E-Mail of the Week

Comes from Jack Phillippe

Mr. Spencer:

The key to Barack Obama's charter is Michelle. To start with, I believe that she paid close attention in church to Pastor Wright. She like the Pastor is a chronic complainer and as we all know, chronic complainer's can never be satisfied, even if you give them every thing, they still believe that you are holding out.

She whines about not being able to take piano ad ballet lessons, she finds little to be proud of as far as America is concerned, even thou she has been recipient of a wonderful life here and can not point to another part of the world where she could have done better.

Barack Obama picked her and there must have been something that attracted him to her --- usually the attraction is looks, character and an agreement in how an individual thinks. She only one of a cast of characters, who are radical thinkers that are attracted to Obama an one has to wonder why. More importantly thou, he came from no where to become the main stream medias hero.

There are "red flags" all over the place as far as Barack Obama is concerned and what he intends to do as far as (change) America is concerned, and I am plenty worried.

Jack,

Chronic complaining and whining is unattractive, especially in First Ladies. Now, that the Obamas are this close to the White House, I'm thinking Michelle Obama is smart enough to mind her P & Q's until after Election Day. If her husband wins, over the next four years, she'll be a great source of entertainment. If he loses, Spencerblog is quite sure she will not be at a loss to explain why?

More Second, 3rd, 4th Chances, But Over There

In America, we free violent repeat criminal offenders giving them the opportunity to kill cops.

In England, they free rapists and give them a free place to live and benefits so they can rape and kill 14-year-old girls.

Money Q:

A convicted rapist sexually assaulted and murdered a teenage girl after a council was told he could not be evicted because it would breach his human rights.

Michael Clark, 40, was on the Sex Offenders Register and subject to official checks. But he was able to move into a city of his choosing where neighbours did not know his past.

GOP's in Big Big Trouble

Steve Chapman reports that despite the Hillary and Obama's slugfest, mud-fest, the Dems are in excellent position to win BIG in the fall.

It's hard to find a flaw in his analysis.

The Power of Women

WaPo's Ellen Malcolm uses a less than persuasive analogy in her column urging Hillary Clinton to stay in the race.

"When I was growing up in the 1960s, I wanted to play basketball. In those days, the rules said girls could dribble only three steps and then had to pass the ball. To make sure we didn't overexert ourselves, we weren't allowed to cross the half-court line. It's a wonder our fans (our mothers) could stay awake when a typical game's final score was 14-10...

"It's a tremendous tribute to women of my generation that we sucked it up and learned to compete in the toughest environments."

Despite the rule changes, women still can't compete in the toughest environments when it comes to basketball or almost any other sport.

Rules changes for women's basketball have allowed women to have more fun playing the game and that's good. It has made woman's basketball more exciting to watch and that's good. But it is still played at an inferior level when compared to men's and boys' basketball at every level.

While it is true women can now compete in the workplace on equal footing, fewer women rise to positions of power than men. Why is this?

I would argue that is not because women don't have the abilities or talents to lead but because the pull of family life and rearing children is stronger on women than it is on men. As a group, men are more competitive than women. They seek and enjoy competition more than women - AS A GROUP. I put that in capital letters because one can always point to individual women who are very driven and highly competitive.

The pool of competitive, highly-driven and talented men in fields that reward highly competitive people (politics, business and sports) is larger than than the pool of similarly talented woman.

That said, I believe Hillary Clinton has proven that she is tough enough, competitive enough, smart enough and driven enough to be President of United States. I personally, wouldn't vote for her, first and foremost, because I disagree with her policy positions and her likely Supreme Court nominees.

I also think, as a lot of Democrats think, she lies too much. As has been said before by prominent Democrats (David Geffen and Bob Kerrey) all politicians lie, but the Clintons are unusually good at it.

The historical examples of women who have risen to positions of political power and effectively wielded it, are legion (Queens Elizabeth and Victoria, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, etc.) But men being men, they will seek power more and will be more ruthless in trying to get it.

It's not incidental that women have only risen to power in Democratic societies or in monarchies.

Men are more violent and are more willing to use violence to get what they want.

So while it is a tribute to American women on this Mother's Day that they have sucked it up learned to compete in the toughest environments, it is also a tribute to them that many of them have sacrificed career advancement and "power" to become mothers and do the lion's share of raising children.

Now, I have to make breakfast.

What Men These Are

Austin Bay highly recommends Michael Yon's terrific book: "Moment of Truth."

Nobody has written with more insight, toughness, passion, and compassion than Yon in reporting the grunt's eye view of the war in Iraq.

Yon's intimate coverage on the Battle of Mosul is quoted at length by Bay.

