When first responders arrived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, one of the biggest dangers they faced was their inability to communicate with each other.

• There were three 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollars
  
• There was one new 1983 nickel (this was also the year he died)
  
• And there was a 1971 Kennedy half dollar with a black X marking out the eagle

Could this mean that he was the eldest member of a secret organization that sought to replace the government-controlled communications delivery process like the Tristero in The Crying of Lot 49?

Is my grandfather trying to tell me that he was the one who shot Kennedy because he was an elder member of a secret organization that sought to replace the government-controlled communications delivery process?

You can tear down my house, haul out all my shit to the curb, sell it off and keep it. Send your kids to college with it or do something you love to do. I've been an ass and you've earned it. But whatever you do--you'd better make sure that this little boy gets these coins. He earned them! He's a hell of a tic-tac-toe player and one day, he might just surprise you, world. So you'd better watch out!

It’s called land-value taxation, a scheme by which property taxes concentrate on land rather than buildings. The current system effectively punishes property owners who improve their lots, be it with a high-rise or a screened-in porch. Slumlords and speculators, meanwhile, enjoy lower taxes for keeping their land idle and neglected.

A quick example: The county auditor says the WKYC-TV studio on Lakeside Avenue is worth $12.6 million. Most of the property’s value ($9.3 million) is derived from its recently constructed building. The net real-estate taxes are $158,000.

A few blocks east of WKYC, on a parcel of similar size, is a parking lot. Striped asphalt is not much of an improvement, so the property is assessed at $2.1 million — and the taxes are just $26,500.

The idea of taxing land and not buildings is credited to Henry George, a 19th-century populist. George held that society made land valuable, so society should receive the benefit. He promoted a single tax on land and the elimination of all others.

Our nation's laws are grounded in the principle that we are a nation of laws, not of men. After reading the Sept. 18 article regarding "private judges," I have to question whether that axiom holds true in Cuyahoga County.

First, perhaps it is because I am not an attorney and do not speak legalese, but I fail to see where there is any ambiguity concerning the private judges' use of county facilities. The plain language of the law requires that the "parties will assume the responsibilities for providing facilities, equipment, and personnel." Why, then, should the taxpayers foot the bill when the law clearly says they should not?

Second, Rob Glickman asks why any judge would be upset with not trying a complicated case? Well, I was under the impression that part of a judge's duty was to try cases. If the judges do not like to try their cases, maybe it is time for them to seek a new profession.

Finally, implicit in the article is yet another failing of the Taft administration, which is short- term appointments to the bench. In appointing judges whom the public has rejected, the governor places another burden on the taxpayers while allowing his friends to line their pockets.

Joseph A. Amschlinger

...both research and old age tend to produce skepticism about things that look plausible on the surface. Just scratching the surface a little often makes a plausible case collapse like a house of cards.

These are what could be called "Aha!" statistics. If you start out with a preconception and find numbers that fit that preconception, you say, "Aha!" But when the numbers don’t fit any preconception — when no one believes that banks are discriminating against whites and in favor of Asian Americans — then no "Aha!"

Moreover, where there is a "problem" proclaimed in the media, there will almost invariably be a "solution" proposed in politics. Often the solution is worse than the problem.

Of course, the government can always step in and put a stop to these high-cost loans, which will probably mean that people with lower credit ratings can’t buy a home at all.

...Read the whole article here.

• Readings in local bookstores
  
• Interviews on Korby (our local Limbaugh of common sense)
  
• Internet courses at public libraries to teach the elderly how to use the Internet to receive their news.
  
• I would have RSS feeds and an opt-in e-mail newsletter.
  
• I would build a brand around this event that would set the literary community on fire in this area and have people looking forward to the Create A Classic season which should be in the colder months when more people spend time inside surfing the web.

Which Amendmen to the Constitution is more important,the First or Second Amendment?

• 75% said the First Amendment was more important
  
• 25% said the Second Amendment was more important

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag.

Through the proper use of blogs, podcasts, e-mail newsletters, and aggressive marketing (both off and online), artists now have a potential and a platform to reach billions of people each second.

How many are taking advantage of it?

Something bad is coming up,
Something troubling.
Something bad is coming up,
something from underneath.

