Big Girl Pants

helping to effect real change; we're, oh, so close now...

I am certain that most of you are already aware of this, but incase it slipped your mind, please go sign this petition: http://www.americansolutions.com/actioncenter/petitions/?Guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659

it is put out by newt gingrich, former speaker of the house and head of American Solutions and is being billed as “a real change campaign to lower your gas prices.”.  with congress sitting on their hands blaming everyone from Ronald Reagan to george bush to little green men from planet mars, the price of oil (and gas) continues to increase.  this know/do nothing congress thinks that they are somehow going to lower prices by taxing the oil companies more and mandating feasible alternative energy.

this petition is very simple – it says “drill here.  drill now.  pay less.”  the official language of the petition is thus:

We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices)* by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.

a recent cnn poll found that while none are too happy about higher prices at the pump, the bigger fear of the american populace is a shortage of gas:

A CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday shows that 55% of those surveyed are more worried about long lines at gas stations and rationing than about the high prices that drivers have paid in recent months. The poll shows 40% of the respondents are more concerned about the high prices.

While gas rationing is not expected at this time, it was a hallmark of the 1970s-era energy crisis, when drivers lined up outside gas stations and sales of gas were limited to certain days of the week.

However, at that time, gas was in short supply, which is not the case today.

but gas is fixin' to be in short supply as more and more oil is REQUIRED by more and more .  and in terms of gas manufactured from oil in our country, it is in short supply already and has been for quite sometime.

we have not drilled a new well in this country since 1973.  we are the only country in the world with PROVEN oil deposits who is not allowed to go get the oil.  there are oil deposits available via adjacent drill sites in the likes of Montana that will provide us with oil in months not years and we can’t go get it.

meanwhile the esteemed [liberal] members of our current congress were just blocked by republican fillibuster from creating the very thing that most americans are afraid of.  the provisions of this bill are mind-boggling; how on earth can anyone believe that we can decrease our price at the pump by taxing the very people selling the product?  has no one in congress ever taken even econ 101?  or sat down with a pencil, some paper and a calculater for that matter.  the provisions of the bill:

The windfall profits bill would have imposed a 25 percent tax on profits over what would be determined "reasonable" when compared to profits several years ago. The oil companies could have avoided the tax if they invested the money in alternative energy projects or refinery expansion. It also would have rescinded oil company tax breaks — worth $17 billion over the next 10 years — with the revenue to be used for tax incentives to producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.

The legislation also would:

_Require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and open the way for federal regulation of traders who are based in the United States but use foreign trading platforms. The measures are designed to reduce market speculation.

_Make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.

_Authorize the Justice Department to bring charges of price fixing against countries that belong to the OPEC oil cartel.

the republicans, who generally vie with the democrats for who has the least understanding economics get kudos for this, in my humble opinion.  and, btw, they successfully blocked a broad $50m tax measure that would have extended tax breaks for wind, solar and other alternative energy development.  read the whole article here.

it's a real pity that republicans didn't take care of all of this when they had control of both houses of congress.  but this isn't really about republicans vs. democrats - if the republicans really believed that free markets were the best way to manufacture and sell gasoline, they would have made certain drilling had been legalized, refineries were expanded (or new ones created) and nuclear power plants would be in the process of being built.  however, looking for whatever silver lining i can find, i'm thankful they have recently discovered the evils of federal regulations of markets - at least in the oil markets... 

it may just be that the republicans are playing politics and getting lucky to be on the side of the what the majority of americans want.  or, it may be that the republican leadership across the nation has finally heard us and is going to reign themselves back in.  too soon to tell, but it is a step in the right direction.

while Obama and his ilk are positing that we need to end speculation, mccain and his cronies are beginning to grow a spine - at least where oil extraction and gasoline production are concerned. 

let's help them out and show them that the american people are no longer willing to let huge deposits of OUR oil go untapped.  show the republican leadership and the u.s. congress that the enivromental wackos do NOT speak for us and they do not have a louder voice than we reasonable, intelligent, conservatives.

what say ye?

he doesn't have a clue

listening to rush today i heard mark davis (from dallas, filling in for rush) talking about a video where obama comes right and says he's going to disarm our military.  i had actually seen this video before when a link to it was sent to me at the end of february - i guess i wasn't paying real good attention at that point in time.

watching the video again, and apparently being awake for it this time, really got me thinking about everything obama says in the video.  the video is actually nearly eight months old, but it's still something we shouldn't let slide by.  here is the video i am speaking of:

he starts by promising to "...end misguided defense policies" and "...fight[ing] special interests in washington".  what misguided defense policies? what special interests in washington?  hmm, not really clear on the specifics, but he does give us the list of things he's going to do:

1. stop spending $9b per month in iraq; [as the only major candidate who opposed the war from the beginning] end the war.
2. cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending
   1. cut investments in "unproven" missile defense systems; not weaponize space
   2. slow the development of future combat systems
   3. establish "independent board" to oversee defense spending so unnecessary money isn't spent on defense
3. set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons
   1.  u.s. will develop no new nuclear weapons
   2. seek a global ban on production of fissile material
   3. negotiate with russia to remove icbms from "hair trigger alert" and achieve "deep cuts" in our nuclear arsenals
4. we know where he stands
   1. fought for open, ethical and accountable government his "entire life"
   2. doesn't switch positions
   3. doesn't make promises that cannot be kept
   4. doesn't posture on defense policy
   5. doesn't take money from federal lobbyists for "powerful defense contractors"
5. as president his "sole priority for defense spending will be protecting the american people."

now don't you feel better?

let's examine his statements, shall we?

obama keeps claiming to be the only major candidate who opposed the war from the beginning, but so what?  unless i'm mistaken, he wasn't a u.s. senator on 22 october 2002 when the vote pertaining to the use of force was rendered in the senate.  you can verify this information here if you doubt me.   additionally, according to sourcewatch, while obama was running for the u.s. senate in 2004 (although he gave a public speech against the war a few days after the vote in 2002) he told the new york times that he "was not sure whether he would have voted against the resolution had he been in the [u.s.] senate."  how convenient that he forgets that waffling now.

