Only ABC?

Only ABC? What's up with that? Seems that the president addressing the nation on the highly debatable war in Iraq would qualify as newsworthy. Yet, this article indicates that only ABC of the four major networks has decided to carry the address. Aren't these the same networks that have been carping about keeping the people informed about the situation in Iraq? In fairness, some may decide late today to carry the address, but ABC is the only network willing to take a stand earlier in the day. Is there anything to this anti-Bush bias in the media theory?

Just a thought.

Kelo vs New London Could Be Justice Souter vs....

After the debacle of the Kelo vs New London decision, Col Hogan came across this beauty. It seems after the Kelo decision,

Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement
officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application
process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of
Mr. Souter's home.Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City
of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a
hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.The
proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just
Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent
exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each
guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

This could be enough to end up with a muddy clarification somewhat like the Ten Commandments issue. Maybe it will come down that eminent domain can be applied to public use or revenue except in certain cases which may or may not be defined.

Best wishes Mr. Clements. Good work Colonel.

Just an observation.

Now Presbyterians...

...are recommending parents remove their children from public schools this article reports.

This week, the Presbyterian Church in America voted to receive a personal
resolution encouraging Christian parents to remove their children from the
public schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian
education.

Ol' BC is flabbergasted. Awestruck. And somewhat perplexed. I know Baptists had made this recommendation, but I always saw the Presbyterians out there with the Methodists, much closer to the secular socialists. Has the public school system in this country fallen that far? Of course it has. There is virtually no discipline allowed. Teachers are expected to try to teach in chaos in many cases. Spending money hasn't helped. Morals are not taught because some secularist may sue citing a religious background to moral values.

But when the Presbyterians balk, normal Americans better stop and take a good hard look. Before it's too late. Before the moral fiber that's held this country together for over two centuries is completely unraveled.


Just a thought.

Remember Larry Summers?

Jonah Goldberg remembers him. For those of you who have been following Dave or spent too much time in Margaritaville, Larry is the embattled president of Harvard who lit up the carpet munchers by questioning whether gender had anything to do with the limited number of female mathematicians and scientists.

Genes Do the Funniest ThingsJust don’t tell Larry Summers’s enemies.
Here are
some recent headlines from the world of science: "Researchers Say Intelligence
and Diseases May Be Linked in Ashkenazic [Jewish] Genes" — New York
Times
"Some Politics May Be Etched in the Genes" — New York Times

What headlines from the world of science. The article is good as is most of Goldberg's stuff.

Which brings us back to the mortification of Larry Summers. Is it so
unreasonable to assume there are greater genetic cognitive and behavioral
differences between men and women than between, say, Jews and gentiles — never
mind conservatives and liberals? If genes make us more open to some group mores,
why can't they make one gender more open to one field of study? The animal
kingdom is replete with enormous male-female disparities. Even among the branch
of humans we call feminists, it's a widely held view that men and women think
and behave differently.

Are any of these questions politically correct? Do they have merit? Are they just food for thought?

One thing we know, Larry is going to be spending a ton of dough apologizing for what may have been a very valid question.

Just an observation.

More On WMD's

Ol' BC realizes the MSM and those who tilt to the left would like to keep harping that no WMD's were in Iraq. They need to check this out.

Col. Najeh al-Azam was giving evidence in the trial of 13 men alleged
to have planned what would have been the first chemical attack by the al-Qaeda
terror group. In his televised confession, prime defendant Azmi Al-Jayousi said
his group had plotted the attack under instruction from al-Qaeda's leader in
Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.

Wow! There's more in there about U.N. weapons inspectors now reporting missing dual use material at over 100 sites in Iraq. That's scary stuff.

Why no mention from the MSM?

Just a thought.

