The process of watching our citizenry slowly succumb to the Almighty power of the U.S. Government is at once frightening and fascinating – we of course notice the train wrecks (Obamacare) and 10-car pileups (the castration of SB 1070), but let’s not forget those little nails that are pounded, daily and ceaselessly, into the burial box of American ingenuity and initiative.

They do the most damage, after all, because they just don’t seem important enough to worry about when you take them one at a time.

A fresh example can be found in the details of the January 19th announcement of the merger of Comcast and NBC.

According to BLACKWEB2.0, in an article published on January 20th, the…

“…announcement that the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice approved the merger to Comcast and NBC-Universal created a large amount of media scrutiny.  Most reports focused on size of the deal, and the merger is indeed a staggering one. The deal joins Comcast’s cable network and TV channels with NBC-Universal’s theme parks, affiliate stations, studios, TV channels, and stake in Hulu.”

Perhaps overlooked in the mammoth scope of the business transaction were some of the mandates (inserted by the Feds) that had to be complied with in order to get the deal to go through:

“Some of the conditions of the deal offer benefits that could help those hurt by the digital divide.  Under the section marked ‘Broadband Adoption and Deployment’ the following conditions were specified to be provided to 2.5 million low income households: $10 broadband, $150 computer equipment, and computer training.”

Since BLACKWEB2.0 is primarily marketed to young African-American professionals, there are details offered about how the ruling might affect Blacks in general, who “are disproportionately represented among low income households.”

Those details are way less interesting to me than how the concept of public assistance (and how its availability or lack thereof relates to self-motivation) has changed over the years. Nowadays it doesn’t just cover food and housing and health care and education (which, taken together, seem already like an over-reach to many) – no, in the post-modern world of Obama, if you’re deemed to be economically “deprived”, you get high-tech assistance besides! Where is this going to end? Free babysitting and cable? Where is the concept of saving one’s self in all of this? How is the dignity of the individual salvaged by getting a heavily discounted ipad??

Geez….

Read on…please….

I’m not sure why Jamie Glazov and Joseph Klein thought it right to recently savage our ecumenical, Big-Tent-For-All-Religions friend, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, but it’s a good thing the bloggers at Care2 were around to set them straight.

How else were we to find out what a sympathetic, multi-layered individual the Holy Man really is?

I mean, as Mosque-eteers go, this guy is softer than a collision with Barney Frank in a dimly-lit House hallway; he has feelings, you know, and besides, has been under lots of stress lately.

Evidently it has been one tough nut serving as the “public face” of the “polarizing” “We-Will-Build-It-No-Matter-What-You-Do” contingent that birthed and set in motion the Ground Zero Mosque initiative back in 2009.

As Care2 stalwart Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux recounts,

“Rauf was one of the original architects of the Park51 project, and became one of the polarizing spokesmen for the project when massive protests erupted over the summer, serving in many senses as the organization’s public face.  He announced late this fall that he would be starting a movement to oppose extremism and promote interfaith dialogue, which is what he will presumably be doing instead of working more closely with the Park51 project.”

Yes, that is what is known as an awkward sentence (did the “protests” serve as the “organization’s public face”, or was it Rauf himself, or…?), but we are not here to judge anyone’s writing style, so let’s just say that the spotlight got to our cleric and he needed to spend more time reaching out to his friends, the Christians and the Jews.

But at what cost? Thomson-DeVeaux wonders

“…whether the negative publicity became too much for (Rauf) – it has to be extremely taxing, even traumatic, to feel like the hated public face of a project like the Park51 mosque….”

I know, I know…. It must really suck to be despised  by all the relatives and friends of the people your co-religionists killed way back on that September morning. Especially when many of the proponents of that sort of slaughter are your friends and heroes. Still…isn’t it time to bury the hatchet? Maybe we should just remember that we are all brothers and sisters…and sing along to the following video:

In the latest effort to save ourselves from, well, us, our friends at Care2 have posted a nifty little petition you can sign if you are fed up with your cell phone minutes running out because you are too stupid or lazy to figure it out on your own:

With back-and-forth texting, endless calls and family plans with kids who download at unexpected costs, it’s easy to get a shocking cell phone bill.

We can end cell phone bill shock and stay in control of our service with a simple solution: updates when we are near our limits.

In Europe, cell phone customers get a quick call or text when they’re getting near their usage limits, and another when they hit those limits. Cell phone users stay aware of their phone use and can adjust their behavior to avoid a surprisingly high bill.

Support this common sense idea. Tell the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that you want updates on cell phone bill limits to become the law in the U.S. — and end cell phone bill shock!

Actually, the more I think about it, the more awesome the whole idea sounds…you could receive a whole series of updates, right there on your Blackberry Protem! Oil need changing? Pantry running out of essentials like Bulgur wheat and barley? Charmin on the wane? You could get a text message (or audio, if you’re blind or handicapped by the inability to read), direct from the FCC, an organization that is world-renowned for its sense of fairness. King Solomon had nothing on these guys!

Actually, the messages could be personalized, so that you would feel like you actually had a friend out there in a cold, uncaring world:

“Hey, John, it’s Marty over at the FCC. How was your weekend? Say, your toilet paper supply is running pretty low…I’d get on down to Safeway if I were you, because we both know that Brawny just doesn’t cut it (laughter.) How are the kids, anyway? OK, gotta go, someone in Michigan is out of canned apricots. See ya the next time!”

If there’s any thesis I subscribe to, it’s that the Left will win the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans, mostly because so many of us are lacking the fortitude to make decisions on our own – we have slipped into a netherworld of dependence on our betters in Washington DC. Let them handle it, we’re just too damn tired…besides, there’s a new episode of “Cribs” on right now, Marty just  notified me and told me I might be interested. He says it’s free for agreeing to get out the vote in 2012.

