SUV: FU Vehicles?

Posted April 29, 2004 5:40 AM

Rush Limbaugh loves to mock critics of SUVs, and I don't understand why because his mockery goes counter to my understanding of conservatism.

Conservatism, among other things, embraces intellectual honesty and looks to work with the world as it is, rather than seeing things through the rose‑colored glasses of how things ought to be. Yet, by mocking critics of SUVs, that is exactly what Rush is doing, seeing these vehicles through rose colored glasses, because not only are they gas‑guzzlers, which poses a threat to our national security by making us more dependent on foreign oil, but, Rush's snickering notwithstanding, they're more dangerous than most other family vehicles, too:

WASHINGTON ‑ More people died on U.S. roadways last year than at any time since 1990, largely because of an increase in accidents involving sport-utility vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said yesterday. ‑‑ Increase in traffic deaths tied to SUVs, Seattle Times, April 29, 2004

While Rush merrily prattles on about how wonderful SUVs are, more people are buying them, and more people are dying in them: According to the report, "Passenger car fatalities declined by 778, but SUV fatalities increased by 456, 55 percent of which were rollover crashes. This increase was partially accounted for by increases in SUV sales." ‑ DOT Releases Preliminary Estimates Of 2003 Highway Fatalities.

Most of the time Rush really does talk like a conservative, but on the issues that matter most to big businesses, which are dominated by corporate liberalism, he throws his conservatism out the window. This is what makes him a "right‑wing liberal," and why, as he was wrong on NAFTA, he's also wrong on SUVs.

Hillary in 2004?

Posted April 28, 2004 7:10 PM

Liberals have concluded what conservatives already knew: John Kerry can't win. Following his melt‑down on Good Morning America, it was plain there is no way, short of a monumental flub on the part of Bush, that Kerry can possibly win in November:

With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. ‑‑ John Kerry Must Go, Mondo Washington, by James Ridgeway, The Village Voice, April 27, 2004

Ridgeway goes on to suggest they resurrect John Edwards or even stage an "open convention in Boston," but Edwards, while a capable opponent in open debate, lacks the kind of charisma looked for in a war‑time president. So while his charm might sell well in peace, and his time may yet come, it's not now.

So what are the Democrats to do? Is there anyway they can jazz up Kerry's candidacy? Maybe with a vote‑getting running mate, like Hillary Clinton? No, that won't work because she's already said no:

Senator Hillary Clinton insists she has no interest in becoming the vice‑presidential candidate with Democratic challenger John Kerry. "I would not do it," the wife of former president Bill Clinton told ABC television in an interview. ‑‑ Hillary Clinton not interested in becoming Kerry's running mate, Draft Hillary for President Campaign Committee, April 20, 2004

Where does that leave the Democrats? My bet is, they will draft former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, not to be Kerry's running mate, but to be their presidential candidate.

Everybody knows that Mrs. Clinton has strong support to be the Democratic candidate in 2008, but there's support for her to run this year, too:

If Kerry doesn't get it on the first ballot at the Democratic convention in July, the second ballot is ours. We are urging voters to go with Edwards to collect those delegates for this effort to stop Kerry. The best way to stop Nader is through Hillary. She is the strongest Democrat, able to raise the monies and beat Bush, and certainly excite the masses from the present boredom. ‑‑ Write‑in Hillary in the upcoming primaries and 'shock and awe' the political world, Hillary Now, March 2004

Most of her support for a bid this year comes from her die‑hard fans, but as Kerry loses momentum and Edwards is seen to be too weak for war‑time, the "Draft Hillary" campaign may very well gain a following. If it does, Bush could lose.

Bush is the man who has what it takes to lead us through the tumultuous term to come. We are in the middle of World War III, he has proven himself up to the task, and while he's weak on some domestic issues, his economic policies have proven themselves very effective, a fact the Bush campaign needs to do a better job of telling.

