Liberal Euphemisms

This comes from Reason Magazine.

To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.

Instead of calling these schools "underperforming," the Board of Education is considering labeling them as "Commonwealth priority," to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.

Schools in the direst straits, now known as "chronically underperforming," would get the more urgent but still vague label of "priority one."

The board has spent parts of more than three meetings in recent months debating the linguistic merits and tone set by the terms after a handful of superintendents from across the state complained that the label underperforming unfairly casts blame on educators, hinders the recruitment of talented teachers, and erodes students' self-esteem.

At a December meeting on how to improve struggling schools in Holyoke, Lawrence, and Springfield, superintendents implored members not to stick them with a label of "chronically underperforming."

"For our teachers, it's a blow," said Wilfredo Laboy, Lawrence superintendent. "It demoralizes staff completely."

Joseph Burke, Springfield superintendent, said that while he is not crazy about any label, he would prefer "priority one," because "It sounds nicer."

Facts are stubborn things

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Read it all here.

Divisive Gun Laws

Consider this lead paragraph in the USA Today:


WASHINGTON — Guns, and questions about how much power the government has to keep people from owning them, are at the core of one of the most divisive topics in American politics.

How divisive is the gun question? Here is the 3rd paragraph from this story:

Nearly three out of four Americans — 73% — believe the Second Amendment spells out an individual right to own a firearm, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,016 adults taken Feb. 8-10.

Maybe gun laws are divisive when liberal newspapers disagree with the people.

Spelling

One of my sisters sometimes finds it necessary to correct my punctuation in this blog, but I got all of these spelling questions right. See how you do. Just click on the link below to take the test.

Your Spelling is Perfect

You got 10/10 correct. Your spelling is excellent. You also have a great memory and eye for detail.

How's Your Spelling?

How sweet it is!!

Obama says his Grandmother is a "typical white person", leery of blacks and Bill Clinton says the country needs an election between two candidates who love America---like Hillary and McCain. The DNC imposes penalties on Florida and Michigan it can't afford to stick with or back off from. Conservatives will lose in the Fall, but right now all is well.

Hillary tossed off cliff by leftist loonies

The following is from the kooky leftist blogger Markos Moulitsas. Read the whole thing here.
I wonder what he has in mind when he says she must be "dealt with appropriately"?

It is Clinton, with no reasonable chance of victory, who is fomenting civil war in order to overturn the will of the Democratic electorate. As such, as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t deserve “fairness” on this site. All sexist attacks will be dealt with — those will never be acceptable. But otherwise, Clinton has set an inevitably divisive course and must be dealt with appropriately.

Obama is lucky??

Geraldine Ferraro, one of Hillary's fundraisers and the 1984 vice presidential candidate, told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif.: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

There was no mention of the likelihood that Hillary would be in her position if she weren't the wronged wife of Bubba.

Getting pretty predictable

In lead stories Monday night about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer being linked to a prostitution ring, neither ABC's World News nor the NBC Nightly News verbally identified Spitzer's political party. Must mean he's a liberal Democrat -- and he is.

Musings

There are several amusing items which have found their way onto the internet related to recent news events. Here are three of them:In re the Eliot Spitzer "matter", this one is pretty good.

“Prostitute Admits Link to Elliott Spitzer; Resigns From Escort Service in Disgrace”


In another case, there was disappointment after the Spitzer appearance with his wife yesterday that some reporter didn't ask Silda Spitzer if this meant she would be running for Senator from New York.

In the new item where Obama's advisor said Hillary was a monster and had to resign, there is this:

Sen. Obama, fighting for the Democrat nomination, said, “I categorically reject Ms. Powers’ use of the term ‘monster’ to describe my opponent.”

Holding aloft a dictionary, the presidential front runner said, “A monster is an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly and frightening. But I assure you that Sen. Clinton is no imaginary creature.”

Sushi Anyone??

Ali Howell is a massage therapist and a college student. But on Saturday night, the 26-year-old brunette was a human sushi platter.

Naked under two roses and a large daisy placed you-know-where, she lay still for more than an hour as people plucked raw fish off her body at Temple, the downtown Minneapolis restaurant that held its inaugural naked sushi party this weekend. Read it all here.

How sweet it is

One of my favorite things in life is real-time confirmation of my long held beliefs about liberals in general and dems in particular. This election season is giving me lots of examples. For example, the state democrat parties of Florida and Michigan thought that moving their primaries up would give them a greater voice than if they waited. The national party geniuses could not abide such free-lancing, so they imposed penalties on the states which the candidates all rushed to endorse and now they have a mess which one could have predicted simply because liberals usually find that their results are opposite stated intentions. Late primaries are now having more influence than early ones, the party punishment of Florida and Michigan is far worse than the transgression demanded, and there is no pain-free remedy of the situation. Just delicious.

Equal opportunity baby killing

There were nebulous accounts out there that Obama had opposed a bill which would have protected a baby which survived an abortion attempt. There is a federal law which bans the practice of simply throwing the baby in a trash can to die or actively killing it. The logic of opposing this law by Obama has finally been explained. So, if the following is accurate, Barack Obama thinks that if it is legal to kill one child it is legal to kill them all and vice versa.

In March 2001, Obama was the sole speaker in opposition to the bill on the floor of the Illinois Senate. He said: "We're saying they are persons entitled to the kinds of protections provided to a child, a 9-month child delivered to term. I mean, it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal-protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child." So according to Obama, "they," babies who survive abortions or any other preterm newborns, should be permitted to be killed because giving legal protection to preterm newborns would have the effect of banning all abortions.

Oops!!!

Who uttered the following sage voter advice? Senator Obama? No. It was Bill Clinton in 2004.

