The last two days have been rough. I spent most of yesterday and this morning hiding. The ruminating of my thoughts has been rather severe, and I had to miss work yesterday. I have some things that I need to do today, I hope this doesn’t continue.

I think the title says it all. Barbara Streisand is an idiot, and I can prove it by her own words: Where is our Free Press?

In this two paragraph missive, she spends paragraph one talking about all the people who crossed the President and got their asses handed to them for it. The problem is, she ignores facts, like all good Liberals do.

I don’t know about Lawrence Lindsay, General Shinseki or Paul O’Neill, but these guys serve at the pleasure of the president. Right or wrong, if the President doesn’t like it, he can fire you. I’m sure Babs has fired at least one person for having a viewpoint that was different from hers.

Then she goes on about Joseph Wilson and his wife. Mr. Wilson’s report has since been proven 100% wrong, as “yellowcake” from Niger has since been found in Iraq.

Babs also comes to Dan Ra^ther’s defense, alluding that he is innocent and is being investigated by the FCC for punitive purposes.

In paragraph two, she talks out of both sides of her mouth in the same breath:

Yes…the documents CBS presented could not be confirmed for their authenticity, but these details of Bush’s military record have been out for public consumption for years.

These “details” have not “been out for public consumption,” as the memos were proven as F-A-L-S-E and no supporting evidence exists, leaving only unsubstantiated rumors.

It has been shown that he did not take a flight physical because he was going off of flight status anyway, with the aircraft he flew being retired. With limited time left in the Guard, it was not practicable to train him to fly in a more current aircraft.

Babs thinks that the Press hasn’t been hard enough on Bush, when it has been proven that the Liberal News Media has examined minutely everything on President Bush, while ignoring major discrepancies in Senator Kerry’s war record.

That’s a Liberal for you.

This article, U.S. Calm After N. Korea Nuke Claim, shows another way a Kerry Administration would make things worse.

Senator Kerry blasts President Bush for not being more direct, by not treating NK more seriously than Iraq. He couldn’t be more wrong.

North Korea can’t be attacked militarily, simply because we don’t have enough troops to do the job right without massive casualties. With NK’s nuclear option, the chance of an entire Division disappearing under a mushroom cloud makes things like this impracticable.

There is also no long term goals to be achieved by invading NK, as opposed to Iraq. The presence of a democratically controlled Iraq is destabilizing the entire region in a positive way.

“Possibly President” Kerry would give the NK’s just what they want, one-on-one talks with the US, which will only result in a repeat of the Clinton Administration, the “Here’s a whole bunch of stuff, please don’t build nukes” plea from a position of weakness.

By holding six-way talks (China, Japan, Russia, NK, SK, US) the US is more or less brokers in getting the other five countries to solve the problem themselves. It’s China’s problem more than it is ours. They are the ones primarily responsible for keeping this psychopathic monster in power. NK wants to talk to us because they know we (with a Democrat administration in power) will cave into their demands.

We can’t let this guy win, folks. Either Kim Jong Il or Senator Kerry.

Other than the important post below, I am not up to posting this morning. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. Sorry.

Found on Slashdot: jpeg virus in the open?!

Bookmark this page and remember the info, especially if you view jpegs. While the two discovered jpegs appear to be porn, you must suspect any file now. If you don’t have it, install Zone Alarm right away, it blocks outgoing as well as incoming attempts to cross it.

If you do have ZA and when viewing it comes up with an alarm, treat it very seriously. Get back to this web site and see if it fits the description.

Stay safe out there.

A new Swift Boat ad is coming out, this time using Senator Kerry’s own words against him. A Death Blow To Kerry’s Campaign.

Let me quote him exactly, because it’s important to get this right. Kerry said, “I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government.” His words, ladies and gentlemen. While the United States was at war, John Kerry went to Paris and spoke with the enemies of the Republic.

And here’s the really bad news. He was a Naval Officer at the time, albeit Inactive Reserve (and that is open for debate as well). This upgrades cavorting with the enemy from a youthful indiscretion (ala Hanoi Jane) to a death penalty matter, since that is the punishment called for under the UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice.

ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY
Any person who–
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or [protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.

So there is a torpedo homing in on the Kerry campaign, and it’s loaded for bear. When it hits, it could very well sink Kerry all on its own.

This article, Death Is not a Final Diagnosis, puts into perspective deaths in Iraq.