The reason they haven't, according to Bill O'Reilly on today's Radio Factor, is because the Bush Administration knows Kerry can't win, so their strategy is to hunker down, let Kerry expend himself, and then walk away with a win. But if Hillary runs, this strategy will backfire on them, because while she would enter the race with the Democratic vote, plus the women's vote, plus a lot of sympathy for the way Bill done her wrong, President Bush would have only a few months in which to tell the people why they should vote for him.

Maybe none of this will happen. To draft a candidate, even one as popular as Hillary, over the presumptive candidate would be a hard sell. But if it happens, and it could happen, Bush will almost certainly fall unless he begins to sell himself on the merits of his Administration's economic and domestic policies right now.

Kerry's medals

Posted April 28, 2004 6 AM

On Monday's Good Morning America, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, John Kerry, got into a bit of a huff when Charlie Gibson questioned him about whether he actually threw his medals or ribbons onto the White House lawn back in 1971. Gibson posed the question because of footage from 1971 which showed a young John Kerry emphatically stating he threw away his medals:

"I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine medals," Kerry said in an interview on a Washington, D.C., news program on WRC‑TV called Viewpoints on Nov. 6, 1971, according to a tape obtained by ABCNEWS. ‑‑ Discarded Decorations, Videotape Contradicts John Kerry's Own Statements Over Vietnam Medals, By Brian Ross and Chris Vlasto, ABCNEWS.com, April 26, 2004

When confronted with this, Kerry went on the attack against Gibson, who is known as anything but an operative of the "Right‑Wing Attack Machine":

"This is a controversy that the Republicans are pushing," Kerry said on the ABC program "Good Morning America." "The Republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me, and this comes from a president and a Republican Party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard." He added, "And I'm not going to stand for it." ‑‑ Kerry slams Bush's Guard record; Cheney goes on attack, Adam Nagourney and Jodi Wilgoren, the New York Times, Tacoma News Tribune, April 28, 2004

The irony is that, while several Vietnam Veterans groups, including Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, have criticized Kerry's service record, most Republican organizations and representatives, and talk show hosts, such as Michael Medved, have spoken with respect for John Kerry's service. What that means, is that the people who are going after Kerry on this issue, are mostly members of the mainstream media, who tend to be liberal and democrats.

Had Kerry responded to Gibson's question with a casual admission that he flubbed up, that what he said more than 30 years‑ago was out of youthful passion, that it was a minor mistake, no big deal, thanks for asking, now can we focus on the issues at hand, it would have all gone away. Instead, he responded with arrogance and anger, talking down to and over Gibson as he went on the offensive, to attack President Bush's service record.

As bad a blooper as it was to answer Gibson's question the way he did, this was an even bigger mistake, because Bush's service record has long‑since become a moot issue when the White House issued a report ‑‑ Defusing AWOLGate: Ten Ethically Spotless Witnesses Corroborate Details of President Bush's Story of How Honorably He Evaded Vietnam ‑‑ that includes eyewitness testimony, establishing his service.

Numerous other reports, such as a February 18 2004 article by National Review columnist Byron York, Bush and the National Guard: Case Closed, portray Bush's service as being quite respectable, while even the most damning reports produced by his credible critics totally dismiss the accusation that Bush went AWOL:

Taken together, though, these documents indicate that it's probably unfair to state, even metaphorically, that Bush went AWOL. Bush's Guard service merits a D, not an F. ‑‑ Yeoman of the Guard: AWOL? Probably not. A draft dodger? No question., by Josh Levin and Timothy Noah, Slate, Feb. 12, 2004

It's becoming evident that, as long as Bush supporters make a strong showing in November, Kerry has lost. He can't run on his dismal record as a U.S. Senator, so he's running on his Vietnam service record, which is a mistake because, while he did serve in Vietnam, which in and of itself is commendable and worthy of our respect, more than anything else it goes to show how, from Purple Hearts for scratches to getting a medal for killing an enemy sniper who was already wounded and down, he received special treatment.

As my cousin Mike, who served on a river boat in Vietnam, told me, for the stunts Kerry pulled most would have "faced court martial."

Bush bad for the environment?

