Thank you, Barack. It was so kind of you to say that...

Fret, not, fellow Americans, Barack Obama likes us. In the end, he thinks the American people are "basically decent and sound people."

And, just because you are a "typical white person," who drives the wrong car, eats too much food, keeps your home too warm, "clings to your guns and religion," and may listen to the "wrong" radio and TV shows. Despite the fact that we have an "antipathy to people who aren't like (us)," and an "anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment...", Obama thinks we are OK.

Thanks, Barack. It's nice to hear that you like us, right now, you like us.

This came as a surprise, as it was just a few months ago, that Barack told the German people, we are an imperfect, flawed nation.

He actually didn't like us -- before he did like us...

Unlike that mean old McCain, who has the audacity to say we are the "strength of our economy": "No one can match an American worker. Our workers sell more goods to more markets than any other on Earth. Our workers have always been the strength of our economy, and they remain the strength of our economy today." The nerve of that man!

He even had the gall to refer to the hardworking men and women of Ohio. Who does this guy think he is? Such pandering!

As for Obama, doesn't it feel good that someone who may be president has a list of "wrong" radio and TV programs? Is that anything like Nixon's enemies list?

But, if we are really lucky, Obama will help to protect us from those "wrong" programs.

Have no fear, dear reader, if Barack wins, the rest of the world will like us once again. Look at all the Germans that turned out to hear him speak; and there was that British comedian(?) at the MTV video awards show who urged us to vote for Barack to make "the rest of the world" happy. I know that I am concerned about casting a vote to curry European approval; I care deeply who the Europeans want us to elect. Why, how about just letting Europens elect our presidents from now on?

If Obama wins, the world will follow. Look, he hasn't even won the thing, and yet six Brazillian politicians have changed their name to Barack Obama. I wonder if they will change it back after the real Obama loses.

It just keeps getting stupider.

I guess we are just not as enlightened as he. While we want to keep our 5-year old ignorant of sexual issues, Barack Obama wants our schools to teach sex education to kindergarteners, because "it is the right thing to do." In fact, he worked to change the law in Illinois to institute HIV education for 5-year-olds. I guess I am just not enlightened enough to see the importance of teaching about HIV to kids who don't know what sex is. Maybe I just get "confused sometimes."

But, He will save us, says wife Michelle; Barack will "not let us go back to our lives an usual: uninvolved and uninformed." And He will fix our souls, because as we all know our souls "are broken."

Barack, I want so much for you to like us. Towards that end, I have to apologize that you are so "embarrased" because of our inability to speak a foreign language, unlike your more esteemed European friends.

Truth be told, America, Obama doesn't much like us, and he doesn't harbor much fancy for the country he wants to run, either. Unless, of course, you can afford to pay $28,500 to dine with him.







Watch His Eminence grace us with his approval. (It comes way at the end)

EXCUSE ME??? An update

Don't believe me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKqHFk-3yQM

EXCUSE ME??!!??

I have been saying for months that Barack Obama is unelectable. I have just found Exhibit A in my argument:

From the NY Post:

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL
"While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Let me see if I have this right:

Barack Obama, private citizen, attempted to negotiate US troop movements with the head of a foreign country? Excuse me?

And he wants any troop withdrawals delayed until AFTER the next president takes over (I presume he envisions himself in that role). He is willing to trade American lives for his own narcissistic political visions????

He went on to challenge that "Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops." Have you read the US Constitution lately, Mr. Obama? The deployment of US troops is at the direction of the president only. Congress does not have the power to order the deployment or withdrawal of US troops. Period.

Then, to tell an ally at a time of war that President Bush is in a "state of weakness and political confusion."

This action of Obama goes beyond description.

No wait, I have the word to describe Obama's actions here: TREASON!

That’s what we could be doing instead of fighting this war.

OK, I am confused.

One day Obama tells us to "invest at home" and use the money being spent on the Iraq war on domestic initiatives.

Then, he gripes that "we’re having to pay for this war with loans from China."

So, Barack, which is it? Are we diverting our own money to pay for Iraq or do you want to borrow money from China to pay for your domestic "investments?"

If Obama is going to borrow money from the Chinese, I hope they have mighty deep pockets. A few of the items on Obama's shopping list:

protecting Social Security today, tomorrow, and forever

offering relief to struggling homeowners

giving tax breaks to working families

fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American

making universal health care a reality in this country.

giving every American a quality education.

giving our teachers more pay and more support,

rebuilding our crumbling schools,

offering a tax credit to put a college degree within reach for anyone who wants one.

rebuilding our roads and bridges.

freeing ourselves from the tyranny of oil,

saving this planet for our children.

investing in renewable sources of energy, and in clean coal technology,

creating up to 5 million new green jobs in the bargain, including new clean coal jobs.


