American Warmonger

Replacement Anchor named at cBS!!

We've known for a while now that Dan Rather was stepping down from his high chair within a month or two of Innauguration day. What hasn't been known is who will be replacing the bastion of bias...until now. Through undisclosed sources, Deepthroat (Watergate people!), and a promise to Tammy Faye Baker that I'll cure her cancer, I have learned who his replacement will be.

"The decision to make Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, the new anchor of 60 Minutes II was purely based on merit and has absolutely no ties to the Oil-For-Food program." said new executive director Kofi Annan, "and I can assure you. There is no animosity between Dan and the the leader of the pajama wearing world of blogging, Glenn Reynolds."

When seen on the set of rehearsals for the handing down of the reigns of power show, scheduled to air two days prior to innauguration Dan seemed rather pleased with his replacement. I'm sure this was just for a bit of ratings grabbing showiness but one of Dan's lines was "Vader. Rise."

In an exclusive with Glenn he confessed that he has always wanted to rise to a power greater than being the lord of bloggerdom could grant him. He also made mention of how much he has idolized Mr. Rather and with a gleam of his black molded helmet said "Now the student has become the master."

Puppies and Hobos not available for comment.

This message has been approved by the Alliance of Free Bloggers.

God is like an Elephant

I'll be posting more about this later but here's a ponderance to get you started. Most of you have read this parable before but here it is for you to reflect upon while I try to expand upon things. Hopefully this doesn't offend anyone:

The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe - 1816-1887

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

The world through my eyes

Charlie, everyone, you deserve an explanation.

Some people are concerned about where I stand on the issues of the world we live in. Sometimes he thinks I'm on the edge of flipping the switch, or going democratic, of becoming a (pause for effect) liberal. (Gasp!) Then, at the last moment, it appears that I snap back to party line and start barking again. To answer this I'm going to have to spill the beans.

When I originally started this blog it was to rationalize my thoughts on paper. If it sometimes looks like I'm swaying my viewpoints on certain subjects it's because I'm trying to hash out what I really feel about a topic on paper, or pixels as the case may be. It helps me to think, a sort of therapy if you will.

As more and more people started visiting I thought it to be a great opportunity to discuss ideas and have people help me form my opinion of life in general. Many, okay most of the people who read my site are very intelligent and strong willed and are willing to boast their opinions from the highest mountain top. I do that as well. I’ve noticed it breeds the most discussion, the most shaping of my thoughts and ideas, the most therapy.

So that’s part of why many of my rants read like a pompous right-wing extravaganza. I’m trying to grab you enough to spur some sort of emotion strong enough for you to feed my brain by making a comment.

If you completely agree with my point of view that’s great. Give me some data to back up why you feel that way.

If you think I’m an arrogant twit that deserves to be banned from your site and put on your ignore list tell me why you feel that way with facts. Sure, it stings when you call me a moron but I’d rather have it sting a bit now than really hurt later when I realize myself that I’ve been a complete schmuck after Dick Moore hands the presidency over to me in 2016. about something for years.

Now that I’ve said a bit about the way my site runs I should tell you a bit about my views of the world as they stand today.

Warning: Most of these views are subject to change by someone with a quick wit and a good solid link. Salon and Free-Republic will be considered strict propaganda and promptly laughed at. Don’t worry though, some of the stuff I throw out there will be promptly laughed at as well. It’s happened and will happen again. Anyway, here goes:

I have a fragile little mind that is easily warped. Many of the topics rattling in my head bend and sway and are shaken around until they’ve either formed a strong opinion about things or have become the perfect martini, again shaken not stirred. Usually, but not always I consider myself a little bit left of center but not too far. Mostly though, I’d just like to see America reform all of the worthless crap floating around in the government today. Look at my fake Glenn Reynolds quote: I am a bleeding heart liberal republican…and I mean it.

Take, for example, welfare. I think welfare is the absolute biggest waste of taxpayer money on the face of the planet. There are way too many pitfalls and it teaches the poor in this country to suckle off of the great big government pig. I would like to see something on an incentive program for people that are willing to work but can’t find jobs that pay better than welfare. People have called it workfare and, if implemented correctly, could totally slay both the funds coming out of welfare and the loser stigma that goes along with it. I really don’t know what side of the fence this one is supposed to fall on but I’m sure some of you out there will think I’m wrong in my point of view. GOOD! Now go tell me why with links to studies not found on NRO or the Democratic Underground.

Most of my viewpoints are rather drastic in nature, some are less so, some are more and again, they are subject to change. MOST of these are subject to change. Two of these are not. Bush and the military. Now I’m going to have to explain this the best I can and I’m not sure it’s going to work right so bear with me. To tell you why I need to explain something about my history that I normally don’t publicize too often and might even delete after a week or so just because I don’t want it getting around or used as a trump card.

I have held a high level security clearance with the U.S. military since 1992. I have seen information being passed around that I really wish I could talk about. My wife saw this when we lived in Korea. The moment I would get home from work I would sit down in front of the television and just wait, praying that I would see something on the news so that I could say something. To get it off of my chest. She learned very quickly that if I didn’t say anything afterwards I couldn’t talk about it. I thank her for that. In fact, I’ll think I’ll thank her for that when I get home today. It should scare the crap out of her.

I can’t talk about it but it has shaped my views of the world and how we work with it. The data I’ve seen on military affairs will trump yours 99.9 times out of 10. The closest I can come to explaining this is to go to the Australian News and read an international article and then go to the biggest barking moonbat news site you can find and compare the spin. Now make the short snippet of an Australian news clipping and add real world intel that can’t, or hasn’t been released to the public until it has matched in size the space filling article filled with irreverent postulations.

That’s what I’ve been reading for twelve years. This is what is jading my view of the military and the president. This is why it ticks me off so much. Sometimes I know things that I can’t talk about and it’s really not that the data you are feeding me is that wrong. It’s just that it’s incomplete and missing the full picture. There’s more to be said than what you’re getting.

There are a lot of things I could say right now and what I really want to do is give a practical example. Unfortunately, I can’t do that. The closest thing I can say to spilling anything is that Centcom has a classified website. That’s all I can say about it so please don’t ask.

I really hope that by saying this it doesn’t sound like I’m yelling DOMINOE MOTHERF**ER!! I’m absolutely not trying to trump anything. I’m just trying to explain part of the roots in my military and presidential patriotism. The other part revolves around my parents and I’ll let Patty-Jo expand on that part if she wants to. Hell, maybe my dad would like to guest blog it if he feels up to it. If not I can completely understand. It’s been hard for me to type this and even as I do I want to delete the whole damn thing. There’s a whole world of truth out there that you, and I, will never be able to fully grasp and it doesn’t involve conspiracy theories or cups of magic Kool-aid. It involves a world of intel that many in the military can’t talk about without going to Leavenworth.

God Bless.

Pick Tillman!

Hat Tip: Rusty

Sports Illustrated is doing their sportsman of the year and Pat Tillman is coming in third behind Michael Phelps and Lance Armstrong. Don’t get me wrong, Phelps and Armstrong have done some major things this year. They’ve both broken record in their respective sports. It’s just that Pat Tillman has shown himself as a real hero while the others are just great athletes.

While Michael Phelps was trying to outswim a Thorpedo and working on gold medals Tillman was dodging RPGs and earning silver stars.

Lance Armstrong stuck it to France with 6 consecutive Tour De France wins but was somehow absent at the Greece Olympics. Tillman put his life on the line to serve his country and instead of a bunch of little yellow wristbands that all of the cool politicians wore he paid the ultimate sacrifice and only had a toe-tag.

Phelps and Armstrong are great athletes that do our country proud but don’t hold a candle to the hero that was Pat Tillman. If for no other reason vote for Tillman to support all of the troops, all of the heroes that have given their lives and those that have not had to make that sacrifice.
GOTV! Vote Pat Tillman for Sports Illustrated sportsman of the year.

Incredibly Incredibles!

Well, this is my second movie review. The first was Spongebob a couple of weeks ago. Can anyone else see a pattern here? Yes, I've got a child. He runs my life...Well, at least when my wife's not busy running it. Anyway, here's the review:

It Incredibles is a standard pixar movie that doesn't seem to be much better that any of its counterparts. Its no better than Toy Story, Toy Story II, etc. Most of the movie uses the same style and capability of graphist as do all of the others. But that's just the comparison within Pixar. It's a bit unfair. Can you remember a Pixar flop? Me neither. It hasn't happened. I have yet to see a pixar movie that stunk and I hope I never do.

To be rather critical of the movie, the first half of the movie was rather slow. It was almost solely about a superhero forced to live in society because some guy he saved sued him and got away with it. Hey, don't laugh! McDonald's got sued twice because hot coffee is actually HOT. Some people have said that the movie has political overtones. I'm here to tell you that if you find political overtones in this movie you are really smoking some good stuff and I'd like a piece...for medicinal purposes, yeah, for my cataracts.

It does however just about bring insurance companies and lawyers to their knees. Sure, we all hate them on a general level. Sure pot shots are always made about them. The first half of the movie actually addresses the problem. I won't ruin the quasi-climactic end to the first half of the movie but it's been something that I'm sure everyone has wanted to do to your boss at least one, well maybe twice, okay, at least three times in your life. Unfortunately, it heralded the same consequences that would happen to us. Where's the imagination?

The second half of the movie was nothing like the first half. It was as if they'd been saving up all of the action for the second half of the movie. If you were to get into the theatre late you're still fine. I'll say this next part loudly so everyone can hear: The second half of the Incredibles SMOKES anything Pixar has EVER done before! They really made the superhero part of this movie to be the superhero movie that all the others wish they were. Lets just say that I'd rather watch and Incredibles II than a X-Men III or a Spiderman III. Yes, it rocked that much!

SO, to some this up. Don't worry if you come in late because the first half is rather slow and not really important to the overall thrill ride you'll be expecting in the second half. It's because of the first half though that I can only give this movie a 7 out of 10. If they could have possibly shortened the first half it would have gotten a better rating.

Now that I've seen and rated both of this years kiddie movies I've given them both a 7 of 10. They can't be perfectly matched can they? One of them has to come out on top. Personally, I found it to be a draw but these were kids movies. They were meant for kids, not adults. For the final results I had to ask my son:

Me: So Brandon. Which movie was better? Spongebob or The Incredibles?
Brandon: Can we buy both movies?
Me: They're only in theatres Brandon. We'll get them when they come out. If you had to choose one which one would it be.
Brandon: The Incredibles was Awesome!
Me: What about Spongebob.
Brandon: Yeah, that was cool too, but The Incredibles was much cooler!

So, there you have it. The Incredibles wins by a boy.

UPDATE: I just checked sitemeter and someone from learningco.com (Borderbund) is currently reading this article. If you're reading this dear Borderbund person I don't mean to alarm you. Thanks for stopping in. I hope you enjoy the read.

Is the U.S. doing the right thing?

(Part 1 of 2)
(The complete piece should be out early Morning around 3 A.M.-ish)
(I'll put everything together as one full piece.)
(I just checked N.Z. Bears TTLB, would someone please buy him some good happy pills? Now I'm 175? Something is really weird and I haven't even bribed him yet.)

Sometimes I turn on the news and all I see is how yet another bomb has gone off killing some Iraqi civilians and maybe a U.S. Marine or two. It happens with regular frequency and it’s rather depressing. One place has gotten so bad, Fallujah, it is being re-captured. Another, Mosul, is in a pretty sad state as well. There is a whole list of people that would have the U.S. leave tomorrow if they could make it happen. It’s times like these that we need to reassess what is going on and why it is happening. Is the U.S. doing the right thing?

The part that disheartens me the most are the real insurgents. I’m not talking about the Baathist party that’s trying to retain control. I’m not talking about the militant fundamentalists, or hard-line terrorists as some call them. I’m not even talking about the locals that were threatened into terror or anti-democracy groups. I’m talking about the ones that have looked at their options and have chosen to believe that anything the U.S. represents will be bad for Iraq’s future and are willing to put their lives on the line to get them to leave.

