An Unlikely Heroine

While many so-called "liberals" claim to defend human rights, they excuse Fidel Castro to the point of honoring him. While many "liberals" proudly wear Che Guevara t-shirts, forgetting about how many people he murdered, Hollywood well-to-does visit Cuba and proclaim its greatness. Spielberg called his meeting with Castro, "the eight most important hours of my life." Liberals love to pick on easy targets like America or Britian, citing either minor or inapplicable offenses, yet rountinely excuse Communist countries like Cuba and China of massive human rights violations. Why? Some are cowards and some are useful idiots.

However, no one hates Communists more than people who have had to live under it. The most anti-Communist people I have met are Czechs and Poles. Unlike American celebrities, who try their damnest to condemn America, this Czech model was afraid to expose the "socialist paradise." Also notice how she was arrested for just taking a picture.... something "liberals" should take notice of.

She should be applauded. It would be easy for her to go walk down the easy looking well-traveled path, closing her eyes to that which isn't wished to be seen. She could tell Baba-Wawa what a wonderful place it is, get patted on the back by the media, and even land a guest role on a sitcom. Braver than many, she took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.

Top Czech model Helena Houdova was arrested in Cuba last week while taking
photographs of Havana's slums – but she managed to smuggle out pictures she hid
in her bra.
Houdova – Miss Czech Republic 1999 – was arrested along with fellow model Mariana Kroftova, and Cuban police confiscated a roll of film in the women’s camera. However, Houdova concealed the memory card of her digital camera insider her brassiere.
"The revolution's watchmen rose up because I was taking pictures of something they do not like," Houdova told journalists after returning to the Czech Republic.
The Communist regime of Fidel Castro denies the existence of slums on the island.
The two women spent 11 hours in police custody and were not allowed to contact the Czech embassy. Upon their release, the women were asked to sign a statement saying they would not travel beyond Havana, and they remained under police surveillance until their departure from the island, according to the Czech news source Ceskenoviny.
The photos Houdova saved will be included in an exhibition she plans to organize together with People in Need, a Czech humanitarian relief organization that has supported Cuba's pro-democracy opposition. The exhibition would portray Cuba’s beautiful scenery but also highlight its political oppression, Houdova disclosed.
During her 10-day stay in Cuba, Houdova said, her meetings with dissidents, the wives of political prisoners and ordinary Cubans reminded her of her childhood in Communist Czechoslovakia.
The Czech Foreign Ministry summoned the Cuban charge d'affairs in Prague to explain the conduct of the Cuban authorities in arresting the two women.
Czech-Cuban political relations have been frozen since the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
The Czech Republic has attempted several times to push through U.N. resolutions critical of Castro’s regime over its record on human rights.

Me, Islamophobic?

Considering the uproar on both the right and the left to the port brouhaha, one must wonder if President Bush checked lost his political instincts somewhere. The man hasn't threatened to veto anything, including the heinous campaign finance reform, but has said he was going to veto any effort to block the control of major U.S. ports by a state-owned United Arab Emirates Company, Dubai World Ports. Amongst the criticism on both the left and the right in the USA, various arab and Muslim groups are crying "Islamophobia".

Let's take a look at the definition of phobia:

pho·bi·a n. A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous.

A phobia is an irrational fear. I so happen to a have a rational fear of Muslims. Who has been committing terrorist attacks against civilians in the past thirty years? (Excepting the IRA), Muslims. Who has a lock on barbarity ('honor' killings, forced female circumcision, torture)? Muslims. Who commits murder over a cartoon? Muslims. Yet we have the phobia.

Perhaps the Arabs have a phobia. Let's call it Westernophobia or Chritainaphobia. The Saudis will not any let Christian proseltyze in their land. If Islam is so great, what are they worried about? If Christianity is bunk, no one would convert anyway. Call Islam barbaric and any Muslim would go nuts. But how do they explain honor killings and the fact that under Sharia a woman's testimony in court in one fourth that of a man? If they are so strong in their faith, why not debate these points rationally as opposed to more murder and mayhem. If Islam is such a wonderful religion, why riot and kill over a few cartoons?

Perhaps arabs and Muslims are suffering using Projection as a crutch to help with their phobias. Why do we keep playing their games?

When it comes to the ports, I only have to look at pictures of the World Trade Center collapsing to know: Once bitten, twice shy.

