My Yearly Political Test Results...

You are a Social Liberal (63% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (68% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

WTF? ::: Obama Pretty Much Quoting Mao

Fantastic Michael Ramirez Cartoon

More here.

From The Daily Beast... Great Honest Comment on Palin

Excerpt from:

So Long, Democrats
by Wendy Button

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

LOL! ::: I Can't Believe It's Not Earned!

Chicago Tribune ::: November 3rd, 1948

A Little Humor Before Tonight's Debate...

The Bailout? ::: It's dead, Jim

Don't. Mess. With. Texas. ::: North Texas school district will let teachers carry guns

North Texas school district will let teachers carry guns

HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.

Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements.

In order for teachers and staff to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and have to use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.

Superintendent David Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in Friday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Thweatt said officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change. He said the district also has various other security measures in place to prevent a school shooting.

"The naysayers think (a shooting) won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them," Thweatt said.

Texas law outlaws firearms on school campuses "unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution."

It was unclear how many of the 50 or so teachers and staff members will be armed this fall because Thweatt did not disclose that information, to keep it from students or potential attackers. Wilbarger County Sheriff Larry Lee was out of the office Thursday and did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, the newspaper said.

Barbara Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said her organization did not know of another district with such a policy. Ken Trump, a Cleveland-based school security expert who advises districts nationwide, including in Texas, said Harrold is the first district with such a policy.

The 110-student district is 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern end of Wilbarger County, near the Oklahoma border.

From my buttery dead hands... UK: Is this the end for popcorn? Cinemas ban the 'noisy, messy' snack

Yeesh... there are really people who think this way:

Is this the end for popcorn? Cinemas ban the 'noisy, messy' snack

[excerpt]

Daniel Broch, owner of the renowned Everyman Cinema Club, said that he is aiming to provide a more sophisticated service for cinema-goers.

He has already banned popcorn from his 17-venue empire, instead offering made-to-order canapes and a waiter service.

He vowed: 'I will de-popcorn every new venue I acquire. It has a disproportionate influence on the space in terms of its overwhelming smell, the cultural idea of it and the operational problems created by the mess it produces.'

The company brochure even features an endorsement from Sir Paul McCartney describing it as 'too posh for popcorn'.

Nicolas Kent, artistic director of the award-winning Tricycle cinema and theatre in London, added: 'Popcorn is horrible stuff and I won't have it anywhere near my cinema.

'It's a form of junk food and that encourages junk entertainment. Its smell is all-pervasive, it makes huge amounts of mess, and it distracts and annoys people intensely.'

Popcorn does all that? All by itself? By all means yes! ban it along with all those guns that kill people on their own too.

Once again, a reminder... the sun never sets on the insanity in England.

Don't. Mess. With. Texas. ::: Texas asks no delay of execution | SCOTUSblog

Texas asks no delay of execution | SCOTUSblog

The state of Texas urged the Supreme Court on Monday to allow it to go ahead on Tuesday with the execution of Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin, arguing that he has several times received all of the review of his case that American or international law requires. But, the state added, if there are other foreign nationals in Texas who have not had the same review of their treaty-based claims, the state will join in to make sure that it happens.

Medellin’s lawyers have asked Justice Antonin Scalia, as Circuit Justice for the area that includes Texas, to postpone his execution until the Supreme Court can act on new appeals by his counsel. Scalia has the authority to act on his own, or to share the decision with his colleagues.

The Medelllin case has gained high visibility as a running dispute between Texas, the government of Mexico and the World Court over the state’s duties toward death-row inmates under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In two filings on Monday (found here and here), the state insisted that “proceeding with Medellin’s execution fully complies with international law.” Medellin is scheduled to die by lethal injection for his part in a gang rape and murder of two teenaged girls in Houston in 1993.

In both of the state’s Monday filings, Texas said that it “acknowledges the international sensitivities” presented by a 2004 World Court ruling that Texas failed to provide Medellin and other Mexican nationals accused of crime in that state with access to a diplomatic officer from their home country.

The state also noted that Justice John Paul Stevens, in the most recent of two Supreme Court rulings in the Medellin case, had commented that it would be only a “minimal” cost to Texas to obey the World Court ruling.

