ARE THE HEADHUNTERS RIGHT?
A multitude of events this past week provides convincing evidence that the world in general, including vast numbers of Americans, and the majority of voters in California, is going certifiably insane. That 53% of California voters made it illegal to require a pregnant teenage girl to tell her parents about her having an abortion is way beyond moral depravity. We’re into organisms perilously close to no longer being normally human. Then again, what sort of human bond can you feel towards rioting barbarians in France, savages who behead Christian girls in Indonesia, or suicide bombers in Iraq, Jordan, and Israel? I could multiply further examples of insanity – such as Harry Reid and his Democrats who hate George Bush more than Moslem terrorists – but instead let’s talk about a case that just appeared before the Supreme Court, Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, and the connection between religion and hallucinogenic drugs. Doesn’t that sound like more fun? So get set, for this is going to be a mind-blow.
SONY SPYWARE BACKLASH
In certain movies and TV shows, the background music is almost as important as the show itself. Music plants itself in the mind and memory as no visual image can, so a movie or TV show about life in the Sixties will, as a matter of course, have background tunes to evoke memories of the era. It's amazing how long-forgotten songs can bring back powerful memories - and, of course, sell more tickets. Proving that, in the final analysis, what we really get when we buy a CD is an "experience" - a memory and a feeling that can last a lifetime. And that's all we need, as far as Sony Music (known nowadays as Sony BMG) is concerned. In what can only be termed a "scandal," it was revealed last week that the Sony people took extreme steps, to the point of jeopardizing customer's computers, to ensure that the only thing you'll retain when playing one of their CDs is the memory of the music - and not, heaven forbid, a copy of it.
A YOUNGER BODY
This is a companion piece to A Younger Brain from last March. That discussed how a nutrient called SAM-e (S-adenosyl-methionine) can actually youthen your brain. Now we’re going to talk about it can youthen your body. The older you get, the more creaks and aches and tightness and soreness you get, particularly in connective tissue like cartilage. Our bodies aren’t designed to last as long as we live today, and these tissues wear out. Unlike rheumatoid arthritis, which is an auto-immune disease, osteoarthritis is a mechanical wearing away of joints, cartilage, and connective tissue. I started taking the SAM-e regimen described in A Younger Brain for mental benefits. For some time, however, I was increasingly afflicted with sciatica and a variety of aching ailments. After about a month or so on the regimen, I noticed that the sciatica and ailments were gone. Gone as in completely vanished, gone as in I felt many years younger.
TO THE BIG HOUSE INSTEAD OF THE WHITE HOUSE?
That the Washington Post is traitorously on the side of the Jihadi terrorists and against America was further demonstrated on November 2nd when the paper ran the front page headline story, CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons. To disclose supremely classified information that the CIA operates a number of prisons for Jihadis in Eastern Europe is an unbelievable compromise of national security. The WaPo reporter who wrote the story, Dana Priest, should go to jail for treason, along with the WaPo editors who approved it. The CIA has requested a formal Justice Department inquiry into the source of the classified information to the press. The House Intelligence Committee has announced it will hold hearings to investigate the leak. This is infinitely more serious than the Plamegate farce. Note, however, that the Senate will not, as of yet, hold hearings. That’s because the leak to the WaPo has been traced to.....
DEMOCRAT LYING LIARS
The president went on television to announce: “Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.” “There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years,” the vice chairman of the Intelligence committee told the Senate. The president was Bill Clinton (Dec. 16th, 1998). The senator was Jay Rockefeller (Oct. 10th, 2002). These statements should be kept in mind when assessing the hissy fit Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid threw Tuesday when he called the Senate into secret session to discuss whether Bush administration officials had exaggerated prewar intelligence about Iraq.