HR Interview Questions

When preparing for an interview, there is the likely chance that you will get the dreaded HR questions. These are questions that no one who actually conducts business would ask. These are the dumb psychobabble questions that require a prepared response that doesn't sound arrogant or doesn't sink you. For example, the classic "What's your biggest weakness?" You can't say the truth "I'm lazy" or say something like "I'm a workoholic." I would love to answer these questions with more humor, but humor is something HR lacks. So in my mind....

"What's your biggest failure?" I really have no idea. It's not like....

• I designed the O-rings on the Challenger
• I decided that the watertight bulkheads on the Titanic should only go up to the E-deck.
• I designed the New Orleans levees to only withstand a Category 3 hurricane.
• I decided to use hydrogen in the Hindenburg.
• I'm the guy who thought an annoying, bouncing paperclip in Microsoft Word would be a good idea.
• Two words: Ford Pinto.
• New Coke.
• The Spruce Goose.

Back to... "What's your biggest weakness?"

• I'm not a team player
• I have a penchant to steal.
• I eat boogers.
• Slutty fat chicks...
• I have an irresistible urge to give the Fuhrer salute and shout Sieg Heil at 10 minute intervals.

The Babwa-Wawa classic... "If you could be any kind of tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

• Balsa tree - wood that's easy carved and manipulated.

More to come....

John Joseph contributed to this post.

Port of Call

I'm glad to see that the port story has picked up steam and hasn't been brushed under the rug. It's a weird feeling to be watching TV and agreeing with what Chuck Schumer was saying. He was really the first Senator to publically speak against it and now many other GOP and Democrat Senators have joined the effort.

The problem is that even if Suppose the Dubai Ports World company is squeaky clean today; every employee is saint-like. However, seeing that an Arab company has control of American port security, Muslim jihadists could inflitrate company positions, and then sneak people and bombs into the US. Let's not forget that two 9/11 hijackers were from UAE and much of the planning took place there.

UPDATE: The below is from Drudge. Bush sunk to an all time low in my opinion. Bush doesn't like that the port deal is under fire, so he is basically calling those who oppose it racist. I expect that sort of stuff from Democrats but not Bush. Does someone need to remind President Bush that some of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE?

Bush called reports at about 2.30 aboard Air Force One to issue a very strong defense of port deal... MORE... He said he would veto any legislation to hold up deal and warned the United States was sending 'mixed signals' by going after a company from the Middle East when nothing was said when a British company was in charge... Lawmakers, he said, must 'step up and explain why a middle eastern company is held to a different standard.' Bush was very forceful when he delivered the statement... 'I don't view it as a political fight,' Bush said.... Drudge Report

Foxes Guarding the Hen House

An important and undermentioned story is the sale of British shipping giant P&O to Dubai Ports World, a United Arab Emerates owned company. This will give an Arab company access to port facilities in the US. Whether it is IDLH (immediately dangerous to life & health) that is to be decided, but the fact that this is happening without adequate discussion is disconcerting.

...a secretive government committee has decided to turn over the management of six of the Nation's most important ports — in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans — to Dubai Ports World following the UAE company's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously had the contract.This is not the first time this interagency panel — called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) — has made an astounding call about the transfer of control of strategically sensitive U.S. assets to questionable purchasers. In fact, as of last summer, CFIUS had, since its creation in 1988, formally rejected only one of 1,530 transactions submitted for its review.Such a record is hardly surprising given that the committee is chaired by the Treasury Department, whose institutional responsibilities include promoting foreign
investment in the United States. Treasury has rarely seen a foreign purchase of American assets that it did not like. And this bias on the part of the chairman of CFIUS has consistently skewed the results of the panel's deliberations in favor of approving deals, even those opposed by other, more national security-minded departments.Thanks to the secrecy with which CFIUS operates, it is not clear at this writing whether any such objection was heard with respect to the idea of contracting out management of six of our country's most important ports to a UAE company. There would certainly appear to be a number of grounds for rejecting this initiative, however:

• America's seaports have long been recognized by homeland security experts as among our most vulnerable targets. Huge quantities of cargo move through them every day, much of it of uncertain character and provenance, nearly all of it inadequately monitored. Matters can only be made worse by port managers who might conspire to bring in dangerous containers, or simply look the other way when they arrive.
• Entrusting information about key U.S. ports — including, presumably, government-approved plans for securing them, to say nothing of the responsibility for controlling physical access to these facilities, to a country known to have been penetrated by terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so. At the risk of being politically incorrect, the proposed new management will also complicate the job of assuring that the personnel working in these ports pose no threat to their operations — or to the rest of us. To the extent that we must remain particularly vigilant about young male Arab nationals as potential terrorists, it makes no sense to provide legitimate grounds for such individuals to be in and around some of this country's most important strategic assets.
• Of particular concern must be the implications for energy security as a very large proportion of the Nation's oil imports come through the Atlantic and Gulf State ports that the UAE company hopes to take over. For example, Philadelphia alone handles some 85% of the oil coming into the East Coast; New Orleans is responsible for one-seventh of all of our imported energy.