"Here's the situation: Mr. Yon was accompanying the commander of the 1-24 Infantry, Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla. A terrorist had shot a young sergeant in downtown Mosul. Kurilla spotted a black Opel and — playing a professional's hunch — the chase was on. The three men in the Opel abandoned the car and ran.

Col. Kurilla, his command section and Mr. Yon (with a camera) left their personnel carrier and gave chase on foot. Mr. Yon picks up the story:

"There were shops, alleys, doorways, windows. Shots were fired behind us, but around a corner to the left Lt. Col. Kurilla began running in the direction of the shooting. He passed by me and I chased, [Col.] Kurilla leading the way. There was a quick and heavy volume of fire. And then Lt. Col. Kurilla was shot.

"Kurilla was running while he was hit in three places including his femur, which was shattered. The commander didn't seem to miss a stride. He did a crazy judo roll and came up shooting. ... Bullets were hitting all around Kurilla. The young second lieutenant and specialist who were part of Kurilla's crew that day were the only two soldiers nearby. Neither had real combat experience ... the interpreter had no weapon. I had a camera. ... I screamed to the young soldiers, 'Throw a grenade in there!' but they were not attacking. They didn't have grenades ... or the combat experience to grasp the power of momentum. Help arrived in the form of one man: Command Sgt. Maj. Prosser. Prosser ran around the corner, passed the two young soldiers, who were crouched low, and me, and started firing at a man inside who was trying to shoot Kurilla with a pistol. Prosser shot the man at least four times with his M4 rifle. But the American M4 rifles are weak. The man just staggered back, regrouped and tried to shoot Prosser. Then Prosser's M4 went black (no more bullets). Prosser threw down his empty M4, ran into the shop and tackled the man. I saw the very bloody leg of CSM Prosser inside the shop. He appeared to be shot down and dead. I saw Prosser's M4 on the ground."

Mr. Yon picks up Prosser's rifle, grabs a magazine, fires three wild rounds attempting to save Prosser as four more soldiers arrive. Yon writes: "Prosser wasn't dead, he was fighting hand to hand while the terrorist was trying to bite Prosser's wrist, but instead he bit into the face of Prosser's watch. Prosser subdued him by smashing his face into the concrete. The combat drama was ended, so I started snapping photos again."

Bay writes: Quite a piece of prose — terror, courage, physical combat action, choices bad, good and maybe made palpable and immediate in the fearsome detail of direct experience.

Bingo!

Pledge Refuseniks Suspended

In Minnesota, three students were suspended from school for refusing to stand during the pledge of allegience.

The ACLU says that's not constitutional. The ACLU is correct.

The school does not compel the saying of the pledge but it does compel standing for it. But any forced demonstration of respect for America by a government school is unconstitutional.

However, private schools may do so. As well as private businesses and organizations as a condition of belonging to them.

Recall several years ago, former NBA player Chris Jackson (aka Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf), a Muslim, refused to stand during the national athem during games and he was suspended. He claimed the American flag was a symbol of oppression. Blah, blah, blah.

After a one-game suspension he agreed to stand. Apparently his paycheck was more important to him than demonstrating his hatred of his country. (Today he runs a mosque in Louisiana.)

If these kids had brought an American flag to school and stomped all over it, they could have been legally suspended, not for being unpatriotic but for being disruptive of school order. The same as if they, say, started chanting anti-gay slogans. Such speech would be protected on the street but not in public schools.

Still, silent inaction during the pledge of allegience is not actionable by government authorities and that includes public school bureaucrats.

Obama's History Revisionism

Jack Kelly corrects Obama's misstatements of how past American presidents have dealt with our enemies.

Here's What 3rd, 4th, and 5th Chances Get You

Mike Tremoglie points out that if the accused killers of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski had been in jail for the violent felonies they'd been convicted of, Liczbinski might very well be alive today.

Money Q:

The mayor's lack of knowledge of weaponry notwithstanding, there is one patently obvious policy that definitely would have protected the officer.

If Levon Warner had served his full sentence, he would've been in prison until 2012. He could not have committed any crime in 2008.

If Howard Cain had served his full sentence, he would've been in prison to 2052. He would not have murdered anyone in 2008.

If Eric Floyd had served his full sentence, he'd have been in jail, not robbing banks, in 2008.

Janitor's Rep Trashed by Affirmative Action Officer

A janitor on an Indiana college campus is hauled up on racial harassment charges for reading a book about the Ku Klux Klan.

Incidentally, according to the janitor (who was also a student) the book was anti-Klan and available in the school's library. Just goes to show how nutty university "affirmative action" officers can be. (And see how well-paid too.)

Fail Succeeds and Fails

Brian Fail, 21, rolled the dice and went to trial for the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl who claimed he forced her to have sex with two other young men in a filthy garage.

