I had a thought hit me hard today.

There are terrible floods going on now in Central Texas. Property is being washed away. Numbers of people are dead. Yet you don't hear some so called rap star like Kanye West going around saying "President Bush hates black people." Texans are taking care of themselves. They are doing what they can to revive and rebuild their businesses and communities even in the face of more torrential rains.

Flash back to New Orleans two years ago. They still can't get their act together. In order to save face the politicians keep on deflecting criticism of their own lack of leadership by blasting and criticizing others. Last night the cadre of Democratic presidential candidates had another love-in where they took aim on the U.S. Supreme Court decision to end forced integration of schools through busing. These white boys decried (and of course Hillary went into her classic bad Southern accent) the old refrain how the road to total civil rights was still long, etc. Yes, the discrimination against black Americans is a pimple on the face of our great nation. But can't more black people be part of the effort to helping themselves? You don't hear about the water-logged Texans whimpering about their situation. Yet two years later blacks are still complaining how school buses in New Orleans were not utilized to rescue their citizens? And of course we don't DARE talk about the mayhem at the New Orleans Superdome....almost to the point of disrepair. And boy does the Democratic party like to exploit these situations to win a few votes.

Instead of coddling the black community, we need to give blacks who are below the socio-economic mainstream the impetus to get things done for themselves....like our Texas brethren. Instead of "giving fish" to the so-called disadvantaged blacks in our country, they need to be actively given the motivation to "fish for themselves." So many people of different cultures have come out of worse situations from around the world to the United States and have been stunning successes.

Black Americans who have made it....like Oprah, Gen. Powell, Ted Johnson, Jr., and others need to start looking at productively lifting their communities to defeat the growing "economic racism" the black community is now experiencing on an ever-increasing basis. Hillary, John, Richard...the problem is not the white community, the problem are the self-appointed Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons who love the glare of the media lights and have made millions through their position, yet do everything to keep impoverished blacks impoverished so they can maintain the status they have become accustomed to.

So typical of Democrats trying to SHOW that they want to make a difference, but don't necessarily follow through...




THe folks at "Current," Al "Watch Me Try To Get Look As Fat As the Goodyear Blimp" Gore generally failed cable TV network had a more humorous take on the above ad.

This is the man!

Couldn't say it any better.

I was on online chat with a friend when he told me that he hated split pea soup...to which I said....



IVARS
You racist! You hate split peas! Call the Split Pea Anti Defamation League!

FRIEND OF IVARS
Now, now, what have poor innocent peas done to you that you'd want to split them??? And think of all those poor LeSeur baby peas that would become orphans! They could go down the path of ruination and do anti-social behaviors like pea peeing in public!

OK.....NOW I've totally lost it.....





"Nessun dorma" ("Nobody Sleep") from Puccini's Turandot


(Prince)
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore e di speranza...
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò,
quando la luce splenderà!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia.

(Chorus)
Il nome suo nessun saprà...
E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir!

(Prince)
Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò!
Vincerò! Vincerò!

Translation
(Prince)
Nobody shall sleep!... Nobody shall sleep!
Even you, o Princess, in your cold room, watch the stars, that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me, my name no one shall know...
No!...No!... On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...

(Chorus) No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.

(Prince)
Vanish, o night! Set, stars! Set, stars! At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!

While I do have progressive viewpoints, this is the reason I WILL NEVER be a registered Democrat...the party of the drunken womanizing murderer Sen. Ted "Gimme A Drink and a Car" Kennedy (D-Mass.)

This is a statesman? No, this is Ted Kennedy after he OBVIOUSLY has had a nip...

So embarrassing....

THis is ONE amazing commercial!

Here's the tale about the Democratic party's own buffoon, Jimmy Carter.

I could not have written this opinion piece any better. On the positive side, at least we are now getting to know the real Jimmy Carter who is the anti-semite, and starting to see how the real Bill Clinton is in actuality very anti-gay in his political beliefs....yet loves gay money for the Clinton campaign war chest.

