Thank You Mike Huckabee

Seemingly lost in the furor over Barack Obama’s latest political problem – his long and close association with his hate-baiting minister – is recognition for the man who brought us this controversy. That man would be Mike Huckabee. It was Mike Huckabee who allowed his faith to become a campaign issue.

It was Mike Huckabee who appeared for a time to benefit from his faith. It was the rest of the politicians running for President of the United States who followed (as opposed to leading) in seeking to take advantage of their faith or at least to use their faith to not lose votes to someone else who might become “the next Mike Huckabee.”

It was Barack Obama, however, who didn’t see the day coming when Saturday Night Live (God help us) would force the press to actually look at him. The free ride always ends eventually and politicians are notoriously short-sighted in these and other matters, which explains a lot about the way they run our government. Yep, it’s still OUR government.

The only thing that is somewhat surprising is that the Clintons couldn’t find a blacker, more controversial minister to endorse them. Bill was the first “black” president after all.

Make no mistake. All of the candidates have this moment on the horizon. McCain’s will come when the violence in Iraq flares up again, as it inevitably must as a determined enemy makes its next move to counter the successful surge architected by General David Petraeus.

Since McCain threw Rumsfeld under the bus, he will look like an idiot when someone has an excuse to say that his idea was no better than Rumsfelds. He, like other politicians, see the present almost exclusively. The Rumsfeld strategy worked spectacularly. A determined enemy reacted – as we should have expected. A new set of eyes were necessary. The course of action was inevitable and based on the enemy’s moves. No one could have seen those enemy moves in advance. As then, there will be a new set of moves, which no one can currently see. A new set of eyes may well be needed again.

What about Hillary’s moments to come? Please! Her moments are never-ending and can never be justified except by a biased press that turns its head the other way for 20 years.

So thank you Mike Huckabee, for this moment of truth, unintended though it may have been.

Stupidity in “top” American Universities

I thought you had to be smart to get into MIT or Columbia University. Apparently not.

How stupid do you have to be to falsely represent yourself as someone carrying a bomb into the airport where two of the four 9/11 attack planes launched from? A lot of people risk life and limb in non-productive endeavors as the MIT sophomore did, but they don’t intentionally do things that are likely to shut down major transportation hubs. That takes a special kind of self-absorbed, ignorance-cultivated, stupidity - the kind that can only be cultivated in a “top” American university.

How stupid do you have to be to give the leader of the world’s leading terrorist state a global platform to propagandize against America? Once again, it is the kind of self-absorbed, over-indulgent, head-in-the-sand type of stupidity that can only be cultivated at a “top” American university.

How stupid do you have to be to allow the leader of the worlds leading terrorist state to maneuver you into a no-win situation?

There is nothing new to learn about this man. We know it all. He has told us what he stands for. Even if, as the university claims, he will be “challenged” by the students, what will it accomplish? Well, again, he holds all the cards. His mind will never be changed. He can filibuster so that only a limited number of questions can be asked, effectively eliminating the so-called challenge. If the students react to him as they did to the minutemen (which we all know is extremely unlikely), he is given propaganda to take back to his world showing the evidence that Americans are “rude and unholy.” It’s a no win situation, you idiots. Checkmate – he wins no matter what.

Once again, I ask “How stupid do you have to be to let this happen? How hungry for your 15 minutes of fame do you have to be to be eager to play a part in this fiasco? Apparently, you have to be stupid enough to believe the politically correct crap that is fed to students in our “top” universities in 2007, completely ignoring the lessons they should have learned on 9/11. Personally, I think it’s time for a major revision of the syllabus.

New York City officials, by contrast, saw right through the ruse to visit ground zero to lay a wreath in honor of the fallen – his fallen, not ours. What’s the moral of the story?

There are two really:

First, it makes you question the value of a college education, if these are the results.

Second, if you want a real education in New York City, join the NYPD or the FDNY, and stay as far as you can from Columbia University lest it infect you.

Expand the Death Penalty - Part 1: The Premise

It’s not a question of whether the death penalty is going to be expanded. It’s a matter of who is going to expand it. Many of the states here in the U.S. have eliminated or severely limited the application of the death penalty over the years. The reasons given were that it was uncivilized, barbaric, we might convict an innocent person, and it brought “us” down to the level of the criminals. In short, it made us feel good to be merciful. We were stupid. We chose to be stupid because we were afraid of getting our hands dirty and bloody. Guess what. Our hands are dirty and bloody anyway.

