This article, Unchanged by Welfare Reform documents what can be done with Welfare reform.

MILWAUKEE — Angela Jobe, 38, is a grandmother who has lived most of her adult life at ground zero of the struggle to “end welfare as we know it.” At about the time candidate Bill Clinton was promising to do that — in autumn 1991 — she boarded a bus in Chicago, heading for Milwaukee, lured by Wisconsin’s larger benefits and lower rents. Unmarried, uneducated and unemployed, she already had three children and eight years on welfare.
Today she is in her ninth year of employment in a nursing home, earning $10.50 an hour. How she left welfare, and how her life did and did not change, is one of the entwined stories in Jason DeParle’s riveting new book, “American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare,” the fruit of DeParle’s seven years of immersion in Jobe’s world.

A grandmother at 38 should tell you something. That both her and her child gave birth around 16 years old. That is the first thing what we must take care of, teenage pregnancy. It cites in the story that today, 70 percent of the mothers giving birth on Welfare are unmarried. That’s because Welfare (at least used to) punished women for trying to get off Welfare (by getting married or get a job) and rewarded them with more money when they had more kids.
Now this lady is off Welfare and she has a job. It’s not much, but she is now a tax producer instead of a tax consumer. She’s never going to have a $50,000 a year job, but then again since my illness I’m never going to have one again either.
There will always be a left side of the bell curve. You can’t do away with it as long as people are individuals. Turn us into ants and we might have a chance. The only thing we can do is move the curve in its entirety right, but there will always be someone on the bottom. You can’t help it.
So don’t worry about “helping” the person on the bottom of the curve. Let them earn a life with dignity and you won’t have to fret over them. Give them something like Welfare and you ruin them as far as their self-worth goes. Teach a man to fish and all that.

This article, Americans Are Tired documents what is wrong with our country.
From the evening news to Liberal Hollywood, from the UN to the homeless problem, Americans ARE tired.
This is the only point I have a contention with:

Americans are tired of hearing about the homeless or as the Liberals that print the newspapers refer to them, the less fortunate. Most of these people choose to live this way. Most are drug addicts, drunks and the like. The stories we read in the papers, (only since 2000 by they way because when there is a Democrat in office there are no homeless stories in the papers of record because there are no homeless), are written to make the public feel guilty for getting ahead in life. Things like getting up sober, going to work without doing drugs and putting in a good days work is never mentioned in the stories. We are treated to the “they live in the woods” stories each time. Why do they live in the woods, because these people do not like living by societies rules. If you go to a shelter you have to live by their rules. If you live in the woods or in an alley, in a box you can do as you please. Back in my parent’s days these people were called what they are, Bums.

While I agree that there were no homeless during Democrat administrations, that is not what I disagree with.
Many of our homeless suffer from mental illness, and turn to illegal drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. They are, for one reason or another, untreatable by the mental health system. Either their illness doesn’t allow them to seek treatment, or they won’t face the fact that they have a problem. Either way, they can’t be helped because they don’t want the help. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink the old saying goes.
But yes, us “slope headed, single brow, knuckle dragging, Conservatives and Blue Dog Democrats” are tired and one day we are going to get fed up with all of the childish whining by the Left and we are going to take back this country. The process is starting, but there are many things in the way (like the ACLU) that must be gotten rid of before we can pick up some steam.
Conservatives, arise! Take back the country and restore some common sense to the country.

Here’s more of the total BS that “global warming causes earthquakes.” Environmentalists Surf Tsunami Tragedy.
These idiotic, tree-hugging idiots will try to hang their hat on anything to “prove” what their “religion” tells them is the “truth.”
And the insurance companies are getting into it as well.

Exploitation of tragedy is a sport played not only by environmentalists. Insurer Munich Re used the event as an opportunity to renew its call for action to fight global warming, which the insurance industry has recently started to blame for natural disasters.
Concerned about large payouts for natural disaster claims, insurance companies are very eager to establish global warming (search) as a contributing factor to those disasters, so they can sue deep-pocket businesses supposedly responsible for that global warming. Efforts to invoke supposed global warming as the culprit for this week’s death and destruction are patently absurd as the multiple tsunamis were not a “weather event” in the slightest. The tsunamis were caused by an earthquake, which, by the way, is a real, not a “so-called,” natural disaster.

The truth is plain to see, unless you are filtering everything you see and hear through your “global warming” paradigm.

Earthquakes aren’t caused by the weather or greenhouse gas emissions; they’re caused by tectonics — that is naturally moving geological faults. While tectonics may cause climate changes, the reverse is not true.
Despite the fictional tsunami that hit New York in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” there is no realistic climate change scenario that could possibly cause a tsunami-spawning earthquake.

There you go. That’s the truth of the matter.