These people are the freedom fighters of Iraq. They believe what they are doing is the same thing America did against Britain so many years ago. They are trying to liberate Iraq from its occupiers. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that America is doing everything within its power to enact peace and a free voting democracy in Iraq. They have been mislead, wrongly educated or have just plain chosen the wrong side. It’s not that they’re bad people. They’ve just made a bad decision and will be forced to pay for it with their lives.

When I say that they will pay for their decision with their lives I do not mean the intention is to quell their decision making by force if necessary. I mean it is unfortunate because they have no hope of winning against the American and Iraqi forces. They are doomed to die alongside those that would seek to destroy Iraq just to see America fail at the hands of terror.

The Iraqi forces are gaining new recruits every day. They just recently graduated 6,000 new forces for fast action response teams. Although they are not to par with teams such as the SAS, SEALs, Rangers, and a host of others, they are superior forces to the standard Iraqi force on the ground today and show a new tiered effect within the Iraqi military. As for the U.S. military, the more they attack them the more we realize there is a definite need to maintain a large force in the region. They are there to gain and maintain the peace. Their vigilance will only increase if you attack them.

What makes everything so difficult is our inability to tell which group is which. Can you tell a freedom fighter from a Baathist from a terrorist by the way he hells out: “Allah Akbar!” or “god is great”? The media isn’t helping matters either. Many of them are filming the insurgents with the same amount or more frequency as the legitimate forces. Some have even gone as far as to interview them so that they may tell a story of peace and happiness through martyrdom. All the while not making any differentiations between groups. The media on the ground has failed in its job to report exactly who is who in this struggle for peace. They report everyone as an insurgent regardless of where they come or why they are fighting.

I really feel for these people and wish there was a way that they could be saved from whatever woes that will befall them. This is what makes me ask if what America is doing is the right thing to do.

(More to come including the bibliography and such.)
(Maybe by Monday I'll be a higher being?....nah.)

Australia: Just as weird as California

Melbourne is looking to be the San Francisco of Australia. Strangely enough they have to take the title away from Sydney's actively gay population to get it. But Melbourne's openly gay city council member, Gary Singer, thinks with a little bit of work they can take the crown...wait...no...take the tiara.

And all this time I was hoping they'd try to be Austraila's new lower Manhattan.

Jay-Z and Linkin' Park

Crossover groups are nothing new to the world of rap and rock. The first one I remember was Anthrax with their song "I am the man". They eventually got grouped up with Public Enemy and "Attack of the Killer B's" was formed. If you don't remember them perhaps the song "Bring the Noise" will refresh your memory.

Another one was "Walk this way" with Aerosmith and Run DMC. It was another great fusion between rap and rock.

My wife just pulled me into the other room to watch the next rap/rock fusion in the making. Jay-Z and Linkin' Park were doing a club venue together. I never thought that "99 Problems" and "One Step Closer" would flow together so seemlessly to make an entirely different. I had goosebumps.

The album comes out on Nov. 30th. This will be the first album I've actually paid for in about six months to a year so its not like I'm trying to sell something. It sounded great. Go buy it!

More cool things

Although my traffic count isn't the best (around 100 per day average) I've somehow climbed to #231 in the TTLB. Don't ask me how I'm there because I've got no clue. I'm not trying to be arrogant or anything either, especially considering my low level hits. (most people in my TTLB area on the ttle are getting around 200-1,000 hits) I was noticing all of the people I've just surpassed...barely:

Practical Penumbra aka the Hostess
Louisiana Conservative aka Jeffrey Blanco
Editors in Pajamas aka Pajama editors, aka Mac daddy P.J.s (coincidentaly, Patty-Jo is guest blogging there while The Editor is stuffing his face with Turkey left-overs.)

This makes me happy because most of these people I consider to be my peers. If not peers, people I've looked up to. I'm sure this will all fade away shortly but I'm enjoying the next one:

Will Wheaton aka The Kid from Star Trek: Next Gen.

What makes that one special is that A. he's famous and B. He's a super Uber-geek and has gained my utmost respect through his geekiness.

The last one is better than everything and I'm not even going to honor them with a link. This 527 represents everything that is non-conservo-republican. They're the one all of the movie farces flocked to. I've now surpassed:

MoveOn.org

(can you feel it? Yeah, it feels real good.)

..........and thanks again to Jane for helping my publish something!

Really cool things

Normally, I'd split this up into a few separate items but the heck with it. I'll try something new.

1. I'M PUBLISHED!!!!!!!! Yes, Jane has informed me that someone in the real world of journalism has determined that I am not just some blogger sitting in his pajamas but a journalistic contributor. You can find the article at Opinion Editorials. Jane has been getting published for some time now and if it wasn't for her I never would have done it or even known where to start.

2. I've been playing with my template again. I changed back to a gray scheme because when I go into colors I either end up with green or gay. All of the other hardline bloggers are using green and well, quite frankly, I'm straight, so the pastels really don't work for me either. I still need to change my comments section from pastel though. Everything is still 800x600 compliant for you blind people out there. It's also still Firefox compliant for you rebel alliance fighters out there. If you've got suggestions on how to make it better I'm always open to suggestions.

3. Charlie, aka Pusillanimous Wanker II, now aka Douche (You got me fair and square with that one Charlie.) has been kind enough to give me a gmail account. I can be found at: jeremy.bol@gmail.com now. I've also changed my e-mail on the sidebar and will include some cool gmail button once I find one or make one up. If you don't have a gmail account you're sort of out of luck unless someone is kind enough and has a free referral. Another place you might want to try if you're wiling to beg for it is gmail Swap, because people are nice...usually. It's a place where people with extra referrals can give them to those without.

4. I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. For our household it's not really too much about the big fat quelude bird (term coined by my dad this year) it's about the day after...black friday. My wife was sitting outside BEST BUY this morning at about 3:00 in the morning and was still about 50-60 people back in line. My mom may choose to get her shopping done early but not us. We, my wife that is, still loves the thrill of the hunt. There's nothing like the game of it all to spur you into action. I one foul swoop she managed to come up with 900-1000 dollars worth of stuff for 350-400 dollars. We shall be going back out for round two shortly. Wish me luck! ;)

Glenn Reynolds: A year in review.

There are many people in the realm of free bloggers that believe that Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, leads a normal life as a normal guy with an abnormal ability to write commentary on current events. I'm here to tell you it's all lies, smoke and mirrors, frivolities, reports worthy of Dan Rather, they're just plain wrong!

Through a bit of research, a few FOIA suits, a bottle of Wild Turkey (tis' the season), and a bribe to his undocumented maid I managed to completely destroy the man that all of those Instapundites love so dearly. To speak frankly, he's got a rap sheet longer than ODB's. Because of how much he's got on him I'm just going to do a year in review:

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, A Year in Review: 2004

FEB 27: A Glenn fan comes clean and confesses to some of the horrors about Mr. Glenn Reynolds. He is a Satan-worshipping, hobo-murdering, Vespa-driving freak. He secretly calls the Instapundit: "Evil Glenn".

APR 29: Another Glenn fan admits that the Instapundit is, in reality, a mafia lord. That's right folks. Mild mannered, shark-biting lawyer, Glenn Reynolds is: The Blogfather.

JUL 18: Evil Glenn Reynolds is found out as the force behind the New York Times. He is also known for his incitefully stinky feet.

SEP 03: (I had to go all the way to Australia for this one.) Glenn Reynolds' plan to assimilate his readers into a phase much darker than anything in the Patriot Act has in mind: Constant observations from one's own digital cameras. It doesn't end there. He plans to convince his mindless zombies to purchase only the products he suggests, a sort of digicam mind control.

SEP 24: It is discovered that Evil Glenn Reynolds has infiltrated PayPal and is forcing them to investigate all blog users using the service and sue them for 500$ each if they do not conform with his standards. If they do not comply with his sadistic standards he will sue them for their blood, he is a lawyer after all.

SEP 29: Glenn Reynolds is caught in the act of drinking blood from the freshly severed neck of a hen! "He practically performed the entire satanic ritual right there! I had to leave before he got to the puppies I just couldn't watch anymore!" said one hostess.

OCT 04: Glenn Reynolds makes an attempt to infringe upon the Constitutional rights of the people of D.C. by making legal statements that they are not entitled to them since D.C. is not technically a state. Mindless anarchy quickly erupts.

OCT 08: Glenn Reynolds admits to bribing officials in Iraq with relation to the widely controversial and popularized "Global Test". However, I have since been told by some Glennite hardbloggers that everything I know is wrong and I should stop spreading vicious lies.

NOV 11: Glenn Reynolds does his best to conceal a stash of his own Sarin gas nerve agent that was found in Fallujah. He disavows that it was ever his and claims that the insurgents had it on their own. (We all know the truth Glenn. They were holding it for safe keeping. You better pick a better hiding place next time.)

NOV 17: Glenn Reynolds proves his liberal bigotry by supporting racist caricatures of African Americans. He shows support for cartoon showing Condi Rice as just another Uncle Tom.

NOV 19: Evil Glenn Reynolds' plans for a hobo-amusement park in Berkeley, CA in order to sacrifice their souls to Satan are thwarted with a Bad Example. He was going to call it "Glennyland". I think it was the badgers that saved us...might have been the Llamas too.

NOV 23: Evidence is found that Glenn Reynolds has a Puppy Blender and has been using it for some time. Upon further investigation Wikipedia removes all evidence of the words Puppy or Blender from his entry. For some unknown reason they added the line: "Help! Glenn is holding us hostage until we clean up his reputation!"

There are many, many more suits pending against instasatan from this year alone but these are some of the more egregious ones. Do not be fooled by his boyish charm and whatever you do, don't look into his eyes, or read his blog. That's where he will hypnotize you and turn you into one of his mindless zombies, hell-bent on making puppy with chicken blood smoothies to sell in his hobo-amusement park where he can sacrifice the hobos, and Los Lobos, to Satan.

All links in this article are presented with express consent of the Alliance of Free Bloggers.

And happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Even you Evil Glenn.

Wanted!

Blogger, or bloggers, that think being a vegan (that's not eating meat for those that don't know) is really cool and that's what we're designed for. Please be prepared to debated with. No rally! I know there's some of them out there.

Maybe they''re just afraid we'll go into a frenzied meat eating rage and mistake their scrawny little bodies for a chicken leg or something and eat them?

Yeah, blogging is pretty dry today.

GOTV!

Now that those crappy Presidential Elections are over it's time to vote on what's really important: The 2004 Weblog Awards brought to you by Wizbang!

Currently, they are accepting nominations for a plethora of categories. It is fine to nominate yourself, I've done it, others have done it. Go nominate people, including yourself.

Voting will begin on or around December 1st.

GOTV for the Weblog Awards!!!

Oh, yes, and I'll be keeping this at the top for a while. (Dec 1st-ish)
Okay, I got sick of seeing it at the top.

Published Editorials Vol. 1: Getting Started

I have sent out my first editorial to real live newspapers today. It took me about three days but with gentle coaxing (see: swift kick in the butt) Jane, the great and wonderful, editorally published, blogmother of mine, I have sent out my first requests for publication. As with just about everything I get into, I probably over did it with who I sent this out to. The list is bordering on spam. I stopped sending out requests around 3 AM so you kind of get the idea how much I've been spamming people.

