Bill Bennett Explains His Controversial Remarks

From Fox News:

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," September 29, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

RE: White House criticizes Bennett's remarks on blacks

Is any more proof needed that Bush is a RINO and the liberals are in control of the White House? Bush should just go ahead and change his registration. He is a de facto Democrat.

White House criticizes Bennett's remarks on blacks

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton said on CNN that Bennett's comments were "blatantly racist."

"(He) stated as a fact that if you did this it would in fact lower the crime rate which clearly is him making blacks and crime synonymous," Sharpton said.

Why is Sharpton taken seriously by anybody???

Minutemen step up Mexican border patrol

By Tim Gaynor

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A U.S. militia group will launch a month-long sweep for illegal immigrants along the border with Mexico this weekend, stepping up a campaign that has raised fears of violence.

Bush’s Blank Check

by Stephen Slivinski

Stephen Slivinski is director of budget studies at the Cato Institute.

Sounding like Yogi Berra, President Bush gave the best description of his administration’s overall fiscal philosophy last week. When asked on September 16 how much his grand program to rebuild the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina will cost, he answered, “It’s going to cost whatever it’s going to cost.”

And, boy, will it ever. The current estimate of the amount of taxpayer money needed to pay for Bush’s grand scheme range from $150 billion to $200 billion. And that’s on top of a $612 billion increase in the overall federal budget since he took office in 2001. Adding the $62 billion already appropriated for Katrina relief puts him in the same big-spending league as Lyndon Johnson.

You don't build a movement on that (The antiwar movement is singularly disserved by its leadership.)

By Charles Krauthammer
Townhall.com

WASHINGTON -- A large number of Americans feel deep and understandable unease about the war in Iraq, and want nothing more than to pull out. But the antiwar movement is singularly disserved by its leadership, such as it is. Its de facto leader is Cindy Sheehan, who catapulted herself into that role by quite brilliantly exploiting the media's hunger for political news during the August recess, and by wrapping herself in the courage of her son Casey, who died in Iraq.

Her loss and grief deserve sympathy and respect. However, Sheehan believes that it entitles her to special standing in opposing a war in which her son served, about which he (as far as we know) expressed no misgivings, and for which he indeed re-enlisted.

Media double standards

By Noel Sheppard
The American Thinker

For most of September, Americans were bombarded almost 24 hours a day with declarations by media representatives and Democratic leaders about the incompetence of President Bush.

Shameful Attacks: Bill Bennett stresses our morality…and pays the price. (A MUST READ)

By Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review Online

In the course of a free-wheeling conversation so common on talk-format programs, Bill Bennett made a minor point that was statistically and logically unassailable, but that touched a third rail — namely, the nexus between race and crime — within the highly charged context of abortion policy.

He emphatically qualified his remarks from the standpoint of morality. Then he ended with the entirely valid conclusion that sweeping generalizations are unhelpful in making major policy decisions.

That he was right in this seems to matter little. Bennett is being fried by the PC police and the ethnic-grievance industry, which have disingenuously ripped his minor point out of its context in a shameful effort to paint him as a racist. He’s about as bigoted as Santa Claus.

Filibuster Fools

By The Prowler
The American Spectator

According to Democratic Senate leadership staff, the party has been quietly doing polling on the Supreme Court and issues that may come before the court in the coming months and years, including abortion and other life issues, voter rights, private property issues, gun rights, and homosexual marriage. It's not like they haven't polled on this stuff before, but the timing and breadth of the polling -- at least two Democratic firms are said to have been contracted -- would indicate there is more than mere curiosity at play here.

Buying Furniture

Marie buys furniture from Pottery Barn. I haven't got a clue where it is made. It is pretty durable stuff, though.

Being an informed consumer, I pay attention to the cost-benefit ratio. For the most part, I could care less where it is made. For that reason, I buy Japanese cars, even though most of what I buy is actually made in Tennessee or Georgia. If the cost-benefit ratio for Chinese furniture was sufficiently attractive, I would buy it. However, I doubt that would be the case.

"Buy American" movement on the BP...

To answer your question; yes, local furniture stores do sell American made furniture. The highest quality pieces are made in Virginia, Pennsylvania and NC.

Let's make a deal: The next piece of furniture that anybody on this board (this includes the contributors AND our dear readers) buys, it has to be American made. We can start our own "buy American" movement on the BP.

The problem is cultural more than anything else... There is a prevailing attitude that it's ok if we buy something inexpensive and of lesser quality because we'll want something new within a few years anyway. There is no pride in workmanship anymore. Take televisions, for example. Remember when we had television repair shops? TVs would last for 20 years or more. Now, you get them dirt cheap and they last about 5 to 8 years at the most and you toss them out.

I couldn't have said it better myself. B's spot on right there.

No one takes pride in our state's long textile and furniture history anymore. They'd rather buy something cheap from China and upgrade to something a little less crappy from China in about 5 years.

Again, very good points here, B. :-)

What Bennett Said

Here's a quote of what Bennett said:

"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations [about abortion] are, I think, tricky."

The factual basis for the remark is that the majority of crime in America is black-on-black, followed shortly by black-on-white. That is a fact. Facts are uncomfortable things sometimes, but the truth can be that way. Most liberals cringe when they hear things like that and for someone to repeat them is probably physically painful for them. Bennett did not offer any judgement of why those are the facts, he simply uttered the statement because the truthful basis is there.

So, analyzing what Bennett said, if some entity's sole purpose was to reduce crime, then one way to do that would be to reduce the number of black people in America. This is simple mathematics: if a percentage of crime is committed by black people, fewer black people means less crime. The unspoken corollary is that fewer white people would mean less crime as well. He does not ever say that he wishes we would do that or that doing it is even remotely acceptable. In fact he is using this as an rhetorical example of why the calculating nature of the pro-abortion faction in America is morally reprehensible, hence his use of the phrase "morally reprehensible." He is illustrating why this attitude is a slippery slope that leads to abominations like eugenics.

Was it a clunky rhetorical outing on his part? Probably. I might have gone about it in a different way. Was it bigoted? Not even remotely and no one can demonstrate rationally that it is.

As I said before, Bennett, as is his wont to do, has exposed two truths that liberals don't want to deal with honestly, so in true form, the Democrat demagogue marionettes went to work, employing juvenile tactics. Pelosi's remarks are no more accurate or high-minded than Beavis and Butthead snickering over a double entendre.

What???

OK. I watched the clip and what I heard him say was this: It would be morally wrong to abort all black children, but it's too bad we couldn't do it because it would certainly decrease the crime rate in this country.

Come on, B, get real. Do you really believe Dr. Bennett has regret that we can't abort all black babies to reduce the crime rate??? He was throwing out a hypothesis, which is what philosophy professors do. Let's be rational here...

If conservatives want to defend that kind of thought and still feed us their line on moral superiority, then more power to them but they have no credibility. Isn't this considered Genocide?

Conservatives don't believe that we should abort black babies to reduce the crime rate; Dr. Bennett doesn't believe that. Didn't you take any philosophy classes in college??? I remember in one of my philosophy classes, my professor said we should abort all babies that are mentally & physically deformed because they would be too much trouble to look after. The class as a whole debated it, and at the end of the discussion, the professor said he didn't agree with his hypothesis.

Why is it so difficult to admit that poverty is the real problem. Being a certain race does not predispose you to derelict or disfunctional behavior.

Who's saying that poverty isn't a real problem??? And who's saying being a certain race predisposes someone to a disfunctional behavior??? Liberals are the ones obsessed with race...

Listening for Comprehension

OK. I watched the clip and what I heard him say was this: It would be morally wrong to abort all black children, but it's too bad we couldn't do it because it would certainly decrease the crime rate in this country.

If you got that out of what he said, then you didn't listen to what he said. Try again. This time clear your mind of Nancy Pelosi's prejudice. She's an idiot and you're not.

Why is it so difficult to admit that poverty is the real problem.

Poverty is the real problem behind what? Abortion? That's what the topic was. Do you want to assert that only poor people have abortions? That is absolutely untrue. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of abortions are performed on white, middle-to-upper class teenagers and early twenty-somethings.

Being a certain race does not predispose you to derelict or disfunctional behavior.

No one but you even implied that it does.

American-made Furniture

To answer your question; yes, local furniture stores do sell American made furniture. The highest quality pieces are made in Virginia, Pennsylvania and NC.

The problem is cultural more than anything else. Our country has a "disposable mind-set" and it has been reinforced by the current retail trend of big box stores and crap quality. There is a prevailing attitude that it's ok if we buy something inexpensive and of lesser quality because we'll want something new within a few years anyway. There is no pride in workmanship anymore. Take televisions, for example. Remember when we had television repair shops? TVs would last for 20 years or more. Now, you get them dirt cheap and they last about 5 to 8 years at the most and you toss them out.

