Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary!!!!

That's right, it was one year ago that I began my foray into the world of the blogosphere.

To celebrate, let's have another rousing edition of :

DID YOU HEAR WHAT THEY SAID??


THE POLITICS OF HURRICANE KATRINA

"No tragedy is so horrific, no calamity so sad, that somebody can't reduce it to politics. Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy for most of us, but a gift of the gods to the kingdom of the left, where everyone gets up every morning eager to count the ways to despise George W. Bush." —Wesley Pruden

"Back in the real world, America's enemies will draw many useful lessons from the events of this last week. Will America?" —Mark Steyn

"Those who called early on for shooting looters on sight should have been listened to—not because property is more valuable than human life, but because when property isn't safe from marauders, human life isn't, either." —Jeff Jacoby
" Mayor Nagin and most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out of the city in front of a hurricane."--Senator Mary Landrieu, (D) La.

Percentage of New Orleans population Black or African American 67.25% --http://neworleans.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

"We are now reaping the benefits of a welfare state. For more years than most can remember, we have been told by those holding office that they will take care of us. We have provided food, clothing and shelter to the extent that the recipients became entirely dependent on government resources to live.

They have reached the point that no longer do they have the knowledge to take care of themselves. They will sit there and drown or go hungry, and curse the fact that the government has not gotten them out of this mess.

When it is all said and done, there is but one person who is responsible for me, and that is me. The responsibility falls to me to take care of my family, not the government. Society, not government, has an obligation to provide care and sustenance to those who, because of age or physical impairment cannot take care of themselves, but able-bodied people who stand around and complain that no one is doing anything for them deserve whatever the fates cast in their direction.

Life is hard, and you either get tougher or you get washed away—it is as simple as that. Politicians will never, ever take care of you—they only want one thing from you, and that is to stay in power as long as they can. In a situation like Katrina, they will stand in front of the cameras and microphones and denigrate everyone above them in government to take the eye off of their pathetic efforts. This is a situation that they have created, and now the good citizens of the area will have to step in and clean up the mess that has been created by the politicians.

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen—there are too many good people who live in that area for it not to happen. I love the people of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes, but I despise the politicians... I just hope that when the area is rebuilt, they stay away from the massive welfare system they had before—absolutely no good comes from welfare.

It depletes available resources, making it ever more difficult for what passes as government to respond to the true needs of the community."—Robert Johnson, retired NOPD captain

"Whatever the shortcomings of the federal response to Katrina—and there were many—the fact is that the plight of the abandoned poor in New Orleans says far more about that city and the state of Louisiana than about America generally.

The city had evacuation plans it failed to follow even as local leaders warned that their worst fears were coming true. They did not ask for help in a timely fashion, and then they immediately blamed the feds when they didn't get the immediate help they didn't immediately ask for."—Jonah Goldberg

"Ours is a federal system. The President is sworn to uphold and support the Constitution. He is not a dictator. And not to be blamed for failing to act like one. The problem was not the Constitution or the President, but Louisiana's officials." —Michael Gaynor


JUDICIAL

"The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based upon bad history [and] should be frankly and explicitly abandoned." Justice Rehniquist

" It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution."--Ann Coulter

"We must use a judicial, rather than a political, standard to evaluate Judge Roberts' fitness for the Supreme Court. That standard must be based on the fundamental principle that judges interpret and apply but do not make law." —Senator Orrin Hatch


" I had someone ask me in this process, I don't remember who it was, but somebody asked me, you know, "Are you going to be on the side of the little guy," and you obviously want to give an immediate answer, but as you reflect on it, if the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy is going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy is going to win because my obligation is to the Constitution. That's the oath. The oath that a judge takes is not that I'll look out for particular interests; I'll be on the side of particular interests. The oath is to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that's what I would do."--Judge John Roberts

WAR

"every war strategist knows that the best-laid plans often go in the trash soon after the first shot is fired. In other words, circumstances change so quickly that response has to be fluid—because stubbornly sticking to a plan can get you killed."--Mark Alexander

"How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safelyprohibited, unless we could could prohibit, in like manner,the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?"
-- James Madison (Federalist No. 41, 1788)

"There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human naturerise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism."
-- Alexander Hamilton (The Farmer Refuted, 23 February 1775)

POLITICS

" We don't think of political freedom as the right to have our preferred candidates always win elections, only that they have a right to compete in any election. It simply can't be that I am unfree if my candidate doesn't win, or if my policies are not enacted. Losing an election does not make me unfree."—Jennifer Roback Morse

"Artificial gas price caps will work no better now than they did in the 1970s. They won't get petroleum refined faster. They won't reduce motorists' demand for gasoline. All they will create is shortages—the one thing price controls always bring in their wake." —Jeff Jacoby


Thanks again and have a great day!!!!

