Here is another reason we don't need Obama in the Oval Office.
Please go out and vote today, regardless of who you are voting for. A republic only really works when the people make a choice. Here is the League of Women Voters Voter's Guide.
Labels: Politics
"Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself... [I] hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."—Ronald Reagan (link)
Labels: Politics
Here is a nice little Anti-Semitic thread on the Ron Paul Forums, complete with quotes from Revelation saying that the Jews are not really the Jews. Note that the 9/11 Truthers come out of the woodwork and try to pin the blame for that event on the Jews, too. So much for a LOVE rEVOLution. This is one guy we really don't need in office...
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Politics
Rick Moran at American Thinker wrote a great article about Fred Thompson last week. While the news media and many voters are looking for a candidate that will give them soundbites, Fred actually answers questions thoughtfully and with intention. ABC said that "he's actually treating voters like adults." That's one of the reasons I like Fred so much. He is a real guy who wants to make a difference, and he has taken the time, unlike other candidates in the field, to look at the issues and figure out the best approach to handling them. I know he does not poll well, and people are disenchanted with a guy who "just doesn't seem to want it," but I actually appreciate that about Fred, too. He is not some slick politician who set out to become president and changed his tune on policies to make that possible. He is a statesman who sees the need and humbly thinks that he might be the best person to fill that need.
I know I am in the minority here, but I highly encourage all of you to look at Fred's website, read his white papers, and follow his answers in the debates. He is spot on about the problems we are going to face in our next president's term, and his plans to address those problems are the best ones out there.
Labels: Politics
Well, it appears that another Canadian Journalist, Mark Steyn, is being dragged before at least two human rights councils in Canada (yes, they have more than one). His offense is this article, an excerpt from his book America Alone, which is, by the way, on my wish list. This is what happens when political correctness and willful ignorance about the threats of Islamic fundamentalism are combined with bureaucratic systems that have as much power as a real court.
Ezra Levant, the conservative, Jewish editor of the Western Standard, a magazine that used to be in print in Canada but is now only online, is being investigated by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for publishing the Mohammed cartoons in his magazine in 2006. Mr. Levant does an amazing job in his defense, nailing the Canadian government to the wall for interrogating him for thought crimes and attempting to censor his freedoms. I applaud Mr. Levant in his efforts to stand up to Orwellian behavior and hope that he has success in his endeavors. I'll leave you with an excerpt from his opening statement, and I highly encourage you to watch the videos he has on YouTube and read his website.
I am here at this government interrogation under protest. It is my position that the government has no legal or moral authority to interrogate me or anyone else for publishing these words and pictures. That is a violation of my ancient and inalienable freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and in this case, religious freedom and the separation of mosque and state. It is especially perverted that a bureaucracy calling itself the Alberta human rights commission would be the government agency violating my human rights....
We have a heritage of free speech that we inherited from Great Britain that goes back to the year 1215 and the Magna Carta. We have a heritage of eight hundred years of British common law protection for speech, augmented by 250 years of common law in Canada....For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights and a Charter of Rights. This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values....
American Thinker has a great, highly documented article about the idea of a right of return for Arabs into Israel. It is definitely a must-read.
I ran across a great quote last week, and thought it would be a great way to start off the week:
But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice—a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice—is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
This quote comes from John Stuart Mill, a liberal British philosopher who lived in the 19th century. (Source: bottom of right column)
In honor of the upcoming holiday, take a moment and read this great column from Mark Steyn, "World Should Give Thanks for America". Steyn, a Canadian Journalist who grew up in England, humorously and poignantly describes the reasons he thinks the world should thank America, not the least of which is:
But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens—a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan—the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.
Definitely a must-read.
Stephen Colbert made a great little statement in his recent column in the New York Times:
“After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.”
For the last month or two I have been following closely the possibility of Fred Thompson entering the race for the Republican presidential nomination. I was not even aware of who he is until I read some report on a blog or saw some video of him speaking. I have to say, I am quite impressed. Fred has been involved in politics for a while, including serving as a senator from Tennessee.
