No, MSM, You are Not Exempt...

...from refusing to testify in criminal cases. Or so ordered a federal judge today. "The First Amendment does not protect a news reporter or that reporter's news organization from producing documents ... in a criminal case," said United States District Judge Reggie B. Walton in a ruling released today. According to Breitbart News, Walton ordered Time Magazine and the New York Times to turn over parts of their reporters' notes to the defense team of former Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Libby.

This is good news to those of us who find the Drive-By Media a little too imperial for our tastes. Ordinary citizens do not have a choice whether or not they can testify in a criminal case, and certainly are not able to withold information simply because they feel like it. The Press, however, has been throwing their weight around for some time pretending that the US Constitution's First Amendment somehow puts them above the law. They have even been agitating for an official federal shield law to allow them to be the ultimate arbiters of what is fit to print and what isn't - even if it is illegal, as the New York Times's publication of the NSA's phone database almost certainly was.

But do reporters have a right to withold information from judges in a criminal case? Let's review. The actual text of the First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I don't see anything in that Amendment allowing reporters to decide when they will testify in criminal cases and when they will not. Fortunately, the judge in this case resisted the media pressure and (correctly) found the same thing. Although I am sure the Press will appeal, this will hopefully prove to be a sobering impulse to a news media that is entirely too impressed with itself, despite the many documented failures of the Press to report the facts, such as Katrina, the Iraq war, the last two Presidential elections, the forged Bush Guard memos and others.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

More MSM Lies?

Despite an offical announcement from the Justice Department that Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert is NOT under investigation, ABC News apparently cannot let go their jihad (shared with the rest of the Drive-By Media) against all Republicans. They are continuing to report that Hastert IS under investigation despite the DoJ's denial. Note to the MSM: Knowingly continuing to do false reporting about someone that damages that person's reputation after the facts have been disseminated constitutes libel. You are not exempt from libel and defamation charges, and apparently Speaker Hastert intends to press those charges, based on this letter that his attorney sent to ABC News today.

I have no particular respect for Speaker Hastert or any other member of the pork-laden Republican leadership. However, the so-called 'Mainstream' news media has been reporting false, misleading and sometimes borderline treasonous stories about Republicans in general and President Bush in particular since the 2000 elections when the MSM tried and failed to illegally throw the election to Gore by mis-reporting the results in Florida. This is merely another example of a hack job, like the Fitzmas reports of a Karl Rove indictment that never seem to happen, yet the MSM continually is anticipating.

I think it is high time that someone used the libel and possibly even the treason laws that are already on the books against the MSM for their consistently false and misleading reporting. I would like to see the Press brought to heel more sharply, since they cannot or will not report the real stories. This SHOULD have happened after they broke federal election law by projecting Florida in 2000 to Gore while the polls were still open, thus disccouraging who-knows-how-many people in the heavily Republican north-western part of the state from even voting.

More recently, the MSM's infamous Katrina coverage, their clear sympathies with the terrorists and their related refusal to report succcess stories in Iraq, their attempt to throw the 2004 Presidential election with the George W. Bush National Guard forgeries which were comprehensively exposed by Dr. Joseph Newcomer, the constant libeling of the President, the leaking of national security secrets, all of these are black marks on the national media, yet no one seems to be able to bring them to account for these spectacular failures. It is high time that someone stood up to this arrogant, spoiled group of children and brought them back to Earth, instead tof the BDS fever swamps so many of them seem to inhabit. I will be rooting for Speaker Hastert in any court case against ABC News.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

About that Global Warming, Al....

Al Gore, the one-time center-left politician from Tennessee, and now a global-warming eco-freak, is running around the world crying wolf about human-induced global warming. And spending lots of money and gas to do it. If Gore is truly concerned about global warming, maybe he ought to think about the consequences of using five cars to go a few blocks for a movie premiere in Cannes? This latest evidence of Gore's arrogance is hilarious if John Lott is correct that walking would have been faster. I love folks who don't practice what they preach, but then that is a failing of lefties- they are so superior to us common folks, so they don't need to follow their own orders, don't you know?