obama is going to cut the wasteful spending of defense.  he's going to cut back on unproven missile defense spending, but advocate the spending of tax payers' dollars on unproven embryonic stem cell research.  apparently he hasn't considered that if we abandon our defense systems - whether yet proven or not - we are not going to be able to defend ourselves.  this includes obama's naivety (stupidness?) in deciding to slow our development of future combat systems and ties right into his goals about nuclear weapons.

has anyone pointed out to this chuckle head that just because we abandon defense mechanisms or slow our defense developments that the rest of the world is NOT going to follow suit?  despots and dictators are not going to say "hey, the new guy at the u.s. is stepping back from being able to defend his country, so we probably ought to abandon our pursuit of weapons advanced enough to attack them."

can't you just picture ahmadinajad and kim jung il and others saying "oh, obama is reducing his nuclear arsenal and doesn't want us to have fissile materials, so we'll stop now."  and can you picture putin from saying "yeah sure, barry, we'll dump some (most?) of our weapons and get rid of our hair trigger - we trust you to do the same, thanks for trusting us!"?

and his "independent" review board to ensure there is no unnecessary defense spending?  just how the heck is he going to pull that one off?  the only way to make it truly independent is to make certain that there are equal numbers of conservatives (not rinos) and liberals on it and to put it purely in an advisory position.  but you and i both know that if the recommendation doesn't match his beliefs he won't act on it.  and if his support of welfare, global health care and other items (including stem cell and abortion funding) he simply cannot be trusted with my tax dollars.

btw, i recall the common defense of the country being a constitutional item, but not medical research.

as for his final grouping, first and foremost, he has taken money from defense contractors in campaign donations - sure it's about 40% of the amount that mccain received, but nearly equal to what hillary received from the same group.  big whoop.  how about all the money he takes in pork for his constituents versus what mccain has taken?

in the 2008 FY obama grabbed $97.4m in pork spending for 53 projects.  projects like $1.6m for the shedd aquarium in chicago.  of course clinton was ranked much higher than obama's number 70 ranking, but mccain has zero projects and zero dollars in pork allocations for his constituents.

i'm also trying to figure out when, prior to running for the state senate in illinois, did obama have anything whatsoever to do with government.  let alone the continuous fighting for open, ethical and accountable government he speaks of in his advertisement.  we all know his infractions in judgment as to who are appropriate "friends" or "mentors".  given the duplicitnous of the individuals he has surrounded himself with his entire life is there anyone out there who believes he's for open, ethical or accountable ANYTHING??

long story short, i don't want his promises - we can't afford them from a financial standpoint.  from a defensive standpoint or from a moral standpoint.  we can't afford anything about obama.

i pledge allegience...

...to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

how many times have we heard those words?  how many of you have any question as to what the straightforward words mean?  how many of you have trained your sons and daughters as to the meaning of the words and how to give proper respect to our flag and our country?

i thought about posting on flag day and time simply got away from me - so consider this my belated flag day post.

yesterday, mr. j and i went to the new kansas city power and light district to see the new sights and grab a bite to eat.  we live in the city, only about three miles from downtown and the new sprint center but this is the first opportunity we've had to just go down and stroll around.

we parked nigel, my mini cooper, and began our walk.  as we rounded our first corner at 13th and walnut we could hear loud, driving music.  then we started noticing the hundreds of harleys and the wide assortment of tattooed and pierced people (mostly youngish guys) wandering around.

we weren't really sure what was going on with the music, but it was obviously a free concert in the square - turns our miller lite was sponsoring a group called "say anything".  it's not the worst music i've heard and mostly it's pretty inoffensive in terms of lyrics.

but this post isn't about them, it's about a t-shirt i saw out of the corner of my eye as we were walking.  i was shocked by what i thought it said and i had to stop and turn around just to be certain (and hoping against hope that i was wrong) i had seen what i thought i had seen.  i still didn't have time to read the whole thing, so this morning i googled it.  and unfortunatey, i found it.

it is apparently lyrics from another band called "nofx" fron their 1999 album "the decline" called "i pledge a grievance to the flag of the united states of A and the blah blah blah..."  let me tell you, these guys are just a real class act. i wasn't able to find all of the lyrics for the song (apparently it's 18 minutes long) but from the t-shirt:

I pledge a grievance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the republicans whom I can't stand
One nation under smog indispicable [sic]
WITH LIBERTY
FOR JUST US NOT ALL

and from what i found, this isn't the worst of their lyrics.  these guys in the band are all from san francisco - big shock there - and nearly all of their songs excoriate america and religion.  if you're looking for something to turn your stomach, i highly recommend heading over to youtube and searching out all 33 of the videos posted there.  it's a real hate fest.

anyway, during my research, i came across this story [for children] at the portland independent media center's site.  it's from portland oregon, not maine, but that matters little.  it is written by stephen devoy who lists a link to his webiste on that page but the link is invalid.  at reading this "story" everything in me wanted to explode - i swear, if this guy had been anywhere near me i may have felt the need to beat him senslessly.  but it probably wouldn't have done any good, he is so far gone.

Every morning Elizabeth joined her classmates in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. She never thought about what it meant, she just followed through with the other students repeating the words which came out like one very long run-on sentence. It was a mechanical exercise.

Today was different. A new girl, Amy, had transferred to her school from a school in another city. When the time came for the Pledge of Allegiance, she remained sitting, drawing on her notebook. No one ever gave much thought to the process before, until that day, but it was as if someone had scraped their fingernails on the chalkboard. Everyone felt very uncomfortable and they knew it was because one student was not reciting the pledge but they did not know why this bothered them.

The students began scanning each other, looking out the corners of their eyes, with an expression of incredulity. Never, in all their years, had they seen someone sit down and draw during the pledge. Amy seemed completely unaware of the tension and happily drew upon her notebook.

As they finished, the teacher looked over towards the class and was shocked to see Amy sitting there, drawing, rather than joining in the ritual.

"Amy!" said the teacher. "Why didn't you stand up with the rest of us and say the pledge?"

Amy's head raised up from the notebook. She looked at the teacher and said, "I don't say the Pledge of Allegiance. I never have and I never will."

"Amy, you are required to say the Pledge of Allegiance in this school," the teacher stressed sternly with an intense glare.

"Actually," said Amy, very calm and content, "this school is within the United States and I am not required to say anything."

Amy had done nothing. It was her doing nothing that was in question. Nevertheless, the teacher became angry and took Amy's true and sincere statement as a challenge to her authority.

