LSJ Story Riles Readers: Teen Girls Ejected from Lansing Mall and Acused of...Loitering

Question: At what age does age discrimination become age discrimination?

This is a question that has been plaguing shopping malls across the nation as they try to recapture control of their shopping areas from hoodlums who have turned malls into gang hangouts.

One such mall is the Lansing Mall.

In recent years gangs had a major presence there; shopping could get dangerous in and around the mall. Juvenile crime was hurting shoppers and retailers alike.

A few years ago the Lansing Mall underwent a major remodeling/face-lift and the management cracked down on troublemakers by bringing in security companies and law enforcement. The atmosphere has greatly improved, the mall looks great and shoppers (old and new) have come to the mall in greater numbers year after year.

One of the things that the mall did was institute a rule banning loitering on mall property by teens and children.

Lansing State Journal (LSJ) columnist John Schneider, who has exposed several major Lansing-area scandals this year (and is an excellent writer), wrote in his Thursday column that four girls (ages 11-15) were walking around the mall to spend several hundred dollars worth of gift cards that they had gotten for Christmas.

They were approached by a security guard and asked to leave the mall for doing "more loitering than buying."

Schneider wrote in today's column in the LSJ that dozens of e-mails and phone calls had come in from readers who were fired up about the incident. Some have come down hard on the mall policy as age discrimination; others came down hard on the girls' parents for dropping them off in the first place; yet others came to the mall's defense.

It's my turn.

The Lansing Mall management should be complimented for getting control of the dangerous climate that existed there previously. Getting the drugs and weapons out of there (along with their owners) has indeed made it safer for shoppers.

Errors were definitely made: the parents screwed up, the security guard didn't handle this right due to his not distinguishing between four girls who were slowly making their way around the mall and gang hoodlums who were in there looking for trouble, and the management of the Lansing Mall should have realized that not all teens are troublemakers. One solution doesn't fit every problem.

It's very unfortunate that this had to happen.

Katrina Causes 2,000 Gulf Coast Sex Offenders to Vanish

Law enforcement officials in Katrina-hit areas of the Gulf Coast are asking for help in locating 2,000 registered sex offenders who are no longer where they are supposed to be.

It is believed that many fled as the monster hurricane approached the coastline and were sent to states that took in Katrina evacuees, including Michigan.

Most have failed to register their whereabouts as they are required to by law. Officials are worried that these people will be more willing to strike again since they are no longer under supervision of the state that they were from.

FEMA has sent out a warning message to all fifty state governors apprising them of the situation and encouraging them to do what they can to locate the missing 2,000 offenders.

Hopefully this situation will be corrected soon.

CIA Considering Disciplinary Action for 9/11 Failures: Cover-Up Continues

The CIA is considering disciplining agents and officials for the failure to detect and stop 9/11 from happening.

In the end, it doesn't matter what the CIA does. The full story of 9/11 is still untold and the CIA's attempt to place blame is designed to bury the story.

Why is the full story of the events leading up to 9/11 not yet known?

Because Able Danger hasn't been explained fully yet; those who were asked to testify before Congress were denied permission by the military to do so.

This refusal to allow members of Able Danger to testify leads one to several possible conclusions:

• The military did know about one of the cells that launched the 9/11 attacks but did nothing to stop it.
• Able Danger broke the law and learned of the 9/11 operation.
• Able Danger is an ongoing military operation.
• The military doesn't want its' sources to be compromised.
  

As long as there is unexplored information out there, all CIA actions to point fingers and punish people for 9/11 is a railroad job. This CIA move to punish officials for their failures on or before 9/11 is therefore meaningless.

We shouldn't stand for this.

Canada Blames U.S. for CANADIAN Failure to Stop Guns From Coming into Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin blamed the U.S. for exporting violence into Canada via lax gun control laws, following a shooting in Toronto which left a fifteen-year-old girl dead and six other people wounded the day after Christmas.

Forgive the question, but isn't Canada in charge of securing it's own borders?

They need to take responsibility for their own failures and quit blaming the U.S. for Canadian social ills. Canada should address it's problem by better policing and doing a better job of running their side of the border. If that means searching every vehicle that comes across from the U.S. side, then so be it.

This story is a politician's way of dodging the problem.

Patriot Act Reconsidered: Change of Opinion

After studying the USA Patriot Act for the last year and looking at the impact that it's had on the lives on everyday Americans, I have concluded that some of my earlier opinions about the Act were incorrect.

I now think that the Act should be renewed for another two years "as is" with a couple of amendments.

The reasons for this change in position are twofold:

Has anyone checked the calendar to see when was the last time al-Qaeda hit the continental U.S.? It was on 9/11, wasn't it?

Has anyone noticed a change in their day-to-day activities and freedoms because of the Patriot Act?

Muslims might answer 'yes', but what about the 99% of the rest of America? Most would say 'no' unless they're doing something illegal.

Having said that, we should be concerned about the government following the rule of law, so there should be some additions to the Patriot Act that restrict the actions of the government. Namely, ALL wiretaps need to have the permission of a court, OR they need to report it to the court afterwards if it's an emergency (they have to prove to the court that it IS an emergency too). Presidential "authority" to order wiretaps without reporting it to the court should be banned.

The application of the Patriot Act in the cases of people pointing lasers into airline cockpits to blind the pilots was wrong; existing laws carried heavier penalties than the Patriot Act did. Misapplication of the Patriot Act is a problem and that should be addressed by Congress after the New Year.

Finally, they should rename the Act. "Patriot Act" sounds like something to honor patriotic Americans, not stop terrorists.

That's where it stands.

Declaration of Intent: ThunderFerret's Realm in 2006

In 2006, this blog will:

• Fight attempts to ban God from everything.
• Continue to speak out against abortion as opportunities present themselves.
• Continue to speak out against the death penalty.
• Draw attention to injustice in all of its forms.
• Point out policy errors in government.
• Draw attention to the best in people.
• Draw attention to the worst in people.
• Continue to support and criticize our government.
• Criticize attempts to amend the Constitution.
• Criticize those who continue to tout the deeply-flawed Kyoto Accords as the ultimate solve-all to the world's environmental issues.
• Demand that the government follow the rule of law, no matter how inconvenient it is.
• Encourage lawmakers to revise the Patriot Act to protect against abuses and to rename the Act as something else--"Patriot Act" doesn't cut it.
• Encourage the renaming of the Homeland Security Department so it doesn't sound so...foreign.
  
• Encourage lawmakers to make September 11th as a national day of rememberence with an official label: Rememberance Day or something appropriate.
• Point out hypocrisy coming from government and from public figures and international figures.
• Point out human interest stories.
• Encourage people vote against Hillary in 2008.
• Encourage people to vote incumbants out of office from time to time.
• Point out stupidity in society.
  
• Promote thinking that will shake up the status quo as it is today. The far left and far right do not represent the entire electorate and they need to be reminded of that.

Blurring of Battle Lines in Congress are a Sign of Things to Come in 2006

The last few weeks have seen some extraordinary alliances being formed and then broken between conservatives and liberals in both houses of Congress.

It really got started a while back when Republicans in the House of Representatives presented a resolution calling for an immediate termination of military operations in Iraq. Their intent was to force waffling Democrats to take a stand on the war. As the Republicans had anticipated, the measure failed by a very wide margin. It was a pure political move designed to get the Democrats on the record, but something unexpected began to happen.

Consider: in the last two weeks, there has been a tremendous amount of political bloodshed over the Patriot Act, the proposal to open parts of federal lands in Alaska to oil drilling, the defense appropriations bill, hurricane relief bills, a rehash of last year's disasterous transportation bill, and political dogfights over whether this person or that one is waving a white flag of surrender to insurgent terrorists in Iraq. In fact, Senator Murtha tried to alter the political definitions of "insurgent" and "terrorist." That ploy didn't work. In addition, Congress agreed to include a torture ban in the defense spending bill.

Both sides continued to attach amendments (or "riders") that were too weak to stand on their own to major bills; the oil drilling thing was attached to the defense bill. This lead to the defense department's biggest supporters in Congress promising to vote against their own bills.

It's all one huge mess and it will get much worse as election time nears.

People Develop Immunity to Bird Flu Vaccine, Leaving Them Open to Bird Flu Infection

Oh, great.

The much-vaunted bird flu vaccine (Tamiflu) may be a dud, according to bird flu experts. They said this because two people in Vietnam were given the vaccine after being exposed to bird flu, developed a resistance to the drug, got real sick and died. Both had been given "early and aggressive treatment" which makes this very troubling.

Governments around the world are stockpiling Tamiflu like crazy, but it may have a major problem. The low dosage allows the human body to develop defenses against it, leaving it wide-open to invasion from the bird flu that it is supposed to be warding off with the help of the drug.

If this is true, and there is a planet-wide outbreak of bird flu, we (humanity) are SO screwed. Now is not the time to be going back to the drawing board on this. Let's hope and pray that the experts are wrong.

Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design: Is Anyone REALLY Surprised?

A federal judge ruled against a Pennsylvania school district's "intelligent design" biology curriculum today, saying that it violated the Constitution.

Is anyone REALLY surprised that this was the ruling that the federal court came up with?

Intelligent design belongs in a cultures curriculum where it fits in, not in a biology class. Many churches have said this. National debate about the issue is ongoing and it isn't going away soon.

