Were National Guard troops late in coming?

Some people (it seems like ALL people because the so-called MSM is pounding its message home) are charging the Federal gov't failed to adequately deploy National Guard troops to New Orleans after Katrina, but was the Federal Gov't (or anyone, for that matter) at fault? In a word, No.

"Why we homeschool"

I and my wife (mainly my wife) homeschool our oldest, who is starting first grade this year. We have various reasons for this choice, but I thought this list of reasons--from a homeschooling dad who is the news editor of his local paper, was thought-provoking and humorous (e.g., "no one, and I mean no one, has the right to teach my son to square dance.")

P.S. I actually enjoy square dancing, but appreciate his point.
(tip o' the hat to www.TNHomeEd.com )

Moving story of refugee family

Here is an inspiring story of a black family refugeed from New Orleans. I mention the family's race because race is a theme of the report. (tip 'o the hat to Drudge Report).

Racist reporting from New Orleans?

I just read this interesting article about alleged racist reporting about looting in New Orleans. You have probably seen both of these photos (with the alleged captions). I noticed this problem when I first saw the photo of the "lighter-skinned" couple, I guess because it was linked on Drudge's front page at one point. But, ironically, my first thought was, "they didn't 'find' something in a grocery store and have any more right to it than someone who 'looted' it from a grocery store."

I also heard G. Gordon Liddy yesterday opining that reporting from N.O. might be racist, but I'm not sure I want reporters trying to "report" with self-determined or self-perceived representative samples. The reality is that 2/3 of the people--from what I've heard, that lived in downtown N.O. were black. Unfortunately, that statistically means that 2/3 of the images coming out of there will contain photos of blacks. When a photographer takes 300 pictures and tries to pare it down to three focused, poignant, "good" photos, the likelihood that the three shots will contain blacks is VERY high.

My main observation, though, is that I seriously doubt that the major-league PC-types at AP and the French AFP intended anything racist.

Economic principles front and center

I just read this in an article about Katrina's impact: "A few [gas] stations turned off their pumps because wholesale prices were rising so fast that they were selling fuel at a loss -- even as prices spiked overnight to levels well above $3 a gallon."

This is the irony of interfering with the free market. Gas is more valuable now than it was on Saturday morning; there's less of it; there's a perception that it is going to be even more scarce as time goes on, so people are buying up more of it, and so on, and so on . . . When politicians order a business to only sell it at a loss, then business owners will likely opt not to sell it at all, and so on . . . and so on . . . The higher price of gas in my area has caused me to (a) drive the speed limit, (b) drive without a/c today (temp. 97 degrees), and (c) put off piddly/unnecessary errands til later or combine all my errands in one trip. That is a valuable change in behavior, and it wouldn't have happened if I could buy gas for cheap.

Here is an excellent op/ed explaining why letting the market set the price of gas does not deserve the label "gouging."

Amazing tragedy in Iraq

This is an amazing story (hat tip, Drudgereport) about the tragedy in Iraq . . . a procession of Shiite Muslims reacted to a rumored suicide bomber in their midst while walking across a bridge and 800 people were either trampled or killed from falling off the bridge.

The Dems' religion problem...

I've posted before about the Democrat Party's "problem" with religion. Today I read a Pew Center study on the public's perception about the two major parties and their relationship with religion. I also read that the Dems have responded to the release of the study by saying "we've hired religion outreach consultants"; that actually proves the point, if you ask me.

US Forces 2nd biggest cause of death of journalists!!!

This article (via google world news) reveals that U.S. military is the second biggest cause of death to journalists in Iraq. The first, by a long shot (300%) is, well, Islamofascists. But if we could just get those Americans out of there, folks in the media would be a lot safer . . .

Confirmation hearings gotten worse, indeed...

This article chronicles (somewhat honestly) the development of inquisition-like confirmation hearings to the SCOTUS. But the article neglects to point out that the hearings have moved from being about judicial philosophy to being about political philosophy--that is, how a judge would vote if they were in a legislature. An "expert" quoted in the article says about the Dems' reaction to Reagan's appointees: "They said, 'If the president can nominate based on ideology, then why can't we reject on the basis of ideology, and why can't we ask questions about the ideology of nominees.'"

That's inaccurate. Political ideology is only relevant to the discussion of the judiciary because the Left's vision of the Court as a super-legislature has prevailed. That is not rule of law and it is not the vision of our country's founders.

In fact, the pattern has been for the Dems to excoriate GOP nominees and attempt to derail them by any means necessary (remember Clarence Thomas?). That is the thesis of the article that should be written about this process.

Look in the mirror to see who is "divided"

This AP story and this one asserts that the GOP is deeply divided over the immigration issue, but the real split personality is within the Democrat party, which unlike us has the gall to demagogue on BOTH sides of the issue--depending on the audience or the donor or the hit ad or the particular campaign. I would posit that the GOP's dilemma reflects the genuine dilemma of reaching a consensus on the issue while the Dems' dilemma reflects the difficulty of pandering to a coalition of crass special interest groups.

The disingenuous comment from the Democrat Governor of AZ--"We just kept waiting and waiting and waiting but never did see a sense of urgency from Washington," is laughable; but the funniest part of this report is writer Fournier's "earnest" comment that, "McCain may seek the White House in 2008." [emphasis added]

Liberal law school professors

This NYT article reports that a study by a Georgetown U. law journal will demonstrate a markedly Liberal political ideology dominates most law school faculties. The article attempts to pooh-pooh the findings, I think, by asserting that such Liberal dominance (particularly extreme at the most elite schools) is of no effect because it has produced the most "conservative" members of the SCOTUS. That's a non sequitur.

