It really annoys me when the telephone company breaks into my call and tells me that I don't have to dial a 1 and the area code for this call. If they can figure out that I dialed four unneeded digits, why don't they just ignore them and complete the call?!! Perhaps this message goes back to a time when you had to manually punch in the numbers to make a call, and they thought the reminder would save you four strokes on your next call. But wouldn't you think that they would be aware that phones today have a lot of helpful features, like storing the numbers of your outgoing and incoming calls? And that these phones always store all 11 digits, whether or not the call is local for you?
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The word farther is usually used when talking about physical distance (I can't walk any farther today.) and the word further in other cases (We will discuss this further tomorrow.). So why isn't there a 'fur' to go with 'further' like there is a 'far' to go with 'farther'? Shouldn't we be able to ask: How fur do you plan to take this discussion? The English language is truly a mess.
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President Obama? Think about that people! There is a possibility that in a few years the POTUS could be named Barack Obama. Are we ready for that? Some might say that the name doesn't matter, that what he believes and does is all that matters. But it does matter. It's part of the conditioning process. Next it will be something like Hassan Nasr'Allah.
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I spend a lot of time on Townhall.com reading the opinion pieces posted there and the comments on the pieces by other readers. Several of the commenters like to quote passages from the Bible to justify their positions. I see nothing wrong with explaining why you believe what you believe. But don't expect to win an argument by quoting the Bible to someone you know doesn't accept the Bible as the true word of God. You have to come up with something else or quit the argument. Consider the following conversation:

Bob: I'm convinced that Joe is a liar.
Bill: No he's not!
Bob: Why do you think he's not a liar?
Bill: Because he told me he's not.
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I could go on and on about why tax payers should not be forced to pay for the rebuilding of New Orleans. But the first debate should be about whether or not it should be rebuilt. I contend that it should not be rebuilt. If it flooded one time it will eventually flood again -- levees or no levees. Why spend billions of dollars to rebuild homes and businesses in an area that lies below sea level, beside a huge lake, beside the biggest river in the country and not far from the Gulf of Mexico? We are not doing those people a favor by putting them back in harm's way. There will be another hurricane and we will have to do this all over again. And if the global warming alarmists are right, it could be much worse next time.

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I've long advocated that we begin a phased approach to completely shutting down the public education system. John Stossel, in a recent column on Townhall.com, seems to agree that some drastic changes need to be made. He asks, "why do we entrust something as important as our children's education to a government monopoly?" And suggests: "Instead of pouring more money into the failed government monopoly, let's free parents to control their own education money. Competition is a lot smarter than bureaucrats."

According to Stossel, the late Albert Shanker, once president of the American Federation of Teachers, said, "It's time to admit that the public education system operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve. It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."

There should be no doubt in most people's minds that public education is failing to properly educate its students. We've all heard about the lack of discipline, the lack of parent involvement and the lack of competent teachers, but there are other concerns that are important to parents (at least to those involved). When governments run schools they can't resist the temptation to indoctrinate instead of educate. Our schools today seem to be doing more and more indoctrinating that conflicts with the values of parents and communities. And there is the religion thing. Public schools have to strive to be religion neutral, and sometimes appear to be anti-religion. In a private education system parents would be able to enroll their children in a school that is compatible with their beliefs and values.

Many people seem to want to keep trying to fix public education by feeding it more money. I say that it is not fixable. What we need to do is shut it down and turn entirely to private education. Yes, that would be a rather drastic course of action that could produce chaos if not done carefully. I believe that we can minimize the chaos by implementing a phased approach:

1. Eliminate the US Department of Education and terminate all federal government involvement in education -- no standards, no anything. (The DoE has only existed since 1979. Jimmy Carter considers it one of his great achievements. That should be argument enough to abandon it.) Return all the money that the fed now spends on education to the states. Phase this out after a few years.

2. Allocate all state education funds, including the returned federal money, to vouchers. Give the vouchers directly to parents of students with the lone stipulation that the money be spent on education. Phase this out after a few years. Terminate state government involvement in education -- no standards, no anything.

