Here on the East coast, Europe is held up as perfect society. It’s where all of the really sophisticated people come from. It’s common to hear people talk as if they are only visiting the U.S.A., when you know they grew up just down the street. Whenever we have a scandal here, all of the “in” people snicker and point out how the Europeans are laughing at us. So? Our families all left Europe for a reason. Most of those reasons are getting more appropriate every year. Here’s an example of how sophisticated the German’s are getting these days.

If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits, By Clare Chapman

In a land where religious beliefs are no longer valid, and working at a brothel isn’t any more immoral than working retail, this is what you get.

I’ll try to write about this later, it pisses me off too much just to think about it. For full disclosure purposes I must say, my family was run out of Germany during the reformation, but no hard feelings.

Free ride — by Michael Graham
Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the most famous (and deadly) of the terrorists operating in Iraq states the mission of the insurgency so plainly even Barbara Boxer can understand:

“We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who follow this wrong ideology… Islam requires the rule of Allah and not the rule of the people or the majority… All those who vote are infidels.” The infidels, Al Zarqawi adds in the name of G-d, shall be killed.

Johnny follows discretion into history — by Froma Harrop

Listen to Zarqawi - Our enemies do hate freedom — by Jonah Goldberg

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin

It is amazing the clarity of mind and speech that someone like Benjamin Franklin seems to have had. Maybe people didn’t think so at the time. Maybe even he didn’t, but his words speak more clearly than most people today.

Few seem to grasp the full meaning of the statement above. It is easy to talk of giving up freedoms for a cause. “Just let me be safe and I’ll give up (insert civil rights here).” It’s never enough. No matter what rights you give up, the people and forces trying to control you will ask for more. They’ll keep pushing. At some point you must draw the line, or all is lost. At some point you must stand up.

Giving up freedoms seems to be any easy out, but it’s a lie. The point nobody seems to be seeing is: the forces against our country don’t respect our laws, our rights, or our sacrifice. They just want us dead.

Confederate Yankee has some good insights into the liberal animal. It’s amazing how swiftly this not so rare breed can act. They don’t hesitate to throw around grand statements about how we’d all be safer without firearms. Then they act even faster to put someone with a firearm between themselves and any perceived danger.

Some Animals Are Moore Equal by Confederate Yankee

A flip-flop from beyond the political grave
by Shape of Days

WHAT’S THE SENATE’S EX-KLANSMAN UP TO?
By Michelle Malkin

CIA PREDICTS COLLAPSE:
by Instapundit I don’t think it’s going to happen, but it’s nice to know the smug bastards aren’t doing as well as they say.

Dissenting Votes
by Cox and Forkum but then they’re always good.

and my personal favorite Persecution Or Pursuit Of Justice?
by From on High and it isn’t just because he gives me a credit at the bottom.

According to the Washington Times, China is increasing it’s presence at sea. This effort is apparently an attempt to increase their ability to project power. They are also trying to increase their ability to protect supply lines, especially the importation of oil.

China believes the U.S. military will disrupt China’s energy imports in any conflict over Taiwan, and sees the United States as an unpredictable country that violates others’ sovereignty and wants to “encircle”, the report said.

That can’t be good. While I approve of our use of military, and appreciate our strength, we sure don’t want to come up against China. While we may have a lot of advantages, more than a million men in uniform is a hard proposition to counter.

Realistically though, I don’t think there is anything we can do to improve ourselves in the eyes of China. They seem to want a perceived enemy to show their people, and we are an easy “perceived” target. If they are looking for an actual target, they should choose more wisely. We might make good scapegoats, but we make horrible enemies.

