Month: April 2006

2 Comments Posted on Democracy, Editorials

the meaning of citizenship

We Americans are citizens, not “subjects” like our British cousins. We used to see citizenship as meaning the ability to vote, to speak-up, and to hold a claim on rights bought and paid for with the blood of patriots selflessly spilled on our behalf. With this legacy came certain obligations. Not simply paying taxes, but actively contributing to the national defense, taking the time to learn about political issues and voting, and, as dramatically embodied in the classic New England Town Meetings, taking part in civic life to produce a better community and country.

The American Thinker— thomas lifson

we are beginning to recognize that it is no longer enough just to vote. we have to keep a closer eye on those d.c. politicians, because even the good ones go astray sometimes. it’s now up to us to keep them accountable. that’s our responsibility as citizens of this great country. it’s easy to get cynical and to believe that we can’t make a difference. it’s so tempting to just give up on the whole deal, and say to heck with all of them, but we can’t. this country belongs to us, and we should have a say in its future.

6 Comments Posted on Random Musings

let it snow, etc.

enough with the bad puns. congratulations to tony snow on the new job. i hope that he won’t be sorry he took it, and that he will be able to help the president get back on track. i will admit that does seem to be a lost cause right now, but things could change between now and november. you just never know.

read this related fiction. it’s from the comic geniuses at imao. i love it. you will too.

more later when the heavy flu meds wear off.

6 Comments Posted on Conservatives, George W. Bush

could be a snow job

to those self-righteous preening political hacks at media matters: shut up. nobody cares what you think of tony snow, and this includes the president of the united states. i’ve seen what you consider shocking information about the future WH press secretary, and i’m still trying to find the incriminating stuff. tony snow has never hidden the fact that he worked for bush 41 or that he occasionally shows up on FNC. so what’s the big deal here?

tony snow is a man of integrity. he is an all-around nice guy, and he keeps the debate civil, even with those who have different views. how many other conservative talk show hosts can claim to have that kind of debate style? not too many, unfortunately. he is also more than qualified to be white house press secretary, and dubya would be a fool not to consider him for this position. it would also give conservatives actual representation in the vicinity of the white house, which they don’t seem to have right now.

i support the idea of tony snow becoming white house press secretary. he could handle the press, even david gregory. there’s no doubt in my mind that he would do an excellent job. i do think that the job he has now would be a hard job to give up. it’s possible that he is doing the administration more good with his radio show than he could possibly do as an official member of the team. i would miss hearing him on the radio every day, but when the white house comes calling, it would be silly not to consider the job offer. so whatever he decides, i wish him the best of luck either way.

there are a few other suggestions for white house press secretary here and here. good stuff. read and enjoy.

tags:

Posted on Baseball

juiced

i don’t know whether barry bonds took steroids. the evidence seems to be mounting against him right now. the fact that he’s being investigated for possible perjury charges by the feds sure doesn’t help his attempts to deny it to the average baseball fan. i am not a barry bonds fan. actually, until a few years ago, i wasn’t even paying much attention to the guy. i have nothing personal against barry bonds, unlike many in the media.  i can see how the competitive nature of the baseball business might contribute to a desire to gain an unfair advantage over other players, such as the one steroids would provide.

all that makes sense. i just think that baseball records should be attained honestly. in my opinion, a player who takes steroids is cheating the game. for this reason, if barry bonds took steroids, or if any other player took them, we can’t see their eye-popping numbers in the same way. a player like that deserves to be yelled at by the fans, although it would be nice if they left the four-letter expletives for the privacy of their own homes.

baseball will investigate steroid use, and bud lite may or may not find anything. the feds may actually provide some clue into the extra-curricular activities of barry bonds. i’m not that optimistic that the fans will ever know the extent of steroid use in baseball. while i believe that barry bonds is far from innocent here…he’s already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. if we are all wrong in our suspicions, then we owe bonds an apology. but what if we are not?

baseball fans still need to show a little restraint here. some fans are taking their opposition to bonds to an extreme level. fans are now throwing syringes and related items on to the field. bonds apparently is getting racially-tinged hate mail as well. fans throwing anything on the field should be thrown out of the park for such idiocy, and there is no excuse for hate mail of the kind bonds claims that he’s getting. fan behavior in all sports, including baseball, has rapidly deteriorated.

sometimes the fans just need to check themselves. we watch baseball because we love it. if a baseball fan is so obsessed with barry bonds that he/she needs to write such hate mail or throw stuff onto the baseball field, that person needs to step back and re-evaluate their priorities. this kind of behavior ruins the game for the rest of us. it’s wrong and we shouldn’t make excuses for it.