The next time I do this it won't be so difficult. The real time consumer is getting a list of editors to e-mail. For the states it wasn't that difficult. Jane came through with a quick and dirty list of the top 100 newspapers in the united states here. So that's the American newspapers. I haven't been able to find an easy online list of e-mail addresses yet. I'll work on it later. The arab news agencies were a bit more difficult to hunt down. Again, I can't find a direct e-mail list and some of them required you to register before they would accept your work through a proprietary system. So here's the lists I sent this out to including e-mail addresses (just so it's easier for anyone else that wants to write editorials.):

These Papers recieved the "Muslim Safe" version
Alarabiya: contact@alarabiya.net
Arab News: almaeena@arabnews.com
Yemen Times: editor@yementimes.com
OPeEDNEWS.com: contact@opednews.com
The Daily Star: letters@dailystar.com.lb
Arab Times: jarallah@arabtimesonline.com
Al Hurra: comments@alhurra.com
Gulf daily News: gdn1@batelco.com.bh
Gulf Times: editor@gulf-times.com
Iran Weekly Press Digest: Editor@iranwpd.com
Ajeeb! (proprietary system)
Al-Jazeera (English) (Proprietary system, I know they'll never take it but why not?)
Iraq.net (You must register first and use their system but it's been successful for Jane.)
Reuters (this will eventually go on the online non-muslim list)

These papers recieved the original text found here.
The Wall Street Journal: edit.features@wsj.com
USA Today: theforum@usatoday.com
New York Times: oped@nytimes.com
LA Times: op-ed@latimes.com
Washington Post: oped@washpost.com
Daily News (New York): rlaird@edit.nydailynews.com
Chicago Tribune: ctc-COMMENT@tribune.com
Newsday (Long Island): oped@newsday.com
Houston Chronicle: outlook@chron.com
Dallas Morning News: viewpoints@dallasnews.com
Bellingham Herald: (look for it mom)
julie.shirley@bellinghamherald.com
jessica.silvers@bellinghamherald.com
Virginia Pilot: (my local paper, proprietary system)
Army Times (proprietary)
Navy Times (Proprietary)
Marine Corps Times (Proprietary)
Air Force Times (Proprietary)

I separated these by American and Muslim safe. Muslim papers are not allowed to print things that disrespect in any form the muslim religion. Simple demographics themselves can disrespect the muslim religion. The fact that the majority of militant islamists are Shiites could get me killed if I quoted this truth in thr wrong place, publicly. I had forgotten about this but once again, Jane reminded me.

So here I am, waiting and hoping that someone will put me in lights. You can wish me luck if you like but you should congratulate Jane for clearing the way. She's been published on at least 25 articles. Go see for yourself.

Now that's seven links in one article for Jane...make that eight. You could say I'm rather thankful of her patience and assistance.

DAN RATHER IS STEPPING DOWN!!!

Dan Rather, one of the most famous faces in TV news, is stepping down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." Rather, a 40-year veteran with CBS, will step down in March, 24 years after taking over the anchor job from Walter Cronkite. CBS spokesman Gil Schwartz said Rather's decision "was independent of the findings of the panel looking into a '60 Minutes II' report on President Bush's National Guard service."

Yes! Dan Rather has now officially stated that he will be stepping down from his perch as the 60 Minutes Anchor in early March. As predicted by many he claims that his decision has nothing to do with the Bush TANG paperwork thuggery. I’m sure no one in the Pajamahadeen is dumb enough to believe that crap. Anyway, here’s the general consensus of bloggerdom on the issue:

It was widely known that Dan Rather was going to lose his position as the 60 minutes anchor due to the Rathergate debacle. It was furthermore noted that he wouldn’t do it until after the elections and probably a month or two after the inauguration, just to make it look unrelated. We also knew that he wouldn’t be leaving CBS. We at MSM Jihad headquarters knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away. Some form of action had to be made in order to regain their credibility but an all out firing would have been too much for them. They didn’t do the right thing; they did the minimum required to quell the masses. I don’t think anyone was surprised about that.

Dan will still be a contributing source on 60 Minutes II. He’ll still be pulling all the strings. Don’t think for a moment he’s not in control anymore. He’s gone from being the face you see frothing at the mouth complaining about those illegitimate bloggers in their pajamas to the puppet master. For some reason it reminds me of the end of a Scooby-Doo show:

“I’d have succeeded too if it wasn’t for those meddling bloggers!”

BTW: Just added my Pajamahadeen button.

You can thank anybody but God on Thanksgiving

Maybe I'm overreacting on this but I doubt it. God has been an integral part of America since day one. We all worship the way we chose or even to chose not to. We do not infringe upon anyone's rights by praying. We don't strike fear in the hearts on non-believers by telling them to: "have a blessed day." I have the right to worship anywhere I want, (except in schools) even military bases. They even have military chaplains. Anyone who says I'm infringing upon their rights when I talk about god/God can go to hell. So let me put this news clip before you so I may rant further on the subject:

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland public school students are free to thank anyone they want while learning about the 17th century celebration of Thanksgiving (search) — as long as it's not God.

First off, I'd like to thank dysentery and the many other diseases brought with the English on the trip over that killed many of the American Indians. Now we have more land to roam. Next I'd like to thank the trail of tears that killed off countless more American Indians for again, more land. Of course, these thank-you's probably aren't being taught this holiday season. Why stop with thanking direct relations to Thanksgiving. As long as they're "not God".

I'd like to thank Saddam for killing so many of his own people. Without his assistance there would have been no reason to liberate Iraq.

I'd like to thank Stalin. He was the inspiration that Saddam worked off of. He wouldn't have wanted us to thank God either.

I'd like to thank Madalyn Murray O'Hair who spearheaded the movement to abolish god in schools and teach children of religious families that religion has no place in the civil world. But is only for the privacy of one's own life. To be hidden away like a badge of shame if you will.

Most of all though, I'd like to thank Satan for trying to destroy God.

NO!

I would like to thank God, just as the pilgrims did.

As an Ironic note, one of the districts where this article comes from is St. Mary's County Public Schools. Don't some Catholics pray to St. Mary? I guess they'll have to change their name.

Getting too big

I've been debating something for about a week now. I've been watching some of the blogs that I've read and linked to continue to climb the charts in the TTLB Ecosystem. I noticed that most of the major bloggers didn't allow comments and the only way to get in touch with them was by e-mailing them; little to no dialoge. Those that did have a comments section, Like Daily Kos and LGF, were continually bombarded with tons (100-600 comments) of responses. It turned into a different kind of community.

It was then I made a deal with myself to not provide a personal link to anyone over 100 on the TTLB. After N.Z. Bear revamped the site I found that many of the bloggers that I had already linked to and were communicating with me were now on the top 100. It was then I restructured my ideals to allow Playful Primates (30) and below on my blogroll. It has worked for a while but I'm now having some issues with maintaining even this.

Dean Esmay, someone who I've been reading but who hasn't been over to my site in months is currently Number 25. He has crossed over to the dark side. If it were just him I would have no problems but looking at those who are just about to breach the magic number of 30 I am put in a quadary. You see, The Jawa Report is within 5 places of becoming blacklisted.

What should I do? Should I stick to my guns and kick him off the list and do the same to Rusty? Should I make it only those that come by to visit? Should I start going by TTLB's traffic list? Or should I limit my listings to those that have a moderate comments column? Please help!

BTW: Instapundit has been overtaken in traffic by KOS by at least double his hits. Not a complete victory but better than nothing.

Republicans and Dictators

Okay, before some liberal wiener picks this one up and runs with it let me steal their thunder:

ANTIGUA, Guatemala — They met during a trade mission, and despite controversy over their engagement, U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller (search) of Illinois and the outspoken daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt (search) tied the knot Saturday in a civil ceremony.

The least he could have done was have a private ceremony. Aren't we supposed to at least fake that we're interested in freedom?

Overcompensation

Artest is out for the rest of the season and will lose about 5 million dollars. This is being looked upon as something horrible and it never would have been noticed if a fist fight between players at a different arena had not happened a day or two before this. It wakes people up and makes them more aware of what is going on. The first event that takes place isn't likely to recieve too much flack becauses it's considered an isolated incitent. If it happens again it's a pattern and will be stopped dead to set an example.

Let's take, for example, Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfuntion". Everyone was up in arms but it was considered and isolated incident and forgotten about. It was still talked about but the FCC was no longer under the gun for that particular incident. They were prepared for anything to come so they could step on it ruthlessly to show they meant business with their new policy reform. So, when three schmucks complained about a show being to racy they dropped a 1.5 million dollar suit against the network.

It's called overcompensation, or setting and example, or even scapegoating. It's unfortunate and it happens every day. Just wanted to add my two cents to this mess. Arnet and friends may deserve retribution but it wouldn't have been even close to what they recieved if people's eyes weren't paying attention to fights. He was set up as an example. It's unfortunate for him but that is the designed purpose of scapegoating: to make people stop the undesired action. Whether it's the right thing to do is a topic for either comments or another article.

Legitimacy of Iraq's Democracy is just around the corner

Amid the torrent of bullets, bombs and beheadings there are many people that are critically skeptical of Iraqi elections to the point of believing absolute terror will reign. This new deadline brings with it a new resolve in Iraq and with it a new hope that things are still progressing, not regressing. Many of the educated will tell you what is happening is the impossible and a mirage the will fade into ever increasing chaos. Much of the demographic reasons for failure are viable but they are not all of the demographic variables that should be looked upon for guidance.

On the other side of things comes the standard counter of the Afghan example. This example shows the liberation of a willing people to undergo free elections in a primarily peaceful way. If we can do it in Afghanistan we can do it in Iraq, right? The demographics of these two countries tell us otherwise. While Iraq holds a 50-60% Shiite majority Afghanistan holds a mere 10% minority.

Another example is the extreme repression of a rural people compared to the repression of an industrialized people. For more on how this works consult the works of James C. Scott. The promise of agrarian reform, unfortunately in poppies which no one should be surprised about, has been integral part of the successful reformation of a democratic Afghanistan. These differences do not mean that Iraq is doomed because they are not covered under these select demographics.

The one underlying demographic that compounds the problems in Iraq and sends defeatists into a tailspin is the Shiite majority in Iraq. As of 2003 Iraq was made up of about a 50-60 percent Shiite majority. They will compare this directly with trying to topple Iran in the same manner. The defeatism lies in the Shiite majority being primarily made of the radicals within Islamic religion. While it is true that many of the Shiite Imams are counter-western and the demographic of Islamic terrorists is primarily Shiite it does not encompass all of the Shiite people, nor does it cover the majority of Iraq.

The modernized portions of Iraq bring with them what many call a westernized culture. Yes, Iraq is banking on what is called “Modernization Theory”. Modernization theory is basically the theory that a developing country can increase its standings in the international community as well as standards of living by enhancing their technology. This shows itself as evident by the influx of high-tech goods being flown in daily. For example, air conditioning units can’t be flown in fast enough. They’re already sold practically before they ever arrive in Iraq.

Some may contrast this with the rolling blackouts that never happened under Saddam’s regime as a sign that modernization will not take place but fail to realize that the rolling blackouts are not caused by bombs or American incompetence. They’re caused by the increased desire for more power to feed their newfound technological freedom. Their need for power is simply outstripping the supply. It is seen as a boon to the Modernization theory, not a bane.

Another misconceived notion is that Sharia, or Islamic law, will take over in Iraq due to the vast majority of Muslims in Iraq. There is a possibility of this happening but it is not as likely as one might be led to believe. Although the dictatorship of Iraq brought with it a brutal regime that killed many and tortured untold others it can be considered a bridge to democracy. This may seem like the wild ranting of a madman but it is based in fact not fiction. Saddam’s style of dictatorship had little if any religion involved. It was an almost entirely secular environment. Imams had no power in government and only a subdued and censored voice amongst the people. Many people, particularly and traditionally the young and the women, will find fault with the break from a secular society. They are the ones that desire the freedoms they had under a secular society that would otherwise disappear under Sharia.

If none of these factors were enough to convince you, and I’m sure there are plenty, then even if all of the demographics fail they still need to bring to bear three things to carry through with the rebellion according to Charles Tilly:

First is something recognizable as an alternative government. Currently, the only thing remotely resembling that is Al Qaeda and the other splinter terrorist groups. There is little to no organization amongst these groups except to stay out of the way of the hard-line Al Qaeda members. They are like rats scurrying in the night.

Second is a following of people significant enough to make the change in Iraq popular. There is a significant number of those in Iraq that do not want us there but they are not formed against us en-masse and would prefer us as occupiers much more than they would prefer the alternative of terrorist rule. We need to keep it that way.