No one takes pride in our state's long textile and furniture history anymore. They'd rather buy something cheap from China and upgrade to something a little less crappy from China in about 5 years.

Michael Bruce has law license suspended...

It appears Bruce hasn't been paying his taxes...

RE: RE: Bennett attempts to explain his biogtry

OK. I watched the clip and what I heard him say was this: It would be morally wrong to abort all black children, but it's too bad we couldn't do it because it would certainly decrease the crime rate in this country.

If conservatives want to defend that kind of thought and still feed us their line on moral superiority, then more power to them but they have no credibility. Isn't this considered Genocide?

Why is it so difficult to admit that poverty is the real problem. Being a certain race does not predispose you to derelict or disfunctional behavior.

The scent of fear hangs in the air

By Wesley Pruden
The Washington Times

The Republicans are acting like Republicans again, and the Democrats scent the familiar odor of fear...

This should send Democratic stock soaring, but for the fact that the only thing either party has going for it is the other party. If you're tired of Tom DeLay, Nancy Pelosi is nobody's idea of a hottie for a snuggle at the prom. If craven Republicans in the Senate make you gag, Harry Reid might make you retch.

Some of the Democrats sent Stan Greenberg, one of their most reliable pollsters, out to sample sentiment the other day and he came back with bad news. "Feelings about Democrats are at a [54-month] low," he told them. Slightly fewer than half of the voters polled say they expect to vote Democratic next year. That's about what the figure was in 2004. John Zogby, an independent pollster, says the Democrats are in trouble because they have no credible national leaders.

Al From, the director of the Democratic Leadership Council, which speaks for what's left of the party of FDR, Harry Truman and JFK, says the Democrats have a chance to pick up seats next year but "you can only get so far attacking the other guy, no matter how bad he is." Nobody has much to hang hope on.

RE: Bennett attempts to explain his bigotry

I guess some Conservatives around here are in agreement with him?

Of course. Bennett said that using economic criteria to justify abortion was as ridiciulous as using crime reduction to justify it. That is a fact-based opinion and of course I agree with it. The Democratagogues who have their pantyhose in a twist are angry because what he said is true and makes a lot of sense, so they chose to engage in their favorite pastime: extracting out-of-context phrases from some conservative's remarks and using them to personally flambé the remarker. They can't engage in honest debate, so they resort to kindergarden playground tactics.

But let me throw this back to you:

With which part of his remarks do you have a problem? And can you demonstrate that his remarks were bigoted?

Salary cap???

To 'stay in business' or to keep factories open, have furniture or retail execs chosen to take a pay cut in their exorbitant salaries? Are they more concerned about helping shareholders than their own employees?

Are you proposing a salary cap on salaries??? They should be concerned about helping the shareholders when it's the money from shareholders that gives them the cash to spend on capital and expand their business. If the company was running poorly financially, then the stock price falls, which means there is no money to expand. A good example of that is Krispy Kreme.

RE: Bennett attempts to explain his bigotry

The video probably works, but I can't get it — the FOX News website may not be Mac-friendly, I don't know.

Yeah, I believe it's in Windows Media Player.

There's really no way for Bennett to run away from his statement. He said what he said; it's perfectly clear what he meant.

Actually, in that interview last night, he didn't run away from his statement, but he told the context he said it in. On his radio show, he took a call from a caller in which Bennett took issue with a hypothesis put forth in a recent book that one reason crime is down is that abortion is up (FYI, Bennett was a philosophy professor for years.) He said he was "pointing out that abortion should not be opposed for economic reasons any more than racism ... should be supported or opposed for economic reasons. Immoral policies are wrong because they are wrong, not because of an economic calculation." He pretty much was saying one shouldn't be proposing extremes when discussing the issue of abortion. As Bennett said himself about the hypothesis he put forth, it was "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do."

Re: Re: Buying American

Andy responded: The retail & manufacturing execs didn't help making people jobless; we did. Let's place blame on the right people here. The execs did what they had to do to stay in business.

Yes, we did help. But so did the execs — if we're blaming, let's spread it fairly. To 'stay in business' or to keep factories open, have furniture or retail execs chosen to take a pay cut in their exorbitant salaries? Are they more concerned about helping shareholders than their own employees? I don't know, I'm just asking.

Soon we'll be nothing but importers and makers of stuff not worth shipping from overseas — or makers of stuff we don't have time to wait for. Pretty sad.

Bennett attempts to explain his bigotry

The video probably works, but I can't get it — the FOX News website may not be Mac-friendly, I don't know.

There's really no way for Bennett to run away from his statement. He said what he said; it's perfectly clear what he meant.

Steve said: Bennett's words were probably ill-timed and maybe ill-chosen, but they are factual.

I guess some Conservatives around here are in agreement with him?

RE: Buying American

Retail and manufacturing execs buying dirt cheap goods from foreign suppliers to sell to the same working class that they helped make jobless.

The retail & manufacturing execs didn't help making people jobless; we did. Let's place blame on the right people here. The execs did what they had to do to stay in business.

To start buying American, folks like Wal-Mart and Rooms To Go are going to need to make it available to their customers.

So Wal-Mart & Rooms To Go should make products available that won't sell??? That doesn't make business sense. There's got to be a demand for American made goods before they will put it on their shelves.

Where can customers find affordable, good quality American furniture these days?

Go ask the local furniture stores if they sell American made furniture. I'll admit, I haven't asked because I haven't bought any furniture. Maybe we can go online and find out through their websites.

How Americans Can Buy American

Here's a pretty neat website where one can learn how to buy all things American... It has to start somewhere.

Bennett explains his remarks

This is video from Bennett's appearance last night on Hannity & Colmes explaining what he meant with regard to his comments... Let me know if the video works.

Buying American

Andy said: People want quality goods for a cheaper price.

Chinese furniture are "quality goods"? I'm not so sure about that one.

People buy what they can afford. 300 more former workers in Surry County can now afford even less and will buy even more cheap Chinese goods from Rooms To Go, Wal-Mart, etc. Who's really getting the bargain here? Retail and manufacturing execs buying dirt cheap goods from foreign suppliers to sell to the same working class that they helped make jobless.

I'm sure if Americans would start buying American, then Wal-Mart would start selling it; it's supply & demand.

To start buying American, folks like Wal-Mart and Rooms To Go are going to need to make it available to their customers. Where can customers find affordable, good quality American furniture these days? We're slitting our own throats. Like I said, we can only work retail and sell Chinese goods to each other for so long.

Break Up the Congress!

By Doug Bandow
The American Spectator

The House Republican leadership must go. Even if that means the GOP loses control of Congress. Democrats spent decades practicing the policy of spending lavishly to win elections. Republicans refined the practice in just a few years...

While there are few substantive reasons to choose between the parties, there now is a practical reason to vote Democratic: to put at least one organ of national power into someone else's hands. As Lord Acton famously observed, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The GOP seems intent on proving the truth of Lord Acton's axiom.

RE: Bennett's Words Used to Tar Republicans

This couldn't be more Orwellian. Of course no one ever "tars" Democrats with the hateful bile and filth that pours out of the mouths of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan. Yet many mainstream Democrats openly embrace these bigoted fools. Time will tell if the media chooses to make a big deal out of this, but I doubt it. Bennett's words were probably ill-timed and maybe ill-chosen, but they are factual. Throwing facts at Democrats/liberals is like throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West.

Bennett Tars Himself

Conservative Republican Bill Bennett is a real moron. Other Conservative Republicans should get as far away from this dude as possible.

RE: Bassett To Close Surry Plant; 300 More Jobs Evaporate

People want quality goods for a cheaper price. I'm sure if Americans would start buying American, then Wal-Mart would start selling it; it's supply & demand.

Bassett To Close Surry Plant; 300 More Jobs Evaporate

Still more 'sucking sounds' of lost local manufacturing jobs. 'Ol Ross Perot knew exactly what he was talking about...

Everybody can't work at Rooms To Go selling Chinese furniture. BTW, I wonder how much US-made furniture Wal-Mart sells in their stores? Maybe they could open a Wal-Mart superstore in the old Bassett factory. How appropriate would that be?

Obviously, lots of 'patriotic' people really enjoy waving American flags made in China. Wake up, everybody — we're doing this to ourselves.

From the WSJ:

Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. said yesterday that it will close its plant on Sheep Farm Road near Mount Airy by the end of November. The furniture manufacturer, based in Bassett, Va., said it is cutting 300 jobs, or 15 percent of its total work force, with the closing of the 540,000-square-foot plant. The employees will be laid off in phases as production winds down, said Jay Moore, the communications director for Bassett.
Bassett makes wooden bedroom furniture at the plant. Bedroom furniture has been one of the most vulnerable furniture categories to lower-cost Asian imports because it is labor-intensive.
"During 2005, like most of the U.S. furniture industry, Bassett has continued to experience a shift in demand from its domestically produced wood products to imported wood products," the company said in a statement.

