Suicide Bombings Are Apparently OK Now?

I guess all is right with the world then, isn’t it? According to the Pew Research Center poll of 1,050 young Muslim adults in the United States, 26% said that suicide bombings are an acceptable tactic to defend their religion.

When you break that number down, 2% say that it can be justified often, 13% say sometimes, and 11% say rarely. That 2% is still a lot of potential suicide bombers, and that is cause for concern.

This same poll shows 5% expressing favorable views of Al Qaeda with about 25% abstaining. Why abstain? There is only one reason that I know of, and that is fear of the 5% becoming 30%, which I now must assume to be the real number. Additionally, only 40% believed Arab men carried out the attacks of 9/11/2001, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The implication is that we need to resume strip-searching little old lady grandmother types. Yeah, right!

This group also favors the Democratic Party by six to one. What does that tell us? Let’s see. 86% of a group deluding itself about the worst attack ever by foreigners on American soil and has a 30% favorable view of Al Qaeda favors Democrats. That tells me that the Democrats are perceived as BFFs (Best Friends Forever) of Al Qaeda by the Muslim community. I agree with that, incidentally, and I don’t come to that conclusion lightly or based only on the Pew Survey.

Recall the interview of left-wing producer Michael Moore by libertarian Bill O’Reilly. During that interview, Moore at one point asked O’Reilly if he would sacrifice his child to go die in Iraq. Ignore for the moment the incredible irrelevance of the question (since the fate of O’Reilly’s child is in the child’s hands – not O’Reilly’s) and focus on the implication. The tactic is one common among anti-war interviewees. Could that indicate a dearth of actual logic? Let me save you the trouble; the answer is yes.

The trap is to fall for an irrelevant premise, another indication of just how stupid we here at the bottom are perceived by the left-wing in America. Say “No” and you are a hypocrite. Say “Yes” and you are a hateful, unloving parent, but at least you have a conviction and may be respected for it. The 26% of the Muslim community as represented in the Pew poll has said yes to their Iraq-equivalent question, and are therefore, by implication, worthy of respect from the left wing. What does that make the left wing? In my view, it makes the left wing Al Qaeda’s BFF.

Other indications are there as well, ranging from the retreat from fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, to protests that blame America for 9/11.

There is one more troublesome point about the Pew poll. It does not define what constitutes an attack on Islam. I think we can safely assume that Osama bin Laden would be among that 26% suicide bombing enthusiast number. In his view, not being what most of us consider to be radical Muslim fascist would constitute an attack on Islam. What is the definition for this 26% - make that about 273 potential suicide bombers? That’s a lot of potential innocents’ death, and it’s just a small statistical sample. And as for that 2% - about 21 people – look out. That’s more than it took to kill 3,000 innocents in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11.

Still, let’s all join the lunatic conspiracy theorists and the Muslim community that denies that 9/11 was executed by Arab men despite the crowing by the Arab men who executed it. And while we’re at it, we had better leave our borders open for a few more decades and step up our strip searches of grandmas before it’s too late.

Why We Put Up with Hollywood

Americans are the most generous people in the world, despite what the decidedly anti-American Kofi Annan claimed in late 2006 in a particularly idiotic moment – even for him. There is good reason for Americans to be generous. We have been the most blessed in the world as far as material things are concerned, and the breathtaking vistas in many part of the United States cannot help but make the most ardent atheist wonder whether God dwells in their majesty (or at least has a vacation home there).

But the statistics on how much Americans give to charity is incomplete. By most standards, big government, pushed by bleeding heart liberals since the 1960s to give our tax dollars to the poor, has screwed this up as it does with everything that falls outside its three real jobs. It has also skewed the picture dramatically, by taking away some of the money we used to give to the charities we deemed most worthy, and giving to those that liberals deem most worthy.

So what does this have to do with Hollywood? Everything. Hollywood is filled (mostly) with liberal, high-income, entertainment industry types who most of us at the bottom recognize as having unique talent. Most of us also don’t believe that it’s really worth $20 million per movie. But we do pay the ticket and DVD prices that give them that money. So why?

There is a piece of the American psyche that sympathizes with the socialist principle of “from each according to their ability; to each according to their need.” It’s not a huge portion of the American psyche, but it is there. That portion is heavily represented by the entertainment industry.

We conservatives might get extremely irritated with the likes of Rosie and others from time to time, but it is hard to deny that there are many (including Rosie) who do good, noble, and spiritually uplifting work outside the political arena.

Their role in American society is to redistribute a portion of income. That’s what socialism does; it redistributes income. That is what people in Hollywood do. They earn large sums of money from people who can afford their services and redistribute it to those they deem worthy. It is, essentially, the socialist arm of our capitalist society.

Adam Smith’s invisible hand has guided the course of Capitalism in the United States for the 200+ years representing the greatest (and by greatest I mean the most successful and most far-reaching) economic and political experiment the world has ever known. The genius of the invisible hand continues to exert its influence in the charitable sector of our society as well as it reflects the American psyche in matters of money, whether we utilize that money to improve our lives through the enterprise that earns more money or use it to improve our lives through helping our neighbors.

The rants and raves of Rosie O’Donnell, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, and on and on are part of the price we pay to run the socialist arm of American Society. We need to remember that when we observe them behaving in this fashion.

I desperately wish that I could formulate the same sort of cost/benefit analysis that would allow me to tolerate the bad behavior of liberals in Congress and the media. I can’t.