Third and final is something Theta Skocpol considers Regime Decay. This is the state of the government and military defenses protecting the government. If it falters the possibility for regime change can occur. This too can be argued for both sides as we are still in an interim government and our forces, although highly unlikely, can be defeated. For us it is a matter of maintaining resolve through the attacks and beheadings.

The terrorist organizations understand this at their core and are doing everything within their power to disrupt the governmental structure in Iraq in order to cause regime decay. If elections go forth come January 30^th or sometime shortly after then it will be a major blow against their efforts to overthrow the Iraqi government. In fact, all of these things are dependent upon our ability to prevent terrorists from dismantling all semblance of civility and maintain that, for the majority of Iraqis that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization and nothing more.

Bibliography

Handelman, Howard. 2003. “The Challenge of Third World Development”. 3^rd ed.. Pearson Publishing. ISBN: 0130993093

CNN.com. “Iraqi elections set for January 30”. Nov. 21, 2004. URL: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/21/

iraq.election/index.html

Rashid, Ahmed. "Karzai wins power in Afghan elections". Apr. 11, 2004. Telegraph.co.uk. URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/04/wafg04.xml&sSheet=/

portal/2004/11/04/ixportal.html

“Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban”. February 15, 2001. Future Opioids. URL: http://opioids.com/afghanistan/

Rebuild Iraq 2005 exhibitor list. URL: http://www.rebuild-iraq-expo.com/exhibitors_list.asp?products=&country=&company=&page=2

Yet another membership

The Alliance of Bloggers has approved of my site. I'm in yet another group. I know none of you really care about how this happend but here's the way it went down (YEAH, SUFFER BABY!):

I've seen their banner here and there but never really thought about it. At first,I thought it was a group of Instaloser dittoheads. I didn't think much about it and moved on with my life.

Later I discovered the art of NewsFeeds. I had run across a conservative reader on the Pusillanimous Wanker II website named Pirate's Cove. (well, his real name is William Teach but I'll just use his site name...crap! I just realized I haven't blogrolled him yet. I'll have to fix that.) Anyway, he was writing about this really ùber-cool tool called FeedReader. I downloaded it and played with it for a while but it wasn't quite what I thought a news reader should be so I started hunting. Eventually, I found a reader called Active Web Reader that I really liked the style of and began plugging in everyone on my blogroll since it will do web pages as well as news feeds.

One site I came across was the bamapachyderm (love the url BTW) aka MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Unfortunately, Beth's site causes AWR to freak out and lock up my computer (mine does as well) so I decided to investigate. Beth had up an alliance banner and well, I clicked it.

To my surprise it was a group of bloggers that's sole purpose was to take down the juggernaut Instamonkey: Glenn Reynolds. At first I was thinking "Hey! Instapunt-it ain't that bad! It's Kos and Atrios that stink!" But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Commupundit was the antichrist. I had to stop this man at all costs less he rule all of blogdom forever! (sorta like that guy who found a way to kill Lord British on Ultima Online) It is our mission as free bloggers to stomp this blog-dictator...blogtator into the ground. We must smoke him from his IP!

It was at this point I complied with all of their silly commandments and requested to be blessed by the hostess. (Okay, it's not as silly as it sounds. Go check it out if you're not already a member.) A few days passed and I was a bit miffed. Nothing, nada, zero, zilch! Not even a "Thank-you anyway, but your site STINKS!" So I had nearly given up.

Then, today, as I was perusing the guest-map I noticed a new pin. It was the Hostess! HOORAY! She had finally visited my site to check my papers. (blog compliance. If you've been to Politiburo Diktat you should get the joke.) I hadn't been ignored after all!

But was I going to be accepted? Would they let me in? Was I a Revolutionarie? I didn't have to wait long until I knew. Even before I recieved a confirmation e-mail(which I still haven't recieved because hotmail has been slow as snail mail lately) I recieved a comment from Billy Budd saying: "Fellow Alliance member, just checking out who else is flying the flag. like the blog and will surf it." Yes! Victory!! I'm a member! WooHoo!

...and they lived hapily ever after.

The End

(I'm trying out inebriated blogging. How's it look?)

Kudos to Ferid, Again

Okay, maybe this will sound a bit like I’m sucking up to him but he just bat everybody reading this and you didn’t even know it. Other than my mother, who I told about it, and the guys at Bravenet he’s the only person to sign my guest map. It’s kind of fitting though. I got the idea for a guest map from Ferid in the first place. So now that Ferid beat everybody to the punch go put your pin in my guest map. Anyone who does will be blogrolled.

Speaking of which, my mom finally got her site up. Here’s the link: Patty-Jo. It’s entirely non-political. Some of you non-political types might want to go visit to say hello. Hint Hint.

Update: Signaleer has been added to my blogroll. He is back from Iraq! (Okay, I've had him on my blogroll for a while in the form of the Homespun Bloggers link but I'm true to my word. He gets another link.)

Update #2: Tazmedic has pinned me as well. Sorry I didn't blogroll you earlier. I meant to, I really meant. Must be my Swiss Cheese brain.

Update #3: Practical Penumbra has joined the blogroll nearly by accident. She came by to check on the new web tag on the top right of the screen, the blogger alliance. She is an admitted Blogger with Boobies. (Hey, that's what her site says!)

I’m A Goofy Goober, YEAH!

Okay, I saw the Spongebob Squarepants flick. It wasn’t too bad. One thing that was very obvious in the film was that it tried to cater to all of its audiences. Kid jokes, young teens, late teens, college kids, parents and I think there might have been a few jokes for the gays as well. What else would you call Patrick holding a Spongebob flag with his buttocks cheeks?

As with any movie that tries to cater to the world, it doesn’t really complete the job. Yes, I laughed but it wasn’t quite the same as the regular show. Where it really showed was when they tried to capture the young teen audience. Giving Patrick Star a crush on the daughter of King Neptune sort of screwed the whole thing up for me. I know the teen audience probably loved the crush but I felt it was out of place. The only insinuations in the regular series are much more subtle and tastefully done. It was rather blatant.

Something that wasn’t in the movie was Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. They were somehow absent from the film. It didn’t really matter much though; the only two static characters were Spongebob and Patrick.

If I were to give a rating to this movie I’d put it at a 7 out of 10.

Why the Right Hates the Left

As many of you have seen, I read stuff on both sides of the fence and on occasion my absolute rage at one side or the other (okay, one side) spills out onto my site. I try to do my best not to go off but it happens and I'm not really apologetic about it. Nope, I'm not sorry. I try to be as tolerant of the left as any right wing nut job could possibly be expected to. Some of you on the left are probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about because everything you say seems perfectly sane and civil to you. Well, to you it is perfectly sane and civil. To us it's a near declaration of war, and sometimes even a replay of the Civil War. Us on the left do not read your words the same way you do. We hear different things than you think any logical person should. Let me explain with some statements and some "redneck, right-wing, religious-freak" translation (Most of these will be paraphrased):

Left Says: The way I see [Social Security Privatization], Wall Street wants this money, so BushCo will do everything they can to give it to them. Call me cynical. --Pusillanimous Wanker II--
Right Hears: Bush is a puppet to his corporate backers and will do anything to give them a buck. He doesn't give a damn about America.

Left Says: I need a descriptive term for the nation the right is trying to create: Jingo Jesus and the F**ktard Five --The Liberal Avenger--
Right Hears: The right is a bunch of stupid Jesus freaks against all other religions and peoples.

Left Says: (On breaking the terrorist's back) Oh, and we neutralized Osama, too. Did you know that? --Daily Kos--
Right Hears: Nanny Nanny Boo Boo, Bush can't catch Osama! He just wants to take the oil!(Caveat: We believe that Usama is a single man in terrorism, not terrorism itself. Terror will go on with or without Usama.)

Left Says: ...how ironic it is that the same bunch of people who decried john kerry for testifying about war atrocities in front of congress are now defending the soldier that shot an unarmed, wounded iraqi in the head in a fallujah mosque... --Skippy the Bush Kangaroo--
Right Hears: Bush got us into a war using poorly trained and undisciplined, understaffed children and should rot in prison for war crimes, all because he wants some oil.

Left Says: I believe we can now declare our brief flirtation with becoming the morality party over, and not a moment too soon. There's no way we can outdo these crackpots... --Eschaton--
Right Hears: Okay, this one's more funny than hurtful but the concept remains: The war we're fighting in Iraq and elsewhere is killing people which makes the right morally corrupt. That's what we hear....Almost forgot: AND IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!

Left Says: [this space left blank] Reality Based [this space left blank] --Hell, pick a blog, they're all calling themselves "reality based".
Right Hears: I can't believe those wingers, believing what anything the government, aka "the establishment" will tell them. They are suckers.

Left Says: We're sorry world. We tried. --Sorry Everybody--
Right Hears: We're sorry world. We tried to get the rest of America to kowtow to the European appeasemonkeys (TM Doug) but they were just too dumb (TM Daily Mirror) to believe what European news has been trying to say.

Maybe this explains in a bit more detail what has been going on. Why the right hates the left. You need to remember, we voted for Bush. He is the president that we chose and the offhanded belief that he was the wrong choice insults your other half of America. It's like you made the elections a final exam or something. It's a decision that was made by America and needs to be respected if we don't want Civil War II. This is the first time I've said this but Kerry would have been a good choice as well but I believed Bush would do a better job and still do. So remember this the next time you post about how Bush intends to destroy America, or how he's a complete idiot, or even how us religious freaks are all so stupid. It's insulting your fellow Americans.

So the next time you would like to call my regular commenters a$$holes you might want to check your rear-view mirror. To us much of the commenting that goes on left looks to be made from the same body part with no defense. Hopefully, this doesn’t spoil anyone’s sensitivities. It was only meant to help in understanding.

Cool Stuff

I have found A new toy and am having trouble getting back to my blog. Recently I visited Pirate's Cove and finally learned about what this whole RSS/XML/ATOM/Newsfeed stuff was about. He's been using something called FeedReader so I gave it a shot. I wasn't too impressed with FeedReader, I just didn't like the feel to it, but I started playing around with some of the others. I came across and eventually settled on one I cand deal with. It's called Active Web Reader from Deskshare.

If you're familiar with newsfeeds you'll take a quick notice that no two feed standards are created equally. While the utilities themselves are doing everything in their power to keep up with the different sources of code, invariably some of the feeds will not work. That's where Active Web Reader comes in handy. When you run across one of those codes that just won't work for it they've got another tab for reading web pages without the feed. I've only had a handfull of sites that won't work with that, with or without a feed for their site.

I know to most of you this is probably incoherent geek ramblings but I hope I've piqued at least someone's interest. For a list of other readers you can go to Download.com.

Global Stratification Essay

Since I had to complete a college essay today and it has some bearing as to the world in which we live in I'm going to share it here. It's not the kind of right-wing nonesense you're used to on this site so don't be alarmed. It's just your standard 12 point, times new roman, double-spaced, MLS style paper one would do in college. Here you go:

Global Stratification:
Discuss ending world hunger through both the Modernization and Dependency approach.

To discuss ending world hunger through both the modernization and the contrasting Dependency approach we must first define what they are. The modernization approach to LDC’s, or Less Developed Countries states that the method to development of these nations should be through emulating the technological advancements and democratic paradigm of the west. The Dependency approach claims that the aforementioned approach only breeds corruption and dependency on the west at the cost of the poor in LDC’s. Dependency theory believes the best method for development is through Marxism and other forms of revolution.

Following modernization theory it is assumed that an increase in new and modern technologies will increase the ability of a nation to fend for itself internationally and thus be able to procure better goods and services. For this essay the goods and services are better and higher quality food products. The inclusion of agricultural modernization such as tractors and better planting and harvesting devices also brings with it the internal ability of a nation to grow their own food more efficiently thus increasing the national supply of food.

