28 New Exoplanets Found!

Astronomers have discovered 28 new planets outside of our solar system, increasing to 236 the number of known exoplanets, revealing that planets can exist around a broad spectrum of stellar types-from tiny, dim stars to giants.



read more | digg story

Share

We Reap What We Sow

The following email ended up in my inbox at work. I responded to it as I have stated below. It was sent to me by some blow-hard, do nothing who likes to run on and on and on about how we are still going to find hidden WMDs in Iraq and that Hillary Clinton deserves to go to jail because of some consiprosy theory he though up.

Read the email and then my response below it:

Subject: Fw: "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,"

WOW, WHAT A WAKE UP!

Dear God: Why didn't you save the school children at ?.

Bath, Michigan 1927
Houston, TX 1959
Moses Lake , Washington 2/2/96
Bethel , Alaska 2/19/97 Pearl ,
Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah , Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro , Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro , Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville , Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield , Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond , Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton , Colorado 4/20/99
Taber , Alberta , Canada 5/28/99
Conyers , Georgia 5/20/99
Deming , New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson , Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee , California 3/ 5/01
El Cajon , California 3/22/01
and Blacksburg, Virginia 4/16/07?

Sincerely, Concerned Student

-----------------------------------------------------

Reply: Dear Concerned Student:

I am not allowed in schools.

Sincerely, God

----------------------------------------------------------

How did this get started?...

-----------------

Let's see, I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools. And we said, OK..

------------------

Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school, the Bible that says "thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbors as yourself," And we said, OK...

-----------------

Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehaved because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about so we won't spank them anymore..

------------------

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued. And we accepted their reasoning...

------------------

Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents. And we said, that's a grand idea...

------------------

Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said, that's another great idea...

------------------

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. And we said, it doesn't matter what anybody, including the President, does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good....

------------------

And someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then stepped further still by making them available on the Internet. And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech....

------------------

And the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex... And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes... And we said, it's just entertainment and it has no adverse effect and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

------------------

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

------------------

Undoubtedly, if we thought about it long and hard enough, we could figure it out. I'm sure it has a great deal to do with... "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,"

------------------

Pass it on if you think it has merit! If not then just discard it... but if you discard this thought process, then don't you dare sit back and complain about what bad shape this country is in.

End of email.

What a sloppy piece of crap that is huh?

I am not sure that anyone actually reads the bible or goes to church/temple/mosk anymore before they send out emails like this.

God is infinite and according to Aristotle He is the Unmoved Mover, which means he is the beginning of the Universe as the First Cause that causes everything that has happened since the beginning of time. As I understand from reading the Torah, God is not swayed by public policy.

As a practicing Jew I find this email to be disgraceful. How dare anyone put words into the mouth of the Almighty to prove their point. This was not written by a little girl.It was probably written by some nut with an agenda to play on people's emotions so that they would write their Congressperson and make it OK to pray in school. Of course I am sure that the originator of this email was not considering that Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Native Americans all attend public school and therefore have the right to pray in their houses of worship and homes as they please without some rightwing, Conservative, fascist, nut, telling them they HAVE to pray to Jesus Christ in school or they will go to hell and their children will be shot to death in mass murders.

As long as the Constitution protects the rights of individuals to worship as they truly want, without the government meddling into their personal relationship with God then people who want to enforce public school prayer are truly Un-Patriotic and Un-American.The government protects our rights in this democracy. It does not enforce the will of the elite upon those in the minority. I believe that was what the Revolutionary War and Declaration of Independence was supposed to do anyway.I am not positive but I think that in all the school shootings, the shooters were not disciples of God bringing vengeance upon the masses.

I agree that most of the generations that came before me had it very hard. As well, I see that generations after me will have easier lives. It is also true that every generation has its unique problems and issues. In my great-grandfather's generation he and his family had to escape from Poland to France on foot to then take a boat to America because of the pograms killing Jews. My grandfather's generation had to fight in WW2 and deal with the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor AND Hitler AND the Cold War with Russia. The following generation had to deal with Korea and more importantly the Vietnam conflict and all that came with it. In my generation we were still doing Nuclear Bomb scares in elemetary school, hiding under our desks and even after the malaise of the Seventies in the Eighties I grew up with the threat of Nuclear War. The Nineties saw the rise of terrorism and now my children live in the most suspicious and security concious America ever. Schools doors are locked down, people will call the cops because teenagers are walking around their neighborhood, and everyone thinks everyone else is either a traitor or a terrorist cell. Of course just like Pearl Harbor, Nine-Eleven and its aftermath will take a long time to recover, not just the hurt but the fear, hate and division in the country that it caused.

