Finally a legislative act you can be proud of…

You know, as a North Carolinian, I am required to make jokes about the folks living just south of my home state’s border (never you worry, they tell the same exact jokes about us), but today, I have to applaud the good and wise legislators down in the South Carolina House.

The SC House voted 84-27 to agree to the state Senate’s bill which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty for repeat child offenders.  This new law would potentially put anyone convicted of sexually abusing two or more children under 11 on death row.  Of course, opponents accused the legislators of election year pandering.  With an 84-27 margin, it doesn’t appear that pandering is necessary, my friends, the ayes seem to hold a pretty clear majority.

Personally, I have to ask, pandering to whom?  I’m guessing most South Carolinians would say the bill is still to soft on perpetrators.  I mean it’s a damn fine start but…

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Dean addresses the issue of morality

Excerpted from the Washington Times, Inside Politics section:

Dean’s outburst
    Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean claims to be reaching out to red-state voters, but yesterday, he suggested that opponents of homosexual “marriage” are bigots.
    Mr. Dean was responding to news that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, plans to bring to a vote a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban homosexual “marriage.”
    ”At a time when the Republican Party is in trouble with their conservative base, Bill Frist is taking a page straight out of the Karl Rove playbook to distract from the Republican Party’s failed leadership and misplaced priorities by scapegoating LGBT families for political gain, using marriage as a wedge issue,” said Mr. Dean, using the abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
    ”It is not only morally wrong, it is shameful and reprehensible,” Mr. Dean said.

Interesting – it’s now morally wrong for politicians to pander.  “Morally wrong”, “shameful” and “reprehensible”.  For once Howard and I agree.  But let’s get real here for a nanosecond.  If the banning of homosexual marriage is a “wedge issue” for you, you weren’t voting Democrat anyway.  This may be a bone, Howie boy, but it’s no wedge issue.  In fact, for most head-in-the-sand Americans, it’d be a huge surprise to actually meet a LGBT family.  Want to know why?  Because it is more likely you’ll be in a car accident than that you will meet a differently sexual family today.  First off, they aren’t getting married, even in the countries where it’s already legal.  Secondly, they [homosexual households] are such a statistically insignificant blip on the census that they don’t even warrant an honorable mention in the breakdown of family arrangements in the 2000 census.  105,500,000 married hetero couples – 4,900,000 heteros shacking up – 594,000 same-sex couples living together.  That amounts to about half of a percent.

Dean’s statement, an obvious bone to the 594,000, is filled with outrage.  And no wonder, The American Family Association, an open advocate of traditional families already has more than 3 million supporters signed up through it’s website.  And that’s just a drop in the bucket.  Perhaps what Dean really meant to say is “I wish I had a larger base to pander to… waa waa waa.”

Dim Dems can’t keep talking points straight

Dems are still harping on the GOP for creating a “culture of corruption” even while the story breaks of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) repeatedly accepting expensive gifts from the Nevada Athletic Commission while pushing for legislation that would have affected said organization.

Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada’s agency feared might usurp its authority.

He defended the gifts, saying they would never influence his position on the bill and was simply trying to learn how his legislation might affect an important home state industry. “Anyone from Nevada would say I’m glad he is there taking care of the state’s No. 1 businesses,” he told The Associated Press.

So, get over it, Nevada.  Sen. Reid should have been at those boxing matches in Las Vegas.  It was strictly business.  Interestingly, REPUBLICAN John McCain, when invited along with Mr. Reid, refused the free ticket and paid his own way to the tune of $1400.  Yep, those tickets were darn expensive.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., insisted on paying $1,400 for the tickets he shared with Reid for a 2004 championship fight.Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., accepted free tickets to another fight with Reid but already had recused himself from Reid’s federal boxing legislation because his father was an executive for a Las Vegas hotel that hosts fights.

Wow!  Those horribly corrupt GOP’ers seemed to recognize the ethical gray area. Even with the media curiosity over Reid’s nights at the fights, the Senator denies wrongdoing.