Given such considerations, the question occurs: How could even a stacked deck like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States find it possible to approve the Dubai Ports World's transaction? Could it have been influenced by the fact that a former senior official of the UAE company, David Sanborn, was recently named the new administrator of the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration? Until recently, Sanborn was DP World's director of operations for Europe and Latin America.Or is it because the U.S. government views — and is determined to portray — the United Arab Emirates as a vital ally in this war for the Free World? A similar determination has long caused Washington to treat Saudi Arabia as a valued friend, even as the Saudis continue playing a double game whereby they work simultaneously to repress terrorism at home and abet it abroad.

Whatever the explanation, the Nation can simply no longer afford to have
the disposition of strategic assets — including those that have a military or homeland security dimension — determined by a Treasury-dominated panel whose deliberations and decisions are made in secret without congressional oversight.... Frank Gaffney

A More "Sensitive" Military

Reported in the Wall Street Journal, the Army, it seems, is relaxing some of the challenges of basic training. It

According to the Journal:

New recruits used to be welcomed to boot camp here with the "shark attack." For decades, drill sergeants in wide-brim hats would swarm around the fresh-off-the-bus privates, shouting orders. Some rattled recruits would make mistakes. A few would cry.
Today, the Army is opting for a quieter approach. "I told my drill sergeants to stop the nonsense," says Col. Edward Daly, whose basic-training brigade graduates about 11,000 soldiers a year. Last fall, Col. Daly began meeting with all new recruits shortly after they arrive at boot camp to thank them. "We sincerely appreciate the fact that you swore an oath and got on a bus and did it in a time of war," he recently told an incoming class. "That's a big, big deal." He usually is accompanied by two male and two female soldiers, who can answer questions the recruits may have.
"The idea is to get rid of the anxiety and worry," Col. Daly says.
The new welcome is a window on the big changes sweeping boot camp, the Army's nine-week basic training. For most of its existence, boot camp was a place where drill sergeants would weed out the weak and turn psychologically soft civilians into hardened soldiers. But the Army, fighting through one of its biggest recruiting droughts, now is shifting tactics. Boot camp -- that iconic American experience -- may never be the same.

I posted this article on the conservative webboard FreeRepublic.com. Many of the responses were mixed although I doubt most could actually read the article as the WSJ website is a subscription site.

New privates are getting more sleep and personal time. Even the way soldiers eat has changed. Drill sergeants long ordered overweight soldiers to stay away from soda and desserts. Today, soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood fill out a survey about their boot-camp experience that asks, among other questions, if they liked the food, whether they were "allowed to eat everything on the menu, including dessert," and whether there was enough for seconds.

The dining hall still is far from relaxing. But drill sergeants no longer shout at recruits. They aren't allowed to order overweight privates to skip dessert. At first, some drill sergeants refused to embrace the new directive. "There was a lot of balking on the dessert rule," says Capt. Meng, who oversees 11 drill sergeants. "I have had to say, 'Don't even mention it.' "

Like many of his fellow commanders, Capt. Meng spent a year in Iraq, in a tour that ended in 2004. He was second in command of a 100-soldier armor company. In the past six months, the West Point graduate has been in the forefront in reducing attrition, overseeing drill sergeants and recruits.

Last month, a few dozen of Capt. Meng's privates clambered onto olive-green trucks for one of their final boot-camp exercises. The troops, traveling in an Iraq-style convoy, were "hit" by a series of smoke-spewing roadside bombs. Enemy fighters, represented by pop-up targets, sprung from nearby prairie grass. A broad-shouldered drill sergeant ordered a counterattack.

Instead of leaping off the back of the truck, as they would in a typical exercise, or in actual combat, the privates waited about 10 seconds for someone to walk to the back of the truck and place a ladder on its rear bumper. They then climbed down the 5-foot drop, one at a time.

