples of parents acting like complete idiots right in front of their children.

Wildcat Basketball Fan Says What We Were All Thinking

2005-01-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

Matthew Seaton, a senior at the U of A writes an excellent and hilarious letter to the editor. Why can't we beat those Stanford geeks anyway???

Unacceptable to lose to Stanford in hoops

Like most of you, I love our basketball team and understand they cannot win all of their games. Losing to Stanford, as they have made a habit of in recent years, is, however, unacceptable. Unlike their student body, most of us will not go on to prestigious law and medical schools, nor start multi-billion dollar ventures like Google Corp. Instead, all we ask is that our basketball team kicks their basketball team's ass most of the time. Really, is this so much to ask? Isn't it bad enough many of us will be working for these chumps when we graduate, if we're not gainfully employed selling cars or digging ditches. Look, I love the UA, and am thankful to be here, but we'll never be Stanford. The least we can do is get over on them athletically.

Matthew Seaton
biochemistry senior

Update:
At least we can get up on USC.

Arizona Drought Far From Over

2005-01-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Even the harsh winters storms of late are barely helping the western drought. Arizona and many western states are in the middle of a ten year drought. It has been years since northern Arizona has seen a good snowfall. Reservoir lakes are at less than 25% capacity. While the flooding, mudslides and loss of life are huge downsides to these storms, they do bring needed water to the west.

Although the snow pack in northern Arizona is well above average for the season, it will take at least two more good snow seasons to crest nearly a decade of drought, said Larry Martinez, snow survey program manager for NRCS.

The drought has forced Arizona ranchers to sell livestock to protect grazing lands. And dry conditions in the state's forests have led to a host of wildfires, including the Rodeo-Chediski fire in 2002, which burned more than 500,000 acres.

Here is the current map of the drought in the west.

Some Excellent Comments At The Homespun Bloggers Symposium

2005-01-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to point out the excellent responses being posted to the question:

What, in your opinion, are the moral responsibilities of the individual citizen in the United States (or your own country) today and how do you believe people should act upon (or react to) those perceived responsibilities?

Comments like that from Tom at Redhunter are especially meaningful. The basis for his answer is that we all need to be responsible for our own actions and for the consequences of those actions - or inactions. Acting in such a way as to expect any more than the basics from your government is selfish and civically immoral.

An Insight Into French Culture

2005-01-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

Jean-Marie Le Pen is being investigated about something he said. Apparently France has laws against certain types of speech. Even worse the laws appear to make some forms of OPINION illegal.

The Paris prosecutor's office announced a preliminary enquiry Thursday to determine if the veteran far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen broke the law when he described the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two as "not especially inhumane."

"Not especially inhumane." - that gets you investigated by the police. Yes, the opinion is stupid with hints of revisionist history but it still is just one persons opinion of events. This type of moronic rhetoric is not new either, for years fringe groups have been trying to deny the truths of the holocaust. But it is still only speech and apparently illegal in France.

The investigation was to focus on whether Le Pen's comments, which were made to the extreme right-wing magazine Rivarol, constituted "denial of crimes against humanity" or "apology for war crimes" - both of which are criminal offences.

Whether or not this guy is an idiot is not the issue - he is. The issue is that he is simply expressing his opinions through his speech. The French law here appears to be one in which the government, judge or jury determines the truths about history and anyone who disagrees with them is committing a crime. And what exactly was the horrible thing he had to say about the Nazi occupation of France, according to this Reuter's article:

"I note that if one compares the German occupation of France with the occupation in a certain number of other European countries, then proportionately, it's in France where it was the least painful," Le Pen told RTL

Clearly the standard here is political correctness run amok. European elites, headed by Chirak, are pushing their agenda right over the rights of individuals to SAY things. It is no wonder France would not support the war in Iraq - clearly in France is was politically incorrect. The problem is that political correctness rarely leads one down the difficult path to a real, long term solution to a problem. Most of the time it leads one down a path which makes the person or group feel better about THEMselves but rarely helps others for very long. Compare the war in Iraq with the goal of removal of a terrorist regime and replacing it with an elected government versus continuing soft economic sanctions, a corrupt oil for food program and seeing no violence on television (although it continued in the torture prisons under Saddam).

