The Hilton NY government is using a dirty trick that you should watch out for where you live.  They have raised the assessments of the houses in the town by 6.7% (judging by my assessment, anyway).  Then they keep the percentage they multiply the assessment by the same, and declare that they have held the line on taxes.  They used this same dodge for the school taxes and for the property taxes.  I guess they figure that since most of the residents of the town are products of the public school system, they can be easily duped.  In many cases they're probably right.

 

Keep an eye out for this one.

 

 

 

Egomaniacal businessman Jack Davis is once again threatening to become my Congressional Representative.  Having failed to defeat the respectable and workmanlike Thomas Reynolds (R-NY), he hopes to succeed him.  Two years ago, when he last attempted to unseat Mr. Reynolds, he called for the immediate withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.  Since then, the surge has been a great success, the combined American/Iraqi forces are everywhere successful, the Iraqi government has made great progress in conciliating the country -- and Jack Van Winkle Davis still is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all of our troops.  Even Hillary Clinton (D-Hillary Clinton) realizes that this would be a disastrous blunder.  But not our would-be Rep.

 

I know better than to expect much from New York Democrats, but couldn't they find a candidate who's actually been awake sometime in the last two years?

 

 

 

 

Pundits across the board are reading the meaning of (and occasionally reading their own opinions into) the Heller verdict, which declared the obvious fact that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the individual's right to keep and bear arms.  With all of the learned and not-so-learned commentary we've received so far that I've read, none of it has addressed the most worrisome fact of the decision to a good freedom-loving conservative like me.  What concerns me is the 5-4 margin.

 

The 2nd Amendment reads "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."  To borrow from a Solar Pons mystery story by August Derleth I read in a Alfred Hitchcock collection many years ago (thanks to my sister Judi, who bought it for me), the meaning of the amendment "is as plain as a pikestaff to anyone not seeking riddles in it".  Since the debates on the Amendment established that the militia consisted of "the whole people, minus some public officials" (I quote from memory here; if I have the wording wrong I'd appreciate hearing about it), the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed to the population, not just to those enrolled in an organized militia.  Liberal law professor Lawrence Tribe is just one of many lefty law professors who admit that no other interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is possible.

 

Yet the Heller case which affirmed this self-evident truth only produced a 5-4 margin in favor.  What this tells me is that the four liberal block(head) justices are ever-ready to vote to deny our Constitutional rights, no matter how plainly stated in the wording of Constitution itself, any time it is counter to their own leftist principles.  They will assassinate your freedoms whenever their purposes will be served.  It was only the vote of the court weathercock, Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose votes can only be predicted by astrology, that kept the court from, in essence, declaring the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution unconstitutional!

 

To this pass, then, we have come.  Our Supreme Court now consists of four admirable justices (Chief Justice Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito), four leftist assassins (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer), and a weathercock (Kennedy).  On these our liberties depend.

 

Do you find that reassuring?

 

 

Evry once in awhile, my wife forgets to turn to Fox News when I come home from work, and I'm often exposed to a few seconds of Charles Gibson's Liberal News Tonight before I can reach the remote.  This happened a few nights ago, and I found my blood pressure spiking when old Propaganda Charlie led the broadcast with "...the evidence is mounting that global warming is causing the Iowa flooding" (I'm not certain of his exact wording).  Maybe he means that the evidence mounted from 0 to 0.0.  He may be as ignorant in math as he is in science.  At any rate, truth isn't what Charles Gibson is about, anyway.  He's a perfect successor to Peter Jennings, the late and unlamented anchor of ABC News.  He's not about telling the news, he's about influencing opinion -- by lying, if need be.  In my view, people like Gibson are as big a threat to our future as any foreign enemy.

 

Just call him Charlie Goebbels.

The global warming crowd is always eagar to tell us that natural disasters are either man-made or a manifestation of the abused planet's wrath.  I see the recent terrible flooding in Iowa as a sign from an angry God.  He is telling us"I gave you corn for food and oil for fuel.  What makes you think that I got that backwards -- I, the Lord?  As long as you are stupid enough to take food and put it into your gas tanks, I will put it underwater!"

 

Heed my words, mankind, and beware God's wrath...

