Open Letter to a Neighbor

Dear Mr. Mexico,

I hope this letter finds you well. We seem to be laboring under different impressions about our relationship and the property line between your yard and mine. I don't wish to cause you distress by bringing this up, but the situation has become intolerable. As civilized neighbors, I believe we can work things out in a civilized manner.

The County Assessor's office has a clearly marked boundary on file, pursuant to our last discussion about the property line, from February 2, 1848. I do recall that it was settled under less than friendly circumstances, but a deal is a deal. While we had respectful exchanges opinions about each others' yards, we realize that our right to dictate behavior stops at our respective side of the fence. I respect your authority to set rules for your yard, so I would kindly ask that you respect my right to exercise authority over my yard.

Just because I pay you to mow my lawn doesn't give you the right to send your kids over to climb my tree whenever they want. While innocuous in and of itself, your kids frequently leave pop cans and candy wrappers on the lawn. Plus, they tend to tell my own kids that they cannot climb the tree when they are, inflaming tensions between our families.

Also, I would be so humble as to point out that there is a big difference between my inviting you over for a beer, and you coming over while I'm at work and helping yourself to the contents of my refrigerator. Your refrigerator may be near empty, but that is not sufficient justification to helping yourself to what is mine. I'm a generous guy, if you ask around the neighborhood, you'd see that it's true. Still, your presumptuousness is wearing on my patience.

Yes, some of my kids have no problem with the behavior of you and your kids, but my kids have a sketchy idea, at best, of property rights. Some of my kids like the fact that your kids will mow my lawn and wash my car so that they don't have to, but that's beside the point. I decide what goes on at my house, not the children. So, don't send your kids over to have my own kids yell at me for sending your kids home or for insisting on my property rights.

You really need to have a discussion with your children about Cause and Effect. When they throw rocks at my dog, he gets angry. That's why he's bitten your kids on a couple recent occasions. If your children insist on continuing to throw rocks, the dog's mood will not improve, and more biting will ensue. Rant and rave all you want, but they're the one throwing the rocks at the dog to begin with.

I know that my attention to this issue has been spotty, as I still am dealing with some creeps from a couple blocks over, the ones that stole my BBQ grill. Still, I do think that we need to address this swiftly and with all due civilized discussion.

Your Neighbor,

U. S. America

In Who We What?

I got a panicked e-mail from a sibling the other night, frantic that we should pray for our nation. You see, he heard that the U.S. Mint is issuing Dollar coins WITHOUT the phrase 'In God We Trust' on them. Someone later replied to the whole group that the issue was indeed a hoax, after checking it out on Snopes.com. Praying for our nation doesn't hurt, even if the panic was ill-founded.

Still, it got me thinking. Does having the the phrase 'In God We Trust' on our currency really mean anything? We, as a nation, obviously DO NOT trust or obey God, so the phrase is really a falsehood. A blasphemy, to be specific. If ever there was an instance of taking the Lord's Name in vain, this is surely one.

So, it begs the question; Would it do God more honor to remove his name from a currency that is based on a nation that endorses Abortion, Pornography, Idolatry, Greed, Envy, and any other mortal sin under the sun?

I do realize that we have a sizable number of people that nominally believe in God, but a majority of them are pretty selective at their personal and public application of what we know of God's Will. In all reality, they worship any number of Gods of stone, wood, flesh and fantasy.

Maybe the next Dollar should be printed with 'In Us We Trust'. It's not worth much, but at least it's honest.

Pots and Kettles #100127

I was half-listening to the State of the Union Address the other night and, towards the end, something the President said grabbed my attention:

Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper.

I'd have a little more faith in the institutions if the leaders of those institutions didn't remind one of a 'Three Stooges' sketch involving name-calling, poking, slapping, and nyuk-nyuk-nyukking between the lot of them.

But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

President Kettle is calling out the Pots. How about when a politician tears down bankers and corporate leaders, reducing the economic crisis to a sound byte to cover his own failure? Or when union leaders game the system to cut special deals?

No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there.

No wonder there’s so much disappointment.

No [bleep], Sherlock. And after the cheap populist sloganeering above, the President has the gall to then say:

Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths.

How about the hard truths that many Americans, like their Government, have spent too much, borrowed too much, thought too highly of their own prospects? Or the hard truths that government meddling in the markets has done as much damage as deregulation? Or maybe the hard truth that a big factor in the loss of manufacturing in our country is that most Americans don't want to pay the costs of items made by fellow Americans?

After such accusations from the President, I'm sure the Pots will gladly return fire. With all the clatter in the kitchen, I'm stepping out for a while.

Audacity of Despair

I'd had secret fears of this for some time now, and now it's happened: Someone's killed an abortion practitioner.

