The president of NOW is throwing a hissy fit that Patricia Ireland got fired from the YWCA. This article, NOW Blames ‘Ultra-Conservatives’ For Ireland YWCA Ouster clearly shows that this woman is not right in the head.

“Ultraconservative groups slammed the YWCA for hiring a strong supporter of women’s rights,” Gandy alleged. She also blasted the Bush Administration as acting “in concert” with “these bullies” at the conservative Traditional Values Coalition to remove Ireland.

If you don’t like what is going on, scream and hold your breath until your face turns blue.

I don’t know which side of this issue the reporter is on. Only one and a half paragraphs directly quote portions of the YWCA press release concerning the issue, which are the only facts that I can tell. The rest of it is unsubstantiated rants and cries of conspiracy.

Paul Nowack has a political cartoon that addresses this issue. Scroll down to Wednesday, and you better hurry. I can’t permalink to this cartoon and it will be rotated off on the 29th of October. My blog account won’t let me post images.

You should bookmark this page, National Review Online, so you can always see what Victor Davis Hanson has written.

Today it’s The Event of the Age. I like Victor because he makes you think. Using the only muscle that counts.

Indeed, each day the great gamble in Iraq is taking on significance that transcends the immediate tactical advantages that accrued from ridding the world of Saddam Hussein’s savagery. True, the world is a far better place without the worry of Kurdish genocide, 10,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, perpetual no-fly zones, clumsy U.N. embargos, Abu Abbas loose, guided missiles and WMD programs in Iraq, blood money for suicide bombers, exasperation that Saddam Hussein had violated 1991 agreements, SCUDs raining down on Saudi Arabia and Tel Aviv, assassination plots against American presidents, and so on. But there are other positive rippling effects that are already beginning to become manifest.

Read the rest. I command it.

This is an eye-opening piece, The ‘Psychology’ of Liberals where the underpinnings of why liberals behave like they do is revealed.

You really can’t blame them for their misguided views. They themselves are victims of 20th century psychology, which in textbook after textbook taught clinician after clinician – as well as the general public – that leniency trumps discipline, “concern” trumps consequences, motive trumps morality – and that one’s “feelings” are sacrosanct.

It tries to prove that there are mental health issues involved, and at some level I can agree. About half of the people professionally involved in the mental health field are involved because they have MH issues and they wanted to understand them better.

I don’t agree with the borderline diagnosis. I have that as one of my diagnosis and the black and white viewing of things doesn’t really apply to them. They see things in grey (except republicans). There is also a “I hate you! Don’t leave me!” part of borderline that I don’t see in liberals.

But all in all, a good, recommended read.

This article, Feds Finally Confront ‘Slave Reparations’ Criminals talks about how people are defrauding the government through tax returns to get what they think they deserve.

I have to admit, I am for it in some cases. For those on Welfare and its related programs, let’s make it a one time grant, ending all entitlement programs for those people for all time. That would save the feds a lot of money in the long run.

But generally, I think we should stick to the original deal, either 40 acres and a mule, or a one-way ticket to Liberia.

Since the civil rights movement in the 60′s, racism is largely a thing of the past. Blacks are now treated equally when they give that treatment to others. I admit, it’s not perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than Africa where they still practice slavery to this day.

A $500,000 per person grant is outrageous and not warranted by the circumstances. No one in America today has suffered from the institution of slavery.

And what about all of the white indentured servants? I’m sure at least one of my ancestors was such, don’t I get anything?

Feh.

This article, Beware of Stealth Energy Tax, Conservative Group Warns, is all about trying to back door the Kyoto treaty.

The Kyoto Protocol which was meant to stop global warming, wants the US to cut back emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels. Even supporters of the Kyoto Protocol admitted it would only move the inevitable result back 5-10 years. To comply would wreck our economy in no uncertain terms. It could even be fatal to our economy, starting us on a downward spiral to total collapse. Of course, the Senate rejected it.

Even groups who support the legislation admit it will raise prices. The group Environmental Defense estimates the cost at $10 per household in 2010 – a “low cost,” it says.

Ten dollars a what? Year? Month? Week? Day? And of course like any other government sponsored program, that is a very low ball figure, certain to double or triple in no short order.

I’m no scientist, so I can’t say one way or the other about global warming. Hell, the scientists themselves can’t agree. But I do know that our society rests lightly upon our infrastructure and by jogging one part like this, everything can come down like a house of cards. And by causing a splash in one part, all of the other parts of the infrastructure are affected by the ripples that spread everywhere.