With industrialization and modernization comes larger, less rural cities. This can play a part in the conditions of goods and services and can be argued for both modernization and dependency theories. With larger cities comes more centralized goods and services, streamlining of distribution centers, and higher quality facilities including electricity and running water. The contrasting argument for dependency would call forth the slums and shantytowns that house the poor in substandard conditions. These shantytowns have been argued to be removing agricultural lands due to their ever-growing expansion.

If dependencistas were to control the way things are run in LDC’s all outside influences would be severed and advances would be made within themselves. They would argue that the best way to remove the poor class would be to remove the corrupt governments that keep national profits for themselves and the corporations they make deals with. Only through a non-corrupt, distributed people can true progress be made. In their environment no one in an LDC would be rich but no one would be starving either. One example of the power of low level, internal enterprise would be the micro-loan venture in Bangladesh. It has been extremely successful in enhancing the stature of the poor in that country.

Within the promise of dependency theory lies the strong possibility of smaller cities and stronger rural communities. The arguments for and against ruralization of a country would be precisely inverted from those of larger cities. Modernization theorists would explain that the efficiency and services of that nation would be diminished while the dependency theorists would argue that strengthening the rural areas would allow communities to build from within.

Industrialized nations can play a role in this to support the effect of either theory. Programs such as NAFTA which have had the intention of easing international tariffs and taxes have not done all they have set out to do. The WTO’s Uruguay Round Agreement on Textiles which promised to abolish quota’s by 2005 is abysmally planned with the best international example, Canada, leading the pack with 14% completion. These plans are sought out in earnest but are never realized. They serve as a grim reminder as enforcement for the dependency theory.

There are other theories in the world such as bureaucratic authoritarianism and neoliberal economics as to how best to enhance the lives and therefore the food abundance in LDC’s. It is also been proven that both modernization and dependency theories are flawed when put on a global scale. At current understanding by sociologists a mixed method depending on the political, religious and socioeconomic environment of individual countries should be levied to enhance these countries. There is no “one best method” to solving the world’s hunger problem. All theories have potential in different environments.

Bibliography

Carla Cole, 1990, Ending Hunger
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC25/Cole.htm

Howard Handelman, 2003, The Challenge of Third World Development, 3rd Ed.

Robert J. Griffiths, 2004, Annual Editions: Developing World 04/05

Pearson Publishing Custom, 2003, Intro to Sociology

I'm Just Sick of it!

MSNBC claims that the guy they shot in the mosque was a prisoner. How could he be considered a prisoner? The building had just been cleared and still potentially hostile. Moments after hearing gunfire the news agent came in to see one of them on the floor being shot for apparently faking his death. It was not one Marine that said this but two. That looks to be similar to the way a dead body was boobie trapped killing one Marine and injuring five more. The whole place is one big stinking booby trap! Was he supposed to ask someone first: "excuse me, have these insurgents been checked for booby-traps yet?"

For those that are just joining the "He's Breathing!" fray let me at least do better than many others are doing and give you a known lead up taken from the source found above:

The Marine battalion stormed an unidentified mosque Saturday in southern Fallujah after taking casualties from heavy sniper fire and attacks with rocket-propelled grenades. Ten insurgents were killed and five others were wounded in the mosque and an adjacent building.

The Marines displayed a cache of rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles that they said the men were holding. They said the arms were conclusive evidence that insurgents had been using mosques as fighting positions in Fallujah, which they said made the use of force appropriate.

Does anyone else have a problem with the fact these insurgents were sniping us from a place of worship? Does anyone else have a problem with using a mosque as an arms cache? We are not fighting a conventional war against a conventional enemy. We are fighting a war against cowards and martyrs that will kill their own and themselves to ensure the disruption of Iraq. They honor no laws, even that of their own religion.

When the Marines left to advance farther south, the five wounded Iraqis, none of whose injuries appeared to be life-threatening, were left behind in the mosque for other Marines to evacuate for treatment.

Does anyone remember what happened in Saving Private Ryan to the guy they let go with instructions to surrender himself to the next passing unit? He ended up back with his unit to kill more allies. Apparently axis refortified the area before more Americans could backfill. Which brings us to the next paragraph:

Saturday, however, reports surfaced that mosques in the region had been reoccupied, including the mosque the Marine battalion had stormed the day before.

So the Mosque in question was considered to be refortified and everyone inside considered to be a hostile including the five left behind by the previous unit. A guy with a broken leg can still pull a trigger or set off an IED. The mosque on a whole was considered hostile.

Two units that were not involved in Friday’s fighting advanced on the mosque, one moving around the back and the second, accompanied by Sites, from the front. Sites said he could hear gunfire from inside.

So Sites heard gunfire. Who's gunfire? He was not there and the Marines outside did not know either. They heard gunfire and one would assume that there was fire in both directions. At least I would assume that there was mutual gunfire. This alerts me to the potential of a hostile environment, all insurgents to be treated as potentially hostile.

Now we enter the video clip. The unit coming in from the back enters a room in disarray and potentially at the tail end of a firefight. Was it over? Were those in the room confirmed prisoners? In the blink of an eye had the hostile insurgents become docile prisoners? Maybe a better question: did the unit coming in from the back know that those in the room were prisoners? They did not know they had been pacified. The Marine assumed that they had not been pacified and took what he felt was appropriate action. The same day this was happening this happened:

At the same time the incident was taking place in the mosque, a U.S. Marine was killed and five others were wounded when the booby-trapped body of a dead insurgent exploded. The judge advocate general heading the investigation of the mosque incident, Lt. Col. Bob Miller, told NBC News that depending on the evidence, it could be reasonable to conclude that the Marine was acting in self-defense.

“The policy of the rules of engagement authorize the Marines to use force when presented with a hostile act or hostile intent,” he said.

It is very possible to believe that the Marine was acting in self defense. It was even probable that he felt he was acting in self defense. Seeing and understanding the real hazards that reside in Falujah and elsewhere readily mark someone feigning anything, peace, friendship, civilian even death is a potential explosive device. He did what he though was protecting himself and his unit. He did the perceived right thing.

I'm not saying there are not war crimes that take place. The happen and are unfortunate. War is unfortunate. Bad things happen. For example the pictures and video footage of beheaded insurgents on Al-Jazeera. They may be the results of Marines conducting rogue actions and should be investigated to the fullest. So what's my point in all of this? What am I driving at?

This is what I'm driving at:

For those of you out there crying about rules of war and atrocities you may want to go play with your Barbie or have a mocha-decaf-nonfat-soy-latte with a dash of cinnamon or whatever the heck you want to drink. I don't want to hear it. Every time I turn a corner on the web I'm stuck reading a Kos or Atrios puppet complaining about how Bush never trained the Marines to be peaceful, gentle creatures or Rumsfeld is the antichrist and they both need to go to prison for war crimes. Bush and Rumsfeld have absolutely no bearing as to the day-to-day operations that go on there but somehow they manage to point every word back at Bush and the American right. It's as if their blog children treat these two internet dictators as legitimate news sources by themselves. I've tried to read the crap that spews from their fingers. But it's just that: crap. Everything that is being reported holds an attack slant against the troops and against the current administration. And their blog children eat every single word they serve up.

Don't take what they say for granted. Don't limit yourself to the sources they hand you. Kos and Atrios are not gods. They are not even real news sources. With the exception of the left wing anti-war blog machine they've made for themselves they are no greater human beings, they are no more insightful, they are no more intelligent, they are no more knowledgeable than me, the average, everyday American Warmonger.

They are not better than you either. Make up your own minds about things. Find your own real news sources. Think of things objectively before you believe what someone else has to say. I know anyone on the left will be scrutinizing my words. Why not take the next step and stop being sheep. If I hear "Atrios said" one more time I may become physically ill and you don't want that. Oh, wait, you hate me because I think differently and you'd like to see me physically ill. Don't be lambs for the slaughter.

ODB DOA After OD.

Russell Jones, also known as Ol' Dirty Bastard died this Saturday. After complaining of chest pains in the recording studio paramedics were unable to revive him and was pronounced dead on the scene. Although symptoms may reveal a heart attack or something many people believe it was an overdose. We'll all know after the results after the toxicology report in ten days time.

He was 35 and has 13 children who succeed him. The rap world mourned his loss on Sunday at the music awards. I don't wish him ill but I'm having a really hard time mourning his loss. I'll just show you his life in 1998 and you should understand why (Hat tip to Gin and Tacos for the year in the life):

Ol' Dirty Bastard, aka Big Baby Jesus, aka Osirus, aka Dirt McGirt, aka Dirt Dog, aka Joe Bannanas, aka Unique Ason, and real name Russell Jones

1998

FEB 2 - ODB rushes the stage at the Grammys after Wu Tang Clan is beat out of the award by Peff Daddy. LINK

APR 6 - ODB pleads guilt to attempted assult charges on Icelene Jones, mother of three of his 13 children. LINK

APR 28 - ODB changes his name to Big Baby Jesus. When asked why the change he replied "I always been Jesus" and he meant it. LINK

MAY 20 - After two warrants for his arrest due to missing court appointments ODB pledges to pay back child support of 35,000 (not what was owed but what was agreed upon) to Icelene Jones, the mother of three of his children ande attempted assult victim. LINK

JUL 4 - ODB/BBJ accused of stealing a pair of 50$ Nikes from a store in Virginia Beach, VA. His summons is for JUL 28. LINK

JUL 29 - A warrant is issued for his arrest after he fails to show for the JUL 28 summons. LINK

AUG 11 - ODB misses second court appearance claiming that bad weather prevented him from coming down from New York. The judge is nice and reschedules the date. LINK

AUG 13 - ODB misses his third appointment with justice. An order for his arrest with no possibility of bail has been issued. LINK

SEP 17 - ODB arrested at the House of Blues in West Hollywood after being kicked out for being drunk and disorderly then returning to threaten to shoot the bouncers. The threat is a felony offense and his court date was Oct. 8. LINK

SEP 30 - ODB is ejected from the Four Seasons hotel in Berlin, Germany for lude behavior. The guests complained that he was literally hanging out on his balcony...naked. LINK

NOV 6 - ODB is arrested again for threatening to kill someone. This time it's his 27 year old ex-girlfreind and mother of his one year old child. He was arrested while trying to climb over a security fence at her place of work. LINK

It wouldn't be too horribly bad if this was just a really, really, really bad year but most of the late 90s look like this year. He spent some time in prison since 1998 and may have mellowed but he died while still on parole. Still being on parole is not very inticative of someone that has turned his life around. At least not yet. Overall, he's not the kind of influence I would like for my son. Again, I'm not really glad that he died but at the same time I will not be one who mourns his loss.

I DID IT!!!

If you'll take your eye's to the right side of the screen. Yes, the red part. You will notice that my links menu has changed once again. It's not quite as clean but it is now FireFox freindly. Many of you really wouldn't care but after some sitemeter review I noticed about 13% of my traffic was using Firefox. I know that probably equates to two users but that would be two users I ordinarily wouldn't have.

Th new mouse-over effect is courtesy of Dynamic Drive.If anyone has any problems with the new mouse-over effect or anything else you can kiss my white, hairy, stinky ass. You really don't want to know how long it took me to get the new code to work right.

Enjoy the new look.

...Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I just added FeedBurner as well. So You're into that kind of thing you're welcome to it.

Who's Next?

Now that the election season has come and gone I've noticed a big drop in traffic as I'm sure many of you have. It's not the end of the world but it's slowed down a bit. I'm guessing things will pick back up in a week or two, maybe a month. This was a great election season that brought the birth of blogging but many will be willing to turn their back on this form of media until the next presidential election season in four years. So I'd like to start a bit early. I believe the first order of business is to find out who's going to be there in 2008. So lets begin this with who we believe are potential candidates.

Republicans:

Jeb Bush - The brother of current president George W. Bush and Governor of Florida. Even if he runs I don't believe he's get a snowball's chance in hell of winning. If there's a ballot joke to be had he's the butt of it.

John Thune - The David to Tom Dashle's Goliath. No one expected him to take down the senate minority leader but guess what? He did. I can't remember the last time anyone was able to do this. The only way I've ever seen a minority or majority leader go is by retirement or death. It was a great feat, one he may be able to take all the way to the White House.

