Dark Ages Of Broadcasting Looms On The Horizon

July 21, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Frederick Meekins, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

-By Frederick Meekins

Don Imus’ comments that the Rutger’s ladies basketball team were a bunch of tattooed nappy-headed hoes might not have been the kindest thing to say about these athletes, though one must note the claim has not been entirely refuted as interestingly in appearances before the press the players have decided to conceal themselves behind jumpsuits so the American people can’t determine for themselves whether or not the team at least merits the tattooed classification. However, the response to these remarks, especially on the part of renowned rabblerousers such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, has gone far beyond the momentary discombobulation such a guffaw might elicit from more balanced people.

Not content to enjoy his victory, Al Sharpton now seeks to enshrine himself in a position as some kind of grand inquisitor with power greater than any elected office as from such a station there would be little way for the American people to drive him from his position of power as Sharpton plans to “…have a broad discussion about what is and is not permitted in terms of the airwaves.”

Observers astute enough to translate such verbal sludge oozing from the lips of politicians and similar human debris know that what Sharpton really means is that any White person that dares tick off rampaging Black leftists and their cowardly Caucasian sycophants are fair game for what Clarence Thomas categorized as an electronic lynching during his confirmation back in the early 1990’s.
Read more

MSM Highlight GOP ‘Defections’, Ignore Dems Voting Against Their Own

July 20, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

We are seeing all over the MSM the reports highlighting the Republicans in the House and Senate who are turning away from the Party line and voting against — or at least seeming to vote against — the President’s Iraq war policies. The MSM is presenting this revolt as a momentous thing, unprecedented and presenting it as a loss for the President’s ideas. Yet, even as a small number of Republicans have, indeed, voted against the Party line, an even larger number of Democrats are voting against their Party, too. Yet, somehow, we are not hearing this being brought up by the tongue waggers and controversy-mongers in the MSM.

In a July 12th vote in the House of Representatives to mandate a certain date to pull out of Iraq, for instance, the fact that four Republicans broke ranks is treated as a stampede of GOP defectors. Yet, in that same vote, 10 Democrats did not vote with their Party — in effect “defecting” to the GOP side of the argument. Of this fact, the MSM seem strangely quite.

Why is it that four Republican votes against the President’s plans is some sort of landslide, yet 10 Democrat votes against their Party line is ignored?
Read more

Proof that French Government Workers have no Brains…

July 20, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

This one almost speaks for itself…

Tiny brain no obstacle to French civil servant

Scans of the 44-year-old man’s brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue.

“He was a married father of two children, and worked as a civil servant,” Dr. Lionel Feuillet and colleagues at the Universite de la Mediterranee in Marseille wrote in a letter to the Lancet medical journal.

French Civil Service – Geniuses need not apply.

Ok, ok. It was a funny story. But, I have to step back and say one serious thing about it. This story does prove that the human body can do amazing things to make up for serious short comings.
Read more

Making a Difference

July 20, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Education, Family, Religion, Society/Culture, Thomas Brewton, Uncategorized | Comments Off

-By Thomas E. Brewton

If Christianity hasn’t made a positive difference in your life, you haven’t fully embraced it.

The question posed by Sunday’s sermon at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was “How Can I Be a New Creation?”

Rev. Josh Feay’s main text was:

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:11-17)
Read more

Sun-Times Writer ‘harassed by Irate Republicans’ Over ‘Staunch Republican’ for Dems Story

July 19, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Jennifer Hunter, the Chicago Sun-Times writer and wife of Sun-Times publisher John Cruickshank, who wrote the recent story I skewered a few days ago revealing a supposed “staunch Republican” from Philly who has suddenly decided to support the Democrats in 2008, has written a new piece today claiming she is being “harassed by a group of irate Republicans” because of her badly researched column. (The interviewee in her piece claimed to be a “staunch Republican” even as his cash donation records prove he almost exclusively supports Democrats) Her follow up, however, seems more like the kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar while blaming everyone around her as opposed to a satisfactory explanation of a failure to fully investigate her story.