Those all might be nice things, but it doesn't sound to me to be any "bargain." Where is the money going to come from. He wants us to believe that he will fund all these missions by stopping (aka losing) the Iraq war; but he also wants us to believe that the country is drowning in Chinese debt in order to pay for the war.

Like most times after I hear Obama speak, I am confused. Maybe he's just that much smarter than me. Or maybe he's engaging in political double-speak.

So, in the spirit of Barack Obama, we should be borrowing from the Chinese and spending money like a drunken sailor on domestic initiatives -- I mean investments; instead of borrowing from the Chinese and spending money like a drunken sailor on the Iraq War.

Do I have that right?

Yeah, I am confused. You?

Racial Profiling is a Bigger Threat than Terrorism

If this article from Reuters can be believed, racial profiling is a bigger threat to the United States than is terrorism. Does anybody agree with this statement?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) does.

Reportedly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Department of Justice want to use a set of existing guidelines in their hunt for terrorists. The FBI already use the rules when going after "domestic" criminals, and simply want to apply these rules in cases involving national security.

And, not surprisingly, the ACLU is shrieking that if these guidelines are adopted for terror cases, "a person's race or ethnic background could be used as a factor in opening an investigation," leading to racial profiling.

The DoJ believes these rules will help find and arrest terrorists, preventing terrorist attacks on US soil. If they get their way, the ACLU would prevent the FBI from implementing these rules, denying a tool that the FBI would use to prevent a terrorist from killing hundreds, thousands, or millions of innocent Americans.

The ACLU is willing to sacrifice your life to avoid the possibility that a dark-skinned person with a funny name* might be inconvenienced. The ACLU wants your child to risk being the victim of a subway bomber or a car bomb outside their workplace or shopping mall on their "concern" someone "could" be racially profiled.

The ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, said, "Issuing guidelines that permit racial profiling the day after the 9/11 anniversary and in the midst of a historic presidential campaign is typical Bush administration stagecraft designed to exploit legitimate security concerns for partisan political purposes."

Wrong, Tony. Issuing these guidelines the day after 9/11 should serve as a reminder how dangerous is this world we live in, and that we should spare no effort to prevent the next 9/11.

According to a typically hysterical ACLU press release, "[t]hese techniques would allow agents to conduct pre-textual (undercover) interviews, use informants and conduct physical surveillance in connection with First Amendment protected activities."

Egad! The FBI wants to use undercover officers, informants and surveillance to nab suspected terrorists! The horrors. I have news for you Tony, the terrorists want to do more than just survey you, they want to kill you.

And then, there is this canard: "After eight years of historic civil liberties abuses (during the Bush years), the American people know better. " If anyone at the ACLU has had a single civil liberty denied or even infringed upon, please name it.

You know a moonbat when he has a bumper sticker on his car announcing that his freedom of speech is being restricted. Or, when you see a rally on the public square decrying their inability to speak out on the issues. Huh?

This is one of my new favorite red-herrings, from the tellingly-named CommonDreams.org: "in order to bring a complaint about abuses under the PATRIOT Act, a person had to..know that his or her rights had been violated".Well, yeah, I should think that a basic hurdle to showing that you were aggrived would be knowing you were aggrieved.

I wanted to report my house was broken into, but I couldn't tell if there was a break-in and nothing was missing. Say it ain't so!

I think we should send these ACLU whack-jobs to Iran, North Korea, China, or their beloved Cuba to see what true repression is. I have my doubts that a Civil Liberties Union would exist in Pyongyang.

It is especially galling for these lefties to whine about losing their freedoms when, in the crushing dictatorship in Italy, a comedian may be prosecuted for making a joke about the Pope. But, we in the US are being repressed.

But, the ALCU knows what the real problem is: According to the ACLU's Caroline Fredrickson, "Handing this kind of latitude (the new guidelines) to an organization already rife with internal oversight problems is a huge mistake."

Actually, allowing the ACLU to place any restiction on the goverment's efforts to prevent terrorism is the true mistake.



*"They'll tell you he has a funny name..." -- Barack Obama

Son gets same dorm room as dad -- And I care why??

This has nothing to do with anything, but I heard this story on the radio newscast this morning:

Following in your father's footsteps by attending the same university is one thing. But moving into the same dorm room as your dad?

Mike Robell has found himself in B310 in Emmons Hall at Michigan State University _ the very same room occupied by his father in 1978.

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Sep09/0,4670,ODDFatherSonDorm,00.html

Whenever I hear pointless news stories like these, I wonder: Who the Hell told the media?

