Glenn Beck: Egotistical or Liberal?

Glenn Beck gets many things right: Teddy Roosevelt was a disaster for America, small government, property rights . . . the founding principles. He gets some things wrong, too: the world might be on the way to destruction but it won’t be in the next five minutes, Bill O’Reilly is not a conservative, and all the random whatnots that he advertizes on his radio program. (Seriously, I could point out specific issues that I think he misses on but that would require more than the ten minutes I intend to invest in this post.)

Game On

Today’s political climate – which is to say the social climate – is really taking on a change that I am relieved to finally see: Conservatives are finally speaking their peace. Conservatives have listened to lefties spout absolute nonsense for so long in the media, from friends, neighbors, mush-minded student groups, et cetera and have taken it all in stride while recognizing it for what it really is. Now that Obama has presided over the worst administrative agenda in the history of the nation based on the nonsense that has been so long spouted by the left, they are finally at the point of action. More importantly, perhaps, Conservatives are losing their reticence in speaking their own beliefs.

Derek Jeter's All-Star Statement

He is a no-doubt first ballot Hall of Famer. His credentials include five World Series championships, a .312 career batting average, selected as an All-Star every from 1998 to 2011 except for 2005 (a year in which he batted .309, had 202 hits, and 19 homers), and his recent inclusion into the 3,000 hits club. He has been the captain of the New York Yankees storied franchise for years and years and is considered by many to be the best all-around player - on and off the field - in all of Major League Baseball. He was given a one of the last Yankee single-digit numbers for his jersey because George Steinbrenner had an inkling that it might just get retired. Jeter is already a baseball legend and he has, at least, a few more productive years in his legs and bat.

In defense of Casey Anthony and the Unborn

Some people ought to be hanged in public for their crimes, like in olden days. If Casey Anthony is convicted, she is one such person. This woman (allegedly) killed her daughter for no other reason than the inconvenienced lifestyle of a parenting. She didn't want the responsibility so she killed the kid and literally dumped her in the woods with duct tape over her mouth and in a TRASH BAG!

I guess she didn't want be "punished with a baby" anymore.

The Ghost of Media Present

Even The Atlantic admits that this fiasco in Libya is “wildly unpopular.” Why, then, is the mainstream media still not covering it? Not only are they not covering it in a falsely favorable light for Obama but they just aren’t bothering to cover it at all. What’s more shocking regarding the lack of media coverage is that Congress, on a rare bi-partisan level, is angered by this illegal war. Congress passed a resolution – and we all know just how effective resolutions are – with heavy Republican and Democrat support. We’ll see just how seriously the president views it.

Rick Reilly: Inter-Gender Champion?

Good job Rick Reilly. You just used your national celebrity to (try to) publicly disgrace a 15 year old boy on espn.com. Why? Because he decided to hold to his beliefs and refused to wrestle a girl. It might be one thing if his reason for not wanting to wrestle her was because she broke his heart in middle school or even because she has cooties. No, his reason is that he personally chooses to see women as something nobler than sweaty, Lycra-clad opponents whose body parts he will be groping in front of large crowds. Yeah, shame on him.

"I'm using the back of my hand . . . ."

This constant harangue about airport security pat-downs has long become tiresome for me. FOX news seems to be leading the charge, but all the other news sources are fast on their heels in the outcry. This whole dust-up is frustrating for many reasons, not the least of which is that I’m just tired of listening to it.

Here is my biggest issue with this issue: hypocrisy. As usual, people (usually liberal-minded people, mind you) piss and moan about one thing or another and when they finally get their way, in spades, they piss and moan that they got what they wanted but not how they wanted it. In this case, Americans, who have long valued their privacy and the fundamentals of the free market, all of a sudden are clamoring for their privacy to be invaded and are ignoring a basic principle of the free market because they are being inconvenienced at the airport . . . for security purposes. Was 9/11 really that long ago? What’s more, are these same people watching the same news outlets that pump them up about getting mauled by a giant black man wearing a TSA badge when they report the many, many foiled terrorist attack attempts?

Bill O’Reilly’s fall into Irrelevance

I remember sitting in the break room of my Company’s barracks building with a dozen other guys watching a television program. The cheap couches and chairs were packed and those who couldn’t find a seat were happy to stand and watch the show. No one played ping-pong; no one cared to knock the balls around on the pool table. Everyone was riveted to the television screen.