A jury found him not guilty. He was lucky.

He and his attorney claimed no force or threat of force was used coerce the girl to have sex with the others. The only evidence against him was the word of the girl who was portrayed as someone who regretted her own conduct after that night.

Who knows?

The girl got to tell her story to a jury and the jury understandably had reasonable doubt to whether the crime of rape occurred.

The same jury had no reasonable doubt that Fail was guilty of corrupting the morals of a minor.

What Fail claims he did was itself a sleazy and contemptible thing. There can be no reasonable doubt about that.

Why Hillary Lost

Chucky the K analyzes Hillary's defeat.

Money Q:

There’s only one remaining chapter in this fascinating spectacle. Negotiating the terms of Hillary’s surrender. After which we will have six months of watching her enthusiastically stumping the country for Obama, denying with utter conviction Republican charges that he is the out-of-touch, latte-sipping elitist she warned Democrats against so urgently in the last, late leg of her doomed campaign.

Conversing About "Race" in Chester

My print column is up: Finally, the honest conservation about race, so many have been calling for. Just me and eight or so black guys at The New Shop and Salon in Chester.

Look for Part II on Sunday. Enjoy, I did.

Happy Face Serial Killer?

I'm skeptical about the Smiley Face Killer story but I'm with Tom Booth's mom on this question: How does a 24-year-old man drown in a creek two feet deep?

Hillary, You Can't Win

Big Dems are telling Hillary: The party's over. It's time to call it a day. The question is, are they singing it?

Don't Be Happy, Worry!

Jen Rubin say that Republicans gleeful over the Democrats infighting need to stop being so gleeful and figure out how they are going to beat a quick study like Obama in November.

Plan B on Biofuel

WSJ gets to say "we told you so" on ethanol.

Money Q:

"To create just one gallon of fuel, ethanol slurps up 1,700 gallons of water, according to Cornell's David Pimentel, and 51 cents of tax credits. And it still can't compete against oil without a protective 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imports and a federal mandate that forces it into our gas tanks. The record 30 million acres the U.S. will devote to ethanol production this year will consume almost a third of America's corn crop while yielding fuel amounting to less than 3% of petroleum consumption.

"In December the Congressional Research Service warned that even devoting every last ear of American-grown corn to ethanol would not create enough "renewable fuel" to meet federal mandates. According to a 2007 OECD report, fossil-fuel production is up to 10,000 times as efficient as biofuel, measured by energy produced per unit of land."

It gets worse. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Robert McFarland, however, says let's not give up on energy independence.

Ruminations and Ruinations

Today's print column is up. Penn Delco dead-enders get sillier, Haverford gets transgendered, and Newtown Square passes the town center to de Botton.

Keeping the Peace

An Iraqi who wants American troops to stay in Iraq to prevent a "hurricane" of violence.

Money Q:

So we still need the Americans because if they intend to leave, there will be something like a hurricane which will extract everything - people, buildings and even trees. Everything that has happened and all that safety will be past, just like a sweet dream.

As people say in my neighborhood: “The Americans are now Ansar al Sunna.” Protectors of the Sunni.

Pinning the Flag on the Donkey

Richard Cohen finds Obama's greatest appeal: His lack of a flag pin.

Money Q:

"Sometimes I think the best thing about Barack Obama is that little empty space on his lapel. It is where other politicians wear their American flag pin, a kitschy piece of empty symbolism that tells you nothing about that particular person except that he or she thinks like everyone else. Obama's flag, invisible to the naked eye, is the Jolly Roger of a politician thinking for himself."

I'm thinking Richard doesn't wear a flag pin himself. Fine, neither do I. But does the presence of a flag pin actually mean that the wearer thinks "like everyone else"?

Could it be that the people who are offended by the sight of flag pins like to think they're better than everyone else because they "think for themselves?" (Even as they run with the herd of independent minds.)

And what about the presence of six or seven actual American flags in the background when Obama gave his famous speech on race after being embarrassed by his Rev? What emptiness does Jolly Richard believe they symbolized?

No, Not That Charismatic Political Leader...

Hussein feared getting AIDS in a U.S. government run prison.

No, not that Hussein, Saddam Hussein.

How long was Saddam a member of Jeremiah Wright's congregation?

Ironman is Here

The critics like/love Ironman. I think I'll wait for the DVD.

An Explosive Idea

Close Guantanamo. Free all the detainees!

Oops!

The Message: You're a Loser

Thomas Sowell says both Rev. Wright and Barack Obama are playing their audiences for suckers. Encouraging a sense of victimhood and loserdom is their path to success.

UPDATE: Michelle Obama is up to the very same thing.