This title is a quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834. Isn't it amazing that they had the same basic problems in his day as we have now. Doesn't this seem to be the current state of the attitudes in Washington shown toward Dr. Rice. So much for liberals preaching to everyone about tolerance. What they are really saying is we will tolerate you as long as you agree with us. So much for their being open to different ideas. Can you imagine what they would say if Clarence Thomas gets the nomination for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The only thing is, I expect that Antonin Scalia will get the nomination, due mainly to age. The younger person should be picked simply to increase the consistancy of the court. When the President finally does get to nominate a new Justice to the high court we will really see just how tolerant the members of the Senate are to ideas that may be different from their own. We'll just wait and see
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Friday, January 28, 2005
A Party In Decline and Greasing the Skids
The left wing democrats in the US Senate are doing themselves no favors. Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barbra Boxer, and Independent (democrat) Jumpin' Jim Jeffords are alienating the majority of Americans in their criticism of Condolezza Rice. This is just the latest example of how far to the left the powers in the democrat party have gone. They are spouting verifyable falsehoods that show how out of touch they are. The Dems are grasping at straws trying to get power back. This is a party in decline and these characters are helping grease the skids on what was once a great American institution. Boxer stated that WMDs was the only reason we went into Iraq. If someone would take the time to read the resolutions that were introduced in Congress, they would notice that WMDs was one of five reasons given.
Yes it is true, there were no WMDs found in Iraq, and yes it was an intelligence failure, but every intelligence organization in the world (not just the CIA) claimed that they were there. Now the Dems are holding on to this as a lie from Bush and Rice when the lies are actually coming from the Dems. This is a perfect example of how the Dems are trying to obstruct any progress in the War on Terrorism. The only reason that the Republicans take so much heat for this is that their rebuttal is very soft spoken and the public rarely hears it. Therefore the public assumes that the lies from the Dems must be true because the Reps are staying quite. The Republicans incorrectly think that "if it's not true, then just ignore it, it'll go away."
Has anyone tried Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream? Great stuff!
Hurricane Bob
Coming Soon, my rant on political correctness.
Yes it is true, there were no WMDs found in Iraq, and yes it was an intelligence failure, but every intelligence organization in the world (not just the CIA) claimed that they were there. Now the Dems are holding on to this as a lie from Bush and Rice when the lies are actually coming from the Dems. This is a perfect example of how the Dems are trying to obstruct any progress in the War on Terrorism. The only reason that the Republicans take so much heat for this is that their rebuttal is very soft spoken and the public rarely hears it. Therefore the public assumes that the lies from the Dems must be true because the Reps are staying quite. The Republicans incorrectly think that "if it's not true, then just ignore it, it'll go away."
Has anyone tried Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream? Great stuff!
Hurricane Bob
Coming Soon, my rant on political correctness.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
50 Difficult things you can do to save the environment
Now, if you are somebody who wants clean water, clean air and beautiful trees, I'm not talking about you. But if you're somebody who thinks that we ought to be turning off the washer, the air-conditioning, the lights and live a more primitive lifestyle, or if you think that capitalism is the focus of evil in the modern world, I am talking about you.
You are either duped or you're part of the movement of ex-commie, socialists who found a home in the environmental movement precisely because of the way you frame the debate. Who can disagree with you? Who can disagree with clean water? Who's against that, the way these people set up the terms of the debate? Nobody is. But that's not what's at stake here: the American way of life.
Many of you think I'm off base, and wonder how people who are a "little" zealous in their tree hugging could really be communists. Well, I found something from the early 90's that proves my point. It's a collective effort by members of various American environmental groups who contributed to this at the invitation of the Earth Island Journal, a publication of the Earth Island Institute.
This list was compiled by somebody named Gar Smith and is titled "Fifty Difficult Things You Can Do To Save the Earth."
Read this list, but before you do, I want you to know that this is not a bit or a joke. I didn't make any of this up. It's important that you know what these people truly, ultimately advocate, because many of the things they're pushing here have nothing to do with the environment - and everything to do with limiting your personal freedom and pushing socialist ideals.
50 Difficult things you can do to save the envirnment
1) Bury your car.
2) Become a total vegetarian.