After a 10-year respite from violent opposition to abortion, we've had an unwanted, unnecessary, and even detrimental event. Wasn't the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act supposed to stop all this?

It wasn't any law, regulation, or statute that prevented anti-abortion violence; hope to end abortion through legal process prevented violence. For the last 10 years, social conservatives hoped that legislation, Republicans, and conservative judicial nominations would end abortion.

Now, faced with a proven pro-abortion administration bent on negating the minute gains made over the last ten years, despair is creeping into the fringes. The more the Obama administration advances the abortion agenda, the more I fear that despair will drive more to immoral and illegal means of opposing abortion.

The Obama administration is doing nothing to assuage the fear and prevent despair. First order of business was to start funding overseas abortions again. Next, Obama moved to strike down conscience protections for people refusing to provide information on, deliver or perform contraceptive or abortive services. In every forum on the issue, he equivocates and dodges, spouting platitudes based on his read of the audience. I ignore his words and focus on the deeds, and they are no encouragement.

Still, to despair, and allow ourselves to justify violence as a means to prevent abortions is counter to the very principles that we base our opposition on.

And every time an abortion doctor is killed, the media lionizes the deceased and manufacture a martyr, and people who otherwise think abortion is repugnant become more sympathetic. Like every time Israel sends a missile strike into the West Bank to nail one Hamas leader, 10 more civilians join to take his place. It's a sure-fire way to lose the war.

Deniable Plausibility

Say I tell a racist joke, but then immediately afterward say that it's not nice to be racist. Do you think I'm a racist? Do you buy my quick disclaimer afterward?

ex abundantia enim cordis os loquitur (For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh).

Judge Sonia Sotomayor:

The Court of Appeals is where policy is made.

And I know -- and I know this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don't make law. I know.

She spoke her opinion from the heart, and then the brain said "whoa, grab a fig leaf" and she made that hasty disclaimer. "She's neither advocating judicial activism, nor indicating a personal predilection for it" screams partisans on the left.

You buy that? If so, I have some land in Florida you may be interested in.

Mad Mutterings #5092028

" Out of passion for their country, the people form a Party.
Out of passion for the people, the Party forms a State.
Out of passion for the Party, the State ruins the country and destroys the people."

This thought sprung to mind after reading 'That Hideous Strength' by C.S.Lewis, 'Gulag Archipelago' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, watching 'Der Untergang' ('Downfall', about the last days of Hitler), and observing North Korea.

It is a hideous bloom that despises its soil and devours its own roots.

Arbiter of Constitutional Validity

By all means, let's not do anything to make a popular TV personality sad.

Who's Going to Continue the Failed Policies of the Bush Administration?

After a long campaign of blasting everything the Bush Administration has done since Election Night of 2000, Barak Obama turns his attention to the economy:

Obama said that passing a stimulus package will be his first move if the lame-duck Congress fails to do so before he takes office January 20.

Um, didn't the Bush Administration do that, and several times? Did it work? An objective look around would indicate that these "stimulus payments" only generated short-term economic twitches, while only serving to reinforce Americans' bad spending habits.

At least Barak Obama is willing to break with the Bush Administration on commitments to defending eastern Europe from Soviet intimidation. Oh, wait, maybe we meant to continue that policy instead..

Emergency!

I'm not a macroeconomics wiz. I'm just a guy who wants to live within his means enough to provide a modest and comfortable life for his family.

I have a problem with the bailout, actually a couple problems.

Problem A) President Bush is selling it.

The last time President Bush went on about the need to launch immediate and costly action was with Iraq. Sure the sketchy-at-best intel suggested some danger, but it panned out poorly, and now we're on the hook to fix Iraq. We broke it, we bought it. And even many Democrats bought into the Iraq, which leads me to problem B:

Problem B) Democrat leadership is selling it.

If anyone is against the free exercise of commerce, it's usually Democrats. So then, why are they so eager to shore up an enterprise that they are hostile to? Because the terms of the deal will give Government more power over the Market. More Government, Bigger Government. And that's the likely reason that many Republicans are balking at the deal. Throw in the partisan diatribes on either side, and I'm not surprised that the public isn't buying it either.

Problem C) No one's taking ownership of the problem.

Politicians, Right and Left, are denying any culpability in the political push for risky mortgages and lax oversight. Businesses aren't taking ownership of the obvious flaws and greed inherent in the trade of dubious securities. Americans are awakening to the dawning horror that you cannot live beyond your means on endless credit.

Problem D) It has to happen NOW, or the planet Earth will implode.

I'm sorry, but I'd prefer decisions of this magnitude have well-thought out plans for execution and consequences of the action. I don't make expensive knee-jerk reactions when I can avoid it. See Problem A.

