Editorial Blog


July 1 - July 25, 2002
By JEFF RUSHING, Webmaster


    For only the second time since the Civil War, the House voted to expel the nutty bad-haired crook, Ohio Democrat James Traficant. In a 420-1 total that can only be hilarious, the only dissenting vote came from Gary Condit. Yep, a pat on the back from one despicable Democrat to another. All too fitting, isn't it?
Posted 07/25/02, 3:53 a.m.

    Former (thank God) president Slick Willie Clinton took a swipe at the Bush administration, saying that Bush is focusing on the war on terrorism at the expense of the 'deepening AIDS epidemic.' (Sarcasm alert!-->)Nice to know that Clinton has his priorities in the right place.
      No offense (that's a lie), but I would rather the administration worry about defending our citizens from plane-wielding Arabs than HIV-wielding sex fiends.
Posted 07/25/02, 3:50 a.m.

    Despite the rough economy, it's good to know that most Americans aren't fooled by the panicking media into thinking this is a "sky is falling" scenario forever.
      According to a Zogby poll for the Cato Institute, 82.8 percent of 18-29-year-olds support the idea that they should have "the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes they pay through individual accounts similar to 401(k)s or IRA plans." 68.1 percent of likely voters overall agreed, as do 54.5 percent of seniors. Are you listening, Pres. Bush?
Posted 07/25/02, 2:55 a.m.

    All is not worrisome on state college campuses, at least at Lake Superior State University. One Dr. Crandall is teaching a course titled "The Failure of Liberalism," described in part:
      “In the last ten years federal taxes have increase at three times the rate of inflation to reach unprecedented levels, and 25,000 new regulations and laws now control everything from the amount of water in a toilet flush to speech. Still the liberals complain that the American people have not “contributed” enough taxes for them to finance the programs to solve the problems.”
      I get the idea that this Dr. Crandall is somewhat of a pariah with the other professors. Good for him.
Posted 07/25/02, 2:47 a.m.

    Democratic attorneys general from 11 states decried Pres. Bush's policies on global warming. In response, Republican attorneys general should say that they don't like the shade of blue in the sky, since they have just as much knowledge and authority on that as the Dem lawyers do on the environment.
Posted 07/20/02, 2:38 p.m.

    This week's best Vents from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
    - Georgia's laws against fireworks represent state-sponsored interference with the process of natural selection.
    - Democrats don't like vouchers. If the poor don't stay poor, the Democrats lose their fan base.
    - Why do I pull for the bulls in Pamplona every year?
    - Ted Williams left many wonderful legacies. Unfortunately, his son, John Henry, ain't one of them.
    - How can they tell a human skull is 7 million years old? I'm not even certain how old the guy working next to me is.
    - Julia Roberts is out as America's sweetheart. Ashley Judd is in!
    - You gotta love the sounds of summer: the children swimming, the birds singing, corporate executives taking the Fifth. . .
    - CNN's woes: Some days there just isn't 24 hours' worth of news.
    - Atlanta's city symbol should be an illegal alien with a leaf blower.
    - The man who lied about his daughter being offended by reciting "under God" during the Pledge of Allegiance has destroyed my faith in atheists.
Posted 07/20/02, 2:35 p.m.

    Genius alert:
      A group of irate parents at Hillside High School in Durham, N.C., asked the black community to boycott a local shopping mall. Why? The parents are upset about changes the school district is making at the high school including the removal of its principal. The parents admit there's no connection between the mall and the district. All they will say is they want to use their buying power as leverage. (OpinionJournal.com)
Posted 07/20/02, 3:58 a.m.

    President Bush may - thankfully - be back on message regarding our objections to the International Criminal Court. Here's what he said at Ft. Drum on Friday:
      "You might have heard about a treaty that would place American troops under the jurisdiction of something called the International Criminal Court. The United States cooperates with many other nations to keep the peace, but we will not submit American troops to prosecutors and judges whose jurisdiction we do not accept. [Applause.] Our nation expects and enforces the highest standards of honor and conduct in our military. That's how you were trained. That's what we expect. Every person who serves under the American flag will answer to his or her own superiors and to military law, not to the rulings of an unaccountable international criminal court."
Posted 07/20/02, 3:56 a.m.

    It's summer, so let's get into the real deal of Americana: Food. Namely, hot dogs and hamburgers.
      Apparently a large gap is missing in American history, that being exactly where the hamburger is invented. Four towns in the United States claim the distinction: Athens, Texas; New Haven, Conn.; Seymour, Wis.; and Hamburg, N.Y. John E. Harmon tells each town's legend.
      Meanwhile, the other quintessential summer food is hot dogs. Every city and region has its own flavor, unless of course you visit Turner Field for a Braves game, where you can try 21 different kinds. As the Baseball Hall of Fame tours away from Cooperstown, they savor this taste of Americana.
Posted 07/20/02, 3:55 a.m.