Jackson says war, poverty sap King legacy

JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) - War, poverty, violence and social injustice are dampening Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy as the nation prepares to celebrate the slain civil rights leader’s birthday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a church gathering Sunday.
By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer

Jesse Jackson claims that the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is dampened by current events in our country. The good Reverend’s legacy cannot be dampened by the troubles of our time. His legacy is the blood, sweat, and tears he gave. His legacy is in all of the people who heard about his dream. A legacy of a person like King can’t be cheapened by people not living up to his ideals, by not fulfilling his dream. His legacy is the dream, it is the goals we strive for, not the results of our striving. We may not be the fulfillment of his dream, but we are trying, and that is the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Jesse Jackson’s legacy however, won’t be so nice:

• Jesse Jackson’s Latest “Outrage” is Outrageous
• Jesse Jackson and NASCAR
• Jesse Jackson only causes controversy

Mr. Jackson started out with the words “I have a dream!” in his ears. These days he seems to be hearing “Show me the money!”

What are the odds, another serious flaw in IE6. It’s hard to keep track, what exactly do I have to do to keep my PC secure? Oh that’s right, reformat it in Linux and use Firefox. Guaranteed to close the IE6 security flaw.

I can’t believe how many serious security flaws have been found in MS products in the last few years. I realize their products are huge and convoluted, but if they are too big to make secure, maybe they shouldn’t be so big and convoluted. Making a program that actually works well and has no security flaws is probably against some MS company policy. If it worked right the first time, who’d buy the next offering?

What is happening in Washington? The Dems in Washington have always been a little clueless, but the Governors race is really screwed up. Thanks to Sound Politics for a thorough job keeping everyone informed. The Democrats screamed recount right up to the time the got a count in their favor, now they want all of the controversy to go away. If I remember the issues correctly, we have the dead voting, more votes than voters and mystery votes in empty ballot boxes. We also have the Feds suing over absentee ballots, enhanced votes, and my favorite:

He also uncovered the fact that in Precinct 1823 in downtown Seattle, 527, or 70%, of the 763 registered voters used 500 Fourth Avenue — the King County administration building — as their residential address. A full 61% of the precinct’s voters only registered in the last year, and nearly all of them “live” at 500 Fourth Avenue. By contrast, only 13% of all of King County voters registered in 2004. by John H. Fund

I’m pretty sure I missed several of the key topics here, but you can see this election needs to be held again.

Finally an opinion I can agree with on parenting. I’m not saying you can’t have problem children who were raised right, but a lot of parents spoil their children rotten, give them everything they could want, and are surprised at the children’s lack of discipline later. I do recognize that Cat and Harlan Barnard probably caused their own problem, but I still feel sympathy for them. And little respect as well. It’s difficult to step up and face a problem like that. Especially after you’ve let it run for a while. The Barnards have finally faced up to their problem, and that is the first step to solving it.

I don’t know who Ruben Navarrette Jr is, but he could be someone to watch.

Kofi Annan needs to step down. The oil for food program was a farce. Who knows how much money was funneled to Saddam through this ridiculous system. More importantly nobody knows how much money Saddam handed out, and to whom. A number of key countries and UN officials seemed to be getting money. Even Kofi Annan’s son seems to have been involved, and yet we are to believe Mr. Annan knew nothing.

Mr. Annan needs to step down because he is either a crook who oversaw a multi-billion dollar fraud perpetuated on the backs of the suffering Iraqi people, or completely incompetent. In either case he needs to get out of the UN.

If the UN has a chance of surviving this scandal, they need to clean house now, starting with Mr. Annan. He needs to leave, if only for the good of the UN he says he supports.

The usual suspects are at it again. Pushing a political agenda at the expense of others tragedy. Whether it’s a shooting in an office or school, or a natural disaster, somebody always has to make a political issue of it.

Scam artists are always quick to jump into the spotlight after tragedies as well. I’m not sure if they or the politicians get into the light first. Must be a struggle on both sides. How could someone pretend to be a charity raising money for events like this tsunami, and keep the money. Everyday see these images of destruction on TV, and know they were making money on these people’s lives.

Now the UN wants in on the money trough. Apparently after some $40 billion of oil for food money got spread around, they still feel comfortable accepting another $1 billion for relief efforts. Somehow I don’t think the whole billion will get anywhere but the UN. Overhead I’m sure.

The destruction is unimaginable. If the death toll isn’t astronomical I’ll be astounded. God Bless them all.