3. Continue the operation of local school districts for a few years, gradually phasing out their dependence on local tax receipts and phasing in their dependence on voucher money from parents. Put the school properties up for sale to private enterprises during this process. (If a school is privatized early in the process, the local school district may have to subsidize the private school for a couple of years.) Encourage the establishment of completely new schools in the local districts to compete with the privatized public schools. When two or more schools of the same level, say two middle schools, exist in the same community, ensure that they are sold to different private enterprises to ensure competition.

4. Gradually eliminate the taxes being collected to support the school district. Abolish the local school districts. Terminate all local government involvement in education -- no standards, no anything.

5. Encourage the establishment of privately funded foundations to provide scholarships for children whose parents can't afford to pay the tuition. Solicit generous individuals who would be willing to sponsor a child through school, or would be willing to contribute fractional support (their tax bill should be lower by now).

6. Eventually eliminate the vouchers and the taxes and rely completely on tuition payments, either directly from parents or from scholarships. Rely on competition in the marketplace to keep the standards high and the tuition affordable.

This is meant to be a top-level summary of an approach to privatizing the public school system. Obviously there are a lot of details that would have to be filled in. I believe that it is doable and that it will produce a better education system than the one we have now. Some will argue that those children whose parents don't encourage them and don't actively supervise their education will not be well served in this system. I say perhaps not, but they should be better served than by the system we have now.

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Dear Ken,

Please stop soliciting me for contributions to the Republican National Committee. You have already spent the $50 I gave to you two years ago trying to get more money from me. I'm talking about just the solicitations you've sent to me. I receive at least one a week and I estimate that each mailing costs you at least fifty cents. I don't understand why you send so many solicitations, unless you own the company that handles the mailings for you. The RNC would be money ahead if you stopped soliciting me -- because I'm not going to make another contribution.

You, the RNC and the Bush Administration have disappointed me. I've voted for George W. Bush twice now, but only because there was no acceptable alternative. I think he has done a lousy job.

He has increased the size of the federal government more than any president since LBJ. He increased the budget and reach of the Department of Education when he should have reduced or eliminated its role. He created the prescription drug program for seniors, the largest entitlement program since Medicare itself. He requested and received from Congress the largest increase in the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts since 1984 (Geez, Ken, what's up with that? Was it hush money for Laura?).

He tripped all over himself trying to look like the personal saviour of each and every Katrina victim, spending billions of tax payer dollars in the process. Ken, where in the constitution does it say that I have to pay for other people's losses? Don't try to justify it based on that 'provide for the general welfare' thing. Giving tax dollars to individuals is specific welfare, not general welfare. By the way, the government didn't give money to me when a hurricane damaged my property. Now how did I manage without government help? Oh yeah, I had insurance!

He absolutely refuses to take any effective action to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border. In both his inauguration ceremonies he swore to uphold the laws of the United States of America. He has broken that oath. No effective effort is being made to round up and deport the illegals, nor to punish the people that hire them. This issue alone is sufficient reason not to vote for the Republican candidate in 2008.

He has botched the operation in Iraq. The only part of that operation that went well was the initial invasion and overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime. It started to go downhill when the Iraqi people were allowed to loot all the government buildings and when the Iraqi Army's armament was not secured. Since then either Bush or Rumsfeld, or both, have been too stubborn to admit their mistakes and change their strategy. It is clear to anyone with half a brain that Iraq's borders and cities should have been locked down immediately after the Saddam regime fell. If Bush really thought that all the factions in Iraq were going to come to him in lockstep asking for help in setting up a democracy, then ... well, what can I say?

In 2008 I will vote for a third party or independent candidate. I believe that it is time to bite the bullet and risk letting a Democrat be elected President. If we keep putting it off, then we will never have a viable alternative to the Democrats and Repulicans.

Sincerely,

Carson Sasser

 P.S.  And don't send me any more pictures of the President and Laura.