People on the right have to understand that trying to impose a religious belief on the secular world is something that is very dangerous to do and runs the risk of being overturned in court. The artificially created separation of church and state has decades of precident behind it, and, right or wrong, that precident is the one that most federal judges will follow to the letter, as demonstrated today with the 139-page opinion from the court.

So we shouldn't be too surprised when the courts rule like this. And don't expect this argument to go away anytime soon. Here's the story.

Bush's Explanation of Wiretapping Program is Easier to Understand than People Think

President Bush's explanation of a covert wiretapping program makes perfect sense, but many don't seem to be listening to what he's saying.

Consider this: Bush said that the program monitors incoming international phone calls from known terrorists or sympathizers to people who are already under observation in this country.

So if someone on the FBI's most wanted list of terrorists (like Ayman al-Zawahiri) makes an incoming phone call to someone in the United States, and voice recognition software identifies the caller's voice as al-Qaeda's theological leader (who is suspected of organizing the massacre of 67 foreign tourists in Luxor, and the bombings of two U.S. embassies in 1998), then the NSA had better be listening to the conversation in the event that the message that al-Zawahiri is giving is an attack order on targets in the United States.

Who would al-Zawahiri be calling? Not Johnny Average American. He's calling criminals in this country who are preparing to murder thousands of people if they can.

WHO GIVES A HOOT about wiretapping in that instance? Get over it and let the government do it's job. Johnny Average American isn't being monitored unless an international killer is calling him from overseas to order him to blow up a building and everyone inside it.

That's what Bush was saying and Congress is ignoring.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't seem to be concerned about the civil rights of Americans who are aiding the enemy. Providing aid and comfort to the enemy is treason, and Americans who engage in treason with known terrorists don't deserve protection from wiretapping.

Senator Reid Misses Point: INCUMBENTS are the Problem, Not One Party or Another

Democratic Senator Reid and many in Congress are trying to distance themselves from recent financial scandals that have painted Congressmembers in a very bad way.

He was pointing to Republican senators Cunningham and DeLay, who have been accused of finance crimes. Senator Reid took it one step further, saying that the current Congress is the most corrupt version in U.S. history and that the Abramoff scandal is a Republican scandal. More on that a little later.

It should be noted that scandals that have also touched Democratic Congressmembers: current members Senator Baucus, Senator Dorgan, Senator Clinton, Senator Reid himself, and others have shown up on the scandal radar as well. In fact, many other INCUMBENT Dems and Reps have been tainted by accusations of graft and other wrongdoing.

So before Senator Reid lets his imagination and selective memory run away with him, he ought to come clean on his own involvement with Jack Abramoff, the recently indicted lobbyist. Until he does, the pot is calling the kettle black.

The REAL problem here are the incumbents staying in power too long. The longer a person stays in Washington, the more corrupt they become, and they think they can take full advantage of the opportunities that come before them. This says something for term limits in every state, doesn't it?

With the exception of Senator Clinton, few freshman Senators and Representatives have faced questions of financial wrongdoing, and even then, Senator Clinton has distance between her and Whitewater and has kept her nose out of trouble, with the exception of the very bad memory of Whitewater and Monica.

Ten years ago, Jim Wright was forced to resign as were a couple of other Democrats, and Republicans were making the same charge of corruption in Congress. We won't even talk about President Clinton.

Freshman Congresspeople should be put in charge of campaign finance reform; their hands aren't greedily grabbing handfuls of cash. That's another issue for another day.

The world turns, does it not?

Michigan Board of Canvassers Disobeys Court to Put Initiative on November Ballot: Governor Must Act

For those who missed it, there has been a bit of drama happening in Lansing over an anti-affirmative action proposal that supporters want to have put on the November 2006 ballot in Michigan.

The initiative wants people to get government jobs based on their experience, and not because of the color of their skin.

Many elected Democrats are adamently opposed to the measure; many elected Republicans are strongly in favor of the people of Michigan voting on the measure.

There was some question as to whether the 500,000 signatures on a petition were collected honestly; some Democrats claimed that people signed the petition because they thought it was a pro-affirmative action petition and that the people who gathered the signatures misrepresented what the petition was for.

This argument was taken to court, and the courts decided that the initiative should be on the November ballot. It ordered the board of canvassars to certify the signatures of the petition; they refused. They were again ordered to do so following more court proceedings, and here's what happened:

A political group from Detroit arrived from Detroit with a busload of students to attend the meeting; their behavior was awful and they ended up disrupting the meeting. Police were called in to restore order; one person was arrested. The vote was finally taken, and it was two in favor, one against, and one abstained from voting.

They were ordered to uphold the constitution of the State of Michigan; they failed to do so. Now the two Democrats on the panel who voted no or abstained are facing possible contempt of court charges. Their side argued their case against the signatures and lost.

It didn't matter what their personal opinions were by that point; they were ordered to certify the signatures by a court in good standing in the State of Michigan, and that was what they were at this meeting to do.

Governor Granholm should insist that the board members who defied the court and failed to uphold the law resign immediately, or she should expel them from the board (as provided for in the Michigan constitution) and appoint their replacements.

Her appointees aren't DOING THEIR JOBS. And the group that disrupted the meeting should be ashamed of itself for pulling kids out of school to disrupt a government meeting.

Legislation should also be put into place to prevent future occurances of this disgrace; since this is not the first time this has happened, it should be dealt with to put this issue to rest permanently.

First Thoughts on Iranian Nuclear Problem: Let the EU Take the Lead

Iran's terrorist president has taken to the airwaves, suggesting that Israel be relocated to Europe and that the Holocaust never happened.

His remarks have unleashed a wave of fury in Western capitols that will ultimately result in a military conflict between Israel and Iran (at the very least), or a coalition of countries that are determined to stop Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Analysis: Israel is ready to turn Tehran into glass right now. Iran is goading Israel into a military confrontation that will allow Iran to strike freely and openly at Israel. They also appear to be betting that Europe's pacifist movement will keep the EU from getting into a military confrontation with Tehran. AND they're betting that the U.S. military is too overstretched to take action.

Some off-the-wall thoughts: the U.S. should support Israel against Iran, regardless of what the EU decides. If this means reinforcing Israel's military by providing military hardware and ammo, so be it. But for all the noise the EU is making about Iran, their track record on supporting U.S. terror initiatives has been lukewarm at best. Why should we treat their terror initiatives any differently than they treated ours?

If the EU attacks Iran, they should do so without U.S. or British or Iraq-coalition support. Let the EU take the lead and THEN try to convince the U.S. of the worthiness of THEIR cause. That would be poetic justice.

In reality, that's not how it will unfold.

Israel will probably not wait for the rest of the world to catch on that Iran's president is about nine cans short of a six-pack. The EU will probably sit it out, the result of their unwillingness to use their militaries; and who knows what the U.S. will do? It will probably deal with Iran after shoving the Europeans out of the way and telling Israel to stay out of it unless it is attacked by Iranian missiles or aircraft.

In any case, Iran's clerics ought to be telling their hostage-taking bigmouth lunatic president to shut up and comply with UN and IAEA demands before it's too late. The Iranian people will suffer the most from cracked-open Iranian nuclear reactors and blown up nuclear fuel rods scattering radioactivity to the four winds.

While the Iranian president's comments about the Holocaust were absurd and motivated by pure hatred of Israel, it can be dealt with AFTER the nuclear problem is taken care of.

And the U.S. and EU should do what they must to keep Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. But if it becomes necessary to use military force OR force a UN Security Council resolution, the ENTIRE EU should be leading the effort, not the U.S. It's their turn.

Put a Moratorium on Death Sentences Until Problems With the System are Fixed

It's hard to believe that so many people support the death penalty when it's been shown to have flaws that have led directly to the deaths of innocent people at the hands of states that were sworn to protect them.

States often fall short on the mark; critical mistakes are made, people go to jail or are sentenced to death and it takes private organizations to do DNA testing to show that a person did not commit a crime (which EVERY death-penalty state should be doing ON IT'S OWN, no matter how much it costs.)

A jury convicts a person of a crime based on how the case is presented by both sides, testimony by eyewitnesses, evidence collected at the crime scene, testimony from the accused, and the maneuvers carried out by the attorneys in court.

But what happens when the evidence is circumstantial, the eyewitnesses identify the wrong person, evidence is supressed from the jury, or the defense attorney shows up to trial hung over or unprepared? Or attorneys put their clients on the stand and the other side is able to make the accused look REALLY bad to the jury through no fault of their own? The jury convicts the person based on the performances of the players and who does a better job of explaining how the evidence shows one thing or another.

THEN the state refuses to review the case and death row inmates are allowed to languish on death row for years, even though they are there because their attorney was outperformed in court and failed to sway jurors who have to judge what is presented to them and nothing else. Evidence is destroyed after a while, and then there is no opportunity to do DNA testing. Virginia's governor recently commuted the death sentence of a prisoner precisely because this happened.

A death penalty system that makes mistakes and refuses to go back to test itself is immoral. We should do everything we should to punish the guilty and set the innocent free. If this means putting a moratorium on all executions indefinitely until the problems are fixed, then it should be done. And states have no business adding to death row until these problems are fixed either.

One last thing--the case against Tookie Williams, plus his violent assaults on prison guards and other prisoners over the years showed that he belonged in prison. He's no innocent man, but I don't think anything positive will come from his scheduled execution in a few short hours.