Complaining… no, more like whining… that she has been flooded with “daily emails” calling her a liar and demanding that she be fired, Hunter-Cruickshank blames the headline writers instead of her own poor investigative work for the firestorm of criticism.
Read more

True Grit: Winning the Hearts and Minds of Al-Qaida

July 19, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Foreign Policy, Islam, Islamofascism, Lee Culpepper, Media Bias, Military, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror | Comments Off

-By Lee Culpepper

I wonder if John Wayne is glad to be dead. If he were alive, I imagine our impotent politicians’ apologizing to the public about Iraq would kill him. Seems like America’s once-triumphant spirit endured through our unrelenting grit and hunger to prevail. Such perseverance remains a prerequisite to all success. Sadly, our new breed of representatives has no familiarity with the hunger necessary to win a war. Do you think our barbaric enemies suffer the same dilemma?

Have we simply grown used to life being too easy? Today 76% of the entire Congress has never served in the military (source: Military Officers Association of America). The 24% of Congress that has served should appreciate the perils inherent to military duty. People die during basic military exercises – danger is in the job description. The fact that warriors kill and also die is not romantic. Military victories come at high prices. Victory requires considerable pain and sacrifice. There was a time when Americans refused to consider defeat. However, the painful sacrifices we have endured in the past are now being polluted by nauseating, limp-wristed politicians who are folding to the insolence and intimidation of an enemy who rejoices in fear and death. Perhaps more telling of our politicians’ moral fiber appears in their cowering to opinion polls.
Read more

Three Good Reasons to Become a Teacher: June, July & August

July 19, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Media Bias, Nancy Salvato, Society/Culture, Uncategorized | Comments Off

-By Nancy Salvato

“Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain, With the barkers and the colored balloons . . .”
– Neil Young

In the July 9, 2007 Issue of National Review is a short piece on “Workaholics”. In it, the author makes the argument that Americans are preoccupied, actually obsessed, with work. He comes to this conclusion based on a number of factors. First, he points out that any increase in leisure activities over the past four decades is due to electronic appliances making our lives easier. Secondly, people living in Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Canada and Japan can take advantage of 10-28 more vacation days than the average 14 allotted to Americans. Most remarkable is that, on average, Americans, don’t even take advantage of three of their vacation days.

Reading the aforementioned article, I couldn’t help but feel that the author, Kevin Hassett, could have explored this subject much further. Although interesting in and of itself, this tidbit of information was just the jumping off place for something more central in understanding what a cross section of Americans are willing to do to maintain a particular standard of living, forge a career, or keep a roof over their heads. Something else he doesn’t explore is the idea that there are people who do enjoy working, who find it feels a need in them to be doing something useful, perhaps for the betterment of society. But his most egregious omission is something that I, an education reformer, noticed straight away. What about teachers?
Read more

NYTimes Wants us to Feel Sorry for an Illegal Immigrant’s Deportation

July 18, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Immigration/Immigrants, Media Bias, Society/Culture, The Law, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week, the New York Times ran an article feeling sorry for an illegal immigrant turned immigrant’s “rights” activist who was discovered by a random immigration check on an Amtrak train and subsequently slated to be deported back to Chile, his homeland. The Times tried to massage readers into feeling bad for the man because he had been here since 1984 when he illegally crossed the Mexico/US border — apparently the Times imagines that time bestows legality as opposed to obeying laws serving that purpose.

An axiom has resonated throughout the country that the NYT doesn’t seem to grasp; “What part of illegal don’t you understand?”
Read more

Nobel Laureate Calls for Bush’s Death at ‘Peace’ Conference

July 18, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, Islam, Islamofascism, Media Bias, President, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Before I tell you how the Dallas Morning News is breathlessly reporting that Nobel laureate Betty Williams called for the death of President Bush at the “International Women’s Peace Conference” in Dallas on the 11th, I must remind you all that peace activists on the left are far more “civilized”, “Humane”, “tolerant”, and “intelligent” than the rest of us. OK? I just wanted to get that straight before further relating this story.