Bennett's Words Used to Tar Republicans

By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor

(CNSNews.com) - Ever since he became chairman of the Republican National Committee last year, Ken Mehlman has been reaching out to African-Americans and Hispanics, with a series of meetings the RNC calls "conversations with the community."

"We Republicans have a message to all who want expanded opportunity in America: give us a chance, and we'll give you a choice," Mehlman told once such gathering in Miami this summer.

Mehlman has made the point that Republicans are "committed to inclusion," and he has suggested that Democrats take the black vote for granted.

But attempts to change African-Americans' perceptions about the Republican Party have taken a double hit in recent weeks: first, with Hurricane Katrina, which exposed the desperation of poor blacks in New Orleans. Some Democrats were quick to suggest that President Bush's policies are to blame for such pockets of poverty.

And this week, comments made by conservative Republican Bill Bennett are being held up as a reflection of Republicans' alleged racial insensitivity.

Wal-Mart Must Meet 'Higher Expectations,' Campaign Says

By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor

(CNSNews.com) - More than 300 labor unions and other liberal groups are joining forces for "Higher Expectations Week," a series of 1,000 events intended to pressure Wal-Mart to make reforms in such areas as "affordable health care, corporate responsibility and economic justice."

Feed My Sheep

...maybe they could expand their witchhunt to include allparents who supposedly engage in practices...

Witchhunt might be a teensy bit hyperbolic, don't you think?You're ascribing motives to them without evidence to support them. They were simply saying they didn't want to associate with these people. And the people who send their children to the school did consent to the rules beforehand.

You know, if you can't stand for your kids to be in contact with people different from yourself...

Once again, there is no evidence to suggest simple bigotry here. Homosexuality is still a serious sin in churches that have not become completely apostate.For the people involved, associating with them is no different than associating with any other sinner and they choose to reject the association.

The mistake the school is making, from a scriptural point of view, is that it is far more important to minister to the sick than to the healthy. The school could certainly have regulated the lesbians' behavior while on their campus to prevent any problems. If they disagreed with such regulation, they would have been free to go elsewhere. The important duty the school missed is to give the child more opportunity to hear the word of God. If the school did its job right, before God, the girl would realize the serious error of her “parents.” Who knows, maybe she could even get them to repent. I think the school missed its chance.

Re: The Righteous

Steve said: The school is free to do what it feels is correct. However, they certainly can't claim any overwheening Christian authority for doing so. I have heard and read people who attempt to claim scriptural authority for the decision. There is no such authority.

Yep.

While the school is busy punishing students for certain actions of certain parents (and in this case, two parents who have actually stayed together and maintained a household for over 20 years), maybe they could expand their witchhunt to include allparents who supposedly engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style."

Wait, that won't work — there would most likely be few students left.

You know, if you can't stand for your kids to be in contact with people different from yourself, just home school 'em. At least you'll be able to control their influences and environments... for a while.

Targeting DeLay

From the Editors of National Review Online:

Following the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, conservatives are left wondering what to make of the charges. The answer is simple. The charges are absurd and should be thrown out of court...

One needn't be a DeLay flack to see this. We have had criticisms of DeLay ourselves — his support of the Medicare-drug benefit, his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and his recent comments about the “pared down” budget all come to mind. But this indictment is outrageous and should not be allowed to succeed as a tactic. While the political fallout of this indictment will take time to sort through, this case makes one thing clear: Campaign-finance regulation makes prosecution a continuation of politics by other means.

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Somebody explain that verse to me in plain talk... It sounds like Steve is saying that the school shouldn't have kicked the girl out; right???

The school is free to do what it feels is correct. However, they certainly can't claim any overwheening Christian authority for doing so. I have heard and read people who attempt to claim scriptural authority for the decision. There is no such authority.

RE: School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents

School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after Shay was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game, Tina Clark said.

Sounds like a strict school if the girl was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game.

And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. -- Mark 2:15

Somebody explain that verse to me in plain talk... It sounds like Steve is saying that the school shouldn't have kicked the girl out; right???

Premium Gasoline Is Rarely a Necessity

By Marshall Loeb
Market Watch

NEW YORK — Drivers often believe premium gasoline will help their cars run better, but, unless theirs is a sports car or luxury vehicle, it just isn't true. And with prices at the pump as high as they are, high-grade gasoline is one expense you may well do without.

School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents

Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.

And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. -- Mark 2:15

Why Socialism Failed

by Mark J. Perry
Foundation For Economic Education

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.

In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.

A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.

I Cover the Web

Just doing my job, sir.

Actually, someone at Free Republic posted a link to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune article about conservative college students and this was in it.

RE: Intellectual Takeout

Hey Steve: Great website!!! How did you come across this??? I see plenty of BP material on here. :-)

Highways to Hell (Investing in our safety.)

By Wendell Cox
National Review Online

New Orleans and Houston have raised serious questions about the nation's ability to evacuate effectively major urban areas in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The more recent Houston evacuation is rightly viewed as the more successful, as 2.5 million people managed to get out of the area by car. Things could have been better. In the future, freeways need to be made one-way much earlier, and there should be preexisting fuel-contingency plans. The biggest tragedy was in New Orleans where many households were without cars, and no serious attempt was made to use the hundreds of buses that were available before the hurricane and subsequent flood.

Intellectual Takeout

Click the link above. This is an interesting new site targeted at right-of-center college students.

On Environmentalism:

Environmental activists do not hold a monopoly on pro-environment positions. Environmental activists are against urban sprawl, yet it can be argued urban sprawl is actually better for the environment. Environmental activists are champions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), yet it can be argued the ESA promotes habitat destruction. Environmental activists believe global warming will beget apocalyptic destruction worldwide, yet it can be argued global warming will create a more comfortable and agriculturally productive environment. You may have never heard these arguments before, but you can discover these ideas and many others by clicking the links below.

On Economics:

Eighty, fifty, even thirty years ago, many considered socialism the superior system of economic coordination. They believed a central government could coordinate industry and the factors of production. Communism wasn’t per se evil, just poorly implemented. Today, socialism is largely discredited. Most understand it is impossible for central planners to acquire and process all of the information necessary to coordinate an entire economy. But that is not to say socialist ideals do not live on. The collectivist, utopian sentiments underlying socialism continue to influence economic policies in free market economies. Therefore, understanding socialism’s inherent defects and fractured logic continues to be important. Consider calls for universal health care. Some people think the government can run healthcare better than the private market, but the track record from countries with government-run healthcare is abysmal. It is no coincidence that nearly all medical innovations come out of America—the only industrialized country with a free market in healthcare.

On Education:

Vouchers! Utter the “V” word and many supporters of the public school system shudder in fear. But what is the truth about vouchers? Will they (as opponents believe) “destroy public education as we know it,” or will they (as supporters believe) bring much-needed competition into a monopolistic system?

Research indicates that vouchers have had a positive impact on student achievement as well as on the performance of public schools whose students are eligible for vouchers.

Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

John Glover Roberts Jr. became the 17th chief justice of the United States Thursday, overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate to lead the Supreme Court through turbulent social issues for generations to come.

The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts _ a 50-year-old U.S. Appeals judge from the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. _ as the successor to the late William H. Rehnquist, who died earlier this month. All of the Senate's majority Republicans, and about half of the Democrats, voted for Roberts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democrats voting no:

Akaka, Bayh, Biden, Boxer, Cantwell, Clinton, Corzine, Dayton, Durbin, Feinstein, Harkin, Inouye, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Mikulski, Obama, Reed, Reid, Sarbanes, Schumer, Stabenow.

All red state Democrats up for reelection in 2006 voting yes.

The DeLay Opportunity

By John Tabin
The American Spectator

From all indications, he's been railroaded. But it also means Republicans can now get their fiscal House in order.

RE: Fiscal responsibility takes first steps

I haven't paid much attention to what Richard has been doing for a while. Last time I knew, he had gotten stars in his eyes and he was hanging around with Liberal Liddy Dole. He seemed to be pretty tightly tucked into the Bush plantation. I know some real conservatives who are bug-eyed about him turning into a neo-con.

It's completely opposite of what seems to have happened with Virginia Foxx. I have been following what she is doing and I have to say that I have no complaints. I'm not ready to declare her a born-again conservative, but she has voted right on every issue I have watched so far. If her voting record doesn't go downhill, I will be voting for her next year, something I didn't do last year.

Fiscal responsibility takes first steps

Is Burr involved in this coalition??? If not, then he needs to be...

BY ROBERT NOVAK
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

The Senate was up to its old tricks Monday evening. It prepared to pass, without debate and under a procedure requiring unanimous consent, a federal infusion of $9 billion into state Medicaid programs under the pretext of Katrina relief. The bill, drafted in secret under bipartisan auspices, was stopped cold when Republican Sen. John Ensign voiced his objection.