PBS Seeking Balance With New President

Concerns are rampant among the left leaning as Patricia Harrison was named president and chief executive. Harrison is the assistant secretary of state for education and cultural affairs. Seems to Ol' BC like this position may provide a pretty good foundation for running Public Broadcasting. But here is the liberals concern -

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, already embroiled in controversy over
allegations of a liberal-leaning bias in PBS programming, chose a former
Republican Party co-chairman Thursday as its president and chief executive.

This according to an AP article .

So, it appears that PBS may be trying to give the impression that they will try to balance programming OR they are going to actually try to balance programming. Given Harrison's position with the state department, it appears that her background is appropriate for such a network. They profess to have educational programming.

If PBS actually achieves balanced programming, we'll all be able to hear the squeals.

Just a thought.

On Todays Speech

Ol' BC listened with interest to Dubya's speech this morning. He had a good day at the podium. He was addressing a group of nuclear power plant employees in Maryland. He spoke on the need to pass an energy bill, education and the benefits of measuring results, and the normal topics. Then he addressed Social Security. He was actually making a compelling argument for Social Security reform and making really good and valid points WHEN the network interrupted the speech so an analyst could try to tell me what I had just heard. Seriously, Dubya was making a really good point on Social Security's fiscal situation in easily understood terms. He even reminded people that it was said if he got in their checks would end. "Well," he said, "I got in and you're still getting your checks." He was conveying the benefits of optional ownership via personal accounts. He even addressed conservative investment options in lieu of stocks. Dubya was on a good roll. He was humorous, concise and getting applause and the network cut him off. Shame on Fox News Channel.

However, if Dubya continues to address the issue in this manner, I think he will make progress with the masses. Of course, that is IF they get to hear it.

Just a thought.

Virus Kills Cancer

This Reuters article tells of a virus that kills some cancer cells, yet leaves healthy cells unharmed. Can you imagine the possibilities for this?

For their study, Meyers and colleagues first infected a batch of human
cells with HPV, some strains of which cause cervical cancer.
They then
infected these cells and normal cells with AAV-2.
After six days, all the
HPV-infected cells died.
The same thing happened with cervical, breast,
prostate and squamous cell tumor cells.

These are pretty common cancers. Maybe in a short time some countries will be curing many cancers. Maybe in a decade or two we'll be curing it here at home. The possibility even exists that by the time American doctors could treat cancers with this something new will come along. Then if nothing new is on the horizon for a long enough period of time, we could be on the cutting edge of cancer therapy in the United States.

Of course , I recognize the sword has two edges. It's just that sometimes the NDA and the FDA seem to move at a glacial pace. In the meantime, many people suffer and many people die.

Just a thought.

Deroy Murdock's Optional Tax - Grand Idea

Wow! Every now and then someone comes along and proves you can please all the people all the time. This time it is Deroy Murdock in his recent column. He proposes a Higher-rate Optional Tax (HOT) to provide some level of pacification to those upper income liberals who don't think too favorably of income tax cuts.

The HOT would ease all this pain. The IRS simply would add a small box to
the 1040 tax form beside these words:
"If you believe you should be taxed at
a rate above that assigned to your income bracket, please indicate here the
higher rate you prefer. Kindly calculate your tax liability, and send it
in."
With that easy step, congressional liberals and residents of Malibu and
Martha's Vineyard no longer would have to keep the tax cuts conservatives keep
throwing their way. Instead, they could send 50, 75 or even 99 percent of their
incomes to Washington so the GOP Congress and President Bush can spend it even
better than they can.
While this reform would increase taxpayer choice, it
might generate little revenue. Arkansas, Massachusetts and Virginia taxpayers
already may pay above and beyond their usual top rates, though few do
this.

Imagine that. With all the wild eyed liberals in Massachusetts, one would think a pretty large number would take advantage of such an opportunity. Apparently, it's just an matter of the same old oppose anything Bush endorses mentality. The entire column is well worth a read.

Just an observation.

Guantanamo Torture? C'mon, Be Serious.

Oh, the Bush bashers are at it again. Now they're whining about the treatment of detainees at Gitmo.