Denying basic rights such as freedom of speech would be seen as morally outrageous in this country. Denying these rights and allowing the government to decide what the correct interpretation of history for criminal matters is a step backward toward dictatorships and away from government by the people. This is clearly just another reason to discount France and it's political movement altogether.

UPDATE:
According to this article, Oliver Stone is running away to France after his last two movies bombed. I would warn Mr. Stone and his propensity to make revisionist history movies (ie JFK) that he may face criminal prosecution. Anyway, dont let the door hit you on the way out, Oliver.

Some Thoughts On A Citizen's Moral Responsibilities

2005-01-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

In response to the Homespun Bloggers weekly symposium:

What, in your opinion, are the moral responsibilities of the individual citizen in the United States (or your own country) today and how do you believe people should act upon (or react to) those perceived responsibilities?

Morals and their resulting responsibilities represent a very broad topic. Many of the responders have referenced religious writings, god and the Boy Scout oath which all generally fit the "do unto others..." golden rule. There is another set of morals which one derives from existing as a citizen in a society. These have less to do with how we treat other individuals and focus more on how one's actions impact society at large. While I have not fully developed a solid, succinct golden rule for moral citizenry, the basic idea is to not become a burden to society. In high school my government teacher told us we all had a right to fail and to do nothing. I found this hard to swallow since by failing and not trying to not fail, simply by existing you were taking FROM society and not giving anything back. I see examples of this daily in my medical practice. Things like smoking, over-eating, alcoholism and dangerous personal activities are all contrary to good health - and this is no secret. In my opinion, there should be a moral rule against these activities since they all cost society in one way or another. The question then becomes how do you apply the moral citizen test to any action in question. The answer becomes framed something like "is this action going to take from society without producing an, at least, equal good?" Apply this to the skydiver without health insurance. While few accidents occur, when they do they generally result in multiple surgeries, long hospital stays and protracted rehabilitation. Without any resources to back the skydiver up in case of accident, isn't there a moral imperative to not skydive? So while we should treat all other individuals the way we want to be treated, maybe we should treat our country/society the way we would want our family treated.

Kennedy's Progressive Agenda Neither Progressive Nor An Agenda ... Discuss

2005-01-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

Kennedy: Democrats Need Progressive Agenda Ted Kennedy tries to rally democrats by proposing a "progressive agenda." With this lead in you might think he was going to take his party in a whole new direction, think again. If I hear one more liberal or democrat decrying why they had a hard time connecting with the American voter and then proposing to continue to do the same exact thing they have been doing for years, I'm going to ... encourage them. Here are two of the drunks new and innovative proposals:

Proposal #1:

He (Kennedy) said Medicare should be gradually expanded to cover all citizens, and the cost would be funded through payroll taxes and general revenues and offset by savings through advances in technology.

See my post regarding Tennessee and the horrible flop of TenCare as an example of government trying to provide healthcare to everyone. This also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of healthcare - advances in technology do not make health care cheaper, it make it more expensive.

Proposal #2:

Kennedy also called for greater federal support for college costs, saying every student who is admitted to college should be guaranteed the cost of earning a degree.

We already have this, it is called student loans. For the lowest income groups there are grants and scholarships. Some day I hope to send my children to college. At that time I should have plenty of money saved and be in the prime of my career as a surgeon. Should the government pay for my kids college tuition? This is just more pie in the sky. Liberals want you to believe there is a financial barrier to going to college and if the government would just pay for all college, more students, including minorities, would go to college. This simply is not true. The barrier to going to college starts in the home and is perpetuated by stereotypes and backward social values. Show me a kid accepted to a college who could not pay for it and I'll show you a student who did not fill out the FAFSA - or whatever they are calling it these days.