Because of both of those considerations, the state said, “in future proceedings” involving Mexican nationals covered by the World Court ruling who have not had review of their cases as required by that decision, the state would support any such inmate’s plea for review in federal court. “The State of Texas will not only refrain from objecting, but will join the defense in asking the reviewing court to address” such an inmate’s claim that violation of Vienna Convention consular rights caused legal prejudice during his prosecution, the state said.

As for Medellin, the state argued, he has had that review, several times, and no court has yet accepted his argument that his case was prejudiced by the violation of his Vienna Convention rights.

Medellin’s lawyers have argued, and continue to do so, that he has never had the kind of review the World Court decision mandates. State courts, they noted, have refused to consider his Vienna Convention challenge because he did not raise it while his case proceeded in state courts, but did so only after being convicted. The state Court of Criminal Appeals gave that reason last Thursday in refusing to put off Medellin’s execution and in declining again to require review of his Vienna claim.

The state of Texas has been under some pressure from Bush Administration officials to take steps to assure that Medellin and other Mexican nationals obtain the review required by the World Court.

In addition, last Friday, Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee urged Texas to delay Medellin’s execution to give Congress time to consider proposed new legislation to implement the World Court decision. Their letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, provided to the Supreme Court Monday by Medellin’s lawyer, can be found here.

The state’s top legal officers, who filed responses opposing both Medellin’s petition for certiorari (docket 08-5573) and his petition for an original habeas writ (docket 08-5574), as well as his request for a delay of execution, contended that the Court should not postpone the execution merely because one member of Congress had introduced proposed legislation.

“Nothing in the Constitution, statute, or case law,” the officials argued, “authorizes relief based on legislation that has been introduced but not enacted — especially not where Congress has taken no action in the over four years since [the World Court decision], and where there is no remote, let alone reasonable, expectation that both Houses of Congress will approve the legislation. Nor does any rule of law exist to determine how much 9more) delay is needed to further confirm that no action is indeed forthcoming.”

To hold otherwise, they argued, “would be to license a single member of the House of Representatives to enjoin the administration of criminal justice by a sovereign State. The Court has already held that the President of the United States, alone, cannot give domestic legal effect to [the World Court decision] and override Texas law. A fortiori, one member of the House of Representatives cannot do so.”

Solzhenitsyn ::: Godlessness, The First Step to the Gulag

"Men Have Forgotten God"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.

Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.

What is more, the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century, against the background of what has since occurred in the rest of the world. What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.

The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century. The first of these was World War I, and much of our present predicament can be traced back to it. It was a war (the memory of which seems to be fading) when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation which could not but sap its strength for a century or more, and perhaps forever. The only possible explanation for this war is a mental eclipse among the leaders of Europe due to their lost awareness of a Supreme Power above them. Only a godless embitterment could have moved ostensibly Christian states to employ poison gas, a weapon so obviously beyond the limits of humanity.

The same kind of defect, the flaw of a consciousness lacking all divine dimension, was manifested after World War II when the West yielded to the satanic temptation of the "nuclear umbrella." It was equivalent to saying: Let's cast off worries, let's free the younger generation from their duties and obligations, let's make no effort to defend ourselves, to say nothing of defending others-let's stop our ears to the groans emanating from the East, and let us live instead in the pursuit of happiness. If danger should threaten us, we shall be protected by the nuclear bomb; if not, then let the world burn in Hell for all we care. The pitifully helpless state to which the contemporary West has sunk is in large measure due to this fatal error: the belief that the defense of peace depends not on stout hearts and steadfast men, but solely on the nuclear bomb...

Today' s world has reached a stage which, if it had been described to preceding centuries, would have called forth the cry: "This is the Apocalypse!"

Yet we have grown used to this kind of world; we even feel at home in it.

Dostoevsky warned that "great events could come upon us and catch us intellectually unprepared." This is precisely what has happened. And he predicted that "the world will be saved only after it has been possessed by the demon of evil." Whether it really will be saved we shall have to wait and see: this will depend on our conscience, on our spiritual lucidity, on our individual and combined efforts in the face of catastrophic circumstances. But it has already come to pass that the demon of evil, like a whirlwind, triumphantly circles all five continents of the earth...