DEMOCRATIC FASCISM
Lying to a Grand Jury is a very serious crime. We know this because when Bill Clinton lied under oath to a Grand Jury, he was sentenced to 30 years in a federal penitentiary. His fellow Democrats, putting patriotism before party, all agreed that perjury and obstruction of justice were inexcusable violations of law, and that no one, not even the President of the United States, was “above the law.” What’s that? Bill Clinton willfully perjured himself and impeded the special prosecutor’s investigation but got off scot-free? And the Democrats celebrated, rather than condemned, his evasion of justice? Oh…. I guess, like Bogart in Casablanca, I was misinformed. With the farce of a goody-two-shoes prosecutor named Patrick Fitzgerald spending $20 million to indict a ham sandwich named Scooter Libby for a crimeless crime, it’s time we all stopped misinforming ourselves about what form of government America has today. That form is one of Democratic Fascism.
THE CERTAINTY OF CORRUPTION
Transparency International recently released their Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2005. It may surprise some that China is seriously corrupt with a score of 3.2. It scored worse than Egypt, Laos and Syria. This brings to light a real dilemma. China is one of the most seriously corrupt countries in the world. To get our trade deficit under control we must quickly sell more American products to China. However, American exporters must deal each day with corrupt government agencies and practices. At the same time, American businessmen must contend with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This makes it against U.S. law to give any sort of bribe, kick back or “facilitation fee” to a government official of a foreign country to obtain business or gain some advantage. With the extent of corruption in China, it is impossible to avoid this reality to win contracts or to run China-based subsidiaries that sell U.S. made products. To make significant progress for American exports to China, it will be impossible to stay within U.S. law. Meanwhile, more American jobs are lost each day while our manufacturing industry is being hollowed out by the unfair and corrupt practices of one of our most important trading partners
IS PARIS BURNING?
Hitler’s infamous question is being asked anew by Moslem immigrants, characterized by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy as “thugs” and “scum,” now into their eighth day of violence in Parisian slum suburbs. French President Jacques Chirac promptly condemned Sarkozy rather than the Moslem rioters. Such talk by Sarkozy – Chirac’s main political rival – showed a “lack of respect” for the rioters, which “could lead to a dangerous situation.” Further confirmation that France is doomed.
MAKERS OF MANNERS
The Kabuki Dance now underway between Soon-To-Be Justice Alito and Senate Democrats makes me think of Shakespeare’s Henry V.
The Democrats (and pro-abortion Republicans like Arlen Specter) will be desperately trying to get Alito to forswear any overthrow of sacred SCOTUS “precedents” such as Roe v. Wade, while Alito will genuflect before the precedent shrine and mellifluously commit to nothing.
Both sides will assiduously avoid any discussion of how these precedents were established in the first place – by overthrowing previous ones – what justified their establishment, and what would justify replacing them with new ones today.
Instead, there will be monotonous droning on about the legal concept of stare decisis (Latin for “to stand by that which is decided”), and how it makes Roe v. Wade set in unquestionable stone.
But Alito knows his Shakespeare...Chapter Fourteen: HORROR AND HEAVEN IN ZAUTLA
Cortez finally broke the silence to turn and say to Padre Bartholomew de Olmedo behind him, “It seems that there remains nothing more to do but set up a cross.”
The Padre quietly objected. “Captain, I think it would be rash to do so this soon. These people know nothing of our religion, and will commit sacrilege against any cross we leave here, and we intend not to tarry here long. It would be best to wait until they have learned more of our holy faith.”
Cortez nodded. “I shall heed your wise advice, Padre. Let us retire, gentlemen.” He stood, together with the officers accompanying him, bowed to King Olintecle still sitting in a daze, and left for the quarters provided him. “It has been a long day – a long week,” he said to his officers. “It will be good to have a roof over our heads for the night.” They dispersed. Malinali stayed. Cortez’s eyes invited her to step inside his room.
* * * * *
For the very first time, Malinali was alone with Cortez. It was what she wasn’t feeling that surprised her. Instead of an emotional tumult of fear, anxiety, heart-thumping excitement, and all the rest she thought would overwhelm her when she dreamed of this moment, instead she felt as serene and calm as still water. They stood soundlessly looking at each other. Cortez, too, seemed filled with her serenity. Finally he spoke.