It lists the murder rate of three major American cities and shows more people were murdered in each city than died in Iraq. But such numbers to bring perspective will never grace Ra^ther’s/Jennings/Brokaw’s lips.

Here’s one more number to bring things into perspective. In 2003 alone, 4,100 people died from binge drinking. Let’s say that again. For every American death in Iraq over the past 18 months, six people have died from drinking too much alcohol at one sitting.

Now let’s look at the comparative worth of their deaths. The 1,000 who have died in Iraq have been doing their best to make that a free country, with the rule of law and free elections. Those who died of binge drinking was a waste of a life. Most of the binge drinkers were either underage or just legal enough to drink. The potential of those lives would stagger you, and with the waste of even one life like that is just too much.

Now what do you think of those who have died in the service of their country? Are they a waste of a life?

James Earl Carter, former President and now an “election certifier” is an idiot. After screwing up down in Central America (I had written a piece on it but can’t find it now. I guess I’ll have to go to MT and get a better search function) he is exclaiming that Florida is “biased.” Carter fears Florida vote trouble.

You know, though, I could be wrong. Maybe we could use a little foreign help. After all we have several tens of thousands of New York snowbirds who are registered in NY and Florida. Why we aren’t throwing those people off the Florida state rolls and/or prosecuting them for voter fraud is beyond me. Maybe they are and it’s not showing up in the news. I hope someone is doing something about it.

I don’t think we need international help. We’ve been doing this for a good long while and I think we can manage on our own.

I think the title says it all. This article was rather disconcerting to me: Political Ignorance Is No Bliss.

I have done all that I can to teach you about not only political issues, but Conservative ideals as well. I hope my writings have given you the impetus to find out more about the issues of the day and how to deal with them.

Then I get this bad news:

Surveys show that 70 percent of American adults don’t know that Congress recently passed a prescription drug benefit for seniors, even though the new law – projected to cost $500 billion over the next 10 years – is probably the most significant domestic legislation passed during the Bush administration.

More than 60 percent do not know that President Bush’s term has seen a massive increase in domestic spending, about 25 percent above previous levels, that has led to a major increase in the national debt.

And despite the extensive media attention focused on employment numbers, almost two-thirds of the public don’t know that there has been a net increase in jobs this year. Three quarters admit they know little or nothing about the USA Patriot Act and 58 percent mistakenly believe that the Bush administration perceives a connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks.

I most certainly hope that all of my readers are not within the percentages listed above. Please, please, please, keep your eyes and minds open. It is the job as a citizen to keep their mouth open and communicate your wishes to your Representatives and Senators in Congress. The most effective way to do that is to be informed about the issues of the day and how they affect you.

For your sake, and your families, stay informed.

Again, the Socialists and Liberals (pretty much the same thing these days) want to get into health care provided for by the State. Health Care, Canadian Style.

This turns my stomach:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry wants the federal government – that is, the taxpayer – to become the country’s catastrophic insurer. Other Democrats openly assail any private involvement in health care.

“Does this mean that the American way is wrong and that we should switch to a Canadian-style single payer system?” writes New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (search). “Well, yes.”

I don’t know that much about Mr. Krugman, but people whom I trust hold the opinion on nice days that he is an idiot.

Liberals look at “FREE health care” and don’t look at anything past that. They don’t see the extraordinarily long waits for care, they don’t see the lifetime cap on care, they don’t see the long line of Canadians jumping the border to the U.S. to get timely health care.

Let’s look at this logically. Which way are the sick people going? North to where it’s free, or south to where you have to pay for it? That alone ought to tell you who has the better health care system.

Let’s not get into Socialized Health Care. If it doesn’t bankrupt us, it will ruin the health of America.

This article came across my screen, The Specter of Poverty in America, and I was wondering if we set the standard too low or too high.

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

• Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio.

• Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions.
• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
• Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

I mean, wow. I guess I was a working poor during my first year out of the Navy, because I had all of those things while working for a measly $10 an hour back in 1992-94.

Are the standards too high? This would be considered rich in almost any other country in the world.

This from a cut out who has paid the fee for To The Point News.

Comfortable? Have a bucket of buttered popcorn and a cold beer at the
ready? (If you were my friend Otto, you’d have instead a Grey Goose martini.) All set for the greatest political fireworks show of your life? Showtime is about to begin.