 

 

 

I'm sorry that Tim Russert died so young, but the enconiums to his even-handed unbiased approach to the news and to his show are beginning to nauseate me.  A blogger named Cassandra has not been swept up in the tsunami of bathos, and gives several examples of Russert's leaning-to-port approach.  I never forgot the two times I saw Newt Gingrich on Russert's show.  Russert could barely contain, and could not conceal his hatred for his guest.  He never - never - spoke to a Democrat like that, at least not in the years I watched him.

 

I'm sorry he's gone so soon, and I wish him well in the hereafter, but the reaction of his fellow reporters to his passing reminds me once again of one of my favorite definitions in the Devil's Dictionary (Ambrose Bierce):

 

Saint (n) -- a dead sinner revised and edited.

 

 

 

Republican Senator John McCain, who is a dim-bulb when it comes to energy policy, declared that he would never support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (aptly referred to by Mark Steyn as the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge), saying that the area should remain "pristine".  Jonah Goldberg of National Review (who has actually journeyed to that barrendesolation) informs us that "pristine" means "unspoiled, virginal, in an original state".  Actually, the area that we'd be drilling in is "In summer, ... is mostly mosquito-plagued tundra and bogs ... In the winter, it reaches 70 degrees below zero (not counting wind chill, which brings it to 120 below) and is in round-the-clock darkness."  (This is quoted from Goldberg's June 13th article.)  To me, it sounds like one of the few places on earth which could be beautified by carpet-bombing.

 

Virginal?  I'll wager that very few places on earth are as completely screwed...

I had a nasty thought this morning.  Has any enterprising reporter or Republican operative thought to check whether the OPEC nations are funnelling any money to the Democrats to "persuade" them to keep restricting our own oil industry?  We know they're spending millions to influence our education system.  I see no reason to believe that this is an impossibility.  After all, the leader of the Senate election efforts is Charles Schumer of New York, and he may be the greatest scoundrel and liar in the country.  He is, however, not stupid.  When he is telling lies, it's because he's sees profit in it.  Maybe this profit is measured in campaign cash.

 

Someone should take a look at this possibility.  Our country's future demands it!

I've seen a few reasons advanced for the Democrats' opposition to the Columbia free-trade agreement.  Some have to do with unions, some others have to do with dislike for President Uribe (sp?).  Personally, I think it's because Uribe is trying to cut off the flow of cocaine into the United States, and this raises the price, which takes money out of Democratic pockets.  After all, the Democrats think that the way to lower gas prices is to continue to keep locked up the undeveloped oil, natural gas, and nuclear resources of the country, while raising taxes on the oil companies which would be only too happy to make energy more plentiful (and thus more affordable) if they were allowed to by Congress.  They also think that the oil development that they restrict will be increased if they take away the tax incentives for oil exploration and development.  This is the Democrats' traditional economic theory -- increasing taxes increases economic performance by the taxed.  This is rather like saying that a greyhound will race faster if you cut off one of his legs.

 

C'mon, they have to be on drugs!

 

 

 

Another tiresome assertion that Democrats rely on is that our overthrow of Saddam Hussein and our continued involvement in Iraq is "a distraction from the real war on terrorism".  First of all, I deny that liberating 27 million people from a blood-soaked tyrrany can ever be a mistake.  Secondly, as a largely self-educated American who knows his history, I am astounded at how few lives were lost in the performance of such a great work.  The Korean War cost roughly 34,000 lives (I'm going from memory -- I'm at work).  Vietnam, about 55,000.  The Civil War cost a nation of about 32 million population 620,000 lives. (Of course, we were both sides of that war, but still...)  Iraq has cost roughly 4,100 lives, and we have eliminated in one way or another at least 200,000 terrorists, according to careful students of our Iraq front.  I think this has worked out rather well, as the terrorists have been saving us the bother of hunting them down around the world.  They have been coming to Iraq on their own to take their lumps.  It's better for us to have them go to Iraq than to hunker down where they are -- or come to America.  Iraq has become our terrorist bug-zapper.

