Secular Humanism - man is a god

A god, given thirty years starting when President Nixon declared an all-out war on cancer, would have cured it by now. This is not to put down all those sincere scientists diligently working for a cure but to make the case that secular humanism, or what Bill O'Reilly calls the secular-progressive movement, exalts and celebrates man but does not acknowledge his limitations (and also by extension his propensity for evil). This is brought to mind by the recent news that the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has a return of her breast cancer and now White House spokesman Tony Snow also has a return of the very cancer he had thought he beat a few years ago.

It's time to turn the page on the chemo and the radiation. I've known a few people who've had cancer and passed away and it seems that once they go for the conventional "treatment" it's pretty much a death sentence, the pattern is always the same, they have hope of improvement but in a few weeks time at best they are gone. Now a more conspiratorial-minded person might see this all as a subtle form of euthanasia but as for myself I open up the question - in such cases does the original cancer kill the patient or is it the "therapy"? This is why I don't give any money to the various cancer societies, I feel that one day chemo/radiation will be seen in the same light that electro-shock therapy is today, an attempt to do good because we really don't have all the answers and are desperate but barbaric nonetheless.

We now know that we all have genes in our bodies that can cause cancer to develop, such genes are called proto-oncogenes. Science is looking for the triggers but one theory goes that once a person wants to die the body breaks down. It's like the brain is a computer and sends out a program for everything to self-destruct. Perhaps this is a more holistic and philosophical approach but it doesn't bode well for the secular-progressives that the last dread disease we were really able to do something about was polio.

Man is a wonder in many ways but I'm with the Rev. Pat Robertson on this one, I can't worship such a creature and the movement based on it. We need something outside of ourselves and that something is usually called God. Man has an apparently limitless supply of opportunities for letting you down.

Broward County ME Joshua Perper's Sylvia Browne moment

Though she died of a drug cocktail of no less than nine (!) different prescription drugs including chloral hydrate and methadone the coroner assures us that foul play was not involved in the tragic Anna Nicole Smith case, not only that it wasn't even suicide which end a reasonable person might draw. Seminole tribal Police Chief Charlie Tiger seconds the motion and says no cause for concern here (would twenty prescription drugs in a person's system be the barest minimum for concern?). In the wake of the controversial Schiavo case it is now the politically correct thing to do to go out of our way not to demonize people even if this means we should ask far more questions than we do or even that justice has to take a back seat to sensitivities. To this day we don't really know with any metaphysical certitude what caused Terri to collapse on that fateful morning of Feb. 25, 1990 and likewise we cannot state with any metaphysical certitude, as Broward County ME Joshua Perper has done, that Anna Nicole's death at such a young age was purely an accident. Is our legal and justice system no longer intellectually curious anymore? Is enabling a person's drug dependency no longer a crime? Is it just easier these days to let the dead rest with their secrets? WHY must I rely on sources like the National Enquirer for really vital new information in the case?

What of Howard K. Stern?

The prisons are full of innocent people

I've never gotten greed. I mean I can understand lust but greed is well over my head, if I had 1/20 or even 1/30 of the salary of ex-Tyco chief Dennis Koslowski in his prime I'd be more than happy, you wouldn't hear a peep from me for the rest of my life, I might even be in a charitable mood and charter a few private jets and get the people subjugated under Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe the hell out of there (hey W is he on your list of foreign leaders to be overthrown? didn't think so). You can be warm-blooded but help the poor but greed just feeds on itself and devours your soul and it is not for nothing that the Good Book says the love of money is the root of all evil (I'd like to say simply money but people keep correcting me) and I'd rather go before the Lord in the end as poor as I am. But there was Mr. Koslowski in prison garb chatting with Morley Safer last night on "60 Minutes" (Morley still remembers what he was doing the day Honest Abe was shot). Now an innocent person wrongly sent to prison would be more angry and indignant about the whole affair but Kos just rather blithely said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "yeah, you know, I was railroaded." He said the timing of his trial for grand larceny was bad what with the other big corporate scandals in the news at the time, the Enron boys and Worldcom. He pretty much chalked it up to here he was, a big fat corporate pig CEO being judged by a group of average people, you know, how could there be any other outcome?

Our prisons are teeming with innocent people, it's a national scandal.

The age of voter romanticism

With his interesting multi-ethnic makeup he's Tiger Woods with a better personality but in a far more rational world a one-term Democratic Senator from Illinois would never be taken seriously as a presidential contender. What the rational pragmatists don't understand though is that when you're in love with somebody nobody else will do ("if I can't have you I don't want nobody baby, if I can't have you..."). To be sure this is in large measure the same romantic spirit that drives Rudy's supporters but in his case he is at least far more competent and capable. Barack Obama is too young and inexperienced to handle the world right now in its present state but that's besides the point. He gives you that magical feeling that McCain and Edwards are incapable of. The Goracle (to use a John Podhoretz phrase) might be a movie star now but he couldn't inspire lust in a woman going through a twenty year dry spell (and we're to believe he and Tipper were the inspiration for Love Story)?. Now Barack working in a Giuliani administration, the two of them together, now that's dreamy.

The MSM on the couch

It is a major theme of this blog that everything can be psychoanalyzed and so let's dispense with the myth that we have an objective press in this country (the media professor Marvin Kalb's position), there is no such beast whether we are talking about FOX News or CNN which makes Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' recent refusal to participate in a FOX debate all the more hilarious. It would be far more honest and easier to swallow if shows like "Dateline" and "Primetime Live" preceded their broadcasts with this disclaimer - "what you are about to see is an opinion piece where facts and various 'experts' were selectively marshalled to make the case."

The msm are:

(1) Secular - religious stories important to other people are not even a blip on the msm radar screen. Interested in the life of St. Padre Pio? then go to EWTN, you niche people you.

(2) Feminist - this goes a long way towards explaining why so much of the msm are anti-porn but also pro-abortion, it's a Gloria Steinem thing. It also may help explain the media's heavy emphasis on crime stories of late especially as it affects women (men getting raped in prison ain't no big thing). In real life people may be lovesick and obsessed but in media land there is no such thing as the harmless stalker. In fact there is nothing but CRIME on CBS nowadays, real and imagined.

(3) Question authority at all turns, especially when it comes to matters of race - as in the tragic Sean Bell case which a Queens NY grand jury is now considering. On Nov. 25 of last year the 23 year old Bell, an unarmed black man, and his two friends, also black, also apparently unarmed, were shot by 5 NYPD detectives outside the Kalua strip club in Jamaica Queens. Bell, who was to be married later that day, was killed and his two friends were wounded but survived. With the notable exception of the more right-wing New York Post nobody in the NYC mainstream press bothered explaining how Bell allegedly attempting to drive over a cop who identified himself may have precipitated the whole thing. Now there is talk if the jury doesn't hand up the "right" verdict the fit will hit the shan.

Geraldo Rivera, more honest than most, when asked why he became a journalist famously said "to make the world a better place." Anyone else want to confess?

Newt dipped his toe in the lake

and it felt good but for those chilly currents swirling around Giuliani, wade slowly Newt, tuck your tummy in and splash some on your shoulders and then take your dive. The writing is on the wall, Rudy is not resonating with social conservatives, and whether Newt Gingrich's mea culpa the other day on the Rev. James Dobson's radio show was a result of

political calculation or moral epiphany (to use a George Will phrase)

he did what Rudy never did, admit to personal weakness and say, yes, adultery is technically wrong. While leading the charge for Clinton's impeachment then House Speaker Gingrich was cheating on his second wife with a woman who became his third (talk about a Giuliani parallel!) As one analyst said last night this probably won't bother Christian conservatives who are used to forgiving people anyway so long as Newt espouses a political philosophy that is close enough to theirs (I don't think it'll be a problema). You have to have a pair of brass balls (I'm talking about Giuliani here) if you're a Republican your whole life and say things like you'd pay for your daughter's abortion and then, years down the road, expect to get the wholehearted support of your base. Your political compass is in the Bermuda Triangle. Newt is smarter than that, without getting into the abortion quagmire he can simply repeat what he's always said, that Roe was a judicial abomination, a gross usurpation of the principles of federalism and leave it at that. Makes the cut in my book.

I'd vote for the guy.

Why Rudy still loses to Obama in '08

Dick Morris, as if to stay one step ahead of the z-man, says in today's column that Obama's support among the black leadership is not as strong as one might expect and that this in turn will lead to less black voter turnout for him in '08. The Morris analysis seems to be that he's too white but isn't this the same stereotype that Joe Biden recently engaged in? Is he supposed to be more like a rap star and say "a'ight"? At any rate if it's Rudy vs. Obama, as I suspect (as Beth says) that Hillary will beat herself out of the race, blacks will turn out for Obama or, put another way, they will vote against Rudy. I've heard African-Americans talk about Giuliani over the years and their dislike runs deep, he's a definite lightning rod for blacks. Blacks will not vote for him simply because, let's say there's a high-profile case of police brutality or the shooting death of an unarmed black man and the black leadership, feeling justice isn't being done, wants the Dept. of Justice to take over, it won't happen in Rudy's house.

There's also the issue of partial-birth which he supports, this hardly makes him a "moderate" on the abortion issue. He could therefore turn off pro-choice voters who want some restrictions placed on the practice but there is a new breed of conservative out there for whom the social issues are not as important as, say, the war or law and order, people like Sean Hannity. 9/11 does not entitle him to be president of the United States and anyway Americans are not going to elect someone who will prolong the Iraqi quagmire ad infinitum.

Bottom line, all things considered, by my calculus Rudy loses to Obama in '08. Take that Dick!

What exactly is our way of life anyway?