In any event, opponents of the Kyoto Protocol and other international boondoggles have been saying for a long time that the entire idea of 'global warming' is simply not proven. And now there is more evidence that the global warming debate may be lots of hot air about nothing. The National Center for Policy Analysis has just published a new study stating that the science behind the global warming movement is "fatally flawed".

I am not a environmental scientist, and am still up in the air on whether or not global warming actually exists. However, I am firmly in the doubters' camp on the question of whther or not global warming is human-induced. Since there appears to be neither a consensus on the issue nor proof that humans are causeing the Earth's atmosphere to heat up, I am ready to listen to any reasonable argument. However, Hollywood tear-fests based on dubious sciennce and bankrolled by known left-wing moonbats are not my idea of a reasonable argument. The eco-freaks are like a blind religion, and their tactics of pushing their message in their lemming-like Drive-By Media (phrase courtesy of Rush Limbaugh) are not to my liking.

Again, while I have yet to make up my mind if global warming itself is a real issue, I would at least recommend that the opposing side get a hearing. I do not believe we can determine the truth (of lack thereof) in the global warming debate until both sides have an opportunity to present their evidence.

05/25/2006 UPDATE: When I initially posted on Al Gore's five-car entourage to go roughly 500 yards at Cannes, I was unable to find the original press story to link. However, I have been able to recitfy that. Reuters India has the story.

China Dumbs Down?

China is attempting to make their language easier for their citizens to understand. According to a Reuters story, China's media is using fewer characters in their publications. The story states that out of the thousands of extant characters, one only needs around 900 to understand 90 percent of a typical news story. This is interesting in that one needs roughly 2000 characters to function in everyday life in Japan. It had been my understanding that the number of characters required for everyday life in China far exceeded the number necessary in Japan. However, it appears I was mistaken.

The Chinese government began simplifying the Chinese syllabary after their victory in the Chinese Civil War of 1949. However, the Communist version of Chinese, known as Simplified Chinese, has heretofore not gained wide usage amongst overseas Chinese and non-mainlanders. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and most overseas communities still use Traditional Chinese characters, not the newer Simplified. In their attempt to simplify the syllabary, the Chinese are following the lead of Japan, which performed a similar operation in 1945, when they simplified the common characters into the current 1945 Joyo Kanji 常用漢字 (you will need to set your browser to ISO 2022-JP in order to view these), plus the special characters used in Japanese names.

This effort also brings to mind similar effforts by the US education establishment to dumb down the curriculum of American education following the Second World War. In that case, much of the classical education required of young men and women has been lost, leading to an educational system that far too frequently fails to teach our young people anything of value. Touchy-feely education has never replaced a good hard regimen of learning. Throughout our history until very recently, most Americans were expected to have a more than passing familiarity with the classics of Western Civilization, and to have exposure to the great writers such as Shakespeare. Actual knowledge and expertise in the mathematics was also a requirement. That has all gone by the board, as modern teachers seem more interested in pushing a hard-left ideology than actually teaching their charges the necessities that will give them a leg up on life.

In the case of China, this is not an issue, as they are trying to pucsh themselves up, not tear themselves down as we seem to be. However, I am not sure how this will eventually play out, as despite the attempt to simplify the language, one still needs to know a large number (the Reuters article states that a university graduate typically knows around 6000 characters) to function in more than the bare minimum of daily life situations. Even in Japanese, one often encounters rarely-used or classical characters in business or academia. However, the spirit of the Chinese attempt to simplify their language seems to be in good sense, as all languages that use a complicated script like Chinese make it difficult both for practitioners of the language to interact with non-native speakers, and it serves as a barrier to foreign investment as well.