 

 

 

Thomas Sowell wrote a few years ago that perhaps the greatest threat to our country's future is the economic ignorance of the average merican.  He was right then, and it's even worse now.  We now have a majority party in Congress entirely elected by economic idiots, and run by same.  You could take all of the economic intelligence of the Democratic leadership in Congress, put it in a thimble, and still have room for your thumb.  I suspect that if you aspire to be in the Democratic leadership in this Congress, and you've taken any economics courses in high school or college, that's a disqualifier.

 

(Actually, I take that back.  Taking economics in school wouldn't be a disqualifier -- as long as you failed the course.)

 

Wednesday June 11 -- Little did I know as I wrote the above that last night the Democrats would take another whack at destroying our economy by destroying our energy supply.  Last night they tried to eliminate the tax incentives that the gas companies would recieve if the imbecile Congress would let them explore for and develop new oil fields (we have billions of barrels of domestic oil supplies locked up that we know of), and they also tried to confiscate the oil companies' profits, which they also can't spend on exploration and development because of the idiots in Congress.  Fortunately for all of us, the Republicans in the Senate rallied their forces to stop this fantastically wrong-headed proposal in its tracks.  The GOP is not completely worthless, no matter what my libertarian friend Tony may think.  

 

 

 

Have you noticed that the global warming scam-peddlars (sp?) have stopped referring to carbon dioxide being spewed into the air?  They just call it "carbon" now.  They want to conjure visions of little bits of coal in the air, which can't be healthy, right?  They don't want you to remember that carbon dioxide is an integral component of air, and furthermore that it allows plants to grow!  Do you remember those neat little drawings in your science textbooks?  The ones that showed arrows going back and forth between plants and people?  I know that science education in the schools has slipped since I went to grade school, but the science hasn't changed.  The "deadly greenhouse gas" carbon dioxide is still necessary for life on earth, and it always will be.

 

By the way, have you seen the PSA on "climate change" with Rev. Pat Robertson and "Rev." Al Sharpton?  Pat Robertson is a decent man, but he has always been a scientific ignoramus.  My wife watches the 700 Club (Robertson's show) on Wednesdays, and tells me the health advice they give.  I always ask her if she's going to watch a fitness channel next to get tips on theology.

 

 

 

Economics 101 time.  When the Democrats, in their one great acheivement of their majority status so far, raised the minimum wage, economic experts warned that raising the wage would result in fewer opportunities for unskilled laborers and teenagers in the job market.  Guess what?  The latest economic figures showed a decrease in the number of new unemployment claims in the last week, but an 10% increase in the unemployment rate?  This was caused by an influx of teenagers into the job market, where there were no jobs for them, because the minimum wage is now fixed higher than the value of the work they would provide to their new employers.  Raise the price of a commodity, you diminish the demand.  Fix the price of a commodity above its value, and you eliminate demand altogether. 

 

To the Democrats, the obvious is always mysterious.

 

 

My wife tells me that one of the reasons to have your own blog is to vent when venting is necessary.  I suppose she's right.  What follows may offend, but I hope it's taken for what it's meant to be -- sour humor, for the most part.

 

 

 

A riddle for you:  What do Al Gore and Stephen King have in common?

 

The answer is that they have both made themselves fabulously wealthy peddling scary fiction.  (The difference between them is that King admits he's authoring fiction.)

 

 

 

Several conservative columnists have written lately about what a gaffe machine Barack Obama is.  It is becoming clear that the Senator from Illinois is not as bright as his media cultists have told us he is.  They all note the "57 state" blooper and the "I see dead heroes" blooper, but none of them seem to have picked up on the "malaise" speech blooper, in which he said that Americans, being just 3% of the world's population, cannot continue to use 25% of the world's energy (which is not in itself a finite amount anyway).  Let's see...

 

The American population recently passed the 300 million mark.  The world's population is now estimated at 6.66 billion souls.  300 million divided by 6.66 billion and converted to a percentage is not 3% -- it is 4.5%.  I hope I'm not the only person who caught this, or we're in even bigger trouble than I thought.