3) Grow your own vegetables.
4) Have your power lines disconnected.
5) Don't have children.
6) Restrict the population of motor vehicles.
7) Don't build cars.
8) Stop building roads.
9) Replace roads with homes, parks, and gardens.
10) Halt weapons production and exports.
11) Stop the sale, distribution, and export of cigarettes.
12) Send an amount of money to
jobs for impoverished workers now forced into the rain forests.
13) Blockade a lumber truck carrying old-growth trees.
14) Spend a month tree-sitting.
15) Try to live, if you can, to within the world average income
($1,250 a year) for 1 month.
16) Cut up your credit cards.
17) Unplug your television.
18) Undertake a Conservation Sabbath:
one day a week without consuming electricity or fuel.
19) Fast a day each week, send the money saved on food to help feed the hungry.
20) Adopt a homeless person.
21) Raise the minimum wage to a survival income.
22) Enact a maximum wage law.
23) Tie politicians' salaries to the average working wage.
24) Replace majority rule with proportional representation.
25) Replace the Electoral College with direct democratic elections.
26) Abolish the CIA and the National Security Act of 1949.
27) Pass a nature amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
28) Oust presidential adviser John Sununu.
29) Plant one new tree every day.
30) Go to jail for something you believe in.
31) Don't own pets.
32) Allow all beef-producing domestic cattle to become extinct.
33) Redirect the military budget to restoration work; convert weapons
factories to peaceful research; retrain soldiers for ecological restoration.
34) Remove US Forest Service from under the Agriculture Department;
place USFS, Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife Service under the EPA.
35) Consume only products produced within your bioregion.
36) Don't eat anything that comes in a package.
37) Don't buy anything that comes in a box.
38) Require operators & owners of nuclear plants to live within a mile of the site.
39) Mandate federal recycling and institute a refuse tax on solid waste.
40) Pipe polluted water back into the water supplies of the companies that do the polluting.
41) Don't own anything that runs on batteries.
42) Hand over excess packaging to store manager on visits to the grocery.
43) Travel by bus, never by air.
44) Stop using toilet paper and Kleenex; use washable cloth.
45) Extend the life of your wardrobe by learning to make and mend your own clothes.
46) Give money to every single panhandler you meet.
47) Democratize your workplace; start a union or a collective.
48) Learn to farm.
49) Liberate a zoo.
50) Ask your boss if you can take a day off to work on healing the planet ... with pay!
R. Limbaugh
Take me out to the ballgame!
It was not Sigmund Freud but Joseph Wechsberg, the Vienna correspondent for the New Yorker magazine, who discovered that Mozart is a cure for headaches and depression. I can buy that. Especially if the patient is (a) Viennese, and (b) has any musical taste at all.
But for Americans, nothing works like a baseball game, preferably low-key and minor league. It's good for stress, midlife crisis, sophistication, upward mobility and whatever else ails you.
Caution: The food served at ball parks--red hots, Polish sausages drenched in mustard, peanuts, popcorn, Crackerjacks, beer, and, these days, nachos and jalape–o peppers--is not recommended for the digestion. Baseball food is what keeps fans happy, minor league clubs in the black, and the manufacturers of bicarbonate of soda going. A ball game wouldn't be the same without it, and the addition of Tex-Mex fare is another argument for the satisfying, ever adapting American national culture.
If the designated hitter remains an abomination, the nachos are a big improvement. It's what baseball offers the mind that soothes and revitalizes the American nervous system.
A baseball game offers a mix of discipline, tradition and possibility (like Mozart) all softened by good clean, wholesome fun. The assuring rituals include the national anthem played on the organ, or maybe a calliope.
Unfortunately, baseball uniforms are no longer baggy, with the home team in bright colors and the visitors consigned to gray. Stripes are in, solids out. Baseball uniforms these days are a calculated exercise in nostalgia for the 1910s. Only handlebar mustaches and muttonchops would be required to complete the ensemble, and they may be coming back. Chewing tobacco is going out, thank goodness and the American Cancer Society.
The best time to get to a game is early, while the sparse crowd is trickling in and the pitchers are still warming up with a languid grace that implies all the time in the world. The heat of the day is dissipating, like your troubles.
