Here’s one I couldn’t resist posting:

THREE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

1. COWS

2. THE CONSTITUTION, and

3. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years and we’re not using it anymore.

TEN COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a
courthouse………You cannot post “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” and “Thou Shall Not Lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians - it creates a hostile work environment.

H/T Shana

Just because the folks on the left side of the aisle are lying scoundrels doesn’t mean that Amy Proctor has them pegged!

H/T Old Soldier

…and will continue to do so until some doubting Thomases realize that it is not merely a spaced out, paranoid, Ludlumesque conspiracy theory, but a bona fide, real life stealth agenda that may well rear its hideous head, much to the unpleasant surprise of most and the joy of some, in the latter case a lot of mega-rich businessmen with extranational interests and as many anti-American entities who have long envisioned the decommissioning of both our sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution, as early as the year 2010.

The horse in question is, of course, the North American Union {NAU, for short}, better known as the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership {SPP}.

Disguised as a mere agreement of cooperative effort between the three countries (the U.S., Mexico and Canada) that comprise the continent of North America, the SPP actually masks something rather more involved, that being a merging of the three governments, in much the same way as the countries of Europe have combined to form the European Union {EU}.

As in the latter case, this union would include the elimination of sovereign borders and a congress consisting of representation by the governments of all member countries. Because our Constitution is unique, changes would be mandated to accommodate the governing sensibilities of Mexico and Canada, not least those articles concerned with the rights of citizens. Property rights, free speech rights, the right to keep and bear arms, rights of protest and assembly….

Mexico’s civil and human rights policies are downright oppressive compared to ours, and changes engendered would have to include compromises that would be unacceptable to most Americans, including many of those Utopian liberal idiots who would endorse such a change until, too late, they realize what they have brought not only upon themselves, but upon the rest of America.

The only people who would not have a problem are those possessing assets in eight figures and above, whose wealth would place them, as always, high above the “pedestrian” concerns of the rank & file citizen.

There are two arguments I’ve encountered that encourage this entire issue to be consigned to the “conspiracy theory” heap:

1. Why isn’t there any mainstream media coverage on the SPP vs NAU kerfuffle?

2. It couldn’t happen because the American people “won’t stand for it”.

In answer to “1.”, well the Bush Administration, the Council on Foreign Relations {CFR} and their counterparts in Mexico and Canada have shared neither their work nor their under-the-table negotiations with the congresses/parliaments or media of their respective countries, and have even gone as far as barring the press from covering some of their conferences, one of which I referred to in a previous post on the subject that was held in Canada.

As far as “2.” is concerned, well, face it — a stealth agenda can be termed thus because it is not one the public will be briefed on prior to an election, but one that will be gradually prepped, the final implementation reaching fruition within months after an election day, and presented with the usual deceptive honey coating of any distateful political presentation.

Whether the governed will “stand for it” or not is a moot point, the only alternatives, once the change has been made, will be the threat of voting out the incumbents involved in the next election, which won’t amount to a hill of beans as there would be plenty of time for those at the helm to accellerate their plans before another voting cycle arrived, and armed revolution, which might have been a distinct possibility a couple of centuries ago, but is highly unlikely today — the nature of the American people as we were in the 1700s has been profoundly diluted by the gradual surge of liberalism in this country that has so tainted and distorted the perception of the original intentions of our founding fathers by all too many Americans.

All that said, I have a couple of links here, both going back to the middle of last year, that give further evidence than I have previously presented to the existence and concept of the NAU agenda.

First, let’s become acquainted with one Robert Pastor.

In his pressing enthusiasm for realizing the NAU, Robert Pastor argued in a 2004 article in CFR’s Foreign Affairs, entitled “North America’s Second Decade,” that the United States would benefit by giving up U.S. national Sovereignty. “Countries are benefited,” he wrote, “when they changed these [national sovereignty] policies, and evidence suggests that North Americans are ready for a new relationship that renders this old definition of sovereignty obsolete.”

Truncating,

Critics who argue that the NAU is a “conspiracy theory” are well advised to take a hard look at Robert Pastor. With U.S. policy toward Latin America, Dr. Pastor first approached the issue in writing (for the radical IPS, as we have noted), next as a university professor, and finally as a government official. Had John Kerry won the 2004 presidential election, Robert Pastor most likely would have emerged with a government position from which he could have pursued his NAU agenda. Given the re-election of George Bush, Dr. Pastor has surfaced within the CFR, an influential “think-tank” NGO whose history of impacting U.S. policy would suggest the CFR impact on SPP.gov could easily be more than academic.

