I don't live in Minneapolis. But if I did, I would immediately cancel my subscription to the Star-Tribune after hearing about their latest layoffs. After firing the elderly women who ran the paper's switchboard, the bosses at the Twin Cities largest newspaper then announced they were ending their contract with Lifeworks, a nonprofit group that helps mentally handicapped people work in office jobs.

By doing this, the paper in effect is firing 11 developmentally disabled workers in the Star-Tribune's mail room.

As the father of two developmentally-challenged children, I am stunned at the "Strib's" insensitivity. I recognize that cutting expenses is vital for any newspaper in the Internet age. But to single out those who are probably the most loyal, hardest working employees really is nothing short of discrimination.

They Strib may well feel it's within their rights to hire and fire whom ever they like. But I, for one, will no longer use their paper for any links, commentaries or whatever support I may have given it.

It's too bad they could only fire him:
University of Colorado Board Upholds Firing of Controversial Professor Ward Churchill

Isn't ironic, don't you think?
Anger Counselor Charged in Domestic Spat

Quiet, or everyone else will want one too!
Montana man claims he found deep-fried mouse in a bag of potato chips

Would you like fries with that?
Penis for Lunch in Dedham!

How'd they cash their checks?
USDA sent $1.1B to deceased farmers

I suppose I really don't need the shoes...
Nude blonde, gold stilettos and a Ferrari..

But Vermonters are cool with it...
Dead herring odor upsets Maine residents

How much would he get if he were alive?
Driver faces 7 years in death

Car-54, what have you done?
Car linked to pedestrian's I-65 death

Since I have a lot of catching up to do, I'm going to start with my latest edition of Shayne's Truisms...

1. The Chicago newspapers should stop playing games and announce that they support Obama for King of the World already. It can't get any more obvious than it is now.

2. I was not only NOT disappointed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, I consider it the perfect ending to the perfect series. Even the fact that I always suspected the truth about Snape didn't deter me one minute from reading with rapt pleasure and attention.

3. Will anyone really care in the future whether or not Bud Selig attends the game in which Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's record?

4. Bonds may or may not be guilty and he may or may not deserve to hold such a distinguished record. But regardless, he is one hell of a ballplayer. Ty Cobb wasn't much liked either, but everyone respected his talent.

5. Bonds breaking the record is not a tragedy. Michael Vick being allowed to suit up for the Falcons' season opener is.

6. I find it refreshing that no one - white or black - is calling Vick a victim of racial abuse. The only think I'd dislike Vick more for would be if he were a Redskin. But had he been white, I'd still want him to suffer for his crimes.

7. Has anyone else noticed that since 1970, when it was concluded that all the American Educational system needed was more money, we have spend a considerably larger amount of money than any other nation, yet our schools continue to fail? Is it possible money isn't the problem?

8. For those of you who truly believe that Senators Boxer and Feinstein are right and that Congress should pass the "Fairness Doctrine", would you accept an opposing viewpoint by Michael Savage on NPR?

Or does the "Fairness Doctrine" only work for liberals?

9. The story of Harry Potter, especially book 5 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - reminds me quite a bit of the current situation here is America. On one side, you have a Democratic congress downplaying the existence of evil in the world and ridiculing the very idea. In the mean time, those who are taking it very seriously have to do so almost in hiding so not to be punished by the mainstream press. All the while, the evil builds caring not whether people ignore it or not.

10. I've really never been one to hold a grudge and I find that I forgive very easily. But there are things that can be said to me and/or about me - often untrue - that can never be forgiven nor forgotten. Not that this matters. But it is a shame when someone assumes the worse without even bothering to consider the other possibilities - especially when other possibilities are right in front of them.

I'm in the middle of writing a piece comparing the latest Harry Potter film with the United States Congress. However, after reading the following article by the wonderful Victor Davis Hanson, I decided to post that first.

Enjoy!

The New York Times Surrenders
A monument to defeatism on the editorial page
by Victor Davis Hanson

12 July 2007

On July 8, the New York Times ran an historic editorial entitled “The Road Home,” demanding an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq. It is rare that an editorial gets almost everything wrong, but “The Road Home” pulls it off. Consider, point by point, its confused—and immoral—defeatism.

1. “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”

Rarely in military history has an “orderly” withdrawal followed a theater-sized defeat and the flight of several divisions. Abruptly leaving Iraq would be a logistical and humanitarian catastrophe. And when scenes of carnage begin appearing on TV screens here about latte time, will the Times then call for “humanitarian” action?

2. “Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.”

