On one Townhall.com page that I viewed there were three (rather annoying) advertisements to "Cruise the Mediterranean with Hugh Hewitt." It asks us to join Hewitt and David Allen White with special guest Pastor Mark Roberts on a luxurious cruise. Join a well advertised gathering of American conservatives on a ship in the Mediterranean? No, I think I'll pass on that. It might look too inviting to some wacko group.

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Why is 'skimmed milk' called 'skim milk'? Dictionaries define both the same: milk from which the cream has been removed. It seems to me that 'skimmed milk' is the grammatically correct form. 'Skim milk' suggests to me that it is milk that consists of the skim; which would be the cream. We don't refer to 'filtered water' as 'filter water.'

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I tend to think of politicians, of all flavors, as stupid when I see them constantly expanding the reach of government and diluting our freedom. I have to keep reminding myself that they aren't stupid, they're devious. Well, perhaps some of them are stupid.

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Democrats are always trying to raise the minimum wage. They claim that it is an effective way to ensure that all workers earn a living wage. But they only raise it by piddling amounts. If they really believe that raising the minimum wage isn't soon offset by inflated prices of goods and reduced employment, then why don't they just raise it to $100 dollars per hour? That would really help the poor! Right?

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The President is expected to announce a substantial 'surge' in troop strength in Iraq tonight. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post says that the word 'surge' has become the latest catchword. He compares it to words like blog, waterboarding and chad. Is this guy 10 years old? 'Surge' is a relatively common word in the English language. Has he not heard of a 'power surge' or a 'storm surge'? I googled 'surge' and got 56 million hits.

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According to Phyllis Schlafly, in a column on Townhall.com, "a Spanish company, Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., has bought the right to operate a toll road through Texas and collect tolls for the next 50 years.  Called the Trans-Texas Corridor, TTC, on which construction is planned to begin next year, this highway would bisect Texas from Oklahoma to its border with Mexico. Plans call for a 10-lane limited-access highway to parallel Interstate 35. It would have three lanes each way for passenger cars, two express lanes each way for trucks, rail lines both ways for people and freight, plus a utility corridor for oil and natural gas pipelines, electric towers, cables for communication, and telephone lines."

She says that this "will be the first leg of what has been dubbed the NAFTA Super Highway to go through heartland America all the way to Canada. This would be a major lifeline of the plan to merge the United States into a North American Community."  And she says that the Bush Administration is on board with this.

I don't know much about this yet, but it does sound ominous.  They are also talking about a common currency.  Sounds a lot like the EU to me.  Read the whole column here.

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Have you become bored with the endless apologies* coming from celebrities and politicians? I certainly have. I'd prefer that they just shut up and quietly change their behavior if they truly think their behavior was bad and they think they can change. But, if they feel compelled to say something publicly I wish they would just admit that their personality is flawed (or that they are just plain dumb) and that given an opportunity they will probably make a fool of themselves again.

Which of the following statements would you rather hear?

• I sincerely apologize for my crude behavior. What I said and did is not at all like me. I don't know what happened. Perhaps it was the alcohol I consumed earlier. Perhaps something just snapped inside me. Perhaps it was the pressure I've been under lately. Whatever it was I assure you that is not me and it won't happen again.

• I do regret my crude behavior -- and I will regret it the next time it happens. Look people, I'm an imperfect person. I tend to lose control occasionally. In fact, I sometimes fly into a violent rage. I'm just thankful that I haven't permanently injured anyone -- yet. I sincerely wish that I could rid myself of this personality flaw but I have to admit that it's probably not going to happen. My best advice to you is that when I do go off, just get out of my way.

John Kerry, especially, should give up apologizing because he usually screws up the apology. He should follow Charlie Rangel's example. Rangel doesn't apologize because he knows that everyone knows his stupid statements are all politically motivated.

Why do Mel Gibson and Michael Richards feel the need to apologize to the world when their offensive remarks were made before only a few people? The most they should do is issue a statement saying that they have apologized privately to the people they offended and that's all they will be saying on the matter. I don't buy the proposition that everything a celebrity does is a public matter. But mostly I just don't care what they do or why they do it. Unless they do it to me or mine.  Then I will confront them personally.

I suspect that the weight people put on apologies comes from childhood. I've noticed that more and more parents appear to believe that forcing their children to apologize for bad behavior is punishment enough. I'm afraid that this just teaches children that they can get away with anything as long as they are willing to apologize. Children know that apologies are just words.

*For a summary of some apologies from the past year see Kathleen Parker's recent column at Townhall.com.