This article contains several excellent links, and I would highly recommend taking the time to read all of them.

Presidential candidate George W. Bush stated in August 2000 in a speech on Latin America in Miami Florida:

“…By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America.”

Our intentionally unsecured borders and our government’s deliberate and unapologetic lack of enforcement of our immigration and employment laws is merely a necessary step to a much larger goal - a “New America” in a “North American Community.”

A New America that would replace the traditional self-governing “Old America” for which our founders sacrificed and our grandfathers fought to pass on.

In March 2005, President George W. Bush and the leaders of Mexico and Canada announced the establishment of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.” This represents the official public beginning of an ongoing series of agreements and implementations aimed at combining the economies, populations and cultures of the nations of North America into a borderless “North American Free Trade Zone”.

Think: “I pledge allegiance to the Continent and to the Commerce for which it stands.”

Along with mass, uncontrolled immigration, legal and illegal, trade agreements are a favored tool in the transformation. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the recently passed Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the upcoming attempt to put the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in place would guarantee a unending “free flow” of goods and people across our traditional borders.

Grateful hat tip, Cubed

… no money, including membership dues, to the Republican (or any other) Party this year can be found here.

For the last few years, I haven’t seen them justify my support and while I contributed prior to this last November election, voted a straight Republican ticket and will undoubtedly do so again in 2008, until they start listening to what we, the people who put them and keep them in office want they will receive no more monetary support from me.

However, on a cheerier note, the man who has for some time been my own first choice as the next President may run in 2008!

Tom Tancredo will get a contribution from me if he decides to run.

The rest of those complacent, self seeking denizens of the Hill need to grow their spines back and start acting like Republicans before they see any more of my money…

…here in Charlotte, it’s a warm, pleasant spring day in the middle of January, and I’m enjoying it working out back on my deck and taking this blogging break surrounded by green (fortunately, four of the big trees in my backyard are evergreens, and my grass and shrubs are mostly the kind that stay green all year). This being one of the places birds fly south to for the winter, there’s lots of assorted chatter going on in the trees, and the Bach I have playing at the moment is at a perfect low volume to allow the bird music to improvise with it. Aaaah….

The great Phin, to whom I owe quite a lot, has moved me to a WordPress publishing platform and for the last couple of days I have seen no spambot traffic to speak of. This is my first post- move post, and WordPress looks completely different from Moveable Type, so at the moment I’m hoping I do it right.

In the past week and then some since I last posted, I have read a few news items and blog posts that I want to share here while I prepare to start posting more regularly again, such as….

In the last few days we’ve seen Mahmoud Abbas demonstrate the exact definition of a moderate Palestinian.

On the eve of a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told supporters on Thursday that they should turn their guns on Israel and not on each other.

Well, he was Arafat’s protege, and as they say, the fruit never falls far from the tree. Still, it was sound business; As long as he had the stupid, gullible asses we call politicians and diplomats believing he was interested in peaceful coexistence, he was eligible for yours and my tax dollars. How nice.

Then, we were presented with another great example of liberal hypocrisy, courtesy of the New York Times in another of those portsider “do as I say, not as I do” episodes.

Earlier today, Boston Globe representatives of the New York Times Co. met with executive committee members of the Boston Newspaper Guild — confirming plans for a new round of employee buyouts and job outsourcing.

Rather than leading our industry by example and competing vigorously with a creative business plan, New York has chosen to reduce staff and outsource in order to go along with the status quo. These actions are repulsive given the fact that the New York Times preaches ethics at every turn, and routinely lectures the nation on how to treat working Americans.

Once again, the Times Co. is standing true to a “Do as we say, not as we do” mentality. While the Boston Newspaper Guild recognizes a decline in revenue at the Boston Globe and throughout the industry, we disagree with the methods that New York employs to combat these circumstances.

All I can say to that last paragraph is, Yo, mainstream media! Of course there is a decline in revenues, you blockheads! Those readers of yours — the former ones, that is — got tired of your partisan political spin, omissions of such “picayunes” as the truth and your altogether Cold War Pravda approach to reporting the news. In short, they have come to realize that you believe they are stupid and that you are insulting their intelligence.

As for the rest, what’s new? Liberals believe that what they feel is best for everyone else doesn’t apply to them. They are speh-shal. Ask Nancy Pelosi, for example, how many of the employees in her private businesses belong to unions…

In the Blogosphere, Thespis, of Thespis Journal fame, has a great post up on Barbara the flake Boxer putting her foot in her mouth — kinda sorta like John Kerry did with his “joke” that labelled our brave troops in Iraq as dumb losers, in that the rest of the Democrats hastily distanced themselves from the gaffe rather than support it (crickets chirping, anyone?) — in a Blogburst For Condi.