“… if one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears, and the other one’s appealing to your hopes. You better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”

Another Quiz

Here is an article reporting that the former Mayor of Newark, NJ is going on trial for fraud and stuff like that.

This is an open book quiz. Read the article very carefully and then decide which political party Mayor James belongs to.

Bad Science, Worse Politics

At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that "there’s strong evidence" that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. -- a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.

McCain said, per ABC News' Bret Hovell, that "It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

Overwhelmingly the "credible scientists," at least as the government and the medical establishment so ordain them, side against McCain's view.

Moreover, those scientists and organizations fear that powerful people lending credence to the thimerosal theory could dissuade parents from getting their children immunized -- which in their view would lead to a very real health crisis.

By 2001, thimerosal had been removed from all childhood vaccinations. If thimerosal in vaccines had been a significant cause of autism, the effects of the removal in the form of diminished diagnoses would have been evident by now. There is no such diminution.

You have to remember that McCain has also bought into anthropogenic influence on global warming. Really sad.

Civilians in Gaza

The news this week has several reports on the Israeli response to rockets being fired from this Hamas area into the towns of Israel. For many months these rocket attacks have been directed at a strictly civilian target---namely citizens in these towns. Because the rockets are not very accurate, the actual effectiveness of them is not great as of yet. However, Israel has finally decided to retaliate and has launched an offensive directed at those who are firing the rockets. The news reports, however, are focused on the fact that there have been many casualties and many of these are "civilians". Even children. This is obvious liberal bias since none of the stories seem to be able to mention that if the terrorists in Gaza would stop firing rockets at civilians in Israel, their own civilians would not be killed. To these liberals, it is simply not fair that Jewish reprisals are more efficient than the initial attacks. The idiocy continues.

A female assessment of women

This is one of the more interesting essays I have run across in a long time. The fact that it is written about and by a woman makes it interesting and there is no way I am going to be jumping in and trying to improve on her analysis. Here is just a bit of Ms. Allen's thoughts on woman-kind.

"He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female's cry of 'I love you, Obama!' with a reassuring 'I love you back.' " Women screamed? What was this, the Beatles tour of 1964? And when they weren't screaming, the fair-sex Obama fans who dominated the rally of 16,000 were saying things like: "Every time I hear him speak, I become more hopeful." Huh?

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

More rain on the fire

There is no evidence that evidence to the contrary will ever be dispositive for the ignorant who have accepted the global warming nonsense, but here is more data to consider.

Angry White Men

Aspen Times Opinion

In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man

Gary Hubbell
February 9, 2008

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Gary Hubbell is a regular columnist with the Aspen Times Weekly.

Obama the Messiah?

Here is an interesting web site for those who wonder about the Obama phenomenon and want to appreciate the political problem Hillary faces. Republicans have to hope that a fire that burns so brightly will fade fast---at least before the November elections.

Hillary Health

This article is instructive to those who think Hillary is just brilliant for proposing a single payer health care system. The Labour Party in the U.K. decided that the people were right about excessively long wait times in emergency rooms, so they pledged that if they were elected, the wait time would be cut to just 4 hours. Evidently that sounded like a great deal to the voters there. At any rate, we now have a situation where ambulances are left parked outside of the hospital for hours with the patients inside so much of the wait time will not be counted against the Labour pledge. This, folks is what you get when you follow liberals down the road that sounds good.

Another political quiz

It is difficult for a former Professor to give up quizzing, so here is a question for today. "Which minority group does Hillary think is important in the coming Texas primary?"

Tears

So far in this election season, Obama's speeches have brought his listeners to tears. McCain has done the same thing to conservatives, but in a different way. Hillary has simply brought herself to tears. It is all pretty sad.

Crying redux

Since Hillary lost everything on Tuesday, it is fair to say that her crying didn't help this time so we probably won't see that again until the final blow to Clinton term no. 3 is administered.

Obama and the National Anthem

We need to learn more of this response to the National Anthem by Obama as he moves closer and closer to eliminating Hillary from another Clinton term. A campaign against him by McCain could be fun.

Best of plans won't always work out

For the most part, this conservative finds the current political situation fairly depressing. About the only bright spot is the ironic problems facing the dems. They very cleverly attempted to set up rules to grease the slope for Hillary. First, they moved the primaries up where they would be over and thereby let her spend months on the general election campaign. They added super delegates to block another McGovern or Carter nomination, punished Florida and Michigan for their primary decisions, and now all of these actions are biting them in the rear.

The early primaries are mostly helping the Republicans who will have a nominee early and thus more time to try to bring unity to the election. Clinton and Obama are tied and will remain so for a long time, it looks like. The super delegates represent 20% of the total delegates and there is a chance they will be put in the position of going against the wishes of the voters. Clinton wants the delegates from Michigan and Florida counted even though there was no contest in either state and this unbiased observer is hoping the issue winds up in court with the lawyers from the Gore campaign of 2000 getting back in the fray.

Howard Dean says he will impose some resolution on the situation before it becomes serious, and that could be the most delicious of the many bizarre aspects of this election. The Mother of all unintended consequences.

Can this work again?

This is Hillary wiping a tear yesterday; a day when she lost all caucuses and primary elections. Crying must have polled well with women.

Liberals strike out again

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded. The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.

Once again, the liberals have failed to move beyond the surface "feels good/sounds right" conclusion and backed something that makes a contrived problem worse. Read it all here.