Those SwiftVet ads, you see, have been just the pre-lims to warm the audience up. The main acts will be much more entertaining. They’ll begin with signs appearing at Kerry campaign rallies saying:

Ho, ho, ho – Kerry must sign the One-Eight-Oh

What does that mean, you ask? It is the demand that Kerry sign a DoD (Defense Dept.) Form 180, which authorizes the release to the public of all military records the Pentagon possesses on him. George Bush has released all of his, just like John McCain and Al Gore. Kerry refuses. He’s hiding stuff in there that destroys him, is why. One such record has already been leaked: The official Navy “after-action report” that was the basis of Kerry’s being awarded the Silver Star. This is the key quote: PCF 94 [Kerry’s Swift Boat] beached in center of ambush in front of small path when Viet Cong sprung up from bunker 10 feet from unit. Man ran with weapon towards hootch. Forward M-60 machine gunner wounded man in leg. Officer- in-charge, LTjg Kerry, jumped ashore and gave pursuit while other units saturated area with fire and beached placing assault parties ashore. Kerry chased VC inland behind hootch and shot him while he fled — capturing one B-40 rocket launcher with round in chamber.

It is impossibly insulting to anyone in the military awarded a medal for bravery in battle that Kerry was given one of the highest honors the military can bestow – the Silver Star – for shooting a single wounded man while he was running away. How did Kerry engineer this? Only the yet-unreleased records will tell.

Yet this is small potatoes to what’s really in there. For starters, he has AWOL and performance problems that blow similar charges against Bush away. On February 18, 1966, Kerry signed Enlistment and Officer Candidate contracts for five years of active duty and reserves, plus one year of inactive standby reserves. On November 21, 1969, he wrote a letter requesting early release from active Navy duty, lying that “my current regular period of obligated service (will) be completed in December of this year.” Obviously, the true completion date was February 17, 1971.

Nonetheless, after only three years and 18 days of active service, on January 3, 1970, Kerry was transferred to the Naval Reserve Manpower Center in Bainbridge, Maryland. Yet Kerry has refused to release his Performance Records showing that he completed the 48 drills and 17 days of active duty per year required during his 21/2 years in the Ready Reserves. For some reason, the Democrat Party propagandists posing as journalists in the mainstream media have never asked about them.

On July 1, 1972, Lt. John Kerry was transferred to Standby Inactive Status. Over 51/2 years later – and six years after his enlistment contract expired – Kerry was discharged from the U.S. Navy on February 16, 1978. It’s not the phoniness of the medals and the after-action reports Kerry is hiding by refusing to sign Form 180. It’s not even his Reserve Duty Performance Records showing he missed as many drills as he’s missed votes in the Senate. What he is really scared of is the record of his spending six years fighting an OTH – Other Than Honorable – discharge.

There are five classes of Discharge: Honorable, General, Other Than Honorable, Bad Conduct, and Dishonorable. Kerry’s public activities in leading the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), including lying under oath, knowingly lying about alleged “atrocities” committed by his fellow soldiers, meeting with North Vietnamese government officials and Viet Cong leaders in Paris – all while still serving as an officer of the US Navy – were in direct violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), qualifying Kerry for a Dishonorable Discharge.

When Kerry appealed, he was offered an OTH – Other Than Honorable – as a compromise. He knew even that would destroy any possible political career, so he continued to stay in the Reserves with further appeals and re-submissions for over five years, until finally, somehow and someway, he cajoled the military into making his discharge Honorable. Then and only then did he leave the Navy.

The full story of how he gamed the system is in those records he won’t release. The legal activist group, Judicial Watch, has now filed a formal complaint with the Pentagon demanding such release. But this is just the opening salvo. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution has five sections. Here is Section Three: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

As Kerry took an oath to support the Constitution as a military officer of the United States, and subsequently gave public and verifiable aid and comfort to an enemy engaged in warfare with the United States, he is Constitutionally disqualified to run for President (or be a Senator for that matter).

Judicial Watch is thus preparing to file a lawsuit in federal court charging that Kerry’s candidacy for President is a violation of the 14th Amendment.

Note, however, that last sentence in Section Three: “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” It turns out there are many Republican Congressmen and Senators who are closet Kerry- supporters – so much so that they will be offering H.R. and S. Resolutions exempting Kerry from his 14th Amendment disability. They will stand up on the House or Senate floor and give earnest speeches in support of the resolution. How they will keep a straight face, and suppress any sign whatever of malicious glee, I have no idea – but that’s one of the skills any politician has.