Let’s just assume for a minute that the cost outlined above turns out to be $10 a month. Okay, you pay that without a sweat. But you also pay that same $10 for all of the companies involved in delivering all of your goods and services. And companies pay a magnitude more for their electricity than you do. You end up paying like 10% more for everything you buy, from Wal-Mart to your ISP. Companies do not absorb increases like this, they pass it along to the customer. And in any chain of manufactured goods, you’re paying for 3-4 companies worth of increases.

Think about it. Then write your Senators and see what side of this bill they are on.

ATM Skimming – Consumers Beware! details in yet another way your electronic identity can be stolen.

I don’t understand how the extra swiper is being employed at ATM machines. I know that unscrupulous restaurant employees who you hand the card to can have a hand swiper that steals the information, but unless the whole ATM is a fraud, I don’t understand.

Anyhow, I only use ATM’s that belong to my bank. I live next to a Stop n Rob (Memphis slang for convenience store) and I picked my bank based on the ATM in that store. I only use other banks machines in extreme cases due to the ATM fees, and I never use third party machines.

Let’s be careful out there.

What does this say about our society? Killing the Good Samaritan is a story about a guy trying to do the right thing and getting body slammed for it.

The incident reflects how paranoid our culture has become after decades of political correctness that defines and divides us into categories eternally at war: female against male, whites against minorities, heterosexual against gay.

You should read the whole article, especially the couple of paragraphs about how the author defines The Devil.

In war, training is used specifically to dehumanize the enemy, making it easier for the soldier to kill and not agonize over it. This is exactly what the Liberals are doing here. By assigning everyone into a category, then associating that category with something bad, then you assign something bad to everyone you put into that category, guilty or not.

We must fight this on every level. I follow the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I judge a person by the content of their character, rather than by he color of their skin. I do not lump people together in groups, I treat every individual as that individual treats me. You should do the same.

Sorry about this, Tuesdays I work and extra hour, and the family needed to go shopping tonight, so no time to search and post. I’ll be up bright and early tomorrow to bring my usual analysis.

After reading this article, A French Revolution in Iraq?, I begin to understand how incredibly klutzy the French are.

France began its own path toward democracy by explicitly rejecting this [Anglo-American] view. Unlike the American Founding or England’s Glorious Revolution, the French experience exulted in humanistic ideals about man’s potential. The immediate result was the orgy of the guillotine, followed by a cynical regard for religious values and institutions. “We will strangle the last king,” cried the revolutionaries, “with the guts of the last priest.”

France is currently working on its fifth incarnation of a republic since the end of the Napoleonic era. We are still on our first. The Articles of Confederation don’t count because there was no revolution to bring about the Constitution. The Articles were not doing the job, and so were refined into the Constitution we follow today.

The French claim that we are the naive ones, but it is the French that are naive. They believe that they can stab us in the back and be friends again instantly. They believe that once the process of democracy in Iraq is started, it can stand and survive on its own. Both of these views are wrong on so many levels that it isn’t funny, it’s sad. To see a country that was once a superpower, now collapsing due to its own selfishness and indifference is disheartening.

We’ve been over this subject before. Compassion-Based Schools Teach Kids ‘Untrue Drivel,’ Critic Charges.

Of course it’s centered in that great Liberal stronghold of San Francisco. Unabashedly teaching unsubstantiated left-wing psychobabble to children and passing it off as “humane education” makes me want to pull out what little hair I have left.

“They are going to be teaching alarmism, which inherently means filling their heads with untrue drivel designed to breed a new generation of modernity-loathing robots,” Horner added.

This couldn’t be more of a brain-washing indoctrination if it was being done in China or South Korea. I understand that these people must exist (how can you have good without bad?), but it’s the influence that they have on our young that enrages me.

Fight this wherever you see it. Please.

The title comes from a line some magicians use for a laugh before they pull off a big illusion.

I got a chuckle out of this headline, Secondhand Smoke Scam. I have a clear bias against smoking, both my parents and sister smoked. I remember sticking my nose into my shirt every time my parents lit up while we were in the car, yelling at them to crack the windows.

But this falls into the misdirection category, where you pick a lay audience to announce your findings, then refuse to release your data to peers for critical review. You do this to maximize your “findings” while tap-dancing as fast as you can to fool the very people who can shed light on what you want to keep secret.

Rabid environmentalists have done this for years. They either make up stuff out of blue smoke and mirrors, or they take one little fact and bend it way out of context. In either case, they start screaming it at the top of their lungs, hoping for it to ripple outwards and get into the national consciousness before they are found out. When the real facts emerge, they are downplayed to the point of invisibility.

Almost every liberal group with an agenda have done this at one time or another. Which is why I am very cynical in regards to any flashy “findings.”