In its past, Russia did know a time when the social ideal was not fame, or riches, or material success, but a pious way of life. Russia was then steeped in an Orthodox Christianity which remained true to the Church of the first centuries. The Orthodoxy of that time knew how tosafeguard its people under the yoke of a foreign occupation that lasted more than two centuries, while at the same time fending off iniquitous blows from the swords of Western crusaders. During those centuries the Orthodox faith in our country became part of the very pattern of thought and the personality of our people, the forms of daily life, the work calendar, the priorities in every undertaking, the organization of the week and of the year. Faith was the shaping and unifying force of the nation.

But in the 17th century Russian Orthodoxy was gravely weakened by an internal schism. In the 18th, the country was shaken by Peter's forcibly imposed transformations, which favored the economy, the state, and the military at the expense of the religious spirit and national life. And along with this lopsided Petrine enlightenment, Russia felt the first whiff of secularism; its subtle poisons permeated the educated classes in the course of the 19th century and opened the path to Marxism. By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened.

It was Dostoevsky, once again, who drew from the French Revolution and its seeming hatred of the Church the lesson that "revolution must necessarily begin with atheism." That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot.

The 1920’s in the USSR witnessed an uninterrupted procession of victims and martyrs amongst the Orthodox clergy. Two metropolitans were shot, one of whom, Veniamin of Petrograd, had been elected by the popular vote of his diocese. Patriarch Tikhon himself passed through the hands of the Cheka-GPU and then died under suspicious circumstances. Scores of archbishops and bishops perished. Tens of thousands of priests, monks, and nuns, pressured by the Chekists to renounce the Word of God, were tortured, shot in cellars, sent to camps, exiled to the desolate tundra of the far North, or turned out into the streets in their old age without food or shelter. All these Christian martyrs went unswervingly to their deaths for the faith; instances of apostasy were few and far between. For tens of millions of laymen access to the Church was blocked, and they were forbidden to bring up their children in the Faith: religious parents were wrenched from their children and thrown into prison, while the children were turned from the faith by threats and lies...

For a short period of time, when he needed to gather strength for the struggle against Hitler, Stalin cynically adopted a friendly posture toward the Church. This deceptive game, continued in later years by Brezhnev with the help of showcase publications and other window dressing, has unfortunately tended to be taken at its face value in the West. Yet the tenacity with which hatred of religion is rooted in Communism may be judged by the example of their most liberal leader, Krushchev: for though he undertook a number of significant steps to extend freedom, Krushchev simultaneously rekindled the frenzied Leninist obsession with destroying religion.

But there is something they did not expect: that in a land where churches have been leveled, where a triumphant atheism has rampaged uncontrolled for two-thirds of a century, where the clergy is utterly humiliated and deprived of all independence, where what remains of the Church as an institution is tolerated only for the sake of propaganda directed at the West, where even today people are sent to the labor camps for their faith, and where, within the camps themselves, those who gather to pray at Easter are clapped in punishment cells--they could not suppose that beneath this Communist steamroller the Christian tradition would survive in Russia. It is true that millions of our countrymen have been corrupted and spiritually devastated by an officially imposed atheism, yet there remain many millions of believers: it is only external pressures that keep them from speaking out, but, as is always the ca se in times of persecution and suffering, the awareness of God in my country has attained great acuteness and profundity.

It is here that we see the dawn of hope: for no matter how formidably Communism bristles with tanks and rockets, no matter what successes it attains in seizing the planet, it is doomed never to vanquish Christianity.

The West has yet to experience a Communist invasion; religion here remains free. But the West's own historical evolution has been such that today it too is experiencing a drying up of religious consciousness. It too has witnessed racking schisms, bloody religious wars, and rancor, to say nothing of the tide of secularism that, from the late Middle Ages onward, has progressively inundated the West. This gradual sapping of strength from within is a threat to faith that is perhaps even more dangerous than any attempt to assault religion violently from without.

Imperceptibly, through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West has ceased to be seen as anything more lofty than the "pursuit of happiness, "a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short lived value. It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system. Yet it is not considered shameful to make dally concessions to an integral evil. Judging by the continuing landslide of concessions made before the eyes of our very own generation, the West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss. Western societies are losing more and more of their religious essence as they thoughtlessly yield up their younger generation to atheism. If a blasphemous film about Jesus is shown throughout the United States, reputedly one of the most religious countries in the world, or a major newspaper publishes a shameless caricature of the Virgin Mary, what further evidence of godlessness does one need? When external rights are completely unrestricted, why should one make an inner effort to restrain oneself from ignoble acts?