Yahoo's Daily Gay Advocacy Article

In case you are not aware of media bias, let me explain. It not only has to do with how the media writes a story or the terms they use, but the articles which they publish and which they do not. Here Yahoo proudly prints this article on gays on its front page instead of something like this. This gay advocacy article's message is "allow gays in the military because it is too expensive to kick them out and retrain new people."

However, the article never mentions the potential costs of recruiting and training people that leave if gays ARE allowed openly in the military. Recruitment and re-enlistment would plummet. Straight men do not like shower with gays. Wow, what a surprise. How "intolerant" those straights must be. As I've said before, it's not about gay rights, its about leftists who hate the military. It's the same reason why they want gay scoutmasters, in order to bring the organizations down. Parents would pull their kids out, crumbling the organization.

While many people tolerate gays, there are limits. They don't want to shower with them and they don't want them taking their kids camping. Is that too much to ask? Allowing gays in these organizations would be a destructive virus.

Discharging troops under the Pentagon's policy on gays cost $363.8 million over 10 years, almost double what the government concluded a year ago, a private report says. The report, to be released Tuesday by a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission, questioned the methodology the Government Accountability Office used when it estimated that the financial impact of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was at least $190.5 million.
"It builds on the previous findings and paints a more complete picture of the costs," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., who has proposed legislation that would repeal the policy.
Congress approved the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in 1993 during the Clinton administration. It allows gays and lesbians to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps as long as they abstain from homosexual activity and do not disclose their sexual orientation....

Cautioning that the figures may be too low, the GAO said the federal government spent at least $95.4 million to recruit and $95.1 million to train replacements from 1994 through 2003 for the 9,488 troops discharged during that period because of the policy. So, the commission focused on the estimated value the military lost from
each person discharged. The report detailed costs of $79.3 million for recruiting enlisted service members, $252.4 million for training them, $17.8 million for training officers and $14.3 million for "separation travel" once a service member is discharged.....AP via Yahoo

Stupid British Tricks

According to this article in the Times Online, knife crime is a problem in Scotland and the opinionated thinks it is a good idea to ban knives and other sharp instruments because 'you don't need them'.

I don't understand the Brits. I work with them almost every day and generally they don't seem like stupid people. But why would they fall for this nonsense. Guns are all but banned in Britain and yet gun crime has risen greatly in the last 10 years.

Now they want to ban knives. That has been a joke in the States for years any time there is a crime committed with a knife; "Lets ban them." Yet that is something that some in the UK apparently want to do. As wiser men than I have said over and over and over, if someone is willing to commit a mala in se crime like rape, robbery, or murder, weapons prohibitions will be no hindrance to them. If you've been down your conscience enough to rob or rape someone, it isn't too much of a stretch to break a law banning the ownership or carrying of weapons.

Not only that, from what I read, Brits have a hard time legally defending themselves, even with fists or walking canes, due to the way British law is written. Crime is a straightforward problem to address. Punish those who commit it and increase the punishment for crimes committed with deadly weapons and allow people to defend themselves.

Pigface

From Brussels Journal:

Denmark is being punished at the instigation of radical imams because twelve cartoonists have depicted Muhammad. However, these imams created their own three Muhammad images. They have even presented a French clown as being Muhammad. Because the twelve JP cartoonists are not Muslims, the Muslim blasphemy laws do not apply to them. But these laws do apply to the imams. Consequently, these imams deserve death. They – and no-one else – depicted the prophet as a pig – the highest imaginable insult in Islam.

The imams do this because they are evil. They want more power and know the weaknesses of the liberal west. If it weren't for the new media, we wouldn't even see the cartoons.

Tax, Tax, Spend, Spend, Elect, Elect

FDR aide Harry Hopkins' mantra was Tax, Tax, Spend, Spend, Elect, Elect. 21st century Republicans have modified that to just Spend, Spend, Spend, Spend, Elect, Elect.