Climate Change and Common Sense

Canadian scientists are seeking funds to expand their research on their clues that the activity of the sun may be presaging a rather long period of global cooling. Yes, they are deviating from the dogma of such well-respected climatologists as Al Gore and John McCain, but they at least have common sense on their side. The Canadian scientists are wanting to look at the sun for evidence of increased sunspot activity. Solar activity fluctuates in an 11 year cycle, but so far in this cycle the sun has had very little activity. This lack of solar activity could be the signal that we may be starting what is known as the Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. Such an event last occurred in the 17th century. There was solar inactivity which corresponded to a period of bitter cold starting in about 1650 and lasted, with brief periods of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers led to massive crop failures, famine, and death in Northern Europe.
The Canadians have been using a 60 year old radio telescope to monitor solar activity and want newer instruments to better monitor the sun. Since all of us aren't climate scientists, we need to fall back on our common sense. Here is the question: Which is more likely to have an effect on earth's climate---the sun or man? After you answer that, you need to ask if you really believe that man can do anything to influence in any way that which the sun hath wrought?

This is just a start

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion.

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam

Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow".

The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.

Minutes of a clinical academics' meeting at Liverpool University revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children's hospital had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns.

Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University. Minutes from a medical school committee said that "a number of Muslim females had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to the elbow for appropriate handwashing".

Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to "scrub" as this left her forearms exposed.

Documents from Birmingham University reveal that some students would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, and warn that it could leave trusts open to legal action.

American Politics for Dummies

From P. J. o'Rourk:

Here are some of the better items used by P.J. O'Rourk to explain our politics to Europeans.

The question of race in America is supposed to be a matter of what one looks like. But it is difficult to comprehend how a political interest group that contains both Al Sharpton and Halle Berry could be based on looks.

Mitt Romney is supposed to be my own type of candidate, a true conservative. But Mitt was governor of Massachusetts. This is like applying to be pope and listing your prior job experience as "Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem."

Incidentally, there's a balanced position that all of America's presidential candidates could take on the controversial abortion issue. If they want votes they shouldn't campaign to make abortion illegal or legal. They should campaign to make it retroactive. If a kid reaches 25 and he or she is still jobless, feckless, and sitting around Starbucks acting like a--no offense--European, then whack.

It is getting nasty out there

As is evident from this blog, the dirt on John McCain is out there and according to conventional wisdom the Clinton's will use it. The main claim that McCain is unstable seems most believable and the charge that he cracked while a POW is not too surprising and has been whispered for a long time. My objections to McCain are based on his record, but many voters would be swayed by more tawdry revelations that would help one to overlook the Clinton's slimy past.

A Brilliant Idea

It is not often that something is published in a blog that is as brilliant as the following essay:

A Modest Proposal for Middle East Peace
The U.N. need only take five simple steps.

By Victor Davis Hanson

It can be read here.

Call Al Gore

Three weeks of crippling snow storms across China have inflicted $7.5 billion in damages, the government said Friday, as it announced a $700 million relief fund for farmers.

The freakish weather -- the country's worst in five decades -- has paralyzed China's densely populated central and eastern regions just as tens of millions of travelers were seeking to board trains and buses to return home for this month's Lunar New Year.

The storms have killed at least 60 people, closed roads, disabled the rail system, destroyed crops and exacerbated a coal shortage, forcing power plants to shut down and factories to cut production.

At a news conference to discuss the government's response to the storms, Zou Ming, deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the storms had caused $7.5 billion in damages.

The kiss of death

The biggest worry Obama has right now is that Al Gore will endorse him.

Proposition

I got this from Lucianne.com. There are a lot of witty people out there with Photo Shop, it seems.

More on vouchers for students

This is a pretty comprehensive essay on vouchers as employed in public schools. The whole thing is worth reading, but it depressed me to learn as reported in the following paragraph that we are not seeing the expected improvement in public schools that competition is supposed to provide. Liberals, of course, will take this conclusion and argue that rather than expand vouchers to broaden the positive, we should abandon them, take the money, expand funding for failed programs and teachers, and sink all students equally.

Fifteen years into the most expansive school choice program tried in any urban school district in the country, Milwaukee’s public schools still suffer from low achievement and miserable graduation rates, with test scores flattening in recent years. Violence and disorder throughout the system seem as serious as ever. Most voucher students are still benefiting, true; but no “Milwaukee miracle,” no transformation of the public schools, has taken place. One of the Milwaukee voucher program’s founders, African-American educator Howard Fuller, recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn’t been the deep, wholesale improvement in MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] that we would have thought.” And the lead author of one of the Milwaukee voucher studies, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, told me: “The research on school choice programs clearly shows that low-income students benefit academically. It’s less clear that the presence of choice in a community motivates public schools to improve.”

Kenya

The folks in Kenya don't seem to be getting along and playing nice lately. I guess I need to look into what is going on there. I suspect it is a tribal thing similar to what we have been facing in Iraq. More later.

Waterboarding

I have never really understood exactly what waterboarding was and how it was conducted, but I had decided that it is not torture if it is merely psychological and not painful or long-lasting (since the recipient gives up almost immediately). There is a very good article in today's Wall Street Journal which describes the technique in detail. It makes a good read.

I remain convinced it is not torture and I want no part of it.

"Universal" Health Care Rationing

In London doctors are barring some patients from operations they need. This includes the smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly. So, for Britons, health care rationing is a reality. The logic is that persons who made bad choices should be the ones who do not get scarce resources. The situation should be instrumental for us as we listen to the liberals who cry at full throat for universal health care. It can never be universal if by that we expect anything for everyone. At some point, the gatekeepers will impose rationing since there is not enough money to treat everyone for everything always. So, those inclined to follow the Hillary universal plan can look forward to bureaucrats rationing care and the providers will be civil servants who will remind you of the employees at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Pell Grants for kids

There is nothing the liberals like more than giving away money. Pell grants are very popular when given to poor students so they can take the money to any college---public or private --to help pay college expenses. It will be fun to watch the hypocrits in Congress jump through their rear denouncing a Bush proposal to give Pell grants to poor students to attend school in K-12. The education establishment will not let them disturb their failed system. This, of course, is vouchers by another name and will be rejected.