Or why should one refrain from burning hatred, whatever its basis--race, class, or ideology? Such hatred is in fact corroding many hearts today. Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hatred of their own society. Amid all the vituperation we forget that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, allowed unlimited freedom together with the various human rights; we forget that under Communism (and Communism is breathing down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) the identical flaws run riot in any person with the least degree of authority; while everyone else under that system does indeed attain "equality"--the equality of destitute slaves. This eager fanning of the flames of hatred is becoming the mark of today's free world. Indeed, the broader the personal freedoms are, the higher the level of prosperity or even of abundance--the more vehement, paradoxically, does this blind hatred become. The contemporary developed West thus demonstrates by its own example that human salvation can be found neither in the profusion of material goods nor in merely making money.

This deliberately nurtured hatred then spreads to all that is alive, to life itself, to the world with its colors, sounds, and shapes, to the human body. The embittered art of the twentieth century is perishing as a result of this ugly hate, for art is fruitless without love. In the East art has collapsed because it has been knocked down and trampled upon, but in the West the fall has been voluntary, a decline into a contrived and pretentious quest where the artist, instead of attempting to reveal the divine plan, tries to put himsef in the place of God.

Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God.

With such global events looming over us like mountains, nay, like entire mountain ranges, it may seem incongruous and inappropriate to recall that the primary key to our being or non-being resides in each individual human heart, in the heart’s preference for specific good or evil. Yet this remains true even today, and it is, in fact, the most reliable key we have. The social theories that promised so much have demonstrated their bankruptcy, leaving us at a dead end. The free people of the West could reasonably have been expected to realize that they are beset · by numerous freely nurtured falsehoods, and not to allow lies to be foisted upon them so easily. All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today's world are fruitless unless we redirect our consciousness, in repentance, to the Creator of all: without this, no exit will be illumined, and we shall seek it in vain. The resources we have set aside for ourselves are too impoverished for the task. We must first recognize the horror perpetrated not by some outside force, not by class or national enemies, but within each of us individually, and within every society. This is especially true of a free and highly developed society, for here in particular we have surely brought everything upon ourselves, of our own free will. We ourselves, in our daily unthinking selfishness, are pulling tight that noose...

Our life consists not in the pursuit of material success but in the quest for worthy spiritual growth. Our entire earthly existence is but a transitional stage in the movement toward something higher, and we must not stumble and fall, nor must we linger fruitlessly on one rung of the ladder. Material laws alone do not explain our life or give it direction. The laws of physics and physiology will never reveal the indisputable manner in which the Creator constantly, day in and day out, participates in the life of each of us, unfailingly granting us the energy of existence; when this assistance leaves us, we die. And in the life of our entire planet, the Divine Spirit surely moves with no less force: this we must grasp in our dark and terrible hour.

To the ill-considered hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can propose only a determined quest for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently spurned. Only in this way can our eyes be opened to the errors of this unfortunate twentieth century and our bands be directed to setting them right. There is nothing else to cling to in the landslide: the combined vision of all the thinkers of the Enlightenment amounts to nothing.

Our five continents are caught in a whirlwind. But it is during trials such as these that the highest gifts of the human spirit are manifested. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone.

(World copyright ©1983 by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn; translator: A. Klimoff; reprinted by kind permission of the author.)

LOL... Obama Admits Not Experienced Enough to be Prez

Obama's Top Ten Flaws That Will Cost Him in November

...if he makes it to November. I think his flaws are so bad he may not get the nomination. (I'm aware that seems ridiculous at this point...)

Anyway, this is an EXCELLENT article.

Obama's Top Ten Flaws That Will Cost Him in November
John Hawkins
Friday, August 01, 2008

In an election cycle where Republicans are reviled and the GOP candidate, John McCain, seems to inspire less excitement than a Droopy marathon on the Cartoon Network, it's hard for some people to understand how the race is still close. After all, Barack Obama is drawing record crowds and generating the sort of wild-eyed loyalty from the press that hasn't been seen since Guyana, right before they broke out the Kool-Aid -- and yet, on paper, this race is a coin flip.

Why is that? Because this race is turning into a referendum on Barack Obama and quite frankly, he has absolutely nothing going for him besides the fact that he's young, good looking, black, and does a great job of reading the speeches his handlers have prepared for him. Once you get beyond those paper-thin qualifications for office, Obama is nothing but a mass of flaws, bad character traits, and left-wing agitprop. While the press lauds Obama as if he just cured cancer and invented a car that runs on lawn clippings in the same day, everyone else can't help but notice...