I’m walking ‘round hysterical
I just can’t think to see
I’m feeling ‘round hylerical
but the only thing funny is me

Cause I think I’m missing out on all the good times too;
and I just can’t see myself getting to the end and looking back on it blue

And if you think you’re think you’re gonna quit well then you might as quit cause who needs you

to row a boat across the ocean if you can’t even swim so fuck off too!

©2005 Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc.

When you see the light go on

Will you stand and wait
For the looters to come?

If you stay
Then you betray
The light of faith in which you were made.

And if you break a promise you make
Your pool of light will quickly fade

And what will you do when the light goes out
And there’s nothing but you and the lock on your house?

You can’t even scream
There’s no one to hear
Echoing head, platitudes of fear.

It’s all breaking down
The crap and the crown
Ashes we keep to regrow the ground.

I want you to know
Before we all go
The push and the shove
they could have been love.

©2005 Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc.

"Just imagine our galaxy the Milky Way as a beautiful, handwritten letter.

"Now imagine pouring a glass of water on the paper and watching the words dissolve as the stain spreads. That's what the chaos cloud does to every star or planet it encounters."

To avoid widespread panic, NASA has declined to make the alarming discovery public. But Dr. Sherwinski's contacts at the agency's Chandra X-ray Observatory leaked to him striking images of the newly discovered chaos cloud obliterating a large asteroid.

"It's like watching a helpless hog being dissolved in a vat of acid," one NASA scientist told Dr. Sherwinski.

A Pentagon planning document spells out America's willingness to use nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike if terrorists threaten the US or its allies with weapons of mass destruction.

<[Exclamation Point]-- ping:[Enter trackback ping] -->

Evangelina Sanchez, a nurse's aide, said she grew ill about 3:30 p.m. that day, about a half-hour after eating two slightly burned brownies she found in the break room. Sanchez said she felt so dizzy while waiting to pick up her children from Laguna Middle School that she threw up "two or three times." Then she dozed off for two hours while her children waited to leave. When she tried to exit the school parking lot, Sanchez said she almost hit a tree.

You've got to love it when he's outside waiting for a blind date and a fat woman walks up and he's put off but relieved when she's looking for someone else. When she asks what he's so happy about; he says, "I was waiting for a blind date and I was afraid you were it."

Forty-five bodies were found at Memorial Medical Center, a New Orleans hospital owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp., the Associated Press reported. The bodies reportedly were those of patients, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals who did not provide other information. Harry Anderson, a Tenet spokesman, said they were patients who had died and were tagged after Katrina hit but before the hospital was evacuated. They were awaiting removal by the coroner and were guarded by a security detail, he said. A significant number of the patients were those of a long-term rehabilitation company that managed an LTAC in the facility, Anderson also noted. "No living patient was left behind," he said. "We evacuated every living patient before the staff left on Friday... . The coroner simply didn't show up until yesterday." Anderson said one of the great tragedies of the disaster was that fragile patients awaiting evacuation in high temperatures with no power or water no doubt died in all New Orleans hospitals.

• Visit the site of every major Revolutionary War battle
  
• Visit the site of every major Civil War battle
  
• Publish a New York Times Best Seller
  
• Meet Stephen King and have a conversation
  
• Build my dream home in Ohio
  
• Get a custom-made guitar from Ed Roman that will probably cost me about $10,000
  
• Home school my children until they can enter a private high school
  

• Build a relational database in Access with links to an Excel spreadsheet that can keep track of multiple inputs and analyses of multiple sets of data relating to multiple functions
  
• Code HTML and CSS just enough to get me in trouble
  
• Create relationships maps, cross-functional maps, and flowcharts in Visio and analyze them for process gaps and improve your work processes by at leat 25%
  
• Play guitar
  
• Beat Goldeneye on the N64 on the 007 level
  
• Make movies on my home PC
  
• Speak Chinese
  

• Change my own oil
  
• Make pie crust
  
• Wrap a present right
  
• Woodworking of any kind
  
• Hit my child
  
• Hit my wife
  
• Stay mad at my boxer dog
  

• Fuuuhhk, man!
  
• Where's my B? (nickname for my son)
  
• Hi Baby. (to my wife)
  
• Who is it? (to my dog--getting her in attack mode)
  
• Stunad!
  