Posted April 27, 2004

Across the nation and around the world, the message is the same: Bush is bad for the environment:

The Bush administration seems determined to undo much of the good done since Earth Day 1970, when 20 million Americans defended the planet in the biggest mass demonstration in U.S. history. ‑‑ George Bush's war on nature, Glenn Scherer, Salon.com, January 6, 2003

There was a time I agreed with this view, but, as with so much of the criticism leveled against George W. Bush, it turned out to be mistaken:

MINNEAPOLIS ‑ President Bush, campaigning Monday in Minnesota, vowed to boost broadband access to the Internet, highlighted federal grants to develop hydrogen as an alternative fuel and set a 2014 target date for all Americans to have their medical records in a portable, electronic format. ... In his remarks, the president noted the Energy Department's announcement Monday of $350 million in grants to fund hydrogen research. The grants are a first installment in what Bush has said will be $1.2 billion for research on hydrogen fuel cells, a potential power source for automobiles and other equipment that would be renewable and nonpolluting. ‑‑ Bush touts hydrogen fuel cell research, other technology initiatives , Edwin Chen, Los Angeles Times, Tacoma News Tribune, April 27, 2004

It's not that Bush is actively doing things to harm the environment, but how he's going about protecting the environment that scares liberals. Rather than using brute force, which is the liberal solution to most things, the president is relying on the profit‑motive and self‑interest to get corporations to solve the problems caused by our technological civilization. And technology is the answer.

A long time ago, bands of people lived in an area until it was a stinking mess, and then they moved on. This gave nature time to clean up the mess. But then people began to live in villages, where they dumped their garbage and sewage in the street, polluting their environment. The modern liberal's answer to the problem of such pollution would be to revert to small bands of primitives wandering in the wilderness. But some geek came up with the idea of composting garbage and using cesspools to treat sewage, and this technology allowed people to clean the streets and live in cities. Problem solved.

Pollution today is the same issue on a larger scale, and technology can solve the problem. But it costs money, money which liberals would want to take from you and me, but which conservatives say is best gotten from those who view it as an investment, one which will ultimately produce a profit that will benefit not just corporate executives, who seemed the only ones to benefit during the Clinton administration, but also stockholders, many of whom are retirees.

Contrary to his detractors, President Bush's agenda to protect the environment and fight pollution is the best since 1970 when we celebrated the first Earth Day, which is why we need to give him our full support.

Feminisms' fairytales about femininity

Posted April 27, 2004

In the late 1980s, a new flavor of feminism emerged. Called "gender feminism" by some, "victim feminism" by others, and "feminazi" by Rush Limbaugh, this feminism claimed that men are the source of most violence and women are the source of peace and wisdom. Give all the power to women, they claimed, and a new day will dawn of pretty flowers, dancing butterflies, lions sleeping next to lambs, with sunny weather and singing birds for all.

Not surprisingly, liberals bought into this silly notion. Unfortunately, a lot of conservatives did, too, and they all passed laws that presumed men to be guilty and women to be innocent. Sadly, this removed many of the social and legal constraints which worked not only to mitigate male violence, but to minimize female violence. The result, is that with increasing frequency women and girls are now committing the kind of violence we formerly expected only from men:

BALTIMORE ‑ Twelve‑year‑old Nicole Townes is out of a coma but still struggling to recover after being pummeled and stomped at a birthday party in a beating that was shocking not just because of its savagery, but because it was meted out by other girls. ... Nationally, violence among teen boys ‑ as measured by arrest statistics and surveys ‑ outstrips violence among teen girls 4 to 1, according to the Justice Department. But a generation ago, it was 10 to 1. ‑‑ Brutal attack part of worrisome trend ‑ girls beating girls, Wiley Hall, The Associated Press, Tacoma News Tribune, April 27, 2004

Relative to boys, girl violence has more than doubled, and, at this rate, in another generation could be equal to or even surpass boys. In part, this is an unintended consequence of the feminist movement's fairytales about femininity, but the responsibility belongs to all who believed the fairytales.

The Democratic Party: Friend of Indian country?