 

 

 

Before we leave the subject of Sen. Obama, I wish to advise anyone who wonders why people like myself are so distressed by his friendship with Billy Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn should go to the library and borrow the book "Destructive Generation", by David Horowitz and Peter Collier.  This should answer their questions, although checking FrontPageMagazine for the latest on this evil duo would be wise, also.  If your library does not have the book in their collection, burn it down.  (Not really -- I'm venting, remember?)  They should hav it -- it's a very important book, if you value the truth of the 60's g-g-generation.

 

 

 

I heard from my wife that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-ementia) had brain surgery today.  It's a good thing I am no longer the grouchy atheist Hermit Crab I used to be.  That fellow would have said that this is the first evidence we've had in years that Tipsy Teddy has a brain.  He'd have said that it must have been microsurgery.  He'd have said that it's too much to ask to expect him to wish for a complete recovery for that evil sot -- that the legacy of Sen. Ted is one dead passenger (Mary Jo Kopechne), millions of dead Southeast Asians (after Teddy helped persuade the Congress to turn our backs on our brave allies fighting for freedom and their very lives), and tens of millions of dead babies (victims of abortion, and receivers of no help from the Senate's premier "liberal").

 

That old grouchy crab would have had a point on the latter.

 

This Christian Crab wishes not for the death of Sen. Kennedy, but the reverse.  However, I also wish for his earliest retirement from the Senate.  Senator Kennedy, you have wrought enough damage already.  Let us at last have done with you.

Since New York has yet to pass a Right to Work law, I am forced to belong to UNITE-HERE #2714.  Like most unions, they have asked that we contribute our votes to the Democrats, and our dollars to the union PAC.  I will do neither, of course.  Before you do either, please consider the following:

 

President Bush and the Republicans lowered all tax brackets with his tax cuts in 2001 (or 2002, I can't recall for certain).  If you're in the lowest tax bracket (and if you're represented by UNITE-HERE 2714, you probably are), your federal taxes were lowered by at least 50%.  The Democrats, who hate tax cuts the way Indiana Jones hates snakes, insisted on a sunset provision which stipulates that all of the tax cuts expire in 2010.  The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel (D-NY), has stated publicly that he knows of none of the Bush tax cuts that should be renewed.  This means that unless future actions prevent it, the taxes of those in the lowest bracket (such as myself) will go up at least 50% (see next item). 

 

One of the tax cuts pushed through by President Bush was the elimination of the "marriage penalty"; that absurd provision that allowed a married couple to deduct less of their income from taxation than can an unmarried couple living together.  This is not only grossly unfair; it is destructive, for it discourages marriage and encourages "shacking up".  If this tax reform and the tax rate cuts are not made permanent, married couples in the lowest bracket will see their taxes increase by over 50%.

 

Another pleasing tax reform of the Bush administration was the gradual repeal of the hated "death tax".  Many people were outraged to discover that after a taxpayer had spent a lifetime earning and saving money (money already taxed once at least, please note), Uncle Sam's vultures could swoop in and take up to 55% of what they didn't get the first time.  Among other lamentable results of this infernal tax, this has led to the loss of many family farms to major farming industries.  The families have had to sell the family farms in order to pay the death taxes.  Against this the honest soul revolts.  Sadly, too few of those souls reside in the Democratic leadership.  They wish to revive even this monstrous exaction.

 

Another tax that the Democrats want to "jack up" is the capital gains tax.  Without turning this into an economics seminar, capital gains are the amount in value that your holdings attain when their value increases.  To the average union member, this generally means your stocks and other investments.  Do you have a 402k?  Perhaps an IRA?  Others assets you may sell at a profit someday?  Then you're "on the target" for this Democratic tax hike, too.

 

To his shame, presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain voted against these tax cuts when passed earlier this decade.  To his credit, he now realizes that the cuts should be made permanent.  Characteristically, both Sen.Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Clinton (D-NY) have responded to questions about retaining the tax cuts with stale class-warfare rhetoric and evasions.  They don't dare tell you that they intend to boost your taxes, and everyone else's as well.  They tell you again this year that they're only going to raise taxes on "the rich".  You fell for that in 1992.  Did you learn anything from that?