This comes to mind because conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza says that the radical Muslims don't like us for our coarse and pornographic anti-life culture. Leaving aside for the moment how could flying planes into buildings be considered pro-life D'Souza has touched a nerve with other "conservatives" tired of the culture wars, people like Victor Davis Hanson who calls it "one righty writer's terror tantrum." So how does one define our "way of life"? Are our soldiers dying in Iraq to protect legal abortion and hardcore porn? I myself would like to think they're giving up their lives to protect the nobler aspects of the American democratic experiment. Be that as it may why can't we just say Dinesh has the God-given American right to think out loud and leave it at that. Myself? I had a very bad day at work today.

Let's bring back the Charles Dickens workfare program

Remember not too many moons ago there was all this talk that we'd have more leisure time, technology would do our jobs for us? There was even talk of 3 day weekends whereas now the norm is one day off, in Japan nobody has a day off! Are Republicans running the show? Take chefs. Most chefs I talk to work something like 14 hour days on average and never take an official lunch break, 5 minutes maybe tops to wolf something down. In many jobs today, especially in retail, nobody takes 15 minute breaks anymore even though it's in the union handbooks, too much work to do and so people don't bring up the subject, your Republican boss certainly isn't going to. This is like a retrogression to an earlier era. This is a civilized, advanced society?

According to veteran conservative journalist Bob Novak the GOP, aka "The Stupid Party", doesn't want to listen to veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz who's been telling them how the public at large reacts to their ideas. Take NR editor Rich Lowry and conservative pundit-at-large Thomas Sowell, both bright guys but they now devote more and more inches of column space to defending the extremely wealthy like corporate CEOs and criticize those Democrats who take on greed (you see, even though greed is one of the 7 deadly sins it's really a good thing). Now Lowry and Sowell may have a couple of valid points to make but let's face it, the vast majority of people are nowhere near being rich themselves and will never be and can't relate to it. A Luntz piece of advice might be to talk less about the country club set and more about the middle class and even the poor. So Luntz is now persona non grata within his own party just like a Republican will be persona non grata in the next White House. People who masturbate your mind

If Mom were a supermarket honcho

I am thoroughly convinced that Moms have more wisdom than 10 men with retail business degrees combined. Take today's Game. So I'm walking through the produce department at my local supermarket and all I see at the salad bar are tons of these special platters, things with carrot sticks, celery stalks and broccoli. I ran this by my Mom. She said "men don't eat that stuff."

A group of dietetic men are sitting around the tube and one gets up and knocks the veggie platter over, "man! did you see that play?!?"People who masturbate your mind

Shrillary, the Oprah Candidate

Hillary resents that George Bush may leave her his war to deal with which would be akin to Richard Nixon saying he resented LBJ leaving him the Vietnam mess, real, um, men deal with these matters everyday. Agree or disagree with the war in Iraq presidential candidates of true fiber generally do not talk like this, if the mess persists into a Hillary term she can deal with it her way by simply bringing the troops home. This is Dr. Phil talk, imagine the late Margaret Thatcher talking like this!

People who masturbate your mind

Conservatism defined

The instant gratification generation and change as the illusion of stability

I know of many young couples who, having been married only a few years, have bought houses. Many times it is the pressure from the wife to get out of apartment living and an older generation would have said wait a while, save some money before you become saddled with a mortgage but these are people who each have a car in their own name. The idea of taking public transportation to save and getting a new car down the road, in short the very idea of suffering and discomfort in the now for long-term gain, is alien to the age that wants it all and wants it today, pay now to save later is a relic from a wiser but extinct generation. We want to make love by the fireplace with the Barry White music pumping

NOW,

this hovel we call an apartment is cramping our STYLE.

You can pretend all you want the house is yours but job security ain't what it used to be, what with the New World Order and all, and one only look through your local Pennysaver to see so many romantic illusions shattered. Conservative values this ain't, things like forbearance, sacrifice, patience, financial prudence (this is the credit-card generation after all), in other words living within your means. We'd rather be in debt than go without. Me? I now pay cash on the barrelhead wherever I go even if it means people look at me like a fossil.

liberalism = change, conservatism = keeping traditions

Conservatives, in marked contrast to liberals, as a cardinal rule do not question government or its institutions, not in the general sense anyway, or law and order, in a word, authority. Social and political stability is this movement's highest value even at the expense that they should question things more from time to time. Liberals, by contrast, seem to be all about social unrest, an attitude that began in the '60s and continues today. Witness the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the hundreds of their followers protesting last November's NYPD police shooting death of the 23 year old black man to be married that day, Sean Bell, who was unarmed but may have been trying to run a police officer over with his car. The conservative would say what was he doing at a crime-infested strip joint in a bad part of Queens at that time of night (or why hold a bachelor party at all for that matter) but all these elements of proper social order and living are irrelevant to the activists. The overriding need for political and social stability is why, to this day, conservatives can't bring themselves to question the Vietnam War and they have only now brought themselves around to accepting the historic rightness of the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s.

to be continued..... People who masturbate your mind

Change vs. stability - why change is overrated

We recently had two of our best workers leave. One, a talented and hardworking young chef was with us for a year and a half and the other was a chef/manager who stayed a couple of years longer than him. The consensus at work is that change is good, it is exciting, everyone needs a change and so good for them but in my view it can look lousy on a resume or job application. Yeah, change is jazzy for the person leaving, new adventures and mountains to climb, but to a potential employer it looks like you get bored easily with your jobs or disgruntled or something at least after a time. Stability is boring though and to preach its value over the idea of change leaves you in the definite minority. It bears noting that both of these men who left are young, in the mid to late 20's range, and so being young they haven't yet discovered the wisdom of traditional values like stability. In this sense a job is like a marriage and these two guys haven't settled down yet.

Some will say personal responsibility is the key behind the conservative movement but personal responsibility is only one thing that leads to social stability. It is stability, stability in the social and sexual sphere, in one's work, in life in general that is the real driving force behind conservatism. This is why conservatives preach marriage is between a man and a woman, why committed relationships, while not as strong as marriage, are far preferable to promiscuity, why many times it is better to stick with one job even though it may cause you no end of grief (Mom's wisdom), that boss you may hate may be transferred soon if you just hang in there. Young people like motion and movement is inherent to change, the wisdom of stability doesn't appeal to them yet as it represents inertia, sexually, socially, workwise and in every way.

They say most people start out more liberal in their earlier years and become more conservative with age. I don't know if this is true for Kirk Douglas who still feels the immature male need to brag about the sexual conquests in his youth (his controversial new autobiography Let's Face It - 90 Years of Living, Loving and Learning) but for me conservatism makes the most sense. A society without stability is chaos.People who masturbate your mind

Jesus

Thousands have died for my freedom. Only one has died to save my soul.People who masturbate your mind

I can only take so much male bonding

I've been running into some old buddies of late and we've been getting together. Couldn't have come at a better time as I've been suffering of late from severe spells of ennui which is a fancy French word describing overwhelming boredom with Life in general. So you all go out and do your thing and enjoy each other's company and reminisce but it all seems ever so slightly

gay (not that there's anything wrong with that)

You start feeling like a roving bunch of faggots, hey maybe we can, um, "rest" at one of those stops on the interstate on our way to the Mall, get a little Jim McGreevey action in. It always seems lost buddies you come in contact with later in life, never lost loves. There are no.....possibilities. You're both eating your burgers and drinking your Coronas (oh, such a manly brew!) and you look across the table at your pal and wish he had breasts and a nice pair of gams with that oh so intoxicating perfume. I can only take so much male bonding. I desperately need some McCounseling.People who masturbate your mind

Yesterday's soap opera

MSM tired of the Drama of the Clintons

On the "Today" show this morning David Gregory set the stage. He interviewed Hillary campaign spokesman Terry McAuliffe (yes that Terry McAuliffe) and kept interjecting things like her business dealings in the past, her husband's scandals and summed it up best when he said aren't we just tired of the whole drama of the Clintons by now. You see for the liberal msm the Clintons are so yesterday, we have fell madly and hopelessly in love with this new stud Barack and wouldn't it be nice if liberalism could be clean once in a while. Here here...meanwhile all the conservatives like John Podhoretz are warmly and oh so politely welcoming Hillary to the race as if to atone for their past impeachment zeal. It should be interesting without the msm on her side. Can we talk?People who masturbate your mind

When you're right you're right

Score one for the Rosie

She is right on in her remarks about "American Idol" and in particular Simon Cowell and his cruelty. This is where the culture is at right now and truth be told the Donald is a dick too, holding his "Apprentice" party at Hef's Playboy Mansion. You can't blame Melania for having a clause about affairs in their prenup, he's a god in his own head who can't take the slightest criticism. I liked Dr. Phil's thoughts on Idol, these are people who only want their 15 minutes of fame, go easy already!

So Liz Smith thinks the hit show "24" is too right-wing for her and wonders what Kiefer Sutherland's father, Donald, thinks of it all. In the season premiere the Counter Terrorist Unit of LA, CTU, negotiated with terror mastermind Fayed to give them the head of their star agent, Jack Bauer, on a plate in order to prevent future attacks on American soil. This is a right-wing position Liz? Bush wouldn't even compromise with Zarqawi to save Nick Berg's head. Ah, the perils of judging something you haven't even seen, something the libs are constantly chastising us not to do.

