Wednesday, May 26, 2004


The UNnatural...

As much as I or some other conservative may carp about the UN, an Indian friend of mine added a bit of clarity to this issue. The UN's charter is to keep the peace and cannot take warlike actions to keep the peace. Keeping the peace includes endless negotiations and appeasement.

Where this clarity falls apart is when UN forces are deployed to keep the peace and they cannot or will not do it.

Saturday, May 22, 2004


The Wisdom of Churchill

The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

When I am abroad I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the Government of my country. I make up for lost time when I am at home.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Men stumble over the truth from time to time but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

The maxim "Nothing but perfection" may be spelled "Paralysis."

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.

It is better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing.

Sunday, May 16, 2004


Everybody's Stupid

How does it go... "Everybody's stupid, but on different subjects". The liberal elite are so intelligent, however, that they can claim proficiency in all subjects, even those they've never heard of before. Awesome. No clear-cut decisions, only statements supported by every possible obfuscation to thoroughly confuse and lord over we common folk.

What happens when conservatives call liberals on their verbal gymnastic games? We get Howard Dean's roar. Teddy Kennedy's orbital responses including calling an African American judicial appointee a Neanderthal. Give us a break!

Camel's Nose Under The Tent

Remember when only Las Vegas had legal gambling other than card rooms and race tracks? Then there was Atlantic City. Then there were the Indian Casinos. Then...Then...

So it is with the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts. The only thing missing is the false economic incentive that carried gambling into a building next to you.

Writing Pet peeve

If we are the sum of our experience, why is there this insistence that everything be thoroughly referenced and footnoted? Facts or substantiation never got in the way of the progressive thought processes, so why waste the time?

Clearly, if one lifts other's words or ideas, one must give credit where credit is due, but for the most part, this continual need to substantiate ones theories or writings undermines its originality and relegates the piece to some sort of incremental blip to the knowledge of man.

As it states in the Bible book Ecclesiastes, "There is nothing new under the sun." So it would seem that anything accumulated in our gray matter and then regurgitated in a BLOG such as this is nothing more than a restructuring of that which has gone before. How sad.

The truth of the matter is that man is seldom convinced by a footnote, but by the deeper meaning of the words he is reading. It is quite popular to publish book after book of facts and footnotes to support arguments with very little space given to vision. This admonishment applies to both sides of the political spectrum.

The trouble we have now is that some group's vision is pretty screwed up! Q.E.D.

Saturday, May 15, 2004


Liberalism

One of many issues with liberalism or progressive thought is its total lack of response to facts which determine a line of thought or program are invalid or ineffective. Instead, the standard response is to increase funding justified by the fact that unachieved results were due to underfunding or inadequate resources applied. A perfect example of this is the horrible state of public education bastardized by the perverted influence of the teachers unions.

The resistance to change in the government bureaucracy is strong no matter what the politics of the situation is, however when progressive policies take a strangler, it becomes like a spreading cancer consuming all healthy structures, public and private, in its path.

Why does this happen? It is actually quite simple. When subjective thought processes (progressivism) and objective thought processes (conservatism) clash or cross, the subjective dialog usually wins by attrition. The objective thinker cannot logically follow or counter such chaos and is more given to throwing up his or her hands, finally, or losing his or her temper due to the silliness of it all.

There is hope, however. The attack dog of conservatism, Sean Hannity, will not let his opposition change the subject or evade a direct response to his questioning. He needs to "Hannitize" more of us on this one aspect of his repertoire.

Thursday, May 13, 2004


All The News That's Fit To Print

Listening to the radio today, I heard Donald Rumsfeld state he no longer reads the newspapers, but is inclined to read books on history, etc. These comments tend to track my thinking pretty well. Only when there is a local story in the San Francisco Comical or the San Jose Murky News will I purchase a single copy. My current refuge is the Wall Street Journal for daily news consumption, first, for its conservative editorial leaning, and second, because it tends not to get carried away on various topics.

The other source of news is on the Web where I triangulate every news bit to "trust but verify." Of recent interest are the weekly writings of Dennis Prager. This week's blurb ties in well with the comments above. It is reproduced below for your convenience.

==========================================

townhall.com

Shame on the news media, too
Dennis Prager

May 11, 2004

During the very same 10 days that every newspaper and television news program in the world featured photo after photo, day after day, of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated, a government not far from Iraq engaged in mass murder, mass rape and ethnic cleansing of approximately 1 million people.