    "It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestors' problems." - Columnist Thomas Sowell
Posted 07/20/02, 3:53 a.m.

    Remember that when leftist panelists try to tell you that there is a moral equivalence between a certain brand of Islam and America’s religious freedoms, that, as Jack Kemp notes:
      “ Tolerance means granting that same freedom to others, and the tolerance deficit in the Arab countries is glaring. It can be measured by their abysmal record on religious tolerance. According to a global survey of religious freedom by Freedom House in December 2000, 'The religious areas with the largest current restrictions on religious freedom are countries with an Islamic background.' Not a single Arab country protects religious rights, and most discriminate against non-Muslims. Some, such as Saudi Arabia, prohibit the worship of any religion other than Islam and execute converts. “
      For example, when Faraz Jawed, 30, a U.S.-born engineer who is Muslim, visited a mosque in Pakistan and asked the cleric to refrain from anti-U.S. speech, the cleric told worshippers to kill Jawed. This is just one thing, among countless examples of Muslims being stoned for being gay or Saudi clerics telling followers to kill Jews and enslave their women. If Islam is to be regarded as a religion of peace, first we must hear American Muslim leaders condemn such actions.
      You can tell me that Islam really is a religion of peace all you want. But I tell you that if John Walker Lindh had become Mormon he would not have been armed in Afghanistan with a gun, he would have been in a dress shirt and tie, wielding a Bible.
Posted 07/20/02, 3:50 a.m.

    And from Shira Boss of the Christian Science Monitor, a report that the same California lefty teachers call Christmas the "Winter Holiday" and think separation of church and state is more important than not killing, have decided that Islam should be studied in public schools. Not just studied, mind you, (studying the history and beliefs of world religions would be fine) but several curriculums actually involve students role-playing in school.
      Can you imagine the uproar if schools had students dressed as David and Goliath, or Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem? California standards require seventh-graders to "analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious and social structures of the civilizations of Islam in the Middle Ages," and a text which some parents say "specifically displays its bias by only citing Christianity for examples of religious persecution, focusing on church schisms, crusades, and inquisitions."
      Boss notes what's perhaps been most controversial is the use of exercises in which students take on the roles of Islamic figures. In one example, students work together to construct a miniature mosque. Another activity instructs students: "Assume you are a Muslim soldier on your way to conquer Syria in the year A.D. 635. Write three journal entries that reveal your thoughts about Islam, fighting in battle, or life in the desert."
      A teacher in Byron, Calif., for example, had students adopt Muslim names, dress up in robes, and read from the Koran. A trivia dice game played in the class was referred to as a "jihad," causing alarm across the country when it was reported that students were being asked to stage a jihad in school.
Posted 07/20/02, 3:50 a.m.

    Talk-show host Neal Boortz on what to expect this fall from Democrats during mid-term elections:
      "It's really rather pathetic watching the Social-Democratic Party try to find some sort of a theme to campaign on this year. Other than steadily increasing the size of government, the Democrats have no real agenda of their own. Their entire campaign strategy has been reduced to two steps:
      Step One. Find something in the news that the majority of Americans don't like.
      Step Two. Blame it on George W. Bush and the Republican Party.
Posted 07/20/02, 3:48 a.m.

    So which is it?:
      "Lack of Sleep Weakens Heart" -- Telegraph headline, July 10
      "Too Much Sleep 'Can Kill You'" -- Telegraph, Feb. 15
Posted 07/16/02, 11:33 p.m.

    Call me insensitive ("Okay: You’re insensitive"), but I’m not ready to lynch the Inglewood, Calif., cops until they’ve had a chance to tell their side about why the amateur video appeared to show them abusing a black man. I don’t know why they stopped him, I don’t know what he may have done to provoke them, and until then I’m not demanding every white cop undergo sensitivity training. And I remember that the networks only showed fifteen seconds of the Rodney King video to inflame passions, when the whole video was actually what got the cops acquitted because of how King was seen resisting arrest while drugged out of his gourd. I know this may sound mean, but guys with handcuffs on are just as prone to acting out, and sometimes suspects are real jerks who could use a bump on the noggin once in a while.
Posted 07/15/02, 4:40 a.m.

    It’s official. Bush’s administration is coming close to matching the pantywaist waffling of the Clinton years. Ignoring all the praise lifted upon Bush for his stand against the sham known as the International Criminal Court – demanding a shield for Americans from frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions - the administration retreated. Instead, U.S. diplomats are instead proposing a yearlong ban on any investigation. Any way you look at this, Bush’s folks again cowered under opposition from Europe and the U.N., and it is disgusting to see.
Posted 07/11/02, 11:16 a.m.