The Snobbery: If little girls are made up of sugar, spice, and everything nice, then Obama is made up of arugula, personal presidential seals, and hubris. Never before has a candidate with so few accomplishments to his name looked so far down his nose at the American people.

The Phony Idealism: Silently, there must be a lot of liberal Democrats kicking themselves today because all during the primaries, the race was portrayed as a battle between Barack Obama, the idealist and Hillary Clinton, the pragmatic, say-anything-to-win candidate. Then, the moment Obama captured the nomination, all of those precious ideals flew out the window and Obama started shifting his positions farther and faster than Hillary Clinton ever did. So much for the candidate who was supposed to be a "new kind of politician."

The Anti-White Racism: Obama spent 20 years going to a virulently anti-white, anti-American church while he used Jeremiah Wright -- who's the moral equivalent of David Duke -- as a spiritual mentor and a sounding board. This is not a man who looks kindly upon what he refers to as "typical white people."

The Lack of Patriotism: Rather famously, Obama refused to hold his hand over his heart for the national anthem and publicly made a point of not wearing a flag pin -- and then had the "audacity" to complain when people quite naturally questioned his patriotism. Since then, Obama replaced the American flag on his plane with his own symbol and made a point of running down his country and calling himself a "citizen of the world" while he was overseas. Is having a President who loves his own country too much to ask? In Obama's case, apparently so.

His Liberalism: Although Obama has attempted to shift to the center since he captured the Democratic nomination, his record is one of radical liberalism. In fact, he was ranked as the single most liberal senator in 2007 by National Journal, actually supported a complete ban on handgun sales, and wants to hand out 845 billion dollars to foreign nations as part of an effort to "elimin(ate) extreme poverty." If you would be thrilled to have a President who is as liberal as Michael Moore or Keith Olbermann, then Barack Obama is your man.

His Changing Position On The War in Iraq: In one of the most ironic twists of the campaign, Obama beat Hillary Clinton by being so stridently anti-war in Iraq, but his latest ever-shifting position essentially mirrors that of John McCain. Although Obama is still promising a timeline, he is saying he could leave 50,000 troops in Iraq and that the withdrawal is "entirely conditions-based." Although the lefties are biting their tongues, you know they must be seething that they've been sold down the river on their biggest issue -- or maybe they just assume he's lying, which is entirely possible.

His Inexperience: Obama has never served in the military, the House, or as a governor, was first elected to the Senate in 2004, and his battle with Hillary was the only tough campaign he has ever been in. In other words, if he's elected, he would be one of the least worthy candidates ever to make it to the White House. If we had another 9/11 on his watch or even if one of those infamous 3 AM emergency calls that Hillary campaigned on were to come in, would you rather have Obama or McCain handling it? For that matter, would you rather have Obama or a random person picked out of the phone book handling it? Neither Obama nor the random person from the phone book would have much relevant experience, but at least the random person would probably be humble enough to realize it and ask for help, unlike Obama.

The Poor Judgment: This is a guy who stayed in a racist church and stuck by a bigoted reverend for 20 years, grotesquely leaked his Western Wall prayer to the press, and blew off a visit to see wounded troops while the whole world was watching him overseas. In other words, even when it comes to matters of mere politics, this is not a man who can be trusted to make wise decisions. So, how can we trust him to make good policy decisions for the country?

He's Gaffe Prone: When John McCain makes mistakes, the media tries to portray him as senile. But Obama makes dumber mistakes than George Bush, more mistakes than Dan Quayle, and that's despite the fact that he spends far less time talking to the press than McCain. So, what's his excuse for thinking that we have more than 57 states, claiming America's "fallen heroes" were in the audience listening to him, and his claim that "'10,000 people died' in the Kansas tornadoes when the death toll was really only 12?" Dan Quayle’s notorious potato(e) error, which was used to forever portray him as a drooling moron, wouldn’t even qualify as one of Obama’s top five mistakes.

His Fuzzy Platform: Obama's positions on guns, the war in Iraq, taxes, FISA, and public financing, among other issues, have shifted faster than a cheetah chasing a greyhound through an obstacle course. Since he doesn't have much of a record to go on, seems to have very poor judgment, and he doesn't have a solid platform to stand on, how are people supposed to know what he will do when he gets in the White House?