James Hohmann of the News reports that Williams, who is Irish and not a US citizen by the way, “came all the way from Ireland to Texas to declare that President Bush should be impeached.”

I suppose we should be flattered… or not.

Interestingly, Burying the obvious leade, the News decides to avoid mention of the violent intent of the speaker who later says “Right now, I could kill George Bush” with a title that belies her serious hypocrisy. “Irish peace activist’s speech at Dallas event gets standing ovation”, it says in sunny, innocent language.

Yet the content of this woman’s rant is far more insidious than the sunny title portends.
Read more

Advice for the President

July 18, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Military, Patriotism, President, Security/Safety, Uncategorized, Vince Johnson, War on Terror | Comments Off

-By Vince Johnson

If I were on the President’s advisory staff I’d tell him to go to the United Nations and make a short speech as written below:

The United States entered Iraq to rid the world of a dangerous tyrant and help them establish a government of self-determination. After four years in this effort, we have come to realize the following:
Read more

Chgo Sun-Times: Turning Big Dem Contributor into ‘Staunch Republican’

July 17, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why is it that every time the MSM writes a story about a supposedly “staunch Republican” who is vocally supporting the opposing Party, we have to wonder of its veracity? Maybe it’s because there always seems to be a few little problems with the claim of “staunchness” on the part of the MSM’s favored Party hopper du jour? And in this case, the Chicago Sun-Times story titled “GOP lawyer sold on Dems” by Jennifer Hunter, we have no better assurances than we ever do that the claimed “staunch Republican” is either very “staunch” or very “Republican.”

Sun-Times writer Hunter dug up a supposedly “staunch Republican” named Jim Ronca, a trial lawyer from Pennsylvania. Mr. Ronca, claims Hunter, is “certain of one thing: He is not going to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election.”

But there is more than that. He also says he’ll financially support Democrats, and he makes this announcement as if this is somehow an earth shattering rebuke to the GOP, or so the Sun-Times wishes us to believe.
Read more

Krugman and Friedman – Part Five

July 17, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Media Bias, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Thomas Brewton, Uncategorized | Comments Off

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Krugman’s conception of economic man is a caricature of reality.

Previous postings (Part One; Part Two; Part Three; and Part Four) discussed aspects of Paul Krugman’s essay Who Was Milton Friedman? in the New York Review of Books.

In that essay, Professor Krugman, the New York Times’s propagandist for socialistic economics, contrasts the conceptual approaches of Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes, who remains one of Professor Krugman’s heroes.

Keynes, a British economist, propounded a rationale for massive Federal deficit spending and continuous inflation, along with tight regulation of private economic decisions. His 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money was regarded by liberal-Progressive-socialists in the Roosevelt New Deal as the ultimate revelation of economic wisdom.

Professor Krugman, who is grouped among the neo-Keynesian economists, writes:
Read more

Professing the “Faith” of Musli-Piscopalianism?

July 16, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Family, Islam, Islamofascism, Religion, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Janet Tu, religion reporter for the Seattle Times, recently came out with a mind-boggling story. She chronicles the odd pronouncement of the Reverend Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopalian priest from Seattle, who has decided that she is both an Episcopalian and a Muslim.

Incongruously, Redding who is the director of faith formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, a priest for more than 20 years Tu reports, is “ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she’s also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.”

This is yet another outrage against the Episcopal Church, as hard as it is to rise to the level of outrage for a Church with so many such instances constantly coming to the fore. After all, the Episcopal Church has lurched from one upheaval to another for these many years. From the fight over ordaining female priests, to allowing avowedly and unapologetically homosexual priests to take the pulpit, not to mention their many decades of “progressive” ministries, the Episcopal Church has seen falling numbers in their congregations and splinters over doctrine as a result of the constant reevaluating of its tenets and practices. It’s no wonder that the joke about them seems too true for comfort; Episcopalians are just agnostics who can’t shake that need to go somewhere on a Sunday morning.