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I read recently about an art exhibit in Los Angeles by a British artist named Banksy. He spray-painted an elephant as a prop in his campaign to raise our awareness that "many people live below the poverty line." He handed out cards that read, "There's an elephant in the room. There's a problem we never talk about." I'm sure that Banksy really wants to help people in need, but do you suppose he doesn't realize that there will always be people living below the poverty line? Governments guarantee that because they keep moving the poverty line.

Anyhow, Banksy fell victim to the law of unintended consequences. Someone did see the elephant in the room. That someone was an animal lover who felt that spray-painting an elephant was abusive.
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Senators McCain, Warner, Graham and others are opposed to President Bush's push to clarify the rules about what constitutes 'outrages upon personal dignity' (Common Article 3 from the Geneva Convention) when interrogating captured enemy combatants, thereby legalizing 'alternative interrogation practices'. One of the reasons they give is that doing so will cause our enemies to torture our soldiers when they are captured. Of all people, John McCain should know better. That is, he should know that our enemies will torture our soldiers regardless of any law that we pass. We don't go to war against nations that are guided by high moral principles. We go to war against despots, lunatics and angry radical factions that have proclaimed their intent to destroy us.

I know that severe torture is inhumane and I agree that we should not do it except under rare critical circumstances. But it is incomprehensible to me that people, judged by their reaction, seem more strongly opposed to subjecting a captive to cold temperatures and rock music than to killing combatants on the battlefield.

I wonder if the people creating all this commotion over our treatment of detainees ever consider that this might influence our soldiers when they have to make quick kill-or-capture decisions on the battlefield.
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I highly recommend that you read Head-in-the-Sand Liberals authored by Sam Harris and published today in the Los Angeles Times. Harris is an avowed liberal and the LA Times definitely leans left, but I agree with everything he says -- except the part about raising taxes and allowing homosexuals to marry (actually homosexuals are free to marry, but I'm sure he meant same sex marriage). The essence of the article is that the threat from radical Islam is very real and liberals just refuse to see it. He says that the liberals misunderstand the motivations of the Islamists and are misguided about how we should address the threat that they pose.
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Why do we never hear about 'first world countries' or 'second world countries'? All we ever hear about are 'third world countries'. Well, actually we do hear about them; they just aren't called that. But they do turn up in an internet search. I wonder if the UN has rules that define what constitutes a third world country. And do they have criteria that when met allow a third world country to move up to second world status? Are there fourth world countries?

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Early in Dr Martin Luther King, Jr's campaign for equality of opportunity for blacks I was skeptical of his motives and methods. Later I came to understand that the changes that his struggle wrought were absolutely essential at that point in our history. Now I see him as truly a Saint compared to today's 'civil rights leaders'.

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"Mama, they're lying to me!" "Make them stop!" CBS reports that Senator Bill Nelson, D-FL, said in regard to the President's Iraq war strategy: "I have not been told the truth over and over again by administration witnesses, and the American people have not been told the truth." What a whiner! As a US Senator you'd think he could ferret out the 'truth' himself.

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In a Senate hearing recently Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA, told Secretary of State Rice that we wouldn't be at war in Iraq if she and the President had children at risk. Her view is that a single, childless woman (or man) is not qualified for the position that Rice holds because she is too prone to commit us to war. Boxer apparently feels that top executive branch officials, Republican or Democrat, must have children in the military in order to properly do their jobs. On that basis she couldn't have supported Lincoln's decision to defend the Union. I believe that having a brain is the most important requirement for public service.

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Since President Bush's speech on his new strategy in Iraq there has been a lot of hand-wringing over Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "willingness and ability to rein in sectarian militias and cobble together some sort of national reconciliation" (Tom Bevan, RealClearPolitics). General Petraeus needs to summon the pompous fart over to his office and tell him what he must do if he doesn't want to join Saddam in the ground. Stop pussyfooting around with those people. Kick some ass and get the job done!

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A column by Peter Mulhern of RealClearPolitics is well worth reading.

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According to the Associated Press, Rob Reiner, better know as Meathead, has proclaimed that "Mel Gibson's apology for his drunken anti-Semitic remarks isn't enough to redeem him. He must acknowledge that his work reflects anti-Semitism." The article also stated that "some critics attacked Gibson's movie (The Passion of the Christ) as portraying Jews as evil."

Some, like me, might be surprised if Gibson cares what Meathead's conditions are for his redemption. Meathead is probably envious of Gibson's success as a director. After enjoying some early success, Meathead's career has slowed considerably.

So what if Gibson showed some Jews in a bad light, or even as evil? Are we to believe that there are no evil Jews? Hollywood has made tons of movies that show Italian Americans, Latin Americans, Middle Easterners, Southern whites, African Americans, and others as evil. Are we to believe that they meant to imply that all members of those groups are evil? That's not what I got from those movies.