Posted April 24, 2004

Everybody knows that Democrats are good friends to American Indians, Tom Daschle more than most:

Throughout the 25 years Tom Daschle has been in Congress, he has always been a friend to Indian country. Over the last two years that friendship has matured and grown even stronger. The Democratic leader in the United States Senate had emerged as someone willing to use his clout, his time, and his talents to tackle complex and difficult issues surrounding Indian trust reform. ‑‑ Daschle steps up for Indian country, Michael B. Jandreau, Indian Country Today, April 23, 2004

That's news so good it gives me goose bumps. But the thing that bothers me is, if the Democrats have been such good friends to American Indians, then why have all the problems which plagued us during Republican Administrations remained as pervasive and troublesome, if not more so, during Democratic Administrations?

Why, for that matter, was Senator Daschle less a friend to Indian country until Tim Giago, a member of the Ogala Lakota tribe and editor of the Lakota Journal, ran against him? Could it be because Giago could have drawn enough Democratic votes away from Daschle to help Republican John Thune, who has growing support among the local Indian population, to unseat the Democratic senator?

Fact is, the Democratic party has nothing of value to offer Indian country. Sure, when we threaten their elections they come smiling like 19th century federal terminators, offering gifts and promises in exchange for treaties destined to be broken, but the Democratic platform, which grew out of 19th century Utilitarianism and French Utopianism, has brought nothing but dissolution and disenfranchisement to all Indian tribes.

While the Republican party has its share of liberals, there is also a strong conservative voice there, and they hold many values in common with the traditional conservatism of American Indian culture. This is why Indian tribes should show their support for Republican candidates. When Republicans learn how much we share in common, then Indian country will know who their real friends are, whom we can trust, and whom we should support.

Not so gay marriage?

Posted April 23, 2004

I was surprised when the issue of gay marriage emerged. Since the mid‑1960s, feminists have condemned the institution of marriage as patriarchal and oppressive, so why would gays and lesbians want any part of that? But for some reason, many do:

"This is an issue that has really swept the country from coast to coast and is dominating public discussion about civil rights," said Kevin Cathcart, director of Lambda Legal, a gay rights group. "I don't see that quieting down." ‑‑ Some gay groups to protest GOP convention, Sara Kugler, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, April 19, 2004

The sentiment is understandable: homosexuals see it as a matter of discrimination, while opponents believe it would harm the family structure. Homosexuals counter that, given the state of the American family today, no harm but some good may come from expanding the opportunities for children to grow up in stable households, including those headed by homosexuals. Opponents counter that the dismal state of many traditional families is irrelevant, that it's about culture, history, tradition and religion. I disagree with both arguments, though for different reasons.

First, the eroding nuclear family, rather than being an argument for homosexual marriage, is evidence against it. Why? Because social experimentation, such as has been forced upon us by feminists and welfare state politics, is at the root of many of the problems that plague families today.

The Great Society programs of 1964, produced by President Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party, represented the first great assault on the traditional family. The welfare state it created provided economic inducements for women to have children out of wedlock and never marry. This encouraged the spread of welfare and gave feminists license to argue against marriage and for an expanded welfare state, in which men were subject to a "testosterone tax" to pay women to become lazy slobs who stayed home all day eating, watching TV and pumping out babies.

Although the feminist vision never fully materialized, and traditional marriage endures, their assault on men and marriage has harmed millions of women and children, along with men. The answer to this is not more social experimentation, but less. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, traditional marriage is the worst family institution, except for all the rest. But that's not the only reason to say "no" to homosexual marriage.

Death and Violence

Probably the most compelling argument against legitimizing homosexual marriage is that it really is against the best interests of children, because gay and lesbian relationships lead to more domestic violence and shorter life‑span.

Several years ago, Claire M. Renzetti conducted studies of domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships. She discovered that lesbian couples experience slightly higher levels of violence, while gay couples experience slightly lower levels. Sources: Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships; Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships (Monograph Published Simultaneously As the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, Vol 4, No 1), and Multicultural Perspectives on Domestic Violence in the U.S.: Lesbians and Domestic Violence in the U.S.. So, lesbian marriages are likely to provide role‑models that encourage even more domestic violence, and that's not good.