Great show "20/20" did last night on credit-card companies and how they love people to go into debt they can't get out of, that's how they make their millions. The show makes you angry at all those country club Republicans who were so key in passing bankrupty "reform" at the behest of these usurious credit-card companies who began whining about families being unable to meet their debt obligations. Loansharks and Republicans, perfect together. This is why the Repubs will continue to lose election after election, they no longer speak for the Common Man like they used to. People who masturbate your mind

Sean Hannity has better beer

I was asked recently by a good Internet friend why I've been so hard on Bill O'Reilly of late. Here it is. In the past O'Reilly boasted of his political independence, he was fond of saying he is not a conservative (look at his environmental views) or a liberal (he hates secularism), but now he just reflexively takes right-wing positions as with the war. I simply prefer the cooler O'Reilly of the past. The new O'Reilly simply wants to be popular and accepted on that National Review cruise ship coming up, you know, the Caribbean voyage with Thomas Sowell as chef, Rush Limbaugh at the helm, and WFB Jr. in the lounge as elder statesman smoking his pipe.

The genius of Season 6 of "24". Every time you think they're making fun of liberals and their concerns they go after conservatives and their extremism, but wait a minute those victims of ethnic profiling were terrorists plotting mayhem after all and maybe the conservatives had a point, then again the libs have a point about all those detention camps rounding up Muslims. "24" has both liberal and conservative writers, FOX and CBS can take a lesson here.People who masturbate your mind

What a Hillary victory would mean

Conservatives who want to bring the war front and center into the '08 presidential race need to consider Hillary's future Democratic victory acceptance speech as screened through the z-man truth filter:

Let's oil up the abortion machines. Let's tune 'em up, get 'em going, change the filters. Line the kids up.....People who masturbate your mind

Be careful what you wish for

or the perils of a sex-obsessed society

Bob, the partly balding mid 40-something accountant in all those Levitra and Cialis ads, the kind you don't want to imagine having a ball-slapping good time with anyone, can't salute the missus anymore but he finally has the Magic Bullet.

Bob: "Honey, it's been about 3 hours and 20 minutes and it hasn't gone down yet. Should I call the doctor?"
Missus: "Just wait a little while. Wait about 20 minutes. The threshold of the warning hasn't been reached yet and in the meantime try to concentrate on something else like world famine or Rosie O'Donnell masturbating."

(Later at the doctor's office)
Doc: "I really don't know what to tell you. I haven't been trained in this. Maybe I should just break the damn thing."

(audience - arrrrgggghhhhh)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.People who masturbate your mind

The Rosie O'Donald Feud

Rosie has a tendency to dwell on rather unimportant items in the news. She went on and on about Clay Aiken's hand covering Kelly Ripa's mouth and now, as we all know, she doesn't like the fact that the Donald gave Tara Conner, MissUSA, a second chance. One of the founding priniciples of political correctness is never forgive once somebody messes up or says or does something offensive and so I guess it is radical in this day and age to be given that second chance. I think the Donald likes the classical submissive woman, the European beauty who is feminine and subtly sexual, and Rosie represents the polar opposite, the brash and obnoxious tomgirl who kicked you in the nuts in the 4th grade. Melania is Hellenic in her beauty and Rosie looks like she works on the wharf hauling the mackerel in.

Just my .02 People who masturbate your mind

Why comics all swing from the left

I finally figured out why so many comedians swing to the Left, maybe it's just because the Right is so much easier to make fun of. The Left may be wrong about most things but they may be right about the War, even a little bit. The Right might be right about many things but wrong about the War, even a tad. It would be too easy to make a Macabre House on the Left, what with Terri Schiavo and New York Times Magazine reporters who never met an abortion they didn't like, throw in a feminist coven or two for good measure, but the Left is pretty much upfront about their Death Worship these days, what makes the Macabre House on the Right much more scary is that they purport to be

The Party of Morality and All That is Decent,

people you can trust. I expect more. As the Joelster says "I'm movin' out!"People who masturbate your mind

Isn't this what free speech is all about?

There is a crotchety middle-aged man in town whom the other conservatives seem to shun, some even call him a closet lib. He can be found most nights at the Tavern & Grille at the end of town holding court, getting in touch with the common pulse. Last night you walked in and heard him put down Betty Ford for breaking down at Gerry's memorial service. At first you are shocked by the outrageousness of his words but then you sense an original thought, a rare commodity these days. Then you realize you've always had these unformed thoughts rattling around in your mental attic somewhere but you were never fully aware of it. You've often thought yourself why do religious folk who believe in God and an afterlife get so bent out of shape when a loved one dies even when they don't die tragically but in a normal and expected fashion, life having run its course. You would never say this and anyway people mourn in their own way but now you kinda like the guy regardless and could probably have a decent conversation with the man about the 20 year old guy who was arrested the other day in a Staten Island McDonald's for calling a clerk a faggot for not giving him a McFlurry, whatever happened to free speech, what are we some police state or something? Many in the bar like the man and enjoy his company but the other, more respectable denizens of RightTown like O'Reilly hate the guy 'cos he doesn't get with the program. He makes fun of both Left and Right and you're not supposed to do this, pick a side, any side buddy and stick with it. He even disparagingly called Sean and Rush border collies in his new book for barking and yapping at any conservative who dares stray too far off the plantation. The chutzpah, the audacity, the nerve...

the balls.

His name is Michael Savage. People who masturbate your mind

From Whitewater to genitals all in one season

A middle-aged but young looking man with a rather pleasant looking face approaches you. He has the hint of a benign smile forming and has glasses on and is wearing a pair of beige Dockers with some casual brown loafers and a short sleeve sky blue polo shirt with a fancy, rather intricate design done in a wavy pattern. It's probably you and your latent thoughts (you really should get that checked out) but it somehow reminds you of male and female genitalia with some spermatozoa thrown in. He is smoking a cigar and has some Macadamia nuts in his hand.

"Hi! I'm Ken Starr, I'm your next door neighbor."People who masturbate your mind

It's a vibe thing

Macabre House on the Right

Since you can remember you were always against abortion, euthanasia and the Playboy philosophy at the root of it all and were looking for a nice place to live in a good neighborhood. You fell in love with the House on the Right and it had a good school district that didn't teach kids they came from apes and how to put on a Trojan and so you settled in. You don't know why you didn't notice it before with your walk with the realtor but there it is when you were chilling one night in the living room, an enlarged and framed photo of Saddam hanging from the gallows, next to that is a psychedelic poster of a huge mushroom cloud. On the coffee table are National Review magazine articles in defense of the late right-wing Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, he may have tortured people and violated some human rights but he was more congenial to our national interests than other dictators, like say Saddam. On the bookshelf are bound testimonials published by Judie Brown of the American Life League, testimonials from married couples themselves who have divorced each other because they had sex with each other before the wedding day. You look in the stereo cabinet and see CDs like "Sean Hannity's Greatest Radio Hits", #3 track - Nick Berg screaming during his beheading at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

And that's only the living room, you haven't checked the attic and the cellar yet.People who masturbate your mind

The ICC

Though they won't complain about it this time there is a reason why many neocons are wary of the International Criminal Court. They know it was theoretically possible (although highly improbable) that Harry Truman could have been brought to trial for nuking two Japanese cities and they also know that former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger is oft mentioned by those on the Left as a candidate. In his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso Books - 2001) Christopher Hitchens indicts Kissinger for his alleged involvement in the following - the war in Indochina, mass murder in Bangladesh, assassinations in Santiago, Nicosia and Washington DC, and also for sabotaging the Vietnam peace accords at Paris and thereby prolonging the war. Hell, while we're at it why don't we bring ole Fidel to justice before he croaks? Let's throw in Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez as a 2 fer.People who masturbate your mind

Better him than Osama

So Saddam is no more. What do you say to a woman when your line of work is executioner? I can at least say I made quiche the other day at work, "oh really? How much heavy cream do you use? How much cheddar to Swiss?"

"I helped kill Saddam."
"Oh"

Death penalty is primitive and barbaric but people's minds are made up so I don't much debate it anymore, it serves their most primal emotional need of revenge which they dress up as retributive justice. They say they filmed it so Saddam's killing will probably wind up on Faces of Death, sure to be a collector's item among the rabid right. Sean better put in for it now while supplies last.People who masturbate your mind

What kind of question is that?

National Review asks "are we allowed to be against Barack Obama?"

He was on the Oprah the other day with the lovely missus talking about how he called his wife up from the Senate Office Building after helping to pass some crucial nuclear non-proliferation bill or something when Michelle said "we have ants!!! Can you get some ant traps on the way home?"

In answer to NR's question,

in a word, NO.People who masturbate your mind

Celeb worship

E.T. and Access Hollywood, they're more or less the same thing, celebrity suck-up shows that would do Jenna Jameson proud. All that BLING BLING, it's disgusting and obscene stuff when you consider all the masses in the world starving but that's just it, Hollywood stars feel so guilty about all their incredible wealth that they reflexively vote and preach Democratic Party values so as to balm their consciences, at least this is Rush's view and I agree. And the shows are so loud as if to GRAB your attention. I'm sorry but the only Hollywood celebrities I like these days are Danny Aiello and Fred MacMurray and he's dead. And I'm sick of seeing those two blockheads, Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio, in the same movies, like in The Departed, it gets damn near confusing. Monsterism.People who masturbate your mind

George Will

I can imagine George Will as a shrink, a man sits on his couch and goes over his problems and his life,

Will: "I know what your problem is, you have a malignant case of solipsistic narcissism, all you do is talk about yourself." (see footnote)

Will doesn't like you bloggers and has issues with TIME magazine choosing you, yes you, as its "person" of the year. I agree with him about the mindlessless of YouTube and MySpace but that's where we part company. He doesn't like bloggers making themselves the subject of their blogs but blogging means different things to different people, for many it may be cathartic and I don't think talking about your life experiences automatically means you are overly in love with yourself. I myself am my own harshest critic but I just love to blog about EVERYTHING, including George Will.