Air Marshall Acted Correctly in Shooting of Passenger

Much noise has been made about sky marshalls shooting an airline passenger who said he had a bomb and reached toward his backpack, which led marshalls to open fire.

Much of the criticism is unfounded.

The federal agents involved in this incident appear to have followed their training to the letter when they attempted to resolve the problem.

In the end, it didn't matter if there was a bomb or not. The man created a disturbance on an aircraft filled with people, ignored lawful orders and instrutions, pushed his way off the aircraft and made a grab toward his backpack after disobeying instructions which would have saved his life. That backpack could have contained any number of weapons, including small bombs.

The only way to stop a suicide bomber from blowing himself up is, unfortunately, to kill him with a head shot. And law enforcement rules of engagement are clear. But the man just didn't listen and forced authorities to react to his aggression.

A TASER may not have worked and could have detonated an explosive device.

It's unfortunate that this passenger lost his life, but his wife should never have allowed him to come to the airport while he was off his medications. She should have told airline officials that he was off his meds IN ADVANCE. But she didn't. She'll probably sue for wrongful death, though she could have stopped this situation from happening as it did.

Some questions: was the backpack searched before he carried it on board? Did the sky marshalls talk to the person who (presumably) searched the pack? And can something like this be prevented in the future?

If one lesson is to be drawn from this unfortunate event, it's that airliners are no place for a person off their self-control medications to be.

Word Games The Democrats Are Playing: Insurgent vs. Terrorist

This is a clever one.

Liberal Democrats are now criticizing President Bush for calling the enemy terrorists and suggested that if the U.S. were to pull out of Iraq immediately that the insurgents would stop fighting, leaving the "true" terrorists significantly weakened.

If only that were so.

Terrorists are defined by what they do, not by a term put on them by deceptive liberals who are employing Bill Clinton's strategy of splitting hairs on terminology.

Someone who walks into a neighborhood pub in Baghdad and blows himself or herself up is not defending their country against Westerners. That's terrorism. They're killing people who live there, regardless of whether any Americans are there or not. And regardless of what they say afterwards, the innocent are just as dead. Words won't bring them back.

So don't fall for this "insurgent vs. terrorist" thing that Congressional Democrats are going on about. It's oversimplification to a radical degree by a group of Senators who have already surrendered and want everyone else to follow suit. They can go jump off a cliff by themselves, thank you very much.

Venezuela Follows Through on Promise to Sell Cut-Price Oil to American Poor

Venezuela has carried out a promise to deliver cut-cost heating oil to parts of New York. The first shipment of the heating oil was delivered to charity housing projects yesterday; thousands will benefit from the gesture.

American oil companies and politicians should be embarassed beyond belief.

Whoever is on President Chavez's staff and thought of this move is a diabolical genius. Venezuela denies it is trying to embarass the U.S. oil industry or the American government, but that's precisely what has happened.

What happens next?

Creation of ".xxx" Domain Name Delayed--Long Awaited Internet Cleanup Postponed

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) delayed a vote needed to establish a virtual red-light district and requiring sex sites to move over to a ".xxx" domain name.

Some are worried that to do so would legitimize porn sites and increase web flow traffic to those sites.

They are ignoring the fact that the Internet could use a much-needed cleanup and make it easier for parents and others to get their Internet filtering systems to work as they were intended and block out the filth that their kids accidentally find.

Right now, filters are about 45-50% effective at stopping access to pornographic web sites.

Fears that creating a .xxx domain name will legitimize porn are unfounded. Porn is already online; why not put them all under one domain type and then allow parents and schools to block access to ALL of them and not just SOME of them?

Here's why: a kid doing a Google web search on tossed salad for a homework recipe assignment will find the sex-related terminology at the very top of the list in an unassuming web site name with the domain .com at the end of it. Some filters will catch it, some definitely will not.

I will not post the link to that site here. Go find it yourself. If you can't, you'd better believe that little Johnny can. And will. So before naked people start showing up on the screen doing various things in front of little Johnny or little Susie, we ought to change that .com to a .xxx

And web traffic to .xxx sites will not increase. It will stay the same in the long-run, though there will be an increase in traffic at first as people scramble to find their favorite porn sites that they already frequent.

.com web sites should not be allowed to redirect to .xxx web sites or provide links either.

So ICANN should get it's butt into gear and governments should either support this vote or butt out. Here's the current status of this vote and how various governments are interfering.

The sooner this happens, the sooner concerned parents will be able to control what their kids see while they're surfing. This should be something that the family focus groups also support.

French Face Transplant Operation Raises Huge Ethical Questions

This one's a doozy.

The recent face transplant conducted on a French woman has opened up a huge ethical debate on whether doctors should have removed the face of a brain-dead woman and transplanted it on another person.

The recipient of the face was somehow mauled by a dog and was mutilated quite badly back in May. French doctors had to get permission from the French legal system to do the operation and then waited for a suitable donor. When the brain-dead woman surfaced, they removed half of her face and did the transplant.

It doesn't seem right that someone's body is mutilated to repair the mutilated body of another. Especially when the donor didn't give consent for something like that, and the fact that she lies half alive in a hospital bed with half of her face missing. For something like this, I don't think that the donor's family has the right to allow the medical mutilation of their family member. If it was to donate an internal body part to save a family member, that's one thing, but to make major external changes without consent is just wrong.

This involves not only the French medical and legal communities, but world medical and legal communities as each nation will have to decide if they will allow stuff like this in their territory. What a mess!

Here's another part of the controversy.

Bush's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq: An Excellent Read

President Bush and the National Security Council released a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" to counter claims from the opposition that the President has failed to communicate his war aims in the Iraq War.

Not surprisingly, the anti-war movement instantly attacked the document as being a PR ploy rather than a strategy.

In fact, they attacked it so quickly that one wonders if they even bothered to read the entire document, or if they had a Cliff's Notes version. It's more likely that the anti-war crowd already had their minds made up and it didn't matter what the document said...even if the document HAD set a date for a complete U.S. military pull-out.

In any case, the document itself is worthy of a look.

The first section of the Executive Summary is titled "Victory in Iraq is Defined in Stages." It's this section that is the MOST important part of the document. It outlines short, medium and long-term benchmarks for victory. In a nutshell:

• Short term--Iraq makes progress toward fighting the terrorists on their own and moves toward democracy.
• Medium term--Iraq takes the lead in fighting the terrorists and has a stable government.
• Long term--Iraq is at peace with itself and it's neighbors and is a partner in the war on terror.

In terms of pulling our troops out, this is very good news. See the medium term benchmark? THAT'S when the U.S. military will leave Iraq in large numbers. As more Iraqi battalions stand up, our forces will stand down. So there's no need to publicize a date for withdrawing our brave soldiers; if the Administration follows this strategy, everyone will have a pretty good idea of when the U.S. military will be on the move out of Iraq.

The anti-war movement should be cheering by this point.

Victory for the U.S. in Iraq means leaving when Iraq begins to kick some tail on it's own and NOT when all terrorist acts end, as some in the anti-war movement are claiming. When U.S. and coalition forces leave, there will undoubtably be insurgents and terrorists and jihaddis shooting at them on their way out. Hopefully not, but that's the reality.

Only the Iraqis can bring peace back to their country, and this plan recognizes that.

Download the document from the White House web site and read the ENTIRE thing (Bush haters). It's very revealing. More to follow.

"Wax On, Wax Off Daniel-san"---Goodbye Mr. Miyagi

Pat Morita passed away on Thursday at age 73.

He is well-remembered for his role as Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" movie series and the unintelligible waiter at Arnold's Drive-In in "Happy Days."

Farewell Mr. Miyagi.

Government Considering Taxing Hybrid Cars to Pay For the Pork in Their Highway Bill

All pork projects contained in the highway bill must be terminated immediately.

The reason that I say this is because the government can no longer afford them. Congress and the Administration have gone TOO FAR with the pork.

The proof is the fact that the Department of Transportation is projecting that they will be out of money before the bill expires. They are proposing a tax on all hybrid cars to keep the agency afloat until a new transportation bill is passed next year.

Unacceptable!

Get rid of all the pork in the current highway bill (that President Bush signed four months ago) immediately! And don't stop with the Bridges to Nowhere project in Alaska either.

And if any member of Congress threatens to resign over the pork cuts, LET THEM! Good riddance.

Taxpayers should not be made to pay twice to support the pork in this bill!

Here's a story on the pork itself.
Here's the story on the hybrid tax.

Oink!! Oink!!

Disgraceful! Shoppers Who Participated in Stampede Should Be Ashamed!

This is disgraceful! A senior citizen was knocked down and trampled by a mob attempting to get into a South Florida mall, and others were pushed around and down, as seen in this photo.

The current way that stores open needs to be changed for this one day. Instead of closing down the night before and opening the doors up at 5am the next morning, they should instead stay open and have their stock people bring stuff out gradually throughout the early morning hours.

For that matter, the way that discounts are done should change as well. If retailers are serious about keeping people safe, then they should have enough stock on hand to eliminate the rush for people to grab whatever they see before everything is gone.

Retailers are to blame for the violence. They create the environment that allows the violence to take place, therefore they are the only ones who can change the rules of the game.

First-come, first serve should be abolished, as well as long lines in the winter cold that feed into peoples' tempers and impatience.

Those who read this post who did a "Jingle All the Way" this morning ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Unbelievable: Communist Thug Provides Discounted Oil to American Poor When Our Own Oil Companies Refuse to Do So

What the??!