Environmentalists are also looking to blame economic development for the devastation wreaked by the tsunamis in hopes of slowing down progress in the third world.

Ah. So there IS an agenda behind the Environmentalists yelling and screaming. It’s been proven that technologically advanced nations are cleaner than those who aren’t advanced. In fact, did you see the headline that said “Air pollution reduced by 10% over last four years”? No you didn’t, because that would have meant that President Bush did something right, and that will not do for environmentalists and the MSM. It’s out there somewhere, I saw it but I lost the link.
Anyway, the tree-huggers would rather let the third world wallow in filth, undeveloped, dirty, disease ridden lives, because it is more “natural.” Feh. Have them visit there for a while and see what kind of lives they have. Not much.
Don’t believe that Man can affect the climate. One volcano can cause more pollution on a wider scale than 100 years of smoke stacks.

Well, every recent reader knows I’m into Warhammer 40k. If you don’t, you should be reading my archives. =)
I’m also into MechWarrior:Dark Age as well. It’s another futuristic war game, this one centered around 40 foot tall humanoid man-controlled robots bristling with weapons. I went to my first tournament in months yesterday. It’s been months because either I have been running the events, no one shows up or they hold them on days where I work. =(
Well, we had an amazing three participants yesterday, and a fourth showed up, but too late to compete. I took first place, easily winning all three Victory Conditions in both battles. If you want to learn more, you can do a search on “MechWarrior” in my archives. I won’t bother you with the details every time I post on it.
I just wanted to say that I emerged victorious and it has helped me cope with not having any heat in the apartment. Nothing like a little feel good time to brighten up your day.

There is a call being made to our Liberal judges. It’s the sound of “doing the right thing.” The Siren Song Of Judicial Activism.
I think the article pretty much says it all:

Just as the Sirens’ song was supposed to lure sailors to their death, thus is the effect Judicial Activism will have on our Constitution. No matter what form it takes, legislating from the bench violates the intentional separation of the three branches of government and threatens the integrity of the rule of law.
[...]
That the judiciary branch of government has found a means to disregard their clearly defined role is something that should be addressed by those in power. One only needs to contemplate the damage that can be done by egotistic judges who purport to know the best use of taxpayer dollars to understand the urgency;…

Judges are making decisions that they are not supposed to. Just as the citizens on a jury should not go out on their way home from the courthouse to do a little investigating on their own, Judges should stick to interpreting the document that gives them their power and the laws enacted by the Legislative branch.
To mandate more spending in a school district without demanding an accounting of the monies already spent is a massive waste and fraud of tax dollars.
These activist judges are making up case law out of blue smoke and mirrors, and our Republic is suffering because of it.

Because the glass ceiling has been broken, more and more judges act in what they feel are in the best interests of their constituents and aren’t bound by their office –with very few exceptions;…

This is exactly what I mean. They don’t have any constituents. There is no accountability to their “constituents” like there is for an elected official. The only thing a judge has to fear is their ruling might be overturned by a higher court.
This has to stop. Luckily we have a Republican majority in the Senate and President Bush in the White House. Let’s hope the president can push through all of the judges he can that are those exceptions, willing to rule on the law instead of their activism.

Like I’ve always said, you have to keep things in perspective. Doctors Kill More People Than Guns Do.

Back before the November election, many mainstream media pundits – trying desperately to get John Kerry elected – began to harp on President Bush’s unwillingness to stop certain federal gun control laws from expiring as scheduled. But their propaganda efforts came to naught because this issue was a non-starter with the American people.
The fact is, in this day of post-9/11 increased security consciousness, most average Americans simply don’t want more gun control. They want more guns on hand to defend themselves and their loved ones in the face of possible life-threatening danger. Soccer moms are now taking handgun proficiency courses down at the local firing range.

Then the article brings up some numbers to show just how deadly Doctors and guns are.

Doctors: (A) There are 700,000 physicians in the U.S. (B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians total 120,000 per year. (C) Accidental death percentage per physician is 0.171.
Guns: (A) There are 80 million gun owners in the U.S. (B) There are 1,500 accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups. (C) The percentage of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000188.
Statistically, then, doctors are 9,000 times more dangerous to the public health than gun owners are.

You could even factor in the 50,000 murders per year by firearms and still have a lower death rate, both in the (A) and (C) numbers.
And you can’t argue that “Well, Doctors save lives and guns don’t.” Armed citizens prevent an estimated 2,500,000 crimes a year, which accounts for up to 400,000 lives saved, according to the article. I can’t say guns prevent all of these crimes because guns are an inanimate object, incapable of independent action. They must be wielded by a person in order to be effective.
Guns are wondrous things. They are used 99% of the time to bring enjoyment to peoples lives, and 1% of the time to bring tragedy. But then again I can say the same thing about cars as well.