That said, If I read the above email I can't make the logical connection between Dr. Spock and School shootings. It seems that the availability of such items along with the fracture in family values (true family values that can be upheld in any type of family even mine where my mother raised me as a single mother) contributes greatly. The best thing you said was we have to take responsibility for our own actions. Whether right or wrong, I own my mistakes but I also own my sucesses. That comes with the territory.

People who send emails like that without thought to the content make me angry because I can't see spreading hate as policy in America. Whatever happened to intelligent discourse and being able to disagree, have conversation and debate without one side or another claiming the other side is either a terrorist, unpatriotic or souless?? Great men like, FDR, Truman, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. had respect for their opponents.

I disagree that Bill Clinton's actions in the White House lead to children being killed as the email implies. What a crock! It seems to me that lying to the American Public and to Congress and then turning around and blaming THEM for believing the lies is about as unpatriotic as you can get. Regardless of who does it. When I learned about American Government in elementary school I learned about the foundation of our system: Checks And Balances! That's why we don't have ONE branch of government, but three. That's why we don't mix religion and government. Religion is about the soul and family and death, Government is about society, taxes and policy. Religion is about things we have to have faith to believe. Government is a structured organization that serves the people. I think it is called Democracy.

Besides the sender of that email is a big blow hard with nothing useful to say but to toot his own horn about how great he is but accomplishes very, very little that is creative or good for his fellow man.

Personally I love a good argument and debate. I learn something from every intelligent conversation and disagreement I have with people. But some people have nothing to contribute.

Lon S. Cohen

Share

Liviu Librescu...

I think that every one of the victims of the tragedy of Virginia Tech deserves an honor but this one story was very important to me. Many young people died who never got the chance to really live. This man survived one madman's rampage to succumb to another's. This is from MSNBC's Website:

Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mechanics lecturer. Born in Romania, he survived the Nazi Holocaust and emigrated to Israel in 1978 before moving to Virginia in 1985.

An Israeli citizen, he had taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and was internationally known for his work in aeronautical engineering.

"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," said Ishwar Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

After surviving the Nazi killings, Librescu escaped from communist Romania and made his way to the United States before he was killed in Monday’s massacre, which coincided with Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Librescu's son, Joe, said his father's students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before he was fatally shot.

“My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,” Joe Librescu said from his home outside Tel Aviv, Israel. “Students started opening windows and jumping out.”

Share

Report: French knew of al-Qaida plot

The French did something right! They knew of some kind of hijacking planned by al-Qaida and shared that information with the CIA in January of 2001. Though back then the idea of a hijacking had an entirely different meaning and no one could have predicted the extent of Nine-Eleven.



read more | digg story

Share

Joe Murphy Has Left the Building, But His Story Lives On

In the Podosphere 6 degrees of separation I'm sure everyone is linked back to Joe Murphy of the KickAss Mystic Ninjas, Wingin' It, Slice Of SciFi, etc, Podcasts. While today is April Fools day, no one that was ever touched by Joe will find humor today. This comic was written on the same day of Joes passing - its perfect. Goodbye Joe, you mattered!



read more | digg story

Share

The First Blush of the 2008 Election

I like Hillary. There I said it. I think she is moderate enough for me. I am not fond of the far left because although I am very liberal I am not do idealistic that I think that there aren't people who deserve punishment for their crimes or that the country doesn't need a strong military. I believe in social reform and programs but I also think that there is nothing wrong with making people fend for themselves to survive. I am certain that I am not an Isolationist but I think that it is time for the United States to have a very clear outline on foreign policy. Just because the world is more complecated than it was during the Cold War doesn't mean that we shouldn't have clearly defined goals. We are not the world's saviors. Democracy is an ideal not an aboslute.