    A number of players selected for the All-Star game have bowed out, some for injuries, others to spend time with family (with the exception of Tom Glavine, who can't play due to a blister but went anyway). The fact that so many players would rather sit on the beach than play in the fans' game is why I say there is an 80% chance that the players will strike this August. They just don't get it.
      But, in a way, maybe the strike is necessary before any true reform takes place. Let's see attendance drop by half, and then maybe the players and owners will begin to realize that they need to clean up their act and realize that this is a business like any other. You have to give the community a product they want. And right now, players and owners are too selfish and self-righteous to understand.
Posted 07/09/02, 4:30 a.m.

    During the brouhaha of the "under God" controversy, the House passed a resolution stating that the decision was "Erroneously Decided." Three representatives voted against the measure, and eleven voted "present." All 14 were Democrats, no doubt from very safe districts.
Posted 07/09/02, 4:30 a.m.

    This week's best Vents from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
    - I don't have nearly as much of a problem with what's going on in the world as I do with people being oblivious to what's going on in the world.
    - A misguided judge in Orlando has ruled it is OK for a Muslim woman to wear her veil for her driver's license photo. I think I'll wear a ski mask for my next one.
    - If your gas station or restaurant is more than a half-mile from the exit, it should not be allowed to post on the interstate guide signs.
    - Don't badmouth California. If it wasn't there, those people could be living in your neighborhood.
    - After Enron and WorldCom, my 401 (k) is all the way down to 5 (k).
    - It used to be you could tell the wackos because they were talking to themselves. But now, with hands-free cellphones, you can never be sure.
    - Could it be that some of those long waits on the runway were really stall tactics to sober up the pilots?
    - Couldn't we just say "one nation, under Canada?"
Posted 07/07/02, 3:12 a.m.

    Great comment from National Review's Andrew Stuttaford:
      "The New York Times is reporting that FBI officials are still 'puzzled' over why Egyptian-born Hesham Hadayet attacked the El Al ticket counter at LAX on July 4th. In a piece of better news, however, the Feds have announced that they may be closer to understanding why exactly it was that John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln. They now suspect that it may have been 'something to do with' the fall of the Confederacy."
Posted 07/06/02, 8:18 p.m.

    Sad news for us Red Sox fans, and baseball fans in general. Ted Williams passed away today at the age of 83. God bless ya, Teddy Ballgame, the greatest hitter who ever lived and an American who served his country well in two wars. Today's news was inevitable with his failing health the last few years, but you're never really ready for a legend to die.
Posted 07/05/02, 4:05 p.m.

    On this most important of Independence Days, here's a reminder of how great a country we live in, from Jack Kemp:
      "As I like to remind folks around this time of the year, in 1776, at the founding of America, there was a Holy Roman Empire, Venice was a republic, France was ruled by a king, China by an emperor, Russia by an empress, Great Britain was a constitutional monarchy and Japan was ruled by a shogun. All of those governments have passed into the pages of history. The only constitutional republic to retain its democratic form of government is that little union of 13 states founded on the northeast shore of the New World by courageous and farsighted men and women who believed profoundly in the declaration that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Posted 07/04/02, 6:01 a.m.

    Again I ask, Islam means peace?
      Pakistani tennis player Aisamul Haq Qureshi "created history . . . by becoming the first Pakistani player to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event," the BBC reports. He and his men's doubles partner, Amir Hadad, upset 11th-seeded Rick Leech and Ellis Ferreira.
      Pakistani officials, however, aren't happy--for Hadad is an Israeli. "Although he is playing in his private capacity, we officially condemn his playing with an Israeli player and an explanation has been sought from him," says Saulat Abbas, who directs the Pakistan Sports Board. "Since Pakistan has no links with Israel, Qureshi may face a ban." (OpinionJournal.com)
Posted 07/03/02, 5:54 a.m.

    And you thought "San Francisco stinks!" was a figurative insult after last week's 9th Circuit Court decision. As it turns out, the statement is all too true. Why? Because until yesterday, there was no law making it illegal to urinate or defecate in public. I guess it was fine, just as long as you didn't say that it is God's will that you do No. 2.
Posted 07/03/02, 5:50 a.m.