• Thanks, Buddy!
  
• Hey man
  

• Jolene Blaylock
  
• Kristen Dalton
  
• Claire Danes
  
• Alyssa Milano
  
• Jennifer Garner
  
• Sophia Bush
  
• Emily VanCamp
  

Each gene variant emerged around the same time as the advent of so called "cultural" behaviours.

The microcephalin variant appeared along with the emergence of traits such as art and music, religious practices and sophisticated tool-making techniques, which date back to about 50,000 years ago.

It is now present in about 70% of humans alive today.

The other, called the ASPM variant, originated at a time that coincides with the spread of agriculture, settled cities and the first record of written language.

I would like to offer thanks to Louisiana for sending Houston a bunch more people from their projects. There was getting to be a severe shortage of drug dealers, gang members and crack whores in Houston. Now, rides on Metro, buses and rail, and the walks to the bus and train stops will become even more interesting. Our freeway overpasses were in need of some new, different, tags. Sheila Jackson Lee needed some more votes to insure her permanent position in Congress. And Quanelle X was starting to cool down too much – he definitely needed something to fire him up again.

when I tell my liberal friends that the federal rescue effort (or any rescue effort) following the hurricane involves proper planning and preparation, I’m told, by people who’ve never moved anything heavier than a table lamp and never supervised anybody other than the cook and the maid, that, of course, this is nothing, that the feds should have been there as soon as the rain stopped, and that “they,” meaning more than one of my liberal correspondents, had they been in charge, would have been there and back, more than once, before our federal effort really got underway.

They would have been ready to air-drop supplies to trapped residents, I’ve been told. But air-dropping supplies involves more than the three men who fly a C-130: it involves the mechanics who keep the plane in running order, the men who fuel it, the men who maintain the runways, the men who get the supplies to be loaded out of the warehouse, the men who move the supplies from the warehouse to the plane, the men who load it on the plane, the men who figure out which supplies are needed where, the men who coordinate all of the shipments, to get the maximum use out of supplies, the men who reorder the supplies to restock the warehouse, the men who handle the paperwork and the payments, the men who get new fuel to replace what was loaded on the plane, the men who prepare the mission plan, the men who provide the aerial coordinates, and probably a few dozen others I haven’t mentioned.

Yet, when I mention these things, and note that I’m the only person they know who has any industrial management experience, I’m told that I’m just making excuses for President Bush.

They don’t get it, they don’t understand, because they don’t want to understand.

Well, it’s pretty simple: loads of Democrats, and not a few Republicans, who have never been responsible for men and equipment ever in their lives, have been telling us how badly the President (personally) has failed. My advice: unless you are reading something written by someone who does have some experience with machinery and men and inventory and transportation and logistics, when it comes to some blowhard criticizing the federal response to Katrina, just ignore it, because the vast majority (if not all) of the critics simply have no idea what they are talking about.

new orleans was a fuck up from the ground up. and at some point the president needed to say ok im taking over for a minute because i am seeing that this red tape is strangling people. impeach my ass later but now im gonna show you how its done. but we dont have a leader in america although we have plenty of sheep

the [reichstag fire] was a fuck up from the ground up and at some point [president hindenberg] needed to say ok im taking over for a minute because i am seeing that this red tape is strangling people. impeach my ass later but now im gonna show you how its done. but we dont have a leader in [germany] although we have plenty of sheep

FASCISM: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. This system allows for private ownership of property but insists on government control of production and the option for seizure of private property at any time for the good of the state. This system also advocates the strict control of private firearm ownership as well as radical social manipulation through laws used as incentives and barriers (HINT: this is the modern Democratic Party in action except that the belligerent nationalism and racism has turned into anti-nationalism and political-correctness--but both are effective weapons for marginalizing social enemies)

• The Death Penalty
  
• Celebrities Speaking Out Politically
  

It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual--the man--has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his life, the right to his liberty, and the right to his property...The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worth living. To give him his liberty but take away from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave.

....then let's get the facts straight. President Bush had to beg the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana to evacuate the city? And they're blaming the feds for the poor response? The New Orleans disaster plan included using buses to evacuate the poor, but the Mayor never initiated the plan? And they want to blame the feds and the President for the failures?