My Prediction of the Day? Delta Airlines is about to go down

I've read three stories about Delata Airlines today ::: prices going up for baggage, a dead woman found in a bathroom, and a woman with MS having to cral off of a plane (and still missing her connector.)

Just terrible.


(By going down I mean bankruptcy, of course...)

Q: What do Obama and Osama have in common?

A: They both have friends who have bombed the Pentagon.

A Middle Finger To The NYTimes... DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!

Just when you think they couldn't sink lower... (oh all right all right... of course they could...) the NYTimes publishes the following story with what they must believe is a relative of the victims':

Texas Turns Aside Pressure on Execution of 5 Mexicans

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

HOUSTON — Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday.

The first of the executions — that of José Ernesto Medellín, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5.

The decision by Gov. Rick Perry to allow the executions is the latest twist in a long-running battle between Mexico, which has no death penalty, and the United States over the fate of 51 Mexicans facing capital punishment in several states, including 14 in Texas.

On Wednesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered a review of five of the Texas cases after Mexico complained that the convicts, all men, had not been allowed a chance to talk to a Mexican consul after their arrests, as required under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

But that argument holds little sway in Texas, a place with a long history of upholding the death penalty and of telling other governments to mind their own business.

“This ruling doesn’t change anything,” said Mr. Perry’s spokeswoman, Allison Castle. “This is an individual who brutally gang-raped and murdered two teenage women. We don’t really care where you are from; you can’t do that to our citizens.”

The ruling went further than a 2004 decision by the international court, which again sided with Mexico, ordering a review of all 51 cases to determine if a consul’s intervention might have changed the outcome.

...

Mr. Perry, a Republican, stood firm, saying the Supreme Court ruling in March had freed Texas to go ahead with the executions, starting with that of Mr. Medellín, one of six young men that a jury found had raped and strangled Elizabeth Peña, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 15, in a park one night.

Mr. Medellín was 18 at the time and had lived most of his life in Texas; he signed a confession in English.

A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, Ricardo Alday, accused Texas of “an irreparable breach of international obligation” if it did not delay the executions until Congress could act on Mr. Berman’s bill.

A lawyer representing Mr. Medellín, Donald Francis Donovan of New York, said he would seek such a delay in Texas state court.

“Everyone agrees that the U.S. made a deal here,” Mr. Donovan said, “and for Texas to breach that deal when it was made by the people of the United States as a whole would not be right.”

For relatives of the murdered girls, questions about international relations seem irrelevant.

“This has nothing to do with the World Court; it has nothing to do with the U.N.,” said Jennifer’s father, Randy Ertman. “This has everything to do with what Mexico wants, not what Texas wants. The people of Texas want the death penalty.”

Ashley Marchand contributed reporting.

So that victim's relative's picture that accompanied the article... one of the parents of the raped and murdered girls (who, by the way, WERE KICKED TO DEATH!)? No, no of course not. It's a picture of the poor rapist and murderer's granny. And she looks so sad.

: |

Here two more quotes from the (real victims') dads:

Randy Ertman, father of Jennifer, a 14-year-old girl Medellin raped and murdered, criticized the World Court for attempting to intervene.

“The world court doesn’t mean diddly,” he said. “This business belongs in the State of Texas. The people of the State of Texas support the execution. We thank them. The rest of them can go to hell.”

Adolfo Peña, father of Elizabeth, a 16-year-old girl Medellin also raped and murdered, concurred with Ertman.

“I believe we’ve been through all the red tape we can go through,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “It’s time to rock and roll.”

Starbucks Closings ::: Women and Minorities Hit Hardest!

There's a long-standing, running joke -- and a personal fave... that a predictable NYTimes headline would be "World Ends: Women and Minorities Hit Hardest".


Guess no one told it to the folks at the Chicago Tribune.

Cafe closings hit minority areas

Starbucks lists 18 shops in, near city

By Barbara Rose and Wailin Wong

Chicago Tribune reporters

July 18, 2008

Starbucks has identified 18 stores in the Chicago area among the 600 nationwide targeted to close through March 2009, including several in minority neighborhoods that had counted on the green-and-white medallion to signal rebirth.

...