If there were Republicans worth their salt, they would insist that the next appropriation for Pell grant money be expanded to all students or cut out entirely.

Why not the Sandy Berger Sentence?

Joseph Romito spotted an original, four-page letter earlier this month from antebellum Vice President John Calhoun being offered on eBay by seller "Idd1863," did a quick check in a specialty reference text, and discovered that it was supposed to be part of the official New York State Library collection.

"When I saw that the document was being sold by someone who listed his address as Rensselaer and then I saw that was right near Albany, I believed something was amiss here," Romito told The Post.

"I called the library the next morning, told them of my suspicions, and they said they'd look into it," added Romito, a 59-year-old litigation and estate-planning specialist from Richmond.

The next thing Romito knew, investigators from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office were handling the case, bidding on eBay until they eventually "bought" the purloined document for $1,802.77.

The sticky-fingered state archivist and eBay merchandiser, identified by Cuomo's office as Daniel Lorello, 54 - a 30-year employee paid $72,000 annually - was arrested late last week on multiple felony charges, including grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and first-degree scheme to defraud.

He faces up to seven years in prison.

As Betsy asks, why is this so much more harsh than the one Sandy Berger got for stealing and destroying documents.

Whither now, Bill

The chattering out of the liberal press holds to the view that Bill cost Hillary in South Carolina and he needs to be diverted to other, less polarizing activities. One line of speculation holds that he will now get sick and have to get off the campaign trail for a while. This will allow Hillary to soldier on despite this heavy burden and even cry a few times at the thought of poor Bill's declining health. Seems plausible to me.

Out of it

I am way over the hill, I guess. Heath Ledger's death seems to have captivated the news on TV and even in the print media. I am sure it is a stunning news event, but I had never heard of him and even after endless recounts of his career, the only movie I knew of was "Brokeback Mountain". I gotta get out more.

Obama rediscovers the wheel

The following quote from Senator Obama is kinda funny. He seems to have just discovered that a convicted perjurer doesn't tell the truth.

Bill 'has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts. Whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit and one of the things that we're gonnna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate'..

It is Bush's fault

Read in the paper this morning that Israel test fired a long range missle that could probably be used to carry nuclear warheads. Iran is not happy and Ahmadinejad said Bush just came to the mid-east and incited confrontation. Makes sense to me. There wasn't any before Bush's time.

George Will's characterization of John McCain

This is great summary of why John McCain should not be elected---and why BestView has come to view Romney as the best alternative to the dangerous dems if Thompson can't be nominated. At one time I flirted with the idea that we could live with McCain, but I finally became completely disabused of that notion. I think it was a form of mental illness.

When McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced legislation empowering Congress to comprehensively regulate U.S. industries' emissions of greenhouse gases in order to "prevent catastrophic global warming," they co-authored an op-ed column that radiated McCainian intolerance of disagreement. It said that a U.N. panel's report "puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming." Concerning the question of whether human activity is causing catastrophic warming, they said, "the debate has ended."

Interesting, is it not, that no one considers it necessary to insist that "the debate has ended" about whether the Earth is round. People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.

Mortgage Problems

This is probably too arcane for most people, but if you are reading and hearing about the problems in the home mortgage market, most of what you read is about the sub-prime mortgages. In these, the bankers lent money to people who did not have the income or credit scores which should have been required before the mortgage was approved. On the other end there are prime mortgages which were taken out by borrowers with good credit and good income so they have been judged to be great credit risks. Most people do not realize that there are problems there as well. Here is what has happened in markets where home values have dropped (Florida and California, for example): Some of these great credit risks have taken out lines of credit with their homes as collateral. These are called home equity loans and many people use them to live beyond their means. Now some of these home owners are falling behind on these loans because they have interest rates which go up to levels which crimp the ability to pay. When this happens, the bank has a problem. Do they foreclose or not. In many cases, the bank owns the 2nd mortgage and someone else owns the first mortgage. So, if the homeowner does not make payments on the home equity loan, the lender in many cases decides to just let it go rather than try to take your house because if they did, the holder of the original mortgage would come first and the house in many cases could not be sold for the amount owed. If you are an investor in the bank, you should realize that they are carrying the value of this home equity loan on their books as an asset and it is in fact worthless unless some time in the far future the house happens to sell for enough for the loan to be paid. I would not consider that an asset and you should not either when considering whether to own shares in a bank.

Thompson supports BestView on energy

Appearing on CNN, Thompson was asked whether, as president, he would turn to Saudi Arabia for help as Bush did.

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said the problem was a "little bigger" than Saudi Arabia.

"It's not in the United States' long-term interest to go hat in hand begging people to do things that in the end we know they're not going to do," Thompson said.

"What we need to concentrate on is diversifying our own energy sources here in this country and opening up what oil reserves that we have here ... using nuclear more, using clean coal technology more and all the other things that we can do," Thompson said.

Energy Depression

Actually, the problem isn't energy depression, but BestView depression because of the sorry situation we find ourselves in with respect to our energy policy. It is depressing to see our President in Saudi Arabia begging the sheiks to increase the supply of their oil instead of fighting to increase our exploration for oil here at home. The American people bitch about paying $3.00 for a gallon of gas and yet won't let our elected official drill for oil off our coasts or in ANWAR. At the same time, we are allowing 20% of our corn crop to be diverted to ethanol production which increases the cost of food. This diversion makes up only 4% of the fuel our cars burn, but the government continues to place a $0.54/gallon import tax on Brazilian ethanol so it is not economical to use their ethanol instead of subsidizing our corporate farmers to the tune of billions per year. Don't look for the pitiful politicians currently running for President to change the situation, either.

