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Six word novel

Posted by Steve on Tuesday, April 08, 2008 3:30:29 PM
<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2324/2399348590_1edd34d576.jpg?v=0" alt="OOPS" />

Gone but not forgotten, he lives
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U of Texas faculty needs education

Posted by Steve on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 2:50:17 PM
Mike Adams writes about a letter University of Texas professors wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying the United states should force Israel to stop defending itself here.

He suggests writing to these dunderheads and take them to task for their anti-Semitism and general lack of knowledge. I took him up on it. Here a letter I wrote in response, I suggest you read Mike Adam's column then finish this post.

University of Texas faculty;

I’d like to respond to your recent letter to Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice. You claim to be concerned about “our students, former students, and colleagues who remain in Lebanon and Palestine/Israel, indeed to all the citizens of these countries, because they are from the region and have no place else to go.” Yet you only concern yourself with Israel’s defensive actions. You don’t seem to be very concerned when we’re talking about Hezbollah firing Katyusha rockets into Israel. No mention is made in your letter of trying to disarm Hezbollah, just Israel. Your anti-Semitism is quite visible in your letter.

As for your contention that it is an “unprovoked and illegal war in Iraq” you either are ignorant of the history of the region prior to September 11, 2001 or you choose to ignore it. I don’t have an argument against someone who would say that the Iraq war was mistaken, or was not achieving the goals Americans set for it or was just plain wrong, but to make the claims you do there should be some evidence you can cite, and you fail to supply any evidence for your argument.

Just to get you up to speed, Saddam Hussein was the only leader in the Arab/Moslem world actively shooting at Americans prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. His regime routinely attacked patrols of the no-fly zones, which were part of the ceasefire agreement from the first Gulf war. He continually refused to meet the requirements of several U.N. resolutions, which I will list so you can see for yourselves the lengths the United States went to in order to get compliance from Hussein. I suggest you look up these resolutions and see just how far our government went to work with the United Nations to get compliance from Hussein. Not that you will, you are too impressed with your own opinions to bother with facts.

Resolution 687 (April 3, 1991), Resolution 707 (August 15, 1991), Resolution 1060 (June 12, 1996), Resolution 1115 (June 21, 1997), Resolution 1134 (October 23, 1997), Resolution 1137 (November 12, 1997), Resolution 1154 (March 2, 1998), Resolution 1194 (September 9, 1998), Resolution 1205 (November 5, 1998), Resolution 715 (October 11, 1991), Resolution 1284 (December 17, 1999), Resolution 1051 (March 27, 1996), Resolution 1134 (October 23, 1997), Resolution 1137 (November 12, 1997), Resolution 1284 (December 17, 1999).

If your letter to Dr. Rice is an example of your academic prowess I fear the University of Texas has all the intellectual rigor of a local kindergarten. I hope that the students under your tutelage have some other guidance, otherwise they are doomed to failure to thrive in the real world.
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A shot in the dark

Posted by Steve on Monday, August 07, 2006 10:43:03 AM
Do we want our immigration policy enforced or don't we? World Net Daily reports here on an incident where an illegal, drug-smuggling alien was shot in the butt by border patrol agents who now face 20 years in prison for enforcing our borders.

As far as I'm concerned the agents should both get marksmanship medals for their shooting. Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean deserve better from our government. Perhaps they made mistakes, who doesn't, but that doesn't mean that prosecutors should come down on them so hard.

Come on, I could see prosecuting them if they were rousting people for no good reason or routinely breaking the law themselves, but to prosecute them for something so minor has one inevitable consequence, reluctance on the part of law enforcement to actively pursue criminals. By the way, that's a bad thing.

What's needed are more law enforcement officers shooting more criminals in the butt. It might not reduce crime statistics but a lot more criminals would be standing around, unable to sit back and enjoy the situation.
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The Conscience of the King

Posted by Steve on Thursday, August 03, 2006 9:49:20 AM
Mel Gibson recently spewed forth a bunch of hateful rhetoric. It was inexcusable and I'm not going to go out of my way to try to do so. What this incident does is help to illuminate the difference between someone with a well-developed moral compass and those without that asset.

Having a moral compass doesn't mean you will never get lost, but if you do it will help you get back where you belong. Gibson is human and heir to all the frailities of the species. What he did after his drunken rant is more revealing than the fact that he spewed hateful, racist and sexual remarks to the guardians of the public roads. Gibson admitted what he did was wrong, but he went further, he said he wished to show his remorse and contrition by reaching out to those he wronged.

He didn't say some waffle-worded blather about "people he MAY have offended". Gibson knew full well what he did offended people and he admitted it and said he would work with Jewish people to help alleviate the pain he caused.

In the Bible James says the tongue is capable of getting a person in big trouble. James 3:3-6 says:  "When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. "

Gibson did wrong, he apologised and more importantly he is willing to make amends. That should be enough for us. It's all our God and our savior ask of us, who are we to demand more of Gibson than God does?

UPDATE

Sometimes I hit publish before I'm ready, especially if something comes up I have to take care of, I don't want to leave my work sitting there without saving it.

The thing about all the blather Hollyweird types are spewing at Gibson that gets me is they forgive some people anything. Look at Robert Downey Jr. who was still on Ally McBeal even after his arrest and conviction for drugs and breaking into someone's home. It was all forgive and forget for him.

Look at convicted murderer Tookie Williams. He writes a few kiddie books, and that supposedly gets him off the hook for murdering several people in cold blood. Not to mention he was the founder of a gang responsible for many, many more murders. Oh, and let's not forget that he attacked prison officials during his incarceration. Hollyweird was willing to do everything in their power to prevent this scumbag's rightful execution. The lefty bunch are willing to forgive anything, as long as you are a communist, a murderer or a pervert. Forget forgiveness if you are an upstanding citizen who happens to have a moral mistake. Upstanding, righteous folk are supposed to be the intolerant ones but the left are the ones who refuse to forgive.
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Big Bully?

Posted by Steve on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 12:54:10 PM
Israel is coming under attack again, in the media this time, for their attack on a building in Lebanon housing terrorists and civilians. Someone needs to explain to the reporters on scene that if they are going to constantly refer to "civilian casualies" they should acknowlege that Hezbullah terrorist mingle with and are indistinguishable from said civilians.

If a terrorist fires a missle at Israel and then runs from the launch site and Israeli forces kill that terrorist he is counted as a civilian by the media, which is preposterous.

Attacking a country while hiding among civilian populations is a war crime. Hezbullah fighters do that almost exclusively. They are therefore war criminals of the worst stripe and are eligible for summary execution.

Let's be real here. Israel consists of 8,000 square miles of land and six million people, a million of whom are Arab. The Arab League consists of 22 countries with a combined population of 312 million people and sits on 5 million two hundred thousand square miles of land.

To put it in percentages Israel has 1.6 percent of the population of the Arab League and sits on 0.15 percent of the land the league has. How is it that the media constantly expect Israel to hold themselves to a higher standard than countries that combined have nearly 50 times as many people and 500 times as much land?

The media are enablers of Arab terror. Their disregard for facts that show Israel's plight in a realistic manner and their pandering to Arab sentiments is disgusting and totally unprofessional. Any unbiased observer who looks at how much power the Arabs have versus how small Israel's forces are cannot help but come to the conclusion that Isreal is more than justified in their use of force.

I haven't even mentioned that before Israel attacks a site that might have civilians in harms way they leaflet the area and tell the civilians to remove themselves from harms way. In one case against the Israeli's targeted a Hamas terrorist and they telephoned him and told him they were going to distroy his house, then they bombed it. What other country on the face of the earth goes to such lengths to avoid civilian casualties? I'll tell you--none, not even the United States.