It's like getting to a concert early to hear the orchestra tune up; there is the same sense of unhurried anticipation, of discordant harmony. Night games are a visual feast, with the green infield shimmering in the white glow of the lights, making the signs on the outfield fences look as if they had been painted only an hour before. Day games on perfect days are simply glorious.
Baseball is one sport that has not accepted the tyranny of arbitrary, ever ticking time. Its timeless clock counts only balls and strikes, runs and outs. It moves by the inning, not the second. Something actually has to happen for time to pass on the diamond; here man is still the measure of all things. Theoretically, a game could go on forever if it were eternally tied. Maybe heaven is like that--one unending, extra-inning game with each pitch both climax and expectation.
Unlike football or basketball, baseball is not made for stopwatches--or for television, which zooms in on an amputated, foreshortened simulacrum of this pastoral delight.
To watch a game on television is to watch it through another's eyes. The camera forces the spectator's attention, rather than letting it roam freely around the outfield, over to the coaches on the sidelines, down to the players in the dugout, across to the fans in the bleachers, or up at the cumulo-stratus clouds over the American flag in center field.
What fan with soul so dead has never, not once, during a pitcher's duel or a fielder's game or a manager's strategic battle (for those are baseball at its best; batting is just bombardment) has not thought to himself: "God, I love this game!"
Baseball is so . . . American. And like things American, it has captured the imagination of the world. It appeals to the Japanese love of ritual, and the Latin American regard for the solitary, sun-and-shade duel of pitcher and batter.
The television-bound spectator may not see the way the second baseman moves to anticipate a ball that never comes, the warm-up pitches of the relief pitcher who's never needed, the crises that never happen--all the active inaction of the game, with its richness of speculation. Some of the most interesting things in baseball or chess never happen except in the mind, where all things are possible.
But to watch baseball on television is to don blinders. The action ends where the camera's field of vision does. The camera does the same choppy thing in symphony concerts, offering either a close-up of a player or a massed blur when it shows the whole orchestra.
Radio is a far superior medium for baseball, especially when its coverage verges on the fictitious. Can you remember Gordon McLendon, the Old Scotchman, and his "re-created" ball games? He broadcast directly from a tickertape and a lively imagination. His accounts were effective, and affective, because the listener's imagination filled in the scene. The same way a reader's fills out a writer's words and intimations.
Ronald Reagan got his start broadcasting ballgames on the radio, and developed into an orator who could make a whole nation see thrilling possibilities. And make them reality. He came by his power to transmit myth into fact early. Sticklers said he wasn't accurate, that he couldn't actually see the game. Others understood that myth can be a truth greater than the facts. Just because Oedipus was a story does not make it less true, or Sophocles some kind of fraud. Baseball, too, can be catharsis.
In the beginning, a baseball game is all potentiality--like an undiscovered continent or a chess game before white opens. After the first pitch, both the forces of change and conservatism are put into motion, and the game is always striving for some new equipoise. The play-by-play reveals that there are no unimportant pitches, that each play shapes the pattern. Which is why the shots of dramatic moments aired on the evening news seem so untimely ripped from context. They might as well broadcast the final chord of a concert without all the unimportant stuff that went before.
It's not the outcome that is baseball. It is also the plays that didn't materialize, the possibilities unrealized, the dangers escaped. Appreciated right, both baseball and history are records of what did not happen, too. Just as one of the joys of knowing a language well is being able to appreciate the meaning of the silences.
Then there are the Added Attractions. Between games of a double-header, fans can still see shows Bill Veeck would have appreciated. One year at Little Rock's Ray Winder Field, I saw a girls' softball team, augmented by Bozo the Clown, take on the home-team bat-boys. Those inclined to take offense at a parody of anything as worthy of reverence as baseball might remember that only something serious can be parodied. Nobody parodies professional wrestling.
For a sport to be parodied, it must be serious. If a time ever comes when Americans no longer razz umpires ("Put your mask back on! You're scarin' the kids!") or cease heckling the ballplayers ("I've seen better swings on a front porch!"), then it'll be time to worry.
Paul Greenberg
But for Americans, nothing works like a baseball game, preferably low-key and minor league. It's good for stress, midlife crisis, sophistication, upward mobility and whatever else ails you.