Father of the Iranian revolution
michael d. evans, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 20, 2007

We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."

The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"

Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran. 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president, Bill Clinton became attorney-general of Arkansas, and Albert Gore won a place in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to Najaf in Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing Iran for revolution. Proclaiming "the West killed God and wants us to bury him," Khomeini's weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf, he fueled disdain for what he called gharbzadegi ("the plague of Western culture").

Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.

Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter's military liaison to Iran, once told me in tears: "The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. 'One cannot do that to a holy man,' he said."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah Khomeini, taken up bin Laden's call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic revolution in Iraq with the intent of taking over the Middle East and the world.

Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the 1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America. The bottom line: Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims.

IN THE '60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the "God is dead" movement in the 1960s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body. Carter's world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic Party.

What is going on in Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse of both Iran and Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies. Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic Revolution across the borders to the Shi'ites in Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.

Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the inhabitants of each country to rebel - precisely what Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi'ites across the border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in Iran.

Carter's belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy - and nothing but diplomacy - now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is wrong.

There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.

KHOMEINI HAD the help of the PLO in Iran. They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite mobs in the streets. No wonder Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control of Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the PLO flag flying overhead.

The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the United States would maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. But on April 1, 1979 the greatest April Fools' joke of all time was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.

In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return to Teheran with the blessing of Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: "I will kick his teeth in" - referring to then prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.

I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser, who told me the shah feared he would lose the country if he implemented Carter's polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah remain in power. He really believed that a cleric - whose Islamist fanaticism he did not understand in the least - would be better for human rights and Iran.

He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of our allies to keep him out of Iran.

The writer is a New York Times best-selling author. His newest book is The Final Move Beyond Iraq. www.beyondiraq.com

Will the REAL "Fat" Albert Gore stand up?

This is why I don't buy liberal Democrats when they go around wailing against this or that.

As a proud American citizen who is also proud to be a proud Latvian citizen, the following article really upset me and disappointed me. It is interesting when the formerly opressed (the Latvian people) become the opressors:

Latvian Gay Pride Parade Marches on Amid Tight Security
06.03.07

By Anthony Cuesta

An estimated 500 European gay rights supporters gathered in Riga, Latvia Sunday to march in a pride parade, an event that has stirred much controversy in the conservative nation.

Latvia, like many other countries in Eastern Europe, has a conservative and often hostile attitude towards homosexuality. Last year, officials banned a Gay Pride march and anti-gay protesters targeted participants at other events.

Marchers gathered in the park in the center of Riga, the capital. Police were stationed on the park's perimeter.

Small groups of anti-gay protesters shouted insults but there was no violence, Reuters reports. Police said two people were arrested over the insults.

Inside the park bursts of The Beatles' song "All You Need Is Love" could be heard.

On Saturday, Linda Freimane, a board member of Mozaika, Latvia's leading gay rights group, stressed the importance of this year's gathering for sexual minorities' rights in the Baltic states, which joined the European Union in 2004.

"If we don't do it again this year then we give in to the illegal, violent forces who can limit other people's rights just by smothering them,' she said, reports the Associated Press.

Politicians from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the European parliament joined the march. They included Swedish Immigration Minister Tobias Billstrom.

"The fact we can organize this march this year shows there has been an improvement even if we have to do it in a park," said Spanish European parliament member Raul Romeva to Reuters.

The European Union criticized Latvia for banning last year's gay parade.

CNN this afternoon had a segment about the growing hostilities with Russia and invited comment....and so I opined...