Is that more serious, more evil and more scandalous than a handful of Americans sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners?

Not to the world's news media.

To the world's (including America's) news media, the Nazi-like, racist, mass ethnic cleansing warranted minuscule attention as compared with the humiliation of some Iraqis.

Why?

The answer is as obvious as it is painful.

The world's news media are, with almost no exceptions, agenda-driven rather than news-driven.

The agendas are:

1. The political bias of the news reporting organization.

2. The monetary need to attract readers/viewers.

3. The desire to be the center of society's attention.

4. Not to be too different from other news media. As one who peruses up to a dozen American newspapers a day, I am struck daily at how virtually identical international news articles are. International reporters are like baseball players -- they all do the same thing, just on different teams.

In the case of the massive attention the news media have been giving to the stripping and humiliation of Iraqi male prisoners, all four agendas play a role, but the first one predominates.

How does this explain the tiny amount of news media coverage devoted to the near-genocide in Sudan (and North Korea and Tibet) as compared with the massive 24/7 coverage of the Iraqi prisoners?

The primary reason is the political bias of the news reporting organizations. Virtually every major newspaper in the world is anti-Bush, and most are anti-American. The desire to humiliate America (or George Bush) has deep roots. The America of those who support President Bush portrays itself as a moral beacon, and it has contempt for the moral authority of the United Nations and "world opinion." Therefore, those who loathe this American self-appointed moral role cannot pass up the chance to portray America as morally no better or even worse than other countries.

The virtually monolithic ideology that drives the world's news media should be a major concern among all those who treasure independent thought, not to mention moral clarity and America's well-being. For example, though free of governmental control, the reporting of the BBC has been almost as predictably leftist as Soviet newspapers.

The news media are numbing the human mind. The anti-American and anti-Israeli news reporting that saturates the European media is the major reason for the recent polling results that show most Europeans regard America and Israel as the greatest threats to world peace.

There is a second and related reason for the mind-numbing coverage of the Iraqi prisoners. The world's Left, which sets the United Nations' and the news media's priorities, is only interested in human suffering when it is caused by whites, Christians or Jews, especially Americans and Israelis. That explains the world's and the media's indifference to the decimation of Tibet -- it was perpetrated by Chinese; to the genocide in Rwanda -- it was perpetrated by black Africans; to the genocide of blacks in Sudan -- it is perpetrated by Arab Muslims; to the genocide in North Korea -- it is perpetrated by Koreans. On the other hand, when Israelis killed Palestinian terrorists and bystanders in Jenin, the world press was fixated on it, and the BBC declared it a "massacre."

So, too, the deaths of Arabs at the hands of Arabs -- the tens of thousands in Algeria, the hundreds of thousands in Iraq, the tens of thousands in Syria, the thousands of Arab and other Muslim young women in "honor killings" -- are of little interest to the news media, the Arab world, the United Nations and the Left. But Americans stripping male prisoners in Iraq? It is the most important story on earth.

It is essential to note that it is precisely because I believe America's role is to be a moral beacon to the world that those pictures from Abu Ghraib prison so anger me. Americans are not dying in Iraq so that other Americans can pile naked Iraqi men on each other and smile for photos next to them. The harm those pictures have done to the cause of good may be incalculable.

But it is not moral revulsion, let alone newsworthiness, that is animating the news media. One day, a Sudanese black will scour the world press archives to find out what the world was preoccupied with while her family and hundreds of thousands of other Sudanese blacks were raped, enslaved, ethnically cleansed of their lands and murdered. She will learn the world was deeply concerned with a couple of dozen Iraqi men photographed in humiliating sexual positions.

©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Monday, May 10, 2004


In Your Dreams

More Nigerian Mail/E-Mail Scams Redux...

Dr. Slater Lukoto,
DEPARTMENT OF MINERALS AND ENERGY,
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA.
Tel No: +27-73-380-4943
Fax No: +27-

ATTN: President/CEO,

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL & URGENT

It is my great pleasure to write you this letter on behalf of my
colleagues. Your information was given to me by a member of the South African
Export Promotion Council (SAEPC) who was with the Government delegation
on a trip to your country for a bilateral conference talk to encourage
foreign investors. I have decided to seek a confidential co-operation
with you in the execution of the deal hereunder for the benefit of all
parties and hope you will keep it confidential because of the nature of
this business.