It must have been the cute puppies.

I mean, everyone knows that women are suckers for the big round eyes of a baby animal – it must bring out some kind of hard-wired maternal chemical that men don’t possess in any kind of quantity.

Why else would a very Conservative lady friend of mine send me a Christmas e-card from one of the most morally obtuse organizations on the planet, Care2? She had to have been hypnotized.

Actually I am glad she sent it – because all you need is one view of this whacked-out leftist website to understand what happens when reason is sublimated to world view…the pieces don’t fit together very well…it’s a smiling soccer-mom trip to intellectual hell.

Consider this current petition and video re the so-called senseless slaughter of reindeer for food in Sweden and Finland:

I suppose they could kill them before they saw off the horns, but listen, kids: How the hell did you figure they made the famous McArctic burger, anyway? Maybe I’m desensitized because my Grandpa worked in the packing house, but if you want meat, you gotta kill it, and there isn’t any real nice way to do it.

On the other hand, how dare the evil Messrs Pitt and Boehner intrude on a woman’s right to an abortion! (Hint: the procedure is way less pleasant then the video you just saw, I guarantee you.)

From the site’s recent Abortion Rights in Danger For U.S. Women:

Expect to see a renewed and surely stronger push to impose stricter limits on abortion.

A leading Congressional opponent of abortion rights, Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania, is in line to be chairman of the influential Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. This change portends a ‘major shift on abortion and family planning, according to opponents and supporters of abortion rights,’ as reported in the December 11th New York Times.

Mr. Pitts is ‘as anti-choice as a member of Congress can be,’ according to Laurie Rubiner, vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.  He favors the repeal of the health care law and is also, as the New York Times notes, ‘determined’ to impose a ban federal subsidy payments to any health insurance plans that include coverage of abortion, this being a benefit now offered by many health insurance plans.

After the midterm elections, opponents of abortion gained some 45 seats in the House. Indeed, the next speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, is a ’staunch ally’ of opponents of abortion rights: He has received a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee.

As Robin Marty wrote in an earlier Care2.com post, the future is looking pretty stark and simply bad for women in Boehner’s America: ‘It seems as if 2010 has quickly gone from being touted as the year of the woman, to now having the potential to be the worst setbacks women have seen in decades.’

Yeah. I know. Pass the tasty lime-green Kool-Aid. And kick back to learn more about Islam leading the way in planetary environmental stewardship.

A couple of  times a year for as long as I’ve been in the collection business (that’s two decades, partner), an exposé is done by ABC News or Dateline NBC or some other media outlet detailing the nasty, back-alley techniques used by bill collectors to extract the funds from poor saps who are just trying to muddle their way through life a day late and a dollar short.

It has always kind of ticked me off to know that my entire profession (yes, profession) is judged (erroneously) by the actions of  the dirty, fly-by-night sociopaths who populate these programs. Just because some lawyers or car salesmen or siding solicitors are unethical and soulless, doesn’t mean all are – the dirtbags are a small minority, which I will prove as we move along here.

But back to the main subject first: the latest entry into the “collection agents are scum” sweepstakes (as e-mailed to me by ex-collector extraordinaire David Swindle), is this item about Facebook being used to hector and humiliate consumers who have fallen behind on their obligations:

A Tampa woman who fell behind on her car payments after having to take sick leave from work was surprised to hear about it from friends and family. Turns out the credit agency, which was also calling her up to 20 times a day, hunted down her Facebook profile and started contacting her Facebook friends to inform them that she was in debt.

The phrases in bold and italicized type are my way of showing what a Red-Herring this Facebook business really is. Let’s assume for a moment that this “Tampa woman” is being honest and this really happened. Was the use of Facebook unethical or was it the fact these call center criminals absolutely violated Federal Statute in such a mind-numbing and insanely arrogant manner?

You can’t call any debtor 2o times a day. Sorry. And it’s a brazen violation of the aforementioned law (The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, as well as every state law I know of) to talk to any third party about the customer’s “personal business” without the express consent of the person who actually owes the money.

Now there are individuals who have no scruples about doing wrong, but most collection agencies would be out of business in a heartbeat if they regularly condoned such practices. In fact I can tell you that almost every bank I do business with is scared to death of what happens to their brand and reputation when something as repugnant as this Facebook scenario is proven to be true. (Check out the ABC News link at the top of this post if you think any financial institution, especially in the heavily-regulated age of Barack Obama and Al Franken, wants this kind of negative publicity.)

The absolute, club-footed idiocy of asking Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) to perform “Peace Train” at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity” has been well-remarked upon. You can only shake your head and cackle in disbelief. It’s the perfect poison Halloween treat.

James Hudnall at Big Hollywood:

“And to show how inclusive they were, they had Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) singing Peace Train. The guy who supported the fatwa (Death Sentence) on Salman Rushdie. I guess he was there to appease the Muslims who want to blow up Comedy Central for daring to pretend to show Mohammad by not showing Mohammad.”

John Tabin at The American Spectator:

“In light of Jon Stewart featuring Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, at the ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ on the mall today, it’s worth remembering the insanity that this man has endorsed.

” ‘He must be killed,’ Stevens/Islam said in 1989 of Salman Rushdie, when asked about the Ayatollah Khomenei’s infamous fatwa. ‘The Qur’an makes it clear – if someone defames the prophet, then he must die.’ “

Of course there’s Islam/Stevens himself (in a perfect example of Taqiyya in action):

“I never called for the death of Salman Rushdie; nor backed the Fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini–and still don’t. The book itself destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis.

“When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that–like both the Torah and the Gospel–the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you’re looking for them.^[10] However, the application of such Biblical and Qur’anic injunctions is not to be outside of due process of law, in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole….”