"Amy, you will stay after school," she ordered.

This incident made Elizabeth feel very torn. On the one hand, Amy seemed disruptive by not saying the pledge but on the other hand, she had done nothing - literally. How could one be punished for doing nothing?

Elizabeth decided to wait in the playground after school. She wanted to talk with Amy when Amy got out of detention. She sat on a swing and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, only this time she took the time to notice what the words were and what they meant. She found the words strange and it left her with some questions.

At about 3:30, the side door of the school opened and Amy came walking out. She turned towards the road and continued walking, not noticing Elizabeth on the swings. Elizabeth ran to catch up to Amy. A few yards before reaching her, she slowed down and then stopped.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Elizabeth. I'm in your class."

Amy turned and smiled. "Hi, Elizabeth. I'm Amy. Did you wait here for me to come out of detention?"

Elizabeth blushed, "Well, um, yeah, I was, well I was wondering about, you know, the pledge and why you didn't say it."

Amy looked down and then raised her head to Elizabeth and replied, "I'm happy to meet you and everything, but really I don't think it is anyone's business why I choose not to say the Pledge of Allegiance. It's my own business and I don't need to explain it to anyone."

"You don't have to explain it to me," said Elizabeth. "I was just hoping you would because I never met anyone before who wouldn't say it. I don't even really understand the Pledge of Allegiance. I was hoping that talking with you about it would help me learn something."

The two were silent. They began walking down the street. It was fall and the leaves were turning gold and red. A dog started following them from a distance. No one knew who he belonged to, he just showed up now and then and tagged along.

"Elizabeth," said Amy. "Do you know what flags are for?"

"I haven't really thought about it," she answered, "but I was really hoping you'd tell me about the pledge."

"I am telling you about the pledge. The pledge is a pledge to a flag and that's where we should start, with the flag." Amy became animated. She was beginning to enjoy the idea of talking about it. Her reluctance was not caused by shame, it was caused by her belief that she, as an individual, has the right to make her own personal decisions without anyone having the right to demand an explanation. In this case, she saw that it would benefit Elizabeth. Since there was a reason other than a demand for an explanation, she didn't mind sharing her thoughts.

"Flags are about war," she continued. "Flags are about blindly rallying to the call of murder. My father blindly rallied to the call of murder, behind that very flag, and now he's dead. I won't let them program me in to following like a lemming over the cliff."

She was silent for a time.

Elizabeth thought about what Amy had said. She had thought she was pledging allegiance to her country, but now that she thought about the words "I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag," she could see that Amy was right.

"What about 'to the Republic for which It Stands'," asked Elizabeth.

"Whose republic?" replied Amy? Do you vote?

"No, I'm too young, but one day I will," said Elizabeth.

"Let talk about that," Amy said with a heated voice. "First of all, they are forcing you to pledge allegiance to a republic and they don't let you vote. That smacks of slavery. Later you will vote, but for whom will you vote? Two political parties have a lock on the electoral process and both represent the same class - the rich. Are you rich, Elizabeth?"

"Well, now, I'm not rich, but I'm not poor," she replied.

"The difference between you and the rich is much bigger than the difference between you and the poor, Elizabeth. The rich don't have to worry about working. The rich have complete access to the legal system. The rich can get away with things that you cannot get away with. The rich do not go off and die in wars to protect their republic, they send the poor and they send you."

Elizabeth thought about Amy's words. She was right. Her parents were always worried about their jobs. They were stressed. They feared becoming poor but they had no expectation of ever become rich. Amy was onto something.

Amy continued, "Look at the President. Are his daughters fighting in the war? Have you heard of the son or daughter of any wealthy corporate man that has died in the war? Have you seen any soldiers living well and enjoying the things the rich enjoy? You haven't because they are not rich. The republic belongs to the rich and it is paid for with the blood of the poor. It is not your republic and pledging allegiance to it is like a slave pledging allegiance to her master or a rape victim pledging allegiance to her rapist.

"Have you ever wondered why they make you repeat that pledge, every day? When someone takes an oath of office, they do it once. They don't do it every day. Pledges are meant to be taken once. When someone has you recite something, over and over, every day of your life, they seek to program you. I bet you never thought about the words of the Pledge of Allegiance before, have you?"

"No, I haven't. I say it like it's one long word..."

"Exactly. It is a program, not a pledge. The daily recital of that pledge is indoctrination. The Nazis used indoctrination. The Soviets used indoctrination. Cults use indoctrination. Do you want to be a robot, Elizabeth?"

"No, I don't want to be a robot," she replied.

"Then think about what you let them do to you. When the call to die for the republic of the rich goes out, do you want to march blindly off like a good little robot to die in the rich man's war or do you want to have the spine to stand up and say, 'No Way!'"?

A twig falling from a tree could have broken the silence, but none fell. The two walked in silence for twenty minutes. As they passed an apartment building Amy said, "This is where I get off. I'll see you tomorrow."

Elizabeth continued walking. She reached her housing track and looked at the rows of identical houses. Something had changed within her. She felt a sense of self.

The next day in class all of the children stood up to say the pledge, except for Elizabeth and Amy. The teacher glared at the two and said, "Do we have to go through this again?"

"Yes," Elizabeth replied, "I pledge allegiance to no one."

it is amazing to me, but the responses to this post are gushing over how wonderful this story is, but in my opinion it should be nothing more than fodder for the fireplace.  seriously folks, this is the kind of crap that the liberals in the education system are teaching our children. 

however, i'll let you (my gentle readers) decide what you think on your own.

gotta love the marines...

i'm going to preface this by saying that i have no way to prove that this was written by a real marine.  i have checked snopes and they have nothing on it, but i am posting it regardless.

Message from a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
 

7 April 2008
 
It's (expletive) freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave.  Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.  I also glance at the area around my a$$ every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting.  I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them (expletive) scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a ba$tard.  The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
 
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water.  That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy.  I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.  It's all about intelligence.  We haven't even brought in the snipers yet.  These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for.  We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.
 
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit a bloody ear into his face and plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe.  But you know me, I'm a romantic!  I've said it before and Ill say it again: This country blows, man.  It's not even a country.  There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government.  This is an inhospitable, rockpit (expletive) ruled by eleventh century warring tribes.  There are no jobs here like we know jobs.  Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army That's it.  Those are your options.

Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that's your idea of a party.  But the smell alone of those "tent cities of the walking dead" is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.  And let me tell you something else. I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbek's and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns.... actual, living Huns!

They LIVE to fight. It's what they do.  Its ALL they do.  They have no respect for anything, not for their families or for each other or for themselves.  They claw at one another as a way of life.  They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor.  Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism.  (Expletive) cavemen with AK 47's.  Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.
 
I'm freezing my (expletive) off on this stupid (expletive) hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. 

Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right?  Do me a favor, write a letter to CNN and tell Judy and Bernie and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban "smart."  They are not smart.  I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is "cunning."

The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines.  They are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly.  They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft.  Yeah, they're real smart.  They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil.  They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter.  Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.  OK, enough.  Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole.  Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I'm good at it.
 
Please tell my fellow Americans to turn off their TV sets and move on with their lives.  The story line you are getting from CNN is utter (expletive) and designed not to deliver truth, but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials.  We've got this one under control.  The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here because you have no idea what we' re doing and, really, you don't want to know.  We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

You wanna help?  Buy some (expletive) stocks, America!

i posted this message because it's important, and from the guys i've known who have been there it fits with their thinking and experiences.  i believe it is also all the more timely because of whom our choices are between for the next potus.

i hope you enjoyed reading this and that you'll help to spread the message.

immigrants fail to assimilate, threaten our national identity

over the weekend i attended a send off program for the daughter of my most liberal friend.  her daughter, we'll call her holly (20-year old soon to be college senior), is every bit as liberal as her mother - possibly more - and she is heading to sierra leone to work with the school sisters of notre dame on their long-standing education mission to that country.  i think this is a wonderful move for her and should be very humbling in terms of what we have vs. what "they" have.

holly and i had a long conversation on monday when she came over to get a long silk/linen scarf to take for her head covering (to help keep her hair out of her face and keep her cool) and a travel pillow.  i love this girl for so many reasons, but one of the things i love most about her is her ability to debate logically.  one of the things that so infuriates me is her ability to take a rational point in a debate and fail to see or understand how it can and should be applied.  it's the liberal thing.

in our conversation we were talking about the places i've been and her previous two trips to italy and the places we'd both like to go.  somehow (i'm not sure how) the talk turned to the "plight" of immigrants here, there and everywhere.  because, let's face it folks, it is NOT just the united states that is having a tough time with illegal immigrants.

anyhow, holly said something fairly profound that really got me thinking.  in talking about the instability all over africa, she said "do you know anything about tanzania and how it got things mostly stabilized?" to wit i had to answer "um, no, not really."  so she told me to look it up because they had done something "so amazing" to help engender a feeling of nationalism that was working on a grand scale.

for those of you who don't know a whole lot about politics and stateism in africa, suffice to say that a great deal of the strife and fighting on that continent is caused by age-old tribal rivalries.  the fact is that imaginery borders were put into place and countries named and tribes were told to "you now belong to this country or that country" with told disregard of the status of relations between the various tribes being sent to this country or that country.

many of these countries were "founded" in the 1960's or even later.  a majority of people in those countries don't think of themselves as somalians or sierra leonians or even tanzanians but as members of the various tribes.  for instance, tanzania is made up of more than 125 tribes and each has its own language and identity.  not only that, it is actually two separate countries (tanganyika and zanzibar) combined into one with a unified republican government formed by the governments of the two countries.

there is quite a bit of interesting information here if you're interested.  it talks of the differences between the tribes, between women and men, the economy and just about everything else you never wanted to know about tanzania.  it also mentions a few times that the national language is kiswahili (go here to learn about it); english is the language of the government and higher level jobs.  apparently the "amazing" thing they did in tanzania was to establish the national language to elevate a sense of country.

what a concept, eh?  so i said to holly "this is the exact reason intelligent, logical people in our country are pushing for english to recognized as the official national language of the united states."  and she said?  "well our situation is a bit different and we need to honor the different cultures of those who immigrate here by not forcing them to speak the language of the majority." 

huh?  if there is anyone out there who can make sense of that convoluted statement, please comment and explain it to me.  i surely don't get it.

but the whole conversation and my subsequent reading on tanzania got me to thinking about how similiar the united states is to those african countries.  we're every bit as much of potpouri in terms of our cultural make up as any of those countries - the primary differences being that our states (and country on the whole) were self formed and the majority of the people here are here because they choose to be so.

think about it.  we're a melting pot.  we have people here from all over the world.  each comes with his or her own language and cultural identity.  each is looking to do more than merely survive - seriously folks, why would someone move to a new country if they don't have any hope to do better there than in his or her country of birth?

when this country was in its formative period as colonies, it was primarily a subject of england.  thus the majority of people here spoke english as their first language.  as new people moved here from germany, italy, china, japan, mexico, france, spain, greece, russia and so on and so forth they arrived speaking languages that were not english.  but because the majority of people spoke english and business and government were conducted in english people learned english.  this was true even BEFORE we became an actual independent country.

this doesn't mean that some of them didn't continue to speak spanish or german or italian or mandarin at home, but it wasn't a language they could use in the outside world of the united states (previously american colonies).  they may have kept some of the traditions from "home" but they didn't expect the rest of the population to adopt their traditions or eradicate traditions that had come into existence (or accepted) here.

today, in the united states, the majority of people still speak english as their first language.  business and government is primarily conducted in english.  and yet english is not our official or national language.  but why not?

in our schools we teach (or attempt to teach) those whose first language isn't english in their language.  officially we call it "english as a second language" (or esl), privately i call it sheer stupidity.  people can't learn a language by getting a new word each day ala sesame street.  people learn a language by using that language.

but here in our country the pc crowd has determined that immigrants will do better if we help them to hang on to the national identity of their former country.  huh?  this is just illogical and devoid of all common sense.

nearly 100 years ago, in 1919, theodore roosevelt penned these words:

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

these are sage words even today.  but too many think they are passe or ancient thinking or maybe it's simply that they are unapologetic in their sentiment that is good to be an american.  one other thing that teddy said that sticks with me is this

"We want to make our children feel that the mere fact of being Americans makes them better off... This is not to blind us at all to our own shortcomings; we ought steadily to try to correct them; but we have absolutely no grounds to work on if we don’t have a firm and ardent Americanism at the bottom of  everything."