This latest instance does not help belie the claims from another, more cynical, religious perspective, that of radical Islamists, who claim the west in general is in relative cultural and religious decay. Islamists see endemic in western societies an unwillingness or inability to uphold their own religious convictions and sees a west constantly warping and tearing down their own practices. Certainly I won’t substantiate that view, but it sure is hard to dismiss it out of hand when stories like this come up.

It is patently absurd, of course, to be both a Muslim and an Episcopalian, even for the gruel thin creed that is Episcopalianism. Not because being Episcopalian is so incompatible with Islam, but because Islam is entirely intolerant of any other religion and is, therefore, entirely incompatible with Episcopalians.
Read more

Personal Comments

July 16, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Foreign Policy, President, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Vince Johnson, War on Terror | Comments Off

-By Vince Johnson

As many of you may realize, My Commentary is more than a hobby to me. It is my soapbox. In a way, it is therapeutic. Recent circumstances have made this monthly exercise more therapeutic than ever. It was a minor cardiac event. The fifth one since a quad by-pass in 1990. I had to lie around in bed for nearly two days. No radio. Not in the mood for magazines. Did a crossword and a lot of thinking.

Much of the thinking was devoted to the royal mess this country is coping with. I did a mental exercise to pass the time. I wondered what I would do if the President asked me for some advice. Within a few minutes, I had the entire thought clear in my mind. When I got home, I wrote it down and tweaked it a bit.
Read more

Al Qaeda Strengthens, US Political Resolve Weakens

July 15, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Foreign Policy, Frank Salvato, Islam, Islamofascism, Military, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror | Comments Off

-By Frank Salvato

Conventional wisdom is that whatever happens between Israel and radical Islam will also be the fate of Western nations, especially the United States. The continued appeasement of Hamas and Fatah by the Israeli government and its failure to thoroughly defeat Hezbollah in last summer’s war validates the contention that without strong political resolve it is impossible to be victorious over radical Islamofascists. As Congress moves forward in its renewed attempt at forcing the US military out of Iraq we would be wise to examine Israel’s current situation more carefully as it is a precursor of things to come.

DEBKAfile, a publication specializing in intelligence ignored by the mainstream media, reported that on July 8, 2007, Hamas and Fatah officials met in Stockholm to begin what should be a fairly expedited negotiation toward reconciling the differences that brought them to civil war in Gaza. The report stated that under the watchful eye of Iranian and Syrian ambassadors, Hamas operations Chief Imad al Alami met with PLO ambassador to Sweden Eugine Makhloof in an effort to hasten that reconciliation.

When this reconciliation concludes Israel will find itself in a most precarious situation. It will have militant Hamas, armed and funded by Iran, at its southeastern border complete with coastal access and Fatah, newly funded by the naïve actions of Israel and the international community, on its eastern border at what forms a choke point for Israel between the West Bank and the Mediterranean. To make matters worse, Iran’s proxy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Syria, sits ominously on Israel’s northern border, as does Hezbollah-heavy southern Lebanon.
Read more

My Diversity Disorder

July 15, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Family, Lee Culpepper, Race, Religion, Society/Culture, Uncategorized | Comments Off

-By Lee Culpepper

I felt sick when my doctor informed me that I am her only patient who vomits each time he hears the words “multiculturalism” and “diversity.” In fact, political correctness in general makes me queasy. Perhaps I’m a hypochondriac — anxiety over this possibility depresses me. Though my doctor did not prescribe a cure for my disorder, the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 decision – which struck down programs that considered race to make school assignments – may provide the remedy I need. In light of the justices’ ruling, ethnic realities appear so much clearer now.