Normally, with dirt-chewing, gun-toting infantrymen of the coarsest variety, the only sort of on-screen feature that could command such attention was a film of the x-rated sort . . . and even that would have had to be remarkable in some way. This occasion, though, the soldiers weren’t watching the latest war movie or film starring adult entertainers. We were watching The O’Reilly Factor.

Arlington-Smarlington . . . I Need a Vacation

Speaking for myself and from a position of relative ignorance – as most of us must with the way the MSM refuses to execute their due diligence as the Fourth Estate regarding Obama’s presidency – I am, at the same time, not surprised by and wholly disgusted with the president’s decision to opt out of the Memorial Day Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier so he can take yet another vacation. It will be his second vacation this month.

I remember when Vice President Cheney laid the wreath at the Tomb instead of President Bush. And maybe I’m not being fair to Obama, because I didn’t feel the same indignation then as now. He hasn’t cancelled the ceremony outright, after all, and he is sending Biden as his supernumerary. Then again, taking into account the characters of each Bush and Obama, maybe I’m not.

How Much is Enough?

“We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I do think at a certain point you've made enough money, but you know, part of the American way is, you can just keep on making it if you're providing a good product.”

This was, of course, the President of the United States of America Barack Obama off the teleprompter script.

Discriminate? Don’t You Dare

Think about the law recently passed in Arizona. No, not the fact that the law simply gives law enforcement officers in the state the authority to enforce federal immigration law. No, not how the left (to include the president, his buddy down Mexico way, his Attorney General, his Secretary of Homeland Security, and her underlings) has not bothered to read the bill but gone on to piss and moan how the law is an atrocity. Instead, think about how they are pissing and moaning.

Even though the law clearly states that officers may not use factors of race, ethnicity, etc. to investigate a person’s legal status, the left has blatantly ignored this fact. But, how, exactly, are they getting their rhetoric through despite it? Simple: they are using the “D” word, discrimination.

Awarding Minimum Standards

American military personnel engaging the enemy must follow certain Rules of Engagement (ROE) as commanded by their leadership. Though the ROE necessarily evolves to accommodate current battlefield conditions, soldiers and Marines understand that one of the constants of each issued ROE is that targeting civilians is a no-no. Should a soldier or Marine engage and wound or kill a civilian when such could well have been avoided, they understand that they will face criminal charges. If convicted, they are given a suite at Ft. Leavenworth's Military Prison.

Now, apparently, all of those who do not - which is to say all of those who now stand ready on the front lines because they haven't already been removed for such actions - would be eligible for President Obama's idea for a new commendation, the Courageous Restraint Medal.

Compassionate People

America: the land of compassion. Doubtless, few will disagree, but mostly because each Left and Right stakes a claim to having it while the other doesn’t. I am one of those.

Though it is quite the mystery for lefties to understand exactly how we conservatives can claim be compassionate, the facts and logic state – or should – indisputably that such is true. The Right, year in and out, donates such a larger portion of their incomes to charitable organizations as compared to folks on the Left by so large a margin that this fact alone should be enough to end all debate. But the facts only begin there. The ideological differences between Left and Right are what really create the delineation regarding the degree of compassion.

Movie Review: Julie & Julia

When it comes to lining up the next movie in the cue from Netflix, I occasionally take into consideration my wife's ever discriminating tastes. Recently, I remembered her utterance of "Oh, I'd like to see that" during a preview for Julie & Julia. So, dutiful as I am, I moved it to the top spot. It was delivered promptly and we plumped ourselves on the couch and watched the whole thing just last night.

The More I Learn . . .

. . . About Islam, the more I see its evils.

My first real experiences with Muslims came in Iraq. I’d met and interacted with Muslims in Tunisia and Kuwait prior to my time in Iraq; but, those experiences merely brushed the surface, whereas, in Iraq, I was out and amongst followers of Islam on a daily basis. Iraqis, like people everywhere, have among their multitudes those who are ardent in following the strictures of their faith, those who pay convenient obeisance, and those who disregard their religion wholly. Though Islam forbids homosexuality, I met many young men who told me that women are for procreation while men are for pleasure. I met a great many men who drank alcohol regularly, which Islam also forbids. Then again, there are the male shepherds who are famous for relieving themselves on the ewes in the flock. I’ve never learned whether bestiality is also forbidden but I can only imagine that it is. On the other side of the coin, I also had a run-in with a Wahabi – even his relatively moderate fellow trainees in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps were afraid of what he may have done. They were so afraid and in such an uproar, in fact, that we trainers thought that we might have been under some sort of attack.