Posted on Random Musings

please stand by…

technical problems with my computer have kept me from posting and responding to comments as quickly as i would have liked to this week. bear with me. as soon as the main computer’s back up, you will see more new posts. 🙂

In other important news…ALIAS returns to our TVs tonight at 8pm. Set your DVRs. I’m going to promote ALIAS here since ABC doesn’t seem to be interested in doing so.  

3 Comments Posted on Editorials, Random Musings

Christians vs. south park

the last thing i ever thought that i would do on this blog is defend comedy central’s south park. i don’t even watch the show. i’ve only seen commercials and short previews for it. i have seen enough to know that the majority of south park episodes would offend just about everybody at some point. the creators of south park are equal opportunity offenders and everybody gets skewered. it’s a fair point that Christians are more likely to get abused on this show than Muslims, as recent events have demonstrated.

i just don’t see how it’s possible for outside groups to tell comedy central what kind of junk they can put on the air. comedy central is a cable channel, after all, and isn’t subject to the same restrictions put on regular broadcast channels. most of those who are terribly offended by this show probably don’t watch it on a regular basis. that’s the way we should handle shows like this. if you don’t like the content of south park, don’t watch it. boycott comedy central’s advertisers if you want to. write letters of protest and share your opinion with the network, as many have already done. if comedy central doesn’t lose any viewers, it won’t really matter to them what Christians think of shows like south park.

it’s admirable that people of faith are brave enough to stand up and say that pictures of Jesus Christ should be just as respectful as those of Mohammed. it’s less likely that Christians will riot and burn things here in the united states than it is that Muslims will do so. BUT…i’m not convinced that either would happen here in america. we have better things to do with our time than organize protests around something trey parker and matt stone decided to make their characters say on south park.

maybe the Christian community would have more impact on the culture if they were more interested in changing lives than on changing what’s on TV. that’s not to say that their criticisms of shows like south park are unfair, or that they should shut up and deal with a corrupt culture that celebrates this kind of entertainment. absolutely not. i’m just saying that we should be just as concerned about people as we are about TV shows.

related:

CNN.com – ‘South Park’ aims at censors, hits Bush, Jesus
Michelle Malkin: CARTOON DHIMMITUDE
Sister Toldjah– Southpark and Mohammed – art imitating life

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10 Comments Posted on Editorials, George W. Bush, Iraq

we were right to get rid of saddam (part 2)

(continued from part 1)

i have a question for my democratic friends who agree with me that we had to get rid of saddam. let’s say that the united states decided not to invade iraq, but that we still wanted to kick saddam out of power. how do you propose that we accomplish this goal? do we continue pushing the UN to keep an eye on saddam? do we make more threats? do we encourage the UN to pass more scary resolutions? WWJKD? (what would john kerry do? the world will thankfully never know.)

i have heard the argument that saddam was no more evil than dictators of other countries who treat their people worse than dogs, and that the united states doesn’t interfere militarily in all of those countries. i disagree with the first part, and acknowledge the second part. there are a few reasons why the united states doesn’t interfere militarily in every case of human rights violations or oppressive governments. for one thing, even though we have the best and most capable military in the world, there’s not enough of ’em to deal with all people struggling against their governments. saddam hussein’s iraq supported terrorism, which made it a top priority of previous and current presidential administrations. this made saddam a threat to the security of the middle east and also to the security of the united states. any links to al-qaeda are still to be conclusively proved in the minds of many. however, there are other groups associated with saddam that were involved in terrorist activity, as i’ve mentioned before.

for those who opposed the war in iraq from the beginning, and for those who oppose it now, that ship has sailed, ladies and gentlemen. what’s done is done. saddam is out of power. that’s a good thing. iraq is slowly progressing toward becoming a country friendly to democracy. the process is not as quick as we would all like to see, but there is no other alternative to seeing iraq through its current struggles.