Kennedy wrapped up his speech with this display of oratorial skills

Kennedy also mangled the name of the Democrats' new star, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, calling him "Osama bin ... Osama ... Obama."

Have another one Ted...

Another Disaster Avoided By Re-Electing Bush: Kerry's Health Care Plan Used Bankrupted TenCare As Model

2005-01-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

GOVERNOR ANNOUNCES TennCare OVERHAUL As I posted before the election, free-for-all health care plans simply cost too much and do not provide good care for most. John Kerry thought that Tennessee's medicaid system was a good model for both distributing and paying for health care. In fact, it was the model for his national health care plan. Today, the program is nearly bankrupt after trying to pay for many people who can afford their own insurance. Breath a sigh of relief you didn't get suckered into this one.

Under the basic TennCare plan 323,000 adults will be cut from the plan. The remaining 396,000 individuals eligible for Medicaid will continue to receive "reasonable" but reduced benefits. The reductions do not affect the 612,000 children on the plan.

“It might not be the level of care we want to provide, but it’s the level of care we can afford without bankrupting our state,” said Bredesen. “We’re putting limits into what has been the most generous healthcare program in the nation.”

Bredesen had long maintained that many of TennCare’s problems were the result of extensive pharmacy and hospital allowances granted to attendees. Doctor visits, prescriptions, and in-patient hospital stays, which had been unlimited under the original TennCare plan, have been reduced significantly under the basic plan. Enrollees will now be limited to 12 doctor visits a year, four prescriptions a month, and 20 days of in-patient hospital care. These and other reductions are expected to save the state $575 million during the next fiscal year.

Bumper to Bumper in the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam

Audits Reveal Oil-for-Food Bilking

2005-01-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

FOXNews continues to keep close eye on the oil for food program. It appears the program was unwatched, overbilled and corrupt. In addition to the overbilling detailed in this article, another huge part of the program which was to pay Kuwait citizens reparations for the 1990 invasion was also completely without oversight. According to Tony Snow on the Sunday Factor, approximately $40 billion of the $63 billion oil-for-food program is unaccounted or at least poorly accounted for.

Far more than the actual dollars wasted, mismanaged or missing is the fact that for years the U.N. allowed Saddam to cheat the program. The lack of oversight did not just loose money, it allowed the Iraq regime to continue to build it's arsenal, promote terror and repress it's people. We are now in a war with the reminants of that government and it's allies thanks to the inept handling of the oil-for-food program by the U.N. Each and every American life lost should be blamed - at least in part - on Kofi Annan and the U.N.

Update:
This NewsMax article shows just how cluless Kofi Annan is about the oil-for-food program. Anyone who had read even a small bit of the problems with the program would know it was a disaster. Kofi, on the other hand, has his head in the clouds:

Though Saddam Hussein is reported to have siphoned off at least $23 billion in relief money that was supposed to go to the people of Iraq while U.N. sanctions were in place, Annan called the operation he oversaw "effective."

Annan said allegations of "some wrongdoing" are "being looked into," but quickly reiterated, "We should not forget that [Oil-for-Food] achieved its results."

"The sanctions were effective. Iraq was disarmed. Iraq is well-fed," the U.N. chief claimed. "In fact, the distribution system was so effective that today we use the distribution cards as the basis for voter registration for the elections."

Kofi reminds me of Bagdad Bob - "nothing to see here, everything is fine, we are winning the war, the US is retreating."

Everyone Looking At Same Numbers, Headlines Biased In Both Directions

2005-01-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

To follow up on the story of US jobs growing more in 2004 than the past four years, I have been amazed at the difference in headlines regarding this story. We all have the same numbers to look at, but the inherent biases come out in the reporting. Almost none of the headlines simply report the story. Here is a sample from both sides.