“I’m not Goodie two shoes. I just feel these events are nothing I did wrong,” Reid said.

“I’m not goodie two shoes.”  Well, he got one thing right.

For more on Senator Reid’s flirtations with the limits of ethical violations, read the report over at Fox News outlining the boxing bruhaha and the good Senator’s exploits with Jack Abramoff.

Slippery slope? What slippery slope?

Want to know a good reason to be a right winger? Check out this article from Reuters.  My comments are in green.

Pedophiles to launch political party

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage. Before you know it, anyone out of diapers will be fair game.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: “We are going to shake The Hague awake!” Doubt it. This is yet another case of cooked frog.  (i.e. if you put a frog in boiling water, he jumps out but if you put him in cold water and turn the heat up gradually, he’ll be simmered and separating before he knows what hit him…) 

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether. And there you have it.

“A ban just makes children curious,” Ad van den Berg, one of the party’s founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper. Children are curious about gas stoves, too, should we let them hold a match to the pilot light?

“We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion,” he said, adding the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighboring Belgium. There’s a reason certain things are taboo, dumb a$$. (Sorry about the swear – I’m getting more and more miffed as I read this a second time…)

“We want to get into parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals,” Van den Berg told Reuters. Hmm.  Wonder why the negativism?

The Netherlands, which already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution and gay marriage, was shocked by the plan. Shocked is always the first reaction. Then the debate starts.  After a few roundtable discussions and about 35,000 mentions in the press, tolerance is the byword.  Within a few years, tolerance becomes acceptance and eventually, the behavior is embraced. Want proof?  Watch Will and Grace.

An opinion poll published Tuesday showed that 82 percent wanted the government to do something to stop the new party, while 67 percent said promoting pedophilia should be illegal. Those are roughly the same figures that opposed gay marriage 5 years ago – now there is a slim (single digit) majority against legalization of homosexual unions. Think about it!

“They make out as if they want more rights for children. But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest,” anti-pedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the AD daily.   Ya think?  Of course, the next arguments will include “it’s natural”,  “there is evidence of premature sexual activity in the animal world”  and “there may be a genetic predisposition”…Sound familiar?

Right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders said he had asked the government to investigate whether a party with such “sick ideas” could really be established, ANP news agency reported.  Can I just ask where the hell these “right-wing lawmakers” were when the Dutch society first got thrown into the pot of cool water???

Kees van deer Staaij, a member of the Christian SGP party, also demanded action: “Pedophilia and child pornography should be taboo in every constitutional state. Breaking that will just create more victims and more serious ones.”

The party wants private possession of child pornography to be allowed although it supports the ban on the trade of such materials. It also supports allowing pornography to be broadcast on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening. Have they never seen soap operas?  I’d say we already lost this battle – notice they want VIOLENT PORNOGRAPHY available in the evenings – they aren’t even talking about pay-per-view here.  They wanted it piped into everyone’s homes.

Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said. Toddlers – that’s the 2 and under crowd. Got it?  Usually, not even potty trained yet.  Bestiality is apparently okay also so long as the poor beast doesn’t get hurt – how thoughtful.

The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public and promotes legalizing all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all. 

And there you have it, folks.  The next step.  Don’t convince yourself that this movement is a fringe or that it is only going to impact loose-moraled European nations.  America is only a few steps behind Europe with respect to social libertarianism.  For some reason we believe in regulating businesses but allowing individuals to completely debase the species. 

Lately, I feel like Lot, only instead of men beating down my door to defile those under my roof, the sickos are piped right in through the internet, television and radio.  They are marching in our streets and force feeding their propaganda to our children through the public school system.  And they are slowly leading people away with flattery – selling the idea to the masses and the younger generations that the pinnacle of intellectualism is tolerance of the most intolerable acts. 