The far right is just scary these days. They have dragged anyone who is a Republican into this you are with us or against us idealism with no room for interpretation. People have adopted this strong stance on the right that the world is only full of evil people or godly people and there is noone inbetween. What ever happened to separation of Church and State? Whatever happened to "real" family values, meaning that a family, no matter what its make up just needs to have values, morals, love and nutring and not be just Man, Woman, Kids, Dog, Minivan? Even if that Man is a closet alcoholic, deviant and the Woman is a depressed, cold, unattached, overachiever.

For those who forget, Bush Sr. went to war with Iraq to prove that no nation can unilaterally invade a smaller nation without facing consequences from the entire free world. Bush Jr. went to war in Iraq to prove the exact opposite.

In previous wars or "police actions" we had good foundation of justification. Since World War 2 our national policy was to prevent the spread of Comunism throught the world. We were commited to assiting any Democratic nation fight against a Comunist invasion. Hence Korea and Vietnam. We may have been very misguided, or perhaps not, in that policy but it was clear and was backed by a powerful argument. That was that during World War 2 the world sat back while a totalitarian regime marched into country after country with the freedom to set up a systematic institution of slaughter by the millions. We failed to save those people under the thumb of Hitler and the Nazis but we were commited after that to be present on the world stage to prevent Comunism from infecting the world. Japan woke a sleeping giant all right.

I see the tide turning already and the elections of 2006 were a time for all true Americans to rejoice. We have become a nation so afraid of totalitarian regimes with idealistic, fanatical, agendas that we have become one. In the last six years most Americans can't recognize the country they were born into and love. Freedom does not ever just get taken away, it is given by the people. We gave this administration (who I challenge are true Republicans with Family Values at the core of their moral agenda and look more like powerful men who want to impoise their egos on the country) too much power. They did not take it. We gave it.

I would argue that the Republican machine includes some very smart people who know the definition of "spin" despite what Mr. Reilly tries to tell us. It started with a bogus impeachment trial that took our nation's attention away from Iraq, away from terrorism and its dangers in the Ninties. Our Congressmen were too busy investigating what amolunted to a front page story for the National Enquirerer rather than serving the country. The Republican machine started it then and poised itself to make it look like they were saving the country from this evil man called Bill Clinton. All the while, another man who was truly evil was planning to attack us while we were so self absorbed contemplating our own navels.

We had a chance in 2004 to take this country back but we blew it. Kerry was a wimp up there at the podium letting Bush and Rove paint him as a traitor when he was the one who fought for our country and then exercised one of the core Rights in the Constitution, which is freedom of expression. If that were me, I'd have been flaming mad. I would have called Bush out. I would have attacked with fevor. Perhaps Kerry didn't have it in him. He was intelligent and poised but had no passion. That was the key ingredient in the Bill Clinton campaigns. Passion and compassion. Kerry was a block of wood. What was worse, Edwards was allowed to make a monkey of himself. In stead of coming across like a bulldog in the Vice Presidential debates he came off like a thirteen-year-old with a chip on his shoulder. I actually applauded Mr. Chenney when he refused to comment when Edwards brought up his lesbian daughter. John Edwards couldn't get out of his own way and between the two of them they mucked it all up. Perhaps they were listening to the wrong people, or perhaps they just weren't the right people.

There are no moderate Republicans to be found in the entire country anymore. I don't see anyone that can get the entire party together either so I think the Democrats have a good shot of taking the White House back, especially after the last two years of even more incompetance by Bush and his administration. I really thought things couldn't get worse.

The Republican Party has rotten from the inside out so that the only real candidates are Guiliani and McCain. Neither seem to be strong enough to win the moderates or the far right. Neither are as cunning as Bush or as cunning as the team surrounding Bush made him seem.

Here is why. I truly believe that neither candidate is willing or able to go to the depths of moral darkness that Bush Jr. did during his presidency. He called real Americans traitors and stood in front of a country that is supposed to be founded on the idea of equality and freedom and dared us to stop him from repressing our freedoms and equality. He has bankrupted this country, spiritually, intelectually and morally. America, under his administration has become a farce of the real thing or what we used to be. He has made us the punchline of a joke. He has made many proud Americans, embarassed to be associated with a country that can turn on itself so quickly and care so little for the rest of the world despite the rhetoric out of the White House.