Since that first encounter with Fred I have been impressed by his ability to speak plainly and clearly about his positions and by the fact that he has been consistent and not wishy-washy the way so many politicians are. A great example of this is his comments on the Second Amendment of our great Constitution. In his short comments [audio], Fred actually stated an opinion on the interpretation of the amendment, even going so far as to quote a well-respected second amendment scholar. He has also stated very clear opinions on everything from immigration [audio] to Cuban health care. His recent comments on Israel's restraint [audio] in the face of growing rocket attacks from Gaza are spot on, and a wonderful breath of fresh air in the collective PC paper plant that is Washington. To top it all off, Fred actually understands Federalism, which has been minimized, ignored, and re-invented by the bureaucrats and pork-mongers in DC for too many years to count.
Now, I realize that many of my friends do not share my political leanings. I am not a Republican, though I do agree in principle with quite a bit of the historical platform of that party. I have leaned libertarian and off-the-wall in the past, and have been generally unhappy with politics and politicians. Fred Thompson is starting to change that. It looks like we might actually have a true statesman in our midst. Even if you differ from me in your view on politics, I encourage you to watch Fred Thompson in the coming months. I know I will.
Update: David Hardy over at Of Arms and the Law has created a website called Sportsmen for Fred Thompson. There is no such group yet, but he says that he will give the site to any such group that forms. He has three points about why gun owners should support Fred Thompson for President, and I suggest you check them out.
For the unconvinced, here is another reason to support Fred: As long as his position has not changed (which I would be extremely surprised to hear) he supports term limits for congress... and he supported them before he was elected, not when he was leaving...
I have also had another thought. Who would make the best running mate for Fred? I think Joe Lieberman might be. The two disagree on a wide variety of issues, but since our country seems to be split down the middle anyway the combination would be fitting. Both men seem to me to be true statesmen, and I think both have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the status quo in D.C., which is what we really need.
Labels: Politics
In other election news, Travis county has been hit with a lawsuit that challenges the electronic voting machines being used in our elections around here. Here is the article from the Austin American-Statesman, copied here in case you don't have a subscription to their website. My comments are included in [italics].
Lawsuit challenges Travis' electronic voting
Officials say voting is safe without paper ballots
By Steven Kreytak
Thursday, June 15, 2006Seeking to keep Travis County from using its electronic voting system in upcoming elections, an Austin civil rights group claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that the system violates state law because it doesn't produce paper ballots.
The Texas Civil Rights Project sued Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams and Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir in state District Court.
The lawsuit argues that voters have no way of knowing whether the vote they cast is recorded or stored correctly by the eSlate system,[This is exactly the issue that I have had with the system from the beginning. I want to put a piece of paper in the ballot box and be able to look at it to verify my votes before I do so.-JT] which has been used in Travis County since 2002, and that electronic systems are prone to fraud and mistakes. The group wants an injunction to block use of the machines and cites government and media reports detailing problems with electronic voting in Texas and other states. [See BlackBoxVoting.org for some data.-JT]
Travis County has embraced the technology, switching to electronic voting for everything but absentee ballots. The federal government required Texas to put at least one electronic voting machine in each precinct by Jan. 1 so people with disabilities can easily vote.
DeBeauvoir and a spokesman for Williams, along with the founder of the Austin company that created eSlate, all rejected the claim that paper ballots are necessary for a fair and secure election.[duh, of course they would...-JT]
"I am not a lawyer[....-JT] but I kind of doubt that there is much of an argument," said DeBeauvoir, whose office runs elections in Travis County. "I believe that the system is accurate and secure the way it is."
David Hart, the founder of Hart InterCivic, said that more than 400 jurisdictions nationwide use the company's eSlate system, which uses tablet-size screens on which votes are cast with dials and buttons.