FEMA Response.....A Little Perspective

With all of the Media caterwauling about FEMA's "slow" response to Hurricane Katrina (three days), I thought I'd put the media's bias in proper perspective.

Imagine turning to CNN an seeing the following:

NEWS ANCHOR: We now go live to Israel where our own Christine Ammonpour is standing by with a report. Christine?

AMMONPOUR: Yes, I'm standing just outside of Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha. I'm here with Jesus bar Joseph, a preacher from Nazareth who just this past Sunday rose from the dead. This was after a brutal murder just three days earlier. Mr. Jesus, how do you feel?

JESUS: Great.

AMMONPOUR: There are many scholars who say that your resurrection is a key factor in the Christian faith. In fact, most have said that without it, mankind would still be drowning in the flood of its own sin. Now, since there were so many lives hanging in the balance, why did it take you three days to respond to such an urgent need?


'Nuff said.

Pictures Worth 1,000 Words; We Will NEVER Forget

For all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, our prayers are with you.









And now, four years later, it's time to check your politics at the door, we've got a job to do.

Hello True-Believers! It's time again for "Did You Hear What They Said?", the regular series where we quote people in the public eye IN CONTEXT.

Remember, it's not hate-speech, THEY ACTUALLY SAID IT!!

And now, on with the show:

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT

"We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromisingand has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. Ifnew difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions andproportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."
-- George Washington (letter to Philip Schuyler, 7/15/1777)

"The politics of lamentation is not likely to appeal to Americans with a taste for the sunny side of the street." —Wesley Pruden

"Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility againstevery form of tyranny over the mind of man."
-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 September 1800)

WAR

" it took from 1776 until 1790 for the United States to go from declaring its independence from England to final adoption of the document under which it would operate for the next 215 years. Based upon that, the Iraqis could take until 2016 to get this all done and still beat the U.S. timetable by a full year." --Rich Galen

"By all rights, Iraq should be in civil war, with the majority Kurds and Shiites slaughtering the Sunnis—which is exactly what the Jihadis are trying to instigate. Instead, the three groups continue talking, squabbling and trying to reach political compromise. It's nothing short of miraculous."--Mark Alexander

"They're not children in Iraq; they're grown-ups who made their own decision to join the military. That seems to be difficult for the left to grasp. Ever since America's all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterize them as 'children'." —Mark Steyn

"Unless Democrats demonstrate the political courage and resolution to win a war, rather than just criticize it, they will remain a minority party no matter what the polls show."--Peter Charles Choharis, executive director of the 2004 Democratic Platform Committee

"Even if you could prove that the war was a mistake in every way, to say that it never should have happened is not a good argument for abandoning the project. If a man is stabbed in the chest, you don't cure him by simply yanking the knife out."--Jonah Goldberg

(The following is from a caller to the Rush Limbaugh Show)
RUSH: Paul in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, welcome, nice to have you on the program.

CALLER: Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. Yeah, I just wanted to say, especially after that one caller, I mean I didn't volunteer because the president's daughters were doing something or some senator's son was joining or anything like that, and I didn't join because I was coming from the ghetto and I wanted to get out.

You know, I joined because it was a career choice, and I wanted to do it, and I really feel that if her son was here today -- and I understand her grief. I mean, I'm a father as well, but I served in Iraq. I've served in Afghanistan.

I've been over there many times, and, you know, I've had friends lost right next to me in battle, and I can understand the grief, but, you know what? At the same time they're doing what they wanted to do.