BobG at Sweet Spirits Of Ammonia discusses Juan Williams’ new book, and does it so well that he’s gotten it onto my own reading list despite my personal umbrage with its author’s overall political point of view.

And on an interesting note, how about a rather non-detailed report about high-tech surveillance devices built into Canadian coins?

Nope, I’m not done yet, one of my favorite columnists, Greg Crosby, has an enjoyable New Years reflection I’d like to share.

So, Chanukah and Christmas have come and gone.

So has Ramadan, the month in which many devout Muslims traditionally endeavor to slaughter as many infidels as possible, chaffing at the bit to get to those virgins they have long been conned into believing await them in “Paradise”. Given the respect of Islam for women, I suppose the Islamess (now, that wasn’t very PC, was it?) who manages to murder some unbelievers during Satan’s Month gets 73 male virgins to stifle and abuse her for all eternity.

One of the reasons police officers hate getting involved in domestic battery cases is that on all too many occasions, after all the paperwork and expended energy and man (or woman) hours, the female victims forgive dear hubby and drop the charges. There are battered women out there who do this repeatedly and, worse, stay with the abusive husband after multiple beatings and the psychological abuse that goes hand-in-hand with such a relationship. One of my friends who’s a big city cop, a detective with over 25 years on the job has become so cynical about the issue he once said to me, “What’s all this about battered women? Personally, I think they taste better raw.”

Now imagine a religion whose very scripture dictates that women live like the above described, slaves to their husbands, fathers and brothers, without the options of escape that women have in the civilized world(oil revenues do not make a country or region civilized, only rich).

It makes one grind ones’ teeth with pure rage, unless one is an American feminist, then it’s perfectly okay. To say otherwise might justify being un-PC regarding Islam, and that would conflict with the political agenda of the left, to which the bulk of feminists belong. I’m sure there are a few feminists out there who are patriotic Americans, I just haven’t met any that I know of. All those I’ve met – I used to live in San Francisco and get out a lot, so trust me, I’ve encountered quite a few in my time – have been “card carrying” members of the portside persuasion.

So much for four paragraphs of my usual digression.

My Christmas weekend included a couple of colleagues from overseas who are “stranded” in DC through mid January working on a project, flying down to Charlotte to visit me from Sunday to Tuesday. On Christmas Eve, I roasted a 6 ½ pound duckling – my first, in fact – and found it to be quite a wrestling match just seasoning and stuffing the damn thing, it got pretty messy, but only in the immediate work space, and I got online for some tips. It came out perfect, crisp skin and tender meat, with most of the fat and grease bled off. We put quite a dent in my bar, especially in the single malt, tequila and brandy departments, and had a great and mutually informative time talking shop, telling funny stories and extreme off-color jokes and watching my Star Wars DVDs and Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts on the 62” Toshiba in the den.

Yesterday I had the TV on in my office while I did some work, and watched a couple of films via DirecTV.

One movie I watched featured Jordana Brewster, and really hit home with just how far Hollywood has gone in its liberal propagandizing efforts.

It was called D.E.B.S., and it was about an all schoolgirl (plaid miniskirts, shirts and ties) federal law enforcement agency (S.W.A.T. style), who are the D.E.B.S., vs. Brewster, same age bracket, who is a major international criminal.

It is a cutesy kind of film, and the only real plot is the blossoming lesbian relationship between Brewster and the leading D.E.B. The message was that love knows no gender, and the ending was one of those “happily ever after” kind of endings, the two lesbian lovers go away together at the end with the help and blessings of the rest of the D.E.B.S. on the team. There was no sex and no nudity in the movie, so….

…. it was rated PG-13.

Now, keep in mind that I have a lot in common with lesbians, there is one living inside me that…. Oh, never mind….

The other film made me wish I hadn’t turned on the TV at all, it proved to be the only Samuel L. Jackson film I’ve ever watched that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy. It was called Freedomland and the only two descriptives I can produce for that one are “depressing” and “tedious”. No doubt the consensus of reviews called it “brilliant”, “inspiring” and the like. I found the part where Jackson’s character is trying to get the facts from the woman and her rambling on with her back story to be frustrating (perhaps because I’ve done investigative work, including interrogations, before, and it really sucks to have to endure unavoidable extemporaneous BS when all you want or require is “the facts”).