Venezuela is providing discounted oil to poor families in Massachusetts that will be 40% below market price when American oil companies are refusing to do the same thing.

This is unbelievable!

It's an amazing propaganda victory for the communist Venezuelan government and a huge slap at both the U.S. government and the American oil industry.

At a time when most Americans are going to get bit hard because the oil industry is refusing to help lower the price of heating oil, our political enemies are doing exactly that!

This is disgraceful!

Innocent Man May Have Been Executed: Witness Recants, Prosecutor Expresses Regrets

Evidence has recently surfaced that a man who was executed by the state of Texas a dozen years ago was innocent.

Reuben Cantu was arrested for capital murder and attempted murder, charged, found guilty and executed. Others said he wasn't present at the crime scene.

The survivor recently recanted his story, saying that Cantu didn't shoot him and that he was pressured by authorities to finger Cantu. The prosecutor then expressed regrets at going for a death penalty conviction based on the weak evidence.

Cantu's co-defendent also filed an affidavit that said he allowed his friend to be accused, though he had nothing to do with the crime.

Cantu had previously been accused of hurting a police officer. Those charges had been dropped for lack of evidence.

There was enough reasonable doubt that the death penalty should not have been applied in this case. Prosecutors erred badly.

This was no saint that they executed, but based on the retractions and new statements, they killed a man who didn't do the crime he had been convicted of.

Why do we tolerate a faulty system that imposes the ultimate penalty on the wrong people? Why do we tolerate even the remote possibility of something like this happening? Has justice been served?

Here's the story.

UK Telegraph Report on Gun-Toting Cowboys with AK-47s is Exaggerated

The UK daily newspaper Telegraph is running a story on their web site that cowboys with AK-47s are patrolling the U.S./Mexican border.

They show a landowner with an AK-47 patrolling his property in southern Arizona and talk about the recent vigilante Minuteman Project, where thousands of volunteers headed to the border to record and detain illegals coming across from Mexico.

"Welcome to the Wild West 2005, where modern-day cowboys still guard their land from interlopers - but using AK47s and four-wheel drives instead of Winchester rifles and horses." What other types of guns are they using?

While it's certain that some people are using upgraded weapons to fight the gangs coming across, not all of them are.

The story does a good job of stereotyping landowners in the Southwest as gun-toting maniacs, when it's a minority of landowners who have thus armed themselves.

Here's the story.

Having said that, the report was absolutely correct in saying that gangs coming across the border will fire on anyone that gets in their way and that lawlessness is on the rise along the border. It needs to be dealt with.

Winter Weather is Here: SLOW DOWN

Snow and ice arrived in Michigan yesterday and the fools were out in force, going 80mph on the ice and spinning out or going into the ditch.

Remember:

• Don't go faster. Go slower. It saves on gas too.
• Don't tailgate. Multiple accidents yesterday because people were following the car in front of them too closely. Space is our best friend in winter.
  
• 4-wheel drive does not mean 4-wheel stopping when you're on ice.
• Remember to dress warmly in case you have to abandon your car and go for help.
• Take your cell phone, but don't use it when you're driving. BAD!!
  
• Slow down on exit ramps. They can get icy too. On the way home last night, I saw seveal cars that went too fast around the corner and went off the road.

I mentioned the tips above because those were common sense sorts of things that I saw other drivers involved in. Police and towing companies were very busy last night.

Here's a complete list of tips.

U.S. Will Keep Control of Internet: That's the Best Possible Outcome

A proposal to place the Internet domain name system under United Nations control was recently thrown out at the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society. The United States will retain control of that particular aspect of the Internet for the immediate future.

The EU and other nations have been throwing this idea around for some time, but today's decision is the best one that the Summit could have made.

The U.N. would have created a monster bureaucracy to regulate the Internet and this would not have been a good thing.

Many do not have faith in the U.N. system of governance to trust it with so much control over a free speech medium. Remember, the U.N. treats communist nations, Islamic thug states and democracies as if they were equals when they clearly are are not.

Does anyone see a single Bill of Rights in any Islamic state, or in any communist state? Castro and Chavez do not tolerate dissent in their nations; North Korea executes political prisoners, and many less-than-democratic states imprison bloggers and reporters for expressing their opinions about the unfairness of their governments.

So, NO to U.N. control over any aspect of the Internet. Here's the story.

U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Tells Venezuelan President Chavez to Shut Up and Grow Up

Well, not exactly, but it amounted to the same thing.

The U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, told reporters in a press conference that President Chavez ought to quit the blame game that he's been playing.

In recent months, he's accused Washington of plotting to invade Venezuela to overthrow him, or to kill him, or take away Venezuela's oil fields, and to frighten Venezuelan children with U.S. Halloween traditions. Each time he makes a new accusation, he refuses to give proof of his claims.

There are now at least a dozen Chavez accusations floating around out there, each one more bombastic and ludicrous than the prior one.

So it's about time that someone from the U.S. government responded. Here's the story.

WWE Wrestler Eddie Guerrero Passes Away: Wrestling World in State of Shock

The wrestling world is in mourning and shock as one of it's best and brightest talents passed away unexpectedly.

Former WWE champion Eddie Guerrero died in his hotel room prior to the taping of WWE Raw and WWE Smackdown! from the Metrodome in Minneapolis yesterday.

It's unthinkable that so many professional wrestlers die so young. Eddie was 38 and left behind his wife and three children.

Too young, too soon. Rest in Peace, Eddie.

Those Who Think that the Next Phase of the War on Terror Won't Be on our Own Streets Have Their Heads Up Their Butts

You read that right.

Those who think that pulling out of Iraq now will prevent terrorists from coming over here are seriously mistaken.

And yes, if we leave before the job is done, we may as well put armed troops into our own streets because that's where al-Qaeda will show up next. Once American and foreign troops are gone from Iraq, the war will shift to Europe and North America and those parts of the world where Westerners have a presence.

The peaceniks can go bury their heads in the sand if they want, but the problem will NOT go away that easily. Bin-Laden has said that he wants four million dead Americans before he will even consider stopping his jihad. Where, pray tell, might he find four million Americans? Not in Iraq. Not in Jordan or Indonesia. Not anywhere else in the world, but here in our own country. Duh!!

So for those stupid enough to believe that ending the Iraq War will appease bin-Laden, or any of his followers into not launching suicide attacks on the United States, think again. Get your heads out of your butts!

Bush and Limbaugh Engage in Reading into the Constitution

It's very discouraging to see two leading proponents (President Bush and Rush Limbaugh) of stopping judicial activism and "reading into the Constitution" (by liberal judges) engage in reading into the Constitution themselves in the name of national security. The President has no more authority to do this than activist judges who do it for their own activist causes.

Bush is sending the message that he doesn't mean what he says when he says that strict interpretation of the Constitution is the way to go. He means that he wants others to have the strict Constitution while he bypasses it and assumes powers that he is not authorized to possess.

If Bush and company was serious about strict interpretation of the Constitution, he'd stop the military tribunals and Rush Limbaugh would be praising his decision to do so.

But instead, everyone who disagrees with President Bush's current course of action is labeled a Bush hater or a liberal. That's very unfortunate.

He can stop shooting himself in the foot anytime he wants. We'll keep waiting.

Supreme Court to Hear Detainee Case: Military Tribunals Should Be Stopped Until Court Decides the Issue

Osama bin-Laden's former driver, now a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, has succeeded in getting his case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue is whether the U.S. military can conduct military tribunals for captured enemy fighters.

It's really bad when on of bin-Laden's associates correctly points out that the tribunals are against our own laws that spring from the Constitution and from our own Declaration of Independence.

It should be pointed out that President Bush has the right as Commander-in-Chief to send American troops into battle and to wage war with the consent of Congress.

However, he does NOT have the right to order the military to try foreign nationals unless they harm U.S. troops. Under international law, he is required to hand over terrorists to the governments whose territory or people were harmed, or to turn over suspects who harm foreign nationals to the nations that the victims are from. That very precedent allowed Pakistan to turn over Daniel Pearl's killer to U.S. authorities.

President Bush has chosen not to do that. Instead, he has the U.S. military conduct secret tribunals in the name of not only U.S. nationals who have been harmed by the terrorists overseas, but also Iraqi, British, Polish, Italian, Spanish and other coalition nations whose soldiers have died in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This is in spite of the fact that these nations would rather try the suspects themselves, or would rather have these suspects turned over to an international tribunal, thereby avoiding possible U.S. death penalties, which they also oppose.

The fact is that President Bush has exceeded his Constitutional authority -again- and now the Court has to remind him where the line is.

By establishing his own court system and bypassing the civilian court system, the President is indeed violating the separation of powers clause of the Constitution. It is Congress's Constitutional duty to establish courts that are inferior to the Supreme Court, not the President's.

Limbaugh is avoiding this topic by saying that this argument is a liberal attempt to weaken the President's ability to wage war against terrorists when it actually isn't.

It's an attempt to reinforce parts of the Constitution that are being assaulted by the current Administration.

One Country, Many Criminal Justice Systems: They Do Not Treat All Americans Equally

More proof that that celebrities and politicians have a different criminal justice system than the average American have surfaced yet again. This time it's a presidential aide accused of lying under oath.

Many are of the opinion that what's happening to Lewis "Scooter" Libby should have happened to President Clinton too.