As concerned citizens, we must stop the erosion of the most basic values of human decency.  We must speak out.  We must climb out of the simmering stew and reclaim our freedom from degradation.  The slope is slippery and it begins with the acceptance of anything less than traditional marriage as a legitimate union of consenting adults.  Call your senators.  Write to your representatives.  Demand that they vote in favor of the Marriage Protection Ammendment.

Body by Jake, baby by Prada

According to the UK’s Daily Mail, “The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects.”  Babies with minor deformations like club foot, webbed fingers, and extra digits are being killed in late term abortions.  In one case, a 28 week old child was aborted because the babe had a cleft palate.  28 weeks old.  Old enough to smile, flinch in pain, yawn. 

From the article: “Pippa Spriggs from Cambridge, whose son Isaac is celebrating his second birthday in July, was dismayed when as scan showed her baby had a club foot.

‘Abortion certainly was not openly advised but it was made clear to me it was available,’ she said.

‘In fact he has been treated and the condition has now slowed him down at all.’

Julia Millington, of the Alive and Kicking Campaign, said: ‘It is all about our perceptions of perfection.

‘Increasingly things are moving along the lines where nothing is good enough.

‘It seems we can no longer tolerate any imperfection.

‘Babies are at the mercy of ultrasound scans and what they may disclose.’“

There can be no denying that the sadness and sense of disillusionment at discovering one’s baby is imperfect is real and painful.  Another harsh reality is that no matter how perfect your newborn’s body may look on an ulltrasound, they will still be imperfect.  They, like us, are mortal and full of human frailties.  And while the initial awakening to that fact may be disheartening, there is also an overwhelming hope that fills us when we realize that in spite of imperfections, or maybe because of them, we love our children even more than we ever thought possible.  Attempts to design your family by eliminating the weak is no more than “culling the herd”  and it reduces you from parent to ranch hand.   It also shortchanges you of one of the most exalting of parental experiences – loving the child that is hard to love.  If you are can’t feel enough love for a child with a club foot to let him live, what will you do with a teenager who rebels and screams “I hate you”? 

Designing families through selective abortion may create a great Christmas photo but it also devalues human life.  And it leaves one to wonder if, like so many designer items, the babies that make the cut to and are born to parents who’ve selectively aborted in the past, will end up as merely decorative trinkets instead of adored treasures.

It’s a brave new world out there, folks.  And the name of that world is Gattica.

 

Oh no!  Not the blue-eyed boy, he’ll clash with my handbag!

Freaks and Geeks

Alrighty Campers, it’s time to round up this weekend’s freaks and geeks. 

Freaks:  Yesterday, Moscow endured its first ever Gay Pride parade.  Actually, that is a bit of an overstatement.  The flaming festivities were disrupted by riot police and protesters.  Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993, but the skinheads, orthodox Christians and radical nationalists who shouted the marchers down must’ve missed the news report.  The whole event can only be described as downright strange – I mean, who knew there were skinheads in Russia?  LOL.

Here’s the best part of the article in my humble opinion…

Police also stood by as skinheads crowded around Beck and Scott Long of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, who had unfurled a rainbow flag.

How revealing that Human Rights Watch was there not only to observe ad document civil rights violations but to push an agenda.  Notice that Scott Long unfurled a rainbow flag – an act that hardly speaks to his objectivity.  Remember that HRW also publishes Torture: A Human Rights Perspective, a compilation of essays about how the US is abusing detainees and violating international law with inhuman torture practices.  Hmmm. One has to question the bias of a “watch” group that stops watching and becomes a participant…

 

Geeks:  Parked outside the history department’s academic facility this morning was a car with a “John Kerry 2004″ bumper sticker on it.  Can someone tell this loser that we’re halfway through 2006?  But I guess if John Kerry can’t let it go then how can one poor psuedo historian?  That’s right.  John Kerry is still miffed about the Swift Boat ads and he has hired a researcher to comb the naval archives to prove that he was indeed in Cambodia on 12 Feb 1969.  You know what this means, don’t you?  We’re going to be seeing Yugos with Kerry/Edwards on the bumper for years to come…..