Peoples of the world, wake up! Oh, please. It isn't that Comrade Putin has been any different since he entered office. The world is finally waking up to the fact that a leopard doesn't change his spots. While President Bush may have "looked deeply into the eyes of Putin and seen a trustworthy man," the Balts and every other Eastern European country oppressed by Mother Russia for over fifty years in the past century have known what he really is: a real cold war Communist bent on domination. While North America is transfixed on Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, Putin has continually threatened its neighbors and waged war, such as the recent cyberattacks aimed at Estonia when they dared to remove another remnant of the Soviet Russian era out of their daily lives. Russia has never had a democracy nor will it ever.

Ivars Bezdechi
San Diego, CA

As I've written before, it is nice when I read my views on different political issues being echoed by public political leaders:

German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for an end to the "hysteria" over global warming in the lead-up to the summit. The topic is "hysterical, overheated, and that is especially because of the media," Schmidt told Germany's Bild daily.

There has always been climate change on earth, Schmidt said.

"We've had warm- and ice-ages for hundreds of thousands of years," he said, and added that the reasons behind the multiple climate changes have been "inadequately researched for the time being."

To assume that global climate change can be altered by any plans made at the Heiligendamm summit is "idiotic," he said.

OK....here is my current take on the crop of Presidential candidates now taking up space on the mediasphere.... The list here is in no particular order.

JOHN EDWARDS
An opportunist who comes off as used car salesman. How can a man who pockets $55,000 to speak on the subject of poverty, spends $400 on haircuts, lives in a large mansion across from a shanty trailer park relate to the American people and their hopes and concerns? Not only that he shirks questions when he sends campaign contribution e-mails to those who have expressed their concern about his wife Elizabeth bout with terminal cancer. Then he backpedals his vote on the Iraq war to appeal to the Hate Bush/Anti-War folks.

HILLARY CLINTON
She really is the best candidate amongst the Democrats. But totally lost my respect tonight when she too backpedals on her support of the Iraq war to appeal to the Hate Bush/Anti-War folks. People like to say that she is "so intelligent," yet what has she specifically accomplished in her years in the Senate? Her health care initiative didn't fly. I don't see her as someone who would unite the American people much as President Reagan did. Then she does her own political mambo when she tonight has faint praise for President Bush for opening the door to negotiating with Iran's tyrant president Ahmadnejad saying that "it should have happened a long time ago." So does that mean Bill was wrong on his stance with Iran? Of course, my favorite Shrillery (Hitlery or Bitchery) quote is how she was poised to "pull up the carpets in the Oval Office and clean it up." I guess that she is confident that she wouldn't find some of Bill's used condoms left somehow behind.

JOHN McCAIN
Weak all around. I used to respect him but his weak stance on illegal aliens and illegal immigration shows that he is just another politician. He has gone through a lot in his life with being held captive by the Vietnamese, but he has allowed himself to be captured and be brainwashed by the Washington lobbyists and other special interests. His alliance with Senator Ted "hiccup" Kennedy is troublesome.....the very reason I will NEVER join the Democratic party. While I hold many liberal beliefs (pro labor, pro choice, pro environment), I would NEVER want to be associated with the same party as this fat, pompous, drunken murderer.

BARACK OBAMA
Another windbag whose message changes with whichever crowd he wants to appeal to at the moment. With whites, he acts "very white." Then when he has a predominantly black audience, then he suddenly becomes "black." How can anyone find this guy intelligent and other qualities which have been attached to him? What has he legislatively accomplished? Are gasoline prices under control? What about health care? He loves to listen to himself, but in the end doesn't really say anything of substance.

RUDY GUILIANI
For me he is liberal enough and is conservative enough, yet his liberal stance on illegal immigration is bothersome. He showed true leadership during the 9/11 tragedy. In fact, he makes a lot of sense in his views of how government is invasive in our lives. He deserves consideration.

BILL RICHARDSON
He shows a lot of promise. A centrist, Richardson’s many experiences in public service, including his roles as governor, energy secretary and congressman, makes him squarely qualified to be president.

RON PAUL
Ugh. Plus his name is monosyllabic. Bad.

My letter finally got printed in the San Diego Union-Tribune!!