and this statement emodies everything that is emotionally tied to being an american.  we are better in that we welcome more people of more cultures and nationalities than ANY other country in the world.  we recognize that there are things we need to work on and we do.  we work at our weaknesses at the personal, local, national and international level.  and we are, for the world's elite, the most reviled nation in the history of the world.

even the elite of the world want to come here.  even they recognize the opportunity and freedom available here.  so why do they want to change that?

i don't know anyone who is against all immigration into our country - i'm not saying those people don't exist, i just don't know any of them.  i do believe that the media, some immigrant support groups and some of our friends on the left, are trying to portray those of us against illegal immigration as being against all immigration.  but this is simply isn't the case.

i realize that it may be scary to come to a new country and leave behind all that you know and all that is familiar.  but how much worse it must be to come to a new country and still try hold on to everything you knew at "home".  i guess that is the primary motivation behind those who refuse to assimilate, but they are truly missing the point of coming to the united states.

people coming to this country - from anywhere else - and not becoming fluent in the language and the history of the country is a bad thing.  it lessens the immigrant's chances for an excellent, successful life and it weakens the fabric of our country.

when i was halfway through this post, i found a post on this subject over at my good friend donald's place (american power) and asked if i could crosspost a portion of it here - thankfully he acquiessed.  you can read his whole post here, and it's well worth the time to do so, but here are the important parts:

in his post, donald quotes from the important samuel huntington (of "clash of civilizations?" fame) article, "the hispanic challenge":

"The media offers up a steady diet of data about current immigration from Mexico, and much of it consists of "averages" regarding English-language skills, income, home-ownership rates, education and so forth. But while digesting these figures, it's important to keep in mind that Latino immigration is ongoing. These averages are snapshots of a moving stream and therefore of little use in measuring assimilation. To properly gauge assimilation, we need to find out how immigrants in the U.S. are faring over time. Only longitudinal studies that track individuals can provide that information.

"Just looking at averages can give you a very distorted view of who's learning English or dropping out of school or climbing out of poverty....

"The reality, however, is that the longitudinal studies show real socio-economic progress by Latinos. Progress is slower in some areas, such as the education level of adult immigrants, and faster in others, such as income and homeownership rates. But there is no doubt that both assimilation and upward mobility are occurring over time. With respect to linguistic assimilation, which is one of the more important measures because it amounts to a job skill that can increase earnings, the historical pattern is as follows: The first generation learns enough English to get by but prefers the mother tongue. The children of immigrants born here grow up in homes where they understand the mother tongue to some extent and may speak it, but they prefer English. When those children become adults, they establish homes where English is the dominant language. There's every indication that Latinos are following this pattern. According to 2005 Census data, just one-third of Latino immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well. But that proportion climbs to 75% for those here 30 years or more. There may be more bilingualism today among their children, but there's no evidence that Spanish is the dominant language in the second generation. The 2000 Census found that 91% of the children of immigrants, and 97% of the grandchildren, spoke English well."

donald also quotes from a u.s. news article, "mexican immigrants prove slow to fit in"  which shows that the question maybe a bit more complicated than huntington purports:

In the heart of California's iconic Orange County—home to Disneyland and the bourgeois teens of MTV's Laguna Beach—is troubled Santa Ana. The county seat of 353,000, where nearly 6out of every 10 adults over age 25 lack a high school diploma, suffers from crippling poverty and an explosion in crime. In 2004, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government placed Santa Ana at the very top of its Urban Hardship Index—officially dubbing it worse off than Miami, Detroit, Cleveland, and Newark, N.J. With 76 percent of its population Hispanic, mostly Mexican immigrants, Santa Ana is the poster child for the troubles of the country's immigration policies and of Mexican immigrants in particular.

Now, a new study lays bare what sociologists and others have long argued: Mexican immigrants are assimilating to life in the United States less successfully than other immigrants. Sponsored by the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, "Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States" by Jacob Vigdor, a professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University, introduces a novel assimilation index that uses census and other survey data to measure how similar select immigrant groups are to native-born Americans. Using such factors as intermarriage, English ability, military service, homeownership, citizenship, and earnings, Vigdor assembled a 100-point assimilation index. The closer to 100, the more assimilated an immigrant group. Overall, the report shows immigrants are weaving into the American fabric at a remarkable clip, despite arriving poorer and knowing less English than immigrants of a century ago. And they are gaining speed, with new arrivals assimilating faster than those who came more than 20 years ago. With a score of 53, Canadians are the most assimilated, followed closely by Filipinos, Cubans, and Vietnamese. The main outlier: Mexicans, with a score of 13—followed by Salvadorans.

Why Mexicans are faring so poorly in the United States is complicated, experts say. But the root of the problem is no surprise: Many Mexicans are here illegally, depriving them of rungs on the economic ladder and the opportunity to gain citizenship. "There are certain jobs or certain services you just can't get [as an illegal immigrant]," Vigdor says. "There are plenty of indications here that for those Mexican immigrants who are interested in making a more permanent attachment to the United States, their legal status puts very severe barriers in that path."

this may explain why the actual immigrant is failing at assimilation into americanization, but what of their children - even the "anchor babies" who are american citizens?  what of the children of the anchor babies?  thanks to the vagaries of esl, we have second and third generation americans who do not speak english fluently - in some parts of the country even naturally born americans of hispanic (primarily mexican) origin speak poor english with a spanish accent! 

how do you explain this with anything other than they value their association with mexico more than with the united states?  how do you see theese results and still cling to the notion that esl is the best way to educate these people?

in his paper titled "english language proficiency and wage rates of mexican immigrants" from 2002 (Download jeremy_sanford_2002.pdf), jeremy sanford proposes that english language deficiency is a large determinant in the wage gap between mexican immigrants and u.s. natives or even other immigrant groups:

"Mexican immigrants tend to be segregated somewhat from the rest of US society; some 42% of Hispanics lived in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods in 1990 (Chiswick and Miller, 1999). This is probably because of choice; immigrants feel most comfortable living with those who speak their language and share their culture. However, in choosing to live with other Mexican immigrants, they are choosing to live with people who have, on average, relatively little education, low English language skills, and scant earning power. Thus, employers will be less likely to open businesses and stores in Mexican neighborhoods, and simply by choosing to live among other Mexican immigrants they are choosing to live in economically depressed neighborhoods. Even the best and the brightest of the Mexican immigrants may be “pulled back” towards the 'average' Mexican and may earn less than they might have had they not been Mexican."