Rock the Dubya (The last refuge of aging hipsters.)

By Windsor Mann
National Review Online

In a scene at the end of the movie Austin Powers, Dr. Evil remarks: "There is nothing more pathetic than an aging hipster." Though Dr. Evil is not a real medical doctor, his diagnosis was correct, and it can even be extended to real life. Dr. Evil could just as easily have been talking to the Rolling Stones.

Sean "Up Bush's behind so far, he needs a flashlight" Hannity

I wonder if Sean "Up Bush's behind so far, he needs a flashlight" Hannity will stop inviting her on his show?

I doubt it because she brings in ratings... Besides, Alan Colmes loves her. :-)

RE: Bob Shrum with a good cause

Ann seems to have completely left the Republican Reservation. I guess she decided that pubbie Kool-aid wasn't quite so tasty. I am so glad to see her back in the honest conservative fold. I wonder if Sean "Up Bush's behind so far, he needs a flashlight" Hannity will stop inviting her on his show?

RE: Linking teen sex to teen suicide

A study by the Heritage Foundation, in-turn based on the government-funded National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, found that about 25 percent of sexually active girls say they are depressed all, most or a lot of the time, while only 8 percent of girls who are not sexually active feel the same.

I can see linking mental illnesses among teen girls to teen sex... It goes to self-esteem issues & such. Just my opinion...

Bob Shrum with a good cause

Great stuff from Ann Coulter:

If Ronald Reagan were running today, Rove would have Bush endorse Reagan's opponent. Establishment Republicans all pretend to have seen Reagan's genius at the time, but that's a crock. They wanted to dump Reagan in favor of "electable" Gerald Ford and "electable" George Herbert Walker Bush.

Newsweek reported in 1976 that Republican "party loyalists" thought Reagan would produce "a Goldwater-style debacle." This is why they nominated well-known charismatic vote magnet Jerry Ford instead.

Again in 1980, a majority of Republican committeemen told U.S. News and World Report that future one-termer George "Read My Lips" Bush was more "electable" than Reagan.

The secret to Reagan's greatness was he didn't need a bunch of high-priced Bob Shrums to tell him what Americans thought. He knew because of his work with General Electric, touring the country and meeting real Americans. Two months a year for eight years, Reagan would give up to 25 speeches a day at G.E. plants – a "marination in middle America," as one G.E. man put it. Reagan himself said, "I always thought Hollywood had the wrong idea of the average American, and the G.E. tours proved I was right."

Because of these tours, Reagan knew – as he calmly told fretful advisers after the Grenada invasion – "You can always trust Americans." The G.E. tours completely immunized Reagan from the counsel of people like Karl Rove, who think the average American is a big-business man who just wants his taxes cut and doesn't care about honor, country, marriage or the unborn.

Reagan knew that this is a great country. If only today's Republicans would believe it.

Linking teen sex to teen suicide

But there was another statistic that should have gotten parents' attention but which was similarly ignored, namely, that there seems to be a direct link between teen sexuality and teen depression. A study by the Heritage Foundation, in-turn based on the government-funded National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, found that about 25 percent of sexually active girls say they are depressed all, most or a lot of the time, while only 8 percent of girls who are not sexually active feel the same.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Hammer Time (Ronnie Earle finally gets his man.)

From OpinionJournal.com:

Texas retribution went national yesterday with the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay by Travis County (Austin) prosecutor Ronnie Earle. We've been critical of Mr. DeLay, but anyone who knows the history of Mr. Earle will not be rushing to judgment on this one.

Not that the truth or falsity of the charges matters in immediate political terms. Mr. DeLay was obliged to "temporarily step aside" from his leadership post yesterday, even as he declared that "I am innocent" and that the charges were brought by an "unabashed partisan zealot." His resignation deals another blow to a GOP Congress already suffering from a lack of ideological direction. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi quickly pounced to declare this "the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued with a culture of corruption." Mr. Earle understood he could get his man merely by charging him.

Franklin Delano Bush

I believe Steve coined the word "Bushevelt."

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and coeditor of the Cato Handbook on Policy.

It wasn’t a fireside chat on the radio. No, it was different. President Bush stood in front of a church and addressed the nation by television.

But otherwise, we’re back in the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his big-spending, big-government New Deal. Except the New New Deal costs a lot more.

I, Rigoberta Menchu, Liar

Perhaps the most salient of Stoll's findings is the way in which Rigoberta has distorted the sociology of her family situation, and that of the Mayans in the region of Uspantan. Rigoberta had no brother who starved to death, at least none that her own family could remember. The ladinos were not a ruling caste in Rigoberta's town or district, in which there were no large estates or fincas as she claims. The Menchus, moreover, were not poor in the way Rigoberta describes them. Vicente Menchu had title to 2,753 hectares of land. The 22-year land dispute described by Rigoberta, which is the central event in the book leading to the rebellion and the tragedies that followed was, in fact, over a tiny 151 hectare parcel of land. Most importantly, Vicente Menchu's "heroic struggle against the landowners who wanted to take our land" was in fact not a dispute with representatives of a European-descended conquistador class but with his own Mayan relatives, the Tum family, headed by his wife's uncle.

David Horowitz

Senator: God judging U.S. with disastrous hurricanes (Alabama Republican cites culture of 'gambling, sin and wickedness')

Speaking of nutty...

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

An Alabama state senator says the reason why the Gulf Coast is suffering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is because God is judging Americans in that region for sinful behavior.

Black Voter Suppression Blamed for Weak Katrina Response

Is there a nuttier group out there than the CBC???

By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer

Washington (CNSNews.com) - The Bush administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina may be the result of minority votes being suppressed and Democratic candidates losing the last two presidential elections, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus has alleged.

RE: Media blindside in hindsight

Journalists like stories about the black poor because it allows them to beat up on a supposedly "uncaring" Republican administration, though they mostly seem to ignore such people when a Democrat is in the White House.

Cal's right on with that point.

Media blindside in hindsight

Few white reporters want to question or imply anything negative when it comes from a poor black person for fear they might be tarred with the "racist" label. It didn't help that some of New Orleans' top officials confirmed many of the accounts of lawlessness. But did they "know" these things, or were they repeating rumors? Did journalists bother to ask them, or was the story too good to be hurt by facts?

Cal Thomas

Media Use Katrina to Lobby for Higher Taxes (Criticism for budget deficits has been replaced by calls for big government)

By Noel Sheppard
Free Market Project

As quickly as the water started rising in New Orleans, America’s media began blaming Hurricane Katrina-related damages on the president’s 2001 and 2003 economic stimulus packages. The overriding theme the first week after Katrina hit was that the levees of Louisiana failed due to a lack of federal funding stemming from “tax cuts for the rich.” However, a closer look at the federal budget reveals that funding for departments and agencies administering U.S. “Physical Resources” – Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Environmental Protection, etc. – increased by 35 percent during George W. Bush’s first term.

Adult stem cells restore feeling in paraplegic (Apparent major breakthrough with patient paralyzed 19 years)

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

In an apparent major breakthrough, scientists in Korea report using umbilical cord blood stem cells to restore feeling and mobility to a spinal-cord injury patient.

RE: NASA administrator says space shuttle was a mistake

Very ironic. Several years ago, an ex-NASA engineer worked for me. He had worked on Voyager and the Mars lander. He was highly intelligent and capable. He got passed over for a promotion for writing an opinion that the space shuttle was a colossal waste of money. He said the opinion effectively ended his career at NASA. I'll have to get in touch with him to see what he thinks of this development.

In a related piece of irony, the person who got promoted ahead of him did so because he had a name that the HR people at NASA thought sounded Hispanic. At the time, NASA was (illegally) enacting race-based quotas to satisfy its affirmative action requirements. The guy who got the promotion was a fourth-generation Italian from New Jersey. He didn't even speak Italian.

These are two illustrations of the best reasons I can think of for getting the government out of the space business.

NASA administrator says space shuttle was a mistake

By Traci Watson
USA TODAY

The space shuttle and International Space Station — nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades — were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

'Peace Mom' assails McCain (Calls senator a 'warmonger' after D.C. visit)

In my mind, McCain meeting with Sheehan should disqualify him from running for president of the United States...

By Billy House
Arizona Republic Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Cindy Sheehan, whose 26-day anti-war vigil this summer outside President Bush's Texas ranch grabbed international attention, met privately for 20 minutes on Tuesday with Sen. John McCain and afterward called him "a warmonger."

DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe

Since Delay is part of the inept House leadership, I wonder how many "true" conservatives will come to his defense...

By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

Wednesday Funnies...