Ann Coulter, in her latest column, tells of the NOT ALLOWED list as it applies to U.S. personnel at Gitmo.

As described in infuriating detail by Heather MacDonald in the Winter, 2005,
City Journal, interrogators at Guantanamo are not allowed to: — yell at the
detainees, except in extreme circumstances and only after alerting Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld — and never in the ears; — serve the detainees cold
meals, except in extreme circumstances; — poke the detainees in the chest or
engage in "light pushing" without careful monitoring and approval from the
commander of the U.S. Southern Central Command in Miami; — reward detainees (for
example, for not throwing feces at the guards that day) with a Twinkie or a
McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich in the absence of express approval from the
secretary of defense. (I suppose it goes without saying, "supersizing" their
order is strictly forbidden under any circumstances.) Without careful
monitoring, interrogators aren't even allowed to subject the detainees to
temperature changes, unpleasant odors or sleep cycle disruptions. But on the
bright side, they are allowed to play Christina Aguilera music and feed the
savages the same food our soldiers eat rather than their usual orange-glazed
chicken. That isn't sarcasm; these are the rules. No cold meals, sleep
deprivation or uncomfortable positions? Obviously, what we need to do is get the
U.S. Army to serve drinks on commercial airlines and get the airlines to start
supervising the detainees in Guantanamo.

Ann has a real knack of putting things into perspective.

NOW, you have to check this out. The Jawa Report has the goods on real torture, that of the Saddam Hussein variety. One would think that the Bush bashers at some point would slow down enough to see how really foolish they've become.

Just an observation.

More on Kofi

A couple of weeks ago Ol' BC posted a this little blurb about Kofi Annan terminating the first staff member in the oil-for-food fiasco. I noted that Kofi was probably deflecting heat or at least trying to do so by that action. Now, along comes this MSNBC report that indicates Ol' BC wasn't all wet in his initial impression.

Investigators of the United Nation's Iraq oil-for-food program said Tuesday they
are “urgently reviewing” new information that suggests U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan may have known more than he revealed about a contract awarded to the
company that employed his son.

No kidding! However, Ol' BC may have erred in saying he didn't think the scandal would be investigated real thoroughly. I guess that possibility may exist.

Just an observation.

Another Failure of Socialism

The Canadian healthcare systems failures have been brought to the forefront in this AP article. Long touted by many as the standard of national health proponents, it seems that what many of us have known for a long long time are being acknowledged. Long waits for medical care is what characterizes these type government run programs.

George Zeliotis, an elderly Montreal man, tried to pay for hip replacement
surgery rather than wait nearly a year for treatment at a public
hospital.
Zeliotis told the high court that he suffered pain and became
addicted to painkillers during the yearlong wait for surgery, and he should have
been allowed to pay for faster service with private insurance.

This cuts to the very core of socialism, I know. Nonetheless, many Canadians come to the U.S. for their medical care if it is of any significance. You see, when it gets right down to it, people in general have a survival instinct that is quite strong. This instinct will normally supercede any socialistic view of the common good.

the universal health-care system - while considered one of the fairest in
the world - has been plagued by long waiting lists and a lack of doctors, nurses
and new equipment. Some patients wait years for surgery, MRI machines are scarce
and many Canadians travel to the United States for medical treatment.

It will undoubtedly get more difficult to sell this program in the U.S. if this gets any MSM play.
That could be bad news for Hillary.

Just a thought.