Baby-Boom Ethos Reaches Japan

It has long been recognized by most responsible people that the Baby Boomers, especially the free-love, drug-addiicted, lefties who are the face of the late Sixties and Seventies in this country are responsible for severely damaging the United States' long and proud tradition of self-reliance through their spoiled, arrogant assumption that only they know best. People like Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda and Teddy Kennedy- cosseted, spoiled brats who have never had to work for a living and have not been forced by the largely partisan media into paying for their sins. However, it appears that this phenomenon is not unique to the United States.

Acccording to the Japanese Shukan Post (週間ポスト) there is a similar, though probably less-dangerous impulse currently sweeping Japan as well. According to the Post, young Japanese are engaging in sex at younger ages and refusing to enter into the all-out work life that marked their forebears. The Post also comments that their paerents are increasingly living in joyless lives of their own and are seeking romance outside of marriage, as well as increasingly not enjoying the fruits of marriage between themselves. The general drift is that society is breaking down and the new generation will be the death of the Japanese nation.

While I do not believe that the young Japanese are as bad as the Post seems to think, I do agree that the breakdown of society is not always a good thing. The so-pleased-with-themselves Baby Boomers have contributed virtually nothing positive to the United States (despite their claims to the contrary) and the young Japanese risk falling into the same trap. So the Post's article comes as a warning shot. Too bad the media in this country are too busy trying to destroy another Presidency they dislike to take heed to the dangers they are attempting to sow.

Hat tip to Mentok.

More Immigration Stupidity

So, what part of illegal alien does our wonderful Senate NOT understand? According to the Washington Times, I see that the Senate has so far killed the penalty for employing illegals, and has also given them access to Social Security funds that they have got by lying and breaking American law In addition, they are apparently ambivalent on protecting the border by building an actual, real WALL and they have also, as Senator Sessions of Alabama said made it even more imperative for more Mexican wetbacks to swim the border by pushing for a massive amnesty.

This is NOT what the American people want. Poll after poll, as demonstrated by this FoxNews poll show sizable majorities of Americans want enforcement first. Even sizable (60-70percent) of women and Democrats favor using troops on the border to stop illegal immigration. Why are our Senators unable to understand this? The House didn't seem to have any problem with the concept, except for the usual left-wing moonbats like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee. I also fail to understand why our elected representatives in the Senate are so blind to the fact that they are increasing the load on American citizens and legal residents (the folks who got here by obeying the law and jumping through all the INS' hoops) in favor of uneducated, anti-American, law-breakers who respect not our cculture, nor our language nor our traditions and certainly not our laws.

So you think I am being harsh on these poor Mexicans by referring to them by the derogatory term 'wetback'? Well, let's review. As I have mentioned before, there are two kinds of immigration- though you would never know by reading what Rush Limbaugh hilariously (and truthfully) calls the 'Drive-by media"! There are legal immigrants who are usually educated, and who have stood in line and filled out many forms and who are actually interested in being Americans. I have a number of good friends who are originally from China. One of them recently became a citizen, after many years of being a legal resident, and I remember when he got back from his ceremony, he was so proud that he was now a citizen. My own wife, who is a legal resident and who is originally from Japan, received her green card a few years back, and she also was both proud and a little amused at the INS' vagaries. However, both my wife and my friend are educated professionals who are law-abiding, valuable assets to this country. My friends are mostly engineers and my wife is a nurse. They didn't jump the border and they are not demonstrating in the streets for rights that they have not earned. Why can't our elected representatives give people like my friends and my wife the respect they have earned instead of throwing them under the bus in favor of a wave of American-hating, entitlement-wanting La Raza scumbags?

Being in the United States is not a right, it is a privilege. And it is absolutely the duty of every American citizen to let these idiots in the Senate know that. It is time to pull in the welcome mat for our southern border. Put the United States Army down there and build a wall along the lines of the Great Wall to protect our citizens from these criminals. And then if Mexico's government wants to push, let them. And if they want a war, we are more than ready. It is time to call this illegal onslaught from Mexico and the southern hemisphere, aided and abetted by rich, corrupt politicians who don't want to upset their little cronyist applecart the invasion that it is. When the Mexican government is publishing handbooks on how to break US law, it is time to make Mexico understand that their are consequences to being unfriendly. And I for one am tired of Mexico running immigration policy in Washington.