David Letterman... "Top Signs Your Kid Is Working With al-Qa'ida": Greets you every day with, "Good morning, infidel"; Spent weekend at mall looking for back-to-school turbans; His paper route includes the mountainous Tora Bora region; Keeps mocking you for only having the one wife; Blind Sheik always coming over to play "Grand Theft Auto" on Xbox; You're getting gas for 12 cents a gallon; He's saving his allowance to buy a camel; Find yourself saying, "No Al Jazeera 'til you finish your homework."

ANSWER

"The media have pushed the idea that the demonstration this weekend at the White House was an 'anti-war' gathering. What they didn't say was who was behind it... For the record, the lead organizer [was] ANSWER, which the media routinely refer to as an 'antiwar group.' It is nothing of the sort. In fact, ANSWER is a front group for the Stalinist Workers World Party. And any group that qualifies for that epithet in front of its name deserves special scrutiny, since Josef Stalin was responsible for the murder of as many as 25 million human beings... So why do communists—particularly those who march under Stalin's flag—get different treatment? And why do thousands of average people feel comfortable marching arm in arm with them? It's a puzzle. After all, according to the 'Black Book of Communism' —a widely cited and respected compendium of communism's crimes in the 20th century—communist regimes murdered as many as 100 million people over the last century. That's quite a record. Indeed, all the century's great mass murders—Mao Zedong (65 million), Stalin (25 million), Hitler (21 million), Pol Pot (2 million)—were communists or socialists. Yet many well-meaning people who marched this weekend perhaps didn't know all this. Or perhaps they don't mind having their cause besmirched by people who aren't really anti-war at all, but anti-America, anti-West, anti-freedom and anti-capitalist... Maybe it proves the old adage: Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas."

Investor's Business Daily

Second Treatise Of Civil Government: Of Property

He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right. And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.

John Locke

High Court Selection Process Winds Down

By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

President Bush, close to nominating a successor to retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has narrowed his list to a handful of candidates that outside advisers say includes federal judges and two people who have never banged a gavel _ corporate attorney Larry Thompson and White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Generations Of Valor

In the Syrup

By The Prowler
The American Spectator

DUBIE DO
One Senate seat that may be coming back into play for Republicans in the 2006 election cycle is Vermont, where Sen. Jim Jeffords is retiring. Word on Capitol Hill is that Vermont Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie was in town last week, meeting with Republican National Committee staff, as well as Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the key recruiter for Senate candidates.

Dumb(_!_) Quote Of The Day...

"Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet. I'm always in Africa. That's my business; I move among the poor. And when I move into these places, I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere."

Harry Belafonte

Pork-Barrel Republicans (The problem is on the congressional right.)

Republican Sen. John McCain told CBS News last week that the growing costs of the Iraq war and the new burdens created by hurricanes Katrina and Rita mean the drug bill must be reopened for discussion. “We’ve got to cancel it, go back to square one,” he said. “It was a bad idea to start with.”

Unfortunately, President Bush’s reaction to any suggestion that the drug bill even be postponed has been outrage and the promise of a veto. “I signed the Medicare reform proudly,” he said earlier this year, “and any attempt to … take away … prescription drug coverage under Medicare will meet my veto.”

This morning, Tony Snow said the Bush Administration has reminded him of the Carter Administration for the past several weeks...

Leo Strauss, Conservative Mastermind

When leftists today feel obliged to denounce Great Books curricula, it is because they know, consciously or unconsciously, that classical thought is very much alive and is a real threat to them. The holy grail of Straussian scholarship has been to understand the ancient philosophers not from a modern point of view but from their own point of view. The implication is that then we become free to adopt the ancient point of view towards modern political affairs, freeing us from the narrowness of the modern perspective and enabling us to step back from the distortions and corruptions of modernity. Strauss contends that the modern view of politics is artificial and that the ancient one is direct and honest about the experience of political things.

Robert Locke

Dan Rather unrepentant: Story on Bush 'accurate' (Despite using forged documents, ex-CBS anchor stands by report)

I wonder when the men in the white coats will come and pick Rather up???



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

More than a year after his controversial report calling into question President Bush's National Guard service – a story based on forged documents – former CBS news anchor Dan Rather is standing by the broadcast.

Sheehan: 'I Have to Pay My Bills, Too'

By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Correspondent

College Park, MD (CNSNews.com) - Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan recently signed on with a speakers' bureau, and her appearance on the lecture circuit drew mixed reaction Tuesday night, especially from her younger supporters at the University of Maryland.

Leave New Orleans to Private Development

by Sheldon Richman
The Future of Freedom Foundation

In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of politics, when government fails, and fails spectacularly as it did with Hurricane Katrina, the only thing to do is give it gobs more money to make everything right.

But when has government made anything right? Even when it seems to do something worthwhile, we soon discover the horrific unintended consequences of its actions. On net, government as we know it is a liability, not an asset.

Panhandle broadcasting: Air America crumbling? (Liberal radio network asking listeners for donations to help spread message)

By Joe Kovacs
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Air America, the liberal radio answer to Rush Limbaugh, is now asking its listeners to send in money, leading some analysts to say the network is "crumbling."

Laura Bush to appear on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"

By Faye Fiore
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Facing criticism that he appeared disengaged from the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush has been looking for opportunities to show his concern. But the White House will take the effort a step further Tuesday, venturing into untested waters by putting the nation's first lady on reality television.

Health Care Needs a Dose of Competition

by Michael F. Cannon

Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, and co-author of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It from which this article is adapted.

Hurricane Katrina has brought to the fore the strengths and weaknesses of America's health care delivery system. Millions of individual Americans, acting on their own initiative, rushed to meet the dire need Katrina created. Those efforts include providers rushing to assist in person, as well as charitable contributions made by those who never left home. In contrast, the response of government has been alarmingly slow and has even thwarted private efforts.

Byrd to Run for 9th Term

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd formally announced Wednesday that he will seek a record ninth term in the Senate.

Using the Capitol Rotunda as a stage, the 87-year-old Democrat told the crowd he was "ready to go. Another round."

Rather: Bush Guard Memo Story "Accurate," Never Proven Not So

From the Media Research Center:

In an interview with Marvin Kalb carried live by C-SPAN from the National Press Club on Monday night, Dan Rather made quite clear that he believes in the accuracy of his Bush National Guard story based on what everyone else realizes were fabricated memos. Rather argued that "one supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one, one supporting pillar was brought into question. To this day no one has proven whether it was what it purported to be or not." Kalb pressed for clarification: "I believe you just said that you think the story is accurate?" Rather affirmed: "The story is accurate." Rather soon maintained that the public recognizes the "hidden hand pressure" politicians exert on media executives and so "they understood that what we reported as the central facts of the story and there were new insights into the President's, were correct and to this day, by the way have not been denied which is always the test of whether," and he moved on before finishing his sentence. Later, talking about using "courage" as a sign-off in the mid-1980s, Rather rued: "There's part of me, it says, you know, 'damn I wish I hadn't caved, I wish I'd stuck with it.'" That prompted Kalb to ask: "Do you think your network showed courage last fall?" Rather answered by remaining silent for seven seconds.

"Top Ten George W. Bush Money-Saving Tips"

From the September 23 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten George W. Bush Money-Saving Tips" to pay for the Katrina recovery.

Brown Blames 'Dysfunctional' Louisiana

Congress doesn't have a clue about the role of FEMA...

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Former FEMA director Michael Brown aggressively defended his role in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday and blamed most coordination failures on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Brown Acknowledges 'Specific Mistakes'

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Former FEMA director Michael Brown told Congress on Tuesday he made "specific mistakes" in leading the initial federal government response to Hurricane Katrina. But Brown also blamed state and local officials for government failures.

Hillary Clinton’s minority report: she thinks we’re stupid

By J. James Estrada
The American Thinker

“I’m a minority!” If you’ve ever said this, you’ve lost more than half the battle. You’ve lost it all. Where once we were taught that “all men are created equal” and that we were indeed made in “the image and likeness of God”, it is now anti-social and politically non-expedient to hold these beliefs. The Scriptural foundations of these beliefs are held in scorn in many circles. The truth is that "minority" is a statistical expression, not a person.

Give Steele Credit

By The Prowler
The American Spectator

STEALING FROM STEELE
There may be enough brewing in the federal investigation into how senior staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee procured the credit report of Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to turn this into a full-blown scandal.

Not Enough Attention?

From Fox News' Political Grapevine:

Cindy Sheehan grumbled this weekend that cable news networks were paying more attention to Hurricane Rita than to her anti-war rally in Washington, posting a message on the liberal Web site DailyKos.com writing, "i am watching cnn and it is 100 percent rita...even though it is a little wind and a little rain...it is bad, but there are other things going on in the country today...and in the world!!!!"