No problem is too big to overcome. We can heal the wounds begun on Nine-Eleven and exaserbated int he years after by George W. Bush and his band of merry men. In 2008 we can have a passionate Democrat who will talk to us above what has been hurting and try to sincerely heal us. Hillary Clinton can do it. And if Obama can tag along and learn the ropes, he can continue that mission so that over the next decade America can become something of a great country again. Because this administration has turned more than a hundred years of American greatness into a miserable mess. I hope the eight years he spend in the White House is a small blemish in the history books.

Share

Autopsy Reveals Anna Nicole Accidental Overdose

Anna Nicole Smith's autopsy reveals an "accidental overdose" of prescription drugs.



read more | digg story

Share

Congress Has No "Oversight Responsibility over the White House" What !????

Today Tony Snow claimed that Congress Has No "Oversight Responsibility over the White House". What constitution have these people been reading?



read more | digg story

Share

Democrats have Bush Over a Barrel in Prosecutor Firing Debacle

President Bush is coming under heavy Senate pressure from the Democrats to allow his political guru Karl Rove and other top aides to answer questions under oath about the firing of federal prosecutors. Talk of backroom negotiated "brokering" to get Bush out of corner. A court clash with the executive branch over subpoenas could mean months of court



read more | digg story

Share

Put Him On The Stand!

Dems want Rove to testify under oath...

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democrats are pressing President Bush to allow his political guru Karl Rove and other top aides to answer questions under oath about the firing of federal prosecutors.

The brokering has already begun. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania floated a compromise with Bush's counsel Fred Fielding, even as both sides publicly ratcheted up the standoff. The White House said Fielding would pass the proposal to Bush.

It will never happen but it is a step in the right direction.

Check out the story here.

Share

What about George?

If Clinton was impeached for PERJURY, then what about GEORGE BUSH and the rest of the administration. Isn't lying to get the United States into an idealistic war that killed thousands of Americans with absolutely no provable and clear benefit to the United States or threatened danger to Democracy an impeachable offense if not TREASON by the accounts listed above? Glad you pointed this out. We may have missed Clinton's missteps but I'll be damn if I let GWB and his cronies get away with it.

This is not Vietnam, this is worse. In Vietnam we at least had the excuse that we were defending a country against Communist invaders which at the time was our stated foreign policy. What is our foreign policy now? Get involved in wars with dictators who are being essentially boxed in by United Nations sanctions and pose no imminent threat expect ones that we had to invent? Dar-four should be so lucky as Iraq.

By the way, in my very humble opinion George Bush should have been impeach for impersonating a real man when he played dress up on an air craft carrier and announced "Mission Accomplished." That was a lie. And it embarrassed the United States. Too bad US Presidents don't have to go through a rigorous testing process that includes a psychological examination. We'd avoid a lot of embarrassment.

To close, I would definitely make a poor president. I care too much about America.

Share

Gingrich a hypocrite. He had affair while prosecuting Clinton.

Well. The truth is finally coming out about the G.O.P. They are just as screwed up as the rest of us, except they don't think that they should be judged in the same court. Clinton had an affair. Gingrich had an affair. Gingrich says it's not the same thing. I wonder about this Republican party.



read more | digg story

Share

Charles Darwin the 'True Source of Terror'...

Tens of thousands of French schools and universities have received copies of a Turkish book refuting Darwin's theory of evolution and describing it as "the true source of terrorism." - PARIS (AFP)

Wow. Turkish author Harun Yahya wrote the "The Atlas of Creation," the 770-page book. Good thing for guys like this in the world or we'd run out of stupid and dangerous people with horribly distorted opinions. Glad to see that in modern times we have a guy who can write, finance, publish and distribute this type of stuff. Of course, I'm sure George W. Bush might agree with some of the book, not all, but some. I mean, we're not terrorists but that whole Evolution theory, I mean, it is just a "Theory" right?