AAAAnuld - I really doubt that anyone will change the law to allow foreign-born Americans the ability to become president but stranger things have happened. How many governors do can you remember that have been movie stars....wait, never mind. Must have forgot about Reagan in the same state or Jesse Ventura in Minnesota. If he is a candidate I'd be willing to bet his father's sordid past with Nazi Germany will be drug through not just a mud pit, but a bog.

John McCain - The Republican candidate that lost the nomination to George W. Bush. If anyone mentions some leftist crap about Bush slandering him like he did to Kerry you will be instantly banned for life. John McCain has had an exemplary war record and it was brought up in the most recent campaign. He's someone the Left can accept for his frequent splits with the hard line Republicans and the right loves him because, well, how many POWs doesn't the right love?

Rudy Giuliani - The mayor of New York on 9/11. His is a name that has been kicked around by a few people here and there. He represents The core of our turbulence with terrorism. Anyone stating that he doesn't care about terrorism would be summarily beaten with a wet noodle. If this next election turns out to be about terrorism then Rudy's the man. If the next election is about something else then it's anybody's bet.

Democrats:

John Kerry - Kerry lost by a miniscule 2% - 3% of the popular vote. He managed to get more votes than the best previous winner, ever. Many people like Kerry and with four years to think about it he may be able to hash out his plan for America into something a little less nuanced. He'll be a front-runner in 2008, I'd put money on it but unfortunately I don't gamble.

John Edwards - Bob's Big Boy or the Breck girl, any way you slice him he's still considered a young pup on capital hill. In two years I'd be more than willing to bet that he'll be there again. And in four years he'll be sitting at that table again with Kerry, Hillary, Lieberman and of course, everyone's favorite, Al Sharpton. Maybe he'll get the nod in 2012 if the Democrats don't win in 2008.

Joeseph Lieberman - Many people on the right have taken a good hard look at Lieberman and feel that he's a lot closer to the center than any of the other candidates. I know that this usually doesn't equate to a Democratic nominee but it makes him more appealing to the Republican Party. It's not the hard left that they need to worry about; It's the hard right.

I just had a frightening thought: we could have Liberman against Shwarzeneggar, the Jew Vs. the Nazi. That would be rather ugly.

Barack Obama - His speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention mad a lot of people stand up and take notice. If nothing else he's a powerful speaker and more than likely a great debater as well. I don't see Barack taking the White House in 2008 for the same reason I don't see it for John Edwards; He's a kid. He doesn't even fill out his suit. It looks like his suit was borrowed from his father. Again, look for him coming up in 2012 or even 2016.

Hillary Clinton - The wife of Bill Clinton has had multiple nods from the media nearly begging her to run. She continually states that she's not going to but who really knows what she has in mind. The same on this goes for Jeb Bush that claims he's not running in 2008. Both of them will be in the media spotlight come 2008, mark my words. As for Hillary's ability to take the White House, I don't think she'll make it. Many of her views and decisions are much further left than most Republicans could pallet, and even further than some on the left are willing to go.

Other:

Dick - Dick has announced his candidacy for president and I'm sure many of you reading this would agree he'd get things done even if he had to kick a foreign leader square in the balls to do it. Dick has my vote for the pure and simple fact that he'll put me in his cabinet if elected. Another benefit is that we can put some really cool bumper stickers on our cars.

I'm sure I've left a few people out. Heck, I didn't even consider the Green, libertarian, Constitution or even the Socialist parties. I'm only going to be focusing on the two major parties, and Dick as I really don't foresee any legislative miracle that would allow any of these other parties any chance for election. Dick is the exception as if all the bloggers in the world push him out there we could make history. Hell, we brought down the whole of the mainstream media. The White House should be a shoe in.

So this is what I'm looking for: If there are any major players on either side of the fence that I've left out let me know. I'm sure there are a few. In a few days I'll put up the first election 2008 poll. If I do it now I think I'll be the first one. If not, it should still be fun to see where everyone's preferences lay. This will also be an non-discriminate vote. I'll separate by party but I encourage everyone to vote on both candidates.

May the 2008 elections commence!

Scott Peterson Found Guilty!

Finally, the Scott Peterson trial has come to an end. The jury has found him guilty in the first degree. After all of the hype they have finally come to the conclusion that he done did the deed. The only thing left for the media to rant and slobber over is whether he'll get the death penalty or not. Considering the location of the trial it is doubtful that this will come about. More than likely he will get life without parole.

Now that it's over here's my one and only rant on the subject:

How in the hell does a crap salesman (yes, he sold fertilizer) murdering his wife and dumping the body in a lake make national news? Why the hell does he get special attention? Was he John Kerry or George Bush's fertilizer salesman? I could see them needing one with the ammount they flung around this election season. Unfortunately, he was none of this. He was some asshat that was cheating on his wife and ended up killing her. He was a no name with a pretty face. Is this what we're coming to? Is this going to be the next round of reality shows? CBS presents - The most cutting edge reality show ever: Congenial Killers! Come on, I know you're thinking the same thing as me: You really don't care how this thing went as long as you didn't have to hear about it anymore. One crap salesman down, two more to go; Where's Carl Rove and Mary Beth Cahill?

Rant part 2:
I'm going to throw my death penalty views in here because, well, it could happen to the turd. I believe that Scott Peterson should not be visiting Arafat in hell anytime soon. All evidence convicting him was circumstantial. Granted, there was a huge pile of circumstantial evidence but there still could have been a way, a remote way, that it might not have been him. Do we really want to kill an innocent man? People in America are sent to death row every year that are not guilty of the crime they were charged with. Innocent people have been killed. There is no justification for this. It's just plain wrong. I'm not advocating getting rid of the death penalty though. I'm advocating making it harder to sentence someone to death. I would like to see something like: "murder in the first degree", and "abso-friggin-lutely guilty of murder".

I would even go so far as to streamline the wait for those that had video documentation or other equally damning evidence. There's no reason we should have to wait 20 years to take someone out of this world that desperately needs it. The thing that gets in the way most of the time is the appeals process. Even if there was a signed confession, murder weapon, videotape, DNA evidence, and 50 witnesses they still get to appeal their case. I don't want to see that part go away because it sometimes helps those that are innocent go free but we should really fast track the ones that really need killin'. They should even be able to wave their right to appeals and we could take them out of this world the next day. I really don't want my tax dollars spent on some convict we know killed someone egregiously to just sit in jail sucking up our hard earned money. Put them down, they deserve it.

It's about Friggin' Time!

Yasser Arafat is dead. I called him dead last week here. He's been dead for a week. Don't let anyone tell you different. You can keep a headless man on life support but that doesn't mean he's alive. I find it funny how they made sure to keep him on life support for a week. The theories as to why they would do this are:

1.
According to Islamic law, he needs to be sent to hell...er...planted within a rather short period of time after his death. No one would take him. They didn't want to put him in Palestine and Israel told them to pack sand so they finally had to settle on the Gaza Strip. I was willing to suggest that he take Jim Morison's plot in France and we can take Jim back stateside. That way Americans would have no reason to go to France unless it was to spit on something, like Arafat's grave.

2.
Everyone was trying to figure out where he stashed all of his money. It is understood that Mr. Tablecloth-for-a-hat was worth around 2 Billion or so. His wife, who hasn't seen him in ages, has been living off her inheritance in France and would like to cash in her chips as the heir to everything. I'm sure the rest of the PLO would like a share of it as well. My guess is that one of the major topics of discussion was how to funnel everything out of his Swiss bank account before they pulled the plug. This is only my speculation though and all of the money he was holding for the Palestinian people will be distributed back into their government structure....right? Let me say this again...around 2 Billion, with a "B".

3.
The question on everyone's mind is who will be taking over and what will happen to the PLO? They've been running around like chickens with their heads cut off hoping beyond hope that Are-ya-fat will have a lucid moment, wake up and name them the next dictator. Well, this didn't happen and all of the lemmings had to make up their own minds for a change. The most obvious choice was made. Mahmud Abbas, the leader of the Fatah organization that has challenged Arafat for the throne was unilaterally chosen to head the PLO. The Fatah organization has gone to Farouk Khadoumi the long time foreign minister that was an outspoken critic of the Oslo peace accord. He was thought to be the eventual successor to Arafat by some. Many people consider this a great decision. Unless he's assassinated, like often happens in the west bank, Abbas will more than likely be a strong supporter of peace negotiations in the near future.

I really should not be happy about anyone's death but I am happy about what Arafat's death may bring. Abbas has done great things in the past and would have probably done more if he wasn't stifled by Yessir. He was one of the major aides in Oslo and publicly calls for an end to the Palestinian resistance movement with frequency. This is not a guarantee of peace on the West Bank but it is definitely looking good. It's about Friggin' time!

Happy Donut day!

I've been unable to find the original POW remembrance about today but I'll try to retell it to the best of my ability.

Many years ago, in a place called Vietnam, there was an American prisoner of war camp. Life at such camp was brutal with almost daily beatings and interrogations. It was a hard life but most people survived by the little things that they could pull over on their captors. One such event was the American national holiday, donut day. Occasionally at the POW camp the captors would treat their prisoners to a Vietnamese semi-sweet bread that resembled a donut. After one of the standard interrogations the prisoner came back not dejected but barely stifling roucous laughter. He had managed to convince the Viet Cong that today, the 10th of November was a great American holiday. He had convinced them it was going to be donut day. Two weeks or so went by before the 10th and sure enough, the Viet Cong had brought the inmates each a donut. They had succeeded, they had convinced the Viet Cong to celebrate the fictional holiday of Donut Day! Just another fine example of American injenuity in the face of adversity.

Why is this so important? There is no donut day but the story is true. The Viet Cong did celebrate donut day on the 10th of November. So what would be such a great success if it wasn't for just another date? For those of you who don't know today is the Marine Corps' birthday! The young marine had convinced his captors to celebrate the Marine Corps birthday!

Happy 229th birthday Marine Corps!!!

So What's The Deal With All The Cats?

Everybody else is taking pictures of stinking cats. So the question is: If everyone was jumping off a bridge would you?..Yeah, probably.

...and here's a cute photoshop my grandma sent me. The way things are going I might have to start a family blog in addition to this one:

NEW BLOGGER ALERT!

Kristian, a Navy buddy of both Radio Cyborg and I has his first post up. Unless someone knows of anyone else I'm claiming him as The first "Post-Election" blogger to the sphere. Please welcome him aboard.

I alomst forgot. His blog is: Second Hand Hate Speech

La' Migra'!

Liberal Warrior has boldly gone where no politician has dared to go: Immigration Reform

Since no one covers this I've got absolutely no idea where I should stick this...please no comment. Since this started on the Left I'll add some text to the Right.

So, the problem as Liberal Warrior sees it is simple enough to solve with the three things we see on the surface: residency for those aliens already here, migrant worker visas and tightening up the border. I wish it were that easy but I don’t think it is. If it were it would have been done years ago. I'm not saying that these are the wrong three things to be looking at. I'm saying that they're the tip of the iceberg.

The INS (Immigration and Nationalization Service) has been traditionally one of the slowest and ridiculous branches of the government we have. Go down to your local INS office and try to get something done on your lunch hour. Unless you've got all of your paperwork completed and bribed your way to the head of the line you will not make it in time.

The painful slowness doesn't end there. Imagine you need to do something other than get a simple visa. Imagine you need to file your paperwork for permanent residency. Your one time, two hour long wait has now turned into at least three separate two hour long waits and potentially a three hour long interview after the year and a half you've waited for them to complete your paperwork.

If it sounds like I have some personal vestment in this waste of agency you're right. My wife is a Korean national. The two years from entry in country to permanent resident status was my own. It was not three visits with an interview, it was six. Three of those times were to get the proper paperwork (still with a two hour wait) because they didn't understand what a PDF was. Fortunately, our interview only took 30 minutes to an hour. Eventually she wants to get her citizenship but if we have to deal with those knuckleheads again I don't know if she'll ever be sworn in.