That was too much even for some Daily Kos readers. One responded, "shame on you, you're jealous of media coverage of other's suffering," while another wrote, "The right-wing media has painted you as a self-centered, self-absorbed woman and you're living up to that image." Sheehan later posted an apology.

Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy

No wonder people don't trust the media...

By Susannah Rosenblatt and James Rainey
LA Times Staff Writers

BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.

Something to ponder...

"Consider that black households that are headed by married couples have median incomes almost 90 percent that of white households headed by married couples. The problem in the black community is that far too few black households are headed by married couples. Black social reality in New Orleans at the moment when the floodwaters started pouring in was fairly typical of black inner-city social reality around the country. Upwards of 70 percent of the households were headed by single parents, mostly women. When I discuss social statistics with audiences around the country, I invariably hear gasps when I point out that the out-of-wedlock birthrate today among young white women (30 percent) is higher than it was among black women 50 years ago. There, of course, remain residuals of racism in America today, and it's news to a lot of whites that black families were relatively intact, headed by married couples, in the '40s and '50s. Today's out-of-wedlock black births and single-parent households are triple what they were then. The collapse of the black family took off when big government programs, particularly welfare, were launched, compliments of black and white liberals, after the civil-rights movement."

Star Parker

Good quote from Pres. Cleveland...

"I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit... The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood."

President Grover Cleveland

Ludacris Congress: Republicans barely even try to control spending.

By Deroy Murdock
National Review Online

Not long ago, the Republican Congress at least pretended to be serious about keeping federal spending plausibly sane. While they hurled massive expenditures in every direction, at least their rhetoric honored the grassroots-Republican expectation that they would respect taxpayers' money.

But, save for a band of fiscally responsible backbenchers (about whom more soon), profligate congressional Republicans have surrendered on this front. Their leaders no longer try to restrain spending, nor do they even say the right things about stewarding tax dollars.

Cue the violin

By George Will
Townhall.com

WASHINGTON -- Dianne Feinstein's thoughts on the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States should be read with a soulful violin solo playing, or perhaps accompanied by the theme song of ``The Oprah Winfrey Show.'' Those thoughts are about pinning one's heart on one's sleeve, sharing one's feelings and letting one's inner Oprah come out for a stroll.

RE: Why I became a conservative

"Nevertheless he persuaded me that the utopian promises of socialism go hand in hand with a wholly abstract vision of the human mind—a geometrical version of our mental processes which has only the vaguest relation to the thoughts and feelings by which real human beings live. He persuaded me that societies are not and cannot be organized according to a plan or a goal, that there is no direction to history, and no such thing as moral or spiritual progress."

Socialism goes against human nature; that's the reason socialism doesn't work. Even the socialists on this board don't live their personal lives through the prism of socialism; if they did, they would all be living in communes.

Why I became a conservative

What interested me in the "Reflections" was the positive political philosophy, distinguished from all the leftist literature that was currently à la mode, by its absolute concretion, and its close reading of the human psyche in its ordinary and unexalted forms. Burke was not writing about socialism, but about revolution. Nevertheless he persuaded me that the utopian promises of socialism go hand in hand with a wholly abstract vision of the human mind—a geometrical version of our mental processes which has only the vaguest relation to the thoughts and feelings by which real human beings live. He persuaded me that societies are not and cannot be organized according to a plan or a goal, that there is no direction to history, and no such thing as moral or spiritual progress.

Roger Scruton

Philosophical debate rages in GOP

The House leadership are a bunch of incompetent boobs... :-(

BY ROBERT NOVAK
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Rep. Mike Pence, a 46-year-old former radio talk show host from eastern Indiana serving his third term in Congress, is chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. He has tried hard to cooperate with the regular House Republican leadership rather than confront it. So, he could not have been happy last Tuesday when he found himself in a closed-door auto-da-fe with GOP leaders as the inquisitors and Pence as the heretic.

The Defense of Our Civilization Against Intellectual Error

I am indeed profoundly convinced that there is much less difference between us and our opponents on the ultimate values to be achieved than is commonly believed, and that the differences between us are chiefly intellectual differences. We at least believe that we have attained an understanding of the forces which have shaped civilization which our opponents lack. Yet if we have not yet convinced them, the reason must be that our arguments are not yet quite good enough, that we have not yet made explicit some of the foundations on which our conclusions rest. Our chief task therefore must still be to improve the argument on which our case for a free society rests.

F. A. Hayek

Hinterland Ahoy!

BY JOEL KOTKIN
OpinionJournal.com

In the past four weeks we have seen two different governmental responses to disaster, one efficient, the other, frankly, disastrous. Providence has spared Houston and much of urban east Texas, but that city's response to Hurricane Rita--and the comparison with New Orleans--should give us pause in thinking not only about how we deal with the mess left behind by Katrina, but also the future of the Gulf Coast.

Republican 'Porkers' Urged to Stop Spending

By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Correspondent

(CNSNews.com) - "The pork has exploded," Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the Cato Institute declared, pointing the finger at Republicans and Democrats in government for the increase in pet projects using American taxpayer money..

Anti-War, My Foot: The phony peaceniks who protested in Washington.

By Christopher Hitchens
Slate

A dip into any database could have furnished [NY Times reporter Michael] Janofsky with well-researched and well-written articles by David Corn and Marc Cooper – to mention only two radical left journalists – who have exposed "International ANSWER" as a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism.

Here comes Spiderman...

'Guinness', one of the 256 chihuahua dog entries in a race to determine America's fastest chihuaha, is seen dressed in his Spiderman outfit at Petco Park in San Diego, California September 18, 2005. Regional finalists who outran one thousand Chihuahuas from across the United States competed on Sunday to win the honor of 'America's Fastest Chihuahua'. REUTERS/Dave Gatley/Handout

Ex-Security Chief Blows Whistle on UN's Kosovo Mission

By Sherrie Gossett
CNSNews.com Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) - Following five years of United Nations control and billions of dollars of international aid, Kosovo is a lawless region "owned" by the Albanian mafia, characterized by continuing ethnic cleansing and subject to increasing infiltration by al Qaeda-linked Muslim jihadists, according to a whistleblower interviewed by Cybercast News Service.

The Rogers Anti-poverty plan... :-)

1. We need to recognize that America suffers largely from a problem of behavioral poverty, not material hardship. With behavioral poverty, there's a breakdown in the values and conduct that lead to the formation of healthy families, stable personalities, and self-sufficiency. This includes bad work ethic and dependency, lack of educational goals, inability or unwillingness to control one’s children, increased single parenthood and illegitimacy, criminal activity, and drug and alcohol abuse. The problem of the traditional welfare state is that prolific spending intended to alleviate material poverty has led to an increase in behavioral poverty.
2. Welfare policy should identify the collapse of marriage as the principal cause of poverty and welfare dependence in the United States. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (God rest his soul) was writing about this in the 1960's, and he was called every name in the book because of it. Let's face it, rhe erosion of marriage is both the predominant cause of child poverty and welfare dependence and a major factor in most of America’s social problems generally.
3. Welfare policy should end the practice of permissive entitlement and should seek instead to move individuals toward self-sufficiency, learning from the success of the 1996 welfare reform. The old welfare system rewarded non-work and non-marriage. By promoting dependence and illegitimacy, it increased poverty, crime, and a host of social ills. Since 1996 when TANF was passed, the rates of child poverty and welfare dependence have gone down, and employment among single mothers has gone up. We need to strengthen the work requirements and their enforcement by also requiring able-bodied non-elderly adults receiving food stamps and public housing to perform community service work, supervised job search, or training as a condition of receiving aid since food stamps and public housing were left out on TANF in '96.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Everyone Knows It's Cindy

Ideas? Cool — Let's Hear 'Em.

Andy said: This country has spent over $7 trillion dollars in anti-poverty programs since the "war on poverty" started in '64. So far, that $7 trillion has subsidized poverty... Just because people like myself want to try another approach doesn't mean we care about the poor any less.

Understood on all points. I'd love to hear about another approach — or several, if you've got 'em. Seriously.

I would reason that most every American citizen would like to stop spending tax dollars on unsuccessful poverty programs, but doing so to help others improve their lives will most likely require actions from our government, that is unless we can make everyone promise — cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die — to support his fellow American.

Rogers still gets it right...

''Nobody who works full-time should have to raise children in poverty or in fear that one health emergency or pink slip will drive them over the cliff," said Edwards.

He's talking about working folks, who — even after working 40 hours a week — can't make ends meet, or are literally living from paycheck to paycheck. It's easy for those of us sitting on the sidelines to comment on how others should behave when our parents never worried about what or how we would be fed, if we could go to the doctor when we were sick, etc., etc., etc.