Consider: Two politicians were accused of lying to federal grand juries six years apart; one openly admitted to doing so, while the other claims to have forgotten information accidentally and that there was no intent to omit any information.

The one who admitted to criminal wrongdoing suffered great embarassment and subsequently walked away. He served no jail time, even after he left office. People at the time thought his status and political connections were keeping him out of jail (they did) and if it were an average joe who had lied under oath, that poor fool would be clapped in irons.

The one who claims to have forgotten information accidentally was indicted for lying under oath and resigned as Vice-President Cheney's chief of staff.

Huh??!

One gets caught, admits his guilt and gets away with it, while one maintains his innocence and is charged with a crime??!

Lying under oath is lying under oath. That is the crime that should be punished here until Libby is charged with revealing the name of a CIA employee.

It didn't matter if the entire Clinton-Lewinsky case was all about sex between two consenting adults. He took the oath to tell the truth and didn't. But HE wasn't indicted.

So, now it's been established that the President of the United States is exempt from criminal justice while the President's aides and the common joe clearly are not.

Has anyone ever heard of justice being applied equally and fairly? It used to mean something.

We're Being Conditioned by the Oil Industry: Here's How

We are being conditioned to accept higher gas prices at the pump.

Here's how it works:

There's a disruption in the oil industry and they say that there isn't enough supply to meet demand (a lie). Prices jump from $2.12 a gallon up to $3.10 a gallon. The public groans about high prices, and the prices begin to drop, starting with a 25 cent drop the day after it hits $3.10 a gallon. It finally settles around $2.25 a gallon and the public breathes a sigh of relief. After all, $2.25 is better than $3.10 a gallon.

Then there's another disruption (yep. Uh huh.). Prices jump to $3.49 a gallon and the public is moaning in distress again. Then the prices begin to drop again, this time settling at $2.45 a gallon. The public lets out another collective sigh of relief. After all, $2.45 is better than $3.49 a gallon.

Then there's a fire at a refinery in Texas (my story) and prices jump to $4.12 a gallon. Consumers are furious and dreading looking at the signs at the gas stations to see what the daily damage is. Then the prices drop again and finally settle at $2.65 a gallon. The public sighs in relief again. After all...you get the picture.

So our collective sighs of relief at "low" gas prices came at $2.25, $2.45, and $2.65.

This is the oil companies hoodwinking the American public into believing that they're getting a break in their gas prices, when the base price actually increases.

It's all a fraud!

The proof is in the oil companies reporting record profits last week!

That's your money swirling down the commode into the vaults of the oil barons. Face it, we're someone else's psychology subject.

Oil Companies Post Record Profits: Oil Barons Keep Screwing the Public

Various oil companies are reporting record oil profits in the third quarter of 2005.

This, in spite of "hundreds" of oil platforms "destroyed" by the hurricanes along the Gulf Coast in the third quarter.

This, in spite of refineries being "damaged" or "destroyed" by the same hurricanes in the third quarter.

This, in spite of "increased cost of production" in the third quarter.

This, in spite of the cost of a barrel of oil in the third quarter, supposedly imposed by OPEC.

Someone needs to go to jail. This is gouging!

End of a Political Disaster: Miers Withdraws from Supreme Court Consideration

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from consideration for the Supreme Court vacancy. It's the best possible end to this disaster of a nomination.

Now is not the time for an unknown variable to be introduced into the Supreme Court mix.

There needs to be a conservative choice who will read the Constitution as it is and not legislate from the bench. Too much is at stake for a huge gamble on a person who has no experience as a judge.

This is President Bush's fault, not the nominee's. What on earth was he thinking?

Hopefully Miers will return to Bush's side as his counsel, where her proven record as an attorney will best be put to good use.

U.S. Should Back Off From Syria Until ALL Facts Are Made Clear

Before the United States goes storming off to the United Nations Security Council to demand that the Security Council punish Syria for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, every detail of the U.N. report that condemned Syria should be closely examined and confirmed by other nations.

There is no reason for any nation to embark on a military adventure against Syria until that happens (and there is overwhelming reason to do so.) Lebanon has been wronged here, not the U.S. or or any Western nation.

Point: Syria IS a sponser of state terrorism despite it's saying that it isn't. The Syrian government is no friend or ally of ours.

If the anti-terrorism alliance hopes to make a huge case against state-sponsored terrorism, it has to do this right! Syria screwed up bad, but speculation and conjecture on the part of the German prosecutor is not enough to bring a case against Syria.

And it's not enough to start a war over either.

Dean Shouldn't Throw Stones in the Glass House: His Own Record Makes Him a Hypocrite

Howard Dean recently denounced the Bush White House as being the most secretive Administration in recent history. (He's right about that, but the pot appears to be calling the kettle black!)

Calling the Republican leadership the "Ayotollahs of the right-wing", the Dean screamer forgot to mention that he hasn't quite gotten around to being honest about a particular campaign issue that was quietly buried after his campaign fell apart.

If memory serves, Dean refused to answer questions in the campaign about his failure to deal with thirty-three safety and security violations at Vermont's only nuclear reactor during his tenure as governor of Vermont.

He came under heavy criticism from other Democrats for his "no-comment" replies when asked about it during the campaign.

Care to serve up some more hypocrisy, Dr. Dean?

Politicians should either come clean or shut up.

"Inuit" or "Eskimo"--More PC Nonsense

Inuit--"the people" or "human"
Eskimo--"fish eater"

Ah, the old Political Correctness crowd is at it again.

Several letters protesting a recent "Mother Goose and Grimm" made it clear that the PC movement is alive and well and just as wrong as it was before. The letters appeared in the Lansing State Journal.

They made it clear that the authors thought "Inuit" was the accurate term for all northern Aborigine people.

This is incorrect.

There are dozens of northern tribes, and the Inuits are but one tribe.

It's an oversimplification, and it's insulting to non-Inuit people of the north. The political correctness crowd does this all the time and manages to ignore the wishes of the native population.

PC term constructs are discriminatory, inflammatory, arbitrary and flat-out wrong at times.

Condi Rice vs. Hillary Clinton in 2008: Time to Vote for a Third Candidate

A recent poll about a theoretical presidential race between Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice and Senator Hillary Clinton projected Senator Clinton as the front-runner.

Truth be told, I wouldn't vote for either of them.

Neither says what they mean; both are polar opposites with no middle ground between them (though Condi is honest about being right-of-center while Hillary professes to be moderate--even though she's liberal).

It's not an anti-woman thing; but if you get Hillary, you get Bill with her; if you get Condi, you get someone involved in deceiving the American people about Saddam's weapons. Enough scandal and deception from elected officials!

If they are the choices in 2008, I'm voting for a third-party candidate.

Homeland Security and FEMA Should Be Partially Separated

If one lesson was learned from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it is that part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needs to be able to maneuver independently of the oversized Homeland Security Department.

The other part of FEMA should stay with DHS.

The way that it should be set up is when a natural disaster strikes, the independent arm of FEMA is in charge. If it's a 9/11-scale terrorist hit OR a military/law enforcement situation, then the FEMA arm under DHS is in charge.

Under this model, the independent arm of FEMA would have dealt with Katrina first; they would be there before, during and after the hurricane hit. If security was needed to restore law and order in New Orleans, then the DHS-FEMA would have gone in with federal troops and take charge of the situation until it stabilized. The independent arm would have then resumed control of the mission after that happened.

If this sounds complicated, it really isn't.

An independent arm would be quicker to respond than the DHS operation did for Katrina.

I'm not proposing two FEMAs: it would be the same agency, but part of it would be the quick response team and the other part would be the muscle team.

Above all, FEMA needs flexibility so that it can respond quickly to fast-changing situations.

Taking these steps will resolve many issues that appeared during the 2005 hurricane season.

Emerald Ash Borer Appears Unstoppable: Strategy to Eradicate Pest Utterly Fails

Michigan's ash trees are falling victim to a bug that is killing them and the state is desperately trying to slow the bugs down and save as many trees as possible. Their efforts have been in vain thus far.

In fact, the emerald ash borer is winning the fight; efforts to stop them have utterly failed.

The Michigan quarantine zones have failed. Firewood checkpoints failed. Public service announcements announcing the ban on transportation of firewood from one part of the state to another failed. A five-mile-long bridge failed to stop them. Cutting down swaths of trees to prevent their spread...failed.

The bugs advanced northward, crossed the Mackinaw Bridge and invaded the Upper Peninsula forests.

Now researchers are saying that all that they have been able to do is slow the bugs down. They are not even talking about eradicating the borer anymore.

Millions of trees in the Upper Midwest are at risk. It's high time for a new plan. Enough of this talk of the borer being unstoppable. They're unstoppable because researchers haven't done what they were supposed to do.

Misunderstanding Followed by Malicious Intent: Fury Unleashed in Afghanistan Against U.S. Military

News broke of a U.S. military unit operating in Afghanistan who burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters and then "offended Muslim sensibilities" by taunting other Taliban fighters in the area by getting onto loudspeakers and calling them sissies.

Naturally, this has sparked outrage in Afghanistan.

Here's what really happened: the bodies were burned by a regular Army unit on orders from their commanding officer as the bodies were rotting away. It is very likely that this was a mistake as the officer in charge was unaware that burning Muslim bodies was a forbidden practice according to Muslim belief.