So sit back and relax, folks. Have another beer (Otto – have another martini ). This is going to be as Ed Sullivan used to say, rrrreallybig, a rrrreallybig show.

(Oh – did I forget to say who leaked that after-action report from Kerry’s Pentagon files, and who will be leaking the rest by, say October 15, if Judicial Watch can’t pry them loose first? Here’s a clue: he’s two or three cutouts away from a certain senator from New York who dreams of once again residing in her husband’s former home.)

Wow. For an officer to have received an OTH discharge, he must have really screwed up. But then again, being UA (Navy term, Unauthorized Absence, same as AWOL) is a pretty big thing, especially when it is for several months of drills.

I’m getting dizzy over this, Navy Launches Second Kerry Medal Probe.

It seems that while the first probe was merely a superficial scan, this one is looking a lot deeper. Senator Kerry has *three* citations for his single Silver Star, one of which was signed by Reagan’s SecNav John Lehman. As you read each citation in order, it appears that the subsequent citations were “upgrades” for the original document.

One small problem. Secretary Lehman disavows signing the citation.

This opens a whole new can of worms, as it appears that the citation was signed by an autopen, a device that duplicates someone’s signature. Used for mass document signing, autopens were never intended to sign such a personal and high profile document. So, there will now be a probe to find out who and why used the autopen on this particular document.

I hope they catch the guy who did it, and he squeals big time on Senator Kerry.

I found this article interesting. The left thinks legally, the right thinks morally.

Conservatives derive their decisions from their moral center, while Liberals have no center at all. They do not have any limitations on their decision making process. No, “have we gone too far?” kind of thing.

The recent events of CBS goes to show you that the only thing driving Dan Rather was animus from over 20 years ago. He was called on the carpet and embarrassed by Bush 41 back in the 80’s and Rather never forgot it. There is no reason, no limit as to how far he will go. The mere existence of the memos was enough for him. He might have even known they were fake and didn’t care. The evidence is becoming clearer and clearer that CBS knew the memos were hokey and didn’t care. They just wanted something out there, real or not, that would impugn the President. That’s a good example of what no morals will do to you.

These people will do what they want, no matter what. If the law allows them, that’s just gravy. If not, they go ahead anyway.

Of course, there are extremists on the Right as well. I am embarrassed by them, and they serve no constructive purpose in the Conservative cause. Any movement will have people with an addictive personality who will clutch to certain ideals of the cause to the exclusion of all else.

But the vast majority of these people are on the Left side of the spectrum. Civil Disobedience is a term coined by the Left. The Right prefers to work within the system to affect change, which is why we are in power and get our ideals advanced. Liberals protest and hold rallies and such and refuse to work within the system.

Just look at the recent Democrat and Republican conventions. The same people protested the Republicans for being on the Right side of things (not necessarily the right side of things) and they demonstrated at the Democrat convention because they weren’t Left enough. See what I mean?

This article spells it all out, Nowhere Left to Flop.

Senator Kerry has taken so many nuanced positions on every subject that it is difficult to understand where he stands. Which may be part of his strategy, I don’t know.

But because he has so many positions on every campaign issue, especially the war in Iraq, it is nigh impossible to discern his true feelings and position on the issue. Which, again, might be part of his strategy.

But for people with thinking processes that don’t include “Anybody but Bush!” things have become rather confusing. And when faced with a candidate who can hold multiple positions on one subject, and his opponent who says what he thinks and does what he says, my choice is pretty clear.

I like a man who is blunt with his words, you know where you stand with him. I like a man who does what he says he is going to do, you know what to expect out of him. I may not always agree with the President, but I respect him for his candor and honesty. He has one position, and he sticks to it.

Then you have Senator Kerry:

These dizzying contradictions — so glaring, so public, so frequent — have gone beyond undermining anything Kerry can now say on Iraq. They have been transmuted into a character issue. When Kerry went off windsurfing during the Republican convention, Jay Leno noted that even Kerry’s hobbies depend on wind direction. Kerry on the war has become an object not only of derision but of irreconcilable suspicion. What kind of man, aspiring to the presidency, does not know his own mind about the most serious issue of our time?

A man who should not be President, that’s who.