With my family visiting over the Independence Day weekend, I realized that a white family — my white family — is made up of peculiar white individuals. No one in my family shares exactly the same views about anything. Our religious beliefs (while Christian) are not identical; our political interests are not the same; and our hobbies are different. We also pursued separate areas of education and have dissimilar careers. When all these obvious realities hit me at once, I started feeling dizzy.

I sat down to compose myself, but a heated debate that my brother, sister, and mom were having after dinner livened up the evening’s mood. I then realized something else — my white family is quite different than my wife’s white family. These kinds of debates never occur when her side of the family visits. Suddenly, I was lost in thought about how different most white families can be from other white families and how individuals within those families can be so different, too. I started worrying that diversity peddlers purposely ignore such obvious facts. Now, my lips were numb and I felt feverish.
Read more

When Even The Teachers Know Nothing

July 14, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Education, History, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

A short column by Ray Mcallister of the Richmond Times-Dispatch scolded a Virginia Middle School for having a drawing of Karl Marx on their graduation certificate. The school replied that they had thought that the drawing represented Frederick Douglas and didn’t realize they had been using a picture of Karl Marx.

As Mcallister reports:

Richmond schools spokeswoman Felicia Cosby called last night to explain:

“She really thought she was capturing clip art representing Frederick Douglass. She did a search to pull up Frederick Douglass and this is what came up… with the beard and the hair.”

It was all just a big mistake, you see?

OK. Maybe it was. Maybe this uninformed school teacher who helped design the graduation certificate didn’t know what Frederick Douglass looked like and mistook the Marx image for Douglass’. She just didn’t know.

But, if it was a mistake born from a lack of knowledge, does this make it all better? Can we just go on and forget about it? Is there no deeper meaning here?

I say a mistake is one thing, but this whole incident reveals that not only did this uninformed teacher not know what she was doing, but neither did the rest of the school’s design committee, the school board, or even the printer who printed the thing.
Read more

Pelosi, Reid Bank on America’s Sitcom Attention Span

July 14, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, Frank Salvato, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror | Comments Off

-By Frank Salvato

It’s becoming quite the gamble. Once again, Democrats in Congress – led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi – are betting that the Sitcom Attention Span (SAS) of the American people will save their hides, this time from their dismal performance during the first six-month in control of the House and Senate. But as the old adage goes, fool me once, shame on you. . .

The list of accomplishments the Democrats have racked has been anything but what they promised during the 2006 election. They failed to end the Iraq War. They failed to reform the earmark process. Instead of “draining the swamp of corruption” they seem to have taken to bathing in it. They failed to produce meaningful immigration reform. They failed in securing the nation’s borders in a post-9/11 world. Oh wait, these aren’t accomplishments, are they?
Read more

Valenti an LBJ stalwart until the end

July 14, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, History, Society/Culture, Uncategorized | Comments Off

-By Michael M. Bates

Jack Valenti’s autobiography, “This Time, This Place,” was published last May. In terms of promoting the book, it was bad timing. He died in April.

Still, it’s always interesting to see Democrats rewrite history. A few months ago I reviewed professional Clinton toady Terry McAuliffe’s book.

In a feat of Herculean proportions, Mr. Valenti’s volume probably outdoes McAuliffe’s book for name dropping. A difference is Mr. Valenti does it much more charmingly than the insufferably boorish McAuliffe. And where Terry drops names such as Yasser Arafat and Oscar de la Renta, Jack makes do with the likes of Gina Lollobrigida, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ann-Margaret and Juliette Binoche.

Jack Valenti served our country with distinction during World War II. The Texan had a successful career at what was later to become Exxon Mobil. Then he and a friend launched a flourishing ad agency.

What he’ll most likely be remembered for, however, is working as a top assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson and then serving nearly 40 years leading the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Read more

Time Magazine Decapitates President/ Troops in Photo

July 13, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, Military, President, Security/Safety, Uncategorized, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

You have to wonder what the heck is the deal with this photo Time Magazine published accompanying a Joe Klein screed?