Bush's rampant spending continues unabatted. The proposed budget calls for an increase of 6.7% over last years bloated spending levels. Clinton's last year in office had a 1.87 trillion budget, which means it has since increased 44%. While Bush touts his 14.5 billion in program reductions, 6.7% increase is still too much consider the overall raises. Bush's $423 billion (15.6%) deficit is unacceptable. Blame cannot be laid upon the Iraq War. Alexis de Tocqueville once said in the mid-19th century "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money." The Democrats first mastered that. Now the Republicans offer little alternative.
I also love Republican Senators who like to tell us how fiscially tight the budget. Delay did that a few weeks ago. Tell a lie often enough and people will believe you? Admittedly, I had visions of grandeur that when a Republican President and Republican Congress was elected, the promised reforms laid out in the "Contract_With_America" would be fufilled. Instead Republicans resemble the Democrats of the 50s. Unfortunately, the country's other party, the National Socialist Democrat Abortion Party, has fallen so far left that they are useless. The Republican party always thinks that electoral victory lies in the center. However, those moves lose them elections and they never ever learn.

WASHINGTON — President Bush today will propose a 2007 federal budget of more
than $2.7 trillion, even while calling for savings in Medicare and other domestic programs, according to congressional and administration officials with knowledge of the spending plan.
The budget is an increase over the $2.57 trillion spending plan Bush proposed last year. Much of the increase will go to defense, homeland security and benefit programs that grow faster than the economy. The officials who gave details of the budget asked not to be named because the plan wasn't scheduled to be released until today.
Bush's plan assumes a budget deficit of about $423 billion this year. Much of that is
because of the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The proposed budget calls for:
•Saving $65 billion in government benefit programs over five years, including $36 billion from Medicare. Much of the Medicare savings would come from cutting
reimbursement rates to hospitals, nursing homes and home health
agencies.
•Reducing the amount of money spent on domestic programs subject to annual congressional review, not including defense and homeland security. The defense budget would grow by nearly 5%.

•Eliminating or making major cuts in 141 small programs, for $14.5 billion in savings.
“This is a very tight budget,” said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. “It emphasizes fiscal discipline.”
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., disagreed. “Republicans have adopted a position under this president that deficits don't matter,” he said.

More Muslim Mayhem

The Beeb reports that the Muslims are on another rampage of anger, fear, and hate as several die in an orgy of Muslim violence protesting the cartoons about Mohammed. Even the mayor of Kabul, Hamid Karzai, spoke out against the cartoons:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated his condemnation of the cartoons and called on western nations to take "a strong measure" to ensure such cartoons do not appear again. "It's not good for anybody," he told CNN.

"Strong Measure"? Meaning what, Hamid? Gasp! Censorship?

One thing the Beeb does leave out is any approximation of the number of rioters. How much does anyone want to bet that it was only a few hundred, thousand at most, rioters who are doing so only at the urging of extremist imams?

What I want to know, is why do Western Governments respond to this? Why do they issue the clucking statements deploring how horrible these cartoons are to appease the barbarian Muslim mob? Western governments should tell the Muslim world, "We don't control our press. Deal with it." Muslims are free to educate Westerners that the images are offensive, publish cartoons is their newspapers making fun of Jesus, Buddha, or Moses. But, come to think of it, would Jesus with a bomb on his head cause a stir? Probably not. It would be so ludicrous that Christians would just laugh. Perhaps the brouhaha surrounding these cartoons is that they strike so close to the truth. Then again, Muslims could also stop bombing people.

The Cato Institute, a rightish, libertarian outfit has published a piece called Is "Old Europe" Doomed? In typically wordy and wonkishly written catospeak, the answer is "Maybe". Birth rate and the negetive birthrates of many Western democracies are becoming quite the talk at many thinktanks. However, to put it clearly, I believe that unless White Europeans increase their birthrate, European states dramatically reduce the size of their welfare states, and immigrants are assimilated within European culture, liberal secular Europe will enter a period of terminal decline within 50-100 years and probably within my lifetime. The only way I think this could be avoided would be for Europeans to re-discover their Christian roots and I really do not think this will occur.

Away from politics for a moment, I bought a new snowboard and the thing is kick-ass. I was riding a '99 board and while I still like it and will keep it for sentimental reasons, the new deck is sweet. Nothing like just you in the mountain (or small hill for many of the East Coast places). I was in Stowe, VT for the week and riding there was just amazing. I missed snowboarding when I was in Kuwait and to me there really isn't any sport as fun.

Danish Cartoon Brouhaha

Boiling to a head this week, and finally spilling over to American news outlet, is the brouhaha caused by the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that printed cartoons depicting Mohammed, some in a bad light. Printing an image of Mohammed, even a good light, is a big no-no in Islam. Of course, many Muslims are upset as can be seen here. However, several other images of Mohammed have been printed elsewhere, some recently, without the fervour of this incident.