Hey Strother: For most Americans (I would assume you are included in this), the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. However, only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as “poor” fit that description. Today, the typical American defined as "poor" by the government not only has a refrigerator, a stove, and a washing machine, but also has a car, air conditioning, a microwave, and a color TV. Let's put things in perspective here... Again, it's not material hardship that's the problem. The problem is that Edwards wants to go back to the programs that defined the traditional welfare state, which has failed miserably.

"In the U.S. — the wealthiest country in the world where a surprising amount of folks make around a thousand dollars a day — it's pretty sad that others that want to work and do work still can't afford to sufficiently provide for their families on the paltry wages they are paid... I often wish that all of those who can so easily empathize with the unborn would be equally empathetic of the born who are threatened by an unsympathetic world every day of their lives."

This country has spent over $7 trillion dollars in anti-poverty programs since the "war on poverty" started in '64. So far, that $7 trillion has subsidized poverty... Just because people like myself want to try another approach doesn't mean we care about the poor any less. Matter of fact, a case can be made that people who still insist on anti-poverty programs that have clearly shown do not work care more about their own egos than they do about truly helping the poor with the goal of moving people out of poverty toward a life of self-sufficiency.

Let's have some new thinking on fighting poverty

By Star Parker
Townhall.com

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

More than $7 trillion has been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson declared his "war on poverty" 40 years ago, with effectively zero impact on overall black poverty. Yet 40 years of failure doesn't seem to be enough to suggest to liberals, black and white, that their approach to poverty might be wrong.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, among others, riding the post-Katrina poverty-in-America theme, are making predictable speeches calling for yet more government poverty programs. I'm not sure I want to let these folks off with an insanity plea, but you really have to wonder what it takes for liberals to add one and one and get two.

It's a bit hard to buy the claim that Katrina suddenly made Americans aware of poverty.

Re: Rogers gets it right

Andy, those are all very good suggestions — suggestions that I imagine Mr. Edwards would agree were good ones.

But here's the point:

''Nobody who works full-time should have to raise children in poverty or in fear that one health emergency or pink slip will drive them over the cliff," said Edwards.

He's talking about working folks, who — even after working 40 hours a week — can't make ends meet, or are literally living from paycheck to paycheck. It's easy for those of us sitting on the sidelines to comment on how others should behave when our parents never worried about what or how we would be fed, if we could go to the doctor when we were sick, etc., etc., etc.

In the U.S. — the wealthiest country in the world where a surprising amount of folks make around a thousand dollars a day — it's pretty sad that others that want to work and do work still can't afford to sufficiently provide for their families on the paltry wages they are paid. Maybe some of the working poor 'brought the situation on themselves' — a sentiment I often hear phrased in a variety of different ways — but that doesn't mean their children did.

I often wish that all of those who can so easily empathize with the unborn would be equally empathetic of the born who are threatened by an unsympathetic world every day of their lives.

Rogers gets it right about poverty

Most poverty today is behavioral poverty, not material hardship... Here are some simples ideas that the next generation can do to stay out of poverty:

1. Graduate from high school.
2. Don't have children until marriage.
3. Don't get married until one is 20.
4. Stay out of trouble with the law.

Will anybody write an article about me titled, "Rogers gets it right about poverty"??? :-)

A Swamp of Corruption: In Katrina's wake, Louisiana's political culture needs a cleanup too.

By John Fund
OpinionJournal.com

Perhaps no footage from Hurricane Katrina was replayed more often than the "Meet the Press" clip of Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., telling Tim Russert that bureaucrats had "committed murder" in the storm's aftermath. He sobbed as he told about a colleague's mother drowning in her nursing home after begging her son on the phone for four days to save her from the rising waters. Talk show host Don Imus said he had never seen such gripping testimony on TV in his life.

But MSNBC.com later found the story didn't hold up. Eva Rodrigue, the 92-year-old mother of Thomas Rodrique, the parish's emergency services director, did drown--but not because federal or state officials failed to rescue her. Mr. Rodrique said his mother died the day of the hurricane because the nursing home's owners ignored commands to evacuate. The owners are now under indictment for negligent homicide. Mr. Rodrique says his mother never spoke with him, and he can't explain why his boss, Mr. Broussard, got it so wrong.

Mr. Broussard returned to "Meet the Press" yesterday to punch back at critics of his obviously embellished statement. "What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man's mother's death?" he roared. When Mr. Russert continued to point out the discrepancies in his account, Mr. Broussard told him "Man, get out of my face" and then said the bureaucrats and officials who failed his region "should be strung up. Those people should be burned at the stake."

Edwards got it right about poverty

This article ran locally in the WSJ on Saturday, but I thought that it was worth a repeat.

By Thomas Oliphant for the Boston Globe:

In any collection of Americans who have earned the right to say I told you so, John Edwards should make every short list. But, in character, last year's Democratic vice presidential nominee passed up a nice chance to do that yesterday.
Instead, the person who insisted on pressing the country's diseased political culture to confront the moral issue of poverty long before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast used some nice spotlight time to continue pressing.
Edwards was right in saying at the Center for American Progress that Katrina not only exposed America's dirty secret but presented a ''historic moment" when it is clear the country is ready to support action but is short on the leadership that can prompt it. In a clue to his instinctive understanding of poverty, Edwards's summary of first principles includes the central concept (I first heard it from Hubert Humphrey on the subject of civil rights some 40 years ago) that confronting poverty is not something ''we" do for ''them."
''This is something we do for us -- for all of us. It makes us stronger; it makes us better," he said.

From a Windows Neophyte

This is coming from someone who is simply a user, not a computer expert, so be gentle... Being a person who became moderately technologically savvy only after college (I'm nearly 32, so that's not all that uncommon) I was never sufficiently exposed to Windows OS. And now, I'm glad. I've only really used Mac OS, basically because at the time all the applications I needed to learn were Mac-only anyway. The few times I turned on a PC I thought, 'This really sucks and makes no sense.' Mac is so intuitive that you can just guess about the best way to do something, and boom, it works.

And now, in the post Mac OS X world, you've really got to be doing something crazy to get a Mac to lock up or crash. The two times I had to force quit an application, I was running Pro Tools, Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign at the same time. Dumb, I know. But that's how I was working.

I do think that Microsoft has seen its best days for Windows OS. I know several folks that had never used a Mac that are now some of Apple's biggest fans. Most of them said to me, 'You know, it's a no brainer. It's like it reads my mind! And yeah: a trash can... Not a stupid recycle bin! You're trashing, not recycling anyway!'

With sales for the iPod skyrocketing, I predict that sales for Macs to be really big this Christmas. The fact is, Macs are cool; PCs are what kids have at school and what their parents use. Microsoft better be thinking of a major makeover and a great marketing campaign for its OS or they're going to lose all momentum in the 'creative' market completely.

Category 5 Lawsuit: Trashing insurance contracts in Mississippi.

From OpinionJournal.com:

President Bush has promised to rebuild the Gulf Coast "higher and better" than before. But that task is going to be far more difficult if Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and his tort lawyer pals succeed in rewriting private insurance contracts after the hurricanes have hit.

STREISAND DECLARES 'GLOBAL WARMING EMERGENCY'

From the Drudge Report:

NEW YORK -- This summer's back to back superstorms are proof positive we have entered a new period of "global warming emergency," artist/citizen Barbra Streisand warns.

RE: Battling Google, Microsoft Changes How It Builds Software

Interesting article. Some of it is spot-on, some of it is complete fairy tale. Google is moving to undercut the "look-and-feel" portion of what makes Windows popular, but Microsoft really needs to be more concerned about Apple and Linux. Microsoft is losing the server battle to Linux. Mozilla and Apple are encroaching on the desktop terrain all the time. In the last year or so, the KDE team has really worked hard to produce a solid desktop as well. With multiple flavors of Unix and Unix-like operating systems around for small systems, KDE could be poised to join Apple as a viable alternative to the Windows desktop.

A couple of interesting items:

Longhorn was irredeemable because Microsoft engineers were building it just as they had always built software. Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it together into one sprawling program.

I'm a little surprised to see this admitted publicly. Software professionals have known for years that the Microsoft development method resembled nothing so closely as it resembled growing kudzu. As far as pure code quality goes, Microsoft has varied for years between poor and mediocre.

Microsoft's Windows can't entirely replicate that approach [rapid application deployment], since the software is by its nature a massive program overseeing all of a computer's functions.

This is silly. The Linux kernel developers and the developers of the hundreds of pieces and parts of supporting software that goes into Linux are completely agile. And they are agile on little or no budget. Keep in mind, the vast majority of Linux developers are volunteers. Microsoft can't replicate that response because it is too engrained in the development culture that made it what it is today. For years, there was no market motivation for them to improve, so they cranked out mediocre crap. As long as they cranked out some new mediocre crap fairly often, Windows users would put up with the cockroaches that infested the code.

Microsoft's holy grail is a system that cranks out a new, generally bug-free version of basic Windows every few years, with frequent updates in between to add enhancements or match a competitor's offering.