Problem E) This will take generations to recover from.

I am resigned to the idea that my children will likely be working harder and have a lesser standard of living that we do now. That said, I'd like a little hope that my grandchildren will not be even further in the hole. Still, my grandparents survived the Great Depression, and were much more frugal and generous than the current generation. Maybe hard times would be a good lesson for modern folks.

Like I said, I don't know squat about economics, but then again, that's not where I put my faith either.

Taking Resonsibility

So, who's fault is it?

Barak Obama seems to think it's the people running the business:"We must protect taxpayers, not bail out the shareholders and management of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," he intoned. Wow, that's the same group of management and shareholders that donated $126,349 to Obama's campaign. I guess there's no loyalty in this business.

John McCain, early in the mortgage avalanche said “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.” Once the scale of the problem came into focus, he eventually supported government intervention in the mortgage mess.

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind my fellow Americans that the reason that these mortgage companies, and related securities, are in such a mess is that people stopped paying their mortgages. With the default on this debt, american homebuyers were the start of this avalanche.

Both Republicans and Democrats alike were crowing about all the home purchases through looser lending standards. The banks are in a Catch -22: If you lend money to high-risk borrowers, you're a greedy capitalist, and if you have tighter lending standards, you excluding "deserving people" from the American Dream. Sounds like you can't win.

The shareholders and management of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, among other mortgage lenders, loaned money to homebuyers in good faith and expected the borrowers to honor their obligations. To vilify the lenders for the insolvency of the borrowers is ludicrous.

The most basic issue at the base of this mess will never be discussed. The urge to have more than we can afford, and lacking the honor to repay our debts.

The Bailout is for the deadbeat American Borrower.

Political Statement #090908

Right Uppercut

Wow, there's a lot of froth and lather over the McCain campaign's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the VP slot on the GOP Ticket. I have a few thoughts, scattered as usual, about the pick and the anaphylactic shock reaction of the Left:

• Sarah Palin is not just Pro-Life on paper, but Pro-life in her own life. It's easy for me to be Pro-life, as my four children have all been healthy. Palin has been Pro-Life in more difficult circumstances.



• Wow, the All-American mom! It takes hope to have 5 children, but isn't 'Hope' one of the Left catchphrases? She even gave birth to a Down's child, which indicates that she has hope and has it in spades. While The Left talks loftily about hope, Sarah Palin lives it.



• The 'National Organization of Women' will be exposed as the farce that they are, in the swiftness and substance of their attack on Palin. They aren't Pro-Women, or else they would respect her and her choices, but instead, they are Pro-abortion, which is the substance of their immediate attack:
  
  

  Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.

  
  
  That should tell you all you need to know about how far NOW will support a woman.



• This morning, a commentator on NPR suggested the Palin pick as a cynical ploy to get women voters. I would counter that it is equally as cynical to dismiss a woman as just a tool. Are the Left always saying that a woman, or any poor, opressed group, supposed to be judged by their performance and not their physical attributes?



• I'm excited that there's such a Pro-Life example on the ticket, and showed my approval in a rare political donation to the McCain-Palin campaign.

Huckabee Gets It

It seems that very few folks understand the drawbacks of the "Economic Stimulus Package". Mike Huckabee understands, and said this during the GOP debate last night:

"We'll probably end up borrowing this 150 Billion dollars from the Chinese. And when we get those rebate checks, most people are gonna go out and buy stuff that's been imported from China. I have to wonder who's economy is going to be stimulated the most by the [economic stimulus]package."

Is anyone else going to have the stones to say that?

Fred bows out

A Statement from Fred Thompson

Posted: Tue. 22 Jan 2008

Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.

posted by Fred

Well, what else is there to say? I sure as heck am not voting for Rudy, I'm not on fire about Mitt, I don't mind Mike, and I think Ron Paul may be certifiable. Jeeeez. Gimme someone I can vote for without retching in the voting booth.

Sufficient

Shocker: Pat Robertson Endorses Rudy Giuliani

Robertson said he decided to endorse Giuliani because he was "a proven leader who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans."

"In all of the crises which confront our nation and the world, we need a leader with a bold vision who is not afraid to tackle the challenges ahead," Robertson said.

Well, that's enough info for me to NOT vote for Rudy. Rudy may be a fearless leader, one who doesn't blanch at the notion that the engine of the economy is greased with the blood of aborted children. Rudy certainly does not fear God. As an accomplished adulterer, I'm not surprised that traditional family values are not his strong suit.

If any politician claiming to be a Roman Catholic could appear to be any less catholic than John Kerry, it would be Rudy Giuliani. Rudy's inconsistent approach to his faith is probably not a problem for Robertson. Romney's out, as Pat probably considers Mitt a pagan, and McCain's just not hawkish enough on apocalyptic conflicts, in addition to being federalist on the issue of same-sex marriage.