This isn't about cartoons. This is about Muslim groups trying to get Westerners to censor themselves....to never speak ill of Islam. Considering how tame these cartoons are, this is a test case. If Muslims can get Europe to silence themselves over this, then they will be less likely to challenge Muslims in the future.

However, even the Europeans may have finally reached their breaking point. I was happy to see other European newspapers reprinting these cartoons in a show of solidarity. Finally the Europeans are standing up to this attempt to make the West self-censor any complaints about Islam.
UPDATE (2/1/06): I may have spoken too soon. An editor of one of the French papers that reprinted the cartoons has been fired. France's DQ (Dhmmi Quotient...my new term) must be higher than that of Denmark.
UPDATE (2/3/06): Damn American government is "siding with the Muslims." I think the State Department has started to believe it's own nonesense about the "Religion of Peace."
UPDATE (2/6/06): Obviously Muslims have forgotten their own cartoons. I guess we all should ignore how brutal they are.

State of the Union

Last night, President Bush gave his annual State of the Union address (text here). As for some of the highlights:

Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Well democracy alone isn't going to be a magical cure-all. You can't say Hamas's election is a victory for freedom? Although their other choice, Fatah, sucked as well, what do you say about a population who votes for an organizations who prime purpose is terrorism. Post-war Japanese were taught about the principles of democracies and the fundamentals behind it.

At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half – in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran.... China, Mr President? The world's largest undemocratic nation is left off the list in lieu of Burma?

Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder – and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder. They can either impose it or just hold elections. Worked in "Palestine."

One of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam – the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death. Considering that 70+% of Palestinians voted for a Hamas, an organisation which supports the "perversion of Islam" it's not really appropriate to label the followers as a "few."

Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy. Exactly. The left does not have a strategy for confronting radical Islam....besides appeasement.

The great people of Egypt have voted in a multi-party presidential election – and now their government should open paths of peaceful opposition that will reduce the appeal of radicalism. The Palestinian people have voted in elections – now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace. Saudi Arabia has taken the first steps of reform. Okay, let's see, in Egypt, the radical Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood gained 71 seats to bring their total to 88 of 454, and are the #2 party in the country. Does a leopard change its spots? Mr. Bush has a tall order for the people known as Hamas. What are the first steps of reform?

So I ask you to reauthorize the Patriot Act.... Good. To all the Patriot Act scaremongers, in the 4+ years of the Patriot Act, have you known one personSo I ask you to reauthorize the Patriot Act.... Good. To all the Patriot Act scaremongers, in the 4+ years of the Patriot Act, have you known one person who was falsely imprisioned or who's rights have been violated because of the Patriot Act?

Yet the tax relief is set to expire in the next few years....I urge the Congress to act responsibly, and make the tax cuts permanent. Good.

This year, the first of about 78 million Baby Boomers turn 60, including two of my Dad’s favorite people – me, and President Bill Clinton. Why is Clinton, who stood for many things that your father supposedly did not, one of his favorite people? This Bush-Clinton uber-friendship is a bit unsettling.

By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire Federal budget... ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of Baby Boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We will be spending 60% on social programs, yet liberals and Europeans will scream how evil we are. Social security is a huge government scam.

Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values, and serves the interests of our economy. Our Nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest worker program that rejects amnesty … allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally … and reduces smuggling and crime at the border. The big problem is that Bush has the authority and power to increase border protection today. Yet, nothing is being done. There are over 10 million illegals in America today. Meanwhile other immigrants, with good professional skills, hang in legal limbo for years before they can be a citizen. Additionally, illegals should be removed before any guest worker program can begin. Forgiving their illegal trespass is call AMNESTY.

This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion dollars next year... Nice, but $14 billion is not much. The $256 billion transportation bill had $12 billion in pork alone.

And because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice – leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OB-GYN – I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year. Damn lawyers. How much money do doctors have to pay per year in insurance costs due to outrageous jury awards? Then new medical students don't want to get into areas with high insurance rates, depriving America of future OB-GYNs. What is better, doctors and limited malpractice awards, or no doctors at all?

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. The main goal, and the attention given to it are good, but some of the ideas are not practical on a large term scale. It takes 11 acres of corn to produce enough energy to power a car driving 10,000 miles per year. Multiply that be 200 million drivers. Not to mention it takes more energy to make ethanol that you get out of it. It would only get worse with switch grass. How much switch grass is there exactly?


There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades... Roe effect anyone?