I think that it is quite reasonable to assume that at some point in the history of the Jewish people that there just could have been a few, or even many, Jews who behaved badly.

Stifle Meathead!

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The Associated Press reports that Wisconsin's revenue agency sent as many as 170,000 forms to taxpayers with mailing labels mistakenly printed with their Social Security numbers.  The agency blamed the problem on a computer error. 

That's like blaming the hammer when you smash your thumb.  Having used and programmed computers since 1962 I can assure you that digital computers almost never make errors.  When they do the result is usually immediately obvious.  Most all 'computer errors' are actually errors made by the operator or the programmer.

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Keith Olbermann has a post on his Bloggermann site that demands an apology from President Bush. He claims that President Bush said publicly that "it's unacceptable to think." Of course the President said no such thing.

What the President actually said, and this is from Olbermann's post, is: "If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic," Bush said. "It's just -- I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."

Bush said this in responding to a letter written by Colin Powell in which Powell said "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." Powell wrote this letter to state his opinion about Bush and the Congress' efforts to clarify what constitutes acceptable interrogation techniques under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

Olbermann extracted the phrase, "it's unacceptable to think," from Bush's statement and made his claim that Bush had proclaimed to the world that he actually believes that thinking is unacceptable. Geez! How could this guy have an hour-long show on national television?

Aside from the fact that he took the phrase completely out of context, apparently he doesn't realize that there is more than one definition of the word 'think'. One definition is: to believe to be true of someone or something. So, using that definition, Bush's statement translates to: It's unacceptable to believe that there's any kind of comparison...

Any reasonably objective adult knows that Bush meant that he, himself, cannot accept that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective. No reasonably objective adult believes that, by Bush's statement, he believes that the act of thinking is unacceptable in general.

Using Olbermann's thought process I could take him to task for something he said in his post. He said "all of us agree." Obviously, Keith, all of us don't agree. And many of us especially don't agree with you.

Apologize, sir, for your egregious attack on the President. Anything else, Mr Olbermann, is truly unacceptable.

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From time to time I will post a collection of questions that come to mind or just thoughts that I have. Occasionally I might expand on one of the questions or thoughts in a future post.
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Why are the people who want to celebrate diversity and embrace multiculturalism not willing to accept Southern Rednecks? They definitely have a culture that is unique -- at least in some ways. And a good representation of Southern Rednecks would certainly contribute to diversity. They include Muslims in their fold, but not Southern Rednecks. Yet Muslims and Southern Rednecks are a lot alike. They are both very conservative. They both tend to be fundamentalist in regard to their religion. They both can be quite fierce when they have to defend their culture.
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More seriously, why do liberals defend Islam and fiercely attack Christianity? It doesn't seem to matter to them that Muslims tend to be much more fundamental in their beliefs and practices than Christians, even those that we consider to be moderate Muslims. Surely they don't believe that Muslims are going to support their liberal policies. A Muslim is not any more likely to vote for homosexual marriage than a Christian. A Muslim is much less likely to support women's rights than a Christian. On the whole I see Muslims as more conservative than Christians.
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There are people who believe that it was horribly wrong for Europeans to come here and occupy the land inhabited by Native Americans. There are people who condone the arrival here of millions of illegal immigrants bent on occupying the land that we now inhabit. They are, in most cases, the same people. And they don't seem compelled to justify their conflicting positions. In my simple mind it seems that if it was wrong in the first case then it is wrong in the second case. I could easier justify it being right in the first case and wrong in the second case. The Europeans occupied land that was extremely sparsely populated by numerous disparate and competing native tribes. The illegal immigrants are occupying land that is densely populated by citizens of a rather cohesive nation. Plus, there's the fact that descendants of the Native Americans are still here. How can it be right for them to be invaded again if it was wrong the first time?
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Do you actually take some special precaution when the National Weather Service posts a tornado watch? Do you know anyone who does? I don't to both questions. I don't take any special precaution even when they post a tornado warning. I don't have a storm cellar. I suppose I could climb into the bathtub, but then I could get fried by lightning. So why do they post the watches and have the TV stations stick that annoying patch over your program? They seem to do it every time a thunderstorm begins to form. I suppose they do it so that if someone gets hurt they can say "I told you so."

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The Washington Post has published it's list of "What's In and Out for 2007."  It just shows me how out of touch I am with some parts of our society.  I've never heard of 95 percent of what's going out, much less of what's coming in.  Considering the nature of the stuff they list, my disconnected existence might be a good thing.

There is one thing that I relate to.  They say that Anderson Cooper is out and Keith Olbermann is in.  They've got to be kidding! It looks like the author of the list is the one in a different world.  Olbermann is the dopiest guy on television.  I suppose dopey is in.

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