According to reports, a psychological warfare unit was also operating in the area and saw an opportunity to get other Taliban fighters out into the open and so positioned the bodies so that they were pointed to the east toward Mecca. They got onto loudspeakers and announced what they had done and then called the other Taliban a bunch of women and cowards.

The original Army unit made a terrible mistake; the second unit compounded the mistake by doing what it was there to do; it antagonized the Taliban using all means at it's disposal to goad the Taliban into breaking cover and attacking the superior U.S. military force that was awaiting them.

There is a war going on, ladies and gents, and while defiling the dead is a horrific practice, the psy-op men did their job that they were over there for. They shouldn't have messed with the bodies, but the damage had already been done.

Now the Army has to make an example out of all of them to quell anger in the Muslim world.

It's a very unfortunate situation.

Hockey Coach Who Ordered His Team to Fight Under Police Investigation

The hockey coach previously mentioned in my last post is being investigated by the Michigan State Police after a player's mom filed a formal complaint.

This is good.

Other eyewitnesses tried to downplay the story, saying only one or two players were bloodied. In the end, it doesn't matter how many kids were hurt; the coach violated the law by doing what he did and that doesn't lessen the crime.

Parents who stood by and excused the conduct should be ashamed of themselves; they've lost their perspective as parents, choosing their sons' fledgling hockey careers over their responsibilities as parents to protect their children.

Life happens, and unexpected things happen, but to actively be a part of the problem instead of the solution is not acceptable behavior. These parents should be held accountable for what they have done.

Hockey Coach and Parents Should Be Brought Up on Child Endangerment Charges

Lansing-area residents were stunned to learn that a local coach had been suspended for encouraging his team of under-18 hockey players to drop their helmets and gloves and to fight one another on the ice during practices.

These fights resulted in numerous injuries to the boys, some of whom were bloodied, had concussions and ended up with a generally bad feeling about the game, their friends and themselves. Best friends were forced to fight each other as the coach egged them on.

The coach and parents of those who chose their sons' hockey careers over the safety and well-being of their kids should be charged under Michigan law for child endangerment and any other charge that will stick.

This is sickening.

Liberals Usurp "Moderate" Label--Moderates are Not Moderates Anymore

This has been brewing for quite some time.

A moderate is no longer a moderate. It's a liberal who is afraid to call himself a liberal and has taken up the "moderate" label to try to persuade mainstream America that he/she shares their centerpoint view (when they clearly don't).

They are anything but in the center of the political spectrum. They are afraid to point out that they are left of center and are sometimes WAY left.

When someone talks about taking a moderate approach to something, they're really talking about a liberal approach.

The moderate label used to describe the center has been usurped (hijacked) by the left.

To disentangle themselves, those who are closer to the center have to point that out to anyone who will listen. Simply using another term to describe the center won't work as the liberals, always looking for new cloaks to hide their liberal-ness behind, will hijack the new term too.

Don't use "moderate" to describe the center. It's no longer accurate.

Drink Not With Thine Enemies

The title of this post was taken from a Klingon warrior code (of Star Trek fame).

In this case, enemies include collaborators.

Al-Jazeera is launching it's English-edition news channel in 2006. As reported in the media, a United States Marine who served in Iraq as a press officer during the 2003 invasion of Iraq resigned from the Marines and decided to take his argument with Washington up to the international level.

He did so by joining Al-Jazeera.

They do tabloid news and have no compunction about lying to inflame the Muslim world. Their is among the most rabid anti-U.S. voices coming from the Middle East.

Their reason for doing so is obvious: they are the official press agency of al-Qaeda. By extension, that would make our renegade Marine the press secretary of al-Qaeda.

Yes, it's a free country and he can do as he will.

But this leads one to wonder if he's thinking about his friends who are still in Iraq while he's badmouthing them on Al-Jazeera, the official press agency of al-Qaeda, our mortal enemies.

We don't need resident Tokyo Roses in the U.S. He ought to do the honorable thing and back out of working for the enemy.

Rove: What Will Change if He Resigns?

President Bush's so-called "Brain" has testified under oath and without immunity from prosecution, leading many to think that Bush's closest advisor will be indicted for revealing the name of a CIA operative.

In reality, what will change if Rove resigns or is indicted?

The answer: absolutely nothing.

It would be business as usual. Rove would be replaced with someone from the same mold.

If one believes the Rove rhetoric coming from the Democrats, his replacement could be twice as dangerous to Democrats as Rove has been.

Are they sure they want Rove to disappear?

Who's Using the Religious Litmus Test More (and Violating Federal Law?)

The answer is that Congress is doing it more, but the President isn't helping things along either.

Consider: during the John Roberts confirmation process, some liberal Senators openly attacked Roberts' Catholic faith, saying that his religion's views on abortion would not allow them to vote for him as a Justice in the Supreme Court.

President Bush and his advisors brought up religion on the Harriet Miers nomination last week, which again stirred the anti-religious in Congress, the media and in the general public.

This again galvanized the right, which does not like it when the left criticizes the religious beliefs of people. This may have been what President Bush intended all along, but still, he shouldn't be egging the other side on.

From Article VI of the Constitution: "...but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

In addition to religion not being required for a federal office or job, this can also be meant to mean that religion cannot be used to stop a religious person from holding federal office.

Perhaps Congress should have Article VI read out to them before the confirmation process begins.

Another Elian Gonzales-style Case Inevitable: Prepare for the Worst

Most American adults remember the fiasco of the Elian Gonzales case in Florida and the stunning pictures of the boy being forcibly removed from the home of his Florida relatives.

Ready for Round II?

News broke this morning of a six-year-old Cuban boy who drowned during some kind of smuggling operation that was intended to get him and his compatriots into Miami.

He was the only one to die in a speedboat that overturned as it ran from a U.S. Coast Guard cutter that had ordered it to stand-to.

This story calls to mind the memories of the Gonzales case and a reminder that Cuban children are arriving in the U.S. almost daily.

It is now only a matter of time before a child arrives in the U.S. in the custody of a custodial or non-custodial parent; something happens to the parent and Cuban exiles take the child in. Then the other parent, still in Cuba, and still a diehard Castro supporter, demands the child's return. And then we're off to the races. The clock has been running since the day that the Elian drama began.

Before long, the press gets wind of what's going on and shortly thereafter we will have Cuban exiles taking to the streets trying to stop law enforcement people from taking the child. And all of us are thinking: "Oh, no. Not again."

Is America ready to have it's heart broken again?

Note to the Liberal Press: Don't Criticize Miers' Religious Beliefs

The media's latest target is the religious beliefs of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

The media would be well-advised to leave this topic alone.

If they're looking for a bone to pick, they should look elsewhere. The unsilent majority will not tolerate criticism of a person's belief in God from people who try to ban God out of existence.

They're stuck on stupid again.

UN Bombs Smurf Village in New UNICEF Ad

This is no joke.

UNICEF has put together a new cartoon video ad to raise public awareness of the plight of child soldiers in the African nations of Burundi, Congo and Sudan. It's raising howls of protest and hoots of approval wherever it is seen.

It features a scene of happiness in the Smurf village with the Smurfs singing their theme song and dancing, then bombs whistling through the air and exploding, killing Smurfette, leaving several other Smurf bodies scattered on the ground, and the village itself on fire. The last scene is of a wounded, burned and scared Baby Smurf screaming his head off.

Then the tagline: "Don't let war destroy the children's world" followed by a request for a UNICEF donation.

Whoever thought of that ad is a diabolical genius! It sure got my attention.

Unfortunately, some news stories are telling of children seeing the ads and being absolutely terrified by the images. The UN isn't showing it in the West before 9pm local time to avoid the possibility of a child seeing it during their 4pm cartoons.

UNICEF will run the ads through April.

Press Reporting on the Contents of a Bush-Miers...BIRTHDAY CARD??!

The press is REALLY grasping at straws, trying to make political hay on this one.

A story broke today that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers wrote to then-Governor Bush in a birthday card that he was the "greatest governor ever" and in a memo that was sent later that she hoped that Bush's daughters recognized what "...cool parents they had."

So what?

Out of the THOUSANDS of documents released by the Texas state archives, this was the best that the press could come up with?

Say what you will about Miers being unqualified for the Supreme Court, or of Bush's friends being in high office, but this is the biggest non-story to hit the news since the U.N. bathroom memo.

They wasted space printing this in the newspapers?

Why is the Media Still Railing Against New York Officials for Their Added Subway Security?

The media has been doing a bang-up job of reporting everything that went wrong with the recent subway terror alert in New York City.

It's already been established that the alert was based on dubious information supplied to the New York political leadership by the federal government.

Whose fault is that? New York's or Washington's?

New York officials have the right to protect the public from potential terrorist threats and their response was right on. They would have been crazy to ignore signs that their subway system may have been targeted by Ansar al-Islam or al-Qaeda itself.

Instead of reporting the facts, the media seems obsessed with pointing out that the alert never should have been called and that Mayor Bloomberg should have treated the information given to him with a grain of salt. And here we go again with unidentified sources.

The terms "law enforcement sources" and "government sources" and "sources close to the investigation" appear again and again throughout the stories posted on CNN, on MSNBC, and on CBS (not as bad as the first two).

ABC went in the opposite direction, saying that the threat was NOT a hoax (according to "sources involved in the investigation"). Further, ABC reported what other news organizations were saying with their unnamed sources.