Well, well, well. It looks like there has been a change of the old guard. A New Conversation on Civil Rights.

When Mary Frances Berry left the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in early December, after 25 years as either vice-chairman or chairman, she did so without the anticipated bruising public fight. (The Bush administration apparently changed the locks on the Commission offices and reassigned the bank accounts.) Berry, whom new vice-chairman Abigail Thernstrom characterizes as “a remarkably divisive person,” had a history of picking fights, and in fact took pride in it. The fights tended to devolve to a single issue: that Berry, representing all African Americans, had been discriminated against, and was going to get hers (and theirs) back.

The story goes on to say that the commission now has a Conservative majority. Now maybe we will see a commission focused on improving the lot of Blacks who live in the poor sections of our country, instead of screaming rhetoric and wanting it all now.
Too long we have focused on giving handouts instead of a hand up. Our Welfare system is designed to keep young single mothers on Welfare perpetually, cranking out as many babies as possible. There exists no way to get off of the system without large penalties. At least there are places where reform has taken over and the change has been to get people off Welfare instead of trapping them in it.
Let’s hope the Commission will change the paradigm of Blacks all over the country who believe that the government owes them something.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am in this apartment away from my family for a very good reason. I cannot deal with change very well. My life here is meant to be as static as possible. This problem with the furnace being broken presents a major obstacle to my emotional stability. Then there is the fact that I ordered some DVDs three weeks ago and they haven’t gotten here. The radio shows that I listen to are in either “best of” or guest hosts. Put on top of that this is still the holiday season and my schedule is disrupted. This Christmas sucked for me and all in all, not a good situation for the home team.
You may think these are minor annoyances, but they are creating uncertainty in my life and that provides to be a major distraction.
I am sorry I am not my usual Conservative self, but I cannot get into the mood I need to be in when bringing up my commentary. I am unable to clear myself and put my semi-brilliant mind to work for the Conservative cause.
We’ll try again this afternoon or tomorrow. See you then.

Well, my birds and I survived the night. I closed us up in my bedroom and kept us warm for the night. The rest of the apartment got down to about 50 degrees, and I’m warming the living room up to a more reasonable temperature right now.
But we still have to get through today and tonight before we know when we’ll get our furnace fixed. It should be tomorrow, but then they’ll probably raise my rent to help pay for it, and that I can’t afford any more. The utility bill for the month will be a killer with all of the extra gas and electricity I’m using to keep us warm.
Warm thoughts are always appreciated.

I can’t say it any better: Pinkos Getting Nuttier.
The article starts off with a good accounting of the history of Socialism:

You’d think today’s socialists would be a little more cautious when it comes to preaching about the merits of centralized planning, a bit more wary about putting the state in charge of every nook and cranny of daily life, given the way things have turned out over the past century.
It wasn’t just the bad economics, the sight of people queuing up in the Soviet Union each morning to stand in line for hours for bread before the shelves went bare, or the decade-long waits for drab apartments. Worse was the price of pounding every doubter and straggler into line, the slaughter by the bodyguards of collectivism of the millions who failed to proclaim the nonexistent virtue of a failed system, the elimination of millions who failed to buy the idea that a man’s mind was nothing compared to the collective wisdom of the state.
The final tally, the grand total of those killed in the Marxist-Leninist war of class genocide against private property, individuality, profit and the market, is variously estimated at between 80 million and 110 million, with as many as 65 million in China, 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on.

80,000,000+ lives sacrificed for collectivism. Killed because they would not conform. Because they dared speak out or hold ideas that were a threat to the Socialists. No wonder it was a failed system. You can’t keep freedom down. No matter how you enslave people, there will always be those who want to breathe free.

Such, however, is not the case, as evidenced by the call for grandiose state intrusion in the most private of matters in the November-December 2004 issue of the Internationalist Socialist Review. The crisis described in America is that of an escalating “class attack” by the bourgeoisie in which “more and more responsibility for children’s welfare has been placed on individual families.”

Actually, it has been the exact opposite, with more and more of the parental rights and responsibilities being taken away. You read here about how a mother couldn’t monitor her daughters phone conversations. And more of that is occurring all of the time.

Not only isn’t the state being given “more and more responsibility for children’s welfare,” but back home at the stove and washing machines we’re seeing exactly no progress toward the unionization of wives and mothers. In a system that thrives on capitalism, hierarchy and sexism, it’s still “primarily women who are expected to perform the unpaid domestic labor of raising children, cooking, housework, and primary health care.”