 

The union have been participating in and supporting demonstration aimed at obtaining amnesty for illegal aliens, so that they can work in the country whose laws they've already broken.  If they succeed, they will increase the supply of cheap labor in the US by millions.  Does anyone know what happens to the price of a commodity when the supply is rapidly increased?  That's right.  It goes down.  My union has participated in these demonstrations, perhaps yours did as well.  Why, you must be asking.  Why would the union officers push for an amnesty for illegals that would exert downward pressure on wages for union workers?

 

This is the dirty little secret of the illegal alien issue.  You see, if the amnesty goes through, your wages may go down, but the union top brass will have the chance to get millions more union members, and union members pay dues to whom?  To the union officers, of course!  More money for them, less money for you.  Just in case you wondered whose interests they really work for...

 

(Annoyingly, Sen. McCain is just about as wrong as the Democrats on this issue.  I give you the above so that you can find out why your union is betraying your interests on this issue.  If they are.  I know that UNITE-HERE is betraying their members.)

 

(An aside -- although this isn't strictly on point, my conscience demands I make this point:  to those that say that we need the addition of illegal laborers to our work force because of a shortage of workers, I would point out that if we hadn't been massacring our own infants for the last 35 years, we would have all of the workers we could need.  People are an asset, not an expense.  At any rate, man ought never to attempt to play God, particularly when you consider how poorly he plays man.)

 

After 9/11, it belatedly became clear to most Americans that perhaps we had better pay closer attention to what terrorist murderers are telling each other before they strike.  President Bush requested that the telecommunications companies co-operate in attempts to thwart the next attack(s) before we had to try to identify the victims in the smoldering ruins.  Most of the companies (it may have been all) did their patriotic duty and agreed.  I think that most normal Americans can agree that if someone within our borders is communicating with a known terrorist or terrorist organization outside of our borders, the safety of our citizens demands that we find out why. 

 

However, since some of the sleazier trial lawyers and their far-out pressure-group friends want to sue the phone companies for doing their patriotic duty (and breaking no law), and since the trial lawyers and the far-outs fill the Democrats' campaign coffers every election campaign, the House Democratic leadership prevented the House from considering the renewal of the law authorizing this needed surveillance unless the trial lawyers would be allowed to sue the phone companies for the supposed violation of Americans' Constitutional rights.  (They have yet to inform us which article of the Constitution protects the right communicate with terrorists outside of our borders.)  This inaction has hobbled our intelligence-gathering (and thus our citizen-protecting) ever since.

 

I think most of us would agree that it is in our best interests to keep tax rates as low as we can keep them, that the marriage penalty and the death tax are unfair exactions that the generation of 1776 would never have born, that we should get as much compensation as we can attain for our labor, and that one of our federal governments prime obligations is to protect the safety of our citizens.  One of our major parties is on the wrong side of all of your interests.  Odds on, this is the party your union wants you to support with your votes and dollars.  Before you do, you should insist to your union officers that they explain to you why you should betray your own well-being in order to promote theirs.  Ask them if they really expect you to think that you're undertaxed, too safe, and paid too much for your work.

 

(For more information on the Democrat's House Budget Resolution for fiscal year 2009, see this article at the Heritage Foundation's Website.  For information of interest of current and potential union members, see the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.)

 

 

 

 

 

I am leaving the ever-expanding world of blogging.

 

I apologize to my friends, and to those kind enough to have left positive comments on the site.  I simply find that in a webland of a million or more bloggers, I can find no justification for the time I spend reading the news, so that I can post my opinions for very few to read.  I do not wish to bandy insults with the tiresome (only one so far, but their name is legion), nor do I wish to disappoint the kindly-disposed with infrequent, frequently hurried postings.  If I ever write again, it will be regular articles or perhaps a book.

 

My thanks to Townhall.com for the opportunity to blog at a well-respected site.  I suggest you obtain your news here.  Fine blogs are authored by Jay Nordlinger at NationalReview.com, and by James Taranto at OpinionJournal.com.

 

I leave this world of bloggers now, to devote my life to my God, my wife (she won't mind listing behind God), the Knights of Columbus, and to whatever good I can do in the world.

 

May the Lord bless you all.