Within the Department of Minerals & Energy where I work as a Director
of Audit and Project Implementation and with the co-operation of two
other top officials, we have in our possession an overdue payment in US
funds.

The said funds represent certain percentage of the total contract value
executed on behalf of my Department by a foreign contracting firm,
which we the officials over-invoiced to the amount of US$26,500,000.00
(Twenty-Six Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars). Though the actual
contract cost has been paid to the original contractor, leaving the excess
balance unclaimed.

Since the present elected Government is determined to pay foreign
contractors all debts owed, so as to maintain good relationship with foreign
governments and non-government agencies, we included our bills for
approvals with the Department of Finance and the South Africa Reserve Bank
(SARB). We are seeking your assistance to front as beneficiary of the
unclaimed funds, since we are not allowed to operate foreign accounts.
Details and change of beneficiary information upon application for claim
to reflect payment and approvals will be secured on behalf of you/your
Company.

I have the authority of my partners involved to propose that should you
be willing to assist us in this transaction your share as compensation
will be US$6.625m (25%), while my colleagues and I receive US$17.225m
(65%) and the balance of US$2.650m (10%) for taxation and miscellaneous
expenses incurred.

The business is completely safe and secure, provided you treat it with
utmost confidentiality. It does not matter whether you/your Company
does contract projects, as a transfer of powers will be secured in favour
of you/your Company. Also, your area of specialization is not a
hindrance to the successful execution of this transaction. I have reposed my
confidence in you and hope that you will not disappoint us.

Kindly notify me by telephone on 27-73-380-4943 or my email address: slaterlukoto@yahoo.ca
for further details upon your acceptance of this proposal.

Thanks for your co-operation.

Regards,

Dr. Slater Lukoto

Sunday, May 09, 2004


I Have A Dream...

Actually, I have a nightmare! It goes like this... Because the sheeple are so used to being led around via the mass media, they become programmed to vote for John Kerry. As a result, John Kerry wins by a landslide and has a mandate to...??? Anyway, once in office, he immediately starts a program to socialize medicine, raise taxes, allow unlimited lawsuits against corporations for alleged wrongdoings, resumes partial-birth abortions, stop private ownership of guns, increase the power and influence of the teachers' union, forces Wal-Mart to unionize, penalizes companies for exporting jobs, raises taxes on SUV's by 2X, allows gay marriage to be enshrined in the Constitution, etc., etc...

The remaining conservatives, realizing their way of life has been utterly destroyed, begin to emigrate from the blue states to the red states in droves. Shortly, a secession movement begins, primarily due to completely different world views and vision for our country.

Vitriol continues to build and suddenly anarchy takes over the street, and an open civil uprising and war begins. It started with a war of words, but when federal troops controlled by the blue states are deployed, the various militias that had formed in the red states take them to task.

Does this sound like a cheap Hollywood movie? No, it may be coming to a state near you. When you vote in November, 2004, use your brain, not your heart.

Thursday, May 06, 2004


It's Deja Vu All Over Again!

We keep hearing this term "mainstream media" being discussed by conservative talk-show hosts as radical liberalism's main vehicle of communication. I was very suspicious of this usage since many of the talk-show host are talking on stations owned by none other than "mainstream media". I've come to the conclusion that the talk-show hosts are sheltered as long as the ratings keep coming in. After all, the media men are, first and foremost, businessmen.

Nonetheless, after following news and editorials in the San Francisco Comical, the Murky News, the Crescent News Network, and the other alphabet soup networks, there is a constant undertow of self-righteous indignation that borders on sedition the treason in these difficult times. There is really no other way to say it. Headlines are inflammatory and grossly exaggerated and outright lies. The Comical states that the President didn't apologize to the Arab states for recent prisoner problems, but I heard "Sorry" with my own ears several times. What doesn't the Comical understand about the word "Sorry"?

What are other people thinking of this? I am aware of many persons that continue to wallow in this manure. I remember the days when Time magazine used to present a balance and slightly conservative picture of things. Now it and nearly all the weekly "mainstream" magazine have strong leftward leaning editorial staff. People who live in the San Francisco Bay Area must take pause and look at themselves and see how unipolar their thought processes have become. This IS NOT the creative and open minded place I came to over thirty years ago.

These are very sad days for our country. I pray that people will come to their senses and finally take a stand against this incrementalism that is destroying our country.

Monday, May 03, 2004


Why?