And let’s not forget the man who received the original death sentence for his authorship of  “The Satanic Verses”:

Cat Stevens wanted me dead

“However much Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam may wish to rewrite his past, he was neither misunderstood nor misquoted over his views on the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses (Seven, April 29). In an article in The New York Times on May 22, 1989, Craig R Whitney reported Stevens/Islam saying on a British television programme ‘that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ‘I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing’.

“He added that ‘if Mr Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ‘I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I’d try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is’.

“In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr Whitney added, Stevens/Islam, who had seen a preview of the programme, said that he ‘stood by his comments’.

“Let’s have no more rubbish about how ‘green’ and innocent this man was.”

Salman Rushdie, New York

In the end, it all comes down to the desperate, sinking feeling that maybe if we grovel and show our hindquarters, our future masters will spare us. As “Bert” declaims in the comment section at the bottom of Tabin’s post:

“So, John Leibowitz ( Stewart), a self loathing west side Lear jet Jewish nutter invites a Jew hating Muslim radical to sing at a phony ‘fight the sanity’ rally?

“So, when do we acknowledge that the media elites are mentally ill leftists?”

Almost right, Bert. It isn’t quite mental illness. It is fear, plain and simple. Welcome to the Dhimmitude.

Everyone knows that Islam is a sublime and gentle religion.

Right?

I mean, to think that a Saudi religious academy in Fairfax County, Virginia (of all places!) might be a haven for intolerance and possibly even violent exhortations to its young believers is simply too shocking to bear!

Yet the evidence seems to be there, at least if you want to believe the words of infidel Alex Adrianson.

In a 10/21/10 post from the Heritage Foundation’s Insider Online Blog, Adrianson musters up some pretty damning testimony, at least as far as us future Dhimmis are concerned:

On Wednesday, Fairfax County, Va., approved a lease extension for the Islamic Saudi Academy, an elementary school run by the Saudi government. The extension allows the academy to remain in its current facilities, about 15 miles from Washington, D.C., until June 2012. Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, offered testimony reviewing concerns about extremist teachings in the ISA’s curriculum:

“Until the 2008-09 academic year, ISA’s religious textbooks used Saudi government textbooks that teach that it is permissible, or even required, to kill those who leave Islam (which includes the majority of Muslims who reject Saudi Wahhabi doctrine), polytheists (which includes Shiite Muslims), Jews, homosexuals and others, and that militant jihad to spread the faith is a sacred duty. The State Department, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a top counter-terrorism official at the Treasury Department, Undersecretary Stuart Levey, and Congressman Frank Wolf have all recognized the link between such extremist education and violence and terror. Even a Saudi government panel concluded that the Saudi Ministry of Education’s Islamic curriculum promotes violence. In fact, one of the academy’s valedictorians, American born Ahmed Abu Ali, was convicted of giving material support to al Qaeda and conspiring to assassinate Pres. George W. Bush and in 2009 was sentenced to life imprisonment.”

Doesn’t sound like any of the School’s underwriters have any KinkyFriedman CD’s in their luxury roadsters, that’s for sure.

But they do have money to give to the county, which more than makes up for any irregularities in their, um, faith-based outreach strategies.

From a linked article to the main piece, it is evident, that to some, a few pieces of silver are more beguiling than mundane security issues:

“…residents like Lynne Strobel who support the lease renewal say that the school is a ‘strong contributor’ to local businesses who put $2.5 million into Fairfax County each year.”

It is one thing that this “institution of learning” has been brazenly operating out in the open since 1984. It is quite another that it has now been granted a lease extension by simply promising to eliminate some of its violent teachings, and replace them with, well, exactly what have the calls to Jihad been supplanted by? As Shea further states,

“For the school year beginning in fall 2008, after my reports and those of the Gulf Institute, USCIRF, the Washington Post, Slate magazine and others demonstrated the extremist content of its Islamic Studies textbooks, ISA began using Saudi textbooks in its Islamic studies curriculum that were heavily redacted, as well as other material that is not publicly known.

“We wish we could celebrate the deletions in the texts at ISA that we helped catalyze, but we are not persuaded that the problem is solved. The books have simply removed the previous lessons, but they have put no other written content in their place. The texts do not offer an alternative, they are simply silent, they contain no significant discussion of jihad and make few references to the religious ‘other.’ The silence is deafening. It raises the question – a question ISA has yet to satisfactorily answer – of what supplemental material the academy is using.”

I can tell you this much:

It isn’t the latest edition of Pilgrim’s Progress.

Gawd, fishin’ sure is fun! Sittin’ out in the boat with a buddy or two, talkin’ smack, crackin’ open some cold ones…what is really better than that?

Besides, casting for Crappies is in many ways an act of pure patriotism – citizens bankrolling Government, if you will.

Think of the tax revenues just a couple of anglers and one boat can create: You’ve got the boat  registration and license plate fees, the fishing licenses, plus the “sinners penalty” on all the booze and cheap cigars.  And so far you haven’t even rented a cabin. Of course if you do, that’s taxed, not to mention the various “environmental ” user addenda, depending on where you wet your line: There are surcharges on everything from your equipment to the type of prey you’re trying to land. It’s a bureaucratic bonanza!

Not that you have any right to complain, buster. Some families can’t even afford to fish. Why, with the dwindling value of food stamps and rental assistance these days, how are the underprivileged supposed to join us on our public waterways? I mean, what about the kids?

Don’t worry. Our hard-working administrators have that covered. At least in the President’s home state. From the Illinois Policy Institute (with an assist from the Heritage Foundation), here is proof that Government knows better than you how to address societal ills:

“The Illinois Urban Fishing Program was created ‘in Chicago in 1985 to teach individuals of all ages to fish, to provide better local fishing opportunities, and to give participants an understanding of and a greater appreciation for natural resources.’