In memory of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who was killed by court order three years and two weeks ago, I re-post an essay I wrote and posted to my old website at the time.  I regret to say that none of the things I thought then needed to occur have in fact occurred.  Rest in peace, Terri.  (By the way, I am now reading "Terri's Story: the Court-Ordered Death of an American Woman", by Dianna Lynne, a World Net Daily reporter who covered the whole tragic story at the time.  I intend to write more on this subject when I've finished the book.)

 

 

 

I had despaired of being able to write anything worth reading about the death of Terri Schiavo. How to find words that would express my grief, horror, and rage? I felt like I could. Should, MUST write something, but what could I write that other, better writers would not write?

Fortunately, as the new Christian Crab, I have resources that I did not have before, other sources of inspiration. I was watching the made-for-television drama Jesus, starring Gary Oldman in the title role, when I realized what was missing in the coverage that I had read so far. What follows may not be great writing, but it will be intensely personal and very sincere.

As virtually all of us know, Terri Schindler Schiavo died at 9:03 March 31, 2005 A.D. Terri was a victim of the truest form of tyranny, which is the rule of law without God. Difficult as this resolution is to follow, I resolve not to weep for Terri. She is safe with God the Father, and nothing shall ever harm her again. I fear not for her; I fear for us and for our culture. I fear that this may become “the title page to a long, tragic volume” (John Quincy Adams).

When respect for God is absent, the checkrein on the arrogance of man is removed. I heard and read of many people claiming that Terri was not really alive, and that “no-one would want to live like that”. The arrogance of such a statement is subtly breathtaking. We are mere mortal men. Who are we, with our puny knowledge of the mysteries of life, to declare with such pomposity on the quality and the worthiness of the life of another? We are not God; we are a creation of His mighty hand. So was Terri Schiavo.

Actually, even as the atheist Hermit Crab, I had rejected the arguments of the so-called “death with dignity” crowd. We truly had no idea of what Terri herself thought of her life after her catastrophic injury. We do not know what her definition of fun had become. I watched the tapes of Terri interacting (and she DID interact) with her family. She clearly enjoyed the attention of her family. She was not in the excuse-this-judicial-murder term, "persistently vegetative". Beware of such terms of art. The art is killing.

Did I know that Terri was enjoying herself? No. Nor did those who were determined to end her life. I remember at such times the admonition of Ronald Reagan on the subject of abortion. He wrote in “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation” that “If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.” Those who demanded the death of Terri Schiavo did so despite the fact that her body was alive, her brain was damaged but was not “dead”, and in the full knowledge that she would not die absent the action that they demanded. There are presently 25,000 adults and 10,000 children in this country alone dependent on the same sort of nutritional assistance that Terri received. Are their lives now in jeopardy, too? I see no reason to believe otherwise. This goes beyond tragic -- this is horrifying.

As to the figures involved in this tragedy, duty requires that I write briefly of them, but it is not my purpose to undertake an extensive study of the legalities of their individual cases. Others shall handle and indeed have already handled this task far beyond my poor powers. (If this facet of the case interests you -- and it absolutely should -- I recommend the writings of Andrew McCarthy and of Wesley Smith.) God will deal out His judgment and His justice to them in His appointed time. For now, our greatest concern ought to be to find a way to prevent their doing further harm to their fellow citizens.

Michael Schiavo ought to be watched closely for the rest of his days. If Terri’s death brings him earthly wealth (and it has been noted that he has never answered the question of whether he had life insurance on Terri), everyone in the world ought to be made aware of this fact. Apart from that, the man should be shunned like the moral leper that he is.

George Felos needs to be disbarred. No man ought to be allowed to use the courts and the legal system to inflict death upon the innocent and helpless. Too late for Terri, articles have begun to appear in the press on this man’s bizarre fixation with death. Articles have also been presented showing how often and how badly he misled the courts and the press. Call me a Pollyanna, but I believe that our court system will fail if people caught in the act of deceiving it are not punished. Johnnie Cochran now stands before God’s bar; George Felos must be punished by man’s.