It is very difficult for me to talk or write of my feelings about the U.S. war in Iraq. No matter what is said, the pain people feel over this affair will mostly put what is said in a bad light or in a light that was not intended. As a result, there is more silence than discussion. This is not good. We need to talk about this and we need to unify opinion into something meaningful that will not put our troops in a dangerous or demeaning situation.

As just stated, it is often a case of damned if I do and damned if I don’t when expressing my support for what we are doing in Iraq. Note that I did not use the “W” word (War). So often the anti-war folks would accuse those supporting our activities as “pro-war”.

Daily, we are reminded of the body-bags coming back from Iraq. When we try to delicately remind people that the total deaths is just 1/40th of the number of people killed on our highways, we are suddenly cast in one of those “bad” lights. Even one life taken due to decisions made by others is too much, but still we have this battle of perspectives.

My principles are simple:

1. We must take the battle to the enemy’s turf and focus on “why they hate us” later.
2. Israel (even with all its warts) has a right to exist.

What is disturbing to me is the absolute and total politicization of this effort, which is undermining progress and hurting our soldiers. At the center of this is the irrational hatred of President George Bush. It is beyond the scope of this writing to explore the reasons for that, but I must restate this is irrational and slightly psychopathic in nature as it blocks reasonable discussions about threats and solutions to our safety and future of the country.

How did we get into this mess…or why do they hate us?

The progressive or liberal voices would say that it is our multinational cultural imperialism mixed with our excessive consumption of world resources coupled with our unnatural need to be the world’s policeman.

Certainly, conservative megalomania manifested in multinational corporations is a problem which is causing increasing worker displacement, when management drops the ball. Secondly, a total lack of alternative energy planning which doesn’t cripple our economy is a problem. Regarding being a world policeman, there is also some truth to that.

Now, as a conservative libertarian, I’ve come clean.

What really, really lies at the heart of the matter is progressive or liberal thought and the general populace’s inability to properly deal with it. Liberal thought is very compelling, however, left to those not using their minds, moral degradation is the result. I could derisively say that this also applies to progressive intellectuals, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Moral degradation has taken and increasingly larger sweep across our nation and the world in the last forty years.

I remember when a local jurisdiction could ban pornography from the shelves of the local stores, but the ACLU will now force it back on there based on 1st Amendment rights. Then, victims had less rights or respect than the criminals…since the criminals are victims and could not control themselves due to their past upbringing. Later, lotteries were instituted with promises of funding our schools. Now the states push immoral activity to keep the system running. Then Indian casinos started. Then, then, then… Even common sense regarding guns is whacky. When I was younger, a gun collector friend told me that any machine gun has to have certain parts disabled or welded to prevent fully automatic operation. Now, it seems everyone can buy a fully automatic AK-47 or other “WMD’s”.

Certainly, conservatives can be hypocritical about these issues, however, progressives cannot even begin to understand that there is even a problem with any of this except the one with guns.

With such a gap of thinking, only some sort of shock treatment will bring these intellectual elites back into line with reality. With them, unfortunately, there will be never ending discussions on what is reality and your reality is OK for you, etc. etc..

To settle this back and forth palaver, I would admonish people to refocus on God of the Bible, and the best way to do that is to get into his word, The Bible. There really is no other basis for discussion. It was the basis for this country and that is just fine with me.

Saturday, May 01, 2004


Another Epiphany...

As the heading of this BLOG indicates, these are "Random Thoughts From A Chaotic Mind", for sure. How is Chinese Communism like Creationism? "Boy", you say..."Now that is a stretch!" Most certainly, but let me illustrate.

Both are taking extreme positions because of either fear or loathing of the other extreme which is occurring in Christianity or could occur with Chinese Communism.

Creationism - It is a belief in the literal reading of Genesis for the origin of the universe, the earth, earth's creatures, and finally man. They stand on the creation taking place in 6-24 hour days and the earth being only about 6,000 years old. This is the most extreme position that could be taken to counter the infiltration of the bad science associated with evolution. It is their tug-of-war against evolutionism's undermining of morality, break-up of family, etc within the modern world.

Communism - Perhaps the Chinese Communists have studied the Judeo-Christian model and seen the undermining of Western morality over time. They well understand that if they were to allow democracy to take hold that they would quickly lose their grip on power and eventually follow the Western model down the sewer. Hmmm...

The Communists (read neo-capitalists) don't want to open the box of possibilities. Creationism is desperately trying to figure out how to get it closed.

I leave it to the reader to connect the obtuse.