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Do candidates for political office really think they can win your vote by having a computer call you at home and play a recorded message? Apparently they do. (I was just interrupted by another automated call! What poor timing!) I don't want someone who believes these automated calls are effective to be serving me in public office. But I don't suppose I have a choice; all the candidates appear to be doing it. I wonder how many people actually listen to the message. I don't, and I'm willing to bet that it's not more than about one in a thousand. Some communications companies are making a bundle at the candidates' expense -- and ours.
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We hear a lot from the 'mainstream media' and other liberals about how much we Americans are disliked in other countries around the world. If we are so disliked, why do so many people want to come here? Do you suppose they want to come here to try to make us more likeable? It's possible, of course, that the people that don't like us and the people that want to come here are not the same people. Perhaps people want to come here because they see a greater opportunity for a better life, for them and their families, than in their home countries. But, perhaps not.

I've noticed that after arriving here many members of certain ethnic groups seem to want to convert our culture into the one they left. Assuming that they came here for greater opportunities, it seems that they would realize that the greater opportunities here are due to our culture, and that the lack of opportunities in the country they left is due to the culture there. So, if we assume that they are intelligent enough to make that association, then it follows that they came here for reasons other than improving the life styles of their families. Is it likely that many of them came here for the sole purpose of destroying our culture and replacing it with theirs? Or for some other purpose? Or are they just not the sharpest knives in the drawer?
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A few months ago San Francisco's government threw the ROTC out of all its city shcools. If San Francisco is so opposed to the military, why do they have a police department? If they don't see the need to maintain a viable military force to protect the country from its enemies, they should demonstrate the strength of their convictions by abolishing their police force. There is not that much difference between protecting a city from criminals and protecting a country from its attackers. It's just a matter of scale. (Yes, I know, they said they banned ROTC because of the military's policy toward homosexuals.)
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A reader at Townhall.com called 'UncaAlby' suggests that all laws should have a sunset clause. That is, they should all expire x years after being passed, unless reenacted by the legislative body. This is not a radical idea because some laws are already passed with sunset clauses. He points out that if this bogs legislatures down a bit, then that is a good thing. I agree with UncaAlby. We should consider constitutional ammendments at the state and federal level requiring a sunset provision on all new laws and all existing laws. It should specify that no law can remain in effect for more than five years, unless reenacted. It should specify that all expiring laws have to be separately reenacted; that is, each one has to come up individually for debate and a vote.

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Were Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft casualties of the Valerie Plame - Joe Wilson affair? Both resigned after the election in November 2004. And, according to a new book by David Corn and Michael Isikoff, both knew, as early as October 2003, that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA to both Bob Woodward and Robert Novak. That is, they both knew that it wasn't Dick Cheney, that it wasn't Karl Rove and that it wasn't Lewis Libby; and yet, they didn't inform the President -- at least not right away. Here is OpinionJournal's account of what Corn-Isikoff reports:

"Mr. Armitage never did tell the White House or his boss, the President, that he was the leaker. Instead, in October 2003 he told Mr. Powell, who told the State Department general counsel, who in turn told the Justice Department but gave the White House Counsel only the sketchiest overview of what he'd learned and didn't mention Mr. Armitage's name. So while Mr. Fitzgerald presumably knew when he began his probe two months later that Mr. Armitage was Mr. Novak's source, the President himself was apparently kept in the dark, even as he was pledging publicly to find out who the leaker was."

My question is this: Did President Bush fire Powell and Ashcroft when he learned that they had not told him what they knew about the Plame affair, and thereby allowed misinformation to run rampant for almost three years? The answer is probably no, but the whole affair raises a lot of questions in my mind:

1. Why did Powell and Ashcroft, and their subordinates, keep quiet while the affair mushroomed and people were being falsely accused?

2. Why did Ashcroft's office appoint a Special Counsel when they already knew who revealed Plame's role at the CIA?

3. Why did Special Counsel Fitzgerald investigate Cheney, Rove and Libby if he already knew that Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA to Woodward and Novak?