And where is the media reporting on this? Non-existent as usual. Folks, we are getting the results we've been voting for — politicians who'd rather CYA than get the job done. And people are dying. Does voting seem serious enough now?

My name is Steve, I live (or at least used to) in New Orleans, Louisiana. My house is currently under 20 feet of water. I got out before the storm with my car, dog, and the clothes on my back. All else is lost. I am a refugee and yes, I AM WHITE. While you jackasses sit around and discuss the racial implications of a storm and flood, down here in Louisiana, we are all suffering together, black, white, asian, etc. This is a natural disaster that we in Louisiana have been warned about for years. The city, state and federal government all share some blame in this, but particularly the city for not having a plan for getting the poorer elements of the city a way out BEFORE the storm hit and the levees broke. Our city govt. has a history (particulalrly recently) of extreme corruption and inneffectiveness(?). Getting people out before a storm by buses, trains, planes, however, was the job and responsibility of the New Orleans city government, not the feds, not Bush, but the city and it failed and left its own people (and by "own people" I mean it in any and every way you can read into it) behind. Where I am here in Baton Rouge, we are trying to help, the finger pointing and race baiting can wait.

...civil society has already broken down! This is not a civil society we live in, but a profiteering, every-man-for-himself, oligarchy. The democratic process is broken if not rigged; the largest-ever redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich occurred over the last six years under the guise of economic stimulus...

Maybe bin Laden is right. Maybe we do need a cleansing. God knows we've become a spoiled, selfish bunch, whining and complaining about the conditions of our lives, blaming everyone in sight but ourselves for our troubles, all the while living better than 99% of the people in the rest of the world.

I heard one announcer (it doesn't really matter which — they're like clones spewing lines) say of the government, "They had a week to prepare before the hurricane hit. How could they be so unprepared to respond?"

I thought the same thing myself. Why didn't people stockpile bottled water? Why didn't they get together the canned goods and other things that don't spoil in the heat and can sustain you for days? Why didn't they evacuate when they were told to? Why didn't they prepare? Why did they just wait, helplessly, without any preparation at all, for the government to save them?

But the answer to my question has been staring me in the face for days. "The people" have been conditioned to depend upon the government to take care of them. Taking care of themselves never even crossed their minds.

Somewhere George Orwell is nodding sadly.

Tony,
Sorry about calling you "T." I meant no disrespect. I've re-watched four seasons of The Sopranos in the past week and it must have sunk in through osmosis.

The fact remains that if Gore were President during 9/11, he would have most likely followed the pathetic Clinton policy of taking terrorists to court supported by a United Nations thugged up with terrorist sympathizers who have been stealing and robbing from hard-working Americans whose tax dollars have been sent under the auspices of feeding, clothing, and caring for the Third World but actually went to fund who knows what the fuck--ask Kofi and his kin.

Beyond that, Able Danger has all but proven to the sensible American that Clinton was well aware of the growing Al Qaeda threat but did nothing and that Bush inherited a ticking bomb and reacted swiftly and appropriately (at least in my mind and you won't convince me otherwise so don't bother trying).

And now that intelligence agencies are fairly sure that Al Qaeda has allied themselves with the MS-13 street gang and has already smuggled nuclear weapons into the United States and are just waiting for the right time to use them, there's a big chance that your city is a major target. And what exactly do you think a Clinton/Gore/Kerry presidency would have done to prevent that from happening besides smiling a lot in front of the camera and bending over a little further for the UN and domestic terrorist cells to stick it in a little deeper?

We are talking about the future of our civilization here and you and Matt Good can talk about peace being the most important thing all you want, but the fact remains that peace without strength means less than shit and that further means that people have to go and die to secure that peace and provide you and I with the opportunity to hold virtual debates that don't end in beheadings and castrations.

Wars suck.

Hurricanes suck.

Schoepenhauer said Life is something that should not have been. But the fact remains that Life is and our entire civilization dictates that wars must be fought in order to secure peace, especially with an enemy who will grant no quarter and sign no treaty, who will not stop coming after us until their hearts stop beating.

And the fact that he was willing stand up and do something about it is exactly why I continue to support this President.

Every human being is born with the inherent right to pursue their own happiness provided that their pursuit does not infringe upon the safety or property of another citizen.