They have cut off the heads of President Bush and the troops he was posing with, quite a disrespectful “artistic” choice wouldn’t you say? Even if they don’t respect the president, to treat our troops in such a way is obscene.

But, who imagines that they respect the troops in the first place?

Europe’s ‘Immigrant Problems’ Close to Boiling Point

July 13, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, Immigration/Immigrants, Islam, Islamofascism, Race, Religion, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Islamofascism is fast over taking the immigrant communities of old Europe. Now, by “immigrant community” Europeans mean Muslim immigrants, of course. Whether they be Moroccans, or Africans or what have you, large segments of Europe’s immigrants are from Muslim countries and these insular communities are long past the point of being merely troublesome already having become an outright danger. It has been a long time coming, but some Europeans are finally getting to the point of having had enough. More and more are finally beginning to speak out. But Europe’s empty PC attitudes and platitudes are hard in dying.

We are all aware of the on going riots and mass car burnings in France, but what many Americans ate not aware of is the increasing violence and sexual abuse that is occurring amongst Europe’s most Islamicized immigrant communities. From Sweden, to Germany to the Netherlands, all across old Europe the danger, crime and poverty of their Muslim immigrant communities is growing exponentially every year.

I have written before of how England has seen an growing rise in sexual assaults and in the so-called honor killing, a brutal and barbaric practice where members of a girl’s own family will kill her if she is even seen in public with the “wrong” kind of man. But, England is by no means an isolated trouble spot. All of Europe is seeing the same thing.

Many in Europe are finally starting to wake up and see the threat that Islam presents a civilized society, but they are still too few and not able to sway policy to any great extent… yet.
Read more

Unprepared For Bioenhancement Nightmares

July 13, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Frederick Meekins, Science, Uncategorized | Comments Off

-By Frederick Meekins

Just Because You Don’t Understand Doesn’t Mean Its Not Real: Most Epistemologically Unprepared For Bioenhancement Nightmares

An old adage posits that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Whoever came up with that one obviously had little imagination to foresee the horrors about to be set loose upon the earth in the years and decades to come.

In my column “Scientists Suggest Bestiality”, I wrote about findings by MIT and Harvard researchers suggesting that millions of years ago ancient humans and chimpanzees engaged in interspecies liaisons resulting in fecund offspring, bolstering the claims by a growing number of geneticists and the like that the boundaries between the species might not be as set in stone (or at least DNA) as at one time thought. It is deplorable enough some would interpret the data in this fashion (as frankly there aren’t that many interspecies pornos dating back that far to serve as irrefutable evidence) to further undermine the uniqueness of man in their attempt to bolster the Darwinian hypothesis that one form of life is essentially no better than any other. However, things grow even more disturbing when one realizes that there are adherents of this particular worldview that believe that it is not enough that all species are the same morally but that they must all be merged into the same species ontologically.
Read more

More like Religious ILLiteracy!

July 12, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Education, Islam, Religion, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

- A review of the new book by Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn’t, Harper Collins, 2007, $24.95

Stephen Prothero should be hailed as the great “setter-righter” where it concerns truly how religious Americans are or aren’t. It is true, of course, that Americans are generally the more religious of the current great western nations, but the assumption that Americans know much about their religions or even how to BE religious is one that Prothero dispels quite well. He shows us that our actual knowledge of what our own religions really are, what they mean, what their history is and how they differ one from the other is being lost with time. He successfully proves that America is a religious country with little religious knowledge and that our claims at being religious ring a bit hollow.