“The program provides free summer fishing clinics at stocked ponds and other fishing outreach events. Although the program started in Chicago, it now provides free fishing clinics throughout the state—from Ullin (pop. 6885) in southern Illinois to Belvidere (pop. 26,4066) in northern Illinois.

“Funding for the Urban Fishing Program comes from the Wildlife and Fish Fund, and in 1994, funding for the program was supplemented by a fishing license fee increase. The expenditures for the Urban Fishing Program have increased 28.8 percent from fiscal year 2006 to 2010. But the revenues from hunting and fishing license/permit fees have decreased 6.8 percent between 2006 and 2009.

“The General Assembly recently increased the program’s budget by more than $75,000 for fiscal year 2011, even as the state is experiencing a massive budget deficit.”

So let me see if I can get this straight: A taxpayer-funded program was started over two decades ago by well-intentioned civil servants to help the children of “single-parent” households. The program has more than doubled in cost in just the last five years, has grown way beyond its original intentions, and is losing money at a horrific rate.

The State’s answer to all of this? Hey, lets dump even more cash into this absolute loser of a deal – it’s bound to get better – right?

The Conservatives over at the Policy Institute are of course wasting their time trying to stop this kind of profligate spending. With over 51% of Americans currently paying no federal income tax, why should anyone give a rat’s ass about some stupid program that only wage-earning idiots have to pay for, anyway?

Hey, pass me that beer, OK? Yeah, I know it’s Keystone Light. The Liquor Control Board upped their take – can’t afford the good stuff anymore.

(An audible sigh is heard…then the snap of a can opening, and the plop of a lure hitting the water. Fade to black….)

From the The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell newsletter of October 5th, 2010:

“Yesterday afternoon, President Barack Obama told his Economic Recovery Advisory Board: ‘I realize that we are facing an untenable fiscal situation. What I won’t do is cut back on investments like education.’ Meanwhile what our Commander in Chief is very willing to cut is defense. In Bob Woodard’s new book Obama’s War , the President is reported telling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: ‘I am not spending a trillion dollars’ on war costs. And he told Vice President Joe Biden exactly why: ‘I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.’ “

Yes indeed, despite the Dems insistence on flinging massive amounts of taxpayer moola into the sinkhole of public education, there seems to be a negligible link between scholarly performance and funding largess.

As the article states:

“Since 1960, federal spending on education has tripled while test scores have remained flat.”

While in the real world, the world free from the ideological morass that is the signature creation of the Party of Carter,

“…our nation will only spend 4.9% of GDP on defense this year compared to a post-Word War II average of 6.5%.”

Nobody does a better job than Heritage in stating the real problem and then offering the necessary solution.

Problem:

“An explosion in domestic spending, particularly from entitlement programs–Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid–is the true source of our nation’s ‘untenable fiscal situation,’ not defense.  Furthermore, our nation’s continued economic prosperity is entirely dependent on a peaceful world.”

Solution:

“Sacrificing our nation’s defenses at the expense of the entitlement state will neither lower our deficits nor protect our citizens. It appears to be the policy of this White House that Washington should no longer be a leader in the world, but instead should be content with managing America’s decline in a ‘post-American’ world. This is not acceptable. Congress must better strengthen our nation by reforming entitlement spending while funding the people and platforms necessary for a balanced defense.”

Good as this advice is, it is more than likely falling on deaf ears over at Michelle’s latest remodel. ‘Tis alright. Maybe the fiddling is just too dang LOUD!

There are lots of targets on Arizona’s back these days. And no shortage of archers itching for a shot at the bullseye.

Everyone knows about SB1070 and the beating it took at the hands of judge Susan Bolton; and of course there’s the recent inclusion of the law into a human rights report from the Justice Department to the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner – evidently there is no better way to cleanse America’s many and sundry sins than to submit our evil doings directly to the august and sage diplomats of Geneva.

Of course the Federales seldom rest – they are always cooking up new ways to mess around with the internal workings of our 48th state. The latest salvo?

Evidently it is wrong to ask non-citizens to supply more paperwork when applying for a job then citizens. No, really.

From the August 31st AZ Central (yes, the Repugnant):

“The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa County Community College District on Monday, accusing it of discrimination for requiring extra paperwork from new employees who were not U.S. citizens.

The suit claims that at least 247 newly hired employees who were not citizens were required to present additional work-authorization documents beyond those required by law between July 2008 and January 2010.

The district, which did not require the extra documents from U.S. citizens, stopped the practice in January, during a Justice Department investigation.

The Immigration and Nationality Act requires employers to treat authorized workers in the same manner as U.S. citizens, according to Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division.”

Perez, according to Discover The Networks,

“…sees America as a nation replete with racism and discrimination. He has helped lead the fight against Arizona’s recently passed anti-illegal immigration bill. And he was a key force behind the Justice Department’s decision to dismiss its case against two Philadelphia-based members of the New Black Panther Party who had intimidated white voters with racial slurs and threats of violence on Election Day, 2008.”

The lawsuit is yet another item in a long laundry list of “We the people are offended, but seem to be powerless to stop you” moments featuring the Prez and his elitist social engineers.

Where it ends, or if it ever will end, we can only imagine. For now fines are planned for anyone who dares to ask more of an alien, illegal or otherwise, than they would ask of one of our own citizens.

“We Are The World”, indeed.

This post will automatically beg the question: Why would anyone care what some 14-year-old kid likes in the realm of comedy and music videos? Do we really want to view his top-10 lineup? Aren’t there more important things to waste our time with?

Well, I would posit that it’s good to at least know what our adolescent (in this case male) population views as valuable and important. After all, they will be adults at least some time in the near future, and part of what they carry into society comes from what they view and listen to and share with their friends.

Besides, everybody else seems to have some sort of “list.” They are all the rage these days, ranging from the trivial to the momentous to the best to the worst. Each of them is somebody’s attempt to get your attention, to scream out

“Hey! This is what I think is important! I’ve taken 20 Zillion choices and distilled them down to the most meaningful bits! Once you listen to what I have to say, you will agree with me, and your life will improve instantly!”