however, further in the u.s. news article the author posits:

Indeed, in a unique multigenerational study spanning four decades, Generations of Exclusion, sociologists Edward Telles and Vilma Ortiz found that many immigrants and their children had made slow progress assimilating for cultural and economic reasons. A large community means a large dating pool: Only 17 percent of third-generation Mexicans studied had married non-Hispanics. The authors found adult Mexican-Americans in the third and fourth generations lived in more segregated neighborhoods than they did as youths, largely because of the many new immigrant arrivals. Educational levels, meanwhile, lagged behind the national average. However, English ability was nearly universal, even among first-generation immigrants, which should ease the concerns of some lawmakers who want to make English the natural language. Significantly, though, 36 percent of fourth-generation Mexican-Americans studied could still speak Spanish.

i have been unable to ascertain what standard is used by the sociologists, edward telles and vilma ortiz, to determine "...english ability was nearly universal even among first- generation immigrants..."  i have been unable to find any other study or author who puts forth this notion.

still further in the u.s. news article:

Perhaps most telling: Of the approximately 1,500 surveyed in two distinct immigrant communities—Los Angeles and San Antonio—most identified as "Mexican" or "Mexican-American" even into the fourth generation. It's that kind of cultural signifier that has so many white Americans concerned that this is a group not interested in becoming American.

wow - ya think?!?

donald continues in his post that as santa ana's "city's population is 76 percent Hispanic with 53 percent foreign born - the city's literally a classic microcosm of the phenomenal sub-national trends in demographic diversity giving way to ethnic homegeneous-hegemonic dominance."

but, as donald observes, should just talking about this stuff get you branded as racist?

donald contines by saying:

Lou Dobbs

is not my favorite. He's a political opportunist and grandstander on immigration, and his "war on the middle class" segments are unhinged on issues of economic mobility and trade. But some of his reports on immigration are indeniably accurate in detailing the problems of local commuities around the country in tackling out of control immigration .

And because of reports like these, the nihilist left-wing of the open borders operation is up in arms about the media's "

fanning" of anti-immigration racial tensions:

 

This criticism's not compelling, considering the radical left's open-borders movement, with its recent

May Day protesters in Los Angeles, for example, hoisting Che Guevara banners and Mexican flags in a sea of green and red.

(See also, Heather MacDonald, "The Immigrant Gang Plague").

What happened to the American flag? Must not be too popular for

the La Raza set.

Here's a hometown rebuttal:

This idea of America being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Americans, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language, and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become a part of our society, learn the language!

in the b

usiness week article from 15 march 2004, "Hispanic Nation: Hispanics are an immigrant group like no other. Their huge numbers are challenging old assumptions about assimilation. Is America ready?" the authors begin by telling the story of anchor baby maria velazquez and her immigrant husband carlos saying:

The Velazquezes speak fluent English and cherish their middle-class foothold in America. Maria and Carlos each earn about $20,000 a year as a school administrator and a graveyard foreman, respectively, and they own a simple three-bedroom home. But they remain wedded to their native language and culture. Spanish is the language at home, even for their five boys, ages 6 to 18. The kids speak to each other and their friends in English flecked with "dude" and "man," but in Cicero, where 77% of the 86,000 residents are Hispanic, Spanish dominates.

The older boys snack at local taquerías when they don't eat at home, where Maria's cooking runs to dishes like chicken mole and enchiladas. The family reads and watches TV in Spanish and English. The eldest, Jesse, is a freshman at nearby Morton College and dreams of becoming a state trooper; his girlfriend is also Mexican-American. "It's important that they know where they're from, that they're connected to their roots," says Maria, who bounced between Spanish and English while speaking to BusinessWeek. She tries to take the kids to visit her parents in the tiny Mexican town of Valle de Guadalupe at least once a year. "It gives them a good base to start from."

based on the information further down in the article this is fairly typical of the mexican immigrants.  it's a great article and one i highly recommend anyone concerned with the effects of unbridled/illegal immigration read.

essentially as mexican immigrants are coming into the states at an estimated 400,000 persons per year.  i say estimated because we really don't know what the actual number is because of the illegals.  additionally, they are reproducing at a rate of 3% per annum vs .8% by all other groups except muslims who are reproducing at a rate 5% - but that's a whole other discussion.

assimilation for mexicans and other hispanics is not really aided by the american society in general.  from mandated esl classes in the public schools, to street signs to government forms (including voting ballots) to private industry "selling in spanish", we are enabling an entire segment of our society to "opt out" of being/becoming american.

america was not founded as a "nation of immigrants" but rather as a nation of freedom and independence and self-sufficiency.  she (and we) have always welcomed those who yearn for freedom and want to be americans.  but freedom isn't free - along with the rights afforded by our constitution, there is the duty of being a active and productive member of society.

how productive or active can you be as a member of american society if you have broken the law to get here?  how productive or active can you be as a member of american society if primarily honor only the traditions of the country you left to come here to better yourself - from flying the mexican flag to eating primarily mexican foods to surrounding yourself with spanish speakers from your home country?  how productive or active can you be as a member of american society if you don't actively seek out relationships with people outside of the hispanic community?

unless we act decisively and soon we will fulfill the words of one other thing that teddy roosevelt said: 

"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, or preventing all possibility of it continuing as a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."

and then what will become of us?

my girl, angel, is posting on this very issue over at her place - go check it out.

observations from africa on the agent of change...

yesterday, while playing blog golf i came across this post from patrick.  patrick posted a few sections of the letter from africa and it got me thinking.  and searching.

for those of you who are frequent visitors you know that i have pretty much sworn off the politics of this year's presidential elections.  however, i have been watching, with no small degree of amazement, the circus going on between obama and clinton.

prior to this excercise in research that i have been engaged in since patrick's post got stuck in my craw, i was decidedly AGAINST voting for john mccain as potus.  however, based on the information i have unearthed, i have decided that i absolutely must change my position if it is barack hussein muhammed obama who is handed the nomination by the dnc.

i apologize, in advance, for the length of this post; but not the content.  quite simply this is information that we must get out there and we need to make this post go viral.  the letter mentioned above, in its entirety, is here:

Thanks for sending out an alert about Obama.