The best thing about Prothero’s revelation is that he chronicles that our loss of religious knowledge didn’t just happen with the beginning of the counterculture in the 1960′s, but that it began to happen well before the Civil War in the 1800′s. According to Prothero, it is a result of our own democratic propensities, but regardless of why it has happened, we must take steps to stop it.
Read more

Some Realities About immigration

July 12, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Immigration/Immigrants, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Vince Johnson | 1 Comment

-By Vince Johnson

Remember Elian Gonzales? The young Cuban boy who came to America illegally? He and his mother were two of fourteen people trying to reach Florida in a small boat with a faulty engine. His mother lost her life on the way. He was one of three survivors. Attorney General Janet Reno determined he was here illegally, and with Bill Clinton’s approval, directed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to send him back to Cuba. Eight SWAT agents from the INS were ordered to raid the home where Elian was living with relatives. The SWAT team wore bullet resistant vests and they were armed with fully loaded automatic rifles. None of those in the house were armed. Elian was forcibly removed and within days, he was returned to his father in Cuba.

There is a question here, and I’m not sure anybody is prepared to answer it: If it takes a highly trained, heavily armed, eight man SWAT team to forcibly remove an eight year old child from his unarmed relatives, how many will it take to apprehend *eight million illegal immigrants? *Source: US Census Bureau 2000
Read more

L.A.Times: Democrats Need to be MORE Emotional Campaigners?

July 11, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

This one is a hoot. The L.A.Times has posted a piece in their politics section about the supposed revelations of Drew Westen, a psychologist who is advising Democrats that they are too logical and rely on “facts” too much in their campaigns. Westen is warning Democrats that they need to be more “emotional” in their appeals to the voters because, according to his “research”, Democrat and independent voters are just too darn stupid to understand logic and facts. And Westen makes this claim as if Democrats don’t already campaign almost strictly on pure emotion with little appeal to intellect now!

WASHINGTON — Drew Westen, a genial 48-year-old psychologist and brain researcher, was talking to a rapt liberal audience about the role of emotion in politics, how to talk back aggressively to Republicans, and why going negative is not to be feared.

One wonders when, exactly, Democrats didn’t follow this path toward using overly emotional campaign methods? Have we so soon forgotten the James Byrd ad where then Governor Bush was accused of agreeing with the racist dragging death of a black Texas man? How about LBJ’s famous Daisy ad where Democrats accused Barry Goldwater of wanting to start a nuclear war? How about today where John Edwards is campaigning on “two America’s” or his 2004 claims that Democrats would make sure the crippled could walk if America elected he and John Kerry to office? And how often are Republicans cast by Democrats as those evil people who want to poison the water, keep blacks from voting, take away women’s rights, and starve the children?

…only EVERY election!
Read more

There’s a NEW Mrs. bin Laden!

July 11, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Islam, Islamofascism, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

Here’s a fun story…

Bin Laden’s son ties the knot
By Associated Press
July 11, 2007

LONDON — Omar bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader’s fourth son, has married a British woman he met in Egypt last fall, British media and colleagues of the bride said today.

Jane Felix-Browne, 51, of Moulton-Cheshire, in northwest England, was in Egypt for medical treatment of multiple sclerosis, the Times and Sun newspapers reported. She told the newpapers she met bin Laden, 27, while riding a horse near Egypt’s Great Pyramid.

Great.

But this leaves me with one burning question.

Where is the bride registered at… Target?

Free Speech From the Mouths of Babes?

July 11, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Judges, Selwyn Duke, Society/Culture, The Law, Uncategorized | Comments Off

By Selwyn Duke

Last week the Supreme court handed down three free speech rulings that find favor with conservatives. One of them is Morse et al. v. Frederick, a case involving the free speech rights of students. At issue is a five year old incident wherein a Juneau-Douglas High School senior named Joe Frederick raised a 14-foot banner stating “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” and was subsequently suspended for “drug speech” by then school principal Deborah Morse. Writing for the majority in a five to four decision in favor of the school, Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that the First Amendment should not be applied in this case because the student was encouraging drug use.

While I agree with the principal’s actions and take solace in the knowledge that educators’ hands won’t be further tied, the Supreme Court’s ruling does nothing to address what is the underlying problem. In fact, with the convoluted logic displayed by virtually all members of the court, it’s hard to find much to applaud in this judgment.

