Perfectly illustrating the point I made earlier regarding the debate over federal funding of stem cell research, scientists have already traveled down the slippery sloped I warned about. A group of fertility specialists have admitted to creating embryos for the sole purpose of experimenting on them, which is exactly the kind of practice we can't condone if we claim to be a civilized people.
Here's a poll I guarantee you haven't seen, comparing President Bush with the Democrats:
Has President Bush cooperated enough with the Democrats in Congress?
Yes 59%
No 32%
Have the Democrats in Congress cooperated enough with President Bush?
Yes 46%
No 45%
Whom do you want to have more influence over the direction the nation takes in the next year, President Bush or the Democrats in Congress?
Bush 50%
Dems 38%
Now, this could mean one of two things: that the public has tired of the rantings of the Left, or that Bush is kowtowing to the Dems entirely too much.
By the way, 78 percent say they respect Mr. Bush, regardless of how they feel about his political views; 70 percent approve of him as a person, up from 60 percent in January just as he was about to take office; 66 percent say he is honest and trustworthy; and 62 percent say he has been very or somewhat successful in fulfilling an inaugural pledge to bring civility back to the debate between Democrats and Republicans in Washington.
Here's a warning right now that China will use the 2008 Olympics to strengthen its misguided political system the same way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. It was merely a propaganda tool that worked for a few years, right up to the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.
That President Bush's reaction is to shrug and say that he doesn't care where a sporting event is held is a disservice to the thousands killed every year by the Communist regime.
And China didn't wait long to thumb their noses at us following their Olympic grab. The very next day an American businessman was convicted of spying for Taiwan in a bogus case that proves China is going to stick it in our faces that human rights means nothing to the international audience unwilling to judge each other. Having made their point, China then vowed to expel Li Shaomin - detained since Feb. 25 - back to the U.S.
How far would government officials go to get money from the pockets of businesses and taxpayers? Out of this world. Literally.
Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach is angling to impose property taxes on several satellites owned by L.A. County-based Hughes Electronics, even though the satellites in question hover 22,000 miles over the equator.
It's so sad it's funny, until you figure out that this idea could catch on, and companies who are taxed millions of dollars on their satellites will pass the cost on to those of us who use their services.
European leaders are meeting again to persuade Bush to embrace the Kyoto treaty. When delegates from 180 countries will convene in Bonn, Germany, for a two-week session designed to salvage the Kyoto protocol, they plan to forget the fact that none of their legislatures (except for Romania) have passed the foul treaty, and blame the U.S. for admitting the truth. The truth is that reliable estimates show restrictions would prevent a rise in global temperature by only a fraction of a degree, which are hardly worth the potential high cost to taxpayers of trillions of dollars and a radically altered lifestyle. Just as he's doing in missile defense, Bush just needs to ignore the babies across the Atlantic.
Newsweek has a fair piece (I know, I was shocked, too) on an anti-global warming scientist who wonders why the pro-warming propaganda gets so much credit.
Dick Lindzen notes that the president "is guilty of nothing more than being honest," he says. "There's no current Western leader who's as well informed on the issue as Bush, as strange as that may seem. European politicians are just using Kyoto for cheap virtue."
Another note from the NAACP conference. Mary Francis Berry, chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, told the delegates that, before Jim Jeffords departed the Republican Party and gave the Senate to the Democrats, "I was just wondering when Strom Thurmond was gonna die." UPI reported that her comments were met with laughter and applause, and Berry received a standing ovation following her speech.
You haven't heard that from any television media outlet, have you? Can you imagine the outrage from the press if a Republican had laughed that it would be great if Robert Byrd (D-WV) were to die in office so the GOP would control the Senate? Even worse, if a conservative white official had made the same remark about a black Democratic senator?
A coalition of civil rights groups is urging the Bush White House to play a larger role in an upcoming world conference on racism, which will bring up issues such as reparations for slavery and racial profiling. The Clinton administration committed $250,000 toward the conference, and the Bush administration has not increased that, prompting comments that Bush officials "really just don't care."
So if Bush doesn't give 20 times more money to this conference on racism than his Left predecessor, then the conference leaders are going to brand the White House as racist. All this conference is for is to spread guilt around to shake people down for money. It's Jesse Jackson times twenty.
The latest great Vents from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
I read that CNN Headline News wants to make its broadcast look more like a Web site. Does this mean the three-fourths of the screen will have annoying, blinking ads?
Congratulations, Mr. Condit, on passing your own polygraph test. In a related story, I've just awarded myself a Ph.D.
I think it's great Beijing won the 2008 games. Imagine the fun we'll have watching new events such as tank dodging, the 100 yard prison cell breakout and the raised arm rifle rally!
To be consistent with its selection of Beijing as the host for the '08 Games, perhaps Saddam Hussein should be the Grand Marshall. Idi Amin could light the torch and the swastika can be the official symbol.
Government: if it ain't broke, fix it until it is.
Each time I look at my paycheck, I am reminded that the federal income tax was instituted as a temporary tax back about 1912. How long is temporary?
Members of Congress strapped up to lie detectors? Can the nation's power grid take the stress?
A cure for air rage: ejection seats for passengers.
Are the extra 30 registers at Wal-Mart there in case the one they are using breaks down?
The dream researcher who claims that Republicans have more nightmares than Democrats proved that liberals live in a dream-like world.
So if you like those lines to renew your license at the DMV, you'll just LOVE nationalized health care.
Lightning crack, thunder boom, cable static.
"Customer service" has just passed "government efficiency" and "honest lawyers" on the Oxymoron Hit Parade.
Homer quote: "Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!"
Bart's chalkboard: I will finish what I sta
Random Site: Worldwide Wedding Customs -- just in case my cousin Amy and her fiancee Phil would like to follow Korea's lead by including ducks in the wedding procession.