(footnote - solipsistic narcissism, to be distinguished from narcissistic solipsism)People who masturbate your mind

24

I'm lost without my "24", when it's off the air it's like prison boredom. The other day I bought the box set for Season 5 and this stuff is addictive. It's been said they have some conservative writers and some liberal writers and I got a whiff of the latter when President Charles Logan's chief of staff, Walt Cummings, said he told some Russian separatists about where they can find these canisters of military-grade nerve gas but that he controls the detonation configuration so the plan was to set them off when the terrorists got as far as Central Asia so people would be convinced of the need for an increased U.S. military presence there and we need the oil. Got me thinking maybe Bush was duped by people in his own CIA who knew they were misleading him about those Iraqi WMDs and that's what led us into war but anyway, like an addict without his weekly fix, the season premiere of "24" is just around the corner, if I can just hold on 'til then.

Rich Lowry and other conservatives have had it with CNN's Lou Dobbs for taking on Big Business and this is why they'll also lose the White House in '08, big biz is a sacred cow for them and if you criticize its practices, like laying off hundreds of long-time workers, then you are just an anti-capitalist socialist pig like Gwyneth Paltrow but that's just it with pundits of all stripes these days, everybody thinks they are always right and the talking heads (more like bobbleheads), both left and right, always talk over each other. There's such a welter of political opinion out there that your head swims. Might be a good idea to lay off the paper for a week, get your mind flushed out, but when you get back they'll just be sparring again calling the opposing side evil for opposing the war or whatever, just the right time to plug in your "24". People who masturbate your mind

Obama and the media

Having thought about this Barack Obama thing I think in large part he is a creation of the media but not totally, that would be unfair. That we are even talking about a one-term Democratic Senator from Illinois as being a viable presidential contender shows he has that something extra but, with the exception of Hillary, in a Democratic field as dull as this one you almost become charismatic by default. When he does run, and he will, look for the msm to constantly refer to him as a "moderate" despite having a 100% liberal voting record, even having voted for international funding for groups that provide abortions. In the msm worldview there is no such thing as a liberal anyway, there are just those radical righties and the rest of us, aka moderate folk.

Former Republican Congressman Tom DeLay has said it will be a Hillary/Obama ticket in '08 and I agree although it's possible to flip that one around and play with it a little. DeLay is urging conservative bloggers to find something on Obama, anything, to derail his prospects. With so much to blog about these days, being a fairly conservative blogger myself, yeah Tom, that's what I'll do in my spare time when I'm not putting in 6 days of full-time work myself. Conservatives who do this, who want us to roll around in the pigpen, can't be too confident of their own political philosophy of conservatism, they must not think that pro-life plays in Peoria, so I guess they feel compelled to go this route. Oh well, at least he's honest.

NR's Richard Brookhiser is touting a Giuliani presidency in '08 and is even referring to him as our next wartime president. If you're a rightie and prefer to go this route, all or nothing for the war, then Rudy should be your man. Brookhiser is not overly concerned with his extremely liberal stances on such social issues as abortion and gay marriage. I think he is willing to overlook these because he knows the war is not popular now and Rudy is the only viable Republican candidate with enough of a powerhouse name to make the case for war ad infinitum and get away with it but my prognostication for '08 is that even he will lose to HillObama (or ObamaHill), the country will be so sick of the war by then with so many more casaulties and about a DRAFT don't even go there.

At any rate come November of '08 the sun will continue to rise and I'll be up early every day with my lunchpail runnin' on Dunkin' and blogging about God knows what then in my very meager spare time. If Rudy were smart he'd ask right now if there's any room for him in a Hillary cabinet.People who masturbate your mind

Don't confuse me with the facts

Almost every night now the local NY news stations breathlessly tell us the latest developments in the Sean Bell case, the situation on Nov. 25 in Jamaica, Queens when three unarmed black men in a car were shot at in a barrage of 50 police bullets outside the strip joint Club Kalua. 23-yr. old Sean Bell, to be married that day, was killed and his two friends were injured. The nightly news now reports that the so-called 4th witness, a man with a gun who fled the scene, is most likely a myth and the lawyer for this man has accused the cops of not identifying themselves before opening fire.

There is another version, an angle the liberal New York media are not covering at all and that is the allegation that Sean Bell was using his car as a deadly weapon by ramming an undercover police officer twice and that this detective leaned over the hood of Bell's Nissan Altima and flashed his badge to identify himself as an officer of the law. Apparently the NYPD has a stupid departmental rule that a cop cannot fire at a moving vehicle even if the driver is attempting to run him over unless an occupant of the vehicle has a gun. Black NYC Councilman Charles Barron has said "there is going to be an explosion in this town if there is not a prosecution" while Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg sits on his hands. Barron is perilously close to inciting a race war in this city by his incendiary words, so far he seems to be on the outer edges of protectable speech but this racist and hateful councilman seems to want the unspeakable to happen. I say rioters should be dealt with accordingly and should not be allowed to wreak the havoc they caused in LA during the Rodney King riots when the LAPD did practically nothing to protect innocent law-abiding citizens.

Let the truth come out.
People who masturbate your mind

Americanism and God

Which is more important, love of God or love of country? For me the answer is self-evident, if love of God leads me to conclude the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong actions, for example, then that's the way I go. As important a national value as patriotism is it only becomes offensive if it takes on the aura of a state religion, a substitute for God, jingoism that blinds us to our own nation's faults, the political worship of Americanism, that only we are the moral beacon of the world and must guide, if not force, the rest of the world out of the dark cave of barbarism. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, it is said by conservatives who have an eye on Hollywood these days, spews anti-American rhetoric almost on a daily basis and it's probably true but it needs to be pointed out that when social conservatives do this, as when they criticize our cultural moral retardation on such issues as human feticide and forced starvations, they can still hold on to their mantle of love of country. Should a liberal do this, as when he focuses attention more on economic disparities let's say he is said to hate his mother land and may even be called a Communist. Sean Hannity couldn't believe we were starving a young disabled woman to death in a hospice in Florida in March of 2005 and yet he is still an unquestioned icon of patriotism, let a liberal like Al Franken talk about how we don't help the poor in this country and he's a left-wing turd. Just my thought for the day.People who masturbate your mind

Armchair warriors

No sooner had the conclusions from the Iraq Study Group come out then conservatives attacked en masse ("ridiculous" said Rick Santorum). The true righties like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh were quite willing to lose both Houses of Congress to the Democrats, the War was more important, now they are saying James Baker and Lee Hamilton's recommendation that we pull out of Iraq no later than early '08 is a shameful "cut and run", a pathetic running up the white flag of surrender. Even if you disagree with them as I do you have to admire these conservatives just the same, they are quite content to lose even the White House to Democratic control to push harder for the war which they know to be unpopular. It wouldn't be my political strategy but it is a principle I guess they are willing to go to defeat on.

First Man Bill Clinton.People who masturbate your mind

Left-wing Hollywood

America is primarily a Christian nation but I've been wondering of late do Americans hate their own religion? I'm thinking they made The DaVinci Code #1 at the box office and now the DVD is at the top of the charts too. The most common refrain of defenders of the book and movie to critics is "you moron, it's only fiction!" but this is disingenuous. It's like that movie starring Tim Robbins, Jacob's Ladder, his Jacob Singer character is a Vietnam vet and he's having all these weird hallucinations and he later finds out it was all a government plot to conduct mind-altering experiments on American soldiers and there is even the obligatory scene where the G-men pull him into a black limo and say don't pursue this or else. It's a great movie as a work of fiction but you're left wondering did they really do this, why make a movie out of it all, and I think this impression is intentional on director Adrian Lyne's part, he who directed Fatal Attraction. Also, the fact that it stars uber-lefty Tim Robbins. The normally very conservative Danny Aiello must have really needed the work. Point being DaVinci Code and Jacob's Ladder are not just fiction, there is a message behind them, like somebody planting the seed you never suspected your spouse before but now you're like thinking about it, these are message movies to question your own faith and government so it would be refreshing if the creators of such works were at least honest about it all. People who masturbate your mind

Saddam did what again??

From the New York Post editorial for today, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor:

A Terrible Resolve - "...The loss of life on Dec. 7, 1941 was staggering...That single-day toll would not be surpassed until six decades later - when Osama bin Laden's killers brought down the Twin Towers in the second sneak attack on American soil. But the American people in 1941 did not respond to the devastation at Pearl Harbor with hand-wringing, calls for negotiating with the enemy or incessant second-guessing of the president..." (emphasis mine) -- The Post still holds Saddam responsible for what happened on 9/11 in their soon to be collector's edition of "Surrender Monkeys" about the Iraq Study Group. Bermuda Triangle. People who masturbate your mind

Just don't read 'em

I wouldn't even call New York Times editorials liberal anymore, to say this is an insult to liberalism. I stopped reading them altogether when they treated George Bush's major primetime speech a few months back about illegal immigration as pandering to the extreme right-wing of his party even though mostly liberals themselves liked his proposals better than conservatives. Then there is the Times' defense of notorious late-term Kansas abortionist George Tiller. This is beyond liberalism, this is real Bermuda Triangle stuff, the Ole Gray Lady's political navigational instruments have all gone haywire, read the hard news events of the day on the front page if you like but it would behoove the reader, liberal and conservative alike, to not venture into these uncharted waters, you may never return to normal political thinking. Now you have to go back aways in my blogs to understand what I mean by "masturbation of the mind" but to reiterate it's people, usually liberals, who know how to stroke the pleasure centers of your mind and the fantasy that goes along with it has no grounding in reality whatsoever like making the girl next door into a whore or saying an unborn child at 5 and 3/4 months is not fully human but a 6 month fetus is, not at all logical but dream away dear fantasist and clean up after you're done. This is the Times' editorial board these days, we're talking major onanism here, getting it on the lampshade, the ceiling, in your eye. I can't stand to read the stuff anymore, a Yoko Ono concert by comparison would be getting off easy. An early warning sign would have been when they referred to the singer Meatloaf as "Mr. Loaf" (no kidding). Don't get upset at their editorials anymore, just turn the page and go to Arts and Leisure or better yet don't buy the damn thing.People who masturbate your mind