Congress Disgraces Itself Yet Again, Part 4

The U.S. Senate joined the House of Representatives in disgrace today by selling out for the same dirty pork that the House members sold out for. Who gets the blame today in addition to the Democratic Party leadership, written off long ago as hopeless, America-hating, white-flag marketers and the Democrats who sold out for pork and/or rubber-stamped the House pork? It’s the Republican members joining them.

Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is seeking the presidency, and has turned on the administration in an apparent effort to court the anti-war vote that the Democrats have convinced him carried the 2006 election. I encourage Senator Hagel to switch parties as quickly as possible. His presidential ambitions are over. Conservative Republicans are not defeatists and will therefore never choose him to carry their banner. The Democrats cannot respect him because of the ease with which he flipped, so despite the fact that they are happy to use him as their pawn, he won’t carry their banner either. But at least if he switches parties, the good people of Nebraska can see who he really is and vote him out of office.

Gordon Smith of Oregon represents the state where our troops are being burned in effigy. Coincidence?

These two senators had the power to stop the Senate from joining the House in the disgrace that is the surrender movement. They declined to step up.

I am sorry to say this as well, but I must. I am sick to death of the people in government (and in the media for that matter) referring to each other as great Americans and patriots. Here at the bottom, people who pander, and surrender, and sell out their principles for pork are never, ever seen as great Americans or patriots. They are seen as third-rate politicians who fear for their own petty, cushy, careers (and little else) while squandering taxpayers’ money and being effective only at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Anyway, that’s how it looks today from here at the bottom. We wanted Victory – You gave us Surrender by a vote of 51-47.

Congress Disgraces Itself Yet Again, Part 3

I told you I wouldn’t run out of numbers for the many parts of this topic that the House of Representatives seems hell-bent on testing me on. I can count to 3 and a lot higher, and it appears I will need to. They don’t think I can because I’m here at the bottom, but as usual, they’re wrong. However, based on the utterly stupid, self-serving, soul-selling, tax-squandering vote in the House today, it would not unreasonable to ask if the Democratic Party leadership can. But that is not my purpose today.

The Democrat leadership today squandered more of my money to pass a piece of legislation that attempts to turn over the middle-east to terrorists, has no chance of becoming law, persuaded previously sensible members of their party to sell their souls for pork, and will fail to appease the most radical wing of the party – which had to be the real goal, since no other goal is realistically achievable, even on the bizarro planet of Pelosi.

As Nancy Pelosi and her “leadership team” bought the souls of those previously sensible congress-people who once voted their conscience, I wonder if she remembered her pre-election pledge to run the most ethical congress ever. Yeah, right! My guess (and I realize it doesn’t count because I am down here at the bottom) is that since the secular-progressive crowd doesn’t deal in souls except to deny their nourishment wherever possible, they are not really capable of recognizing the sale of one. So apparently, buying and selling souls (or if you please consciences) is perfectly ethical in the 110th Congress.

For those of you up there at the top who sold out today, this was soul-selling. Recognize it. You sold them cheap – ultimately for no gain. You don’t even get the pork you sold them for. Ironically most of the people in the middle-east (you remember, the people you are selling out to their radical, militant, totalitarian neighbors) wouldn’t touch pork, lest they lose their souls.

Maybe there is a lesson there that we can take from Islam and Judaism. I meant the rest of us, of course, not House Democrats and others who ultimately cast votes that favor terrorists.

That’s the very sad view of the U.S.Congress again today here at the bottom.

Air Force Three

Could we please get Nancy Pelosi’s damned plane off the news already?

The White House should now be involved and dictate the solution. It’s the military that reports to the President who is providing the transport. It’s a 3-minute decision – if there is a coherent national security strategy in place – even if the President and his national security team drag their feet.

If that assumed coherent national security policy dictates providing this military protection to Speaker Pelosi to travel home to California, then why would it not be necessary to provide protection to a conference 150 miles away in Williamsburg, Virginia? If there were a terrorist (or other fanatical jack-ass) strike against our leadership structure, she or anyone else targeted would be just as dead if attacked on a trip to Williamsburg as on the way home to California.

This begs the question “Does the use of this military aircraft constitute part of a national security strategy or is it merely another perk of office?" If it is a security measure, then she needs to be protected ALL the time; the protection and accommodation Dennis Hastert had appears to have been appropriate. Any more would be a perk (by my definition of government waste) and would be blatantly breaking the promise to reduce waste under a Democrat Congress. If it is not a security measure, it is a perk, and should be eliminated. Nancy Pelosi should decline the plane and we should all congratulate her on eliminating waste in government and keeping the one reasonable Democrat campaign promise that was made.

She (or one of her people) is correct when they claim she should not be punished for being a woman or for living farther away from Washington than Dennis Hastert. Neither should she be rewarded on either count.

I am very much not a fan Nancy Pelosi, her politics, or her tactics, but she is entitled (and more importantly we are entitled) to whatever security is appropriate to her position. It’s not fun for me to speak in her defense, so I wish that whoever the idiots are that are holding up this legitimate security issue would get off their dead asses and resolve it, or, alternatively, leave public service and leave the resolution to someone competent.

Apparently, the first step is a coherent security strategy – one that you at the top can explain in terms that we here at the bottom can understand.

This is one more in a long list of distractions and sideshows that we at the bottom can’t afford and neither can you at the top. The difference is that we at the bottom know it; you at the top don’t appear to.
Let’s hear what that security strategy is so that after the media has O.D.’d on Anna Nicole Smith, we can move on to the next issue. That would be whether the vocal citizens of San Francisco will protest the presence of the United States Military in their city to protect one of their own and whether they will turn on Nancy Pelosi for allowing this unspeakable invasion.