On August 22, foie gras will be banned in Chicago. Link The city made a recent decision to bow to the pressures of animal rights groups who protested the delicacy by banning it in restaurants within the city. While I'm not particularly a fan of livers of ANYHING (livers, after all, are the body's toxin filter...any poisons the animals eat will process through that same liver...but I digress), I AM concerned about this particular piece of legislation. While the ban many cities place on u...
I sometimes wish I had a TV. I have heard the audiotapes of Bill O'Reilly's insinuation that the recent terror arrests vindicated the actions of the NSA, and I would have been interested in seeing the smug satisfaction that this Bush shill had in this. But Bill O'Reilly's satisfaction wasn't as justified as he thought it was. Yes, the NSA DID obtain information about the terror plot through its surveillance techniques. But while the process of data mining was somewhat vindicated, the proc...
(Note: This is a RANT. I am in a ranting mood today, so I'm going to rant away). There is a couple in town, a pentecostal "preacher" and his wife, who travel in and out of town. In the several years they have been here, they have not once had to purchase a vehicle, they have acquired 7 properties, only three of which they have actually had to purchase, and they have filled many buildings with the various items that have been given them by people from the area and from where they come from bac...
Yesterday, I pointed out how the liberals had switched positions on the draft over the past 40 years. Today I have a much more disturbing hypocrisy to point out...just food for thought: Why is it that when Hezbollah rockets rain down on Israel daily and kill Israeli civilians (including babies), liberals demand that Hezbollah fighters are "freedom fighters", and that we should bend over backwards to negotiate with them, yet... When Mel Gibson launches into a nasty speech about Je...
"Restorative justice", for those unaware of the trend, is a PC hogwash idea that centers around the concept of bringing the criminal face to face with their victims (or the families of their victims, as the case may be) so that each can understand the other. It's hogwash, because in certain crimes, there's nothing to understand. The job of the government in those cases is to ensure that that criminal never has the chance to reoffend, not to "heal" the criminal or the victims. Using the logic...
The ACLU has been called many things, but in light of their recent fight, I think it's fair to note they are winning substantial legal victories for terrorists. Most notably in their recent federal court victory banning security pat downs in Tampa Bay. See, if this legal decision stood alone, it wouldn't constitute a problem. But, you see, the ACLU has coupled this with other fights that are giving terrorists all the legal victories they need to carry out a major terror attack on US soil. We ...
Link The English sport of "Conger cuddling" (which is one other reason I'll have to add to the ever improving blog in progress "why I LOVE the English) involved the attachment of a conger eel to a piece of string and two teams on boxes. The object was to slap the opposing team with the fish until you had eliminated all of the competitors. A pretty cool idea, if you ask me, and one that should certainly take consideration for addition to the Olympics before, say, bowling. Alas, the...
Barry Bonds received the news yesterday that he wasn't being indicted, at least not by THIS grand jury, THIS time around. Yet, he continues to be baseball's "bad boy", and many fans who are polled declare that they "hate" Barry Bonds, but they have no idea why. "Because he uses steroids" will be the most common answer, but aside from testimony by others who have something to gain in the matter, close ties with people who DID deal in steroids, and the testimony of a man who never actually played ...
There are things about me that you'd really have to get inside my head to know. Or have me blurt out here. But even when I write about it, you cannot perceive the full depth of feeling that drives my thinking. It sometimes annoys a few, but anyone who has watched me over time would understand I am a very driven man -- when I truly commit to something, I doggedly stick to it, even in the face of people who may think my course of action less than wise. I can't say whether this is good or bad --...
The movie version of "The Da Vinci Code" was supposed to be the 800 pound gorilla of the summer movie season. While it certainly hasn't disappointed at the box office (few $200 million movies could be categorized as "disappointments"), it hasn't carried the weight the pundits predicted from the 40 million copies of the book that have been sold (my guess is that a good number of them were bought as "gifts" by anti-Christians trying to convert their believing relatives away from their faith, frank...
AN increase in the minimum wage is almost certain to top the agenda in the fall elections as Democratic strategists grasp at straws to try to reclaim a majority in at least one of the legislative houses. Yet for all their political posturing, the politicians will ignore the cost of a minimum wage increase, knowing full well that their "smoke and mirrors" will probably be enough to fool most of the people THIS time. Even the "advertised" minimum wage is itself deceptive. The minimum wage is no...
A little backstory is in order here. Most people who know me well (which is, admittedly, not a lot of people) know that I am always open to ideas for self improvement. I'd take an underwater Cyrillian basketweaving course if I thought it could somehow work out in the formula of making a better Gideon. So when our local college advertised that it was offering a web page design course for its second summer session, I was BEYOND excited. My excitement turned to dismay as I noted the time, which wou...
I had to hold my breath earlier in the week because of what I was reading in my email inbox. First, I'll have to set it up for you, though: A poster came onto an anti-cps message board that I frequent and purported to be a CPS social worker. She then proceeded to give her "advice" about how to respond to a CPS investigation, most of it (8 points out of 9) being absolutely wrong and dangerous, and the 9th point, while true, being a point that CPS NEVER acts on. I responded to her piece ...
I've had the topic of this article on the shelf for awhile. What I couldn't get my hands around, though, was how to make it clear who I was and wasn't talking about in the context of the article. So, for the purposes of this article, I am going to differentiate between "classes" of the poor in America (this article is about American poverty, not world poverty, by the way): The first class of poor are the "down and out". These are people who, due to some misfortune are suffering a personal d...
Anyone who knows me well will know I am a huge fan of Woody Guthrie. Though there is much about his political and religious persuasion that is not in accordance with my beliefs (contrary to popular belief, you CAN be a fan of someone and not be a follower), I feel that his lyrical ability and visual imagery helped bring some hard facts about American life home for so many of us. And so, as I've settled in to the local community, I have wanted to work with the Woody Guthrie center in the town ...