There's a right way to nuke and a wrong way to nuke

If memory serves during the Cold War, when it became apparent that nukes were a bad thing, negotiations dealt with both countries, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., reducing their nuclear stockpiles. Reagan didn't insist you get rid of all your nuclear weapons and we keep ours. We are the only country in the history of the world to have dropped the atomic bomb on a major city, make that twice, we did it at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945 respectively. It's as if we're saying to Iran and North Korea only we know how to use nuclear weapons responsibly, only we know when it is morally right to incinerate entire populations including pregnant women and children (are pro-lifers against these nuclear "abortions" too?). Make no mistake, rogue nations like Iran and North Korea should not have nukes but I'm just wondering where we get our moral platform from. Does God agree with our first use of nuclear weapons way back when? (a question nobody even deems relevant to ask). We seem to see ourselves as the final arbiters of ultimate morality, of Right and Wrong, not God. We have become Supermen.

E=mc2 Energy equals the mass of something times the speed of light squared (the speed of light being about 186,000 miles/sec.) This formula of Einstein dealing with mass and energy conversion led to the Manhattan Project led by Robert Oppenheimer, the genie was let out of the bottle, we ate from the forbidden tree and now we are worried that terrorists may turn the nuclear tables against us. I don't know if we can turn to God in these times since if He didn't approve of our actions in 1945 He might find it ironic that we are now asking for His help. We need that National Day of Prayer that Lincoln penned during the Civil War now more than ever. Our Lady of Fatima, The Mother of the Divine Mercy, pray for us. People who masturbate your mind

Art & Life

Why can't life be more like an old-time movie, at least some of the time? In many ways I prefer Art to Reality and art is often a reflection of what reality should be as in the 1967 movie The Graduate which made Dustin Hoffman a star. For some this is a movie about adultery but for me I was more captivated by the larger love story of the last third of the film where Benjamin Braddock goes off to Berkeley to find Elaine so he can marry her. Ben had had an affair with her mother, Mrs. Robinson, and Elaine can't forgive him and so she tries to forget about him and is set to marry a young doctor. During the ceremony at a Presbyterian church bride and groom are about to kiss each other when Ben screams "Elaine" over and over from the church choir and the movie ends with Ben stealing her away and they live happily ever after.

The trouble with pc is that it is never poetic, the proper thing for Ben to have done would have been to forget about Elaine and get on with his life and she could get on with hers. If this happened in real life Ben would be arrested for stalking and harassment but Ben does the heroic thing over the proper thing to do. This was the Second Golden Age of Movies, the period from the late '60s through the '70s, as movies then portrayed real life with real emotions, they had real storylines and you don't seem to get this quality in the cinema anymore. The Graduate has turned into Redeye but Ben is my kind of character and hats off to him, if only more people sensed the potential for art in real life instead of getting all uppity. The Simon and Garfunkel score was just the icing on the cake, a DVD worth having in your collection. People who masturbate your mind

Queer Eye for the Herod Guy

In Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ movie why does he make the Herod guy gay? and why is the Devil a transgendered individual? Discuss.People who masturbate your mind

You read one you read them all

I'm in Borders before and I see this new book by liberal feminist Susan Estrich, Soulless - Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate, a clever play on Ann's own book and this is pretty much the political discourse these days, some rightie or leftie pens a book and then someone else pens a rebuttal to that book. I used to read these books more but then quickly tired of them as I am mostly conservative/libertarian in bent but not overly ideological. The Left has been pretty much dominant in every sphere of modern life the last few decades so how can Estrich blame the Right if they are reacting to the influence of the Left? If the other ball dropped and it was the Right with all the clout the leftie books would pretty much come across as hateful too. Much of my own blogging has been a reaction to the political ideology of feminism and frankly I don't much care how I come across. There are no sacred cows in my book and I think when the Left or the Right has too much influence then some criticism of that movement is called for. I am a reactionary at heart and I remember radio host Jay Diamond applying this to callers when he said "if somebody comes across as too pro-abortion then I become pro-life" (and vice versa) and so while I wouldn't apply this to abortion as my views are pretty much set I do have that yin/yang principle in my makeup that Jay refers to, if a bunch of men banded together and formed a movement to defend getting a woman drunk and then taking advantage of her or what's the big deal with slapping that bitch around a little? she probably deserved it anyway then I'd be a passionate feminist. It's a shame though that today's major political thinkers and writers are so set in their ways, I think the people suffer as a result.

National Review writer Ramesh Ponnuru, whom I agree with most of the time, analyzes the recent election as a "conservative crackup" and even says that conservatives need to drop their opposition to big government. My views are really becoming more outside the mainstream everyday now, the great conservative movers and shakers have spoken, Reagan's notion of limited government may have a nostalgic sense but hey, who really wants to abolish the Department of Education or the National Endowment for the Arts? What were we thinking? How come we never hear of a great liberal crackup? That's because they don't argue their differences in public, they are more united than us and so have become more dominant and accomplish more. We could take a lesson. People who masturbate your mind

The Sean Bell case

Let's also say the Rev. Al Sharpton is also not part of the solution. Last Saturday night cops opened fire on a car outside the drug, gun and prostitution-infested strip club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens killing a young black man of 23, Sean Bell who was to be married that very day to 22 year old Nicole Paultre. All in all 50 shots were fired and two other male passengers in the car were injured. Bell's fiancee says they "murdered him" which seems to be the standard line in the African-American community these days whenever cops shoot and kill a young black adult. Bell was unarmed but an undercover detective says he was trying to run him over with his Nissan Altima. It all began when cops observed a man leaving the skeezy dive with a gun and another guy saying "let me get my gun." Now I never knew this before but apparently the NYPD has a departmental "rule" that a police officer cannot open fire at a moving vehicle even if he feels that vehicle is being used as a deadly weapon against him, there have to be passengers with guns inside first. What else can the NYPD not do when their lives are directly threatened?

Now is it within the realm of possibility that there was one psycho cop that night or even a cadre of them? Sure, most everything is within the realm of possibility but not everything is probable, a club of psycho shields is possible but it is definitely there on the outer fringes, more likely the undercover officer's line of events is closer to the truth but here you have the usual suspects, racial arsonist Al Sharpton indicting the cops once again even before any kind of preliminary investigation is underway and NYC Councilman Charles Barron practically calling for a race war and that RINO Mayor of Gotham there, Mike Bloomberg, cozying up to both of them. Now a pertinent question might be what was a young groom to be spending the last night of his single life at such a crime-infested bar in the first place and why was he allegedly trying to run over a cop? He and his two male cohorts all had some type of criminal records involving guns and robbery and such and yet the liberal media always show that picture of him with his fiancee and their young child. Are most cops really this evil?

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is a disappointment but he was chosen because he can be counted on to be politically correct all the way in such tragic circumstances but that's what you get when you have a RINO as mayor. I don't think the problem is so much about racist cops as it is about young men in the black community who choose time and again to not obey the law and when this is the way you decide to live you put yourself and others at risk but you'll never hear Sharpton and Barron say this. They say what's up with the cops these days and I say what's up with the crime?People who masturbate your mind

My Golden Age of movies

How come Osama never blows himself up? lead by example. Who ever thought the security and peace of the entire world would one day be threatened by a growing movement of radical assholeism..... awesome.

My personal DVD collection is now mostly made up of movies from the late '60s and '70s. Bullitt, Planet of the Apes, Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, Marathon Man, Serpico. Horror movies were on a par with Rosemary's Baby, Suspiria and Rod Serling's Night Gallery in those days, even cult classics like Superfly, Blacula and I Spit On Your Grave, while not Oscar material, were interesting in their own right. One of the few more modern movies I really liked was The Perfect Murder starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow but well-crafted movies like this one are now few and far between, the '60-'70 time period was truly the Second Golden Age of Movies. I recently watched The Skeleton Key starring Kate Hudson two times now, the second time while sober, and I still can't make heads or tails over the last quarter of the movie, this didn't happen in the old days.

LIFE has a certain set of unwritten rules like when Mom and Dad give you 50 bucks for your birthday you don't use it to go out and buy porn, you allocate funds if you have to. I think these little rules are important, they remind you of the larger moral order out there but we seem to have lost this sense. I mean, what's knocking over somebody for a Playstation 3 all about? Don't we have a culture anymore, where's our philosophy these days, all anyone seems to want to talk about is Kramer and Clay Aiken's hand. People who masturbate your mind

"Book 'em Danno"

Liberal mainstream media make a hard turn to the right and elude their conservative media-stalkers.