So, what does that leave? For Robertson to jump on board the Giuliani Express, my guess is that he thinks Rudy would do anything to defend Israel from Islamist aggression. Anything.

Robertson's previous public remarks have already warranted dismissal, and this time serve as a warning to go a different way.

Back on the Street Corner

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

She said she was leaving. She said she'd go home. But the lure of the red-light district in D.C. was too much. Yes, Cindy Sheehan is back.

"The Democrats will not hold this administration accountable, so we have to hold the Democrats accountable," Sheehan said outside Conyers' office after the meeting. "And I for one am going to step up to the plate and run against Nancy Pelosi."

So, what happened to going home and reconnecting with her family? Did she get home and find out that they've decided to "move on" without her? Was the solitude frightening? Were there no news cameras to capture the histrionic wailing and gnashing of teeth?

Well, if she tries to run for office, I'm sure she'll get the rabid pacifist vote, but the cooler heads will vote for someone more stable.

Telling Omission

The screen behind the democratic candidates for President caught my eye, and I noticed a telling omission that really speaks to the flaw in their foreign policy ideas. Here's the backdrop:


A good deal of the background image is from the great seal of the United States, but with a curious part left out. I circled the omission above, so that you could reference it to the seal in it's entirety:


Yes, they took the arrows from the Eagle. They think that the United States can protect its liberties with olive branches alone. They prefer to throw aid packages, abortion doctors and condoms at the world's problems. What a sorry lot.

All of them are for retreating from Iraq. To avoid his obligations, Onan, too, was eager to pull out. So much for fearless leadership from the Left.

Mowing and Musing

I’ve had a lot on my mind, recently, and it’s been swirling around without any focus. Until last night, when I was mowing my lawn, when it came to me:

“Santino, come're. Whattsa matter with you? I think your brain is going soft from all that comedy your playing with that young girl.

Never tell anybody outside the family what you're thinking again!”

Yes, words of wisdom from Vito Corleone.

America’s brain has gone soft. Soft from all the comedy it’s playing with it’s culture of consumption and gratification. From the overweight kids playing their Playstations, to the parents over-leveraged with consumer debt (spent on stuff that the debt will outlast) to the politicians who pander to the self-indulgent.

Thanks to our Incontinental Congress, and their Media enablers, everyone in the world knows what we’re thinking (or that we’re not), and knows the limits of our fortitude.

Everyone now knows that 2.500 dead troops will make our people squeamish and our politicians start looking for something white to wave. Everyone now knows that if a force can keep us tied up for more than a year or two, we’ll throw in the towel. Everyone now knows that if they can bloody our nose, they can expect an apology FROM US for making them angry.

What’s now to stop China from taking Taiwan?! Or is Chuck Hagel (or any in the Yellow GOP) thinking beyond the next election? Don’t pander to the American people, as they’ve become too soft-headed from a couple generations of affluence without sacrifice.

Live Squat

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

So, the archsongsters of environmentalism are convening a global community sing to proclaim their looming apocalypse, otherwise known as 'Global Warming'. A scant 22 years ago, another band of well-meaning musicians put on a similiar event, called 'Live Aid', to eliminate hunger in Ethiopia. It was a smashing success, as far as raising money is concerned. £150M successful.

Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam was very grateful for the generous donations. So grateful, in fact, that he was able to expand his army and maintain his fleet of soviet-made armor, needed to secure his Marxist government against surging domestic rebel groups. His starvation of opposition populations in his own country was what spurred the Live Aid project to begin with, so the whole decade from 1976 to 1986 was win, win, and win. Some figures claim Mengistu's Derg party was responsible for 1.5 million dead Ethiopians. So, Mengistu's government got paid £1000 for each person they killed. Nice.

So, who's the money going to this time, and who are they being paid to kill?

Obama on the Achille Lauro

From USA Today, Barak Obama decries the polarization of the faith debate:

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart... Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us."

I shant chide him for his selective ignorance of Scripture, it's to be expected. Here's our Lord speaking about the unity that He will bring:

Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And as a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10:34-48

Obama belongs to both a church and a political party that are selective in discriminating good from evil, unless a poll be taken first. The firm discernment of the Faith proposed by the Catholic Church, and select splinters, is anathema to the Left:

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design,"

Let me turn this one around a bit:

" At every opportunity, party leaders told Democrats that evangelical Christians are drooling troglodytes that only care about issues that oppress women, bash gays, force theocracy on schools, and insist that some 'god' created the universe."

Barak, if you want to find out why evangelical christians and pro-life catholics don't support liberal Democrats, why don't you ask the Democratic Party chairman, Howard Dean.