4. How could this whole thing run on for almost three years and millions of dollars be spent for essentially no good reason?

I say this with sadness, but I'm beginning to believe it is due to rampant incompetence. It looks as if the top levels of government are doing a lot of reacting and very little thinking, communicating, planning and managing. I hope I'm wrong.

It's also clear that many elements of the media performed very badly in regard to this whole affair, especially what is referred to as the 'main stream media'. There was a time when we could expect better conduct and more objective reporting from them, but it seems those days are over. Apparently government doesn't have a monopoly on incompetence.

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Yesterday I saw Tim Russert interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney on Meet the Press. Russert was questioning Cheney about the reasons for invading Iraq and the present status of the effort to establish a stable and effective government there. As Cheney would answer each question (rather well I thought) Russert would restate essentially the same question in a slightly different way. The image of a playground bully came to mind, an image of Russert holding Cheney face down on the ground with one arm twisted behind his back yelling: Say it! Say you lied to the people! Say you had ulterior motives! Despite the torture Cheney held his ground.
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It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that seats in the US Senate are allocated equally among the states. It seems a bit arbitrary because apparently we don't have any rules about what constitutes a state -- at least not in terms of land area or population. Does this create inequities in representation? Let us count the ways:

• California has 68 times more people than Wyoming.
• Alaska is 425 times larger than Rhode Island.
• Alaska is larger than the smallest 22 states combined.
• Alaska is almost as large as the four next largest states combined.
• Rhode Island, the smallest state, has almost twice as many people as Alaska, the largest state.
• Texas is 174 times larger and has 20 times more people than Rhode Island.
• Eleven states are more than ten times larger than the three smallest states combined.

We allocate seats in the US House of Representatives by population because they are the representatives of the people. The Senate is designed to be a kind of counterweight to the House because our form of government is a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy -- and the states make up the republic. Senators are considered to be representatives of the states and were once even appointed by the state legislatures, not elected directly by the people. I understand all that, but it still doesn't seem right that Alaska, Rhode Island, California and Wyoming all have the same number of Senators. Texas could divide itself into a hundred states and control the federal government.
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The far left keeps bringing up the fact that we have tons of nuclear weapons yet we insist on preventing other nations from acquiring them. They don't seem to understand that fairness doesn't apply when it comes to dealing with nations, or individuals, that want to harm us. Suppose one of the lefties has a neighbor down the street that wants to harm him. The lefty is well armed (yes, some of them are) and has the power to prevent the threatening neighbor from acquiring arms. Do you think the lefty will decide to make it a fair fight by giving up his own weapons or allowing the neighbor to acquire weapons? Perhaps he will. But if he does he's stupid -- especially if he has a family to protect.

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The Democrats, and others, are constantly reminding us that the Bush Administration has not captured or killed Osama bin Laden in the five years since the 9/11 attacks. Never mind the fact that the Clinton Administration failed to capture or kill bin Laden for about seven years after the first World Trade Center attack and other attacks around the world. The Democrats point to practically every other action by Bush, especially the Iraq war, as the reason that bin Laden has not been captured or killed.

I wonder too how it can be that the most powerful and most technologically advanced nation on this planet can't find and eliminate this man. But my mind turns to the possibility that there is a reason that he hasn't been eliminated -- other than not being able to find him or not being able to go into Pakistan. Considering what he has done to this country and what he proclaims he will do, it is not likely that Bush would be deterred from pursuing him in Pakistan. He would find a way to convince Musharraf that it is in his best interests to look the other way.

Consider the possibility that Bush doesn't want to eliminate bin Laden -- at least not yet. He may not want to eliminate bin Laden because they have him pinned down and are closely monitoring his communications and activities. And they may have infiltrated his organization. As long as he is isolated in a remote mountainous area his ability to manage his organization is severely limited, especially since he can't use modern communications methods. As long as he is still in charge he won't be replaced. Bush knows that if they eliminate bin Laden someone else will take over and they might not know who or where that person is.