The Pessimists:
Job Growth Misses Estimates in December
FOX News

Jobs gain smaller than expected
USA Today

December Job Gains Less Than Expected
MSN Money

US jobs data points to steady, not spectacular growth
Turkish Press, Turkey

US jobs growth below expectations
RTE Interactive, Ireland

Jobs Growth Slightly Soft
TheStreet.com

December Job Gains Less Than Expected
Reuters

Jobs Growth Slightly Soft
WOKR-TV, NY

US jobs data disappoints
Ottawa Business Journal, Canada

Employers Add Fewer Jobs Than Expected
Smartmoney.com

The Optimists:
US employers created 2.2 million new jobs in 2004
Denver Post, CO

Heres to a Good Year: A Look at Employment Gains in 2004
Heritage.org, DC

December Hiring Helps Fuel Job Growth
ABC News

2004 Job Creation Was Highest Since '99
Washington Post, DC

Job Growth Picks Up Speed; Jobless Rate At 5.4%
FoxReno.com, NV

The disappointment here is that there must be a bias one way or the other for all these news and analysis to have such different takes on the same exact numbers. The encouraging part is that at least there are headlines in both directions. Having hundreds of news sources available via the internet has allowed all points of view to be easily accessible. I cannot recall a pre-internet time when the big three news sources had different slants or views on a news story. Thanks to cable news, online news and blogging, all points of view can be taken in and appreciated. While many in the blogosphere want to take credit for the fall of the old guard mainstream media, I think the bloggers just helped finish off an institution already wounded by the cable news networks.

Stuck in the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam

2004 Job Creation Is Best in Five Years

2005-01-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

More good news for our economy. The economy continues to move ahead, in a positive direction. This, despite an entire presidential campaign in which the left told us what terrible shape the economy was in and how Bush's tax cuts and economic plan was a miserable failure.

U.S. employers added 157,000 workers overall to their payrolls in December, bringing the year-end total of new jobs to 2.2 million, the best showing in five years. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 percent.

With Friday's report, Bush is close to closing the gap in job creation that has plagued him since taking office in 2001. There are now just 122,000 fewer jobs

The service sector continued to spark overall hiring in December. But the job growth was concentrated in the health care industry, which added a net 36,000 positions, and business and professional services, which hired a net 41,000 workers.

The nation's civilian unemployment rate has hovered at 5.4 percent and 5.5 percent since July, slightly below levels earlier in the year.

The numbers which do not appear in these reports are all the people who quit working at a large company or corporation and started their own small business. Over the last four years, I'm sure that these people more than make up for the 122,000 jobs which is still claimed as the "Bush job deficit."

Critics of these numbers will say the all the created jobs are in low wage positions. Clearly this is not true or all the jobs would have been in the service industry. Instead, we see that the health care industry as well as business and professional services grew the most.

Most any non-partisan observer would easily come to the conclusion that the economy is doing well. Our friends on the left, however, will never forget the humiliation suffered at Bush's hands two elections in a row. As a result, you will continue to hear hogwash about how the economy is not doing well.

Michelle Malkin: THE MARINE AND THE TAMPON

2005-01-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

This post from Blackfive linked to by Michelle Malkin is a good read. Michelle calls it incredible. My mother, however would find it vindication. As my Cub Scout den Mom, she lead many wonderful activities. One such project involved making small first aid kits. Among the band-aids and ointments were two small tampons for each kit. As a group of young boys this was not only funny but something to tease about (or get teased about if it was your mom). Well Scott, Danny and whoever else was in the den - looks like Mom knew what she was talking about after all. Happy camping - don't forget your tampons.

Legitimate Scientists Knew Tsunami Inevitable But Were Drowned Out By Global Warming Crowd et. al.