ok…i’m ready now…bring on the violent disagreement. 🙂

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Posted on Editorials, Iraq

we were right to get rid of saddam (part 1)

saddam is no longer ruler of iraq, and that’s a huge step in the right direction for the future of iraq. we did the right thing by getting rid of him. he was a threat to us and to neighboring countries. bush said that saddam had chemical and biological weapons because he did have them in the past, and it was reasonable to believe that he still had them. of course, with saddam not fully co-operating with the UN weapons inspectors, there’s no way to have concrete proof that the US and the UK and others got it wrong. all saddam had to do to stop the invasion, if no WMDs were present, was to allow full access for the weapons inspectors. two possibilities exist. either saddam had a death wish, or he had something he was hiding from us. do you really think saddam was stupid enough to risk invasion of iraq just so that his neighbors could still have the illusion that iraq was armed with WMD? i guess it’s possible. after all, saddam was never known for his great military strategy.

based on what we knew about saddam’s history, isn’t it logical to err on the side of caution? ask yourself what would have happened if bush was right and saddam used those WMD’s. imagine the political fallout from that decision to do nothing about saddam. dubya was screwed either way with this decision. either he lets a guy with a known history of being evil to his own people and starting wars with other countries keep on breaking the rules and potentially acquire WMD, or he uses military force to remove saddam as a threat. what a tough decision.

there are many good reasons why saddam had to be replaced. that’s what the president was arguing — that saddam was a threat who needed to be dealt with. his press people were not on message when they responded affirmatively to the questions about saddam being an “imminent threat”. that’s just a matter of semantics, i guess, because even though the President didn’t use those exact words, he did emphasize the urgency of dealing with saddam sooner rather than later.

i don’t want the US to be the world’s policemen. i don’t want the US to be constantly bailing out countries that should be handling their own business. in an ideal world, the UN would be handling these international affairs and enforcing its own regulations against rogue members. this world can never, and will never, exist. the UN has too many of its own internal problems to effectively handle the problems and concerns of its members. that’s why i’m not convinced that even if the UN is reformed, it will ever meet our expectations.

(to be continued–comments return after part 2 is posted)

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5 Comments Posted on Baseball, Random Musings

in case it needs to be said…

chris berman is annoying. that’s something we should all agree on. if your favorite team is on tv, and chris berman’s doing that game…do yourself a favor and turn off the sound. if you are fortunate enough to have an XM radio, you can listen to the game there while watching the moving pictures on ESPN. technology is a great thing.

just a public service announcement to fellow sufferers and baseball fans. no need to thank me. oh yeah…and GO METS! 🙂

Posted on Democrats, Editorials, Republicans

you can’t blame newt for these republicans

read the first part of the contract that started the gingrich revolution:

As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.

That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.

This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.

Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.

On the first day of the 104th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately pass the following major reforms, aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government:

it then goes on to list specific policy initiatives, designed to check spending, restore accountability to congress, and to reduce big government. that’s what the american people voted for then, and this is what they still want to see. this is what republicans said they stood for in 1994, and they put it in writing in the contract with america(full text here).

i suppose it’s easy to forget something that was written over ten years ago. we can argue about the effectiveness of the policy proposals here, but the contract for america set an agenda and made specific suggestions to address problems. it took the republicans quite some time to figure out what changes to suggest, and how to sell it to the voters. like the british labour party, they needed to re-package themselves and make their agenda marketable to the average person. the contract was part of the marketing strategy, and it worked pretty well.

what does the republican party stand for now? what can they point to as achievements during their time in power? do they even deserve to hold on to their majority? you know that the party is in trouble when the criticism leveled at them by the former leader of the revolution is quoted by democrats. i was flipping past c-span and i saw a virtually empty room with democrats talking to themselves, holding up clever posterboards with gingrich quotes and the ugly deficit numbers, and generally preaching to the very small choir that was assembled there. i’m not sure exactly what the purpose of the meeting was, but it sure was entertaining to watch. in any case, newt was right then, and he is right now. the republicans have fallen off the wagon. maybe it’s time for some tough love for them administered by the voters of this country.

i don’t really want to see the republicans lose congress. i still think they are a better alternative than the democrats. i will do all i can to help defeat the current democrat in my congressional district, because we need a change there. i’m just saying that a good hard slap in the face and defeat in ’06 wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to the republican party. it might even produce the radical reforms needed to bring the party back to its small-government roots.

i guess i should say something about tom delay here. he did the right thing. the political fallout or non-fallout i will leave for pundits to determine.

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