Congressional Progress

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

Gay Sex

As confirmed by this article, gay sex is not healthy.

Political Stalemate

The democrats in the U.S. Congress say the surge in Iraq has not worked because the Baghdad legislative body has not accomplished anything in the past year which would bring the Sunni and Shiites together. BestView can't think of a group more qualified to recognize legislative incompetence.

More on light bulbs

In a previous offering, BestView commented on the governmental decision to make us change light bulbs from the carbon filament to the fluorescent bulbs which don't actually put out much light, but they make up for it by costing a lot more and contain mercury. This is the same government that made us give up thermometers which contain mercury and mandated that our toilets use so much less water that we now have to flush twice and use more water. This is the idiocy you get when we elect idiots and send them to Washington.

Eye-opening data

A friend sent me a Congressional Research Service report as of April this past year which contained some interesting information on military deaths of all causes since 1980. Here is the link to the report.

If you only read the newspapers, you would certainly expect that the war in Iraq since 2003 and the earlier invasion of Iraq in 1990-1991 would have lead to higher than normal military deaths among those on active duty. The data belie that conclusion. Table 4 on page 10 of the congressional report show that there were more military deaths in 1980, the last year of the Carter administration than any year of Bush's. Further analysis of the data shows that there were more deaths during the Clinton administration than Bush's---some 14,000.

Of course, there have been more deaths from hostile action in past 6 years, but accidental deaths and deaths due to homicide and illness are way less than in previous years. Any loss of our service men and women is too high, but a balanced reporting of the issue has not been presented.

Health Care Mandates

If you want to know what Hillary has in mind for you with regard to health care, consider the situation in her state. New York spent $48 billion on Medicaid last year and this is about $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the state. Despite this, 13.5% of the state's population still lacks health insurance. In neighboring Pennsylvania, $1,300 was spent on each resident and the uninsured rate was 10.5%. One reason for this disparity is the mandates which New York imposes on insurance companies that raises rates to levels which are unaffordable. For a policy not purchased through an employer, New Yorkers have to pay about $1,400 per month for a family policy. This is about twice the national average because of mandates. Here are some examples of New York style health care.

1. Insurers have to sell a policy to anyone who will pay for it regardless of health status. The result is the really sick wait until they need it to buy and this elevates the cost to levels which prevent the healthy from buying policies. Why pay when you are healthy when you can simply wait until you are sick.

2. Every state requires policies to cover basic care, but New York requires insurers to cover such things a chiropractic , fertility, and mental health services which, of course, drives up the cost of a "basic" policy. There are a total of 52 such services mandated by the home state of the smartest woman in America who is also it's Senator and wants to devise a plan for you.

3. If you are a young, healthy adult in good health, there are policies in other states which can meet your needs for about $100-$200/month depending on age and gender. In New York, the young people are too smart to participate in the liberal concoction of health care being advanced by their Senator Clinton. The problem faced by the young people in the U.S. is any effort to provide health care for everyone will require young healthy people to subsidize the older, sicker part of our population. No other way.

McCain's failing memory

McCain maintains that anyone who says he supported amnesty is "lying." From National Review.

"'There are jobs that American workers simply won't do,' McCain said. 'As long as there's a demand for workers, workers are going to come across.' An amnesty program is vital to any immigration legislation that includes a guest-worker program, he said. 'Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens. That has to be a component of it,' he said. 'How can we have a temporary worker program if we're not allowing people who have been here for 30 years to hold jobs here?'" (C. T. Revere, "McCain Pushes Amnesty, Guest-Worker Program," Tucson Citizen, 5/29/03)

Depression

This field of Republican candidates is really just depressing. All are so flawed from a conservative point of view that the only hope for a decent candidate is a brokered convention. McCain lost me for good last night during the debates when he said there was enough evidence for him to conclude that man was contributing materially to global warming. This is just so idiotic that even the liberal dems aren't mentioning it. Thompson says all the right things, but he reminds me of myself at the end of my career as a lecturer....I was tired of hearing myself talk and knew the audience felt that same lack of enthusiasm. Romney is almost as phony as Edwards, Huckabee is evolving but not there yet and might even be a bigger risk in foreign policy than Obama. Giuliani is New York liberal and would act as one if elected. His ethical baggage is elephantine. Woe is me.

Iowa Results

Evidently Iowans really don't like Hillary. Not all that surprising.

Revenue Lost?

When the liberals consider any effort to reduce taxes, they commonly argue that the act would result in a condition whereby there would revenue lost. Fred Thompson had the best response to that. He said the revenue would not be lost. It would be in his pocket. Amen.

A revolt in liberalville??

It is hard to know what to make of this article in the New York Times which seems to have taken a hard look at Hillary's actual involvement in Bill's administration and just how much actual "experience" she has. Her detractors have long scoffed at her claim of preparedness based on living in the same house as President Clinton. If the Times is now moving to disparage her claims, this sorry excuse of a paper may be laying the ground to move away from her and support Obama. It gets curiouser and curiouser.

Merry Christmas to All

The Candidates

For the benefit of almost nobody, here is the BestView on the leading candidates for the presidency. I wish I was sufficiently gifted with the written word to convey my lack of enthusiasm for this election.

1. Hillary is maybe the one dem which might not be as bad as one fears, but that is only because she is one who is rightly feared so widely. There is just no way to stomach her on the TV every day. I am praying, but would it help if I begged?

2. Obama is a liberal and would be a liberal if elected, but of all the dems, he would probably be the preferred one. A dangerous blank slate on foreign matters.