Fox News came right out and said that the sources were unnamed and also said that the Mayor of New York was uncertain about reports that the threat was a hoax. Further, they included a disclosure that they were owned by News Corp., which also owns the New York Post and other companies that were reporting the story.

ABC's and Fox's stories report more hard facts than the others (which are laced with opinions and unnamed sources).

Is it time for more Rathergate? Some of these stories read like works of fiction, and not hard news.

New York City's Precautions Against Subway Terrorism Was Right On

New York City's reaction to the possibility of terrorist action against the New York subway system was exactly correct and should not be second-guessed by anyone.

Remember, the only American city to have buildings leveled by al-Qaeda action has been New York. They have every reason in the world to react exactly as they did in calling out additional police officers, stepping up searches of passenger backpacks and strollers.

In the end, the only thing that matters is that the public remains vigilant and the government at the ready to stop terrorist threats. If that means searching people's stuff for explosives, then so be it.

Ansar al-Islam terrorists who are allied to al-Qaeda were reported to be preparing to attack the subway system on Sunday. Homeland Security believed the reports were dubious, but did the correct thing and informed New York officials of the potential threat.

It's better to react to a false report than to allow a 9/11-scale or Madrid or London-style subway attack to occur when all the warning signs were there.

We've been there once before; dare we go there again?

Will the FIRST First Responders in Louisiana Stand Up?

FEMA has been the focus of much anger and criticism since Hurricane Katrina severely damaged New Orleans. It's former director came under intense pressure, was relieved of his command in New Orleans and then resigned a few days later.

In Congressional testimony, former FEMA director Michael Brown called Louisiana's leadership before, during and after Katrina "dysfunctional." Congress and the press jumped all over him for saying that and accused him of attempting to shift blame away from FEMA.

Hold the phone.

Enter Hurricane Rita.

Texas, unlike Louisiana a month earlier, did precisely what it was supposed to. The mayors of Houston, Beaumont, Lake Charles and Port Arthur enforced mandatory evacuation orders DAYS ahead of time and used all available resources, including those offered by the governor and FEMA.

The governor of Texas took to the airwaves and clearly communicated to the public the threat that Hurricane Rita posed to communities along Rita's projected track. He declared states of emergency early and requested federal help. And he COMMUNICATED with the mayors AND with President Bush, unlike his Louisiana collegue.

In Louisiana a month earlier, the President declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm and freed up millions of federal dollars to assist Louisiana. Governor Bianco didn't move on it until after the hurricane hit and New Orleans was underwater.

FEMA is designed to support local and state officials in their efforts to bring relief to those whose lives are in danger. The model worked in Texas; it failed in Louisiana because the elected government in Louisiana and in New Orleans collapsed for three critical days.

People in New Orleans were asking "Where's FEMA? Where's FEMA?" They should have been asking "Where's Mayor Nagin? Where's the Governor?" Nagin left hundreds of buses sitting in their parking lots (which subsequently flooded) that could have been used to get more people OUT of the city and OUT of the path of the hurricane. Who the hell cares where the buses would have gone? That's not the point. That's a distraction from Mayor Nagin's shameful handling of the crisis.

And it should be pointed out that he sacked the only man (his police chief) in his administration who DID HIS JOB in keeping his shattered police command working.

The Governor of Louisiana was inept. She didn't want federal troops before the storm, didn't use the federal money to get more buses into New Orleans or other threatened cities, didn't communicate clearly and was at the top of the food chain down there.

The ACTUAL first responders failed: the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana. So before they go pointing fingers at FEMA further, they should get their own houses into order and DO THEIR JOBS!

FEMA failed because those two people failed first, and then FEMA's own major problems kicked into high gear.

The proof is in the pudding: FEMA failed in Louisiana, FEMA succeeded in Texas one month later. The experts are saying that's too soon for any changes to have taken effect. What was different?

Um....could it have something to do with a strong Texas governor and strong Mayors showing the very leadership that the Louisiana people failed to show? Could it have something to do with the Texas folks using FEMA as it was intended to be used? They did SOMETHING right.

The New Face of Treason: Former Marine Corps Press Officer Joins Al-Jazeera

A former U.S. Marine has joined Al-Jazeera's English language news program.

What is this man doing, joining the enemy? It would be like a former Marine joining the Soviet Union's official news agency during the height of the Cold War. Only traitors would do something like that.

If he wants to understand the Muslim world better, perhaps he should study abroad instead of helping them disparage his fellow Marines and Americans in the media. Or perhaps he should become a Muslim.

His resignation from the Marines because of his disagreements with Washington only lends support to the argument that he is using Al-Jazeera to pick a bone with Washington.

And Al-Jazeera is only to happy to oblige him, so long as he agrees to spread enemy propaganda during a time of war.

North Korean Leader May Name Successor Soon

The Russian media is reporting that North Korea's Kim Jong-Il may name his successor in the near future.

The sooner the better.

Millions of North Koreans have starved to death under his watch while he continues to live in luxury.

The North Korean communists have a lot to answer for and hopefully when their scumbag-President leaves, he takes his entire cabal and all of his generals with him.

Good riddance!

NASA Theory on Shuttle Foam Failure is Full of Holes

NASA's new administrator suggested that the foam that came off the space shuttle Discovery two months ago was accidentally cut or crushed by engineers.

He also said that the foam could be damaged merely by someone leaning up against it.

If that's true, then it is going to be impossible to stop wind sheer from tearing foam off the shuttle as it's blasting off.

The g-forces from the lift-off far exceed the weight of a 200 pound scientist leaning up against the shuttle's foam.

This doesn't add up. The only conclusion that can be made is that NASA still doesn't know why the foam is coming off the shuttle during liftoff.

Owners of Capsized Boat May Get $25 Fine

CNN is reporting that the operators of a boat carrying carrying 47 senior citizens (20 of whom drowned after the boat capsized) could get a $25 fine for not having enough crew members on board (the 74-year old captain was the only crewman present).

THAT IS OUTRAGEOUS!!

The fine should be huge! New York's laws are inadequate for a case like this.

Lawyer Nominated for Supreme Court--No Experience as a Judge?

People are holding their breath to see what will happen with President Bush's latest choice for the U.S. Supreme Court.

He has nominated his attorney, White House counsel Harriet Miers, to succeed Sandra Day O'Conner.

Is she qualified to be a justice of the Supreme Court without any experience as a judge?

Despite White House denials, this is very much a "stealth candidate" nomination. There's no paper trail for Congress to analyze, and much of her work for the President will be protected by Presidential privilige.

This candidacy is doomed.

He should have made a better choice; there are other potential nominees who have strong records of applying the law as written and don't pull the "living document" crap that activist judges are famous for when deciding Constitutional law.

It's doubtful that this candidacy will last very long.

New Abu Gharib Photographs are Enemy Propaganda

The entire world knows that certain American soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad.

Dozens of photos were released the first time around. We all got the sense of how bad the abuse was. And we know the effect it had on the Muslim world as well as over here.

So why is a judge ordering that more photos be released?

Aiding the enemy in a time of war is illegal, and the military releasing more photos would do nothing more than incite the jihaddis and insurgents and inflame the Muslim world further. We should not be distributing enemy propaganda while our troops are still over there fighting to defend Iraqi democracy.

Some people obviously enjoy seeing sick photos of people sexually abusing other people and want more to satisfy their perversions. These idiots should go jump in a lake! And they should take their judge with 'em!

Enough, already!

Special Tribunals for New Orleans Police Officers Who Deserted Their Posts

This one's a tough one.

In addition to New Orleans losing their police chief, it was announced that 249 police officers who walked off the job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will face special tribunals.

Many of their fellow officers consider them traitors. When the moment of truth came, the ones who were the cowards were nowhere to be found.

Some of the officers are dead; some are still missing; others have turned up alive and well; some couldn't handle it. According to Mayor Nagin and other officials, each case will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

On one hand, you can't help but feel for what was going on down there. On the other hand, their fellow officers and many New Orleans residents needed them badly, and they did not answer the call.

They betrayed their oaths as police officers. Those oaths were not simply words to be discarded when the going got tough, and hopefully the tribunal will remember that when dealing with the ones who were legitimate cowards.

1,300 officers chose their duty first, then their families. Or they managed to balance their family's needs with their duties as police officers. The deserters chose not to follow that same path, and for that, they SHOULD face punishment for abandoning their posts.

Lansing Responds: City Forms Task Force to Help Homeless in Mid-Michigan

Scenario: a newspaper reporter stumbles onto a story of a social injustice, reports it through his/her newspaper, and local government officals move to deal with the situation once they are made aware of the problem.

The above scenario doesn't always happen. But sometimes it does.

In one such (recent) situation, local government officials sat up, took notice, and moved to correct a major problem.

The Lansing State Journal reported in its Friday edition that local homeless people were worried that they would left out in the cold while the people and government of Michigan directed nearly all of their resources to help the displaced people from the Gulf Coast, while ignoring the plight of the locals who need just as much assistance.

Lansing officials sat bolt upright and kept reading. And then they took action.

Lansing (Michigan) officials formed a task force made up of twenty-four different agencies to address the homeless problem in the mid-Michigan area. The Mayor of Lansing announced the plan in a press conference earlier this week.

The city's efforts are greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Lansing State Journal, for bringing this to everyone's attention in a way that couldn't easily be ignored.

Hopefully the State of Michigan will follow the city's example.