In order to pull this off our government would have to get Musharraf to state forcefully and publicly that he won't allow our military to enter the tribal regions where bin Laden is reported to be hiding. They would occasionally stage a raid based on an anonymous tip and report afterward that the actual target escaped just before the raid. They would occasionally announce that the trail has gone cold. When one of bin Laden's operations is foiled they would announce that they just got a lucky break. They would have to do these kinds of things to make it look like they are working real hard to find and eliminate bin Laden, but not reveal that he is under close surveillance and his closest associates are giving up information -- knowingly or unknowingly. They would continue this surveillance of bin Laden until his organization falls apart or when he attempts to leave the general area.

(Although I believe that the above is possible, it is pure speculation on my part. All that I know about the search for bin Laden is what I get from the media and the internet.)

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For decades now we have been assaulted by uncountable public service announcements and organized efforts to SAVE THE TREES. We have been constantly beseeched to reduce our paper consumption and to recycle the paper that we do use. A quick internet search turns up:

• How Many Recycled Newspapers Does It Take to Save A Tree? This simple question was posed by a grade school teacher and her students in Southern California...
• Getting Committed One Tree at a Time.  Saving trees by using high quality 100% recycled paper products is something virtually all offices can do...
• Friends of the Earth. Send an e-card and save a tree...

It goes on and on. And all of it is misguided, if not fraudulent. It looks right past one important fact. Trees used for producing paper are grown on tree farms much like corn is grown on corn farms. The biggest difference is that trees take longer to grow to harvestable size. When trees are harvested for paper production the land they occupied is replanted with tree seedlings and the cycle begins anew -- just like growing corn or cotton or soybeans. Did you ever hear of a 'Save the Corn Stalks' campaign?

There is, in fact, evidence that efforts to reduce paper usage and to recycle paper are producing undesirable results. Douglas Farver, in a letter to the Northwest Florida Daily News, says: "The Environmental Protection Agency has examined both virgin paper processing and recycled paper processing for toxic substances and found that toxins often are more prevalent in the recycling processes." He also cites "The Eight Great Myths of Recycling" by Daniel Benjamin, a professor at Clemson.

I can't say for certain that paper use conservation campaigns are the cause, but at least one paper producer and tree grower is turning to land development because it is more profitable than the paper business. The St Joe Company is diverting a lot of its tree farming property in Florida to housing developments. Take a tour of its website to see the beautiful properties it is developing and offering for sale. Obviously, most of the trees on those properties won't be replaced after they have been removed.

The 'don't cut down the trees' people remind me of the 'don't eat the animals' people. I've always wondered what result the animal rights activists want. If they succeed, for example, in convincing everyone not to eat beef, won't that eventually result in the near extinction of beef cattle? Or do they think ranchers are going to keep raising cattle that they can't sell? Do they believe that cattle would rather never live than to be slaughtered at a relatively young age? If I was a forward thinking cow I don't think I'd want them on my side.

The tree huggers achieve a similar result. As the demand for virgin paper declines, the price of trees declines and land owners reduce the acreage alloted to trees in favor of more profitable crops.  That is, the tree huggers achieve the exact opposite of their desired result.

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Fox News reports that, "In July, a Border Patrol agent who was an illegal immigrant himself was sentenced to five years in prison for smuggling more than 100 illegal immigrants into the U.S. from Mexico near San Diego, some of them in his government truck (emphasis added)." I hope this is not true. Is it possible that our government is hiring illegals to guard our borders? I suppose the was means that he was a former illegal immigrant when hired as a Border Patrol agent. But would the government hire a former prison escapee as a prison guard!?
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Charles Krauthammer has written that President Bush signalled in his 9/11 anniversary speech that he intends to attack Iran's nuclear facilities within about a year. I don't challenge this assertion and I don't disagree that we might see a dramatic increase in the price of oil after an attack. But I do disagree with his assessment of Iran's possible response to an attack. Krauthammer says:

"Iran might suspend its own 2.5 million barrels a day of oil exports, and might even be joined by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, asserting primacy as the world's leading anti-imperialist. But even more effectively, Iran will shock the oil markets by closing the Strait of Hormuz through which 40 percent of the world's exports flow every day."