You drop your son off for his first day at college and find he got the same dorm room as you had 30 years ago; I can't imagine my first thought would be: "Quick son, hand me your cell phone. I have just got to call the newspaper!"

The hubris to think that anyone would care about your dorm room duplicity. Obviously, someone cares, as this foolishness is a national news story.

Are we that self-centered a society that our every quirky story has to be blasted to the world?

Apparently so, or I wouldn't be maintaining this blog!

Just a thought for what it is worthless...

Unfit to Stand So Close to Journalism

I must respond to the outrageous and insensitive column by Dan Payne in the Boston Globe on September 11.

Unfit to stand so close to presidency

Did you catch that date?

In what is one of the most insensitive comments I have read in a political column, Payne had the audacity to compare Republican Vice President Sarah Palin to the Taliban on the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Very classy indeed.

Not to mention the pathetic irony in that the Taliban are not known for allowing women much freedom and independence, it was the Taliban who helped and harbored Al Qaeda as they planned the 9/11 attacks.. Surely, you could have spent a moment or two to find another -- any other -- analogy.

Payne launches his screed by declaring with an almost transparent glee that McCain could pass away while in office. It almost sounds to me that he is wishing for that "one heart attack, one stroke, one metastasized melanoma" to strike "72-year-old hot head," Senator McCain. Another paragraph rife with decorum, dignity and compassion.

Beyond the crass, tasteless commentary, Payne's column is rife with outright lies, distortions, and blatant omissions. Who needs facts, right?

Payne brilliantly suggests that Palin's claim to the commander-in-chief of the Alaska Army National Guard is "preposterous." Sorry, Dan, she is.

According to the Army National Guard web site, the National Guard is "under the jurisdiction of both state and federal governments, so Guard Soldiers can be deployed by either the governor of their resident state, or the president of the United States." Sounds like Palin is a C-in-C to me.

Palin's a "pipeline to pork," says the columnist. She swung $197.8 million in earmarks to Alaska in 2008 and $27 million to tiny Wasila. Clearly, she is not one to criticize earmarks, the column implies.

But then, neither is Obama.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a "government watchdog group", Obama secured $91 million in earmarks in 2007 (Boston Globe 2/14/08). Apparently, Payne doesn't read his own newspaper.

Further, according to the Republican National Committee, Obama has requested 330 earmark projects Totaling Almost $1 Billion ($935.7 million) since being sworn in as a senator from Illinois in January 2005, including 112 projects totaling $399.8 million for the 2008 federal fiscal year. A new kind of politician, indeed.

Let's see, the RNC states that Obama requested 139 Projects totaling $334 million For FY 2007, but received only $91 million. Not a very good percentage, is it? Is Palin a better salesperson?

Let us contrast that with John McCain. "McCain has led the fight against special interests in Washington, never asked for a single earmark..." said a McCain spokesman, as quoted in the Boston Globe.

One billion in requests from Obama in 4 years compared to zero requests in 24 years. You be the judge,

Payne, it seems is good at keeping those pesky details out of his column.

He tries to suggest Palin sought to have a state trooper fired because he "went through a messy divorce" from Palin's sister. He forgot the tiny detail that the trooper used a taser on his 10 year old son and threatened to kill Palin's father (the governor's father). I am uncomfortable thinking that Payne would leave a trooper with this unstable a personality on the state police force. Alaskans should be glad that Palin has better judgment than he.

Finally, Dan reveals where he spends time researching his columns be quoting David Letterman. I can't recall a more astute political mind than Dave, can you?

In case anyone is wondering why the sales of newspapers is plummeting in this country, this column is Exhibit A. He dredges up a pile of lies and distortions and contorts them into an incoherent and babbling column that one might expect to find in a high school newspaper.

He claims Palin unfit to be vice president; until he can do some basic research and tell the truth, I call him -- and far too many of his colleagues -- unfit to be a columnist.

On second thought, keep it up, Dan. The more the liberal media trashes this woman, the better McCain/Palin does in the polls.

Enough Already!

OK, you women-hating Liberals; ENOUGH ALREADY!!

Sarah Palin is a true feminist, the true Super Woman that you have advocated for all these years, and now you are angry because she is a Republican, a conservative.

Such Hypocrisy is unflattering.

This poster was found on the wall at Harvard University! The same institution that fired it's president for having the audacity to suggest that men and women were different. Egad!

Please drop this garbage and stop insulting Sarah Palin and women throughout this country. Disgraceful and diminishing of us all.

Image stolen from the Natural Truth blog by Michael Graham.

Iowa: Opposite-Sex Marriage Wrong Because Gay People Don't Like It?