We’ll get to the war’s “sufficient cause,” but first let’s address the other two charges that the Times levels here against President Bush. Both houses of Congress voted for 23 writs authorizing the war with Iraq—a post-9/11 confirmation of the official policy of regime change in Iraq that President Clinton originated. Supporters of the war included 70 percent of the American public in April 2003; the majority of NATO members; a coalition with more participants than the United Nations alliance had in the Korean War; and a host of politicians and pundits as diverse as Joe Biden, William F. Buckley, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Francis Fukuyama, Kenneth Pollack, Harry Reid, Andrew Sullivan, Thomas Friedman, and George Will.

And there was a Pentagon postwar plan to stabilize the country, but it assumed a decisive defeat and elimination of enemy forces, not a three-week war in which the majority of Baathists and their terrorist allies fled into the shadows to await a more opportune time to reemerge, under quite different rules of engagement.

3. “While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept promising breakthroughs—after elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost.”

Of course there were breakthroughs: most notably, millions of Iraqis’ risking their lives to vote. An elected government remains in power, under a constitution far more liberal than any other in the Arab Middle East. In the region at large, Libya, following the war, gave up its advanced arsenal of weapons of mass destruction; Syria fled Lebanon; A.Q. Khan’s nuclear ring was shut down. And despite the efforts of Iran, Syria, and Sunni extremists in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a plurality of Iraqis still prefer the chaotic and dangerous present to the sure methodical slaughter of their recent Saddamite past.

The Times wonders what Bush’s cause was. Easy to explain, if not easy to achieve: to help foster a constitutional government in the place of a genocidal regime that had engaged in a de facto war with the United States since 1991, and harbored or subsidized terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, at least one plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida affiliates in Kurdistan, and suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank. It was a bold attempt to break with the West’s previous practices, both liberal (appeasement of terrorists) and conservative (doing business with Saddam, selling arms to Iran, and overlooking the House of Saud’s funding of terrorists).

Is that cause in fact “lost”? The vast majority of 160,000 troops in harm’s way don’t think so—despite a home front where U.S. senators have publicly compared them with Nazis, Stalinists, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, and Saddam Hussein’s jailers, and where the media’s Iraqi narrative has focused obsessively on Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and serial leaks of classified information, with little interest in the horrific nature of the Islamists in Iraq or the courageous efforts of many Iraqis to stop them.

4. “Continuing to sacrifice the lives and limbs of American soldiers is wrong. The war is sapping the strength of the nation’s alliances and its military forces. It is a dangerous diversion from the life-and-death struggle against terrorists. It is an increasing burden on American taxpayers, and it is a betrayal of a world that needs the wise application of American power and principles.”

The military is stretched, but hardly broken, despite having tens of thousands of troops stationed in Japan, Korea, the Balkans, Germany, and Italy, years—and decades—after we removed dictatorships by force and began efforts to establish democracies in those once-frightening places. As for whether Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror: al-Qaida bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri, like George W. Bush, has said that Iraq is the primary front in his efforts to attack the United States and its interests—and he often despairs about the progress of jihad there. Our enemies, like al-Qaida, Iran, and Syria, as well as opportunistic neutrals like China and Russia, are watching closely to see whether America will betray its principles in Iraq.

5. “Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs.”

The Times should abandon the subjunctive mood. The catastrophes that it matter-of-factly suggests have ample precedents in Vietnam. Apparently, we should abandon millions of Iraqis to the jihadists (whether Wahhabis or Khomeinites), expect mass murders in the wake of our flight—“even genocide”—and then chalk up the slaughter to Bush’s folly. And if that seems crazy, consider what follows, an Orwellian account of the mechanics of our flight:

6. “The main road south to Kuwait is notoriously vulnerable to roadside bomb attacks. Soldiers, weapons and vehicles will need to be deployed to secure bases while airlift and sealift operations are organized. Withdrawal routes will have to be guarded. The exit must be everything the invasion was not: based on reality and backed by adequate resources.

“The United States should explore using Kurdish territory in the north of Iraq as a secure staging area. Being able to use bases and ports in Turkey would also make withdrawal faster and safer. Turkey has been an inconsistent ally in this war, but like other nations, it should realize that shouldering part of the burden of the aftermath is in its own interest.”

This insistence on planned defeat, following incessant criticism of potential victory, is lunatic. The Times’s frustration with Turkey and other “inconsistent” allies won’t end with our withdrawal and defeat. Like everyone in the region, the Turks want to ally with winners and distance themselves from losers—and care little about sermons from the likes of the Times editors. The ideas about Kurdish territory and Turkey are simply cover for the likely consequences of defeat: once we are gone and a federated Iraq is finished, Kurdistan’s democratic success is fair game for Turkey, which—with the assent of opportunistic allies—will move to end it by crushing our Kurdish friends.

7. “Despite President Bush’s repeated claims, Al Qaeda had no significant foothold in Iraq before the invasion, which gave it new base camps, new recruits and new prestige.

“This war diverted Pentagon resources from Afghanistan, where the military had a real chance to hunt down Al Qaeda’s leaders. It alienated essential allies in the war against terrorism. It drained the strength and readiness of American troops.”