If you can't tell the sarcasm because you can hear my voice or see my face that was it up there. A theory is not a guess but the best possible explanation of the evidence at hand. People who don't know the difference use the word theory as if it means a guess or an option but theory is not that at all. A scientific theory is the sum of all the facts. Theories change only when the facts supporting the theory change. It's testable and true as far as what knowledge and evidence we posses can tell. There can be competing theories but they all must come from the facts. You can't say Intelligent Design is a theory based on the same facts as Evolution because it was not. Evolution has a long history of testable evidence that can be replicated. It has a whole host of support in the chain of the findings. Intelligent Design is a belief system. As a scientific theory it is pretty weak if not outrageously ridiculous and plain wrong.

Oh and of you have to sent thousands of your books to a school unrequested, you are definately either a nutjob, promoting an unpopular hateful agenda, a cultist, or so wrong that no one would take you seriously.

That's for the Scientologists. I think I see the Mothership!

Read the article here.

L.S.C.


DIGG IT.

Share

Cohenside: Steorn

Cohenside: Steorn

Share

Post to respond to comment

Here is a response to someone who commented on the post I did about the Iranian government hosting an anti-Semitic art contest that denies the Holocaust. The commenter said I made it seem like terrorists become suicide bombers because they had nothing better to do and that America was at fault for making us the enemy of the Middle East. I can't disagree with the fact that 6 years of GWB has pretty much screwed up our reputation and image across the globe with an FU attitude as if we're a bunch of freaking cowboys. Looks like after recent elections and events in the congress (Heard of the Mark Foley scandal? I think he said, "take a ruler out and measure it." to a congressional page but I am not exactly sure. You'll have to do your own research on that one) the Bush Administration's Cowboy Attitude is turning into Brokeback Mountain. Not that I'm complaining, I mean if it ain't Brokeback then don't fix it.

I digress from my point. For some reason people without any support of their criticisms whatsoever like to tell me I am wrong and base my posts off of erroneous info and when I do the research (cause I'm a paranoid Jewish bastard) I see I am right after all and the commenter was just a blowhard with an agenda not an opinion. Go see some of the responses to stories of my own that I submitted to Digg.com. Now those guys can be brutal, yet terribly uninformed or lack a backbone to respond to my comments back to them with facts.

I like a good debate, so please comment. I respect the opinions of others, just please back up what you say with facts. Don't tell me I am wrong or erroneous or misspell one word on a blog. I mean, if you don't "get it" by now, you probably never will. By the way, if Hillary Clinton runs in the next election I am pasting her picture on every post I do. It really pisses of the Republicans. Especially the ones who were all for impeaching a president who got a BJ and lied but not one who started a war on false and thin data knowingly skewing the facts and now over 2,000 of my countrymen are dead for it.

I will say it again and again: I do not get it. However, perhaps after this last election other people are so that's good.

Anyway, here is my response. The original comment can be found here.

I could only see what you are saying if I had the ability to put myself I their shoes, which as a Jew, I cannot. It is a bit like you are saying that Timothy McVeigh kinda had a point because the US government does do bad things and taxes are a very big strain on the poorer folks. Besides, didn't have that whole Revolution from England thing because of taxes?

Anyone who can promote hatred as a national agenda and hold contests like this doesn't have a political position, he has a hate mongering position.

Hitler had a point too if you were a Nazi, so did Stalin and so did the Europeans who wiped out the Native Americans. Why doesn't America hold a contest to show how well we developed this country into a superpower while rolling over an entire continent's culture? That would be fun.

You can't say that this is in any way justified. Suicide bombers "believe" in what they are doing because they "believe" in a Jihad. That is because they are poor, uneducated, and are told from the time they can understand that America is evil and that only Islam is right. They are raised on the beliefs and faith of religion as physical truth, which it is not. It is a guide to living a good life, not how to fight a war against oppression.

I do not agree with you. If I look at the situation in the Middle East and Southeast Asia I see a people blinded to the fact that although our interest lies in oil, it is because it is fundamental to the survival of our culture, economy and power, our way of life.

We consume oil. The billionaire families in Saudi Arabia should be the targets of Osama Bin Laden not the US. It's like people in the US who say that we should be helping Americans get jobs and food not other countries.

The terrorists need to look at their own countries and the power structure there. If they did then they could see that it is their fellow man who keeps them down and that they need to rise up and reclaim their lands to greatness once again.