The real issue here extends far beyond this one case and harks back to a precedent set in 1969 in the Tinker v. Des Moines ruling, which divined from the Constitution a right to free speech in schools. Upon issuance of that decision the court stated,
Read more

War Between the Head and the Heart – America’s Timidity at War in the 21st Century

July 10, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, History, Islam, Islamofascism, Media Bias, Military, Patriotism, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

There are two kinds of war, when you get right down to it, and the USA has had a little of both. First is the idealistic kind, evinced in that of the American Revolution and WWII, which were both fights to free a continent from despotism. Even Korea and Vietnam can be fitted into the idealistic category because the main goal with each was to stop the evils of communism from spreading further. Then there is the pessimistic kind, like ours with Mexico in the 1840s and most of our various Indian wars from Andrew Jackson’s Seminole excursions in Georgia and Florida to the last major actions against the Nez Perce in the Pacific North West. Few of them were little else than overt land grabs.

One axiom, however, can be applied equally of all our past wars up until recently; war means fighting and fighting means killing. Or, as Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman once unapologetically said, “If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.”

Americans, like other warriors of days past, rarely felt squeamish about killing the enemy, even when they were other Americans — whether they be “native” or Southern. Save for a brief time early in the Civil War as the residents of Virginia were spared too much deprivation by Union forces, or when Lee invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, even civilians were not spared the hard hand of the God of War. The internecine border war in Kansas and Missouri was vicious for its attacks on civilians even as North and South played at their temporary, tender sensibilities in Virginia and the surrounding countryside for that brief moment of mercy.

For the most part, our ancestors knew that war was a hard business and fought it that way. Theirs was a war of the head. A war where one and all accepted the dreaded but necessary fact that people would die, even if some of those people never raised a hand in anger.

But, around the time of the actions in Vietnam, things began to change in the larger perception of the American populace. The idea that only “the enemy”, often an amorphous term, should be harmed in war began to gain cache. Fire bombing of the likes of a Dresden or the A-Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began to take on barbaric overtones until we have, at last, arrived at the ridiculous phrase “collateral damage” to explain unwanted, but unavoidable civilian deaths.
Read more

Here’s The Tax You’ve Been Waiting For

July 10, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Society/Culture, Taxes, Uncategorized, Vince Johnson | Comments Off

-By Vince Johnson

I will get right to the point. America needs a special excise tax levied on all Political Ads. This could be a source for millions in expense required to cover the preparing, printing and distribution of voter’s pamphlets and ballots. It could also help offset expenditures involved with manning and operation of voting booths as well as the expense of clearing up and recycling millions and millions of political signs, buttons, banners, and campaign trash scattered all over America.

My rationale for this tax is simple and based upon the fact that ads can be divided into two categories:
Read more

Why Are Parts of Thompson/Abortion Lobbying Story Disappearing From L.A.Times Website?

July 9, 2007 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Jim Geraghty over at National Review Online is reporting on an interesting thing concerning this story that the L.A.Times printed last weekend claiming that some abortion advocates hired Fred Thompson to lobby the White House for them over a pro-abortion issue in 1991 (Publius story here). It seems that the story as originally posted on the LAT website has been altered with no notice of the change, nor an explanation of why it was changed. Once the removed sentence is looked into, though, it becomes clear that it was removed in an attempt to clean up the story to remove items problematic to the veracity of the thing!

In the July 7th version of the story Judith DeSarno, the woman making the accusation that Thompson worked for her pro-abortion organization in ’91, mentioned that she had talked with the Senator about his “cowboy death scene” in a movie he was in. She claimed she talked to him about this scene during one of the diners she claimed to have had with him where they discussed his lobbying efforts.

The problem with DeSarno’s original claim is Thompson was never in any westerns in the 1990s. In fact, he appeared in a western only recently with the HBO movie “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”, which was released this year — and in that he played president Ulysses S. Grant.
Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »