Chief Justice of the United States

So Yesterday John Roberts was confirmed as Chief Justice. In accordance with my earlier post I will be making a donation shortly for $15 to the Red Cross. I admitt it, I got a kick out of being so close to the right number. But there is one more post to come on this subject so keep an eye out.

Donations


So at the side of the page i have a button for donations. I recognize it may be a bit crass to ask for donations to a site like this but what can i say. I thought id try. I do want to expand this site some day and I am not gonna be able to do that without money. Any help you can give I appreciate.

Lying vs. Being Misinformed

The Anti War crowd keeps saying that the President lied about WMDs in Iraq. They are quite intentionally lying themselves. The President didn't lie. He was misinformed by the CIA, British Intelligence, and the rest of the world that all agreed Iraq had WMDs. The UN Security Council agreed UNAINIMOUSLY that Iraq had the weapons and was in violation several previous UN Resolutions.

The Bigotry of the Party of Tolerance

Why oh why does politics have to get so damn personal. Why oh why are the supposedly more tolerant liberals, the ones that get offended by people that disagree with them? Why is intolerance the keystone position of the party of tolerance? Why is that if you disagree with certain policies it could only the only reason be that you are heartless person? What happened along the way that made them HATE those who disagree? When did that kind of hatred and bigotry become ok?

The Next Chief Justice and a good cause

I am making my prediction now. The more obvious one is that the Judiciary Committee will split along party lines with Judge Roberts picking up perhaps one or two Dems. As for the full Senate vote, my bet is 75 votes. The current estimate is that he will be confirmed by September 29th. I am looking for more bets. And lets make it for a good cause. For every vote over or under my estimate I will donate $5 to the Red Cross. For the brave and generous I encourage you to leave a comment with you bet. Feel free to pick another charity or another amount.

Story Update

Ok so I thought it was time for a update on the progress of my story. I screwed up.

Looking down the road I realized I had left out details, and I screwed up the timeline. So I am going back to fix my mistakes.

Also I have to apologzie. I went back and reread my post on Racial Profiling and I am deeply disappointed in the qaulity of writing and the strength of my argument. I do genuinely believe that racial profiling is at times necissary and not at all racist, and perhaps I will give it another crack some day but in the mean time, sorry.

Cindy Sheehan

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq" Occupied New Orleans????

In Defense of Racial Profiling

(For purposes of this discussion I will limit my self to profiling use in airport screening.)

Racial profiling is not a racist policy. It is a useful tool to those with limited resources. If you are working at a airport screening people, what do you have in your favor for searching people who might be hiding small weapons? How many people will pass by you each day? How do you decide whom to pull out for more extensive searches? How do you improve your odds of picking out someone with a weapon? The odds are if you searched everyone who came thru your station for a week you wouldn’t find a terrorist. But it’s that one time that one does come through that you are working to stop. How do you do it?

When we take those valuable and limited resources and go out of our way to avoid offending Muslims by searching elderly women who can hardly walk on there own, we are opening the door for potential tragedy. Let’s stop searching people who are clearly physically incapable of trying to take over a plane. If they can’t walk of there own power, they are probably not going to over power the rest of the passengers on commercial flight. This is not to say that we ONLY search those who fit the profile but consider them more carefully that is for sure. The strenuous effort to avoid the accusation of racism is going to end up costing us far more then price of the accusation.

Searching more Muslims does not mean you believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists. Nor does it imply they are the only ones who commit acts of terror. Of course there are the Tim McVeigh, or the IRA and others. Nor does it mean we hate Muslims. What it does mean, is that we recognize the realities of the War we are fighting. Al Qeada didn’t stop working on 9/11; they continued the terror campaign they had been on for a decade and other groups for years before them. And they will try again, and again, and again.

PS I don't have a link for it, but there was a great article in National Review recently on the subject, if i can find the link I'll add it later.

The Rule of Four

I just finished The Rule Of Four at lunch today. And i absolutely loved it. It has been described as a intelligent Da Vinci Code which is think is neither fair nor completely accurate however it does come pretty close so I will stick to that. Check it out! The only negative I can mention is it made me feel stupid but then so does....(I leave that for your sense of humor to finish)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”


Where in that, the Constitutions only mention of religion, does it become unconstitutional to say God in public? Did I miss a meeting? Are judges no longer bound by the Constitution? Or is it just an annoyance they have to get around? How is saying the Pledge of Allegiance, with its mention of God the Congress establishing religion?

Gods Enemy on Earth Michael Newdow has another option he could consider to continue his crusade against the rest of us. He could try push get the California State Legislature or the US Congress to pursue this. There is of course one problem with that. That plan of attack requires some support from the general public and as public outcry has shown, there is NO support for it except from Judges who ignore the Constitution apparently. I say every judges oath they have to swear upon ascending to the bench be changed to having to read out loud the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Happy 29th Birthday to the Muppets!

Katrina Blame Game Part 2


From Bridget: It's not the appropriate time for political debate. But yet, political debate is rampant. Interesting how a natural disaster turns political. Then again, I know it is human to need someone to blame, to take the general feeling of fear, uncertainty, and devastation and place it upon someone or something tangible. I truly believe that people are generally good. I truly believe that everyone is doing the best they can to help. I don't believe that backseat driving or Monday morning quarterbacking is useful or fair. A NATURAL disaster occurred. This time, we can't blame the "meterologists" because they predicted the path precisely. So who can we blame?

I'm going to review many links in the chain that may or may not have gone wrong. Any of these things could have changed the situation, but the bottom line is that something terrible happened and no one event or person is to blame. First of all, Louisiana was used to weathermen crying wolf. Many a times, they have boarded up, evacuated, run away, only to be missed. So Mother Nature has played games with the people, making it difficult to believe this could ever happen. Second of all, the President urged the governor of Louisiana to make the evacuation mandatory on Saturday and again on Sunday. She did not. The local governments allowed shelters to remain in harm's way, rather than providing buses for a mandatory evacuation. But should we blame them? Do we think that the governor had predicted this and wanted to see a tragedy? I doubt it. She probably knew that if she mandated evacuation and a hurricane missed again, the same people who are screaming murder would be laughing at her and ridiculing her out of her political career. It was a judgment call that she left to her people. Third of all, many people chose not to even go to shelters, but instead to stay in their houses. Again, the people were tired, bored with the doomsday talk, and many decided not to go anywhere. After evacuating at least 4 times in the past year, can we blame them? Would we have "known" that this time was the real thing? Fourth of all, on Monday all of the headlines read that the hurricane had MISSED Louisiana and that Mississippi was hit hard. It HAD hit Mississippi. And THAT'S where the federal help was routed first. Unfortunately, we all know that Tuesday morning disaster hit New Orleans. But no one predicted it. Everyone -- the local and federal governments, and the people of America -- thought that once again disaster had been averted in New Orleans. We were ALL fooled and all had to change course and figure out what the hell to do, after a too-early sigh of relief. Fifth of all, they're have been complaints about the federal response. The federal government did respond, although many say not quickly enough. How do we judge this? Government agencies and the military are there right now, helping. (And a sidenote -- the military had to be brought in because local residents were stealing guns and shooting their saviors, in case anyone missed that.) What would have been fast enough? How do we know they didn't get there as fast as they possibly could, considering the disaster they had to travel through and the fact that this took them off guard? Many point to the fact that newscasters got down there faster than government relief. Ahh, but newscasters had STAYED there, despite the "encouraged" (not mandatory) evacuation. Newscasters put themselves in harm's way in order to have a story, and perhaps made the job all that more difficult because now we have to worry about saving stubborn news crews in addition to residents who couldn't escape. Finally, and I know this is the touchiest subject of all, I don't think that racism was involved with the supposedly delayed response. I think everyone is doing the best they can considering the circumstances. The hurricane didn't target poor African Americans. No one is sitting around with their thumbs up their asses because they don't care about poor African Americans. Not only is that a cruel, slanderous thing to say about someone without a damn shred of evidence, it's also very naive... politicians know that the race card is the most damaging thing they can have played against them, and try to avoid it at all costs. Also, there are victims who are neither poor nor African American as well...

My roommate's sister is still missing at the time I am writing this. No one has heard from her in almost 2 weeks. I feel terrible and pray everyday. I have donated as much money as I could afford. I can only imagine what her and her family, who lost everything, are experiencing. I will not blame her sister for deciding not to evacuate. I will not blame her family for not knowing where her sister went. I will not blame the local government for not forcing everyone out. I will not blame the federal government and military for not finding her yet. This was a natural disaster, a tragedy, and a fucking shame. But I can't find the hatred in my heart to extend blame for such a disaster on one person or a handful or people. To do so without absolute certainty that I was correct would be a carelessly vengeful accusation.

I will not blame the American people for their opinions. Of course they feel things haven't happened fast enough. We have 52 minute "disaster-climax-resolution" television shows and movies shoved down our throats daily. Unfortunately, real life disasters take more than an hour and a brilliant idea by Will Smith to fix. It's going to take so much time and so much energy... so many tears and so many hugs. If we continue to point fingers, there won't be enough hands to contribute.

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Very Well Said!

The Katrina Blame Game

Does anyone else think we (the poltically active, pundits, politicians, etc) have gotten to bitterly partisan? There is a national tragedy going on in New Orleans and it becomes who screwed things up. It was the Governors fault, no it was the mayors, no it was the Presidents. I have a better idea, It was an act of God not an act of malice. The poor werent targeted. African Americans werent targeted. Cant we all just take a moment to mourn, heal and try to rebuild?

Star Trek

For the first time since 1987, there is no Star Trek series in production. 624 Episodes have aired since The Next Generation started its voyages and now the series lies dormant. Though talk of a new movie circulate, it is at this moment, just talk. Not enough to even warrant a pre-emptive IMDb listing. There has been some argument that the series needed a rest. Time to reenergize if you will. There is some validity to this. Enterprise was not the best series (though it was still better then Voyager). And Nemesis despite its epic battle scene disappointed many (but not me). Perhaps this time away will give its writers and caretakers some incentive to push themselves. Come up with something more on par with Next Generation or Deep Space Nine (my favorite of the series). I hope so. In the mean time, I must say it. Live Long and Prosper!

Freedom of Speech

The following comment was left on my post about Kanye West (whose name by the way I always pronouce incorrectly) and since it was left annonymously I have no one to ask permission to quote.
"The great thing about our country is we all get to say what we feel and believe. Whether you agree with him or not, he has the right to say what he thinks."

Ofcourse he is free to say what he likes. OFCOURSE he is. I wasnt questioning his right to say it, or anyones right to say anything. Its about the appropriate time to say certain things. If I was at a funeral would it be the appropriate time to say what a #()*)^%_ I think the recently dead was? No! When on a telethon asking people Americans to donate money, is that the right time to say how racist America is?

I have heard this before. Any time someone questions a comment they find offensive in public, out comes "he has a right to say it." That is rarely if ever the point. Sometimes certain things need to remain inner dialouge and not out in public. Rarely if ever have I heard someones right to speak question so much as WHAT they say. Comes down to something simple. Think before you speak.

Save CBGBs

Help save CBGBs Sign this Petition, and pass it along to others! help save a musical and cultural icon, a true historical landmark of modern NYC.

Mallard Fillmore and intolerance

Every few weeks, a Letter to the Editors pops up in Newsday complaining about the Mallard Fillmore comic strip. The complaint is always essentially the same. It is argued that it is a political cartoon not a comic strip. That it is offensive, etc. The time and amount of emotion invested in complaining about a comic strip is amazing. It is also symptomatic of larger problem that I have touched on before. Far to many liberals seem aggressively intolerant of any conflicting points of view. On the same Newsday comic pages are Boondocks and Doonesbury. These intensely political comic strips however do not get complaints from the right, nor should they. Even if you disagree with them, they are often funny and well executed, as is Mallard Fillmore. The truth of that matter is not these people object to the quality of the strip, but its politics. They are so offended by the conflict of opinion that they regularly feel the need to write public letters condemning them. Condemning a comic strip.
More to come…

Kayne West

Wow. Im watching the Katrina Relief telethon on NBC (please give all you can here ) and Kayne West came out and went on this political rant acussing the media of being racists, saying Pres Bush doesnt care about black people.
Now there is a time for pushing your opinions and there is a time to put politics aside. This was a time to put politics aside. Be Human! Be Helpful! Not Hurtful!

Death of Romance

From City of Angels

Seth: You're a good doctor.
Maggie: How do you know?
Seth: I have a feeling.
Maggie: Yeah, well that's pretty flimsy evidence.
Seth: Close your eyes. Just for a second... what am I doing?
Maggie: You're... touching me.
Seth: How do you know?
Maggie: Because, I feel it.
Seth: You should trust that. You don't trust it enough.

So I have this feeling. And I trust it. Becasue its right. That romance is dead is our world. There are a few of us that still believe in it. Including me. However everytime I sat down to write about it. it comes out a mess. A total jumble of emotional ranting. I am certain its true. Look around and youll see it. Other then in movies and tv its dead. How many people do you know have had a real romantic experience. Have you?