Let's place the blame firmly where it belongs, on Hizbullah and its enablers, including the media and the U.N. -- but that's a subject for another time.
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Toning Down Terrorists

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 31, 2006 10:12:05 AM
Ellen Ratner, billed as liberal and proud on the World Net Daily website is currently pushing for some Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy to try to end the fighting in Lebanon. Strange I don't recall a single mention from Ms. Ratner about stopping the terrorists from sending rockets into Israel.

Liberals and other anti-Semites always come out of the woodwork screaming "Stop the fighting" only after Israel has started fighting back and winning.

Along those lines, I recently had a conversation with a co-worker and mentioned I was thinking about sending a pizza to a squad of Israeli soldiers (website here ) and she started talking about the bombing of Lebanon by the Israelis and worrying about the Lebanese children. I tried to see if she would say anthing about the Israeli children dying at the hands of Hezbullah but she was strangely silent about those children, apparently Jewish children don't count when they are brutally murdered by terrorists but Lebanese children, put into danger by terrorists who hide behind them, count for much more, but only if Israel can be blamed for their suffering. Back to the main point.

Ratner would like Condolezza Rice to work with the Syrians to bring peace to the area and "tone down" Hezbullah. This is what liberals do, they want to compromise. How do you "tone down" Hezbullah without distroying it? There is no compromise with someone who wants you dead.

I would ask Ms. Ratner, and all other bubbleheads who think you can compromise with terrorists, to imagine they live in a house that was built by them and their family on land that the family worked to make productive but that was completely worthless until the family came and worked for generations to make bloom. Now imagine that you are surrounded on all sides by people sworn to kill you and take your land.

What is the compromise? Let them beat you half to death and you move to a tent in the forest while they take the land you and your family worked so hard to make productive and let it go fallow because they are now committed to taking away the tent, which is all you have left.

Compromise is a good working tool of diplomacy, if there are parties willing to work together to come to a solution that everyone can live with. It doesn't work when one party is so inflexible as the Muslim terrorists are.

Ratners full article can be seen here
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Illegal Invasion

Posted by Steve on Thursday, July 27, 2006 1:10:52 PM
Someone needs to explain to people, especially our representatives in that swamp by the Potomac that there is a difference in kind between people who come into this country and wish to make this country their home and want to live under its rules and those people who come here looking for work and don't want to make any adjustments in the way they live but just want to take, take, take.

Immigrants are the first sort of people. We need immigration and the people with needed skills it brings in. I'm not against immigration and I'm not against having non-European peoples come into this country. What I am against is being forced to accept people who aren't going to fit in.

Imagine this country is your house. You throw the best parties and invitations are coveted because they are hard to come by. You have certain conditions set that you expect people to meet before extending them an invitation to the party. You put on the party and as the guests are coming in gatecrashers enter along with them. Your guests are enjoying the food and the entertainment when you discover the gatecrashers taking food away from invited guests and complaining about the entertainment and demanding that you provide entertainment they prefer.

Would you change your entertainment and deprive your invited guests of their rightful portion of the wonderful food you've provided or would you ask the gatecrashers to leave? Would you hesitate to build a fence around your property so that gatecrashers would have a harder time coming to your parties?

Let's keep inviting people to come to this country in order to make better lives for themselves, their families and their adopted communities. But let us not hesitate to restrict immigration to levels that can be handled, it doesn't have anything to do with racial or ethnic matters, it is simply a fact of life that we cannot accept all the people that wish to come here and if we did this country would soon cease to be a desireable destination.

Thomas Sowell has a good column about our Senators and representatives who just can't seem to grasp some facts of life here.
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Postponing but not cancelling

Posted by Steve on Wednesday, July 26, 2006 12:05:46 PM
Judge Glen A. Taylor delayed imposition of a lower court's order that would have forced a sixteen year old to have chemotherapy against his and his parents wishes. Taylor's order didn't eliminate the possibility, it just delayed a decision until August 16.