The reality is that ideological folks (and I don't mean that to be derogatory) are only minimally affected by the views of professors (or those in authority, or "experts" or what "everyone else" believes); it is the folks who are relatively unmoored in their views (and who are substantially in the plurality) that are so impressionable. Thus, the fact that Antonin Scalia would not have turned out "Liberal" regardless of whom he sat under or where he got his JD, does not mean that the Liberal slant of law school faculties is insignificant.

"Jesse Jackson offers support to Chavez"

This story demonstrates the knee-jerk Liberalism of folks like THE REVEREND Jesse Jackson. Even though Pat Robertson's statements were imprudent for a Christian minister, I think that a person can condemn the statements without embracing the dictator Chavez.

On the homefront.

My wife spent the night on a scrapbooking retreat, so I was playing single parent with the three sweeties yesterday and today. Not much time for blogging . . . however, I read an article that highlights the Left's struggles to find a message and a volume control for said message, this well-researched article at Salon details how troubled they are. Any communicator is wise to consider substance and delivery of their message, but when you have no substance, delivery becomes everything. They have little or no substance and Howard Dean is their party's chairman; yikes.

Gender, gender what is gender?

This article (and several similar articles in other journals) talk of the murder of a "transgender youth" who was a female (actually, the youth was living as a female) but had the genitals of a male.

What?

I will concede that sexual proclivities are not as easy to categorize as gender. And I will concede that genitalia aren't always consistent with one's sex (though the instances of this are very rare or they are very fake). But how can these journalists write such nonsensical sentences? A person is either a male or a female. Is EVERYthing relative or subjective to these idiots?

Hardee, har, har . . . humans are merely primates

This article from England reflects the definite post-Christian worldview in Old Europe--"humans are no different than any other animal!"

Yeah, right.

Why Rich Liberals?!?

I've often wondered what motivates wealthy persons to vote Democrat or to be "limousine liberals"--why? because I don't believe that they are deeply motivated by goodwill in supporting Liberal tax policy (it hardly appears to motivate them in any other area of their material lives). In today's last (most likely) "deep thought" from visiting RushLimbaugh.com, I read that the Dems rely much more on fat cat donations than does the GOP. That is old news for those who follow politics and campaign finance stuff, but it illustrates what type of wealthy folks support liberal causes. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but one characteristic is that someone like Madonna reasonably can conclude that her immense wealth is akin to winning the lottery and has precious little to do with hard work, honest labor, etc. From that perspective, it makes sense to feel like wealthy folks surely are "advantaged" and that life's winners and losers are determined by mere fortune. Accordingly, a multimillionaire (who can hardly spend their money even after giving up half of what they have in taxes) can "painlessly" advocate for confiscatory tax policies.

Talk about imposing morality on others . . .

I just endured Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech on C-Span (hat tip, Rush Limbaugh) and my first thought was that I can't believe how politically tin-eared this speech was.

My second thought was that I can't believe the Left accuses me and other religious Conservatives of imposing morality on others. Carter is preachy, whiny and hand-wrings for a solid 32.5 minutes. Listen for yourself to see how he nags--like an impotent minister, in this speech.

My third thought (I think--I had a lot of thoughts) was that Carter was not so much a terrible president (as all Conservatives assert and most Democrats agree) but rather he was simply a president whose Liberalism was not obscured by the luck of external events. In particular, because Liberalism is premised on various foolish ideas and a flawed worldview, it is destined to fail (aside: Carter amazingly admitted that he had failed to enact most of his campaign promises--though he did point fingers at other factors).

This ain't Hollywood...

Two recent news stories have pained me and reminded me of a phrase I used to ruminate on: "this ain't Hollywood." What I mean when I use that statement is that Hollywood doesn't represent reality, and too many people do not realize the "danger" of living life as posed by the elite establishment.

First, I heard about a women in the middle-Tenn. area whose husband was beaten to death by her paramour when the husband discovered them together in the married couple's home. The dead husband's body was put in a closet and left there for several hours as the woman ran errands. Folks, life isn't like "Desperate Housewives" and our moral choices have real consequences. Adultery hurts families, well beyond the obvious injury of murder. Sadly, the consequences of adultery don't "go away" with a sweet jingle or the previews of next week's drama.

Second, I heard today that the ex-RN and Tennessee convict's wife who gunned-down a law enforcement officer as she helped her husband escape from incarceration had been keeping a diary after she had been apprehended in Ohio: the title she had written on the journal was "A Modern-day Bonnie and Clyde." I had been bothered by romantic allusions to this mythic man and woman when I heard references to Bonnie and Clyde in the reporting as the two perpetrators were "at large." Again, how tragic for those who happened to cross paths with this delusional, base man and woman and were harmed. This ain't Hollywood; wisdom is vindicated by her children (Matt. 11:19).

On the subject of Bush's lifestyle . . .

Below I noted how slanted is the so-called MSM's reporting on Dubya's Western White House, but I just found this lame smear attempt of Bush's energy use (courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com). Ironically, the piece's last paragraph hints at the author's motivation for writing the hit piece:

Remember Jimmy Carter donning a sweater and asking Americans facing an energy crisis to turn down their thermostats? Or giving the speech about the nation's "crisis of confidence" that led to his permanent association with "malaise?" Carter's critics turned both utterances into emblems that contributed to his political undoing.

The MSM would love to orchestrate Dubya's "political undoing."

The open-minded Left...

This quote from a NY Times article REALLY grates on me:

At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"

Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. "No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.

Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."

The theory of "Intelligent Design" simply acknowledges the scientific evidence that macro-evolution is mathematically impossible. It is interesting to see how unscientific the Left is when a pet theory is challenged by science.