Gay relationships, on the other hand, lead to a shorter life‑expectancy, because gay men are usually promiscuous and engage in sexual activities that spread infections and diseases, chiefly HIV, but many other STDs, as well.

This is not to condemn in any manner whatsoever people who are homosexual. To turn a trite though true phrase, many of my best friends are homosexual. But for America, as a society, to encourage children into a homosexual lifestyle by legitimizing it through marriage goes not only against history, tradition and religious beliefs, but would propel and condemn many children to grow up into lifestyles that generally have more violence and less longevity. And that, we ought not to do.

No maternal bias?

Posted April 23, 2004

For the past several years, fathers' groups, watchdog organizations, such as TABS, and writers, such as Warren Farrell, have contended that the family court system is biased against fathers. And for just as long, groups like NOW and Ms. Magazine, have denied it. This, despite clear evidence of maternal bias, as in the case below:

She admitted to police that she faked her own abduction. Now Darcie Meier faces charges of drug possession and endangering her own children. ... After the alleged kidnapping, Jon Meier (the father) filed for full‑custody. But this week, a judge ruled that the kids should continue living with their mother. ‑‑ Mom Still Has Custody After Faking Own Kidnapping, Drew Mikkelsen, KOIN 6 News, April 22, 2004

For feminists, the "best interests of the children" is a mantra under which they have persuaded the family courts to presume mothers make the best parent because mothers are usually the primary caregiver and fathers, the primary provider. But, contrary to feminist myth, fathers are just as often a good parent, and mothers are just as often a bad parent, so the result is that because of the anti‑father bias in the family court system, a lot of children end up stuck with bad mothers, as in the case above.

The answer is to set aside this bias, which has destroyed hundreds of thousands of families, cost the country untold billions in broken lives that lead to crime, drug abuse, and a ripple effect as the breakdown spreads like an infection from one generation to the next. The family court system must be instructed and forced to look at and assess each family objectively, rather than to be biased against or for any single parent on the basis of their sex.

That is, after all, what's really in the best interests of the children.

$2.2 million for sex bias at Merrill Lynch?

Posted April 22, 2004

Former Merrill Lynch broker Hydie Sumner is to receive a $2.2 million judgment from her former employer for sex discrimination:

An arbitration panel found that Merrill Lynch engaged in systematic discrimination against women in a decision that awarded $2.2 million to a female former broker. ‑‑ Merrill Lynch loses sex‑bias ruling, The Associated Press, Seattle Times, April 22, 2004

Sumner contended that she "was not given the same amount of brokerage work as male colleagues and that her manager at the San Antonio office sexually harassed her."

Did her manager harass her? Who knows. That's the thing these days, a man so much as looks at a female co‑worker for longer than 8 seconds, according to the supreme court, and it's illegal ogling. So, while the workplace is now so hostile to male sexuality that women are becoming more sexually aggressive and less responsible to such a degree that they are easy prey for HIV positive predators (see Paying the Piper), most men simply cannot afford to behave the way men are supposed to, not in the workplace, anyway. But what about her contention that she did not get the brokerage work?

In 1986 when I completed stockbroker training at Merrill Lynch and started working, in July of that year, as a broker in one of the downtown Seattle offices, brokers weren't given brokerage work, we had to go out and get it. It was a sales job. I didn't know that. I'd read romantic accounts of junior brokers working as apprentices while they learned the business much as associates in law firms do. But the reality of the modern day is that brokers come straight out of training with orders to find clients and sell.

For somebody like me, who has Asperger's Disorder, having a job in which you have to go out and create new relationships is a bad idea. We can work like a machine, and I did, but at the end of two months I had opened only 2 accounts, and my career as a stockbroker soon came to an end.

But today might be different, due to the consumer backlash against telemarketing. If the case is that brokerage houses now generate leads which are handed off to individual brokers to work, then it's a simple matter of statistical distribution to assure there is no discrimination. But what about Sumner?