Caution: The food served at ball parks--red hots, Polish sausages drenched in mustard, peanuts, popcorn, Crackerjacks, beer, and, these days, nachos and jalape–o peppers--is not recommended for the digestion. Baseball food is what keeps fans happy, minor league clubs in the black, and the manufacturers of bicarbonate of soda going. A ball game wouldn't be the same without it, and the addition of Tex-Mex fare is another argument for the satisfying, ever adapting American national culture.
If the designated hitter remains an abomination, the nachos are a big improvement. It's what baseball offers the mind that soothes and revitalizes the American nervous system.
A baseball game offers a mix of discipline, tradition and possibility (like Mozart) all softened by good clean, wholesome fun. The assuring rituals include the national anthem played on the organ, or maybe a calliope.
Unfortunately, baseball uniforms are no longer baggy, with the home team in bright colors and the visitors consigned to gray. Stripes are in, solids out. Baseball uniforms these days are a calculated exercise in nostalgia for the 1910s. Only handlebar mustaches and muttonchops would be required to complete the ensemble, and they may be coming back. Chewing tobacco is going out, thank goodness and the American Cancer Society.
The best time to get to a game is early, while the sparse crowd is trickling in and the pitchers are still warming up with a languid grace that implies all the time in the world. The heat of the day is dissipating, like your troubles.
It's like getting to a concert early to hear the orchestra tune up; there is the same sense of unhurried anticipation, of discordant harmony. Night games are a visual feast, with the green infield shimmering in the white glow of the lights, making the signs on the outfield fences look as if they had been painted only an hour before. Day games on perfect days are simply glorious.
Baseball is one sport that has not accepted the tyranny of arbitrary, ever ticking time. Its timeless clock counts only balls and strikes, runs and outs. It moves by the inning, not the second. Something actually has to happen for time to pass on the diamond; here man is still the measure of all things. Theoretically, a game could go on forever if it were eternally tied. Maybe heaven is like that--one unending, extra-inning game with each pitch both climax and expectation.
Unlike football or basketball, baseball is not made for stopwatches--or for television, which zooms in on an amputated, foreshortened simulacrum of this pastoral delight.
To watch a game on television is to watch it through another's eyes. The camera forces the spectator's attention, rather than letting it roam freely around the outfield, over to the coaches on the sidelines, down to the players in the dugout, across to the fans in the bleachers, or up at the cumulo-stratus clouds over the American flag in center field.
What fan with soul so dead has never, not once, during a pitcher's duel or a fielder's game or a manager's strategic battle (for those are baseball at its best; batting is just bombardment) has not thought to himself: "God, I love this game!"
Baseball is so . . . American. And like things American, it has captured the imagination of the world. It appeals to the Japanese love of ritual, and the Latin American regard for the solitary, sun-and-shade duel of pitcher and batter.
The television-bound spectator may not see the way the second baseman moves to anticipate a ball that never comes, the warm-up pitches of the relief pitcher who's never needed, the crises that never happen--all the active inaction of the game, with its richness of speculation. Some of the most interesting things in baseball or chess never happen except in the mind, where all things are possible.
But to watch baseball on television is to don blinders. The action ends where the camera's field of vision does. The camera does the same choppy thing in symphony concerts, offering either a close-up of a player or a massed blur when it shows the whole orchestra.
Radio is a far superior medium for baseball, especially when its coverage verges on the fictitious. Can you remember Gordon McLendon, the Old Scotchman, and his "re-created" ball games? He broadcast directly from a tickertape and a lively imagination. His accounts were effective, and affective, because the listener's imagination filled in the scene. The same way a reader's fills out a writer's words and intimations.
Ronald Reagan got his start broadcasting ballgames on the radio, and developed into an orator who could make a whole nation see thrilling possibilities. And make them reality. He came by his power to transmit myth into fact early. Sticklers said he wasn't accurate, that he couldn't actually see the game. Others understood that myth can be a truth greater than the facts. Just because Oedipus was a story does not make it less true, or Sophocles some kind of fraud. Baseball, too, can be catharsis.