The closings include stores in largely minority areas in the south suburbs as well as neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West Sides. "Starbucks became symbolic of a community that was changing and in transition," said Earnest Gates, executive director of the Near West Side Community Development Corp. "To take that away, it's a blow to a community."

Word began spreading in North Lawndale about a week ago that the Starbucks at Roosevelt Road and Homan Avenue, open about 18 months, was on the closing list. That outlet, as well as another one slated for closing at East 95th Street and Stony Island Avenue, were built as part of Urban Coffee Opportunities, a venture between Starbucks and Earvin "Magic" Johnson's urban development firm to bring cafes to minority areas.

"It's horrible it's closing down," Phil Jackson, associate pastor at Lawndale Community Church, said of the location in his neighborhood. "We can't stand for that place to be closing down. It's jobs. We've got college students working there, adults that have management skills that can be seen and observed by Starbucks. They could run their own store one day."

Jackson said Starbucks must have known the store would need time to prosper.

"The people in the community have to make it family, make it a part of their own, and sometimes that takes longer than a year and a half," he said. "For Starbucks to look at all the communities that are already suffering, and then to close the stores that they are closing is really kind of hypocritical. [They] started the store knowing what the community was all about. You come here so you can uplift the community."

Starbucks said in a statement that it used several criteria to identify stores for closing, including those that were not profitable and "not believed to provide acceptable returns in the foreseeable future." It also said "consideration was given to the impact of the current and anticipated economic trends."

"We have always aspired to put our people first," Starbucks said. "This makes our decision to close stores more difficult, because it disrupts the lives of the people who have worked so hard to deliver superior service to our customers."

Tribune reporters Sandra M. Jones and Susan Chandler contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

I think some of these folks need to understand the nature of business. Businesses exist to make profits, to supply to a demand, not to "uplift" communities. That's the job of churches and charities.

Yeesh.

Tony Snow's Funeral: President Bush's Eulogy

President Bush Attends Funeral Service for Tony Snow
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

10:16 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Archbishop Wuerl, Father O'Connell, Mr. Vice President, members of the Cabinet and my administration, members of Congress, distinguished guests; most importantly, the Snow family, Jill, Robbie, Kendall, Kristi and Jim, and other family members; former colleagues of Tony. Laura and I are privileged to join you today to pay our final respects to a cherished friend.

Tony Snow was a man of uncommon decency and compassion. He was a devoted husband, a proud and loving father, an adoring son, a beloved colleague, and a wonderful role model and friend.

In a life that was far too brief, he amassed a rare record of accomplishment. He applied his gifted mind to many fields: as a columnist, newspaper editor, TV anchor, radio host, and musician. He had the sometimes challenging distinction of working for two Presidents named Bush. As a speechwriter in my Dad's administration, Tony tried to translate the President's policies into English. (Laughter.) As a spokesman in my administration, Tony tried to translate my English into English. (Laughter.)

Tony always gave me good and candid advice. He was a man of profound substance who loved ideas, held strong beliefs, and reveled in defending them. He took very seriously his duty to inform the public about what its government was doing during historic times for our nation.

In the White House briefing room, Tony worked to build a relationship of candor and trust with the press corps. On his first day at the podium, he told the gathered reporters this: "One of the reasons I took this job is not only because I believe in the President, but because, believe it or not, I want to work with you." Tony was the first working journalist to serve as the White House Press Secretary for nearly 30 years. He knew the job of a reporter was rigorous. He admired the profession -- and always treated it with respect. And the presence of so many members of the Fourth Estate here today attests to the admiration and respect that he earned.

Of course, Tony's adjustment from commentator to spokesman was not seamless. Ann Compton of ABC recently recalled that when you asked Tony a question, he would sometimes get going, and she would have to stop him and say: "Tony, wait, I asked what the President thought." (Laughter.)

Tony brought a fierce and challenging intellect to his duties. And he displayed an engaging wit. When a reporter asked a rather labored question about Congress, Tony did not answer it. The persistent reporter pressed him: "Are you going to just evade that question?" With a smile, Tony quipped: "No, I'm going to laugh at it." (Laughter.)

I believe the reason Tony was so good at his job is that he looked at the world in a joyful way. He was a proud patriot who believed in America's goodness, and an optimist who knew America's possibilities. He believed strongly in the wisdom of the American people. And throughout his career, he took a special pride in being a vigorous and unapologetic defender of our men and women in uniform. He supported their missions, saw honor in their achievements, and found every possible opportunity to highlight their character and courage.