Every day we turn on the news (some of us do, anyway) only to hear that yet another released criminal has murdered yet another innocent. Every day we turn on the news to hear that another cowardly, suicidal, terrorist has killed more innocents. We all lament about how awful it is and how something should be done after having, ourselves, been the enablers for these criminals and terrorists.

Every so often, we are faced with the prospect of building new prisons. Everyone (except me, apparently) agrees that we ought to build those prisons, but none of us really wants to pay for them. We do pay for them, but we’re pissed about it. We treat these criminals very well and we’re pissed about that. And by very well, I mean much better than any of them treated their victims, whatever their individual crime was (with very few exceptions).

We, as a society, don’t like the idea of playing God, making decisions of life and death. What we choose to remain ignorant about is that we do it anyway, whether we like it and are aware of it or not. When we choose life for a violent criminal, we are choosing death for that criminal’s next victim. I believe it is time to take our heads out of the sand and take responsibility for the shape of our society.

In case you are wondering, yes, the fact that this is part one does mean that there will be at least a part two. This will deal with terrorism at the appropriate point.

Immigration Reform – Deformed (Mexican Food)

The immigration bill was killed; now it’s alive again. It apparently has more lives than a cat. I am being called a racist on the news shows (even on Fox News by Geraldo) because I believe the laws of the land ought to be enforced. You know, the ones on the books making invasion of the United Stated illegal since 1986, signed by Reagan and enforced by no one since then.

So for those of you who may agree with me, here is the next argument intended to assault your integrity as soon as the new version of this idiot bill sees resistance. I’m preparing you for it now, so don’t say you weren’t warned. ”Oh, you don’t mind eating Mexican food, but having a few Mexicans around to cook it for you is objectionable, you racist.”

Here is the correct response. “No you [add expletive if desired. You’ve earned the right at this point] moron. I love legal Mexican food, preferably cooked by legal Americans of Mexican descent. And by the way - that Mexican-American crap, or any other hyphenated American. I don’t want them cooking my food either. I want Americans in America, who think of themselves as Americans - not any kind of hyphenated American, and if I had my way, anybody who thinks of themselves as a hyphenated American would be deported to wherever they used to hyphenate, since that is obviously where they would prefer to be. Anything else?”

No, they won’t learn a thing. But the important thing is they will not have tricked you into feeling guilt you had no business feeling.

Meanwhile, Bush and the Congress are continuing to ignore the will of the people – that they do their jobs in enforcing current laws (like the 1986 immigration law and the 2006 fence authorization) rather than create a third law to ignore. These are the activities that serve as the principal argument for term limits. Can’t we extend them to include the Congress?

Maybe Cheney becoming a fourth branch of government isn’t such a bad idea. Who in their right mind would want to be associated with what we have in there right now. That’s all I can stand to write right now as my stomach is bothering me, and believe me, it’s not the excellent Mexican food I had for lunch.

Immigration Reform - Deformed

The proposed immigration bill being sold to us by the Bush administration and the leadership in the U.S. Congress is the equivalent of the Iraq surrender bill. This is the Mexico surrender bill born of the same mindset, the same misguided expediency, and with the same consequences.

The irresponsibility of the Bush administration and all the prior administrations in not enforcing the laws currently in place is astounding. I, along with many others, believe that this has been the result of pandering to the Hispanic vote. It succeeded. If my belief is correct, President Bush, will have the blood of Americans on his hands when the WMDs that may have crossed the border under his watch are used on us. That, sadly, will be his legacy, just as intern sex and 9/11 are Clinton’s legacy.

Legacy calculation:

• War in Afghanistan +10
• War in Iraq +15
• Best economy ever +5
• Supreme Court Appointments +7
• 10,000 people die from WMDs that crossed our borders with the blessing of the U.S. Government -2,000,000
• Destruction of the Republican party -4,000

Incidentally, other administrations share the legacy hits on the WMDs on a sliding scale, with those to whom the highest urgency should have been most apparent taking the biggest hits as follows:

• Bush 43 -2,000,000
• Clinton -1,500,000
• Bush 41 -500,000
• Reagan -100,000
• Carter -4,000,000 (for nurturing terrorism)

The Congress, complacent in this, will have an equally disgraceful legacy as the enablers of the no-border policy and the obstructionists of all that truly protects us.

But I digress.

How is the immigration bill surrender? It is the attitude that you cannot deport 12,000,000 law-breaking, illegal aliens. It is true that you can’t if you don’t try. John McCain, in defending this crappy bill in typical government fashion, has said that deporting 12,000,000 people would overwhelm the legal system. Oh, so it IS possible, then Senator?