Hat tip for the text of the Sessions speech to Joe Guzzardi of the blog VDare.com. Hat tip on the Washington Times article to the inestimable Michalle Malkin, who as usual is on top of this disgrace.

Mexico Wants to Sue

...so let them sue. According to a report by the AP, Mexico is threatening to sue if National Guard begin detaining illegal aliens on the US/Mexican border. My reaction, is to go right ahead. Every country has the right to secure its own sovereign borders and what Mexico does in purusing an open border into the US for its citizens, yet not reciprocating with rights for illegal US immigration is a disgrace. If Mexico cannot control its people, there is no reason why we Americans have to foot the bill.

I would actually push for much more stringent enforcement. There have been reports in the past that the Mexican military has encroached on US soil to help illegal aliens ccross the border. Maybe the National Guard can cut down on that. I don't think Mexico is ready for a war with the US, and if a National Guardsman is killed by a Mexican illegal or one of Mexico's soldiers, I think that there will be a backlash that dwarfs what we have so far seen. Most people in this country are not in favor of the open borders ideals espoused by Mexico. If they are so fond of open borders, how come other South Americans are not permitted to enter their country the same way they want us to permit their citizens to enter ours?

Finally, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for Congress to rein in the court system. The next federal judge who rules that we cannot enforce our own borders ought to be impeached and removed from his or her position post-haste. We are not required to suspend all ofr our own laws and customss just because a not-always-friendly foreign government wants to use us as a release valve for their own corrupt system. And if our politicians can't understand that American wishes matter more than illegal alien wishes, then they deserve to lose their next elections. And that goes for Republicans as well as DEmocrats. No one should pander when the subject is control of our sovereign borders. If Mexico wants to suborn our own system, then maybe we ought to teach them a lesson- a military one. I doubt they are any more ready to defeat us now than they were in 1848.

President vs Press, Round Two

Well, it is about time, in my opinion. According to a report published in the national Examiner.com, the new White House press secretary, former Fox pundit Tony Snow, came out firing at the biased press coverage of the White House. His first act was to issue detailed and specific rebuttals of the current "news" in emails sent to the various press organizations. He specifically targeted the New York Times and CBS News, sending an email stating “CBS News misleadingly reports that only 8 million seniors have signed up for Medicare prescription drug coverage,” Wednesday’s missive said. “But 37 million seniors have coverage.” His email about the Times said “The New York Times continues to ignore America’s economic progress,”.

This is a good sign. For too long, the White House has allowed the nation's biased and partisan press corps to portray the Adminstration in an unflattering light. Their consistent refusal to print any good news and their unrelenting attacks on the President and his staff has been long untroubled by any counter-attack from the President. Hopefully Mr. Snow will be able to change that. In any case, a vigorous, truthful offense as this is, is a better alternative than a passive defense. Keep up the good work, Mr. Snow. And maybe the rest of the Adminstration will follow this example. It is not enough to be right- one must be able to present one's case to the public as well, especially in the face of a hostile and anti-American Press.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

Common Sense

I may have said this before, but Jerry Pournelle is a voice of real common sense in an increasingly nonsensical time. Back in February of this year, he wrote a commentary on liberalism that remains required reading for those of us who are avowed conservatives, libertarians and such.

Read the whole thing. If I have linked to this before, my apologies. However, I believe that it can never be read too many times. And there is much of interest on the rest of his site as well, including an amusing comment on the Great Illegal Walkout. Mr. Pournelle's report makes me wish the illegals would stage walkouts every day of the year.....

Hat tip to Mentok.