Deep Throat Inconsistencies Exposed

Ann Coulter's column points out some very interesting information concerning Mark Felt's disclosure that he was, in fact, the infamous Deep Throat of the Watergate era. It's amazing how these things get bigger and bigger over time. Take this example -

Woodward claimed he signaled Deep Throat by moving a red flag in a
flowerpot to the back of his balcony and that Deep Throat signaled him by
drawing the hands of a clock in Woodward's New York Times. But in his 1993 book, Deep
Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein Adrian Havill did
something it had occurred to no one else to do: He looked at Woodward's old
apartment! Havill found that Woodward had a sixth-floor interior apartment that
could not be seen from the street. Even from the back of the apartment complex,
the balcony was too high for any flowerpot to be seen. So unless there was a
"second flowerpot," visible from a nearby grassy knoll, the red flag in the
flowerpot story is ... well, full of red flags. In addition, newspapers were not
delivered door-to-door in Woodward's apartment building but were left in a stack
in the lobby. Deep Throat could not have known which newspaper Woodward would
pick up.

Amazing isn't it.

Anne has other interesting tidbits as she always does. It certainly does appear, however, that Deep Throat really is a bogus entity. It made a good MSM story though.

Just an observation.

Bowler on Bolton, Biden and Bush - It's Good

It's short but sweet. Tom Bowler's post at Libertarian Leanings spells it out quite nicely.
It is definitely worth taking half a minute to read.

Just an observation.

Dems Criticize Howie - Could Be Bad For GOP

Recently, Sen Joe Biden and VP candidate John Edwards have criticized DNC chairman Howard Dean according to this article. It could spell trouble for the Republicans if Howie is silenced as his outlandish verbosity tends to let the nation see what is really at the heart of the Democratic party - perpetual criticism, nothing constructive and an abundance of whining.

Just an observation.

A Little Humor

Every now and then something just strikes me as funny. Here it is.

Sometimes truth is funnier than fiction.

Just an observation.

WMD Materials (that didn't exist) Missing in Iraq

Surprise. An AP article is reporting that United Nations satellite imagery indicates that a bunch of bad stuff used to make biological and chemical weapons as well as missiles are missing in Iraq.

U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be
used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has
been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report
obtained Thursday.

In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector
Demetrius Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items
or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as
scrap, melted down or purchased.

What's important here isn't that this stuff existed. Most of us were aware of that (even the Bush bashers who deny it publicly). It is THIS - they don't know where it went. Not a good thing in that part of the world.

It will be interesting to see if this gets as much play on the MSM airwaves as Deep Throat.

Just a thought.

How Did The MSM Miss This?

Larry Kudlow has discovered a connection between Deep Throat and Bob Woodward that nothing Ol' BC has heard in the MSM approaches. Seems Deep Throat, former FBI number two Mark Felt, and Woodward were old buds from the National Security Agency.

there's an angle to the Deep Throat story that the MSM has not yet
discovered. Namely, that former FBI agent Mark Felt was at one time a senior NSA
National Security Agency staffer, with access to the wiretap archives of both
the NSA and the British GSHQ security service, including all of Nixon's phone
calls.Now, guess what. Another alum of the NSA -- you might have guessed it --
is Bob Woodward.Woodward, by the way, always said that Deep Throat was an old
friend of his. Could it be from the NSA?All this is from John Loftus, an
intelligence analyst who contributes weekly to the John Bachelor radio show and
to Fox News.In the end, it appears that Deep Throat was really the National
Security Agency. But you won't find that in the mainstream media.Now, the
legality of Felt's leaking classified NSA info to Woodward should be explored,
shouldn't it? After all, what's indicting to the goose is criminializing to the
gander.

Wow, how can the MSM miss all this with all the recent attention to the story?


Just a thought.

Kofi Fires One in Oil-For-Food Scandal

The AP is reporting that Kofi Annan has fired his first U.N. staff member as a result of the oil-for-food scandal.

Joseph Stephanides, dismissed Tuesday, was the first U.N. official said to
be fired in the wake of an independent probe into allegations of wrongdoing in
the $64 billion program. Annan concluded that Stephanides had committed "serious
misconduct," U.N. associate spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

It appears to Ol' BC that Kofi Annan is trying to deflect the heat from himself. I seriously doubt that this will be investigated real thoroughly. If that was the case, Kofi may have to fire himself next.

Just a thought.