So many of these people are stuck back in the Vietnam days, and the days of the draft, that I used to get e-mail saying, "Boy, I'm sorry that you're over there." I would e-mail back and say, "What do you mean, you're sorry? I put myself here on purpose. This is what I want to do." August 15, 2005

DEMOCRAT HYPOCRISY

"War against Serbia is unwarranted on strategic, legal and moral grounds. If air strikes take place, Serbia will be the fourth country Bill Clinton has bombed in the past seven months. That record is one of a trigger-happy administration that is creating an image of America as the planetary bully. Decent Americans need to make a stand when it has reached the point of a full-scale war of aggression against a country that has done us no harm."--Ted Galen Carpenter, March 23, 1999 (http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-23-99.html)

In 1996, former Sierra Club President David Brower wrote, "President Clinton has done more to harm the environment and to weaken environmental regulations in three years than presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years."--(http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=555&journalID=57)


CINDY SHEEHAN (or "Michael Moore told me this would work!")

"We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country and our President, silently, with prayer and respect."--Casey Sheehan's relatives

CINDY SHEEHAN, RIGHT AFTER MEETING WITH PRESIDENT BUSH
"I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us. I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss, and I know he's a man of faith."

CINDY SHEEHAN, RIGHT AFTER GETTING IN FRONT OF A CAMERA
"We are not waging a war on terror in this country, we're waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"

"I've been with the President of the United States when he has met with the families of those brave young men and women who have sacrificed all. I have seen his compassion, I have seen his love, I have seen his concern. So any charge of insensitivity or uncaring on the part of this president is absolutely false... I'm sure he wouldn't like to hear me say this, but I saw him afterwards. He was very, very grieved."--Senator John McCain

Army Cpl. Forest Jostes, 22, who served with Casey Sheehan in the 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry. On 4 April 2004, Forest died beside Casey in the same battle with Jihadis.

Last week, Forest's parents, Von and Diane Ibbotson, had this to say about his death: "We were at a crossroads, but we decided from the day he died that we were going to honor him, his sacrifice. We support the President, and we have made a conscious effort to not make this political."

Of Ms. Sheehan's behavior, Forest's parents said, "We both lost sons in the same battle, but the similarities pretty much end there. Cindy Sheehan has a right to protest, wave signs, march or whatever, a right she wouldn't have had it not been for men like our sons.

"My son gave his life for the freedom we enjoy in this country; I hope that the Iraqi people have that someday. We feel sympathy for Mrs. Sheehan, but we're angry because she presumes to speak for so many. I resent the fact that she says she 'speaks for the millions' and is the face of the Gold Star families. That is not so."

Sheehan spoke at an April San Francisco State University rally in support of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in February of providing material aid to terrorists. Here's an excerpt:

"I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people . . . since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction.

I passed on that bull***t to my son and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms: "This country is not worth dying for."

"If we're attacked, we would all go out. We'd all take whatever we had. I'd take my rolling pin and I'd beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have."

(Note to Ms. Sheehan: If America is so "repugnant" to you, you are welcome TO LEAVE.)

MEDIA

"That's my job. I'm a newsman. That's what I try to do, is make news." —CNN's Wolf Blitzer

HILLARY

“She is perceived to be too far to the left.”--Larry Gates, chairman of the Kansas Democratic Party

“I think she’s potentially toxic for the Democrats every place except for the Democratic stronghold states,”--Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scholar

AND FINALLY

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among oldparchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam,in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinityitself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
-- Alexander Hamilton (The Farmer Refuted, 23 February 1775)

Take care and have a great day!

The Time is NOW

"The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation bythe difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of charactersappreciated by the trial of adversity." --George Washington

There have been several people, from politicians to pundits, that have opined about how to--or whether to--rebuild the city of New Orleans.

Right here and now, I will take a stand:

REBUILD THE CITY.





In the wake of a natural disaster of epic proportions, we also now have an opportunity of epic proportions.

Not since the era of the Great Depression have we had an opportunity to reshape the landscape of the American Future.

In much the same way that the New Deal changed American society, President Bush has the opportunity to changethe face of America and establish a true Ownership Society.

Now is not the time for caterwauling, arguing, hate speech, race baiting, or class envy.

Now is the time for action.

Now is the time for the Best and the Brightest of America's private sector to step forward with new ideasto meet and overcome the new challenges that are before us.

One of the lessons we have learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is that the way that the city of New Orleanswas planned, laid-out and build was a prescription and invitation to disaster.

There are organizations in America RIGHT NOW that are capable of banding together plan, re-designand commit resources to rebuilding one of America's best cities.(http://www.greatrivereng.com/) (http://www.asce.org/)

History shows us the power of great minds backed by great efforts that can even change the courseof rivers (www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/riverflow.html).

