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POPSDemocrats go to War The Dems seemed to have picked the summer season to go to war with their favorite enemy; the evil rich. It is hard for them to find a terrorist or dictator not to their liking, but the thrifty, productive, and successful bring out their battle flags. As per usual, they have a bit of trouble figuring out their exact quarry ... $500K, $200K, even $75K the Democrats are far better with nearly anyone's money than the people themselves, so they feel it is a huge benefit to all if they can just get it away from those nasty folks that have managed to make it. Subsidize what you want more of -- retirement of productive people, more ineffective union educators, scads of government union employees. Tax what you want less of -- business, productivity, income. Soon some Democrat will tell us that "the best years of the US are behind us" ... no doubt it will be Bush's fault!
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POPSFree Press Democrat Style Do I generally like Imus? No, I think he is a political shock-jock, the equivalent of Howard Stern for politics. Who decides what statements get people taken off the air however? Is it REALLY "the religious right" that acts as a censor in this country?
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POPSEd Koch On NYT Bush Derangement Syndrome Ed Koch is a former DEMOCRAT Mayor of NY, but apparently he has been able to avoid the loss of sanity experienced by most Democrats as their Bush hatred and rage causes loss of sanity. The whole column is well worth the read. On the subjects of Gitmo, Libby and selection of important news, it is obvious to all but the enraged that the NYT has slipped the surly bonds of reality and fallen into the abyss of bias.
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POPSNYT, MoveOn.org , What's the difference? Those Republicans, can't they just shut up and sit down? Yes, Giuliani is talking, but what is important is the the MSM makes sure it is clear that HE is talking, other than lebeling him as an "R" (which means "don't tust him"), they have nothing to say on the likes of MoveOn calling a current military commander a liar and a betrayer of the country he is sworn to serve. It is pretty doubful if any of the left even understands the concept of honor and being willing to die for principles. Hillary came close to calling Petraeus a "liar". The idea that Hillary has any concept of anything related to "truth or honor" is ridiculous. Hillary always was and always will be about "power for Hillary". It makes no difference what cost it takes for her to get that. When the Swift Boat guys were out, we heard a lot of complaints about "how bad those orgs are". Of course MoveOn? Not a problem; "All in the Family" for the NYT.
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POPSPro-life, Pro-Death Penalty When you are a liberal, the concept of "innocence" isn't in your capacity, nor the related concepts of "guilt", "debt", etc. No, it is all "random acts that nobody is responsible for, so as long as the state isn't doing the killing "judgmentally", then taking of a life is likely something that "just happens" before birth, after birth--whatever. It does amaze me how quickly people go the Nietzsche route and get "beyond good and evil". At least the author of this particular article is more consistent than most, he is willing to see BOTH the innocent and the guilty die, and just has a hard time understanding how someone could find a distinction between the innocent and the corrupt.
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POPSHow FDR Viewed Americans FDR developed the idea of buying votes, but never paid the cost because he was smart enough to devices like Social Security that wouldn't explode until decades after his death, and he was lucky enough to have WWII to end the depression.
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POPSNYT Error: Good News From Iraq Printed Wow, Brookings and NYT, somebody was asleep at the switch. I guess it is the time of the year when most folks are ignoring the news, so it is a great chance for some lefties to give us that old "unbiased" feint and claim "the report it all". This will of course be ignored and buried by the Defeat-O-crats, as the worst kind of "bad news". Just like Global Warming, defeat in Iraq is one of those stories with no other side.
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POPSLate Leopard Drat. I have my heart set on an new iMac 24", but I'm waiting for Leopard.
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POPSSeeing What We Want to See This is a perfect case of how bias affects the interpretation of results. Is the ability to stick to a position good or bad? Like a lot of things, "it depends". If you love your wife and she is leaving because she has a hard time sticking to things, then you might like her to be more "conservative". If you want to move and she wants to stay where you are, then you might like her to be more liberal. The old adage that optimist finds the glass half full, the pessimist half empty, and the engineer finds the glass twice as big as it needs to be, comes to mind. All are "right", but I'd argue that the engineer is much close to "science". Science is NOT about values. It is about data, information, models, etc. When there is an attempt to make science into a religion (as atheists often do, because they realize that "something is missing"), there is a big problem. Science truly is "the God that doesn't care"; by definition.