Or something like that.

So why would it be surprising that my 14-year-old son wants to get in on the act? Let’s overlook the fact that some of his “choices” might seem craven or crude to the average adult-onset mind. The opportunity to see into any teenager’s head is just too big an opportunity to pass up. If we could all get past the sullenness and the sarcasm and the “God I am soooo in-cred-i-ble” persona of the average high-school freshman we just might find a bright and creative and ultra-intelligent mind – and maybe, possibly, perhaps – we might also breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that these kids aren’t all that different from their predecessors, and that maybe they will do just fine when they finally get their turn at that big craps table some of us call “life.”

(Yeah, that last analogy? Simply awful writing! I’m gonna leave it in anyway….)

Oh, by the way: His name is Nick. And this is just some of what he enjoys:

Not having had a chance to read NewsReal yesterday until the evening (that pesky income producing job keeps getting in the way), but belatedly armed with an “Islamic” post that I was planning on submitting for review, it was interesting to see – in three prior posts from the same day – how tentative (and frightened) we infidels are when it comes to dealing with this growing pox on humanity.

Whether it’s a video of Glenn Beck tossing out the usual bromide about Radical Islam being a perversion of good ol’ “regular” Islam; a heartbreaking article about a woman who did stand tall, recanted, and lived to regret it anyway; or a story about “another” religion that commits honor killings, because, hey, it’s easier to talk about people who won’t kill us than religious fanatics who will – it all bleeds down to the same bottom line:

The followers of Allah want to destroy us. Period.

Well, add another weird twist to the list. In a July 12th op-ed in The New York Times (In Sudan, War Is Around The Corner), authors Dave Eggers and John Pendergrast manage to weave a tale about the looming civil war in that country without ever once (really!) using the word “Muslim” or anything close to it.

Anyone with even a semi-operational Cerebellum knows that President Omar al-Bashir has been leading a Mohammad-style cleansing operation since he came to power in 1989, pitting Muslims from the North of his country against Christians and Animists from the south. Eggers and Pendergrast acknowledge this in a sense, but couch their verbiage in political terms, discussing “carrots and sticks” and other legal maneuvers, such as:

“…placing sanctions on key ruling party officials, blocking debt relief from the International Monetary Fund, supporting International Criminal Court arrest warrants (including the one issued on Monday for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for three counts of genocide in Darfur), tightening the United Nations arms embargo and providing further support to the south.”

They never get to the actual reason all these troubles exist in the 1st place, and why they won’t go away, no matter how many criminal or financial penalties are sought against the regime in Khartoum:

The aggressors are Muslim. The victims are not. Sanctions ain’t gonna work, boys!

Not everyone is so politically correct. In an article from way back in 2002 (from an admitted “Christian” perspective) we read, with shock and outrage, what happens to women who don’t wear the Hijab in this incredibly backward country:

“Villagers in several areas of the northeast Upper Nile region say that when women are captured by government forces they are asked: ‘Are you Christian or Muslim?’

“Women who answer ‘Muslim’ are set free, but typically soldiers gang-rape those who answer ‘Christian’ then cut off their breasts and leave them to die as an example for others.”

As Mark Tapson so eloquently states in his own Tuesday post, we can no longer be silent about the many diabolical faces of the “Religion of Peace”:

“…it is vital that Americans stand united and push back against the Islamists’ violent assault on free speech. The handful like Molly Norris must not face this alone. We must all be Molly Norris.”

There’s a reason J.D. Hayworth calls it the Arizona Repugnant, and he’s not alone. Many residents of the Grand Canyon State find the Arizona Republic to be little more than the unofficial house organ of the State’s Democratic Party, and have taken to ignoring it in ever-increasing numbers.

Which hasn’t affected the paper’s mission to change the world - not in the slightest.

One can imagine a phone call (maybe from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s office), asking for a little help in “humanizing” the plight of illegal immigrants, who are taking huge hits in public opinion polls these days:

“Say, guys…have an idea here. How about focusing on the ‘youth’ market a little bit? Let’s do a story…umm…about…three fresh-faced fledgling activists, all scarred by the vicissitudes and misfortunes of being branded ‘illegal’!

“Absolutely!..and their struggles to be taken seriously by a harsh and uncaring electorate, not to mention their unceasing and idealistic push to get legislation passed that will help fund a college education for those here, well…you know…illegally!”

So the sycophants at the Republic go to work, crafting this little gem:

“Daniel Rodríguez was up at 5 a.m. one day in May, preparing to speak at a news conference on Arizona’s new immigration law.

“The event would draw national media coverage because it featured undocumented youths arrested earlier that week while protesting at Sen. John McCain’s Tucson office.

“After the conference, Rodríguez, who wasn’t one of those arrested, spent much of the day at the Arizona Capitol. He participated in an immigration rally, directed a poster-making session and arranged for live band entertainment. That evening, he met with volunteers to discuss future protest strategies. His day ended around 11 p.m.

“The 24-year-old Rodríguez is part of a growing grass-roots movement of young Latino adults and high-school students who spend much of their spare time advocating for immigration reform that includes a form of amnesty. Rodríguez has a personal stake in fighting the nation’s toughest immigration law, which goes into effect July 29: He was brought to the United States as a child and is an illegal immigrant.”

And so it goes, on and on, ad nauseum. Daniel and his plucky friends Alejandra and Carlos (the simpatico American, straight from Central Casting) – victims, all of them, in a strikingly racist war whose ultimate aim is to snuff out their hopes and dreams…and force at least two of them to pay “out of state” fees for an education in the good ol’ US of A.