The reason that politicians don't bring up immigration is because the entire system needs to be completely redone from the top down. Let me explain in detail:

To their credit, they have made filing and printing most of your paperwork much easier to do. Much of their paperwork is now both online and has e-file. However, everything sent to them via e-file still has to be printed out and ferreted around to their paper laden desks. Hearken back, if you will, to the newsy days when your inbox was actually a wooden box and not sponsored by Microsoft Outlook. This is where they still sit. It is still done by pen and ink, not pixels. The solution to this is quite simple to anyone smart enough to have heard of a digital signature. Take away the paper and make their processes electronic.

Now what does this have to do with aliens? How does that help terror at home? Remember this: many of the terrorists involved with the actions of 9/11 were already on an international watch list for terror. The slow and inefficient paper filing of the INS allowed them to live in this country unadulterated for years. There was and is no digital database for all of the INS paperwork. It is still put on pieces of paper and stuffed in one of many filing cabinets to collect dust. With digital filing and processing they could create an instantly accessible database nationally or even internationally.

I know a little bit of work has been done with this but it only catches a few people, like Cat Stephens. Some have said the system they have is nearly impossible to keep updated and improbable to catch anyone with. Knowing that Cat or Allah or whatever his alias is this week, donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Hamas is good enough for me. Keep him in Europe where they sympathize with moonbats. The system is flawed and does need improvements, vast improvements. Oracle has a good product that could easily be used to database everything in the INS. They could even tie it in with Social Security. For those out there that believe this is an impossible task ask yourself how credit card companies do it. If MasterCard can find you when you miss a payment then why can't the INS if you stayed late on your visa? They're dragging their feet don't let them fool you.

Now that I've gotten that piece off my chest let me address the three aforementioned proposals:

▼
At 8 to 12 million aliens there is absolutely no way to send them all back to where they came from. Much of our land was once their land. L.A. stands for Los Angeles, the city of Angels. It was named by the locals and not the cowboys that took over and sent them all to Mexico. There was a war about it and unless we want to declare war on L.A. I think we need to take the suggested approach and streamline a system for undocumented workers.

Here is my approach for doing this:

We need to have a moratorium for undocumented workers in America. All those in the country without paperwork would have a set amount of time in which to find a job and file paperwork for moratorium status. They would not be provided full citizenship but would be protected as a migrant worker residing in the United States. I would give a period of three months in which to find a job and file paperwork as a migrant worker. Anyone unable to comply with this would be subject to immediate deportation. If we have to rent busses or semi-trucks for one mass drop then that's what we'll have to do. They will have been given their golden opportunity and if they choose to ignore it they can suffer the consequences.

Those that have filed paperwork (or e-filed, preferably) would be given the opportunity to file for citizenship in two years time of continuous work with no break in employment greater than four months in total unpaid unemployment. I know the influx of 8 to 12 million filers would be considered daunting to the current INS but again, if the go digital and streamline their aged systems it could be just slightly better than absolute chaos. The standard citizenship procedures would apply including the test and interview but those with an employer's recommendation would get priority in paperwork processing. Hopefully, that would assist in prioritizing processing and additionally aid in reducing fraud.

▼
What about the people crossing our borders everyday to find work? They do the jobs we don't want to do. They do the jobs that our kids don't even want to do. They pick our cabbages, strawberries, blueberries, and tomatoes. They do all this because it's a better life than they had before. The people who employ them know they're paying them slave wages. They give them no medical support and are not above beating them because they know they won't say anything for fear of being deported. My above solution will help those that are already here but does nothing for those who flood the borders every day.

Something California has tried to do now and again is create a migrant worker visa. These are people that would cross the border in the morning, work in our fields and go back to Mexico in the evening. Every time this proposition has hit the table it has been shot down by people who don't understand it. They are afraid that it will mean people will lose their jobs and those not losing their jobs would get paid less due to the foreign competition. What I propose is that in order to a position to be filled by a migrant worker it would need to be unemployable to the standard American. With the previous solution we may not have too many jobs available to fill but that will eventually change as those applying for citizenship gradually become more educated and thus retain more technical positions. It would only be used when citizens or migrant residents are unavailable or unwilling to take the jobs. It would also not be considered an "all or nothing" endeavor. If a farm needs 200 people to pick cabbage and half of those positions are filled with teenagers or migrant residents then the remaining 100 positions could be picked up by migrant workers.

This covers the problem of having jobs that no American or migrant resident would want but does little to quell the flow of illegal border traffic. The solution to this problem lies in making it so Mexicans do not need or want to cross the border looking for work. Something I have become more familiar with as of late are tariffs and import taxes. It appears that one of the things keeping poor countries poor are the taxes levied against them for import goods. If we were to reduce those taxes and tariffs against high migration counties, such as Mexico, we would increase the real Gross Domestic Product of that country and ultimately increase the yearly salary of workers in Mexico and other countries. With increased pay and better living conditions available through the greater GDP there will be less of a desire to cross the border to find work. This may seem very nuanced but it's really quite simple. If you can get them paid well in their own country they won't need to come infiltrate ours.

▼
The third and final suggestion (Yes, I've got an end to this thing.) was to get tough on the borders. If what I have suggested above does not completely correct the problem, which I doubt anything will completely, we need to enhance the border guards to reduce the flow of undocumented workers/illegal aliens. Something I noticed while living on the border of San Diego and Tijuana was that the only people allowed to touch an unauthorized border crosser was The Border Patrol. The police have absolutely no jurisdiction unless they try to break into your house or make an attempt to harm you. Simply jumping over your six foot tall fence and looking through your windows as they pass through is not enough to stir up the police. It reminds me of the separation between the CIA and the FBI. It's a wall that doesn't need to be there. The police should be able to assist in border issues and vice versa. If we need to make it illegal to cross the border without papers for the police to get involved then that's what we have to do. I understand that legitimate police work takes precedence over border issues but I'm sure there could be some assistance in both directions.

▼
You can shoot all of this down if you want but at least give me the common courtesy of providing an alternate solution. It won't work man! Your idea sucks! is not a proper response. If you've got a better way say so. I'm not the mad scientist that knows everything. Input is greatly encouraged. Since the politicians won't touch this with a ten-foot pole it's up to us to make these things up. Who knows, maybe we can propose some sort of joint referendum to congress?

Cross-Posted at The Left Right Debate Here.

Update on Children's Vote

Anybody remember the picture of my six year old son holding up his voter registration card? The Local newspaper fanally has something about it in this Sunday's paper. The following is their small but to the point article.

Bush won local children's vote

President Bush won not only the official vote in Virginia Tuesday, but the children of Hampton Roads also chose to grant him a second term.

Of the more than 46,000 young people who cast ballots alongside parents at polling places on Election Day, 57 percent supported Bush while 42 percent backed Democratic challenger Sen. John F. Kerry. The Constitution and Libertarian party candidates split the remaining votes.
Hundreds of volunteers staffed more than 250 polling places throughout the region as part of Kids Voting USA, a national program whose local chapters help children develop the habit of voting.

Winsome E. Sears may wish the children's votes counted. They gave her the nod in the 3rd District congressional race, though she lost the real election to incumbent Robert C. "Bobby" Scott.

In the 1st and 4th districts, children voted to return incumbent congressional Reps. Jo Ann Davis and J. Randy Forbes, respectively. In the 2nd, they opted for Thelma Drake.

I could make some comment about how Republicans teach their kids at a young age but that would be both stupid and wrong. The moral of this article is that we are the ones that teach our children how to do everything, even vote. If you want your children to make a change then teach them to make a change. Usually, not always, they turn out to be exactly what you put into them. If you speak slang and foul language then they will grow up to do the same thing. They may make their own future but it's up to us to show them the way.

Poetry from the Family

Somehow I inspired my grandma to start writing political poetry. I can now see where I got my way with words. I nearly wet myself when I read it. Here's one from my grandma:

WE LOVE GEORGIE

GEORGIE PORGIE PUDDIN PIE
KICKED KERRY’S ASS AND MADE HIM CRY,
GOOD OLD GEORGIE SAVED THE DAY,
MADE GOOF-ASS KERRY RUN AWAY.

GEORGIE PORGIE TELLS THE TRUTH,
HE AIN’T FULL OF CRAP AND SPOOF,
HE’S GOT A PLAN A GOOD ONE TOO,
HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT TO DO.

HE DON’T WASTE OUR DOUGH ON SUNNY BEACHES,
GLUTTING BOOZE WITH POLITICAL LEACHES,
HE WORKS AND SWEATS JUST LIKE A MAN,
DON’T FLIT AROUND LIKE PETER-PAN.

HE WALKS THE WALK AND TALKS THE TALK,
ENEMY THREATS DON’T MAKE HIM BALK,
HE STANDS FIRM, HE KNOWS HE’S RIGHT,
HE WON’T RUN, HE’LL STAND AND FIGHT!

WHEN ALL IS FINALLY SAID AND DONE,
AND ANNIE PUT’S AWAY HER GUN,
WHEN THE TERRORISTS ARE ALL PUT TO REST,
AND THE U.S.A. HAS PASSED THE TEST

AMERICA WILL REMAIN A NATION,
THAT DOESN’T REFUSE AN INVITATION,
SENT IN THE FORM OF TERRORIST ATTACK,
WATCH AMERICA SEND IT BACK!

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND LET FREEDOM REIGN!

By old granny

Arafat's Health is Deteriorating Quickly...And There Was Much Rejoicing

Here's the best news on this situation a pajama-journalist can present:

Yasser Arafat's health has been failing for some time now. He has been sent from his home to France for better medical care. Today, the 4th of November, Arafat was transfered to another more intensive care wing of the hospital. Reports from French and Paliestinian papers stated that he has died. French and Palestinian officials have stated that he is not dead but his health is failing quickly. The Palestinians were also quick to note that if Yasser Arafat were to die they would not tell the world until 72 hours after in order to have all of their leaders meet and determine the nations best course of political action. The palestinian government officials have started a major meeting earlier today. He's dead. By thier own inadvertent admission, he's dead. Meeting equals dead. One plus one equals dead. He has assumed room temperature. D-E-D dead. (Got anymore? I'll add em'.)

Here's my cruel and mean spirited commentary. His body's not even cold yet and I'm dancing on his grave:

With Yasser Arafat's death we usher in the potential for a free and peaceful accord between Israel and Palestine. I wish this would have happened years ago. The terrorist leader, Yasser Arafat, made the world look like a bunch of fools. Yeah, I said it; Yasser Arafat is the real leader of the Hamas. He fooled the world into thinking that he was really working towards peace. He made the Nobel peace prize look like a Razzie. His only intention since the beginning was to take our charity towards the Palestinian people for himself. He is nothing but a table-cloth-hat wearing thief and a wannabe-cowboy thug. I, for one, will dance on his grave while the dirt is still fresh.

Now that he's dead, or soon to be if you want to believe the French, how can the peace be brokered in Gaza? What will happen to the leadership of Palestine? Arafat named no successor so it's anybody's ball-game. The problem I foresee is that none of his cronies appear to be any more competent or any less of a thief or a thug. I pray I am wrong for the sake of the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Assimilated Yet again

I have been invited to the contributors at The Left-Right Debate. Some of the all-stars include but are not limited to: Jane from Armies of Liberation, Tim Kelly from Crack The Bell, Doug from Loose Coin, Gordon from Cranky Neocon and a few other heavy hitters. If you haven't been there it's a site to remember and put into your links. You won't be sorry. Here's the link.

I'll try to include original work on both sites around once a day but my first post will be a cross-post.

Here's the article in response to this post:

Four More Years of The Same

Today is November 3rd. Enough of the votes have been counted to make the determination that Bush is the clear winner. America has chosen. It is over. Now we are in for four more years of the same. So what does more of the same come down to? What will happen in the next four years? Will there be a draft? Will there be another attack on America? Will George Clooney turn into a puppet and start killing terrorists lead by a puppet version of Kim Jong Il? Will more of the same really be that much of a bad thing?