Florida Judge George Greer must be impeached and removed from office. Time and time again, this man dismissed evidence that would have helped save Terri Shindler Schiavo’s life, and he did this with no legal and precedential backing. He refused to release control of the case, and he refused to investigate any of the myriad conflicts of interest between the hospice and the forces allied to (it can’t be too often repeated) snuff out the life of a helpless woman. This dreadful man has been allowed by other judges who “reviewed” the case to take this life because the other judges were either moral cowards or were too interested in preserving the powers of the court against those of the other branches of government.

Our courts ought never to be allowed to forget that their power is not and must not be merely the power to do, but must be the power to do right. They must not be merely courts of law; they must be courts of justice.

I fear that Terri Schiavo will slip into the memory hole that has swallowed up the Branch Davidians, Vicki and Sammy Weaver, and Elian Gonzalez. The tragedy of this poor woman will be made complete if we allow her case to be forgotten, and even worse emulated. I fear that other courts will use her death as a precedent, and other judicial murders of the innocent will follow.

We who believe in defending life must adopt the attitude that the Jewish people have toward the Holocaust -- “Never again!” If we unite to stop this terrible trend, we have it in our power to see that Terri’s death is the last page of this terrible story.

Democrat-underground-style comments will be ignored.  So will absurd misuse of words like programmed, brainwashed, and other common (and commonly abused) words.  On this site, words mean what they are supposed to mean, and not what they have been twisted into.  No obscenities or crudities will be responded to.  Parliamentarily acceptable language only, please.

 

Personal insults will also not be responded to.  The insulters name will be noted, and all further comments from the same source will be ignored.  Do not flatter yourself that you have bested me in debate.  Insults are not debate, and will not be bothered with here.  This is no low-rent Huffington Post-ish site; this is TownHall.com.  Readers of your tiresome billingsgate will see you for the bore that you are.  Don't embarrass yourself.

 

Honest disagreement addressed in polite fashion will be responded to, if I have the time.  Being a married man with a full-time job, I scarcely have time to write my own posts.  I apologize in advance to anyone who posts a comment of a non-abusive nature that I do not respond to.  I mean no offence to you.

 

Extra information and factual corrections will always be accepted with gratitude.  Please note the word "actual".  The opinions expressed on this website are my own unless otherwise noted, and I reserve the right to make my own judgements on people and events.  It is the same right that you possess.

 

I have received some very nice comments as well as the boorish ones.  I thank those who commented in such a graceful way.  To my delight, my first comment came from a military veteran.  My thanks to you especially.

 

I do not receive "talking point memos" from the Republican Party, or from anyone else for that matter.  Nor do I want to.  I write what I think, when I think it right and convenient to write it.

 

Further clarifications as necessary.  I hope they won't be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again I'm short of (lunch)time, so let's dispose of the quick stuff:

 

We of the internet or talk radio public are familiar with the "tinfoil-hat brigades"; those wacky people who are convinced that the government's satellites are reading their minds, or at least they are whenever the brigadier is not wearing his protective tinfoil hat.  I find it amusing that the people in our society who are most worried about the government reading their thoughts are the most likely to be having no  thoughts worth reading.

 

 

 

Bitter Irony Department:  The main office for the Welfare Department in Sullivan County, NY is in the town of Liberty.  (If you don't see the irony, you need to learn more about the deleterious effects of the welfare system.)

 

 

 

I've seen several conservative authors who I respect lamenting the recent awarding of the multi-billion dallar tanker plane contract to EADS (the military wing of Aerbus) and its American partner, Northrup Grumman.  They fell that that good all-American firm, Boeing, should have received the contract so as to keep the American defense industry American.  Apart from the fact that Northrup-Grumman is just as all-American as Boeing is (the Grumman Hellcat is my favorite carrier plane of World War II), maybe Boeing might have had a better shot at the contract if they hadn't tried to defraud the government the last time 'round.  That dirty deal (which resulted in a few prison sentences) was shot down (I love military puns) by Senator John McCain.  For this he deserves our thanks.  Thieves never like a good watchdog, though, for obvious reasons...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... is all I have, so I'll dispose of some short notes.

