Only thing worse...

What's the only thing worse than a democratically-elected, religious extremist, desperate government?

A democratically-elected, religious extremist, desperate, poor government.

Israel's not giving the Palestinian Authority any money, so the Palestinians are broke. They need almost $80 million by the first week of March to make payroll. Half of those employees...security forces. This just goes from bad to worse.

You don't have a country to speak of, you're poor, and your government wants Mohammed to solve all your problems. What would you do for cash and food?

They're being dared to walk into a pizza parlor loaded up with some sticks of dyna...what?

Gay/GOP Adoption.

From Politics1.com:

State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Ohio) says he will introduce legislation to ban Republican couples from adopting children.

According to Hagan, "credible research'' shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

Hagan agrees there is no scientific evidence backing his claims about Republican parents -- just, as Hagan notes, there is none backing State Representative Ron Hood's (R) bill banning gay parents from adopting.

Hood claims children purportedly suffer from emotional "harm" when they are adopted by gay couples. Hagen admits he created his proposal to mock Hood's proposed ban on gay adoption in a way that people would see the "blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive" nature of the bill.

The GOP House leadership does not support Hood's proposal.

Lou Dobbs is Apoplectic

Dobbs' website has a poll that asks:

Do you believe the Bush administration puts commercial interest ahead of the national interest as a matter of general policy?

Results? 98 percent "Yes" to to 2 percent "No".

Beware, this also includes immigration policy that, Dobbs feels, allows too many illegal immigrants in the country. He feels that the Administration is kowtowing to business interests that take advantage of cheap labor from the south of the border.

My "Port Deal" Analysis

The port deal is not the beginning, nor the end of hypocrisy of United States policy. Most ideals expressed by Republicans are inherently hypocritical.

My point, that I did not make earlier, is looking beyond the human rights and government that the UAE has, coming down them for taking over our ports just because they are foreign, is bigoted. The fact is, ports all over the west coast are run by Chinese, Russian, Australian and British companies.

Even looking at it from a free-market standpoint, businesses that sanction terrorism in the United States will not be doing that business here for long. Dubai Ports World is a for-profit entity. UAE has already milked its country dry of oil. Of Middle Eastern countries they allow the most "Westernization" of their country, and that's relative. The country needs to broaden its economy. They will go down in flames for sanctioning terrorists. Don't underestimate the power of self-preservation.

I'm providing the other side's argument, not supporting it. Don't underestimate the power of religious fervor, either.

If we protest this deal, we've gotta protest all the other ports run by corporations not based in the United States. Not just the ones with skin darker than ours. The idea of spreading democracy to the Middle East is that they are not inherently evil, and can accept it. That was just one of the many assumptions prior to violating Iraq's sovereignty.

The ports were highlighted as one of the biggest weaknesses of our homeland security by the 9/11 Commission. Five percent of cargo is actually checked. The weak security of ports, or lack thereof thanks to a free-market Administration, has been known, this deal has just brought that weakness to light.

An Ugly Truth.

From a Washington Post article regarding an Indian scientist denied a visa because of his expertise in chemistry...as the president of an international scientific council.

"If you tell an American, 'If you want a visa to go to India, you have to go to Dallas, Chicago, L.A. or New York, and while you are there, you are going to be fingerprinted, photographed and asked about everything you have done in your research for the last 40 years,' we would find this procedure untenable as Americans."

Yum.

Just looking at the stuff on this site made me drool...a store for solely Tennessee-made products.

a.k.a. Conservative

"Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening."
- Barber Tober