Which is the larger political crux here. When the Left appeals to our “humanity”, it is usually to force one of their agendas down our collective throat without us noticing or complaining too much. In this case, the centerpiece of the article, the actual  Raison d’etre, is the hopeful passage of a piece of legislation called the “Dream Act”,

“…a proposed federal law that would enable illegal-immigrant students to remain in the U.S., get their college degrees and have a path to citizenship.”

Of course the entire scheme involves using taxpayer dollars, which isn’t always available to actual citizens who would like to go to college, but, hey, why quibble?

Thank God we have responsible publications like the Repulsive to get the word out to the average citizen, who might mistakenly believe that illegal immigration is…wrong!

After all – we can’t expect these exploited youth to pay for their American degree with their own dinero  – can we?

In the European Socialist order of things, “austerity” doesn’t have a whole lot to do with cutting waste. If you are short on funds and want to improve your solvency and your ability to do business world-wide, you…

Raise taxes!

In the article “France and Spain Act to Rein In Budgets“ that appeared in the New York Times June 16th, there are unintended moments of hilarity as we read about how France and Spain are dealing with lowered credit ratings and budget shortfalls:

PARIS — “Under pressure from anxious lenders, the French government took steps on Wednesday to help reassure markets about its creditworthiness, announcing that it would raise the retirement age and increase income taxes on the rich to help rein in its budget deficit.”

Yeah, and that’s not all, darn it!

“The French government also announced other revenue generating measures like an increase in income tax on high earners; the top rate would rise to 41 percent from 40 percent on earnings over 69,783 euros.

“In addition, companies would have to pay higher social charges to cover medical and unemployment coverage for employees; some tax loopholes would be closed; a tax on home sales would rise; higher taxes would be applied on stock options and dividends; and taxes on capital gains and investment income would increase slightly.”

When you can’t get your economy to grow through sound free-market principles you just keep a-gougin’ until there’s nothin’ left to take – and then you throw a sop to the international credit-raters by raising the nationally mandated  (remember, the government is in charge here) retirement age from 60-62.

Wow, that would certainly be of great comfort to me! Get a couple more years out of some of these geezers and the whole express train will be right back on track!

Of course the unions are unhappy as all get-out:

“…the French government’s plans have already caused angry reactions from the opposition Socialist Party and labor unions, which demonstrated against the proposed measures before they were announced. The main unions are planning a day of demonstrations and strikes on June 24.”

Spain? Stick a saber in it. Unemployment is 20%, and the brain trust there is resorting to publishing esoteric “stress tests” that will somehow magically get outside investors to trust the economic system again. There is also word of trimming guaranteed (re: Government) severance pay for unemployed workers from 45 days a year to 33. Whether the unions will put up with such malarkey is unclear – they are planning their own strikes, but not until September.

Since Barry O. seems to have so much free time these days, I was hopin’ maybe he could fly on over for a meeting with our continental brethren and set them straight. After all, the national debt in France was 78% of its gross domestic product last year, while ours was an inconsequential…94.27%?

Forget I even brought it up.

Having read both Calvin Freiburger’s excellent piece on Abortion (Leftists: Being Pro-Life is Selfish, Good People Endorse Murder), and David Swindle’s response (Murder? Having Your Cake and Eating it Too on Abortion Rhetoric), I can only say that we are getting caught up in semantics when the real issue is what legal protections we should give to the weakest among us.

Mr. Swindle challenges Mr. Freiburger’s belief that abortion is “murder” by asking if it really is:

“Calvin and I have debated amongst ourselves about this point before with me pointing out: ‘Well if abortion is murder then that means that every woman who has an abortion is a murderer, no different than a mother who hires an assassin to slit her toddler’s throat. So such women should spend life in prison or get the death penalty, right?’

“Most anti-abortion advocates with whom I’ve dialogued don’t agree to this. In their idealized world in which abortion has been criminalized it’s only the doctors who would be charged with the crime of murder. The women seeking abortions are absolved of the crime — at least in the years following abortion’s criminalization — because they’ve been sold the lie that their fetus isn’t a person, thus they don’t know they’re committing murder. But the doctor knows enough to know what he’s doing is murder. That’s basically Calvin’s position.

“I accepted Calvin’s explanation for awhile but I don’t anymore. And here’s why: if someone doesn’t know that the person they’re killing is a person and they’re not doing it with malice then it’s not ‘murder’. It’d be ‘manslaughter.’

“Here’s the definition of murder:

“The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.”

As far as I’m concerned, that’s just parsing definitions, when the real crux of the matter is simple: Do we, as a civil and just society, owe the unborn the chance to become thinking and producing members of our society? Whether a fetus is a life now seems to me to be beside the point. We can at least all agree that it will become life if not interfered with.

Just as the Federal and state criminal codes have a place for 1st and 2nd degree murder (as well as manslaughter), and look at a myriad of factors before handing out a sentence, the end result is that there are consequences for the elimination of a life, or even a potential life.

Or is it not double homicide (or double manslaughter, depending on the situation) when a pregnant woman is killed, either with “malice aforethought” or via carelessness?

The bottom line is that true Conservatives should always chafe under tyranny, and agitate to end it, once and for all. And what is more tyrannical than a set of laws that allows the all-powerful state to prey on those that have absolutely no voice?

Abortion should be a crime. Call it whatever crime you want, legislate the penalties that free-thinking people can agree upon, but there should never be an excuse for preventing, as Mr. Freiburger puts it, ”an entire lifetime of unpredictable potential from being realized.”

It is easy to feel a moment of anxiety or psychological disconnect while reading Sports Illustrated South Africa: The sylvan pastures of baseball are nowhere to be found; instead you have grown men dressed like really fashionable jockeys whacking balls at croquet hoops. And what’s the deal with the bat, anyway? Did they forget to finish it?

Oh, it’s called Cricket. Alrighty, then. At least the rest of it is mostly the same: There are high-profile wealthy athletes, bombshell models, and vengeful Mommies to be found in spades.