At the moment, I’m sort of recuperating from my guests’ visit, sipping brandy (hair of the dog, so to speak) with coffee and listening to some old stuff like the Beatles and some much older stuff like Bach, with some Al Stewart mixed in, including tracks like Timeless Skies, Lord Grenville and Roads to Moscow. My all-time favorite Beatles song, from Magical Mystery Tour is playing at the moment: Hello Goodbye.

So, Gerald Ford has passed away, the former President who was never elected – Agnew preceded him as VP, if my memory serves, and Ford succeeded Nixon, then pardoned him in the wake of the Watergate affair, which ticked off a whole passel o’ Democrats and was instrumental in Jimmuh Cahtuh beating him in ’76. I was a Democrat back then, and, well… I owe Carter a great debt – he was the POTUS that turned me into a Republican. Thank ya’ kindly, Jimbo! Too bad he turned traitor, altogether, an enemy of both the United States and Israel. And this is the legacy he chooses in his endeavors to correct the memories of his failed presidency. Go figure.

Go with G-d, Mr. Ford.

Ah, the track that just began is one I forgot I’d included in the play list, Emerson, Lake & Palmers’ Bitches Crystal. Come to think of it, that means Tarkus is next. Yay!

From the mellow to the vigorous….

I know, I’m rambling here, but… that’s why I titled this post thusly.

New Years 2007 is five days away, New Years Eve ending 2006 is four days away.

2007.

And the focus of my personal nostalgia exists in the 1960s and 1970s. I often feel like Fred Flintstone guest starring on The Jetsons.

Where the hell is a time machine when you need one!?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

is, at best, highly disturbing…

On Monday Iran invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani for a tripartite summit in Tehran.

Talabani confirmed Tuesday that he would lead an Iraqi delegation for talks with Iranian officials, set to begin on Saturday, focusing on electricity generation, oil and commerce. However, his visit is not expected to incorporate the proffered summit, which, as a highly symbolic diplomatic coup for Syria and Iran, would have angered the US.

Hmmmmm……

As in Lebanon, Iranian largesse is being used in Iraq to encourage further ties and build client-patron relationships that undermine US influence in the country, while nurturing a budding alliance with newly-ascendant Shi’ite political parties and related militias.

Syrian and Iran have also worked to developed their economic and strategic relations in recent years through a series of agreements on trade, investment, commerce and cultural relationships nurtured by bi-annual meetings of the Iran-Syria Economic Commission.

The two countries signed a communiqué expanding these ties in Damascus on Monday, at the conclusion of the latest commission meeting. Iranian firms have reportedly invested US$750 million in Syria, which the commission intends to expand to between US$2-3 billion in the next two to three years.

While some analysts believe that Iraq’s warming relations with Iran and Syria reflect a period of flux and confusion in US foreign policy, it is unlikely that the al-Maliki government would pursue ties without the implicit agreement of the Bush administration.

I have been giving some thought to this eventuality since reading this post at The Liberal Lie, The Conservative Truth.

I really can’t help it, I’m beginning to smell a hint of takiyyah here,

With a Democrat majority in Congress here in the U.S., and a strong relationship brewing between the Iraqi government, Iran and Syria, well….

On Friday {yesterday} my modem went south and I couldn’t get online – the fine folks at Roadrunner, Time-Warner’s fast and fine Internet service provider, couldn’t get anybody out here until this afternoon – bummer! I was taking a couple of days’ respite from working on occupational projects, and ended up using the time to finish a novel I was reading, do a few formerly procrastinated-upon things around the house and watch more TV than usual. Among the things I watched on the tube were The Devil’s Advocate and some really corny “horror” film called Chopping Mall, which was about a bunch of killer robots, part of the after hours proprietary security system at a mall, that was killing off young, festive mall employees having a late-night party on the premises. Chopping Mall does not pose any sort of threat to Gone With The Wind as far as rankings in the annals of cinema history are concerned, trust me on this one.

I did listen to a lot of music, including some great, mellow old music I had forgotten about, such singles as Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne, Judy Collins’ Both Sides Now, Till Tuesday’s Voices Carry, the Monkees’ Sometime In The Morning, The Bangles’ Return Post, The Doors’ Touch Me, Helen Reddy’s Peaceful and Simon & Garfunkels’ For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her, to name a few.