In the beginning, a baseball game is all potentiality--like an undiscovered continent or a chess game before white opens. After the first pitch, both the forces of change and conservatism are put into motion, and the game is always striving for some new equipoise. The play-by-play reveals that there are no unimportant pitches, that each play shapes the pattern. Which is why the shots of dramatic moments aired on the evening news seem so untimely ripped from context. They might as well broadcast the final chord of a concert without all the unimportant stuff that went before.
It's not the outcome that is baseball. It is also the plays that didn't materialize, the possibilities unrealized, the dangers escaped. Appreciated right, both baseball and history are records of what did not happen, too. Just as one of the joys of knowing a language well is being able to appreciate the meaning of the silences.
Then there are the Added Attractions. Between games of a double-header, fans can still see shows Bill Veeck would have appreciated. One year at Little Rock's Ray Winder Field, I saw a girls' softball team, augmented by Bozo the Clown, take on the home-team bat-boys. Those inclined to take offense at a parody of anything as worthy of reverence as baseball might remember that only something serious can be parodied. Nobody parodies professional wrestling.
For a sport to be parodied, it must be serious. If a time ever comes when Americans no longer razz umpires ("Put your mask back on! You're scarin' the kids!") or cease heckling the ballplayers ("I've seen better swings on a front porch!"), then it'll be time to worry.
Paul Greenberg
Before the government can give anything, it must first take it away
Is it social security or social welfare. I think the younger generations of Americans will be a much smaller burden on society if they can use the money accumulated in private accounts to suppliment any retirement income.
Social Secutiry uses the largest portion of the federal taxes WE send to Washington. The more our country ages the worse it will get. With life expectancies getting longer every year, you can only assume that there will be more and more people to try to support as time goes on. When these payouts began, the qualifying age was 60 and the average life expectancy was 62. Someone my age will have to wait until 67 to receive benefits, but my life expectancy is now 77.6. That gives me decent odds of collecting benefits under the current system for 10 years, at a greater cost to the generation that will be paying for me. If we have private accounts everyone could use the money that they put in themselves to provide their own support.
Some people talk about how much more risk there is in the stock market. But recent studies have shown that the average rate of return on social security is currently 2-3%. The average rate of return in the "risky" stock market (including the great depression) is 11.5%. Seems to me that the greater risk to my retirement is 2-3%. At least let me invest a portion of my own money in the stock market, via an index fund, individual stocks, or a selection of mutual funds.
The reason I say only a portion is because we have promised the people in our country that are close to retirement that they will get benefits. Once those people are no longer getting benefits (ie. dead) then the time has come for 100% private accounts, or no benefits at all. People need to be held accountable for their own retirement but that will be another blog later. Either you plan for it before hand, hope your children can take care of you, or work until the day you go on to your great reward.
Have a great day and think about your retirement. Please don't be a burden yourself. Nothing in life is free, someone has to pay for it, don't make your grandchildren do it.
On a higher mountain, Under a bluer sky
Hurricane Bob
Social Secutiry uses the largest portion of the federal taxes WE send to Washington. The more our country ages the worse it will get. With life expectancies getting longer every year, you can only assume that there will be more and more people to try to support as time goes on. When these payouts began, the qualifying age was 60 and the average life expectancy was 62. Someone my age will have to wait until 67 to receive benefits, but my life expectancy is now 77.6. That gives me decent odds of collecting benefits under the current system for 10 years, at a greater cost to the generation that will be paying for me. If we have private accounts everyone could use the money that they put in themselves to provide their own support.
Some people talk about how much more risk there is in the stock market. But recent studies have shown that the average rate of return on social security is currently 2-3%. The average rate of return in the "risky" stock market (including the great depression) is 11.5%. Seems to me that the greater risk to my retirement is 2-3%. At least let me invest a portion of my own money in the stock market, via an index fund, individual stocks, or a selection of mutual funds.
The reason I say only a portion is because we have promised the people in our country that are close to retirement that they will get benefits. Once those people are no longer getting benefits (ie. dead) then the time has come for 100% private accounts, or no benefits at all. People need to be held accountable for their own retirement but that will be another blog later. Either you plan for it before hand, hope your children can take care of you, or work until the day you go on to your great reward.