What he seems to overlook is the fact that dependence on oil is a two-way street. Many oil producing nations (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela...) are just as dependent on oil as are many oil consuming nations (USA, China, India...). If the US just bombs their nuclear facilities and goes away, I don't think Iran will provoke the US, and possibly other countries, into taking further military action against them. They are smart enough to know that, if they retaliate as suggested by Krauthammer, the US will destroy their Navy and blockade their coast. With no way to ship their oil their greatest source of income will dry up.
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Newt Gingrich writes that "House Republicans can create a winning agenda for November with eleven issues." He calls these issues The American Eleven. I agree with all of them except the last one: "Congress should tie education funding to school accountability." It should be replaced with: Congress should eliminate all education funding and return the function of education to the state and local governments. As I stated in a previous post, Shut Down Public Education, I further believe that the state and local governments should also get out of the education business, leaving it to private enterprises.

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Before taking the inaugural oath,
I would dismiss the staff from my campaign.
I'd trust my words and actions both,
To lead the people to vote for me again.

To be loved by all I would not strive.
For pride and patriotism across this land
Is something that I want to revive.
So for these matters I would firmly stand.

I would never feel that I should make nice
With the nations that refuse to see the danger
Posed by radical elements who won't heed advice
From their brothers not filled with the same anger.

To those that want to inflict on us so much hurt,
I would say that we might bend but will not break.
Though your boasts and slogans you like to blurt,
To think you can defeat us is clearly a mistake.

I would have no tolerance for so-called progressives
Who embrace the crushing of little babies' brains
But can't stomach the 'torture' of terrorist captives
To extract the information a depraved mind contains.

I would lock down our border with Mexico
To cut off the flow of 'undocumented workers'.
I would conduct a thorough search high and low
To find and deport all the immigration law shirkers.

I would eliminate the reason the illegals come
By finding and prosecuting those who defy the law.
For documented workers I would raise the volume
To provide a pool of workers upon which to draw.

I would insist on legislation to make it clear
That English is the right language to speak
If a better life in this country is held dear
And becoming a citizen is what you seek.

I would urge the Congress for a bill to clarify
That in taking property through eminent domain,
For 'public benefit' the takers cannot justify.
Only for 'public use' does the law pertain.

I would terminate all forms of foreign aid.
Instead I would end our tariffs and subsidies,
That handicap the poor nations by stifling trade,
Thereby giving a needed boost to their economies.

The United Nations I would completely ignore
And its funding I would seek to withdraw.
For both its actions and inactions I abhor
And it's most always led by a scofflaw.

I would kill the funding of the NEA on my first day.
Because commissioned art is not art, it's design.
Because federal funding of art is lawful in no way.
Because its coerced benefactors it strives to malign.

I would close the Department of Indoctrination
And rely on the state and local governments
To provide their own brand of education
Better suited to the needs of their students.

Every bill sent to my desk would be rejected
Until Congress gives me what I want.
To compromise is not why Presidents are elected,
So I would be extremely difficult to daunt.

I would advocate that taxes be decreased
And eliminate those that I can't sanction.
Like taxes your heirs pay after you are deceased
And taxes you have to pay on inflation.

I would constantly demand cuts in expenses
And would oppose all hikes in spending.
I would eliminate or combine most agencies
For their number seems to be never ending.

I would most likely be impeached
Before serving my first year in office
By the Congress I have constantly beseeched
To extract its head from its posterior orifice.

(In case you want to use this and you don't think the ending is appropriate for your purposes, then substitute the following ending:

I would most likely be impeached
Before my first year in office is complete
By the Congress I have constantly beseeched
To legislate without so much deceit.)

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