I did my listening and reading out on my back deck, a seriously peaceful, vividly green (except for the profusion of colorful flowering plants, exotic rose bushes, etc) environment full of bird music and assorted critters passing through, and enjoyed my day immensely, also taking the time to prepare a rather large langoste an ongoing client of mine in the West Indies sent me, on ice, as a gift. I boiled the meaty, clawless lobster for about ten minutes, seasoned it with my favorite Cajun spices, then completed its preparation on my barbecue grill, cooking it over mesquite. I dined upon it with a steamed artichoke w/ melted garlic butter and some Long Island grown rhubarb I did with brown sugar. It was awesome. Shamefully, I’ll admit that the rhubarb was dessert and that I smothered it in whipped cream, but Yum!

My beverage of choice for the day was what I call Irish Espresso {my own recent concoction}:

4 oz espresso
1 ½ oz Bushmills malt whiskey
Steamed milk
Chocolate powder sprinkled on top

Good practice for the winter months’ hot toddy days.

I presently own my first ever espresso maker, which is actually 50% of a West Bend combo coffee maker and espresso machine, anything but the device of a connoisseur. Whenever I use it to make an espresso, a macchiato or a capucino, I get a small complex. For this, we can thank my good friend Kat, of Cathouse Chat fame, LOL. When I was up visiting her and her super family back in early August — in fact, on my birthday — for a get together of blogger friends, she served me espresso(it was deeeelicious!) made with a serious business espresso machine, and when I bought my West Bend thing, she made sure I knew that it wasn’t anything anyone serious about espresso would own, LOL.

However, I’ve really gotten into it, and I would put an espresso, a macchiato or capucino I make in my “dubious” device up against any made in a high-fallutin’, bona fide, certified, accredited, fancy professional espresso machine any day. Just think of the boasting I’ll be able to do once I own a real live, serious bizness, feniculi fenicula, “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” espresso machine. Adam West and Burt Ward will be all over me – “Holy latte, Batman, it’s The Boaster!”

As I’ve long used Café Bustelo as my brand of regular coffee – Bustelo is an espresso roast/grind, I don’t have to change brands to make espresso drinks. Yum, and I mean effin Yum!

Funny, but my modem mysteriously resurrected itself this morning. I called Time Warner, thinking to cancel the tech dude’s visit, and they recommended I have him/ her (actually, I’ve never had a woman show up to install or service phone, Internet, satellite TV or other technical concerns, but *I know they’re out there somewhere) come check it out, anyway, to forestall any future similar events.

* A Moody Blues track of similar name was also on my yesterday’s playlist.

… thanks entirely to the Republican led Congress, was indeed signing the Welfare Reform Act which, predictably, drew a lot of animosity from the entire spectrum of his entitlement spending afficionado, liberal constituency.

Jeff Jacoby has it spot-on.

For all that Clinton got wrong, welfare reform was one thing he ended up getting very right. He had vetoed two previous reform bills passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, and when the House and Senate came back with a third bill, liberal pressure for another veto was intense. But political strategist Dick Morris warned Clinton that a third veto could cost him the 1996 election, and so, pronouncing it a “historic opportunity to do what is right,” he signed the bill.

The chorus of outrage from the left was deafening. Marian Wright Edelman, chairman of the Children’s Defense Fund, warned that Clinton’s signature would “leave a moral blot on his presidency and on our nation.” Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont denounced the bill as “anti-family, anti child, and mean-spirited.” Hugh Price, head of the National Urban League, declared that “Washington has decided to end the War on Poverty and begin a war on children.” Ted Kennedy labeled the new law “legislative child abuse.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan went so far as to call it “the most brutal act of social policy we have known since Reconstruction.”

As usual, the left was right in there with predictions of the most dire consequences, desperate as always to spend every dime possible of The American Taxpayer’s money on wasteful social programs in order to keep their bread and butter voting block intact.

Well, lo and behold, it turns out that these people didn’t really need the Democrats after all, once they faced the necessity of standing on their own two feet they did just fine by themselves…

Over and over it was said that welfare reform would wreak social devastation, throwing vast numbers of people, including a million children, into poverty.

Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey fretted that poor children would be reduced to “begging for money, begging for food, and even . . . engaging in prostitution.” Peter Edelman, the husband of Marian Wright Edelman and an assistant secretary of health and human services, resigned in protest and condemned the new law in a long article — “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done” — in The Atlantic. It predicted, among other things, “more malnutrition and more crime, increased infant mortality, and increased drug and alcohol abuse . . . increased family violence and abuse against children and women.” All in all, he concluded, this “terrible legislation” would do “serious injury to American children.”

It did none of those things.

The left loves to use childrens’ wellbeing wherever it’s convenient in their political arguments, which is interesting in itself as they also support murdering the same children, while still in the foetus stage, wherever possible.

Read the entire OpEd.