Have a great day and think about your retirement. Please don't be a burden yourself. Nothing in life is free, someone has to pay for it, don't make your grandchildren do it.
On a higher mountain, Under a bluer sky
Hurricane Bob
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Semper Fi
Today's helicopter crash saddens my heart. Those are my brothers in the desert over there, and some won't be coming home. Everytime I hear of a death in that sandbox it brings a tear to my eye. Everytime it is a Marine it hits me harder. That's part of the Esprit de Corps that the Marine Corps instills in every new recruit. As a former helicopter aircrewman myself, helicopter crashes hit me harder again. Even though I have been out of the Marines for several years now, I still have friends on active duty, one that I know of is in Iraq as I write this. I pray that he is not involved in these crashes everytime I hear of one. I know he was not involved in this CH-53 accident, but that does not make me feel any better for the families of those who were lost. 31 confirmed dead.
This is a necessary war. Iraq is only a battle in the overall war on terrorism. I know that we are doing good by engaging the terrorist on their turf instead of fighting a defensive battle here. Iraq has created a "heat sink" for terrorist. It is a good place to try and collect them all in one spot.
The young men that died this morning were doing their countries dirty work so the rest of us can stay as free and safe as possible. Some were just looking for a job, but the Marines tend to attract young men and women who have a sense of duty to their country, their family, and their God. They died for all Americans so we can stay safe, so we can stay free, so we can do what ever we want within the scope of the law. It was their chosen job to say, "you can sleep good tonight because I am here doing what most of you don't want to".
For every Marine, soldier, sailor, and airman in the desert: there are many more around the world doing lower profile, but no less important work for us. During peacetime in the late 1990's, I attended a hockey game. During the national anthem before the game, It occurred to me that there were thousands of America's young on a ship somewhere in the middle of an ocean, having the time of their lives, or bored stiff, or scared out of their wits, doing a job for us. My heart goes out to them. I used to be "them". I sure appreciate them.
Say a prayer for the families of those who have left us, and another for those who still protect us.
God Bless, Godspeed, and Semper Fi.
This is a necessary war. Iraq is only a battle in the overall war on terrorism. I know that we are doing good by engaging the terrorist on their turf instead of fighting a defensive battle here. Iraq has created a "heat sink" for terrorist. It is a good place to try and collect them all in one spot.
The young men that died this morning were doing their countries dirty work so the rest of us can stay as free and safe as possible. Some were just looking for a job, but the Marines tend to attract young men and women who have a sense of duty to their country, their family, and their God. They died for all Americans so we can stay safe, so we can stay free, so we can do what ever we want within the scope of the law. It was their chosen job to say, "you can sleep good tonight because I am here doing what most of you don't want to".
For every Marine, soldier, sailor, and airman in the desert: there are many more around the world doing lower profile, but no less important work for us. During peacetime in the late 1990's, I attended a hockey game. During the national anthem before the game, It occurred to me that there were thousands of America's young on a ship somewhere in the middle of an ocean, having the time of their lives, or bored stiff, or scared out of their wits, doing a job for us. My heart goes out to them. I used to be "them". I sure appreciate them.
Say a prayer for the families of those who have left us, and another for those who still protect us.
God Bless, Godspeed, and Semper Fi.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Ted Turner and Media Bias
A man's character is his fate. Heraclitus, c. 540-c. 480 B.C.
Well, it seems ol' Ted Turner is upset again. Can't this guy get it through his head that FoxNews is just better or more entertaining than anything he has been involved with. When he compares FoxNews to Hitler, he really sounds like sour grapes. His energy would be better served by trying to improve his own news channel instead of attacking the viewers of Fox as being ignorant. He accuses FoxNews of dumbing down the news. In my opinion this is exactly what his network has been guilty of for years.
This is a good time for me to explain one of my beliefs, media bias. I believe that as long as people breathe, there will be a bias in the way they think. This is especially true in news outlets. Every news outlet is biased. Whether they believe it or not. It is impossible to detach personal beliefs from reporting news. Story selection and basic attitudes simply come across to the viewer. I think CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC are all slanted toward the left. And yes, I do believe FoxNews is slanted to the right, even though they do try to be fair and balanced. At least they give liberals a chance to defend their ideas with similar airplay to the conservatives. I think the closest any news outlet in the world comes to being balanced and non biased is the Drudge Report. Matt Drudge offers stories that glorify and disgust everyone with equal regularity..