3. Edwards would be a disaster. This ambitious phony makes Hillary look moderate and must be defeated. Again I beg.

4. Giuliani is almost a prototypical New York politician. He is basically a liberal and ethically challenged.

5. Romney is a little too shifty for my taste. Again, here is a northeast liberal who will flop back on some of his flips if elected, I think. Better than Giuliani, but mainly because of higher morals and character.

6. McCain is maddening if you consider his absolutely absurd positions on taxes, campaign finance, and tendency to crawl in bed with liberals in the Senate. I would hold nose to vote for him if nominated. It is also reported that he is basically a jerk.

7. Huckabee might be as liberal as Hillary. There is no way to evaluate him on foreign policy since he probably hasn't even thought about the subject yet. I am also inclined to think if someone is smart, honest, religious, etc, one need not mention it....repeatedly.

8. Ron Paul is the most interesting candidate of them all. He is absolutely solid on some of his domestic philosophy, but none of what he believes would ever come to be....such as scrapping the income tax without offsetting it except by budget cuts. No Department of Education, Energy, Housing, etc. ? O.K. with me, but not gonna happen. His foreign policy is even more radical. This will supposedly be a "change election", but not that great a change.

All the pundits say this is going to be a dem year and that is the most favorable factor for the republicans. If the experts are all correct, however, an Obama/McCain contest is about as good as it is likely to get. The veep pick of both will be crucial. Obama needs someone like McCain on the ticket with him (say Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia) and McCain needs a running mate who is clearly qualified to be President and also appealing to the conservative base (say another Georgian who was once Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich).

Amazing Football Season

This has been a fun college football season--primarily because of the many upsets. It started early when little Appalachian State beat number 5 rated Michigan. This was the first time a Division II team beat a nationally ranked opponent.

One of my favorite upsets was the win by Louisiana-Monroe over Alabama. The coach at Alabama, Nick Saban, had just come from the Miami Dolphins with a pay package which paid him $4 million a year. He makes as much in 2 weeks as the Louisiana-Monroe coach makes in a year. You gotta love it.

You gotta read the fine print

When Congress passed the energy bill a few days ago (that Bush gushed over and quickly signed) most of the emphasis was on how delighted everyone was that the CAFE standards were increased. These dictate how many miles per gallon cars are to deliver at some time in the future. These glad tidings are suspect since it has been shown that the last such increase put us in a situation where we simply drove more miles in cars which are less safe. The same thing can be expected from this latest increase.

Another little problem has to do with Congress deciding that we need to do away with the incandescent light bulb which Edison invented and has served us well. Now we have politicians which have decided that the bulb uses too much electricity. Ergo, we need to do away with them and go to the compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). These cost about $5.00 compared to maybe $0.75 on a comparable bulb. This added cost is not really the problem, however, since each CFL contains about 5 milligrams of mercury. The same loopy liberals who are worried about some specious threat from global warming seem willing to expose consumers to mercury hazards when a bulb breaks in someone's home.

Brandy Bridges in Prospect, Maine broke one and called the state Poison Control hotline to see how she should clean it up. The short version of the story is that the Department of Environmental Protection said it would cost at least $2,000 to clean it up in her daughter's bedroom. Doesn't that sound like a typical government solution to a dubious problem?

AMT and Pay-Go

Leave it to George Will to explain the loopy dems position on the Alternative Minimum Tax.

In January, with much preening, House Democrats embraced "paygo," the pay-as-you-go rule that any tax cut must be "paid for" by compensatory tax increases or revenue cuts. In December, Democrats abandoned it because of the alternative minimum tax.

The AMT was enacted in 1969 as an indignation gesture aimed at fewer than 200 rich people who managed, legally, to owe no taxes. But the enactors neglected to index the AMT against inflation, so this year it would have been a $50 billion bite out of 23 million taxpayers. The House voted to repeal it and pay for repeal with a $50 billion tax increase. Senate Republicans argued that no Congress ever intended the AMT to collect, or ever will allow it to collect, such large sums from such a large number of Americans. Therefore, paygo would siphon $50 billion to compensate for a fictitious $50 billion. The Senate voted 88-5 to not collect the AMT this year, the House acquiesced and paygo evaporated.

Senator Reid evaluates democrat performance

RAY SUAREZ: Well, at the beginning of this year, the Democrats returned to the majority after 12 years in the minority. You and Speaker Pelosi announced a very ambitious agenda. Now that one year has passed and you look back, how has it gone?

SEN. HARRY REID: Well, we’ve been able to accomplish quite a bit, but not very much, certainly not as much as I wanted to. I’m kind of frustrated, like the American people.

And the loony libs say Bush doesn't make sense.

Person of Year

It is interesting to read and hear TV comment on Time's selection of who they thought should be accorded this recognition. Even though the criteria are their own and well described, many fail to understand what is behind or meant by the selection. None of this seems to me to deserve all the scrutiny and if someone like Fox News is not happy with Time's POY, they are certainly free to name their own. Same with the various newspapers who have commented negatively on Putin and his selection.

Election Advice

If Obama can get Hillary to cackle a few more times, the nomination is his.

Bad day?

A sad situation

I was talking to someone this weekend who made a comment that was entirely consistent with his lifetime of political positioning, but it disappointed me none the less. My concern is not so much that his opinion differed from mine, but it was obvious that he had not studied the subject and had no basis for his conclusion other than political knee-jerkiness. That got me to thinking about how dismal our future is in this country. The basic problem as I have so often said is the education system which guarantees that our young people will not be equipped to discern solutions to problems which arise. To take two examples, we can start with global warming. Few of the citizens in this country have the understanding of science that is required to separate out the drivel in the press from the scientific layers which must be examined to evaluate the phenomenon correctly. This leaves our citizens open to the manipulation of the liberals who will take advantage of this sad fact.