2005-01-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

Scientists demanded warning system two years ago. The Scottsman.com reports that a group of scientists has been lobbying the UN for a tsunami warning system for the last two years. The tectonic plates which caused the recent tsunami were known to be active and had caused seismic activity in 1797, 1833 and 1861. To simplify the science, this fault was "due" for another big quake and the subsequent tsunami. The question is why did the warnings fall on deaf ears. My suspicion is that the group of scientists warning of this disaster were seen as another scientific group crying wolf. The small amount of their work I have read seems reputable and solid. No one can argue against measured fault activity and the relation of increased level of small plate movements to an upcoming large quake. In addition, this group was asking for nothing more that a warning system - not major social, political or economic change. Compare this with other "scientists" constantly warning of major natural disasters brought about by global warming, fossil fuels, chorofluorocarbons, or logging. I actually saw one woman on CNN the other night talking about a tsunami which would be strong enough to cross from the east to the west coast of America and somehow related this to pollution. Many of these scientists are socially and politically motivated and are interested in changing our economic and cultural systems and beliefs and thus exaggerate their claims to sound more relevant and important. Unfortunately, these activists steal the thunder of the real scientists and drown out their legitimate calls for preventative action.

Cranial Cavity's Take On PETA/Chicken Killing

2005-01-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

Has the KFC Boardroom been Infiltrated by PETA? Cranial cavity adds some examples of what it would be like to be killed by PETA or McDonald's. Check out their website, they have some other great stuff too.

Yours Truly Wins The Outside The Beltway Caption Contest

2004-12-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

Outside The Beltway : Caption Contest Winners Didn't think it was one of my best entries but I appreciate the award nonetheless.

People Shoving Food In Their Mouths - Not McDonald's or Burger King - Make People Fat

2004-12-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

This Study recently published in the Lancet is outrageous. Their claim is that fast food, in and of itself, causes type-2 Diabetes, obesity and heart problems. They say that they have controlled for all other variables and that fast food consumption more than three times per week leads to the aforementioned health problems. The only problem is that there is no controlling for the variable of personal responsibility. Only persons living in caves for the last fifty years would not have at least some idea that fast food is not good for you. Yes, it is quick and inexpensive, but that comes at a price. Much like the tobacco companies, the fast food industry has been attacked in recent years for peddling a product which can have bad health problems. And, like the tobacco companies, never is the choice of the person to smoke or eat fast food taken into account. Now the tobacco companies have been harshly - and rightfully so- punished for advertising to kids and covering up their own evidence that nicotine is addictive and causes cancer. However, fast food companies, to my knowledge, do not put "addictive chemicals that make you crave it fortnightly" (special acknowledgment to anyone who correctly identifies that movie quote), and there is no law against their marketing to children. In a related article, one researcher is quoted as saying:

Fast-food restaurants may argue that the evidence that customers are being super-sized by their meals is too weak. But should customers not be given the benefit of the doubt? Appropriate action would be to reduce portions to normal sizes, and to sell burgers of lean meat, whole-grain bread or buns, fat-reduced mayonnaise, more vegetables, lower-fat fried potatoes, and reduced-sugar soft drinks. Although the price may be increased, at least such changes in fast-food meals can have no adverse health effects.

The only problem is that there is no evidence that the above meal is any better. Moreover, just by changing the composition of the fast food, you do nothing to the food one eats at home. I guess the next logical step is to outlaw selling anything that the Lancet thinks is bad for your health.

Another big problems here is that there are huge behavioral differences in people that manifest as a propensity to eat fast food, smoke, drink or engage in other unhealthy activities, or not. A case in point: several years ago, a large clinical trial looking at women who had taken hormone replacement therapy made the conclusion that the HRT dramatically lowered the incidence of heart disease and osteoporosis. We later found out that this conclusion was not correct. What really had happened is that all the women who were taking HRT generally were more health conscious. They tended to have a more healthy diet and exercised more. Healthy eating lead to better heart health and exercise lead to decrease in osteoporosis. When the study was repeated, this time in a prospective fashion so as to control more variables, the previous conclusions were not borne out. This is the problem with most large retrospective studies - there is no control of many confounding variables. So does fast food cause type-2 diabetes - we do not know. The only way to tell would be to have one group eat fast food 3 times per week and another group not eat the fast food and have both groups eat the exact same diet otherwise, participate in the same amount of exercise and all participants must have the same genetic predisposition to diabetes. We will never know the answer.