The Middle East was a great center of knowledge, intelligence, and now it is in a shambles. Partly because of the US and Europeans. The US and the Jews are NOT all to blame.

Only when the people of those nations un-blind themselves to their own power to rule themselves and make their world better as so many other countries have done, then will there be peace. Until then, this is the way it will be. A country full of hate, where children grow up to become instruments of self-destruction and tools for wealthy, power hungry men like Osama Bin Laden. Men who "claim" to be Godly men but are truly evil. Like Hitler, like Stalin, like a whole host of men before them tricking their fellow countrymen that someone else is to blame for their condition.

I welcome a response.

L.S.C.

Share

Nancy Pelosi Bucks Tradition - No lazy recess vacation for new Congress!

Tradition in the House of Representatives is to open in early January and then quickly adjourn after swearing in new members. The House then would stay closed until after the State of the Union address. NOT ANYMORE! What better way to show America that the Democratic Party isn't going to spend a majority of the year in recess?

read more | digg story

Share

A Good Day

The Democrats win control of the House and Rumsfeld resigns. This is a good day for America.

Share

When did the world loose control of this situation? Iran has now mocked the Jews and the Holocaust by actually promoting a contest for the best anti-Semitic cartoon that promotes the horrible idea that the Holocaust was a myth. This is an offense against the civilized nations of the world and the Jewish people. Supposedly this is in retaliation for a cartoon of Mohammad that was published by a Danish newspaper. What this contest has to do with that cartoon is unfathomable.

Here are the culprits:

Hamshahri, Iran’s best selling newspaper promoted the event.

Iran’s government allowed it to go on and sanctioned it.

Abdellah Derkaoui, a Moroccan artist won the event.

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called the holocaust a myth.

Masoud Shojai-Tabatabai is head of the Iranian cartoon house that promoted the event.

Among many countries where entries came in, France and Brazil were among them.

French and Brazilian cartoonists shared second prize.

It is now clear that the United States and the western, civilized nations of the world are failing to bring peace and sanity to the Middle East. Instead we have let hate and terrorism fester. This contest is another form of terrorism in my opinion not because it is a freedom of speech but because it promotes hate. The one thing that separates this from free speech or opinion or satire is the intent to promote anti-Semitism and hate.

Share

Anyone? Beuller? Bueller?

I read some of the articles in the American Spectator to get my blood boiling enough to post once in a while. Ben Stein and Jay D. Homnick have done the job. In an article posted 10/20/06, Mr. Homnick exposes Hillary Clinton for lying. Something that no politician on either side of the aisle has ever done. Obviously the Clintons have the lying thing down much better than Bush family.

The basis for his article is that Hillary Clinton just found out that she was not named for Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed Mt. Everest in 1953. This obviously can’t be true since Hillary was born in 1947. The story goes that Hillary’s mother told her this when she was young and Hillary did not bother to fact check her Mom.

In the article he uses this as a basis for convicting Hillary for everything she ever lied about ever, without supporting those other lies with real examples. The only one he manages to give is when Bill Clinton lied about tax cuts for the middle-class. Of course the Monica Lewinsky fiasco. What this has to do with Hillary Clinton’s mother telling her she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary to inspire her to great things, I have no idea.

In the end Mr. Homnick draws a direct line between this event (Hillary’s political office saying that Hillary understands why her mother told her this untruth as a young woman) and Hillary’s covert run at the 2008 Presidential Democratic ticket.

The final straw is that he took a great Bob Dylan song (Lay, Lady, Lay) and repurposed it for the article’s title (lie, Lady, Lie). That is an unforgivable offense.

Ben Stein is best known by people of my generation for his wonderful role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He played a boring teacher whose famous line is, “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?” or his speech describing, “Voodoo economics.” Classic. Stein is also known as the former speechwriter for Nixon, among other things. No doubt he’s smart. He writes economics articles, he is a lawyer and he’s rather funny.

But I do not like his political ideology. Stein was at one time suspected of being the famous “Deep Throat,” Bob Woodward’s informant. He deflected this accusation by in fact, turning the accusations against Bob Woodward and stating quite often that he believed there was no “Deep Throat” and that Mr. Woodward made the informant up.