In the recent Lara Bingle Wants Her Slice Of Clarke’s Fortune, a bracing rush of familiarity is felt as the plot-line is laid out:

“The relationship is over, their dogs call separate kennels home and now the battle for Cricketer Michael Clarke’s millions is being thrashed out by lawyers, with model Lara Bingle being encouraged by her mother to fight for a fair deal.”

Thank God! For a second I thought everything was really different down there!

Stage props include an Aston Martin, a $200,000 engagement ring, and a Mumsie who could care less about the money – her daughter’s emotional state is of paramount importance.

“After having encouraged her pretty daughter to start modelling at 12 and allowing her to drop out of high school at 16 and head to Italy, Mrs Bingle has no love for Clarke.

“ ‘She feels they were never right for each other, doesn’t think he looked after Lara, being away as much as he was, and wants him to pay dearly,’ a source said. Clarke has four properties in his name including his $6 million Bondi unit and a $3 million waterfront home at Lilli Pilli.”

I know, I know. Who would think that a professional sportsman would have to travel, anyway!

The moral here of course is that even though the location may vary, people, especially those with the financial wherewithal to exercise their every whim, are pretty much the same. Or have you all forgotten this?

I for one am hoping for the same kind of reconciliation.

Robert P. Kirchhoefer isn’t being a turncoat when he writes that President Obama’s “Save the Senate” tour (going on this week in Nevada and Colorado) is something he can truly

“…get behind.”

After all, as Kirchhoefer’s February 16th AmSpecBlog post illustrates (with background from Joseph Curl’s same-day article in the Washington Times), our Feckless Leader is doing more for Republican Morale than Monica Lewinsky did for cigar sales back in the good ol’ days of the Clinton Administration:

“Obama is no longer the Teflon-Don of 2008, but has become an un-made man, exposed for his unpopular agenda: government health care, massive spending, and a teetering economy. These policies have found as much favor with the Obama administration, and more specifically Obama, as they have dis-favor with Americans.”

Which is why we’ve seen the “unexpected” victories in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts. With more on the way in Nevada and Colorado as long as Boss O. values “ideology” over “pragmatism.”

Maybe the President can spend like a week at Harry’s ranch house. That should be enough to finish the job once and for all.

To read episodes 1-4 in the Collector Conservatism series, click here.

OK, OK, my buddy Steve’s ex-wife (the marriage was officially dissolved yesterday) isn’t nearly as goofy as the woman in the following YouTube video, who complains about eviction from a luxury apartment and the measly 750k settlement  her husband is offering to settle their, um, relationship.

But the erstwhile Mrs. Steve is making out pretty darn good down here in Sunny AZ.

Not only does she have a guaranteed place to live (as long as Steve can hold a job) but she is making sure, through the Maricopa County Courts, that he doesn’t impede her financial future by continuing to make payments on anything as silly as a mortgage.

Child support is a given.  Spousal support is de rigueur. But property ownership or a 401k?

Fuggedaboutit. The loopy lady in the video calls herself an “idiot”. Steve knows where she’s coming from:

Marital dissolution is a fiscal minefield, no matter what sex you are. Here are the factors (besides “love”) that got Steve started on his road to ruin. Make sure you pay close attention so that it doesn’t potentially happen to you:

One year into the marriage, my friend had to liquidate an IRA account due to his wife’s profligate shopping sprees. Instead of taking her off his credit cards as an authorized user, he went along with her plan to co-sign another card, her own credit card, which she of course would be very responsible with, (“promise”) and due to his earning power, she got a high-end limit that she immediately began to chase with all the passion and vigor of Luciano Pavarotti digging into a prosciutto sandwich.

Of course this scenario repeated itself multiple times over the course of the betrothal, and each time Steve capitulated to his little honey’s desires, hoping beyond hope that things would “get better” and that it would “all work out”. Houses were refinanced, unneeded cars were purchased and leased, and, finally, with his move to AZ from a northern state, he capped it all off with the purchase of his wife’s “dream home”, which he bought before they sold their home in Frostbite Falls wherever.

Of course, although that house was scheduled to sell, it didn’t for over a year, due to the Barney Frank-engineered Sub-Prime Debacle of 2007-Infinity.

And the residence that Steve bought in the Grand Canyon State?

Worth less than a Yurt right now. It may escalate in value to the level of a Nissan Sentra some day, but not anytime soon.

Not that Steve gets to live there very much longer. The judge has already admonished him to not make any mortgage payments if they’re going to jeopardize his wife’s lifestyle in her new deluxe rental home that Steve’s wage garnishment is financing right now.

The last remaining retirement account, the mythical 401k, that Steve toiled to contribute to for longer than the length of his marriage?

Ha. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I recently asked Steve why he’s such a Godforsaken Schmuck. He didn’t get offended by the question. His eyes got misty and he stared directly into the sun for several minutes before bothering to answer:

“I dunno, man. I think it’s the blond hair. And the blue eyes. And the peaches-and-cream complexion. Money doesn’t seem so very important next to that.

“Besides, look what happened to this poor sap!”

He gave me a web address, which I immediately accessed on my All-Global Blackberry Pro-Tem. It was a Divorce-advice column run by a gentleman named Dean Hughson. The query and reply of the moment was the following:

You must hear a lot of sad stories on divorce. Can you share some of the worst stories you have heard?

Answer:

All stories are sad. When you lose access to your family or your spouse, it hurts. Here are a couple of stories from the thousands I have heard.