Dateline NBC - To Catch a Predator series starring new right-wing law and order poster boy, Chris Hansen. In the olde days the liberal msm would have had a problem with the commonly used police tactic of entrapment and liberals in general focused more on the criminal and his rights, if a legal technicality sprung him early on society to prey again so be it. To go after Michael Dukakis' weekend furlough program was deemed impolitic and uncivil and the famous Willie Horton ads were evidence of conservatives' inherent racism, now the new real-life crime shows like 48 Hours Mystery and Dateline highlight the evident failings of our criminal justice system and the insufficiency of our current laws to protect crime victims, Chris Hansen could probably pen the next law and order platform at the next big Republican convention in '08. On the last episode of Internet Predators they nailed a cancer-research specialist, a head of some medical affairs division at a large pharmaceutical company and they showed everything from his interrogation at the hands of a web detective to his painful phone call to his wife, "honey, you have to bail me out, it was a sting operation, I didn't do anything but I did do something stupid." Your life marriage and career have been destroyed in front of a national TV audience, tough shit buddy, that's the way the cookie crumbles pal. OK, so a prosecutor caught in the Internet sting killed himself, it's all in a day's work and society is better off without him. When it comes to issues of crime and punishment methinks many members of the liberal msm secretly vote Republican and have the Dirty Harry box set in their DVD collections.

Of course the Ole Gray Lady, the New York Times herself, is still way out there in the wild blue yonder, beyond being liberal, in some radical stratosphere of their own deranged thinking, defending people like notorious late-term Kansas abortionist George Tiller. Bill O'Reilly recently wrote about this Doctor of Death and the Times' defense of him. I can no longer stomach reading their editorials, they thought Bush's recent very pro-illegal immigration speech was pandering to his extreme right-wing base for cryin' out loud, and so I rely on what others who have stronger stomachs than mine have to say about Times' editorials. I prefer not to read them and so ruin my day, you have to go to work with a clear head and save masturbation of the mind for another day.

The Life Legal Defense Fund is now taking the Ohio chapter of Planned Parenthood to court because they allege they helped a 21 year old male statutory rapist elude the police when he impregnated a girl much younger than him and of course PP did the requisite abortion without telling anyone. LLDF claims there are many such cases that could be made against PP and that protecting statutory rapists by aborting their unborn offspring is standard operating procedure for them and LLDF further says that if this massive scandal of the abortion industry ever came to light it would wipe out PP overnight. Chris Hansen, anyone wanna run with this? The New York Times is out to lunch. People who masturbate your mind

The 3 Co-Equal branches of the government

"Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong." Dennis Miller used to say this after each of his rants but you never hear the opinionated fools known as talking heads ever say this and it comes to mind since there is now a small but growing chorus led by George Will and Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain that the Democrats swept into Congress because the Republicans gave up on their vision of small and limited government (read - Congress' intervention in the Terri Schiavo case). I never knew McCain was the libertarian type what with his campaign-finance reform and all and Will should know that we have or are supposed to have 3 co-equal branches of the government, that the judiciary does not have the final word on matters of life and death, and that many people, even some liberals, can forgive a desperate family for going to the Congress to intervene on behalf of their incapacitated daughter. Conservative Linda Chavez and yours truly seem to be the only ones on the right track here, of course the War was uppermost on voters' minds but as she pointed out the other day in her column 1 in 4 people who voted in this last election were union members even though unions make up only 12% of the workforce and 3/4 of these voters went for the Democrat. Will seems to be reinventing conservatism to mean you can't help cognitively disabled people to escape a painful and agonizing death from starvation and dehydration at the hands of spouses with ambiguous motives. Will is no small intellect but he is hardly the pro-life conservative he was in the past (he recently came out for embryonic stem-cell research for example) and everytime he does this I'm going to check him on it.

I myself opposed the War from the start but have grown more tolerant of it, I never thought Bush deliberately lied about those WMDs to get us into war and so I figured even though it may not be the right war Bush acted in good faith and losing is not an option, once you're in it you have to win it, it's just that I don't see the Sean Hannitys really grasping the message voters sent and if you want to win the White House in '08 you have to get rid of your ostrich politics. The American people are not inherently anti-war but they do want wars fought competently, they re-elected Bush over Kerry mainly to finish the job. That conservatives like Hannity are willing to forfeit the '08 elections because the War is all-consuming is, to put it mildly, somewhat amazing to me. I'm no longer the hardcore Republican I used to be (if I ever was one) and now I'm just floating around in Independence land, tired of the ideological trenches and the lack of moral consensus in this country and most of all TIRED OF ALL THOSE TALKING HEADS. People who masturbate your mind

Nicky Spano, nice to know you

It was close again here in Westchester County New York. Last time Republican State Senator Nick Spano won by only 18 votes over his black Democratic challenger Andrea Stewart-Cousins and this year it appears he's lost to her by a wider margin. Instead of accepting defeat graciously the way Republican George Allen did in VA he wants the same endless recounting that they did the last time around and right after the election results he took off for a 6 day Florida vacation. Spano was pro-life early in his career but then Polly Rothstein of the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion got ahold of him and he switched to pro-abortion. This is retarded, whatever you are it's best to stick with your original position because then you can't change back even if you wanted to. Let's say Spano sniffs the air like all politicians do and senses a pro-life swoosh in the other direction, he can't change back because then he'd lose all credibility with both sides and would look like a total asshole. Politicians call themselves "pro-choice" usually not out of sincerely held principles but because they see the public opinion polls going in this direction. If most surveys showed 90% of the population going for pro-life then they'd be pro-life. They are whores, nothing more. They'd sell their own mothers out for votes. People who masturbate your mind

So let Danny Glover go there

I know political correctness wants us all to be sensitive and do the right thing but does it have to be blind too? I was watching the "My9News" last night in NY and they had a special investigative report about NY cabbies who won't pick up black fares or drive them to ghetto areas. I'm sure that if you're black it IS frustrating when cabs pass you by but the liberal media oversimplifies these issues as good vs. bad, black vs. white. There have been cabdrivers shot and killed by black passengers or driving in poor urban crime-infested areas and while most who live in the ghetto are decent people we can't become offended when we try to highlight the crime blight. I used to drive for a flower shop in the Bronx and went into some of these areas, you'd pass a drug addict lying in a hallway and the elevator would reek of urine, in Co-Op city apartment complexes they have signs posted that read "if you see gang activity please call..." so I said not the job for me and people I knew, even some white people, acted like I was the one with the problem. It just ain't a simple issue is all I'm saying.

Looking back on doctors I think some of them may be pervs themselves. When I was growing up I went to a doc for an earache but he decides instead to play with my balls and tells me to cough. Another time I went for a routine checkup and some other male doc is taking a piece of lint that wasn't bothering anyone out of my peehole. Now instead of going to the doctor I just read a book or visit a museum.

I like to think of myself as basically a clean and hygienic guy but then you use the stall at work and see a skid stain in your Hanes and so you feel like a dirtbag for the rest of the day and want to go home.

So what's up with The Shining, that classic movie by Stephen King? In one scene a man in an animal costume is giving a blowjob to a clown sitting on a bed and yet all anyone talks about is "HEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" Explain.

It's better to be pissed off than pissed on.

Is it just me or does music in general just suck especially the music on 'PLJ here in New York? It all sounds like a bunch of angry grunge.

I hope I'm not boring Anonymous.People who masturbate your mind

Why is everyone so anal?

Bill Maher on the Larry King show the other night says there are many important Republican functionaries who are gay themselves and by golly he's gonna out 'em all and then says that Ken Mehlmann, former head of the RNC, is one of 'em. Maher is the most political comedian out there and his whole shtick is based on his personal moral grievances, at root he has a big problem with anyone who has moral views different from his own, it's KarmaBites applied to politics which is why he's floundering. He's one of those people who never tire of quoting that ole H.L. Mencken line about Puritans but it may well be a puritan is anyway who thinks differently from him. I've always found this man annoying and very unlikeable. Now I am fairly tolerant of gays myself but if you asked me if it's a great form of sex I'd have to go with a no. Is that ok Bill? Everywhere you look Lemonface keeps showing up to give us his .02 but like go away already!People who masturbate your mind

NONE OF THE ABOVE

Not voting can also be an act of principle. It is a herd opinion that if you exercise your right not to vote you are somehow an irresponsible American and that therefore you have no right to complain. You may not like the candidates (Spitzer vs. Who?) or you may feel like me, that we have enough laws already if not too many and that sending people to Washington to do just this just doesn't agree with you. You may not like the mudslinging. Maybe I am morally jaded but the Jeanine Pirro and Alan Hevesi "scandals" have hardly registered on my outrage meter. We now know way too much about Jeanine and Al's marital state. In NY Comptroller Alan Hevesi's case he has admitted to having a state worker drive his wife around at which revelation the New York Post trumpeted the next day that HE BROKE THE LAW. Indeed he did and I guess I'm supposed to be more concerned but I would much rather trust him with my check than that Callaghan guy. I think the overly virtuous cannot abide the imperfect. God Himself gave us only 10 moral Commandments to live by, not 158. What was Martha Stewart supposed to do, hold on to bad stock?

I had said at a forum or two that the American people reelected George Bush so he could wrap up the war he started, a smart move on the populace's part to want to have some consistency in our foreign policy rather than change course in midstream. I had also predicted at the same forums that should the war still be raging come midterm election time Bush will bring his party down but no one really listened. We'll know tomorrow morning whether W is an albatross or not.

I'm not getting the gay marriage issue, it's like liberals are the only ones who can discuss the issue without being called bigots. If you have any moral views on SEX whatsoever you stoke their liberal paranoia, they conjure up visions of some right-wing Orwellian sex police whereas the reality is if no one told you what they did in private the chances are very good you wouldn't ask. That canard that many heteros do what the homos do is irrelevant. I myself would not be into a woman who is into the anal, if I had a magic wand I would repeal all the absurd sodomy laws in the various states but beyond this I have the right to have a view on this or any other matter. I think THIS is what liberals really object to in their hearts, your right to feel the way you feel which is the real push behind pc, they want to police your mind.