What does private industry do when faced with a sudden, temporary, overwhelming, necessary project? It quickly creates a large, temporary organization where everyone understands that there is a defined end to the project and after which their employment will end. It streamlines the process by which it achieves the necessary production (like military tribunals to deal with the invading force) and does not allow it to overwhelm the remainder of its organization. Mitt Romney knows how to do it. He did it in business, he did it in the Olympics, and he just can’t wait to do it in Washington – his words on his commercials. Well Governor, can/will you do it?

In addition, we are currently all up in arms about the irresponsibility of a tuberculosis patient, Andrew Speaker, who endangered hundreds of people by defying a CDC no-fly order repeatedly. Many believe, as I do, that he should be in jail. Not one of us believes his plea of ignorance or his sincerity in apologizing after the fact and after being apprehended. It doesn’t help that he is a lawyer either. His activity could well be dwarfed by what could be coming across the border while we turn our heads the other way.

What does the CDC know about the dangers crossing our borders? How many Americans have already been killed by illegal aliens either while committing crimes or driving with or without a license?

I take back my previous statement about Bush having American blood on his hand if WMDs are used. He and the Congress already have blood on their hands – innocent blood. The only question is “How much more blood do you really want on your hands?” Don’t tell me. Show me – now.

The Politically Correct Alphabet

It’s not going to be long now before we face a threat more threatening to civilization than global warming. We’re going to run out of alphabet due to political correctness. In the beginning, there was the “N-word” – OK. As we have “progressed” through the PC evolution, we have unspeakable words for most of our letters. We have a few particularly naughty letters for which we have multiple words, the most notorious of which is “C.” When someone refers to the “C” word, I sometimes think about it for a minute or two just for kicks and then guess which “C-word” they were referring to rather than waste even more of my life continuing a counterproductive mini-quest.

In the past few weeks we have, thanks to Don Imus and Al Sharpton, added a new wrinkle to the politically correct alphabet - another “N” word – “nappy”, another “H” word – “Ho”, and 2 “N” phrases “nappy-headed” and “nappy-headed ho.” I assume a word or phrase has been added whenever someone loses a job over the word or phrase.

So let’s see how much of the alphabet we have left for use. A, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, and T are taken. So far as I know we still have E, I, K, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z available. I can actually think of a word or two for some of those remaining letters, but they haven’t been mainstreamed by actual news stories, documented offenses, or firings yet, but they will – never fear.

Although, PC-ness has always been a pain in the A--, at its beginning, it had a noble purpose – to keep from unnecessarily and unfairly offending people. It has, of course, like all noble endeavors, been turned over to the lunatic fringe to take too far. How can you possibly take a noble endeavor too far?

For one thing, you can decide that you don’t want to offend the lunatic fringe, who will take over given the slightest opportunity. Let’s get one thing straight – the lunatic fringe deserves to be offended. Why? - Because they are lunatics. I really shouldn’t have needed to explain that. However, if that’s not enough of a reason, the nature of the lunatic fringe is to make absolutely certain that their interests are served – fully and to the exclusion of all others’ interests – much like radical Islamic terrorists. That will, by definition offend all moderates at some point and “PC” will become a “PITA”, and it has. It has also become a tool for hiding truth and logic as well as delaying or blocking the addressing of real issues – like a doctor who prescribes cough medicine for lung cancer.

For example, it is unacceptable to say the actual “N” word, but it is acceptable to say “the ‘N’ word.” It means the same thing, except that saying “the ‘N’ word” conveys the message that you yourself are offended by the actual “N” word, which is usually BS. So PC-ness has, in a very real sense, created a lie and forced you to tell it. You have not really addressed the issue, which should have been to accept and value people for their uniqueness, including those differences that are not under their control and don’t matter in anything other than a Darwinian evolutionary context. In many instances it has exacerbated the problem by delaying a real solution; problems not addressed, get worse.

For another, PC-ness assumes that people are less tolerant than they otherwise would be. When you lower expectations of tolerance, some people in every offend-able group will live down to your expectations as well as demanding that you lower your expectations even more. If you do, you will offend moderates who you will never, ever lower you expectation of tolerance for. If you don’t, you will offend those demanding that you do. Either way, “PC” will (and has) become a “PITA.”

So in closing, let me say that I JCHFS with my OL and HAB, and if you spend more than a microsecond trying to figure that one out you’re an F’ing Idiot, or should I say FI. Oops, there went another letter. We certainly don’t want to offend idiots.

Translation: I just came home from shopping with my old lady and had a blast. I’m pretty certain that will offend somebody, somewhere.