He said the system, which is not connected to the Internet, stores ballot information in three electronic places. In Travis County, it captures images of each ballot so electronic or manual recounts can be conducted.[Just because the system stores the info in three places, we are still not guaranteed security. There is still a long list of things that can go wrong.-JT]
"The eSlate system has got a lot of security built into it," he said.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of Austin and its president, Nelson Linder; Texas Attorney General candidate David Van Os;[hmm... political move to garner votes? I'm not for that, either...-JT] and Sonia Santana, identified as a Travis County voter and supporter of Van Os.
It also claims that Travis County voters are denied equal protection under the law because they are forced to use electronic systems while others in the state aren't — most counties still primarily use paper ballots.
Like the other electronic voting systems used in Texas, eSlate went through rigorous testing before being certified by state and federal officials, said Scott Haywood, a spokesman for Williams.
The lawsuit claims that more than half of states — but not Texas — require electronic voting systems to produce paper copies.
Hart's company has a machine that also prints paper ballot results. It is being reviewed by Williams' office for use in Texas elections, and DeBeauvoir said she'll present the option to the community if it's approved.
"I can run any kind of election this community wants," she said.[So what's the big deal?!?! Admit we made a mistake and switch to the paper ballot machines. It is not an issue of technology, it is an issue of pride. I hate politics...-JT]
Labels: Politics
I got back from my trip to New York just over a week ago. I'll hopefully have my pictures up soon so that everyone can enjoy them.
In the last presidential election the Libertarian Party put Michael Badnarik on the ballot. He got 0.3% of the popular vote, a total of 397,265 votes. That is not much less than Ralph Nader, who ran on an independent ticket and got 463,653 votes (0.4%).
While I am not a Libertarian (big "L"), I agree with a decent portion of the Party's platform, and I do consider myself to be a libertarian (small "L"). Governments are best run when people are allowed to exercise their freedom and the ethic of personal responsibility is made important. As it is, the two main parties are working hard to make the federal government big, bloated, and unwieldy. We need a small government that can handle situations quickly and with thoughtfulness, a government run by statesmen, a government that stays out of the business of law abiding citizens and does not cater to the whims of the assistance-addicted masses. We need a government that follows the will of the people and a government that inspires the people to actually take an active role in how the government is run.
Well, Michael Badnarik is now running for Congress in the election this fall in my Congressional district, Texas District 10. District 10 is a large, gerrymandered district that stretches through eight counties in Central Texas, including Travis, Bastrop, Lee, Burleson, Washington, Austin, Waller, and Harris. I think that some of my friends in northwest Houston are actually in the same district...
I have put up a banner supporting Badnarik on the top of my blog that will stay up until the elections are over. If you live in District 10 or know someone who does, please take a look at Badnarik's website and consider voting for him or encouraging your friends to do so. We need more people in Conress who are willing to stand up to the status quo and make some waves for the good of the people. I think Badnarik is that kind of person.
Labels: Politics
Another link Richard pointed out is this one about George Bush and the renewal of the Patriot Act.
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.
The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."
Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "
Read it all to see just how backwards this thinking is and just how scary our federal government is becoming.
Labels: Politics
In case any of you are interested, Debbie Schlussel has some information on two new movies in the theatres, both produced by Spike Lee. "Inside Man" and "CSA: The Confederate States of America" are both anti-Semitic, racist, historically inaccurate, and par for the course for Lee's movies thus far.
I went last night (Tuesday) to Kinky Friedman's petition signing party at the State Capitol. Getting an independent candidate on the ballot is sometimes hard to do, so I felt it was necessary for me to put my name in the list. I am still not sure if I will vote for Kinky, but I am sure that I want to give him a fair chance. Besides, there are no other candidates that I can tell are worth my vote in the primaries.