We are living and working in Kenya for almost twelve years now and know his family (tribe) well. They are the ones who were behind the recent Presidential election chaos here.

Thousands of people have been displaced by election violence (over 350,000) and I don’t know the last count of the dead.

Obama under “friends of Obama” gave almost a million dollars to the opposition campaign who just happened to be his cousin, Raila Odinga, who is a socialist trained in East Germany. He has been trying to bring Kenya down for years and the last president threw him in prison for trying to subvert this country!

December 27th elections brought cries from ODM (Odinga Camp) of rigged election. Obama and Raila speak daily. As we watch Obama rise in the US we are sure that whatever happens, he will use the same tactic, crying rigged election if he doesn’t win and possibly cause a race war in America.

What we would like you to know is what the American press has been keeping a dirty little secret. Obama IS a Muslim and he IS a racist and this is a fulfillment of the 911 threat that was just the beginning. Jihad is the only true Muslim way. We have been working with them for 20 years this July! He is not an American as we know it.

Please encourage your friends and associates not to be taken in by those that are promoting him. It is world wide jihad. All our friends in Europe are very disturbed by the Muslim infiltration into their countries. By the way. His true name is Barak Hussein Muhammad Obama. Won’t that sound sweet to our enemies as they swear him in on the Koran!

God Bless you.

Pray for us here in Kenya. We are still fighting for our nation to withstand the same kind of assault that every nation, including America, is fighting. Takeover from the outside to fit the new world order. As believers, this means we will be the first targets.

Here in Kenya, not one mosque was burned down, but hundreds of churches were burned down, some with people in them, burned alive.

Jesus Christ is our peace but the new world order of Globalism has infiltrated the church and confused believers into thinking that they can compromise and survive. It won’t be so. I will send you a newsletter we sent out in February documenting in a more cohesive manner what I’ve tried to say in a few paragraphs.

Celeste and Loren Davis

celeste and loren davis are, indeed, missionaries serving in the kenya area. you can  read about their missions here. in an email, mr. loren indicated to me that this was a personal email sent to a friend of theirs in response to some information sent to them on obama; they had no idea the information had begun to be disseminated to the world wide web.

yesterday i sent the following email to celeste and loren in attempting to verify the accuracy of the information in the posts.

recently there is a letter circulating the internet titled “a letter from africa” that is pertaining to barrack Obama and it is attributed to the two of you.  is this a legitimate letter?

please advise, as if it is, I will be blogging on it in the near future…

thanks so much!  and god bless you both in your endeavors.

heidianne jackson
blogging at http://biggirlpants.typepad.com

the response from mr. and mrs. davis was swift and informative:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: combineharvesting@hotmail.com
To: combineharvesting@hotmail.com
Subject: FW: see attachments and Washington Post/Obama
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:22:36 +0000

This was a personal e-mail sent to a friend . It was in response to an email we had received regarding Obama. We did not know it would hit the worldwide web.  Since it has, here is some more important information on Obama you won't find on the net.

ODM mentioned in the cartoon is the same party as Obama's cousin, Raila Odinga.  Raila had the 100% backing of the Muslims and should he win would make Islam the only recognized religion in Kenya.  This is an extension of the battle that is going on in Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and 9-11. 

It appears Obama is using the same strategy as his cousin Raila used in America.  We see the  same thing happening here.

See google: Raila Odinga Barak Obama cousins, Dick Morris Raila Odinga, Muslims Back Obama   

Loren and Celeste Davis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please see the following important ATTACHMENTS:

The MOU, “Memorandum of Understanding” between Raila Odinga and the Muslim leaders to make Kenya an Islamic nation. 

Download railas_agreement_with_muslims_page_1.jpg

Download railas_agreement_with_muslims_page_2.jpg

Download railas_agreement_with_muslims_page_3.jpg

The cartoon in Kenya’s Nation newspaper regarding Obama being the ODM’s candidate for president in the U.S.

The list of donors to Raila’s campaign.  Note the one underlined “friends of BO”.  This $1 million  gift is from the friends of Barak Obama.

Download obamas_gift_to_raila.jpg

July 3, 2006 Houston Chronicle, an article was published by Jim Hoagland, a Pulitzer prize winning syndicated columnist who writes for the Washington Post.

The article is headlined:  “THIS WORLD CAN’T TOLERATE MORE RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE”

Hoagland quotes Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into UNIVERSAL, rather than RELIGIOUS-SPECIFIC VALUES.  “NOW THIS IS GOING TO BE DIFFICULT FOR SOME WHO BELIEVE IN THE INERRANCY OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES.  But in a PLURALISTIC DEMOCRACY, we have NO CHOICE.  Politics depends on our ability to persuade ea. Other of common aims based on a common reality…AT SOME FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL, RELIGION. DOES NOT ALLOW FOR COMPROMISE.  It’s the art of the impossible.  To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy-making on such commitments would be a DANGEROUS THING.”

Hoagland says, “Obama’s words could easily be adopted as well as guidelines for all gov’s in the Middle East and elsewhere”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the information provided gave me the places to look to find even more pertinent information.  the article has a great deal of other "interesting" ideas but it seems it is no longer available at the houston chronicle unless i have an online subscription (i don't).  a link to it in its entirety is here.  the attachments referenced by mr. and mrs. davis are linked if you click on the title of each one above.

on 11 january 2008, this story ran in the u.k. telegraph.  some pertinent information from the article by mr. mike pflanz:

Kenya's defeated presidential challenger Raila Odinga has claimed to be a cousin of Barack Obama and said that they had discussed his country's post-election violence.

• Kibaki offers talks with Kenyan rival Odinga
• Obama senses victory as voting begins

Mr Odinga, 63, said that the US senator's father, from western Kenya's Luo tribe, was his maternal uncle.

"He has called me to talk about the destabilising constitutional crisis in this country, despite being in the middle of the very busy New Hampshire primary," Mr Odinga said yesterday.

Mr Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs confirmed that the senator spoke to  the Kenyan opposition leader on Monday afternoon for about five minutes before going into a rally in New Hampshire, according to Associated Press.

and then:

Mr Obama has not commented on the Kenyan opposition leader's claim to be a relative.

and finally:

Mr Obama's uncle, Said Obama, said that his village, Kogela, in western Kenya, had been spared the violence and expressed his excitement as his US relative led polls in New Hampshire's Democrat primaries.