• Race: There will be no social equality until we move past the issue of race. Unfortunately the sacrifice to be made in order for this to happen lies on the shoulders of those who have been historically wronged. Those in power in America know full well the weight of the crimes of their ancestors and have done everything possible short of committing cultural suicide to make it right; that won't happen. So those who feel they are owed something need to put that victim shit aside and get on to being productive citizens willing to call bullshit if the old ways rear their ugly heads again. If they do, I'm in your corner. Until then, shut your mouth, get to work, and raise your kids to be fiscally, morally, and socially responsible to those around them. No one gets a handout in life; I don't care who your grandparents were--I care about what kind of grandparent you're going to be to your offspring.
  

• Abortion: Until there is an amendment brought forth, voted on, and passed in Congress then signed by the President, this is a state's rights issue and Roe vs. Wade was a travesty of judicial activism that has sadly been distorted into a woman's rights issue. The bottom line is that our law was never meant to be based upon judicial precedence but rather by congressional acts and the Ninth Amendment specifically delegates all rights not mentioned in the Constitution to the states or the people respectively. This is unequivocable and Roe vs. Wade should be overturned immediately and delegated to the states to legislate. Personally, I would never agree with a woman having an abortion of a child that was partly mine. Beyond that, every woman I've ever talked to who was once Pro-Choice and went on to have a child, said that they could absolutely feel that there was a life growing inside them from the beginning and that they would never get an abortion themselves or recommend it to anyone else. Additionally, the psychological damage that having an abortion has on young mothers has been well documented. I believe that the abortion issue is primarily one of economics and if you're too poor to raise them, then stay home and masturbate--do yourself and the world a favor.
  

• Gay Marriage: See the abortion answer. If you're gay and you want the state tax breaks, move to a state that votes same sex marriage legal. If you want a federal tax break, tell your elected representatives to vote YES on H.R. 25 and S.25 (The FairTax Bill). Other than that, count yourself lucky you live in a country where people just make fun of you behind your back and on TV instead of dragging you out to the public square and chopping your extremities off.
  

• The Second Amendment: Every citizen should have the civic duty of owning a firearm and knowing how to handle it, secure it, and shoot it. Militias formed of free men are the primary defense against a tyrannical government and the first act of any despotic government with a lick of sense is to seize privately-owned firearms and prevent their further distribution. Guns should be used in defense of life and private property as well as for hunting in order to keep the game populations in check and for food. And finally, Conceal to Carry laws should be passed in every state and city. It's time that gun control laws ceased to expose law abiding citizens to criminal acts by those who don't obey laws by nature of their morality and the individual choices they make.
  

• Taxes/Social Security: The principle organizing power of government is not the power to wage war (as Oliver Stone preaches) but rather its ability to tax its citizens through threat of force. The Sixteenth Amendment was "passed" as a measure of class warfare (although it started off as a political ploy and just happened to pass by a fluke) and has been exploited by ruthless politicians and various industry lobbyist groups for almost a hundred years now. The time has come to slam the door on these parasitic pricks and the only answer is to pass The Fair Tax Bill (H.R.25 and S.25). Taxes should be used to fund civic projects, civil defense, and to pay a REASONABLE SALARY to our elected public servants. The exact limits and definitions of these three responsibilities should be determined by dispassionate elected officials (see Term Limits bullet below)
  

• Healthcare/Medicare: I have spent five years working for one of the nation's two largest health insurers. For two of these years, I served as Business Systems Analyst reporting directly to an Executive Director and I've seen enough to know that the system is completely FUBAR! You have a system where the consumers of the product have no market leverage to affect the quality of what they are purchasing. In fact, health insurance companies don't even see patients as their customers; they see the corporations who employ the patients as their customers. Patients want cheap or outright free healthcare because they have no concept of the cost and value of quality healthcare. Doctors want to be paid far more than the insurance companies are offering. Employers want the cheapest healthcare possible and don't give a hoot about the quality. The answer to this crisis is: HSAs; tort reform to protect doctors and hospitals from douche bag predatory trial lawyers after reporting vital error statistics needed to improve operational processes which will boost the quality of care; the establishment of a universal risk pool to leverage the stop loss costs of healthcare for the poor and indigent (this is about as close to welfare as I will support); and the reformation of ERISA laws to apply to individuals and small businesses and not just large corporations (thereby castrating the corporate leverage as the medium through which patients have primary access to healthcare).
  