If I am reading this finding correctly, the Iowa Supreme Court seems to be saying that Iowa's opposite-sex marriage law is unconstitutional because a gay person would find marrying someone of the opposite sex unappealing.

Before I get too far into this, let me announce that I am a supporter of same-sex marriage, for myriad reasons. I am pleased to see that the Vermont legislature voted same-sex marriage into law. I am uncomfortable with state courts, comprised of a handful of people, making the decision for everyone. To me these findings are activist judicial maneuvers to skirt the legislative process.

I read the Iowa decision closely, and can only infer that the justices are striking down the requirement that married couples be of the opposite sex because a gay or lesbian person does not want to marry someone of the opposite gender.

Looking past the fact that this case was in the bag for gay marriage supporters from the start. The drafter(s) of the decision start with a pollyannish description of each person who filed the initial legal action:

Like most Iowans, they are responsible, caring, and productive individuals. They maintain important jobs, or are retired, and are contributing, benevolent members of their communities... Like many Iowans, some have children and others hope to have children. Some are foster parents. Like all Iowans, they prize their liberties and live within the borders of this state with the expectation that their rights will be maintained and protected—a belief embraced by our state motto.

The twelve plaintiffs comprise six same-sex couples who live in committed relationships. Each maintains a hope of getting married one day, an aspiration shared by many throughout Iowa. (page 7)

While I cannot dispute a word, to me, this loaded introduction would be as appropriate as a criminal court judge starting a finding by saying: But, he's a nice boy from a good family.

As I read it, this finding comes down to precedent based on an 1894 case, which established that a civil marriage includes the comfort and happiness of the parties to the marriage contract (page 28 of the finding). And because a gay or lesbian person could not be "comfortable and happy" marrying someone of the opposite gender, the person's civil rights are being violated.

By purposefully placing civil marriage outside the realistic reach of gay and lesbian individuals, the ban on same-sex civil marriages differentiates implicitly on the basis of sexual orientation. (page 33)

Here, I presume, outside the realistic reach of gay and lesbian individuals means that they wouldn't like being married under the current Iowa definition of marriage.

To reach this conclusion, the justices placed as high a threshold on the county as possible.

...the issue presented by this lawsuit is whether the state has “exceedingly persuasive” reasons for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples, not whether state sanctioned, heterosexual marriage is constitutional. (page 51)

The justices took into account what they perceived as a History of discrimination against gay and lesbian people.

The long and painful history of discrimination against gay and lesbian
persons is epitomized by the criminalization of homosexual conduct in many parts of this country until very recently. (page 37)

While this assessment is likely true, it smacks of a bias on the part of the justices before this case was even heard to base their decision on laws created in the other states.

In sum, this history of discrimination suggests any legislative burdens placed on lesbian and gay people as a class “are more likely than others to reflect deep-seated prejudice rather than legislative rationality in pursuit of some legitimate objective.” (Pages 38/39)

Again, a likely true sentiment, but it is exactly that, sentiment, opinion, conjecture, not established legal fact.

In addition, the court decided that a person's sexual orientation does not bear on his ability to contribute to society. First off, who said it did; and second what does it have to do with marriage? A brother and sister can each contribute to society, but they cannot get married.

The justices also decided that the immutability of homosexuality should be considered, meaning that because homosexuality is an accident of birth, and sexual orientation is highly resistant to change, extra consideration should be paid to this factor. Again, a brother and a sister are related through accident of birth and involved a relationship resistant to change. No one is working to hard to see that siblings can get married.

In sum, the finding by the Iowa Supreme Court that opposite-sex marriage rules are discriminatory because gay and lesbian people don't want to participate is specious at best. Further the argument that civil marriage inherently includes the comfort and happiness of the participants is simply wrong.

By this definition, simply stating that one's no longer takes comfort and happiness from the marriage should invalidate the compact instantly. But this is not the case. Dissolving a marriage is a difficult and lengthy process.

It is quite legal to marry someone who does not make you comfortable and happy: pre-arranged marriages, marriages of convenience, "shot-gun" weddings, and marriages for money are all legal marriages in this country. Love has nothing to do with civil marriage.

With similar decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, more states are likely to overturn "traditional" marriage laws as unconstitutional. This is unfortunate, as the logic behind these cases is flawed and wrong.

My hope is that state legislatures thoughough the country finally tackle this issue directly by introducing legislation that explicitly permits same-sex marriage, as did Vermont. To me, the fact that a legislature debated and considered the issue would give far more legitimacy to same-sex marriage in the eyes of the general public than judicial fiats.

Same-sex marriage should be legalized because it is the right thing to do, not because a couple of judges twist logic enough to satisfy themselves.