Another example is the so-called Fair Tax. If you want to really understand this proposal, you need to seriously consider a number of factors and the implications of each on the whole. It is not easy to do. After considerable reading on the subject, I have concluded that it has several problems which our politicians will never address, but the system on the whole would be better than the income tax fiasco we have now. The very first and most basic problem our voters and politicians would have to come to grips with is the concept of imbedded taxes. As a nation, we are simply not smart enough to comprehend this simple economic fact. So, the demagogues (established politicians) will prevail.

I know one is supposed to accept the collective wisdom of the American electorate and the concept that we should encourage everyone to vote, but I don't. The average voter is not wise and the more people who vote the less likely we are to elect people who deserve election. That is called an elitist opinion and I plead guilty.

Vulgar abortion pictures

This article in American Thinker reports on an incident in Atlanta where a pro-life group with a truck having pictures of aborted babies on 3 sides was arrested and charged with "the display of obscene and vulgar images to persons under age 14". As a Georgian, I am opposed to such a law in the abstract since I don't want our policemen making a decision like this based on their own interpretation of what is "obscene and vulgar". As to the specifics of the case, I am completely unable to see how anyone can see an aborted fetus as anything other the tragedy it is. It is not the picture that is obscene and the victim of the crime will never see the pictures or age 14.

Fortunately, an explanation of the First Amendment resulted in a rapid dismissal of the charges in this case.

Senatorial Malaise

Senate Democrats yesterday bowed to Republicans and stripped a proposed tax increase for oil companies from a broad energy bill, clearing the way for passage of the measure that includes the first increase in vehicle gas-mileage standards in 32 years. When they are not able to raise taxes on someone, these loony liberals are truly morose. BestView is equally as sad that this sham of a bill does nothing to increase our supply of non-imported oil.

A religion of peace?

Muhammad Parvez, a 57 year old father in Toronto, has been charged with attacking and killing his 16 year old daughter. The beating seems to have been prompted by ongoing clothing/culture disputes. Aqsa Parvez, a 11th grader at Applewood Heights Secondary School in Mississauga, wanted to dress "Western" and resented having to wear her hijab. Apparently having her hair exposed warranted her brutal death...

Prediction

Read this article and then file away my brilliant prediction. If they find anything amiss, it will be attributed to racism.

It is Bush's fault

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Bush “is impossible — and has been for seven years — to deal with.”
Reid sought to portray senior White House adviser Ed Gillespie as an incarnation of Karl Rove and a mastermind of intransigence.

What has the Senate Majority Leader so frustrated? Well, the main problem seems to be that Bush is responsible for the House and Senate dems not being able to agree on a way to pass legislation that funds the government. The House wants to raise taxes and the Senate won't let them. Some dems want to just reduce spending by cutting off earmarks and none of the phony politicians (from either party) want to do that. Too draconian. The far left wants to insist on PAYGO which was passed when the dems took over Congress to be sure that the Bush tax cuts could never be allowed to stand beyond their designated life. More moderate dems are not so rigid. Blue dog dems elected in 2004 are feeling the heat of coming re-election and want to be viewed as financially responsible, so they have to cling to PAYGO since this sounds like it is sensible.

Bottom line the inability of the dems to come to some sort of agreement is Bush's fault except this article seems to highlight internal conflict more openly.

My favorite Senator again

A man of principles is standing up in Washington. Story here.

Umami

There is a recent article in the Wall Street Journal describing a culinary art-form which is based on a taste receptor which responds to glutamate. This was long recognized by Asians and explains their wide-spread use of MSG in cooking. This is a somewhat discredited substance which many feel gives them headaches and allergies. Umami (pronounced oo-MA-me) seeks to take advantage of foods which have an ability to satisfy the glutamate taste receptors, without using MSG. Examples given in the article help explain my own food preferences, so I am a big fan of umami. One of the best sources of foods which ramp up foods via umami is parmesan cheese. Others are mushrooms, wine, soy sauce, ketchup and other forms of tomatos, and grilling. This must be why I buy a lot of Worchestershire sauce and chefs around the country continually experiment with combinations which taste better through glutamate.

A test

Here is a test question that should not present too much of a challenge, but my days of active testing are way behind me. I am undoubtedly rusty. Read this article describing corruption involving the wife of the governor of Illinois. Now for the question, the answer to which is not given in the article. To which political party does the governor belong?

Free money ???

T. Boone Pickens offered a cool $1,000,000.00 to anyone who could offer proof that anything the Swift Boat Vets said about John Kerry during the 2004 campaign was not true. This included journalists or Kerry himself. As indicted here, nobody seems to want the money.

The congressional squeeze

It is really getting to be humorous watching the pathetic dems trying to navigate the tricky waters in Congress. First, they have overtaxed constituents in New York and other big liberal states who will be hit with large extra taxes if the AMT is not modified. They could do this, but they want to raise taxes on the wealthy hedge fund operators and these people are big contributors to Senator Schumer and other fat-cats in the dem party. As a result they are frozen in limbo at a time when if something isn't done, the IRS can't even print forms for reporting and this would delay the tax refunds for the middle class who depend on them as if Christmas presents. In fact, they often need them to pay for Christmas. Hard to keep everyone happy and bash Bush at the same time.

Prediction

When it comes to going out on a cold night to caucus for someone in Iowa, it takes at least one of three things. First, organization by the candidate, "street money" and busing in of participants, and finally fervor for the candidate. We will see all of the above on January 3, 2008, but I predict the fervor factor for Ron Paul will surprise folks.

Funny or Pathetic?

Read all of this in the Opinion Journal.