Return of Star Wars

They called former President Ronald Reagan an idiot for even suggesting the famed Space (CORRECTION: Strategic) Defense Initiative back during his term in office. And his critics in the media and the Democratic party (which amounts to roughly the same thing) were legion. However, as a recent article by James Thayer for the Weekly Standard online magazine points out, despite the naysayers, Reagan had the right idea. And as a result, missile defense is almost a reality at last. Well, it wouldn't be the first time that Reagn was proven right and his critics wrong. Does anyone remember his "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!" speech? How many Democrats would have dared to say that? Maybe Joseph Lieberman, but no one else I can think of. And how many in the media give him credit for his steadfast vision and courage?

Although the system is not complete, and it is not 100 percent perfect, tests are encouraging and most of our true allies (Australia, Britain, Poland, Japan) are jumping on board. As Donald Rumsfeld said regarding the system, "Did we have perfection with our first airplane, our first rifle, our first ship? I mean, they'd still be testing at Kitty Hawk, for God's sake, if you wanted perfection." I find this an entirely appropriate comment. Of course, the critics don't want perfection- they want surrender.

If we can get a reliable missile defense system deployed, then Iran and North Korea can threaten all they want, and we can simply tell them to do what they wish, sionce they are completely unable to harm us. I am certain that we would be happy to provide our closest allies (Israel comes to mind) with this technology as well. And that would be a blow to the mullahs, as their little nukes would no longer be of any use to them As Michael Ledeen of the National Review likes to say, "Faster please".

05/26/2006 CORRECTION UPDATE: I mistakenly typed "Space Defense Initiative" in my original post. I am not sure what I was thinking, but the correct name of Reagan's proposed program was the Strategic Defense Initiative.

And another Note on Illegals

My good buddy Mentok has posted on his blog some hilarious poetry that is applicable to the subject of illegal aliens. And Doug Giles has a wonderful column on TownHall.com that is also very required reading for all who are interested in the topic.

Go read it. Go read both. And there is an email which is (possibly) apocryphal going around which states that on the Great Walkout Day, sales across the US went down by approximately four percent. But shoplifting went down by 67 percent! So the merchants did good. I have a messsage for the wetback/La Raza/Reconquista racists. Take some more days off. Help our merchants make more money by reducing crime! Think about it as you read Mentok's poetry. For more (similar) efforts, check out Craig's List starting HERE and the post that started it all HERE. Enjoy, y'all....

Some Questions...

Courtesy of my friend Mentok, I am posting the following questions, for discussion together with my take:

Q: What do you think of treating the terrorists by the platinum rule? Meaning, if they're giving us hell, giving them hell via lard dipped bullets, etc.
A: I think this is an excellent idea. My only concern is that we are already winning both the military and the propaganda war in Iraq, and this might push us backward if we hit the wrong folks at all. And that might happen- mistakes do happen in wartime, as we all know. We already know the enemy in Iraq are losing- only the American MSM has apparently not yet read (or more accurately won't report on) the most recently translated al-Quaeda letter, which clearly shows their lack of strength. However, it would be so nice to pay them back in their own coin. And what the h*ll are these idiots at Guantanamo Bay doing still with their Korans? Do any Americans in Iraq get bibles? Or any other Muslim country? Take away those damn Korans. These are terrorists, not POWs!

Q: What do you think of Stephen Colbert and his *ssraping of the US Press Corp on CSPAN?
A: Not having seen Colbert's little "comedy routine" I have no opinion to offer. Mentok says that "not only did he rake President Bush over the coals, he also managed to make a laughingstock of the US MSM." Well, since the MSM already ARE a laughingstock for their blatant bias, their determination to not report the truth and their equal determination to ruin this country, that wouldn't be difficult. However, I will take Mentok at his word. For anyone interested in viewing the routine, Google (yes the hypocritical ChiCom censor enabler for those keeping score at home) has the complete video feed here.