    Writing in the Washington Post, Eyad Sarraj of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights makes clear how much of a departure Bush's embrace of democracy is from the Clinton administration:
      “One of my earliest and greatest shocks was when U.S. Vice President Al Gore, during a mid-1990s visit to Jericho, publicly approved the establishment of military courts by the Palestinian Authority. These courts have sentenced people to death in summary trials where the accused have no attorney and no right to appeal. In 1996, I dared to say that the regime was corrupt and oppressive. For this, I was arrested, beaten and thrown into solitary confinement.” (OpinionJournal.com)
Posted 07/03/02, 5:50 a.m.

    Bravo to Pres. Bush for his steadfast refusal of the U.S. to take part in the sham called the International Criminal Court. Going above and beyond the call to freedom for U.S. military personnel overseas, he even went so far as to say that unless the U.N. granted our troops immunity that we'll withdraw from peacekeeping operations around the world, starting with Bosnia.
      Former pres. Clinton initially agreed to the Court as part of his efforts to appease European elites and give the U.N. more control over U.S. interests. Pres. Bush correctly sees the movements calling for Americans to be paraded in front of the Court on trumped-up ridiculous charges of genocide. The people who call for terrorists in America to be given civilian trials are by and large the same ones who would join such a Court and deny our troops and leaders the rights to due process, jury trials, confronting their accusers, etc.
      Thank you, Dubya (and I say that lovingly), for thumbing your nose at this mockery of justice.
Posted 07/03/02, 5:00 a.m.

    Good note from Thomas Sowell regarding the pro-school choice decision last week:
      "One of the main phony arguments against vouchers is now dead. Vouchers are no more a violation of the Constitution than the G.I. Bill that paid for the education of military veterans at Notre Dame, Holy Cross, and other religious institutions."
Posted 07/03/02, 4:53 a.m.

    Islam means peace?
      "A Pakistani tribal council ordered an 18-year-old girl to be gang-raped in order to punish her family after her brother was seen walking with a girl from a higher class tribe," the Associated Press reports from Multan, Pakistan:
      "According to the victim, the Mastoi tribe demanded punishment after her 11-year-old brother was seen walking unchaperoned with a Mastoi girl in a deserted part of the village. The boy and his sister are from the lower class Gujar tribe.
      "The Mastoi tribe called a meeting of the tribal council, which ordered the girl to be raped to avenge their tribal honor. The teen-ager said she was taken to a hut and assaulted as hundreds of Mastois stood outside laughing and cheering."
      The AP notes dryly that "Pakistan has a tradition of tribal justice in which crimes or affronts to dignity are punished outside the framework of Pakistani law." That's a hell of an understatement. What kind of barbarians restore their "honor" by raping a woman who wasn't even responsible for the purported offense? (OpinionJournal.com)
Posted 07/03/02, 4:50 a.m.

    This week's best Vents from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
    - Your level of intelligence is directly related to how much you agree with my political stand.
    - It’s interesting how many people don’t want the majority’s beliefs thrust upon them, but are quite willing to thrust their beliefs upon the majority.
    - It seems the judges who ruled on the Pledge of Allegiance are so open-minded their brains have fallen out.
    - In the 60s we took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
    - Thank you, Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Tyco, etc. We now know why the economy was so good during the Clinton administration.
    - It's too perfect that WorldCom is based in a town named Clinton (Miss.).
    - Female fireflies use their light to attract males; then they devour them. Women do the same thing with perfume.
Posted 07/02/02, 5:02 a.m.

    Not-so-tough football player notes :
      “You can keep your Vince Lombardi aphorisms. This from Wake Forest football coach Jim Grobe: 'I felt like I was soft on the players last year and needed to develop a tougher mental attitude. So my wife and I went to see The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and I think that got me mentally tough.'" (Steve Hummer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
      And you wonder why these guys are made fun of by hard-nosed teammates: Kicker Jaret Holmes and punter Chris Hanson of the Jacksonville Jaguars say they have recovered after being badly burned when a fondue pot overturned at Hanson's home earlier this month.
Posted 07/02/02, 5:00 a.m.

    Now that the knee-jerk conservative reaction to the Ninth Circuit decision has settled, and lawmakers made the bold decision to support the Pledge, can we discuss it rationally? It may be time to acknowledge that the decision may be correct.
      “Under God” was added six decades after the Pledge was written, and it really won’t hurt the nation for us to realize that while we shouldn’t be free from religion, there’s no reason to inject it into every government function, such as the impractical notion that the Ten Commandments should be posted in courtrooms.
      Talking about the moron that brought the suit, Pat Buchanan has a point on the real victim:
      “Not having met (Michael) Newdow, let me yet say that what he did to his (second-grade) daughter- exploiting this little girl to parade his anti-God bigotry – is revolting. She will suffer more from the taunts and insult of playmates than she would ever have by saying the pledge or remaining silent.”
Posted 07/02/02, 4:57 a.m.



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