Finally, the attack on the fast food industry is another example of trying to take care of the symptom, instead of the problem. As a doctor, I would never give pain medication alone for an infection. While this would dull the pain, it simply would not solve the problem. Here, the fast food industry is not the problem, personal choice and irresponsibility are the problem. Trying to regulate or eliminate the symptom will not change the fact that there is no social doctrine which says that staying healthy so as not to unduly stress the resources of your community is wrong and borders on immoral. So enjoy your Whopper or Big Mac, just don't do it too often, eat reasonably at other times and exercise - these are the things will keep you from getting fat.

UPDATE: Maybe the fact that Obesity is rising sharply among US preschoolers has something to do with why they are becoming diabetic earlier.

Update #2: Anonymous correctly identified the quote as being from "So I Married An Axe Murderer" but inocrrectly identified it as awful.

Price of Big Mac Likely Going Up Thanks To PETA

2004-12-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

McDonald's says it will consider more humane method to slaughter chickens PETA has struck again. Now it is trying to get McDonald's to change the way in which they kill their chickens so they can make those tasty McChicken and McNuggets without hurting the poultry.

The fast-food giant said it is studying the possibility of "controlled atmosphere killing," in which chickens are killed by replacing oxygen in the air they breathe with an inert gas, such as nitrogen or argon.

It would replace a slaughtering process in which chickens are hung by their legs on a moving conveyor line and pulled through an electrified vat of water. The electrical charge is supposed to stun the chickens, and then their throats are cut.

Exactly how do they know how much pain a chicken has when being killed. The two methods of slaughter described above appear equally unappealing to me. Their current method seems equal to being shot with a tazer and then having your throat slit while you were out cold. The second method sounds like slow suffocation. Given the choice, I would rather NOT have my oxygen slowly cut off - just do it quick.

The real problem is in the cost. Pure, medical grade oxygen does not come cheap and I'm guessing that pure, medical grade Argon or Nitrogen are even more expensive. Now factor in the cost of making a special room in which chickens will slowly have their oxygen replaced with Argon until they are dead. Compare this with the cost of a large vat of water, 125 volts and a knife. Plus you have got to retrain all those chicken electrocutioners and decapitators to be high pressure gas techs. Pretty soon the airport isn't the only place you will be paying $4 for a Big Mac.

Linked to Beltway Traffic Jam

Election Flashback: John Kerry Called This The Worst Economy Since The Great Depression

2004-12-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

Sales of Existing Homes Hit Record High Not only was that one of the stupidest things Kerry had to say during the campaign, it really is an insult to all the Americans who lived through the Great Depression.

Brookings institute Proposal For Social Security Reform

2004-12-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Brookings Institute has a different look at the Social Security Problem. Basically, their proposal does not include personal social security accounts and pays for the changes in life expectancy, growing wages and the increasing number of beneficiaries by raising the maximum taxable income level, decreasing benefits for higher wage earners and adding a legacy tax to fund the current under-funding of social security. Their policy abstract:

Social Security is one of America's most successful government programs. It has helped millions of Americans avoid poverty in old age, upon becoming disabled, or after the death of a family wage earner. Despite these ongoing successes, the program faces a long-term deficit and policymakers should make changes to it sooner rather than later. Addressing the long-term deficit would put the program and the nation's budget on a sounder footing. Restoring long-term balance to Social Security is therefore necessary, but lawmakers do not have to destroy the program in order to save it.

Our plan restores balance to Social Security without drawing on general revenues, preserves the program's basic structure, and strengthens its social insurance functions. Its combination of revenue and benefit changes reflects the type of balanced approach that was successfully adopted in the 1983 reforms of Social Security.

An interesting idea but based on lowering benefits - albeit by 1% to 7% - and adding a legacy tax, I'm not sure it will fly. Certainly there is something to be said for their argument to bring back the idea that this is really an insurance policy for the poor, retired or disabled worker and not a government managed/funded retirement account. With this in mind, and given the notion that many 30 and 40 somethings do not even believe social security will be around for them, maybe we should be paying for the social security overhaul with huge decreases or even eliminations of benefits for those in the highest income ranges and more modest decreases for those in the mid to upper income ranges. Couple this with some expansions in the IRA benefits to make sure the mid to upper level earners save plenty for retirement and we may have a better solution. The key to the Brooking's or any reform plan is to implement it over many years. This is the part usually lost on the government and the media but the most important so that the changes are brought about gradually and do not surprise anyone.