Tony Snow, the professional, is a hard act to follow. Tony Snow, the man, is simply irreplaceable. Everyone who worked with him quickly grew to love him. We will always remember his wry sense of humor and abundant goodness. We'll also remember he was just a lot of fun. After all, he played six different musical instruments and was a proud member of a band called Beats Working. He may be one of the few people in history to have jammed on the South Lawn of the White House and with Jethro Tull. (Laughter.)

We remember Tony's thoughtfulness. No matter how busy he was, this was a man who put others first. He would go out of his way to ask about people's families. He would check in with friends whenever he heard they were ill. He'd reach out to others, sometimes strangers, who were struggling with cancer. Even when he was going through difficult chemotherapy sessions, he sent inspirational e-mails to a friend whose son was suffering from a serious illness.

We remember Tony's resilient spirit. When he received a second diagnosis of cancer, he did not turn to despair. He saw it as another challenge to tackle. He found comfort in the prayers he received from millions of Americans. As he told the graduates here at Catholic University last year, "Never underestimate the power of other people's love and prayer. They have incredible power. It's as if I've been carried on the shoulders of an entire army. And they made me weightless."

Most of all, we remember Tony's love of his family. There was no doubt for Tony Snow that his family was first. When Jill reached a milestone birthday, Tony had a huge celebration. He later said that he and Jill danced that night as if they were teenagers. He said he was the most fortunate man in the world to have shared love like that. So, today, Jill, our hearts are with you, and we thank you for giving Tony such a special life.

For Robbie, Kendall, and Kristi, you are in our thoughts and prayers, as well. We thank you for sharing your dad with us. He talked about you all the time. He wanted nothing more than your happiness and success. You know, I used to call Tony on the weekends to get his advice. And invariably, I found him with you on the soccer field, or at a swim meet, or helping with your homework. He loved you a lot. Today I hope you know that we loved him a lot, too.

I know it's hard to make sense of today. It is impossible to fully comprehend why such a good and vital man was taken from us so soon. But these are the great mysteries of life -- and Tony knew as well as anyone that they're not ours to unveil.

The day Tony was born was also the day that many of his fellow Catholics pay tribute to Saint Justin. Justin was also a gifted thinker and writer, and a powerful witness for the Christian faith. Because of his beliefs, he suffered many times of trial, and in the year 165 A.D. he was arrested. Before he received a sentence of death, he was asked: "If you are killed, do you suppose you will go to heaven?" Justin replied: "I do not suppose it, but I know and am fully persuaded of it."

Tony Snow knew that, as well. That brought him great peace. When talking about the struggle he waged so admirably, he said that no matter how bad times may sometimes seem, "God doesn't promise tomorrow, he does promise eternity."

And so today we send this man of faith and character and joy on his final journey. Tony Snow has left the City of Washington for the City of God. May he find eternal rest in the arms of his Savior. And may the Author of all creation watch over his family and all those who loved him, admired him, and will always cherish his memory.

END 10:25 A.M. EDT

Here is a link to the pictures at Yahoo.

Obama's Bitter Half... Still Not Getting It ::: Michelle Obama's $600 Earrings

Michelle Obama's $600 Earrings

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, complained the government’s $600 economic stimulus check was only enough to buy “a pair of earrings” while stumping for her husband.

“You're getting $600 - what can you do with that?” Mrs. Obama said in Pontiac, Michigan last week. “Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn't pay down every bill every month. The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings."

She made these remarks at a “working women’s roundtable discussion.”

Although Mrs. Obama has been praised by fashionable outlets like Vogue magazine for her sense of style, her comments about $600 earrings reinforces an unflattering image of the Ivy-league educated Obama lawyers. They’ve both been called “elitist” several times though the course of the presidential campaign season.

Mr. Obama’s former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton called him at “elitist” for telling donors at a private fundraiser in San Francisco that “bitter” Americans in places like Pennsylvania “cling to guns or religion.”

Mrs. Obama has similarly come under fire for saying her husband’s candidacy made her proud of her country for “the first time in my life” and encouraging women to “move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry” in Zanesville, Ohio—one of the poorest areas of the nation.