If the American Spirit was strong enough to reverse the flow of the Chicago River A CENTURY AGO, just imaginewhat that same Spirit could do today with the resources at our disposal.

Re-designing and implementing a plan to rebuild New Orleans will put multiple thousands of people back to work.

Highway projects across the coutry can now be fully staffed, putting even more displaced New Orleanians to work.(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=highway+construction)

The time has come to stop playing political football with America's energy future.

Beginning the road to America's energy independence is imperative.

The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge must be opened to provide America with not just a fresh supply of oil,but also jobs that will continue to boost our economy and bolster America's pre-eminence among the nations.

(link to President Bush's comments: http://www.anwr.com/archives/senate_supports_drilling_in_alaskan_refuge.html)

Even the housing industry can contribute to our immediate future by providing housing and jobs for Katrina survivors (www.nahb.org/) (http://katrinahousing.org/).

America, YOU CAN DO THIS!

THIS IS THE AMERICAN CENTURY.

STAND UP, BE COUNTED, AND PROVE TO THE WORLD WHO WE REALLY ARE.

You got some 'Splaining to Do....

I found an interesting article from the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-katrina-response,1,3041667.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines)

In it I found an interesting excerpt:
"After Hurricane Georges barely missed New Orleans in 1998, there was talk of using city buses to evacuate New Orleans residents without cars. But apparently, that proposal never developed into an executable plan. "

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ia quoted as saying"I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man.... This is a national disaster."

Then I came across this photo from the AP newswire:

An aerial view of flooded school buses in a lot, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, in New Orleans, LA. The flood is a result of Hurricane Katrina that passed through the area last Monday.(AP Photo/Phil Coale) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015


Mayor Nagin, you had the buses for evacuation. You got some 'splaining to do.

American Heroes, Part II

The American Spirit lives on .

In our giving, in our prayers, and in our deeds we stand with you.

Hypocrisy.Org--Hurricane Edition

The American Left is already beginning to propagate something that needs to be nipped in the bud right now:

The injecting of racism and class warfare into the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

Hoping to inflict his twisted world-view upon the Major Media, Jack Shafer writes an article at Slate.com entitled "Lost in the Flood--Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?"

You can't make this stuff up.

If you wish to imbibe the whole bottle of blather, here's the link: http://slate.msn.com/id/2124688/

The excerpt that induced nausea for me was this:

"To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I heard them ask the storm's New Orleans victims why they hadn't left town when the evacuation call came. Many said they were broke—"I live from paycheck to paycheck," explained one woman. Others said they didn't own a car with which to escape and that they hadn't understood the importance of evacuation.

"But I don't recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn't risk leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and pans, his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he'd have no way to replace them. No insurance, no stable, large extended family that could lend him cash to get back on his feet, no middle-class job to return to after the storm."

What difference does race and class make in the wake of what could be the greatest natural disaster to hit this nation?

The color of a person's skin does not change their status as a victim of this storm.

If you are a resident of the city of New Orleans (or the Mississippi Gulf Coast, etc) or a tourist there, you are a hurricane victim.

If Liberals want to be critical in the area of race, then they need to go peddle their onions someplace else.

After 9/11 there was a national debate over the use of "hyphenated" American labels. Terms such as "African-American" or "Italian-American" were beginning to be seen as divisive. By and large, we were starting to drop the prefixes and just simply call ourselves "Americans", and rightly so.

The American Left is now blaming the media for not mentioning race in their reporting, which is an attempt to get them to begin spreading the lie that this is an unfairly damaging circumstance to people of color.

Isn't it funny how Liberals were more than happy to use their cars, vans and buses to bring blacks to the polls to vote for their candidates, but when it came to saving those voters' lives in the DAYS...yes, DAYS before the hurricane struck, those cars, vans and buses were nowhere to be found???

American Heroes, Part I

"When you turn on your television and you look at the people rebuilding New Orleans and Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, those are not going to be environmentalists.

"You won't see the Robert F. Kennedy, Jrs., or any of these others from these well heeled nonprofit groups rebuilding New Orleans in Gulfport and Biloxi. Do you know who it's going to be?

"It's going to be the military. It will be construction companies and their employees. It will be hotels and restaurants and grocery stores and the like.

"It will be the very capitalists that make this country work; it will be the very people that make this country work. It will not be the environmentalists who detest these people." --Rush Limbaugh