Senior UN Official Retracts Comment Calling Rich Nations "Stingy"

2004-12-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

Jan Egleland backed off of his remark calling all rich nations stingy with regards to helping the tsunami relief effort. Funny, I don't remember this guy getting his panties in a wad when we saw no economic help from anybody when we were attacked on 9/11. Just to set the record straight on how much help we provide the rest of the world:

The United Nations urged rich nations a quarter of a century ago to give away 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product every year in the form of development aid.

To date, however, just a handful of European nations, most of them in Scandinavia, actually meet that goal.

The United States, the world's largest economy, contributes about 0.13 a year of its GDP to development aid. But that figure excludes aid to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as food aid, where the United States is the world's largest donor.

"We are busting our butts to help and comments like that don't reflect what we are doing," said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Gene Which Causes Grey Hair May Cure Melanoma

2004-12-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

Skin cancer study reveals roots of grey hair. A potential new target against melanoma - a type of skin cancer has been discovered by studying early-graying mice. The cancerous cell in melanoma, the melanocyte, is also the same cell which produces the color of hairs. When hair goes grey, the melanocytes have all died and no longer produce the pigment for the hair. These cells appear to die as part of "programmed cell death" or apoptosis. Certain signals have been discovered which may cause other cells to go through apoptosis. If the molecular signal is discovered which causes melanocytes to die, the same signal may also be used to cause the malignant melanoma cells to die. It is likely that if this leads to a therapy, one of the main side effects will be graying of the hair.

Economic Immorality

2004-12-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

$50,000 for a cat!! Here in the land of the free, people spend all kinds of money doing ridiculous things. $50,000 to clone your dead cat is, therefore legal but can be considered nothing more than economic immorality. Economic immorality occurs when individuals with such vast wealth begin to spend it on the ludicrous, ridiculous and useless. The last great economic immorality was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fly a hot air balloon around the world. We do not want, and should not have governmental controls on how we spend our money. However, we should have societal, religious and moral guidelines by which we use our money. Those who cannot keep from lavishly spending all their riches in the public square on $50,000 cats should be shunned, not taxed or put in jail. We should admire and celebrate those who give selfishly to charity and to help the less fortunate in order to promote that kind of spending. We should also never let things like this cat story go without wholeheartedly pronouncing it immoral.

Battle Against Christmas in the US - Small Compared to Global War on Christians

2004-12-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin: Christians in the crossfire enumerates the ongoing, sometimes bloody war on Christianity.

In Iraq, Islamist rebel troops have declared open season on Christian churches, priests and missionaries. In February, four American pastors were traveling in a taxi near the capital when terrorists ambushed them. Rev. John Kelley, pastor of Curtis Corner Baptist Church in rural Rhode Island and a former Marine, was killed in the attack. The missionaries were starting up a new church south of Baghdad.

A friend of Rev. Kelley's noted upon word of his murder that "he wanted to be a witness for Christ in a part of the world where there aren't a lot of witnesses for Christ."

On March 15, Southern Baptist missionaries Larry and Jean Elliott of Cary, N.C., Karen Denise Watson of Bakersfield, Calif., and David McDonnall of Rowlett, Texas, were killed in a drive-by shooting in northern Iraq. McDonnall's wife, Carrie, survived the attack. The group, one of several Christian aid groups helping with reconstruction efforts, was scouting out locations for a water purification project

On Dec. 1, Christian pastor Zhang Rongliang disappeared from his village apartment in Zhengzhou, China. According to The Voice of the Martyrs, a non-profit charity that tracks religious persecution, state police confiscated all of Pastor Zhang's Christian DVDs, materials and photos. Three other Christian churches were reportedly raided after Pastor Zhang's arrest -- part of a nationwide crackdown on the Chinese "house church" movement. More than 100 other Christian pastors were arrested in Kaifeng city in September. Many have been beaten, sentenced to "re-education through labor," and accused of being "leaders of an evil cult."