• Immigration: I believe that open borders and inpouring cultures have made America the powerhouse it has come to be. And while I realize that without slave-wage migrant labor our economy would undergo dramatic changes, I believe the threat from insurgent terrorist agents living among us is a far greater threat to the safety of our nation. Therefore, I support amnesty for illegal aliens who register for citizenship and learn the English language and what it means to be a free individual living in a civic society. Those who don't register should be shipped the hell out of this country immediately, possibly to Gitmo if they fit the bill as a terrorist intending to do our country harm. I also support the construction of a large razor wire border running across the southern border of Mexico and the northern border of Canada (wherever possible) as well as a swell of border patrol agents authorized to shoot to kill if necessary. I am more supportive of sending troops to secure our own border than I am in sending soldiers overseas to invade foreign countries and secure oil fields (which is totally necessary given our dependence on oil to operate, feed, and finance the rest of the world).
  

• Civil Defense: This is the most important function of government. Before we went to war in Iraq, we should have completely funded our civil infrastructure including local bomb shelters being built all over the country which were able to house and care for every citizen when the invetable nuclear or biological attack finally happens. We should be working to secure the borders rather than spending billions on a ridiculous missile defense shield when any terrorist with an American Express card and a hooptie can drive a small arms nuclear weapon across the border with minimal obstruction.
  

• Global War on Terror (including the War in Iraq): We are at war with an enemy who will never sign any treaties of peace; who will never stop until our entire culture and country is broken in two, the Constitution burned, and the resources of the world under fascist Islamist control. Historical mistakes combined with a defunct United Nations that has harbored gangsters and villains redistributing American funds into terrorist activities have led us into a situation where it is annihilate or be annihilated. There are times when we must take the war to the enemy and the dismantling of the Taliban and securing of Afghanistan was a primary battle in this war. But securing our civil defense should have been the next step taken, followed by the invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam's regime. Unfortunately, in retrospect, things didn't work out that way and I fully supported the invasion of Iraq when it began and continue to support it today. But I feel that once the Iraqi Constitution has been finalized and secured by vote, American troops should be withdrawn back to our country immediately to help secure the nation by building the infrastructure for civil defense and securing the US borders. And the only thing that bothers me about the fact that no biological or chemical weapons were found is that we know they were there and that the country used them on its own people--so where the fug are they? That's the question we should be asking, not why did we go to war when they weren't there--they were there--get over it and support our troops in finding out what the hell happened to them.
  

• The Proper Use of Law: The Law is the social extension of an individual's right to protect their life and property from infringement by other human beings. Civilized human beings defer this right of defense to a legislature, executive, and judicial system that is charged with securing these rights universally for all citizens, all the while retaining the inherent right to recall that delegated authority to protect themselves, their family, or their property (refer to the Second Amendment). Once the law goes beyond this barrier of protecting individual lives and property from being infringed upon by others, it has become tyrannical and must be dissolved back into the individually delegated rights from which it springs. The confiscation of private property (taxes robbed from paychecks prior to even being paid out along with eminent domain seizures and every other egregious action by a do-good government) is an abhorrence to the spiritual freedom of the individual and whose absolute prevention should be the primary concern of any half-intelligent citizen who dares to call themselves a patriot.
  

• The Quest for Oil: Our civilization runs on oil and the intelligent action to take is to encourage and promote scientific endeavors to remove our dependency from this static natural resource immediately, like yesterday. We should all be driving electric hyrbids in three years and full electric/hydrogen cars in five to ten years. Fuck the Saudi Arabians and fuck the Bush family for getting into bed with these demonic bastards who used our money to fund the 9/11 terrorists and still suspiciously remain off the Axis of Evil list. Every resource and every intelligent mind should be bent on breaking the dependence on oil as a means to move the global economy; doing so would remove enormous access to capital from the pocketbooks of global terorism, much more so than the ridiculous and hypocritical drug war.
  