HAPPY ELECTION DAY People who masturbate your mind

Political 'hos

Hillary was talking again about the importance of religion in society, went to some black church the other day and rapped about the need for parents and rules and discipline (except of course minors who get abortions without their Mom and Dad's knowledge). In my neck of the woods we have Westchester State Senator Nick Spano in NY who used to be pro-life until he sold his soul to Planned Parenthood. In his ads he highlights that he is a steadfast supporter of abortion rights which got me thinking, whatever happened to the Krauthammer Model on abortion? Charles Krauthammer is a mostly conservative commentator who once wrote what I thought was a very seminal piece that, even though politically abortion should remain legal it should have a negative social stigma attached to it and pro-lifers should be given as much latitude as possible to talk women out of it. As I am pro-life I can't fully endorse his views here but what is very worthwhile in my opinion is the stigma part. I could even see a politician saying something along these lines, "I am reluctantly politically pro-choice but in my heart I feel abortion is wrong and so you won't catch me speaking before groups that are very active in enabling women to get abortions...yada yada yada", but we don't get this. It's like Hillary made a pact with the pro-aborts, you can talk your best conservative smack, rap violent video games and sex on tv all you want, just tow the pro-choice line is all we ask. And I would ask Nicky Spano do you ever have anything negative to say about abortion? There is a rebellion in our hearts over what we know to be true and it's this unacknowledged moral tension that has us bewildered and adrift, we don't know why we are so unhappy.

NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi has an ad running touting the fact that he has been the author of 108 laws. So why is this something to be proud of? I think this is the main way people go about solving their problems today, go to their legislators, but I still make the case that a functioning society needs comparatively few laws. Yeah, as an early civilization evolves (think colonial America) you need your laws against murder and bank robbery, and then plagiarism comes up and libel and slander and yeah, you need some rules governing food establishments mainly along the lines of proper food temps for meats and general cleanliness but beyond this - WHAT? - and so this is the main reason why I'm not voting this year,

WE HAVE ENOUGH LAWS ALREADY! People who masturbate your mind

John Kerry

Mass. Sen. John Kerry should stick with his day job. If his crack about our troops was a "botched joke" he won't be subbing for Leno or Letterman anytime soon. Imagine Jay or Dave explaining or apologizing after each joke, it'd ruin the monologue. Kerry is still pissed over those Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads and he has every right to be, that brainchild of Karl Rove was political pornography at its finest. Kerry's political philosophy, which is liberalism, was reason enough for conservatives to vote against him . Kerry also got in a dig at White House spokesman Tony Snow calling him a "stuffed suit standing behind a podium", don't know what purpose going after this mild-mannered man served. He has a job to do just like Mike McCurry had being Clinton's spokesman, it's like going after defense attorneys, what's the point? Then Kerry took a jab at Rush Limbaugh saying he mimics and makes fun of people with disabilities, this is going to be the liberal line from now on whenever someone has the courage to question and criticize someone like a Michael J. Fox who pushes the pro-abortion agenda. It's all a news story for 2 or 3 days so Chris Matthews can have something to jabber about and Sean can fill up his 3 hours on the radio dial. It's quite possible that Kerry simply misspoke but we don't live in an age where you have the luxury of misspeaking.

John Kerry wants the presidency and he wants it badly. I myself wouldn't vote for someone who successfully obtained an annulment from Archbishop Cushing which nullified his marriage of 17 years to his first wife, a conjugal union which produced two children. He also masturbates your mind when it comes to Pro-Choice. He has it that life begins at conception but that we are essentially dealing with a human non-person. Shoot that pro-choice jizm somewhere else sir, we already have Hillary saying she's a moderate on abortion when she just starred in a California TV spot to defeat a proposition there that mandates a pregnant teen have a waiting period and tell her parents before getting an abortion. If this be moderation then the liberal position must be to kill babies after they're born.

People who masturbate your mind

Legislative OCD

Bob Novak, in a recent column, said of the most recent session of Congress that there was "no burst of legislative activity" (this is generally taken to be a BAD THING). I myself think the country runs best when the government shuts down. WHY do we have to always be legislating anyway? It's been over 200 years since our great country was founded and we don't know how it should be run yet? There is even a law in my neck of the woods (local laws are often the most intrusive) that if a motorist accidentally kills someone's cat he has to track down the owners of said dead feline and notify the survivors. Yes folks, the mentally ill are in charge to protect us all from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and if you feed the geese in Mamoroneck in Westchester County NY you could be facing a 15 day jail sentence (whatever happened to simply fining people?) I myself have always worn my seatbelt whether it was NY State law or not but why do we always have to be protecting people from themselves? The power of the few = the tyranny of the many.

Pro-Choice may be a libertarian position but Pro-Choice by and large is not at all a libertarian political philosophy. A third-party libertarian once ran against Christie Todd Whitman for NJ Governor and made the case that prostitution there should be legal ("my body my choice"). The pro-abortion Whitman said no way in hell can a loser pay for sex in the Garden State (although sticking scissors in the back of a full-term unborn baby's skull is another matter). Pro-Choice is against the right of a woman who may be in real danger to protect herself by carrying a gun, Pro-Choice wants to stigmatize and maybe even eventually criminalize the tobacco industry, the pro-choice Republican Mayor of NYC wants to ban those trans-fatty acids that Mickie D's uses for those freedom fries, many choicers are not wild about those gas-guzzling SUVs, Pro-Choice is against any sexualization of the workplace.....I would simply refer to them for what they are, PRO-ABORTION. They are big government types all the way, from FDR's New Deal to LBJ's Great Society and War on Poverty. They are only pro-choice on abortion and the "right" to physician-assisted suicide. Yes, they want to tell everyone else how to live and I really think their narrow focus on "abortion rights" comes down to population control, too many people ruin the planet and pollute and drive SUVs and smoke and pig out on fast food and so what better way to protect us from ourselves than by killing us in the womb or starving us to death in a hospice when we get a little older.People who masturbate your mind

I'm a pro-choice pro-lifer

Hillary Clinton recently went to Long Island to receive the enthusiastic endorsement of the political arm of Long Island Planned Parenthood even though she and Bill have repeatedly gone on record as saying abortion is a BAD THING. There are now about 1.3 million of those bad things happening in this country every year and Planned Parenthood performs the majority of those bad things so how bad does a thing have to be before you decide to stop speaking to a group that is primarily responsible for those bad things, or maybe for her it's just kinda bad or not bad at all when you need the votes. I thought Bill kinda wanted to make the bad thing a RARE THING so where's all the "informed consent" legislation she should be working on? If this be "moderation" on abortion I'd hate to see what a liberal would do.

People who masturbate your mind

The Amish tragedy

Re the horrific tragedy at that Amish school yesterday where a crazed milkman shot those young schoolgirls and killed three of them, a woman said to me today and I have to agree that in such situations of peril where you have a roomful of people and only one gunman it is far better for everyone to rush him at the same time even though one or two of them may get hurt and lose their lives in the process but that's just it, we've become a nation of victims and we've seemed to accept it. The Amish are historically a pacifist people and this could have something to do with it but in the time it took for this 32 year old psycho to tie up those girls something could have been done. They say he had a 20 year old grudge which would mean he got angry at the tender age of 12. Good grief, people are growing up way too fast these days to have issues at 12 and carry them through life.

People who masturbate your mind

Life Chain Sunday

Today is 'Life Chain Sunday" when thousands of pro-lifers across the country bear peaceful witness against abortion by forming human chains and carrying posters. Pro-Choice is not at all a consistent political philosophy, most of the choicers seem to be pro-choice only about abortion. This is not a novel observation, George Will once wrote a column about how the pro-aborts are never for your right to smoke a cigarette or own an SUV or carry a gun for your self-preservation or, to update this, to eat french fries that have been dipped in trans fatty acids. In fact most of the time they are Big Government all the way and so I propose that we use the term "pro-abortion" instead. If they were really pro-choice on all these other issues I'd go with it but they haven't earned the moniker in my book. What about the choice of a woman to carry a gun to protect herself, a woman who may be in real danger and has been properly trained in its use? You'll never hear a Democrat talk like this, instead they want to protect the woman from the risque joke in the workplace.

The prevalent legal view that the fetus has the moral status of Hamburger Helper is the imposition of somebody's else's view of things, it is not by any stretch of the imagination a non-view as Mario Cuomo would have us believe and so I would also propose that you have to demonstrate the fetus's non-humanity before you can kill it which of course the pro-aborts cannot do. Also, how does it make sense that the fetus may be fully human at the 5th month or the 6th or the 7th but not two or three days before these whimsical and purely arbitrary cutoff dates? This is masturbation of the mind big-time and that is my thought for this Pro-Life Sunday. On the Right

Thought crime

Is thinking now a federal crime? Former Westchester County, NY District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, now running for State Attorney General against Andrew Cuomo, is under federal investigation for talking to former NYC Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik about planting a bug in her husband Al Pirro's room on a cruise ship to see if he was having an affair. Got that? We all have a skeleton or two tucked away neatly in our closets but Kerik has a whole haunted mansion and fun ride deal, real Grim Reaper/Cryptkeeper stuff and you need a 25 volume encylopedia just to read about all the scandals he's been involved in. Anyway, Kelli Conlon of the pro-abortion group NARAL of New York City says that Jeanine once betrayed her on the issue of abortion (read "partial-birth abortion"). Get a grip Kelli and grow up, this is not an episode of Fashion House (or is it?).

Time was the major source of stress in the world was the Cold War and mushroom clouds but at least you could talk and dialogue with the commies, after all we both had the Bomb and it was in our best mutual interests to talk but what do you do with these radical Islamist men who think that if they blow themselves up there will be 72 virgins waiting to feed them honeycakes? Whoever thought that the peace and security of the whole world would one day be threatened by radical assholeism? Mind-blowing.