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POPSAren't We All Terminal? One has to dig in this story a bit to find that she was first turned down by the Supreme Court TWO YEARS AGO! Justice is a government program, so the waiting lines tend to be long, I suspect that the case took a couple of years to get to the high court then as well. Let's be generous and say she has only been "hanging on" three ears. I understand what message the MSM is TRYING have me think about about the heartless government here. What is really funny is that they would ALSO like me to hand complete responsibility for my healthcare over to that same heartless government. I guess if she died waiting in line for "universal" healthcare she wouldn't have to hang on for years smoking pot!
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POPSParenting Politics A much higher percentage of traditional families vote Republican than Democrat, and my suspicion is that it is because somewhere along the line the parents learned some simple rules of life and how to practice them. The rules and implementation of them in this list are good ways to deal with children, but since each child presents us with a raw version of human nature to be molded, there are lessons that we as adults need to remember since our natures still want to come out and pout from time to time. "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit" is worthy of Ben Frankilin. Liberalism is largely the elevation of childishness (human nature) to a virtue. "Somebody got more than me so I'm going to call them stupid and try to take their stuff" is pretty much the summary of liberal philosophy. Understanding why they got more, deciding if "stuff" is really good, and taking productive action in pursuit of rationally derived value is a conservative analog.
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POPSHypocrisy: A sin the left almost recognizes. It appears that we have a Republican Senator not practicing what he preaches. No doubt his constituency will turn him out of office if he isn't forced to resign beforehand. It is a great opportunity to understand the difference between right and left. Bill Clinton SIGNED a sexual harassment law that said that "sexual harassment is determined by how the person harassed FEELS". The left had no problem with him defending himself with and beyond any shred of reason to save his skin and save raw political power. Conservatives won't give the political power a second thought. Principles are more important than power, because if you lose your principles that provide meaning beyond mere existence, then you really have you life. Your principles and spirit are about eternity, political power is for just as season. Are conservatives any "better"? No; only in the sense that they better understand the reality of our condition.
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POPSActors Money Politics The left and MSM decries "big money in politics"-when the money comes from business. They applaud it when it comes from actors, and even lawyers to a significant degree. A leading hallmark of the left is that consistency is not an issue, yet it is always possible to predict the position that a person of the left will hold. Why?
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POPSDelusional Connections If only corporate corruption was as localized and disconnected as global terror, we could avoid the cost of Sarbannes - Oxley when an Enron is discovered. We need to run studies on how global terrorists can all seek "death to America" but yet maintain solid firewalls proving a negative beyond a shadow of a doubt. The only other negative so proven is "there are no intelligent Republicans".
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POPSIraqi Prostitutes Are Democrats! Hey, things MUST be getting better in Iraq, the worst news available for a CNN headline was "Impoverished women turn to prostitution". I'm not positive, but I don' think Iraq is the first time that has happened in world history. These women are just like Democrats though, "everything is for the kids". The mind of the MSM is always a tough one -- mine collapses in Utah, instability in the financial markets, but low cost prostitution in Iraq is the CNN Headline? Listening to NPR discuss the problems of cheap foreign imports in Iraq this AM made is almost enough to make one believe in a "vast left wing conspiracy".
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POPSGeorge Will on the Stealth Economy The stock market has been breaking records, unemployment is at 4.5%, we have had steady economic growth for 65 months, uh .. "the economy is bad". Or at least that is what folks that are polled believe--it is a "fact" that contributes to the low Bush poll numbers. George Will does a good job of covering the facts, the Democrats response, and discusses the strange idea of "equal outcome" in a world where God has certainly chosen to not distribute ability or motivation equally. What he doesn't discuss is the right turn of the French. Apparently, even the French have realized that economic growth has some reality-based components. Will the Democrats ever come to that realization?
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POPSGod and Science A scientist that seems to be aware of both the strengths and limits of science.