"Ah, that's wonderful, but I don't want to jump just yet," Said Obama told AP.

listen to odinga making the claims with his own mouth.  too bad he didn't decide to follow in the footsteps of another of his relations - check it out here - it seems that the esteemed dick cheney and obama are distant relatives.

from another story in the u.k. telegraph is this tidbit:

It is said there is a bitter joke among Kenya's Luo community that the United States of America will elect a member of their tribe as president before the East African country does.

not very funny to me.  how about you?

writing for the conservative voice, michael gaynor had just a slew of interesting tidbits, a few of which are below:

• "--Raila Odinga is of the Luo tribe to which Obama's late African-Arab Muslim father belonged. Obama's older brother still lives there; Abongo 'Roy' Obama is a Luo activist and militant Muslim who argues that the black man must liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture. He urges his younger brother, Barack, to embrace his African heritage. Barack Obama has a Kenyan grandmother [gaynor's note: according to Kenyan usage, not a biological grandmother] and several African brothers and sisters as well.
• "--Odinga claimed the election was rigged when he lost, then there were riots and a sort of civil war, but it was the Christians who were getting killed by the Muslims. Christians were burned alive in churches and they were macheted in the streets. It is reported that 1,000 people were killed when all was said and done. Right now, Odinga is claiming the presidency and fighting to be sole president, and in a diplomatic effort, the powers that be allowed him to be co-president until the election is figured out.
• "--Odinga also had an interesting political strategist help with his campaign, an American, who used to be a campaign employee of Bill Clinton's. It is the first time that an American political strategist has worked on any Kenyan campaign. Recommended by Barack Obama?

• "--Raila Odinga's official presidential website is similar to Barack Obama's, and Odinga's main campaign message and slogan is: CHANGE. Vote for Change. Agent of Change. Look at his website: http://www.raila07.com/

there's so much more there and i encourage all of y'all to go read the whole thing.  but how about odinga and obama both being "agents of change?"  stop the aclu has a great post on this very thing, too.

a quick google search on 'muslims back obama' 827,000 items were returned in less than .19 seconds.  hmmm, looks like there is some readily available information out there. 

items like this article from the council on american-islamic relationship's (cair) website.  in highlighting a convert to islam's (julia shearson) thoughts, the article says:

CAIR is not endorsing specific candidates, but she sees the move towards Mr Obama, by the young in particular, as part of a wider awakening.

i also liked this article and all its links.  this article from the canada free press also got my attention and is well worth the read; one of the most salient nuggets is:

As a fledgling Christian, Obama didn't join just any church. He joined the United Church of Christ.

The United Church of Christ is very anti-Israel and supports divestment. It also sponsors speeches at its many functions by the Arab "Christian" pro-terror religious organization, Sabeel. Sabeel holds some of its biggest meetings in Chicago.

further

Is the "New Face" theory espoused in USA Today, New Face as in the "Portrait of Dorian Grey"?

What if Obama's into Pious Fraud Islam–Hudaibiyah treaty "kiss the hand of your enemy until you can cut it off"?.  Not Obama? Remember the pictures of the little kids bobbing their heads up and down at the madrassas? They are all of the age Obama would have been in back in Indonesia.

judi mcleod finishes her article with:

Meanwhile hype notwithstanding, "the new face of change and reform for the democratic party" is no Abe Lincoln, but could be the most upwardly mobile Muslim of the millennium.

debbie schlussel certainly furthers the argument that obama is a muslim or at the very least is viewed as a muslim by the muslims.  the good people over at frontpagemag.com agree with her.  here.  here.  and here.  but i think this is my favorite evidence that the muslims are supporting obama's run for potus.  this picture really does say it all.

folks, the evidence is overwhelming.  this is NOT a smear campaign.  this is fact.  and if you're not motivated to vote against obama by voting for mccain, then you are being just plain stubborn.  please do not take this as an all out endorsement for john mccain; in fact if obama doesn't get the democrat nomination i still probably won't vote for mccain.  but if he does, i'm voting for mccain.  i hope all of you will join me.

in the course of my research i have been introduced to whole new gang of bloggers and i am infinitely better for the finds.  i encourage all of you to check out the following links: the baltimore reporter, conservative thoughts, death by 1000 papercuts, and jaspar jottings.

i have diligently researched every statement and link within this post.  it is my intention to not only inform, but also to inflame and motivate others out there who may be where i was.

btw, angel is blogging on how the fight to stop islam invading our country is racist.  check out her post and let her know you were there.

part 3 of a much needed history lesson

sorry for the long break - my clients are just NOT cooperative with allowing me time to blog as i would like!  oh, goat, please let me know if the type is large enough for you now...

when last i wrote, we left off just prior to the last two paragraphs of section 3 article 1 of the u.s. constitution.  the second to the last paragraph reads as such:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

but what does it mean???

in federalist paper #65, alexander hamilton speaks about the dangers of an elected body determining the veracity of the charges against the official.  he says:

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

and then:

The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves. The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will as readily be perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.

in other words, the members of the constitutional convention gave this task to the senate because the senate was not an elected body.  the members' appointment by the legislature of each state meant that this body was less likely to be beholden to whims of political factions and more likely to adhere to the guidelines of the law, deeming it "sufficiently independent":

Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel CONFIDENCE ENOUGH IN ITS OWN SITUATION, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an INDIVIDUAL accused, and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?

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recently there is an email recently circulating titled "how long does the usa have?" and it basically says that because we were founded as a democracy we are bound to commit suicide as a nation soon.  i've seen other versions of it in the past, but here's the current incarnation of it:

Download how_long_does_the_usa_have.pdf

the whole premise of this argument is flawed in that we were not founded as a democracy as this whole series is pointing out.  but it is interesting in what it shows in the stats for the 2000 u.s. presidential elections.

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you see, our founding fathers recognized the tinder box that could be ignited if there were a perceived (let alone actual) bias in the execution of the trial of impeachment.  for this reason alone, they wanted a large number of persons deciding the fate of the accused and they did not want this to fall to the supreme court with hamilton stating that "...the supreme court would have been an improper substitute for the senate, as a court of impeachments."

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