"I'd like to be a manager," said Sumner. "Maybe if there were more women managers, things would really change." ‑‑ Merrill Lynch loses sex‑bias ruling, The Associated Press, Seattle Times, April 22, 2004

Do women managers change things? Don't count on it. Contrary to feminist nonsense, such as Sally Helgesen's The Female Advantage, which paints an idyllic portrayal of female leadership, women are as hierarchical as men and just as likely to discriminate. Not that management opportunities shouldn't be equally open to women, don't misunderstand me on that. But women, like men, must be taught how to be effective leaders and managers.

Release Kennewick Man?

Posted April 21, 2004

Scientists will be allowed to study the remains of the 9,300‑year‑old Kennewick man, despite protests from local Indian tribes:

A brief order issued Monday by the (U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals) denied the request from the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Yakama and Colville tribes, who want to bury the remains without a scientific study. ‑‑ Scientists win new battle over skeleton, The Associated Press, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, April 21, 2004

Many Indians believe this is bad, and there are rock solid reasons why conservatives should side with Indians against the court: reverence for tradition and respect for the dead. But there is a powerful political reason why Indian tribes throughout the United States should reconsider: African American Reparations.

According to Dr. Mustafa Ansari, a member and one of 9 Chief Justices of the African American Reparations Tribunal (AART), the Tribunal, which, again according to Dr. Ansari, has already won a multi‑trillion dollar judgment against the United States in the World Court, intends to press their claim against American Indians, too, on the basis that the oldest human remains found to‑date in the Americas belong to an Africoid:

Adding to the avalanche of startling new information is the recent assertion by Dr. Walter Nevis of the University of SUgftildeUao Paulo in Brazil that an 11,500‑year‑old skull of a woman that scientists named Luzia ‑ the oldest human remains yet discovered on the continent ‑ appears Negroid. ‑‑ Policy on human remains hampers new thinking on archaeological finds, Solveig Torvik, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, December 5, 1999

With this evidence, the AART will claim that the Americas really belong to Africans. Ridiculous? Of course. For one thing, there is evidence of human habitation in the Americas as long as 40,000 years ago. Even assuming, however, that the Americas were inhabited primarily by Africoids some 11,000 years ago, what happened that long ago is irrelevant to modern politics. Right?

Of course, this is true. What's also true is that the AART will doubtless do their best, spending millions of dollars to press their case against American Indians, and against all Americans. And while their case against all Americans, though equally ludicrous, depends on more recent events, Indian tribes need to take steps now to head off any costly lawsuits from the AART by cooperating with scientists to solidly establish our archeological credentials as the current indigenous occupants of the Americas.

Asteroid to hit Earth!

Posted April 21, 2004

There's an old media bias joke about the newspaper headline that reads, "Asteroid to hit Earth! Women hardest hit!" I was reminded of that as I read the Los Angeles Times headline, "100 million children, many of them girls, aren't in school." Many? What does "many" mean, in this context? Or, to flip it around, what does not qualify as "many"? The answer: media bias.

More than 100 million children in developing nations who are between the ages of 6 and 11 ‑ 60 percent of them girls ‑ are not in school, according to a report released Tuesday by the Council on Foreign Relations. ‑‑ 100 million children, many of them girls, aren't in school , Los Angeles Times report, Tacoma News Tribune, April 21, 2004

Years ago, all official sources indicated that, in the U.S., 61% of all child abuse was perpetrated by women. "It's not that big a difference!" feminist retorted, "39% are still men, and if men had the same opportunities, they'd do more!" Okay, their argument had some sense to it, if men spent more time with children, there might be a few thousand more cases of male‑perpetrated child abuse in the U.S. The bias, however, was obvious.

In this case, it's more than simply a matter of bias, though, because the sheer magnitude of the actual number of individuals is so much bigger: 40% is 40 million boys who aren't in school. The fact that the article puts the focus on girls, when the real emphasis should be on all the children, underscores the pervasive anti‑male sexism of our society, brought to you courtesy of your friendly neighborhood feminists, who to this day parade themselves as the only true advocates of equality.