The event was pretty low key. Lots of press and about 300-400 people (by my estimate). Kinky spoke for about 8 minutes, rambling a bit and not really following a script. [You can listen to his talk here - MP3, 1.8MB, 7:53 minutes]. He did not reveal much about his position on the issues, but I guess the majority of the people there already knew what his platform is.
I took a few pictures at the event, some of which are shown below for your enjoyment.
If you see me on a regular basis and are interested in signing Kinky's petition to get on the ballot, please let me know. I have a petition that you can sign. Otherwise, please see his website for information on how to sign.
Labels: Politics
I have been unwilling to go see Steven Spielberg's newest film, Munich because of some of the troubling things I have heard about it. After reading Commentary Magazine's thorough and informative editorial/review on the subject, I have decided I will never spend my hard-earned money in support of that film.
I think Spielberg should be ashamed of himself as a Jew for his unwillingness to tell the truth about such an important point in modern Jewish history. His desire to be evenhanded has resulted in comeplete moral equivalence, and that is unconscionable. I heartily encourage you to read this editorial/review and mention it to your friends.
This story is scary. Lindsey and I had our own scary experience with CPS, and I have become adamant that they will never intimidate my family again. I write this to make you aware of some of the common things that happen in the CPS system. When a judge cannot control a government organization and there are no other checks and balances, we have a serious problem.
Labels: Politics
Lots of bloggers are chiming in on Steven Spielberg's new movie Munich. I think Anne Lieberman condenses the issue quite well in her post from a few weeks back. I see little difference between the lies and misinformation Spielberg is promoting and the idiotic statements made in the last few weeks by the president of Iran. Both ignore the history of the Middle East and Israel over the last 100 years. Both make killing Jews into a political issue, not a moral one—in a vain attempt at making such killings okay.
The plain fact of the matter is that the Palestinian murderers who took the lives of innocent civilian athletes in Munich do not deserve to have their thoughts voiced. They gave up that right when they made the decision to kill innocent people to further their cause. Spielberg, good Jewish boy that he is, has simply been duped into thinking that the Arabs want to talk, not that their aim is the destruction of the Jewish state and the death of every Jew on the planet. If you doubt that fact, just ask them. They do a bad job of hiding their true aims.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also given up any rights he has to speak about the Arab-Israeli conflict since he has shown that he has absolutely no understanding of history and little connection to reality. I would venture to guess that he has never been to a Holocaust memorial, much less that he has ever read the detailed accounts of the Jews killed by Hitler and his minions. Ahmadinejad would much rather ignore that information because doing so lets him have some sick inward justification for hating G-d's chosen people and plotting to wipe them off the face of the earth.
May Hashem open his eyes or have mercy on his soul, whichever He deems more beneficial...
You know that there is too much power in the federal government's police units when they keep an active watch on people ordering books over the inter-library loan system. I am not surprised, really, but dismayed that our bureaucrats have nothing better to do than to spy on innocent Americans, even ones who choose to read books that most of us are not too inclined to read. This is just too Orwellian for my comfort.
Update: I almost forgot to mention that my brother first pointed this out, and he has some great comments on the subject.
Update (12/25): This was a hoax. Despite that fact, I still stand by my comments. The Patriot Act still allows the government to spy on which books we check out of the library, and there are too many other intrusions on our privacy for my sentiments to change.
Labels: Politics
A bunch of researchers at UCLA have finally figured out what the rest of us have known all along: The mainstream media is biased toward the left. This is supposedly the first study on the issue of media bias to actually come to an objective conclusion based on verifiable, duplicable results. I look forward to the release of the full report in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which I suspect will be sometime this week.
For all of you who think that this is unimportant and that the impact of this bias is negligible, I challenge you to prove it. The media covers important issues and is largely in control of the release of facts to the general population. If those facts are twisted or if important information is left out, or if assumptions are made, we see lasting results. Add to that the fact the the MSM is unwilling to admit openly when it makes a mistake (the Killian memos are a prime example, as is the Al Durah Affair) and you will be hard-pressed to prove that the media's bias is unimportant.