In Vietnam and North Korea, followers of Christ have been arrested, beaten, tortured and forced to renounce their faith. In Nigeria, an Islamist terrorist group named after the Taliban conducted religious pogroms in the northern part of the country this fall -- kidnapping, raping and killing Christian villagers as part of a radicalization program that government officials suspect is being funded by Saudi Wahhabists. In Sudan, Muslim radicals have perpetrated mass slaughter and enslavement of Christian men, women and children, some of whom have been literally crucified.

Goodbye Christmas?

2004-12-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Charles Krauthammer is quickly becoming one of my favorite columnists and pundits. Again, with this piece, he hits the nail right on the head.

Some Americans get angry at parents who want to ban carols because they tremble that their kids might feel ``different'' and ``uncomfortable'' should they, God forbid, hear Christian music sung at their school. I feel pity. What kind of fragile religious identity have they bequeathed their children that it should be threatened by exposure to carols?

I'm struck by the fact that you almost never find Orthodox Jews complaining about a Christmas creche in the public square. That is because their children, steeped in the richness of their own religious tradition, know who they are and are not threatened by Christians celebrating their religion in public. They are enlarged by it.

Read the whole article, it is excellent.

Good For D.C. - Pay For Schools, Not For Baseball

2004-12-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Taxpayers tired of footing the bill for stadiums. Thank god the DC city council came to their senses. Hopefully this will be a growing trend across the country. Just like with the domestic spending disaster we have now, we need to stop bankrolling corporations (including athletic franchises) with taxpayers money.

The broken deal is a reflection of a growing revolt around the country: People don't want to pay for sports palaces. They don't want to subsidize the construction of wealthy owners' places of business any more than they want to subsidize the building of a bank. Sure, baseball provides entertainment and notoriety for a city. So do restaurants. But you don't see chefs with their hands out at city council meetings. No one is buying the ''economic revitalization'' line anymore. D.C., like Miami, is a poor city with more important needs -- schools rather than corporate, write-off luxury suites; libraries rather than locker rooms; parks rather than $20-per-space parking lots. Remember what Miami Arena was going to do for Overtown? How come a developer and an NBA star were the ones who paid for the community center out of their own pockets?

The Marlins are stuck in negotiations for a stadium adjacent to the Orange Bowl. City and county leaders want a guarantee that the inevitable cost overruns on the $420 million project will be covered by the team. The Marlins, unwilling to put up additional money and praying for $30 million from the state legislature, flirted with Las Vegas just in case anyone forgot they can call the moving vans.

New York City is debating whether to build a $1.4 billion football stadium for the Jets. Taxpayers would pick up about half the tab.

This Could Be W's Greatest Domestic achievement

2004-12-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

Bush Considers Domestic Spending Freeze Just when conservatives have started complaining about Bush's liberal tendencies on the economic front (I guess they forgot about the tax cuts), W comes out with what we have all been waiting for. The domestic budget has grown every year for at least the last twenty years. Any story about budget cuts regarding domestic spending in the past ten years are false. The liberals have long made it a ploy to call a decrease in the percentage increase, a cut. That is to say that if your budget was increased by 10% last year and this year it will only increase by 5%, that is called a cut by the libs (despite your budget actually increasing). A domestic spending freeze will allow the congress to take real stock of the budget and decide if the federal government needs to be paying for midnight basketball. I'm sure if this freeze happens we will be treated to all sorts of stories about people who can't make it because the government can't help them any more. Just remember that for every starving baby, there is a new statue or an artist getting paid to paint or a scientist getting paid to study why the sun is so hot. The point is that we need to reign in domestic spending, use our money where it is really needed and let the people take care of each other rather than making every little problem in to a new government program.