This is from a press release Hillary put out:

At an event in Boston this evening, Senator Obama claimed for the second time today that he is "not running to fulfill some long held plans" to be elected President, contradicting statements his friends, family, staff and teachers have all made about him. . . .

In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga "asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said." [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07]

In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.' "Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama's kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, 'I Want To Become President,' the teacher said." [AP, 1/25/07]

Mrs. Clinton is attacking Obama for something he wrote in kindergarten.

Are liberals turning on Hillary?

Even her old buddy Robert Reich is unhappy with Hillary.

A Review

If there is some sensible way to decrease the amount of oil we have to import---like drilling wells in the U.S.---------great

If there are proposals to reduce pollution like mercury in the water or sulfur compounds in the air--------great

If you think you can reduce your "carbon footprint" (a euphemism for CO2) and have any effect on the earth's temperature decades from now----------you are an idiot.

Perks for Geeks

The poor slaves working at Google in Mountain View, California have to get by on top rank salaries, but in addition, they have 17 food venues on site at which they can eat any or all of three meals a day at no cost. They can even take guests and none of them can pay either. They can even go in for snacks any time day or night. Other perks include free dry cleaning, free birthday massages, special parking places for the pregnant and so on. Must be pretty easy to recruit there.

Credit fraud

BestView finally got around to freezing our credit. It was a pain to contact the three credit rating companies to do this, but it really eliminates one worry. Regardless if someone hacks into some data base and steals your credit card information or social security number, they can't establish new credit in your name. So identity theft is not possible so long as the freeze remains in place. If you want to temporarily lift the freeze to open some new account, there is a pin number which allows this. I recommend it.

Victims of Global Warming

This is a wonderful collection of reports in the idiotic press which attribute various things to global warming. This has been successful, of course, because the majority of the people in the U.S. are victims of our education system and completely incapable of thinking for themselves. It is instructive to look some of these over if for no other reason to finally conclude that the whole thing is a gigantic hoax. For example, there are separate reports that global warming is causing the oceans to become more salty and another less salty. Bad science is rampant.

The mid-east "problem"

Since President Bush is hosting the required summit dealing with the Israel/Palestinian "problem" this week, it is probably worthwhile to keep in mind what the problem is. If the situation was simply one of borders, it would be possible to deal with this by either negotiation or by some external imposition of a solution. That is not, however, the case. The problem is one based on the insistence of one side that the other side cease to exist. As long as that is the Arab position, there will be no solution negotiated.

Want to lose weight?

There is a new business being formed which is offering binding contracts to assist individuals in reaching goals. For example, if you want to lose weight, you could set a goal and agree to pay some predetermined amount in case you don't reach that goal. The word is it works for weight and other things. Makes sense to me. Read about it here.

Thomas Jefferson

BestView is always suspicious of history presentations since my scientific background demands more rigor in relating "facts" than I find in many historical representations. Despite that, this is a very interesting essay on Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, which is an amazing edifice. Read it here.

Thanksgiving Procamation

Here is the start of the original Thanksgiving Proclamation by George Washington. Can you imagine the response if Bush made this today?

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness..."

Thanks to Tammy Bruce.

The Ott take on the U.N.

The U.N. had to admit that it made a drastic overestimation of the number of aids cases worldwide. In an attempt to resurrect its faulty prediction record, Scott Ott suggests that the U.N. is now predicting that those who did not die of Aids will now drown in the rising tide of man-made global climate change.

Makes sense to BestView.

A losing proposition

Just ran across a story of interest. First, a fisherman ensnares a giant (1,125 lb) shark in his nets and once he takes it on his ship, the shark all but destroys his boat. Then when he gets it to market, it fetches less than the damages to his boat. Read the story here.

Iraq situation must be improving

When the weekly magazines which are at least as liberal as the major media in general say Iraq is improving, it is getting so obvious that the dems in Congress may be the only ones left in denial. The following is from Newsweek:

Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad. The civil war is in the midst of a huge, though nervous, pause. Most Shiite militias are honoring a truce. Iran appears to have stopped shipping deadly arms to Iraqi militants. The indigenous Sunni insurgency has declared for the Americans across broad swaths of the country, especially in the capital.

Gotta be careful in public

Media Bias

First the findings of a recent study.

1. 1,742 presidential campaign stories were examined in 48 print, online, network TV, cable and radio news outlets. Democrats got more coverage than Republicans -----49% of stories compared to 31%. Of these, the coverage was favorable in 35% for democrats and 26% for Republicans.

2. On TV, evening news gave 49% of the campaign coverage to dems and 28% to Republican candidates. As for tone, 39.5% of the coverage of dems was positive vs. 17.1% negative. Republican coverage was positive in 18.6% of the segments and negative in 37.2%.

The source of this study was the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

BestView assumes that if there is a liberal media bias recognizable even at Harvard, it must be a fact.

Just wondering

Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development officials have announced a ban on any decorations in HUD housing complexes that mention Jesus or represent religion for the Christmas season.

Other examples are given in this article. When George Bush was elected, would you have predicted this would happen 7 years later?

Double jeopardy

For years the education establishment in Washington, D.C. has cheated the students through an inept school system, but now they have been caught stealing money from them as well. Read about it in the Washington Post.

Of course, if you criticize any of this you would be called a racist.

Missle Defense

The U.S. Missle Defense Agency based on Lake Erie recently shot down two short range missles fired from Hawaii. They were on alert but had no advance notice of the launch. Pretty impressive to all but the liberals in the Dem party. They just cut $85 million wanted to build an interceptor site in Poland. Given the instability of the situation in Pakistan and elsewhere you have to ask whether the Bush-hating libs are afraid the system won't work (as they claim against all evidence) or that it will. Once again, evidence that Dems are on our side is lacking.