When W. Mark Felt outed himself ads the Woodward informant, Stein reacted angrily against Mr. Felt. He believes that given the opportunity, Nixon may have helped stem the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. (This was taken directly from Wikipedia’s article on Ben Stein) Stein has been a staunch defender of Nixon over the years. Although he recognizes Nixon was a lying, coniving, sham of a politician, he did so with peaceful intentions, while JFK and Clinton were liars and conivers but were also immoral so they deserve everything they got. (Aparantly he doesn’t dig too deep into the record.)

An article I stumbled across in the Spectator got me riled up.

Yes, it’s old and it is almost forgotten but I do not understand the basis for his arguments. I remember back during the 2004 election campaign. The Dems really screwed that one up by reacting and bending and basically being flipilty-flopity all over the place. But the Republicans sorta just eeked that one out. They may have gotten the electorate but the popular vote just tells me that they were better at mobilizing their base. (I blame myself.)

Mr. Stein’s position is that the Democrats thought that Bush was not fit to lead because he didn’t fight in Vietnam and that Kerry was better because he did. He even goes further saying that Dems also are trying to say that Kerry is better than Bush because he killed someone in Vietanam!

Was he watching the same election or one that Hollywood made up. I think the line the Dems were trying to put out there is that Bush lied (back to lying) about getting us into the war in Iraq and he lied about his service record (or at the very least tried to avoid the issue). The point of Kerry’s record and subsiquent protest of the War was that this guy puts his money where his mouth is. He is a stand-up guy who went to war because he believed in America and when he came back, didn’t like what he saw despite doing his duty and by the way winning a few metals along the way. He protested because he had a moral concious and stood up for what he believed in.

The problem with that election campaign was that the Republicans were too good at back spinning even the good stories about Kerry and the Democrats found themselves with a poor return. (Why they didn’t ask me is beying comprehension.)

Mr. Stein ends his article with an obtuse pronouncement that the Democrats—the anti-war, anti-military party—thinks that only a cold-blooded warrior can lead the country, implying that the Democrats don’t know what they’re talking about. I thinkt he Democrats knew what they wanted to say—and it made a lot of sense—it’s that they didn’t have the organization and dare I say balls to say it.

Someone as smart as Ben Stein should know better than to engage in the type of mud-slinging found in this article. Let’s hope he has clearer vision in 2008.

L.S.C.

Share

Have you seen this email? See below the email to get my response.

Disgusting !!!!!! And not just the highlighted ones. If you are so inclined, give it the widest distribution possible.

38 SENATORS VOTED TODAY AGAINST MAKING ENGLISH THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF AMERICA.

HERE THEY ARE.


Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Domenici (-NM)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D -WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)

REMEMBER THIS THE DAY YOU VOTE.


Feel free to send back my response:

Fellow Americans,

There has been an email circulating that claims Democrats voted against the English language being the national language of the United States. here is the whole story.

If you do some research you'll see that the email is referring to an amendment to a bill that was in Congress called the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006.

In that bill, which was passed, (some opponents said that this bill allowed easier legal status to illegal aliens) the amendment that was voted Nay by the Democrats did propose that "The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language of the United States of America." But it also said that "no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English." The Democrats were voting against that portion of the bill judging by the results of their votes on the following Amendment (Salazar Amdt. No. 4073 As Modified).

The Amendment (Salazar Amdt. No. 4073 As Modified) that was voted Yea by the Democrats listed below (including the dreaded Clinton) was a similar amendment. This one read that the government was "To declare that English is the common and unifying language of the United States, and to preserve and enhance the role of the English language." But that "Nothing herein shall diminish or expand any existing rights under the law of the United States relative to services or materials provided by the Government of the United States in any language other than English. " The Democrats all voted for this bill which basically said, we will preserve English as the language of America but we will noit restrict or for that matter even expand our existing rights to provide material and services in other languages. Keep things status quo.

The actual Bill, (Which you can read here) is very comprehensive and has many amendments (found here) The bill was about illegal aliens and border security issues. It was passed by a 62-36 bipartisan vote.

So in fact the email sent out is not even close to the whole story.

Remember THAT when you vote.

Refernce:

Snopes.com always gets their man! Or email fraud!

L.S.C.

Share