Here's the update.

Flashback to September 5th: Mold Prediction Was Right On

How did I know that mold was going to invade New Orleans and other hurricane-damaged communities along the Gulf Coast?

That's been the question people have been e-mailing me in the last couple of days. I predicted that this was going to happen back on September 5th.

As a licensed insurance agent in the State of Michigan, I got to see first-hand what happens when basements flood and not enough corrective action is taken to prevent mold infestation after it gets dried out.

I've seen entire basements filled with the stuff. It moves in and takes over. It crawls all over every wall, gets into every crack and crevice, and stinks to high heaven. It doesn't stop at the waterline, either. It just keeps going once a bad case begins.

That's how I knew exactly what was going to happen.

No structure that had water in it in the last month will be spared the mold problem.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita didn't flatten New Orleans. The mold problem might.

Local Homeless Left Behind in Katrina Disaster

The Lansing State Journal had an article in last Friday's edition that raised some good points on Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita relief efforts and should be explored.

According to State of Michigan estimates, there are some 40,000 homeless people in Michigan.

When the Gulf Coast got clobbered by two monster hurricanes, Michigan's government and people responded by raising millions of dollars and opening hundreds of homes and apartments for hurricane evacuees as well as opening up armories and other government facilities to refugees.

It is very unfortunate that people and state government waited for a disaster of this magnitude to strike before taking action on a massive scale like this to help people.

Michigan has said it would accept up to 10,000 refugees.

What can we do to help the local homeless? We should not lose this opportunity to help the Michigan homeless as well as Gulf Coast evacuees.

Here's the story as reported by the Lansing State Journal.

As Predicted, Mold Invades New Orleans and It's Growing Faster than Expected

USA Today is reporting that mold has invaded New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast and is growing much quicker than expected.

There's no way to stop it now, except to replace parts of houses and buildings that are currently under assault. There's too much of it to simply squirt it down with bleach and mold remover.

The USA Today story has some disgusting photos of the mold eating a house in downtown New Orleans.

Able Danger: What is Going On Here?

Is there any truth to Able Danger?

What did the military really know about the 9/11 hijackers? Did they identify Mohammed Atta a year before 9/11 took place?

The Defense Department's supression of several witnesses on "national security" grounds before they were able to testify before Congress today was deeply troubling. It shouldn't have happened like this; it makes the military look as guilty as sin.

The lack of honesty about Able Danger calls the 9/11 Commission findings into question and invalidates part of their account of what happened prior to 9/11.

The Commission members have dismissed Able Danger, but they can't simply dismiss it outright without hearing testimony first. And the government is doing what it can to stop the testimony from happening.

This has the makings of a major scandal. We don't need that right now.

Story as follows.

North Koreans Prove They Can't Be Trusted: No More Deals Until They Live Up to Current One

One day.

The agreement between the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia, China and North Korea lasted a single day.

North Korea agreed to dismantle it's nuclear program and cease development of nuclear weapons. Now it isn't. It's possible that it never really intended to.

Here's what needs to happen: no more deals with North Korea until this one is carried out in it's entirety. Even China appears to be annoyed with Pyongyang's stupidity.

Here's the story.

Local Woman Receiving Hurricane Katrina Aid Arrested for Fraud

This story is a bad one.

A local woman who captured the hearts of her community and had received Hurricane Katrina aid from Catholic Charities and donations from mid-Michigan was led from her new home in handcuffs for fraud.

Why do people do stuff like this? It's no secret that scams pop up after a disaster, but it's still a shock when a story like this has a local face that goes to it.

Here's the original story. Here's today's page 1 headline.

Both stories are in the Lansing State Journal.

Hurricane Rita Approaching Gulf of Mexico: New Orleans Being Abandoned

With Hurricane Rita hitting the Florida Keys and heading toward Texas, the mayor of New Orleans stopped encouraging people to return and instead ordered the evacuation of the city.

If Rita changes course, New Orleans may get hit by another hurricane and get re-swamped.

What next?

Clarity Emerges in British Raid on Iraqi Jail

A clearer picture developed overnight as to exactly what happened yesterday when British armored forces staged a break-out of two undercover British soldiers from an Iraqi jail.

It appears that the soldiers were taken into custody by Iraqi police, and for some reason the soldiers were handed over to Shiite militiamen and held at the jail. The Iraqi Interior Minister ordered the soldiers released into British Army custody, but the order was ignored by the militiamen, whose alliegence and affiliation is unclear.

When that happened, the British stormed the jail and took the men from the militiamen.

So this wasn't a case of the British Army taking on the Iraqi police; it was the British Army putting illegal militias into their places.

Puts the story in an entirely different light.

British Army Raids Iraqi Jail: Why?

In a confusing turn of events, British Army tanks and armored personnel carriers appear to have attacked an Iraqi jail and freed two British prisoners. One hundred fifty Iraqi prisoners also made good their escape.

This situation is so confusing that it defies reality; yet photos are on the web of a British APC burning and a British soldier scrambling away from the flames while a soldier or policeman of unknown nationality with a riot shield watches.

Conflicting accounts of the scene from official sources are making it difficult to sort this out.

One thing appears certain: if the British Army attacked a Iraqi police jail, it will undermine the Iraqi police and justice system that the British Army itself has helped to rebuild. It just doesn't make sense.

Here's the story as reported by CNN, the New York Times and Fox News.

Mayor Acting Recklessly in Encouraging People to Return to New Orleans

New Orleans Mayor Nagin is acting with reckless abandon in encouraging people to return.

In recent days he was opening up parts of New Orleans for business and encouraging up to 180,000 people to return.

This, despite the fact that 80% of New Orleans remains heavily contaminated, the hospital care system remains utterly destroyed, fresh water is not available for that many people and the infrastructure is still heavily damaged.

His course of action is unwise.

He really needs to think about what he's doing. He shouldn't be re-opening New Orleans until AFTER the hurricane season is done and the contamination is dealt with. If people return and start getting sick from contamination, it's his responsibility.

BlogSpot Community in Crisis: Flag Button is Poor Solution to Controlling Objectional Blogs

A censorship drive has begun at BlogSpot, the host of this and millions of other blogs.

It's Blogger.com's attempt to get a handle on objectionable blogs which feature hate speech, illegal forms of communication and other “objectionable” (their word) types of blogs.

The means by which they are attempting to do this is causing great concern in this community.

As you can see at the top of this blog (and all other blogspot blogs), there is a flag button at the top which allows the viewer to flag the blog and report it to Blogger. There's nothing wrong with that part of it.

What's causing concern is that Blogger doesn't define what “objectionable” means. Objectionable to whom?

Does it mean blogs that express hatred for a group of people?

Does it mean blogs that criticize the government?

Does it mean blogs that criticize Democratic or Liberal stands on issues?

Does it mean blogs that criticize the Republicans or Conservative stands on
issues?

Does it mean blogs that criticize bad court decisions?

Does it mean blogs that profess the Gospels of Jesus Christ as the way to salvation?

Does it mean blogs that call for the violent overthrow of the United States Government and the establishment of a communist thug state with no Bill of Rights?

Or threats of violence against specific federal government officals which would lead to a visit from the Secret Service?

What, then?

Here's the explanation that Blogger is giving to everyone as to how it works and what the stand on hate speech is:

When a person visiting a blog clicks the "Flag?" button in the Blogger Navbar, it means they believe the content of the blog may be potentially offensive or illegal. We track the number of times a blog has been flagged as objectionable and use this information to determine what action is needed. This feature allows the blogging community as a whole to identify content they deem objectionable. Have you read The Wisdom of Crowds? It's sort of like that.

Special Case for Hate Speech

When the community has voted and hate speech is identified on Blog*Spot, Google may exercise its right to place a Content Warning page in front of the blog and set it to "unlisted."

So, if I put a post up here objecting to something that my heart and head are telling me is dead wrong, or absolutely correct, if someone disagrees, they can flag it as “objectionable” and have their friends who are in agreement with them flag it as well, it could well be labeled as offensive, which could lead to the labeling above or outright deletion of the entire blog.

That's supression of my opinion. If it's supression of my opinion, I would like the name, address and telephone number of the attorney or judge who will be reviewing my writing to determine if it's “objectionable” and is deserving of punishment.

And I want in-person appointments with those individuals to discuss the merits of the First Amendment and equal protection. Further, I want them to pay for at least half of my travel expenses. And I want Blogger to pay for lost wages and any legal consultation fees.

It should also be pointed out that while two or ten or twelve might object to something that I say here and flag it, what about the two or ten or twelve that agree with my opinion on something but cannot push a button to say that they agree with me? How does Blogger monitor that?

While I deplore hate speech, hate crime and bigotry in general, I am also in favor of fair and equal treatment under the protections of the Constitution.

There are first-class fools out there endorsing the killing and enslavement of entire groups of people and there are fools out there who are impressionable enough to believe the propaganda and go out and do it, regardless of the consequences. These types of blogs should be monitored and stopped if necessary.

But legitimate free speech, political discourse and personal opinions (which others might disagree with) should be protected from being judged as "objectionable" by a part of the community who has a mere difference of opinion.

My suggestion to Blogger is to keep the flag button to report stuff, but do an internal investigation of a blog to determine if it violates the Terms of Service and take action accordingly.

I will not flag any blogger that is merely expressing an opinion (which I may or may not object to). That's what comments are for AND e-mails.