We need unbiased news reports in this world. I know that reporters all have their own ideas and opinions, but the whole idea of being a journalist is to study how to submit the facts for the public's digestion, not studying how to prove to the world that your opinion is the right one. If you want to express your opinion on something, get yourself a radio talk show and leave the journalism to those who strive to be unbiased reporters of the facts.
Labels: Politics
David at Of Guns and the Law posts a link to a very cool article in the Detroit News on the aftermath of Katrina in relation to our Second Amendment rights.
Order can deteriorate in this country to the point where nothing stands between the law-abiding citizen and the marauding mob except blue steel. It happened in New Orleans. It can happen anywhere else in America at anytime.
It will be harder now for the anti-gun lobby to convince Americans to dismantle even more of the Second Amendment.
Of course, they'll try to spin this to say that were there no guns to begin with, the looters wouldn't have been armed and dangerous. But thieves, murderers and the rest of the rabble have always been more ingenious at procuring weapons than law-abiding citizens.
No amount of gun control laws will keep the dark side of this society from arming itself for evil purposes.
Read it all.
Labels: Politics
I have been following this story myself for a while, but this is my first time to post about it. The ATF has targeted out multiple gun shows in Virginia and confiscated weapons purchased legally, in addition to going to gun buyers' families and neighbors and asking them if they knew that the buyer was at a gun show and was buying a gun. This is a major invasion of privacy and a total disrespect for the rights of law-abiding citizens. I hope the gun show owner and participants do sue, and I hope they win big. Not money, necessarily, but I hope that the court confirms that these actions are not in keeping with the rights of American citizens. Innocent until proven guilty, bud.
Why was the ATF focusing on this anyway, when it could have been focusing on the multitude of real offenses guns are being used for?
Labels: Politics
This will be posted tomorrow on Geek.com. You get a preview...
..........
Interbrand, a brand-consulting firm based in the United Kingdom, has performed a survey for the last four years on the brands that consumers think are the best brands on the market. The survey for 2004, which was taken online and consisted of 1,984 entries from 75 countries, shows that consumers worldwide like Apple's brand more than any other. Interbrand attributes this to the success of the iPod and iTunes, as well as to other marketing techniques the computer and technology manufacturer developed in 2004.
Second to Apple on the list is Google, followed by Ikea and Starbucks. Surprisingly, Al Jazeera, the Arab television network, rounds out the top five global brands.
When the results are broken down by region, they show definite lines of interest based on geography. In the Asia-Pacific region, Sony, Samsung, and LG top the list, and in Central and Latin America Cemex, Corona, and Bacardi do.
See the full details on the survey from 2004, as well as past years, at BrandChannel.com.
Joshua’s Opinion
It is not very surprising that Apple tops any list from 2004. With a total of 10 million iPods sold and record profits set, the company is definitely making waves in the consumer gadget market. The question everyone is asking now is whether or not the computer company will be able to increase its computer market share with new ventures like the Mac Mini.
Google takes the prize in my mind. I just can't say enough how impressed I am with that company. I know that it has its own set of problems, but I am happy that it has the foresight to encourage its employees to think outside the box. That is important in the tech industry (in any industry, for that matter).
What I want to know is, "How in the heck did Al Jazeera get on the top five list?" It was number 5 in Europe, which makes lots of sense to me, but to say that the world likes it that much might be going a little bit too far. I smell an agenda somewhere between that key placement and Interbrand's statement that the results of the survey were not influenced by "a flawed electoral college."
As a matter of fact, I would say that the entire survey is suspect in my mind. While there is bound to be some truth hidden in the information given, I have trouble giving too much weight to an online survey with no more control on ballot stuffing than a cookie.
Labels: Politics
The various musings and kvetchings of a Torah-observing, eBook-editing, wife-adoring, baby-loving ger. Everything from Torah study to technology is fair game. The Four Questions come from Shabbat 31a.
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