• Why I Voted for George W. Bush Twice: Because he wasn't Al Gore or John Kerry. The entire Democratic Party is the pride of the ghosts of the fifties communists. The entire party has pretty much been exposed as socialists and won't regain any sort of respectable power for at least a generation--and thank God for that. Al Gore was a fake motherfugger from the beginning, a quasi-conservative who reinvented himself to go for the liberal win in a white house bid (remember when his wife was head of the PMRC going after Ice-T and 2 Live Crew?). John Kerry was an absolute idiot and I'm convinced that the GOP and Carl Rove engineered the nominational defeat of Howard Dean so that they would be up against a candidate easy to defeat on the basis of his past as a weak-spined, plastic-haired, socialist puke. The Carter and Clinton administrations weakened our ability to defend ourselves and gather vital intelligence outside of our borders and I knew a Republican Bush presidency would be a step in the right direction--a strengthening of the national security infrastructure, a rearming and further modernization of the military, and massive tax breaks for the achievers of society. That being said, it is time for Bush to go after this term. The beautiful thing is that the Democratic Party has been totally marginalized from being taken seriously in American politics for many years. In my mind, the Republican party is next to be marginalized and this will usher in a new age where the two party system is broken completely in favor of voting for individuals on the basis of their core values and how they have historically stuck to them and acted from them. BLOGGERS WITH HEART FOR PRESIDENT 2012!!!
  

• Congressional Term Limits: Four terms for congressman and two for senators. Period. End of story. Political office should be a rewarding burden and not a career. The fact that it has become a viable career option for used car salesmen and viscious trial laywers is a major problem in American life. Citizens of this country instituting Congressional term limits is the same as farmers putting up barb wire to keep foxes out of their chicken coops and pulling out the shotgun and tar and feathers when necessary. Make no mistake, embedded politicians are the enemies of the people and that's why they weren't the ones given the ultimate power by the Consitution.
  

• The War on Drugs: This is the most tyrannical and hypocritical action ever undertaken by a succession of US Presidents and their Congressional counterparts. There are instances where being under the influence of drugs classified as mind-altering or reaction-limiting should be illegal (operating any vehicle in public or inciting violence, etc.) but the government has no right stepping into our homes and dictating what we can or cannot put into our bodies given that this action does not infringe upon the life or property of any other citizen. Marijuana should be legalized, standardized to a proper cultivation, and taxed heavily to support the strengthening of our civil defense structures and operational processes. Political leaders who don't agree with this should be nailed screaming into a pine coffin and pushed out to sea.
  

• The Death Penalty: In my youth, I was much more zealous in meting out terminal punishments for the unforgiveable crimes of murder, rape, child molestations, etc. But as I've gotten older, I realize that it would be much more prudent to use these individuals to better society in some way. That could be hard labor, but I'm also thinking that you could teach them a trade and give them an entire lifetime to master the trade and learn new ways of innovation towards improving the processes and productions of society. Their penalty is losing their liberty (which is similar to losing their life). They should be given the option the entire time of taking their own life if they are too unhappy to live.
  

• Celebrities Speaking Out Against the War: I have no problem with citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to speak their minds and hearts. But the First Amendment only gives us the right to speak; it does not guarantee us an audience to hear us out. I do think that when an actor of musician bares their minds to us on a stage we payed for them to act or play music on that it does cross the line into the inappropriate--but even that I am willing to forgive. I just don't see why anyone would cut their audience in half with divisive statements when they are in the position of marketing their creative work to an audience who supports their passions and lifestyles. There are always reprecussions when they do this--sometimes it's not so bad and sometimes it's a career breaker. Proceed at your own risk. The exception to this, in my mind, is when one of these stars takes the time to publish an article or start a blog--because then, they are engaging us on an intellectual level that has little to do with their artistic platform. I actually admire it when a Sean Penn or someone else takes the time to put their thoughts on the page and takes the heat from it. That's the way it should go down.
  
  

In a stunning example of how desperate the situation has become, 25 babies who had been in a makeshift neonatal intensive care unit at New Orleans’ Ochsner Clinic were airlifted Wednesday to hospitals in Houston, Baton Rouge, La., and Birmingham, Ala. Many were hooked up to battery-operated breathing machines keeping them alive. Their parents had been forced to evacuate and leave the infants behind...