Freaks:  Did you think that only the military followed the “never leave a man behind” ethos?  Not so.  Apparently, drunk NBA stars share the creed.  Two Washington Wizards stars were tripping the light fantastic down in Florida when they got carried away and were arrested. 

As Arenas was being arrested, according to reports, he said, “You can’t arrest me. I’m a basketball player. I play for the Washington Wizards, and I’m not going to leave my teammate.”

Police clearly understood his concern and proceeded by arresting both Gilbert Arenas and his buddy Awvee Storey. After which, both players were then taken to jail for processing.

Geeks:  John J. Miller over at National Review has compiled a list of the top 50 Conservative Rock Songs in an article due out in the Mags June 5th issue.  Have they got nothing better to do over there at the NR?

Feel free to add your own freak or geek in the comment section. 

Immigration in a nutshell

(thanks Dugg for the fun link)

How I spent my Saturday

So the Prez stopped by for a chat today.  And the kids got to see Marine One take off.  Not much to say about his speech – it was focused on the GWOT and was well-received.  We listened to the CIC but left before the traditional hat toss and walked down to see “Daddy” where he was working off-site.  There were protestors out the front gate but I haven’t heard any stories about their antics.  Usually, protestors outside the gates don’t make much noise.  Because they are barred from coming on post, they don’t get much attention from anyone but the press. 

(Photos were copied from the USMA website – I had my hands too full of a 16 month old to get any good pics.)

Sadly, this is our last big West Point event – the movers will be here in a matter of days and we will be off to a new life as a former Army/ newly civilianized family.  (smiling through tears…)

Saturday with the POTUS

Just thought some of you might be interested to know that I’ll be meeting with George in the morning.  It’ll be a nice intimate affair of a few thousand.  LOL.   I’ll be the one in the black tea length dress & bolero jacket struggling with four young children.  The LTC will be working so, even though he’ll be present technically, he won’t be with the family.  Watch for us on t.v. if you get a chance.  I’ll get some photos if the kids are cooperative.

 

Quote of the Day goes to Tony Blair

In a press conference being cast throughout the media as a public apology for mistakes in the Iraq war, George Bush and Tony Blair acknowledged missteps in the battle for a democratic middle eastern state. 

“Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing,” Bush said Thursday evening in a White House news conference with Blair. “Not everything has turned out the way we hoped.”

For his part, Blair said he left a meeting this week with Iraq’s new prime minister “thinking the challenge is still immense, but I also came away thinking more certain than ever that we should rise to it.”

The men also recognized the toll of the war on their respective nations.

Both leaders were asked about the toll the war has taken on their popularity.

“There is no question the Iraq war has created a sense of consternation here in America,” Bush said, noting daily images on television of innocent people dying.

“It affects the mentality of Americans,” he said. But he said a more important question now is, “Can we win? That’s what they want to know.”

Blair urged both those who agreed with toppling Saddam and those who didn’t to “just take a step back” and look at the larger picture.

“They want us to stay until the job is done,” he said of the new democratically elected Iraqi government.

Without question, however the words that should be ringing in our ears after today are the word’s of Prime Minister Blair.  Siad Blair,

“Those people fighting us there know what is at stake. The question is, do we?”

With the war being used for political advantage at home and abroad, and shameless partisans pandering to anti-war constituents (even though they voted for the war) there can be no doubt that the burden of action in Iraq weighs heavily on the shoulders of both of these two men.  And yet, the truth remains that insurgents, foreign and domestic, in Iraq are so afraid of democracy that they are kidnapping and beheading strangers.  They are bombing mosques and killing innocents – women and children.  Why?  What could possibly make good and honest men fear freedom?  The answer:  Good men don’t fear freedom.   But tyrants and oppressors do.