So now they want to collectivize Motherhood. They want us to start down that path by Unionizing mothers. After all, they sweat and toil and raise kids for free, right? Cooking, laundry, housework, it’s all the mothers job. They should get some kind of pay for doing the work.
I will tell you this, it’s a system that has worked since time immemorial. The husband works to bring the food home, puts the roof over the head of the family, and the wife takes care of the rest. It works out to be an even distribution of labor.
Of course, with the systematic destruction of the nuclear family, many wives having to take a job to help support the family and so on, things have become blurred. But many stay-at-home moms like it that way and wouldn’t change it for the world.
Don’t swallow their bullshit. Look at what they represent, look at their history and see what they’ve done as far as perpetuating human misery across the world and reject them and their ideas.

Global Warming is responsible for everything, can’t you get that? Media Linking Killer Tsunami to Global Warming.
Wow. It seems that Global Warming (of which it is ALL the United States’ fault) seems to be responsible for the 9.0 earthquake the other day.
Yeah, right. There was a caller to Rush Limbaughs show on Monday that said by cutting roads into the Earth (you know, cut into hills and fill into valleys so the road is flat) affects the tensile strength of the crust and is a contributing factor in earthquakes. If that ain’t bullshit, what is?
It’s absolutely terrible when science is used in a political agenda, especially when there is no science behind the “science.”

In a related vein, National Geographic has just taken a nosedive in my book. Bogus Science News in 2004.
Science is thinking up something, then trying to prove or disprove that theory. When multiple people can consistently prove or disprove the theory, then we know if it works or it doesn’t. That’s called peer review and it works.

Looking back over 2004, National Geographic announced its ten top news stories. They are revealing if for no other reason than the way they demonstrate how much “junk” or bogus science passes for news. It is a disturbing trend.

One one event was truly newsworthy, and that was SpaceShip One winning the X-Prize. Unfortunately it came in at number 10 on the list.
Here’s one that shows just how bullshit they are.

Number six was also based on a movie that, by definition, is pure fiction. “Day After Tomorrow Movie: Could Ice Age Occur Overnight?” National Geographic said, “To environmentalists, there is more than a kernel of truth in the catastrophic scenarios depicted…” in the movie and expressed that hope that it would “spark debate about the environmental damage the Earth is suffering.” This isn’t journalism. It is pure advocacy for a bogus theory that has been disputed by thousands of scientists around the world and now is widely viewed as junk science of no merit. It, too, is based on “computer models” and they are regarded as badly flawed.
[...]
Number two, “Warming to Cause Catastrophic Rise in Sea Level?” states that “Most scientists agree that global warming presents the greatest threat to the environment.” This is false. Most scientists do not support the global warming theory advanced by environmental organizations to justify the United Nations Kyoto Protocol on climate. “If our planet’s ice caps and glaciers continue to melt, the sea level will rise and submerge vast territories, from entire countries to large parts of the United States.” This is absurd.
Antarctica is getting colder and, since 1970, Iceland’s glaciers have been getting thicker. Sea levels rise at an extremely low rate. The melting cited is the same that began 10,000 years ago at the beginning of the current interglacial period. The [Kyoto] UN Protocol has a purely political agenda intended to harm the economies of industrialized nations while exempting others such as India, China, and more than a hundred Third World nations. [emphasis mine]

As you can see, National Geographic seems to be turning into something akin to a tabloid. I still have hanging in my shed a blow-up of the Weekly World News that proclaims everything will crash on 1/1/00. Either it didn’t happen or I must have slept in that day.
Feh.

Well, the maintenance guys have been here and they tell me that the furnace is dead and needs to be replaced. Looks like Wednesday before I can get the new one in due to paperwork and etc., so I have to head over to Wally-World to get an electric heater.
Oh, Joy. More money that I don’t have.

I’ve been babysitting my furnace at night for the past five nights, so I’m a little tired. For some reason, it likes going out right about midnight. So when I wake up around 2AM, it’s 60 degrees in the apartment and I have to relight the damned thing. Then I lay awake for at least two hours listening to it kick on and off every minute or so. As of this moment, I’ve used about 77 CCF and my bill just for gas is about $60 and I’ve got just under three weeks left before the meter is read again. I’m glad I save up through the summer months to pay bills like this.
That’s one long paragraph to say I’m not in the mood this morning and I couldn’t find anything newsworthy to comment on. Sorry. I’ll comment later on this afternoon if I can find something.

“A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father’s shop. He has no formal education. He owns no property of any kind. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father’s shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside. Walking from place to place preaching all the while even though he is in no way an ordained minister he never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing — the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place so he is interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story?
No. This uneducated, propertyless young man who preached on street corners for only three years who left no written word has for 2000 years had a greater effect on the entire world than all the rulers, kings and emperors, all the conquerors, the generals and admirals, all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who ever lived — all put together. How do we explain that?
…Unless he really was what he said he was.” –Ronald Reagan