Q: Should the US media be entitled to protection from the United States military?
A: Not anyone from CNN, NBC, CBS, or the New York Times, no. Seriously, if the US MSM insists that they are above being patriotic and that they do not have to support their own country, then why the heck should our soldiers have to risk their lives protecting these useless traitors? The MSM is apparently on very good terms with the enemy- let THEM be responsible for protecting these so-called reporters who only report what they want, not what is true. And if a reporter is traveling with a terrorist group, he/she should be a legitimate target. They certainly would not lift a finger to protect the soldier if they had knowledge of an attack, so why should the soldier lift a finger to protect the reporter? Only if the reporter is embedded and has agreed to follow the military's terms (and that includes reporting both the good and the bad news) should a reporter be entitled to military protection.

Q: Should we repeal the 'Baby Anchor' law?
A: Absolutely. Even though it will require a Constitutional amendment. There is no reason why just being born in the United States should make anyone a citizen- especially not with illegals slipping across the border just to have their babies in US hospitals- which by government fiat cannot ask if they are even citizens! The upshot is that we have just increased our own tax burden with yet another illegal family. Get rid of the baby anchor law and also remove the requirement that healthcare has to available to illegals. If you are not a citizen or legal resident, you should not be entitled to free healthcare. I am a citizen and I don't have it. Why should illegal aliens have benefits that citizens do not?

Q: What to do about Iran?
A: Well, we may not have a choice much longer. I say we give the UN till the end of the year, then start telling Tehran that our forces in Iraq will be moving in unless they unconditionally disarm. And that means a full apology and compensation for 1979 as well. Otherwise, we will remove the mullahs militarily. And let the Iranian people decide who will rule them next. Just like Iraq. And since Iran is the main financier of the "insurrection" in Iraq, there won't be anything a fifth element in Iran since most of the people are much more pro-American that are any other population in the area. Delay is fatal. Remember 1939. Hitler could have been stopped in 1938, but France and Britain did nothing and ended up fighting a six-year war. Can we afford to do that again? Can we afford a nuclear-armed Iran?

Q: What to do about North Korea?
A: Give nuclear weapons to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Well, maybe not South Korea. They are a little bit too ungrateful already for my taste. But Japan and Taiwan? Absolutely. The last thing China wants to see is a nuclear-armed Taiwan. And that will make China think twice about whether having North Korea as a client is worth the consequences. Since China will not be helpful, why should we enable their little dreams of power?

Post what you think in the Comments section. As usual, any profanity will be removed. Be polite, be courteous, behave.

Credit for questions 1 and 2 to Mentok.

Stupid College Tricks, Part One

There have been a number of wonderful Top Ten lists since David Letterman introduced the phenomenon back in the 1980s. However, one of the best I have read is curently to be found on TownHall.com. The irrepressible Dr. Mike Adams, a criminology professor at University of North Carolina-Wilmington, put together his Top Ten Stupid Conspiracy Theories list. A sample taken from the list is as follows:

10. “911 was a conspiracy planned between the Bush administration and the Jews. They wanted an excuse to attack Arabs and the ignorant public bought into it.” (from a now-deceased college professor).

Hilarious stuff. I highly recommend reading the entire list. Unless you are one of the unfortunates with Bush Derangement Syndrome who inhabits the fever zones of the Daily Kos, I can guarantee your enjoyment. The sad part is that all of the theories on the list were propounded by eeither college professors or college students. And that is all the more eveidence of how the Left's stranglehold on public (and private) education has ruined our educational system in this country. A pity.

Some Light (Noise) Relief

As in this article posted today in the BBC. Seems that maybe trombones DO qualify as lethal weapons. Now if the BBC wouold spend as much time worrying about real weapons of mass destruction in the hands of our enemies as they do about noisy trombones, maybe we could all sleep a little more securely at night. Of course, that would require the BBC to actually commit to to reporting the news accurately instead of always spinning things so as to reflect badly on their own countries.....