To see the future we must revisit the past. What has happened in the past four years that would continue as more of the same?:

«»
Everyone’s focus has been on what we are doing in the Middle East. It is right to be focused on this area of the world. There are many things that need to be done there and we already have an indication of more of the same. Today, as a matter of fact, Afghanistan officially chose as a free democratic voting country Hamid Karzai as their new president. If this is what more off the same means I can’t wait for the elections in Iraq. Sure, some may say that we keep having to push it back, some areas will not be able to vote, it won’t be a true election. I need only remind you that John Forbes Kerry could have stretched our own elections out by weeks in only one state but had the foresight to concede his inevitable defeat. We could have had something even nastier than the Florida recounts. No elections are perfect and I could do with more of the same.

«»
A couple of weeks ago I was speaking with a teacher friend of mine. Fittingly, she was a French teacher working on her masters degree in that field. For some reason I made the mistake of wanting to hear from the horse’s mouth how the no child left behind act was going. She replied that it was horrible. She had to do all this extra paperwork and testing and it wasn’t fully funded. So I asked where the funding was being stopped at. She said hat it was Bush that only put up half the money. I then asked if she knew that the states had not requested the funds that were made available. She could not respond. She did no know. She only knew what whe had been told. The gossip that floats around the teacher’s lounge. I have yet to hear of one instance where anyone with the proper paperwork has been turned down for funding about the no child left behind act. As for the paperwork and the testing, I thought that was the point; to make a stucured educational system that would test our children at an early age to get them on a track that would eventually make them a more educated, more productive member of American society.

On saturday, the results from Virginia’s SOL (Standards of Learning) testing came out for the Hampton Roads area. Every year since the inception of the no child left behind act we have continually improved. Thechnical data for varification can be found here. Par particular close attention to the jump in 2001. If this is any indication of more to come I say bring it on.

«»
Are you afraid of losing your job in the Bush economy? I’m not. Why should I be? Bush inherited a 5.4 unemployment rate at the end of Bill Clinton’s internet boom, that Gore invented. George Bush did have a rocky time in the first two years of his election with reference to jobs but has somehow brought the unemployment rate back down to 5.4% and is still getting better. If the holiday season is even a fraction of what it’s like in any other year he will not even have lost jobs like people portend. Rusty has more on the reworking of numbers here. If Bush actually did lose jobs in total, he still would not be the first to do so. Carter, bay all rights was abysmal and Reagan’s first term wasn’t that great either. Every month though we are showing a new gain of at least 100,000 jobs per month. If this is what we have to look forward to under four more years, I’ll have a heaping plate of “more of the same” please.

«»
Something that people rarely if ever take into consideration when calculating how badly Bush has screwed up this or that is the catastrophic effects terrorism has played in this country. 9/11 caused the stock market to plummmet, the job market to drop and government investments to evaporate. We have always bounced back to become even stronger in trying times like these. Peal Harbor was a completely devastating blow to America that we bounced back from with such effect that we are now Japan’s military security force. Normandy held the death of thousands upon thousands of Americans but held with it the promise of a Europe free from Hitler the great dictator. It is historical that with most every great stumbling block we have had even greater success. We have already had our stumbling block. Now it’s time for more of the same.

¥ Now that you've read this, you need to go to The Left-Right Debate and read more.

Cleveland Rocks!! Kerry Sucks!!

I'm sure by the end of the day there be 101 Drew Carrey/John Kerry jokes floating around and I thought I should throw one in before the lawyers (John and John) try to sue their way to victory so here goes: (Ohio residents this joke has no ill will towards you. It's just a joke.)

The only two good things to come out of Ohio are Drew Carrey and a Kerry defeat.

(I'm sure there are more Carrey/Kerry jokes out there but I'm just too tired to care right now.)

The state of the states:

Bush has won the election by a narrow margin. There are at least three states that have or could go to George Bush to put him past 269 votes after Ohio is officially won. It doesn't really matter if we don't get any more votes because if we're tied with 269 the vote goes to the senate and I've got another cheesey joke for that:

Q: What sound did Dashle's career make when it went up in smoke?

A: THUNE!

I don't think anyone was expecting that one. Republicans continue to dominate the legislative branch. We're all over. We're multiplying. We're like cockroaches; you just can't kill us off! Unless I missed a couple numbers, we actually gained a seat or two. Bush will undoubtedly be voted in should it come down to it, which I doubt.

As for Ohio. Today John Kerry and John Edwards have the opportunity to do a noble thing or a despicable thing. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, or Iraq, you've been briefed only slightly that Ohio has turned into a Vietnam style quagmire, complete with a Vietnam vet. Here's how it all breaks out:

Bush is ahead in Ohio with 136,221 votes more than Kerry. This gives him a 2% lead. It appears that Bush is the winner. But wait! There's more! Ohio had a large influx of provisional ballots. These are ballots that weren't registered, their absentee ballot didn't show up on time, they ate their voter registration card and were too intimidated to show I.D. or whatever and are held provisionally in case there is a vote that is close enough for them to potentially change the outcome. In this case, they would need a total of at least 136,222 provisional ballots for any of them to be counted. The democrats are claiming over 250,000 legal ballots but that is yet to be seen. Republicans come up with a much lower number. We should see that roll out some time today.

If it turns out there were enough provisional ballots Kerry's only chance is if a whopping majority of those votes go to Kerry. First, they have to cover the 136,221 vote lead and then they have to cover an additional 49.75% of the rest of them in order to go on to the next phase:

In order for any form of recount to be conducted in the state of Ohio you need to have a race within .25% of each other. I don't really think that's going to be much of a problem. If the number is 250,000 they would need to come up with about 187,500 or roughly 75% of those votes to cause a recount and for lawyers to be viable.

If this fails Kerry and they still try to sue over something I call upon everyone, left and right to hunt both of them down and pummel the living crap out of them for trying to disgrace the United States with their inability to accept reality. You though I was jaded and baised before, you aint' seen nuthin' yet!

I Voted!

Yes, It's official. I was number 1571 at my polling station. I wasn't allowed to take a camera in the building but I got a few shots from outside. First, lets do a comparison of the two party representatives at the station. (I know the pictures are HUGE but I think detail is important)

(Something not pictured but should be noted: There was a dashed line ouside of the building that the party representatives were not allowed to cross.)

Here's the Republican representative. I don't know her name because I didn't interview either candidate but she was being approached by many more people than the Democratic representative. (Only my son approached the Democrat rep. and told him he was voting for Bush. What a good boy!) Some of you may say that I waited for hours for a photo op. like this one. That's not true. That's the picture I got the moment I got out of my car. She presented herself well and people responded to that, or it could be the fact that the only place Democrats can stick an election sign in Chesapeake, VA is on public property.

[picture taken to get my sidebar back]

Here's the Democratic representative. Since he wasn't being approached by anyone he had the opportunity to pose for me. He seemed like an alright kind of guy, jovial but he really could have presented himself a bit better. You are representing a presidential candidate. You should dress accordingly. That's just my opinion.
One last note: upon completion of both myself and my son voting (for Bush) the Republican representative was still talking to people but the Democratic representative was smoking a cigarette. He has every right to smoke wherever the heck he wants to but again, it's inappropriate behavior when you're representing a presidential candidate.

[picture taken to get my sidebar back]

Last but not least, here's my son, Brandon. In his right hand he holds a "Hampton Roads Kids Voter Registration Card". The school kids in hampton roads are voting as well as their parents. They even have children assisting with their polling. It was a great experience for him even though he originally wanted to vote for Sponge Bob. He ended up voting Bush for president. Asking him why Bush he said "because he's the president". For some reason I believe that will be the case in many voters minds, especially the undecided. I've read a couple articles on the subject and that's what all of them say: undecideds vote for the incumbent.
Since we're in the 38th congressional district of Virginia my son also voted for Randy Forbes, another incumbent. I didn't help him with this one, honest!

[picure taken to get my sidebar back]

Now that I'm home again after voting George Bush for president and Randy Forbes as congressman I took the AOL Exit Poll. It provides instant results nationally and state by state instantly. If this is a true indication of how things will turn out Bush will have a clean sweep of all 50 states PLUS D.C.!! If you haven't already taken the exit poll go here now!

Blog The Vote!!!

So,

Who are you voting for?

Today is the day. Go to your local polling station and let your voice be heard whoever your candidate is. I'm planning on picture blogging my vote if they'll let me. If they do I'll be posting it later tonight before the world starts live blogging the debacle. Now here's a statement that everyone can agree on:

GO VOTE!!!!

Twas the night before voting

I just re-worked The Night Before Christmas. Let me know what you think!

WARNING: This is winger poetry. Made by a winger for wingers. Weiners read on at your own risk!

Twas the night before voting and all through the House,
Not a representative was stirring, not even Nancy Pelosi; (couldn't find a rime)
The ballots were held in the centers with care,
In hopes that no voter fraud would be found there;

The voters were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of run-offs danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just turned on the news. What a large pile of crap,

On the White House lawn there arose such a clatter,
The marines jumped into action to see what was the matter.
Away to their posts they flew like a flash,
Turned on their sirens with lights that would flash.

The moon at their backs and wouldn't you know,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But Osama Bin-Laden, and eight terror bombadeers,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment I was going to be sick.
More rapid than camels his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Dashle! now, Daniel! now, Boxer and Clinton!
On, Corzine! on Conrad! on, Durbin and Feinstein!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the van full of bombs, and Osama too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of McGreevy, the goof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney Osama came with a bound.

He was dressed in fatigues, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes smelled a bit like some ass and a foot;
A bomb-belt of his he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a homeless guy strung out on crack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how sKerrey!
His cheeks were quite sunken, freind of Marion Barry?
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was grey and white like bad snow;

The stump of a hooka he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke that encircled his head really reaked;
He had a thin face and absolutely no belly,
He shook, when he coughed like a girl with R-Kelly

Bush, at work with a slump, took his gun from a shelf,
And he laughed when he saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

Bush spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled him with lead; that will deal with the jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, Osama Bin Laden was hosed;

He sprang to his door, to marines gave a whistle,
To their posts they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he rode out the night,
"HAPPY VOTING TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-FIGHT!"

Terror of Future Past

We've all got views about what is shaping America today.
Maybe it's this:

Maybe you were in New York and it was this:

[picture removed to regain sidebar]

Some people are affected by the power of individual loss and were most affected by this:

Still others are affected by the total carnage and will be affected by this:

They are horrible images, every last one of them. I wish I didn't have to show these images of grim reminders, terror of future past if you will. This is our heritage whether we like it or not.

These are not the first images of terror in America's future. We have a long and democratic history of erring on the side of forgiveness. Times I remember that we forgot who we are and what we stand for are here:

Lets start with the terror of Beiruit in 1983:

Now we should move to the first WTC attack in 1993:

Does anyone remember Nairobi Kenya? I know I sure do:

Of course, everyone remembers Khobar Towers:

The call to arms should have been from any one of these acts of barbarism. The USS Cole bombing should have at least put someone, Osama Bin-Laden, behind bars:

[photo removed to regain sidebar]

Each one of these pictures we should have cried over collectively as a nation. I fear many of us do not fully realize the challenge our great nation is facing. We have placated a problem that for decades has been killing Americans and we did nothing. We had many warnings and we did nothing. We had suicicide bombings and we did nothing. We lost the lives of innocents abroad and we still did nothing. It is time for us to stop doing nothing. It is time for us to take up arms against our enemies and make right what once went wrong. Now is not the time for peace. Now is the time to restore our freedom from fear. Now is the time to show the world how oppressive governments and ideals will be treated by the United States of America. Now is the time for war.

Please vote responsibly for whoever you believe can set right what once went wrong. These are the elections that shape the direction our country will move. If you believe Kerry will lead a smarter war on terror then so be it. If you believe Bush will defeat terror then vote Bush. It is up to you, as an American, to vote for the policy you want in place. This is one of very few decisions America has. Use it wisely or it may be taken away.

God Bless Everyone.