 

 

 

Books have been written about the failures of our education system (I own a few of them), but speaking as an operator who can only communicate with our customers via speech, one deficiency which exasperates me daily is that so few Americans know how to contextualize.  This is the ability to work out what an unfamiliar word means from its context -- the other words in the sentence.  This is a skill I learned in elementary school.  A person calls Directory Assistance, and I get the call.  I ask them for the city and state their request is in, and they tell me.  As required by my employers, I then ask "What listing, please?"  A distressingly high percentage of my callers have no idea what I mean by "listing".  They won't even stop to try to figure out what I'm asking them for.  I often want to ask callers "Who does your thinking for you when you're not talking to me?", but this is verbotten.

 

Did you work out what "verbotten" means?  Class?  Class??

 

 

 

On my old website, which vanished when the service provider folded, I expressed my concern that so many of the incoming Democratic chairmen were old, bitter partisans who had been festering in Congress for 25 years and more in some cases.  Just one example for now:  John Conyers, who I think heads the House Judiciary Committee (I haven't time to check right now), is investigating whether President Bush can be impeached -- AFTER HE LEAVES OFFICE.  He says he'll use all of the executive branch records that will be opened to the committee after a Democrat takes the Oval Office. 

 

One more reason to vote McCain in November, my fellow conservatives.

Since education is what we're about here at the Crab, I thought I would help anyone who is confused by the difference between "moderate 'Palestinians'" (such as Fatah) and "radical'Palestinians'" (like Hamas) to understand the difference.  It is actually far more simple than TV news makes it out to be.  Moderate "Palestinians" want to kill all of the Jews eventually; radical "Palestinians" want to kill them right now.

 

That's about it.

 

(Please note:  the term "Palestinians" always appears in quotation marks in the Crab because there are actually no such people.  The term "Palestinian" was invented after the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, in an attempt to de-legitimize the new country -- after the attempt to massacre the new Israelis failed, of course.  Since these people are simply Arabs, I refuse to give them the false name of "Palestinians".  Think "Sudeten Germans, for a historic parallel.)

This can be an embarrassing state to live in, as well as an expensive one.  Both of these are taxing in different ways.  I won't cover the tax issue of the moment this moment (I'm not angry enough), but I just want to comment on a couple of recent NY embarrassments.

 

Our newly ex-governor Eliot Spitzer has been all over the news for many reasons, starting with the exposure of his involvement with a prostitution ring that he laundered mega-bucks to for...er...something you would have thought would have been available at home, although if his private persona is as abrasive as his public, maybe it wasn't available, and who could blame Mrs. Spitzer?  Finally, some papers are doing what the Wall Street Journal (God bless 'em) has done for years and exposing his abuses of power, both as Governor and before that as Attorney General of New York.  This is welcome, although if it had been done before maybe we wouldn't have elected this pervert thug as Governor in 2006.  What I haven't seen is anyone mention that in his coercive tactics as Attorney General (usually targeting prominent, innocent men), he was emulating one of the most power-abusing prosecutors in American history, Lawrence Walsh.

 

Walsh, of course, was the Special Prosecutor who was appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan and Bush I administrations.  His job was not to produce truth or justice; it was to produce a Democrat President in 1993.  His favorite tactic was to threaten innocent administration figures with a dozen or more indictments, which he knew would not stand up in court.  He would tell the victim that he knew that they would be acquitted, but that the cost of defending themselves from the false charges would bankrupt their families, so they had better plead guilty to a few of the false charges to avoid having to pay to defend against the many.  (Elliot Abrams wrote a moving account of having been a Walsh target in Undue Process.  Ignore the leftist review Amazon chose to publish.)

 

This of course, is prosecutorial malpractice on stilts, but as Walsh and Spitzer learned, the press will let you use anything short of the rack to obtain guilty pleas, as long as you target someone the media wishes harm to. 

 

 

 

The other brief point of emabrrassment I want to mention is the latest contretemps of our carpetbagger Senator, Hillary "Bill's moral compass" Clinton.  Much has been made about her lying about her visit to Bosnia as First Lady (snipers, etc.)  Most of us have known for 16 years or so that Hillary is no less a congenital liar than Bill is; what amuses me is that people are actually saying that we need to elect Hillary Clinton as President to replace President George W. Bush, who has been lying to us for eight years (which isn't true, by the way, but that's another topic for another day).  Maybe they mean that President Bush hasn't been lying enough...