Nice spin job. I particularly liked the bug-free part. I guess all those blue screens of death don't count. I forgot, those were features. And those frequent updates aren't adding new features all that often. That is, unless you count the bubblegum patches to Microsoft's leaks-like-a-sieve security model as a new feature.

Microsoft is finding itself in the position of being influenced by market forces for the first time ever. They don't seem to like it very much. I say it's about time.

Battling Google, Microsoft Changes How It Builds Software

By ROBERT A. GUTH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

REDMOND, Wash. -- Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive, walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows.

"It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its writers would never be able to make it run properly.

Cindy's Jealous of Rita

Someone needs to tell Sheehan her fifteen minutes were up quite a while ago.

WHAT WOULD REAGAN DO?

Ann Coulter continues to nail George Bush (figuratively speaking, of course).

But most important, if Bush had nominated Scalia, liberals would have responded with their usual understated screams of genocide, and Bush could have nominated absolutely anyone to fill Justice O'Connor's seat. He also could have cut taxes, invaded Syria, and bombed North Korea and Cuba just for laughs. He could even have done something totally nuts, like enforce the immigration laws.

Politicians not giving us much of a choice

Nobody does it better than Mark Steyn.

Ambitious presidents seize on extreme events to change the culture, as FDR did, using the Depression to transform the nature of the federal government. In allowing the eco-crazies to get away with prioritizing the world's biggest mosquito herd over Alaskan oil, and the teaching establishment with insisting that there's nothing wrong with the most overfunded public education system in the world that can't be fixed with even more wasted dollars, and the bureaucracy with creating an instantly sclerotic jobs-for-life federalized airport security (that just walked off the job in Houston), the Republicans missed their post-9/11 opportunity.

Hillary Clinton Praises Belafonte's Anti-US Rant

Shrillary should be careful. Public support of these barking moonbats could be detrimental to her new, "moderate" image.

Pombo's panel approves overhaul of species act

By Juliet Eilperin
The Argus

WASHINGTON — Setting the stage for the most sweeping overhaul of endangered species protections in three decades, the House Resources Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would strengthen the hand of private property owners and make it harder for federal officials to set aside large swaths of habitat for imperiled plants and animals.

RE: Quoting Jesus...

No, you are wrong on this one Steve.

Bzzzt. Sorry. Not this time, but thanks for playing.

The Revelation was John the Apostle's vision of the Second Coming of Christ and its prelude.

The Apocalypse, the only book of prophecy in the New Testament was most likely not written by John the Apostle. First, it does not resemble the fourth gospel nor the Johannine epistles in style, grammar, or linguistic usage. Second, it was probably written in the late first century, more than likely after John, Zebedee's son had passed on to his reward. Finally, its attribution to "John the Presbyter" is taken from offhand comments made by Polycarp, which in turn were taken from comments made by one of his mentors, Propias, and Irenaeus and Athanasius after him simply assumed that Zebedee's son was to whom Polycarp referred. Dionysius, in the third century, with far better texts and a clearer oral tradition than we have today, attributed it to John the Presbyter, a person separate and apart from John the Apostle.

But let's leave that for a moment. I offer it so you will think twice about repeating second-hand misinformation. You say it was a "vision" of the second coming. First, the text says (in English), "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." The Greek word used is "pneumati," which means literally "spirit" or even "ghost." It is not a metaphor nor a near translation. The same word is used hundreds of times throughout the New Testament and the phrase is used several times. Its meaning and context are the same: it means literally in spriritual form, outside the corporeal plane. This is a standard setting for prophetic books. The prophet is literally removed from his body and taken to witness and hear certain truths. So to say it was a vision is technically as accurate as saying that when you see Andy at his desk in the morning, you've had a vision of him.

He wrote the dream (or vision, if you'd rather call it that) in which he attributed dialog to Jesus as he heard it in the vision. Jesus did not actually "say" that.

You can nudge it toward "dream" all you like, but that is your propaganda, not the truth, and the text does not support it. But when you say "Jesus did not actually say that," do you imply that the prophet is lying? Is he purposely misleading us? Not only does he tell us that these words came out of Jesus directly, he relates on more than one occasion that he is directed to remember what he has seen and heard exactly and write it down. Did he make it all up? No, he did not. Jesus had left the Earth for good, until his return. In order to deliver the message he chose to remove the prophet to the spiritual plane. He told the prophet what he wanted him to hear, showed him what he wanted him to see, directed him to write it down, and then returned him to the corporeal Earth. Even Father Raymond Brown, the doyen of liberal Bible scholars stops short of attributing the quotes to the prophet himself.

Maybe it was divine guidance, but to tell Andy that it is a direct quote from Jesus is misleading.

I don't understand why you make a distinction. Of course it was divine guidance, but what form would that guidance take? What evidence can you offer that conditions are other than the prophet has said they are? Could it be because Jesus says some things in the Apocalypse that are very uncomfortable for the liberal fairy tale? Could it be that the mystery of the Apocalypse is detrimental to attempts to turn Jesus, the Christ into some kind of latter-day hippie socialist poet-philosopher? Could it be that the mystery of the whole body of the New Testament makes those who seek to deny the godhead of the Christ very uneasy? To say that the Prophet had a "dream" and wrote it down is much easier on the new-age version of Christ's message than to know that Jesus might come and pull the spirit of the prophet out of his body to show him the truth.

No, I think it is you who is mislead. I promise you that if you come to a debate on the Bible with nothing more than a nifty TV show you watched, you will leave empty-handed.

Quoting Jesus...

No, you are wrong on this one Steve. The Revelation was John the Apostle's vision of the Second Coming of Christ and its prelude. He wrote the dream (or vision, if you'd rather call it that) in which he attributed dialog to Jesus as he heard it in the vision. Jesus did not actually "say" that.

Maybe it was divine guidance, but to tell Andy that it is a direct quote from Jesus is misleading.

Btw, there is a wonderful series on the National Geographic channel right now called Bible Science or Science of the Bible; can't remember exactly. This week's installment was about various biblical translations and what biblical scholars now think Jesus' actual words were and how he preached. Excellent programming!

Hillary Prepares: With her eye on the Oval, the senator pretends she’s out of center field.

By Kate O'Beirne
National Review Online

"Clinton for President — The Sequel" has been receiving rave notices during its road show in New York and Washington, D.C. Hillary Clinton looks like a sure bet for reelection to the Senate next year, and surveys show her lapping the field of potential Democratic presidential candidates. She is widely admired as a clever, centrist consensus-builder. A top Republican strategist warns his party, "We underestimate her at our peril."

Quoting Jesus

I don't know how much you've actually talked to my dad...

Not a lot, but the very first time I met him, he said something almost identical to what Strother wrote.

On another topic, there are no "quotes" from Jesus in the Book of Revelation. John dreamed the entire thing.

I was talking about the Apocalypse of John, known sometimes as the Revelation, in the Christian Bible. I'm not sure which Bible you're referring to. There is nothing in the Christian book about "dreaming" and Jesus words were spoken directly to the prophet who dutifully wrote them down. Your assertion is both false and ridiculous.

RE: RE: Religious politics

They are simply making decisions based on who they've been taught a 'moral' person must vote for.

I don't know how much you've actually talked to my dad, but that sounds nothing like something he'd say. Just wanted to point that out.

On another topic, there are no "quotes" from Jesus in the Book of Revelation. John dreamed the entire thing.

White House to Blame?

Not Just Anyone Will Do

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she would like to see another woman appointed to the court to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor, but "any woman will not do." Ginsburg told the audience at an annual New York lecture on women and the law, named in her honor, that some potential female nominees "would not advance human rights or women's rights."

White House to Blame?

Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is blaming White House strategy for sinking Social Security reform. Santorum, who heads the Senate Republican Conference and the subcommittee on Social Security, tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the president's decision to wait until the State of the Union address in February to promote his Social Security agenda stalled the plan, saying that while Democrats, “...started hammering on the president, basically starting to tear this apart in December... we sat back and let our opponents define us and define the issue."

Farm Fury

Rocker Neil Young, who co-founded the Farm Aid organization that raises money for American farmers through annual concerts, is hopping mad over an article in the Chicago Tribune telling a room full of reporters that the paper should "...be held responsible for this piece of crap," before ripping a copy in half. What had Young so angry with the Trib?

Goods Going Nowhere?

New Orleans police have received multiple complaints that donations aren't reaching storm victims in the area and now they say they've found one of the culprits. Officers searching the home of Cedric Floyd, the chief administrative officer for the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, found four truckloads worth of food, clothing and tools meant for Katrina victims. The police plan to file charges against Floyd, who was in charge of distributing the goods in his area, as well as other city workers, but in the meantime, the "evidence" in the case will be distributed to victims of the storm.