A friend of mine, a dentist, built a unique type of dental practice up…worth $8 million. One day his wife announced that she was not finding their sex life particularly fulfilling and she had decided that they should start ’swinging’ with other couples. The friend told her that his morality wouldn’t allow that type of behavior. The wife said “Well, tell you what I am going to take a boyfriend and you will pay for the apartment and expenses..If you don’t I will divorce you, take the kids, and your money.”‘ He said no and she did exactly what she said she would do. The courts ordered him to split the assets 75%/25% and then ordered him to pay $10,000/month in alimony and $5,000 a month in child support, all other legal bills, and provide medical insurance for her and the kids plus give them the family home. The stress of losing his kids and wife were great on him and the business community was changing and he didn’t catch it. Soon his business went down the tubes. However, the courts said that he could afford to pay the money ordered, even though he was in bankruptcy and put him in jail when he couldn’t. When he went to jail, his ex’s boyfriend knew someone and they had him marked as a child abuser (it is signified by the color of the documents) even though he was not and thus he found himself facing people in jail who wanted to kill him, thinking he was a child abuser when actually he was there for not paying alimony.

With a first story like that, who needs a second? All I know is I’m going to need to watch my pal like a hawk. One more blonde in his life and he’s gonna be down at Tent City makin’ big boulders into little teeny pebbles.

Which even a weeny like him doesn’t deserve.

That’s right: Global Warming!

Yeah…it’s a potential flippin’ tragedy around here, boys and girls. She passed all the other tests: Responsible (homeowner, 17-years with her current employer), good mom to her 16-year old daughter, short (5′3″ – at 5′7″ I tower over her like Yao Ming over Spud Webb), curvaceous, health-and-exercise conscious – who could ask for more?

And then Saturday it started.

You see, my petite raven-haired crush was talking about one of her college classes (she went back to school a few years ago and has almost completed her Bachelors at age 44), and after a few minutes it became clear – we are destroying the earth and all the furry little creatures that call it home!

She already knows what I’m like, and that I actually get published at this site now-and-again…but she evidently was trying to break it to me on the down-low…we talk about books and politics and her studies all the time, and I knew she might lean that way due to her love of camping and pesticide-free foods, but when she finally felt comfortable enough to really let loose, well, I was shocked and mortified, to say the least.

I knew this was too good to be true!

After a spirited exchange of ideas (she called me “mean”), she felt compelled to follow-up with an e-mail Sunday morning:

“I’ve really not talked too much about my convictions, but though I’m a Republican, I vote for the man and what he stands for…not the party, which means YES, I have voted for and stood behind Democrats.  I’m totally into environmentalism and believe we are destroying this beautiful planet that God created.  I support animal and environmental groups and take interest in people like Mr. Gore and others involved with green issues.  This is part of who I am.

“I felt afraid to say anything at all to you last night as you seemed so tempered and angered, and I had and still have much homework to do.  I know you are very political and stand strong on many issues.  I do too!  I just wanted you to know….

“Hope you have a nice church service….”

Gulp! Was this to be the end? Not having Swemson’s phone number, I scrambled for an answer.

And then, like a miraculous vision at the foot of Mount Sinai, there it was, right in front of me, winking at me from my computer screen!

Bandow’s latest on AmSpecBlog:

More Fibs on Global Warming

My retort was loaded and ready to be fired!

So fire I did…and then she of course volleyed a pithy rejoinder…and so it went…back and forth…and on and on.

Without going into detail, the exchange created a certain amount of friction, not to mention some healthy intellectual tension.

We decided to meet to iron out our differences, sort of like President Obama and the House Republicans did on Friday…and although the negotiations are not yet complete, we can both truthfully say we have reached a sort of understanding. Why I still have to go hiking on Monday evening is not 100% clear, however.

What ever happened to beers with the boys?

OK, OK, I’m not always right, but in this case it was a no-brainer. Fortified by a complete and utter lack of morals and a nonexistent regard for the sufferings of others, Lawyer Roy is putting his entire, um, heart and soul into the defense of his new client, the doltish, malleable, and more than likely disappointed wanna-be terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Why, even National Review Online (The Corner, January 29) is impressed by the Solicitor-as-car-salesman approach that Roy has fashioned over the decades. Although Marc Thiessen is a little upset that the Nigerian student’s defense team (with Roy serving as lead counsel – he hopes to land a book contract) is forcing authorities to crawl rather than race towards a deal, he grudgingly admits to my erstwhile friend’s conference-room negotiating skills:

“The Washington Post reports today that ‘authorities are inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack.’ Inching is the operative word here. It’s been over a month now that this terrorist has been exercising his ‘right to remain silent.’ Each day that goes by when he does not talk is an outrage.

“The Post adds that ‘public defenders for the Nigerian student are engaged in negotiations that could result in an agreement to share more information and eventually a guilty plea, the sources said. Negotiations could still collapse before the next scheduled court date, in April, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.’

“April? Negotiations ‘could still collapse’? Are they kidding?”

This of course is what happens when the Obama administration is running the show instead of military operatives, who know much better than civilians how to apply a little elbow grease when the situation calls for it.

Meantime Roy and his sociopathic band of misfits are making hay out of the fact that

“…Obama officials don’t seem to understand…that the intelligence Abdulmutallab has is perishable. He was supposed to be vaporized with the plane when it exploded. As soon as al-Qaeda learned he had survived, they began shutting down e-mail accounts, bank accounts, moving and hiding operatives, and closing the intelligence trails he could lead us down. Every second, every minute, every day he did not talk resulted in lost counterterrorism opportunities. If he starts talking three months from now, that’s not good enough.”

Although I haven’t spoken to him, I’ve been told that Detroit is an ideal city for Roy to navigate in. He’s reportedly taken in a couple of Red Wings games, and has coerced the Federal lackeys assigned to him into driving him to some of his favorite Elmore Leonard backdrops.

Not bad for a guy who would be rolling back odometers right now if he hadn’t lucked into a night torts class at a local college back around 1972. From what I understand, he never did pay those Guaranteed Student Loans back.

Surprise.