Well, it seems ol' Ted Turner is upset again. Can't this guy get it through his head that FoxNews is just better or more entertaining than anything he has been involved with. When he compares FoxNews to Hitler, he really sounds like sour grapes. His energy would be better served by trying to improve his own news channel instead of attacking the viewers of Fox as being ignorant. He accuses FoxNews of dumbing down the news. In my opinion this is exactly what his network has been guilty of for years.
This is a good time for me to explain one of my beliefs, media bias. I believe that as long as people breathe, there will be a bias in the way they think. This is especially true in news outlets. Every news outlet is biased. Whether they believe it or not. It is impossible to detach personal beliefs from reporting news. Story selection and basic attitudes simply come across to the viewer. I think CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC are all slanted toward the left. And yes, I do believe FoxNews is slanted to the right, even though they do try to be fair and balanced. At least they give liberals a chance to defend their ideas with similar airplay to the conservatives. I think the closest any news outlet in the world comes to being balanced and non biased is the Drudge Report. Matt Drudge offers stories that glorify and disgust everyone with equal regularity..
Monday, January 24, 2005
Things I don't like, and things I do
Today I would like to let you know a few of my hot button issues.
I do not like the ACLU. I believe that this organization uses US tax dollars to try and undermine the very fabric that American Culture was dirived from. They believe in immorality, but they call it freedom of seach or expression. In all reality it is not th kind of speech/expression that was supposed to be protected by the constitution. They protect pornographers and facists at the expense of Americas youth and history.
I do not like the Dallas Cowboys. Ever since Roger Staubach retired, I just can not stand the Cowboys. I don't know why that is, but it carries over to most other teams from Texas, whether professional or college.
I do no like Hillery Clinton ( or Bill for that matter). Bill Clinton stayed at my house one night in May of 1974, and is a "family friend" but I do not agree with either of the Clinton's political opinions and ideals, nor do I agree with their personal excuses for the way they live their lives.
I do not like socialism!
I do not like Labor Unions, another form of socialism.
However I do like democracy (even though we live in a republic), I do like the Detroit Redwings and ice hockey in general. I like Rush Limbaugh, don't always agree with the man, but I like his style. I like Kim Komando, my digital goddess.
And I absolutely adore my daughter. Words just won't do right here. You must be a parent to understand what I mean.
Enough for tonight. We'll get on with the blog later this week.
May your view of life always be from the top of a mountain,
Hurricane Bob
I do not like the ACLU. I believe that this organization uses US tax dollars to try and undermine the very fabric that American Culture was dirived from. They believe in immorality, but they call it freedom of seach or expression. In all reality it is not th kind of speech/expression that was supposed to be protected by the constitution. They protect pornographers and facists at the expense of Americas youth and history.
I do not like the Dallas Cowboys. Ever since Roger Staubach retired, I just can not stand the Cowboys. I don't know why that is, but it carries over to most other teams from Texas, whether professional or college.
I do no like Hillery Clinton ( or Bill for that matter). Bill Clinton stayed at my house one night in May of 1974, and is a "family friend" but I do not agree with either of the Clinton's political opinions and ideals, nor do I agree with their personal excuses for the way they live their lives.
I do not like socialism!
I do not like Labor Unions, another form of socialism.
However I do like democracy (even though we live in a republic), I do like the Detroit Redwings and ice hockey in general. I like Rush Limbaugh, don't always agree with the man, but I like his style. I like Kim Komando, my digital goddess.
And I absolutely adore my daughter. Words just won't do right here. You must be a parent to understand what I mean.
Enough for tonight. We'll get on with the blog later this week.
May your view of life always be from the top of a mountain,
Hurricane Bob
Sunday, January 23, 2005
First Blog
This is mainly a test blog to see how all of this works, just wait till I actually get started and we will see how this developes. I want this blog to be an evolution of thought that actually fills an empty mind with new ideas and solutions as well as an appreciationa and understanding of the motivations of others.
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