The New York Post had a story yesterday about gals who, before dating men, have background checks done on them. There are now Internet companies that specialize in this. Now I suppose if you engage in massive dating this all makes sense but why anyone in their right mind would be into this dating crap is beyond me. I prefer the classic model, two people fall in love and then go out, not go out and then see if you like each other. Then you have your people at work who are adamant about don't dip your pen in the company ink, if you break up the woman may then claim sexual harassment against you. True but we are now using the rare psycho cases to influence our decision-making. I don't like groupthink, I don't like herd mentalities. Most of the women I've gone out with have been from work and I still have my job and bank account intact. Fear and worse case scenarios are now the order of the day but I strongly believe in taking chances but then again I think I have a healthier outlook on life because I don't watch a hundred crime shows a week. Don't hate, participate. Do we have to give up living? If so then let me move to Europe where they laugh at us.On the Right

The government is NOSY

If conservatives truly mean what they say then they should work for the repeal of the Bank Secrecy Act which states that any money transaction over $10,000 has to be reported to the appropriate governmental authorities, this from the same crowd that brought you Pro-Choice. What business is it of the government if Mom wants to loan her dire straits son more than 10G? I know this is all about money laundering but it fails my two yardsticks on whether a new law is good or not - is it of the utmost importance to pass said law and does it violate our fundamental and Constitutional privacies? I agree with the conventional political wisdom that holds that women want more laws on the books and men want less and that's why women vote heavily Democratic (aka the nanny state) and men vote Republican. Since I see very little difference between the two parties in power right now I don't vote in off-year elections anymore, the whole reason for the career of a Senator or Congressman is to constantly be passing new laws but the more laws you pass the less privacy you have. Why don't they get real jobs and leave the rest of us alone?

Hats off to independent thinker Bill O'Reilly for a great column today in the New York Post. He talks about those "hyper-partisans" (ideologues) in both parties. He says there are more of them on the Left but I say it's about even. The War in Iraq could go on for another 20 years and there would be Sean Hannity cheering on the Republican president. I am at heart a conservative but not an ideologue and I believe you can be a good liberal and not an ideologue as well. Let's do it!

Dennis Miller had a good point on Sean's radio show yesterday. Speaking about the CBS Evening News saying no to Bill Maher's diatribe against religion on their new freeSpeech segment Dennis said "once you open up the Pandora's box of free speech you have to adhere to it." I agree but maybe someone was trying to tell Bill that his spiel about faith is so yesterday, it's BORING already yada yada yada. If Bill really wants to go with it then Katie Couric should let him but I ain't watching and oh, btw, have a Hustler in the green room for Bill before he goes on (lol).On the Right

Get back in the closet already!

In my view former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey has not stepped up to the plate and taken full moral responsibility for his actions but then again who does these days? Forget for a moment that he's a self-proclaimed "gay American" (well bully for you) and focus instead on the pain and suffering he caused his wife and children with their show marriage (although she didn't know it was a show at the time) and there is a huge moral lapse that at press time he has refused to acknowledge. He's on the Oprah today no doubt regaling the audience with his anal adventures at truck stops while Governor but you cannot use the storyline that society's homophobia pushed him into the domestic hearth scene, not in this day and age. The msm is having a field day with him. No, you cannot be even mildly anti-gay anymore, the media make you out to be like that deranged Marine colonel in American Beauty.

Funny, but the only one who has, in my opinion, stepped up to the plate recently is Peter Cook, Christie Brinkley's soon to be ex (that is, if you don't count Mel as being sincere) and yet it didn't mean squat to this former supermodel with soon to be 3 divorces under her belt. He gave as an unvarnished apology as he could for his affair with that 19 year old toy-store clerk what's her name and NY Post gossip maven Cindy Adams writes that many thought Christie would ride this one out since she'd look like a three-time loser by divorcing him. Now maybe he is a cad and she made the right decision after all but it is rather alarming how little the Christian doctrine of forgiveness weaves itself into the warp and woof of our daily lives.

I am not all that jazzed up over Meredith Viera joining the "Today" show. During her stay at "The View" she proved herself a real potty mouth and time will tell how she does at her new gig. My eternal view of her was formed, however, when I was channel-surfing a few months back and she had on Michael Schiavo hawking his new book Terri - the Truth, and, to use Marlon Brando's classic phrase in Last Tango in Paris "what a steaming pile of horseshit." She promised each member of the studio audience a free copy of the literary work, no doubt mostly ghostwritten with Michael spewing his intellectual diarrhea into a tape recorder. She was so in awe of what the guy did, starving his wife to death and all over the course of 14 long days, that I'm surprised she didn't go for his cojones. On the Right

Fitty cents will get you a cup of coffee

"Do you have fitty cents? I wanna get a cup of coffee." The other day in Queens, NY rapper "Fifty Cent" was driving a new Lamborghini when cops pulled him over and arrested him for not having either a driver's license or insurance and registration. Many in the crowd of black onlookers sided with Fitty over the cops and said things like "stay strong Fitty." Maybe they wanted to give Bill Cosby something to talk about in his next speech but this anti-cop mentality is a bane in the black community. Let's see, what did Fitty do wrong? You have a car that costs as much as a house and you don't even have the proper paperwork, I dunno know what the problem is. Every now and then the rappers have to do something to maintain their thug image, like DMX the other day putting down Jay-Z for wearing sandals, said it's a sissy thing for a man to do (I kinda hate sandals on men myself, the men always have ugly feet sometimes with yellow gnarled toenails). Continued DMX, "he's only doing it 'cos he's in love and follows everything Beyonce tells him to" (honestly I'd have to admit I'd follow most of her directives myself). Sounds like a rap feud brewing which happens when the gangsta front has been too peaceful of late (how come you never hear of Gwen Stefani taking a shot at Mariah Carey or Celine Dion involved in a drive-by?) Seems like most rappers don't want to go the Diddy route of social respectability, hell Jadakiss is still hustling. Other than that there's really not a whole lot Cos can talk about.

What's with the Donald of late? He seems to have become a caricature of himself ("Martha's show was an abysmal failure while my 'Apprentice' has been a tremendous success.") MAD TV doesn't even have to have a scriptwriter for this, the Donald provides all the best lines himself.

I'm not voting in the midterms. Republicans and Democrats are more or less the same beast and both support leviathan government that intrudes upon our personal lives. When was the last time you heard a prominent Republican call for not more laws but less? I'm conservative/libertarian at heart and there's really no one out there for me.

I've learned alot from the Mel Gibson saga. Not only in the future am I not going to apologize for things done in the past but I'm also going to refuse others' apologies to me as well. Oh what a wonderful world it will be.On the Right

Some spiritual musings

"The way of the world is so far along the road to perdition. There is little hope but God's Justice. Mankind has fallen to its lowest depths and it shall be only by a Supernatural Intervention that can save him otherwise he will lay waste his soul to the slavery of Satan" (Message of Feb. 4, 1989 from "Our Lady's Message of Mercy to the World", copyright 1997 - Friends of the Mother of the Divine Mercy - 46 Ash Grove, Glencairin, Dooradoyle Co., Limerick Ireland, Nihil Obstat: Dublin 22 March 2000, Rev. Brendan Leahy DD., Deputy Censor Dublin Diocese - Printed with ecclesiastical permission, ISBN 1-899177-08-6) Our Lady of Fatima: "Look, my child, don't be surprised if, at a certain moment, a certain diabolical disorientation affects the best of minds, a disequilibrium, so that they no longer judge according to the voice of My Son and of Peter." The Secret of La Salette: "In the Last Days Rome itself will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist."

I am convinced that the general nastiness in the air today is due to the prevalent modern disbelief in Hell. St. Augustine taught that man can be good and repent and avoid sin out of imperfect contrition, that is, an overriding fear of Hell, perfect contrition being when you do good out of goodness sake. Both are acceptable in the eyes of God but the latter is obviously better. Take away the punishment though and many people let themselves go, making fun of the retarded, taking their spouses to the cleaners in nasty divorce battles, getting your rocks off and heading for your friendly neighborhood abortion clinic to clean up the mess, starving your incapacitated relative to death who has become a burden on you and your finances. You can see the "wave of diabolical disorientation" that Sister Lucy of Fatima fame said would sweep over the world during the Latter Times, for instance in this cultural rut we're in, the attitude that we can forgive but not forget and it's all acceptable to Jesus. There is an exquisite pain in the sinner who repents, it disturbs and cleanses at the same time, and yet his pleasure at saying he was wrong becomes unacceptable to others and so he is left demoralized and only the angels in Heaven celebrate. This happens in marriages, in friendships, in relations between men and women. Through a subtle shift in emphasis (it's ok to forgive but still remember) the Devil convinces people that this is really the Gospel of Jesus when in fact it is a diabolic counterfeit and people fall for it. You can also see the deceit in the American Catholic Church's annulment industry where the standard used today is one of "emotional immaturity" and presto chango, you have your annulment and can marry in the Church again and validly receive the sacraments.

The famed Third Secret of Fatima is not the impenetrable mystery of the ages that many would have you believe. On Oct. 13, 1963 the German newspaper "Neues Europa" published a diplomatic version that was read by Kennedy, Kruschev and British PM MacMillan that led to the signing of a historic nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), when asked about its veracity said "publish 10,000 copies, publish 20,000 copies, publish 30,000 copies." Compare the last part of the Secret of La Salette ("Rome will lose the Faith ...) with the elements and language of Neues Europa and you have your Third Secret that has been buried in the Vatican archives ever since.On the Right