Color me not impressed with this “study.”

Until I landed in my apartment, stable on my medication, I was homeless off and on for three years. There were the big blowups that got me into the hospital, but there were lots of smaller blowups that resulted in me grabbing my backpack and walking out of the house for three days to a week. I’ve slept under bridges, in doorways, in missions and libraries, in summer and winter. It was an experience that you should do your best to avoid at all costs.

Telling The Truth on the ‘Homeless’ talks about the underpinning causes of homelessness. You can’t solve the problem with the Liberal solution, which is to just give housing to the homeless. You need to treat the problem of why these people are homeless. The right thing for the wrong reasons and all that. Normally doctors treat the symptoms to cure the disease, but in this case that doesn’t solve the problem. You have to have a patient who is willing to address the problems as to why they are homeless, or confine them to long-term care facilities where they get the treatment if they like it or not. But that money and facilities simply do not exist. Psychiatric facilities are there to treat acute problems, not the long care stuff.

Because I had a family that was dependent on my disability money, there was nothing left over for me to use for the long-term care that I really needed, such as a care home or my own place to live like I have now. It took the fortuitous break of getting a job where I could support myself and walk to work.

While my family and I still have a long way to go, my relationship with my family is at it’s best since I became sick.

You do have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, don’t you? How about in your car? Garage? If you do, then you’re my kind of person. You’re careful and thoughtful, keeping well aware of realistically possible emergencies.

Do you have a crime extinguisher? You know, a firearm. Are you familiar with its operation? Do you take it to the range often to keep yourself familiar with it? (you can also have fun with it at the same time) Do you get to carry it with you where ever you go? Gun Rights Advocates Take Aim at Concealed Carry Bans talks about the fight in the last holdout states that do not let law-abiding citizens carry concealed firearms.

Guns prevent crime. Gary Kleck did a careful study to prove that gun control works, and found out the exact opposite. Lawful defensive use of firearms results in the prevention of 2,500,000 crimes a year. In 97% of those incidents, all it takes is for the citizen to show the weapon and the criminals run away. Only in 1/2 of 1% is somebody actually shot or killed, and of course those are the only incidents that make the news.

Back in the 90′s, Florida (a concealed weapon state) had a rather serious crime wave in rapes. The police took action and the headlines sum it all up, “POLICE GIVE GUNS, TRAINING TO RAPE VICTIMS.” Don’t you know, the bottom fell out of that particular crime wave.

It has been documented in state after state that when the citizens are allowed to lawfully carry weapons, the crime rate goes down. When the criminals know the victims have a fair chance to shoot back, they change their habits.

I myself used to have a carry permit. I had a lot of self-imposed restrictions. I couldn’t yell at anybody, no matter how idiotic they were. I was very careful as to where I went. My family could not stand on my gun side. I was always alert to my surroundings. I trained constantly, and at my peak I could draw from cover and put two rounds in the center of a target up to 25 feet away in under 3/4 of a second, well under a defensive reaction time. But it was all worth it.

You can never know when violent crime will strike you and your family. All you can do is be prepared for it when it does happen. Are you ready for it?

This article, Child Welfare System Must Grow Up, shows what happens when a governmental agency is paid on a commission basis.

The incentive here is 180 degrees out of what it should be. Yes, there is a need to sometimes got a child out of a hostile environment, but it is also important to reunite the child with the parent(s) after the problem has been solved. If the problem can’t be solved, you need to transition the child into an adopting household as quickly as possible. Leaving a child in a ‘temporary’ situation for years does terrible damage, but when the governmental agency gets paid for how many kids are in foster care, that is exactly what happens.

The human cost of rushing children into foster care does not stop when they reach 18 years old. According to CDDS data, among youths who “emancipate” from foster care, 50 percent do not complete high school; 45 percent are unemployed; 33 percent are arrested; 30 percent are on welfare; 25 percent are homeless.

These are statistics that do not need to happen. Get the foster care system away from a commission basis today.

I have been dealing with some rather personal issues over the past multiple months. Being depressed, I never thought about it much, thinking it was just a by-product of the depression. Well, after my appointment with my Medication nurse, I spent some time with my family. I mentioned my problems with my wife again, and she went to my computer and looked up the side-effects of my medications. Sure enough, all of my issues were the uncommon side-effects of one of my medications.

The medication in question is a ‘last-resort’ medication, the one to go to when everything else has failed. This has given me pause, and now I will spend the next month thinking about the subject on whether or not to change this medication. I will be bouncing this off my Case Manager. While these side-effects are seriously impacting the quality of my life, I worry about the impact of a bullet with my brain even more. Decisions, decisions.