The fact such abuse of power can take place at all is disturbing, but that a medical ethicist would approve is proof, if such were needed that 'medical ethisist' is as much an oxymoron as 'legal ethicist'.

World Net Daily has more Here
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Who decides

Posted by Steve on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 11:58:45 AM
A judge in Virginia is coming between a teenager with cancer, his parents, and their right to decide what treatment the boy should receive. We aren't talking about parents refusing to have anything to do with modern medicine, the teenager has had chemotherapy and found it debilitating. After going through a round of chemo that left him weak and unable at times to even walk 16-year-old Starchild Abraham Cherrix, along with his parents, decided to try an alternative treatment.

A medical ethicist claims that because parents don't always know what is medically best for their children the state should step in and force Cherrix to take the chemo and radiation treatments.

For me the question revovles around whether the parents and their son have the right to decide their own lives, not whether their choices are the ones conventional wisdom says are are best.

I firmly believe that every person has the right to decide what to do with their own body. It's the same argument that abortion rights people use (although they forget there is a second person [abortionists prefer the term fetus] affected by a woman's "right to choose".)

Let's ignore the fact the young man is nearly at the age of emancipation and therefore able to form, and act on his own judgements and focus on his rights and his parent's rights. People in this country have the right to decide their own fate. White or black; male or female; rich or poor; Christian, Jew or Muslim, it makes no difference, the individual is free to do those things he or she decides are in his/her best interest.

Suppose the parents allowed their son to try skydiving. Skydiving is not without danger, should a court declare them negligent and force them to share custody with the county department of social services for allowing this dangerous activity?

Of course not. To say otherwise would be to invite the government to pass judgement on every decision of every parent, a disaster just waiting to happen. AP story
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Warmongering Children

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 24, 2006 4:43:31 PM
Some children in Israel are shown putting graffiti on some artillery shells destined for some Hezbullah terrorist and the politically correct get their panties all in a bunch over it. Sure it may have been foolish but unless the military in Israel is stupider than the average bear those shells are fairly safe, they aren't fused and they aren't ready to be fired until they are prepared some more. Jerusalem Post has a story. Warmongering Children
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Queer eye for everyone

Posted by Steve on Monday, July 24, 2006 10:43:13 AM
I don't care if someone is gay or not, it isn't any of my business and I'm not going to pry into it. I just wish gays would leave me alone. Why can't I watch a television show without being bombarded by gay references? If gays don't like people noting their differences do they parade those differences in public? Growing up a phrase I heard a lot was live and let live. Well, I'm ready to let live, I just wish the people who feel you have to push homosexuality as a lifestyle felt the same way.
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Blame the victims

Posted by Steve on Friday, July 21, 2006 11:31:26 AM
You hear it all the time, something bad happens and in the discussions following the incident someone says something like "Why would a person put themselves in a situation where the likelyhood of bad things happening is so high?" Immediately the person asking a resonable question is accused of 'blaming the victim'. Let's be clear, there is a difference between saying the victim is at fault and saying the victim placed themselves in a risky situation. If a bungee jumper is hurt in an accident because the operator of an amusement park failed to maintain the equipment it is not the jumper's fault. However, it doesn't absolve the jumper of some degree of responsibility, be it ever so small. Likewise many are bemoaning the fate of civilians in Gaza and Lebannon during Israel's defensive counter-attacks. The Lebannese and Palistinian civilians may not be to blame for their own suffering, but they do have to share it. It is their acceptance of evil among themselves in the form of terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel that causes so much harm to their population when Israel, excercising its inherent right of self-defence, rains bombs and rockets down on terrorist targets. If anyone is truly innocent of fault it is the Israeli citizens who try to go about their daily lives while their neighbors plot to destroy them. In all the media-mongering humbuggery spewed by wailing Palestinians remember they lay down with dogs, it's not Israel's fault they get up with fleas.
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