The Times raises the old charge that if we weren’t in Iraq, neither would be al-Qaida—more of whose members we have killed in Iraq than anywhere else. In 1944, Japan had relatively few soldiers in Okinawa; when the Japanese learned that we planned to invade in 1945, they increased their forces there. Did the subsequent carnage—four times the number of U.S. dead as in Iraq, by the way, in one-sixteenth the time—prove our actions ill considered? Likewise, no Soviets were in Eastern Europe until we moved to attack and destroy Hitler, who had kept communists out. Did the resulting Iron Curtain mean that it was a mistake to deter German aggression?

And if the Times sees the war in Afghanistan as so important, why didn’t it support an all-out war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, as it apparently does now, when we were solely in Afghanistan?

8. “Iraq may fragment into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics, and American troops are not going to stop that from happening. . . . To start, Washington must turn to the United Nations, which Mr. Bush spurned and ridiculed as a preface to war.”

But Bush did go to the United Nations, which, had it enforced its own resolutions, might have prevented the war. In fact, the Bush administration’s engagement with the UN contrasts sharply with President Clinton’s snub of that organization during the U.S.-led bombing of the Balkans—unleashed, unlike Iraq, without Congressional approval. The Times also neglects to mention that the UN was knee-deep in the mess of its cash cow Iraq, from its appeasement of the genocidal Hussein regime to its graft-ridden, $50 billion oil-for-food scandal, reaching the highest echelons of Kofi Annan’s UN administration.

9. “Washington also has to mend fences with allies. There are new governments in Britain, France and Germany that did not participate in the fight over starting this war and are eager to get beyond it. But that will still require a measure of humility and a commitment to multilateral action that this administration has never shown. And, however angry they were with President Bush for creating this mess, those nations should see that they cannot walk away from the consequences.”

New governments in France and Germany are more pro-American than those of the past that tried to thwart us in Iraq. The Times surely knows of the Chirac administration’s lucrative relationships with Saddam Hussein, and of the German contracts to supply sophisticated tools and expertise that enabled the Baathist nightmare. Tony Blair will enjoy a far more principled and reputable retirement than will Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder, who did their best to destroy the Atlantic Alliance for cheap partisan advantage at home and global benefit abroad.

Nations like France and Germany won’t “walk away” from Iraq, since they were never there in the first place. They never involve themselves in such dangerous situations—just look at the rules of engagement of French and German troops in Afghanistan. Their foreign policy centers instead on commerce, suitably dressed up with fashionable elite outrage against the United States.

10. “For this effort to have any remote chance, Mr. Bush must drop his resistance to talking with both Iran and Syria. Britain, France, Russia, China and other nations with influence have a responsibility to help. Civil war in Iraq is a threat to everyone, especially if it spills across Iraq’s borders.”

China and Russia, seeing only oil and petrodollars, will take no responsibility to help. Both will welcome a U.S. retreat. Yes, “civil war” will spill over the borders, but not until the U.S. precipitously withdraws. Iran and Syria—serial assassins of democrats from Lebanon to Iraq—are hoping for realization of the Times’s scenario, and would be willing to talk with us only to facilitate our flight, with the expectation that Iraq would become wide open for their ambitions. In their view, a U.S. that fails in Iraq surely cannot thwart an Iranian bomb, the Syrian reabsorption of Lebanese democracy, attacks on Israel, or increased funding and sanctuary for global terrorism.

11. “President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened—the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.”

But as the Times itself acknowledges, what has happened in the past only previews what is in store if we precipitously withdraw. And this will prove the case not only in Iraq, but elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Taiwan, and Korea. Once the U.S. demonstrates that it cannot honor its commitments, those dependent upon it must make the necessary adjustments. Ironically, while the Times urges acceptance of defeat, Sunni tribesmen at last are coming forward to fight terrorists, and regional neighbors are gradually accepting the truth that their opportunistic assistance to jihadists is only threatening their own regimes.

We promised General Petraeus a hearing in September; it would be the height of folly to preempt that agreement by giving in to our summer of panic and despair. Critics called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a change in command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops. But now that we have a new secretary, a new command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops, suddenly we have a renewed demand for withdrawal before the agreed-upon September accounting—suggesting that the only constant in such harping was the assumption that Iraq was either hopeless or not worth the effort.

The truth is that Iraq has upped the ante in the war against terrorists. Our enemies’ worst nightmare is a constitutional government in the heart of the ancient caliphate, surrounded by consensual rule in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Turkey; ours is a new terror heaven, but with oil, a strategic location, and the zeal born of a humiliating defeat of the United States on a theater scale. The Islamists believe we can’t win; so does the New York Times. But it falls to the American people to decide the issue.

Just taking some much needed R & R. I'll be back next week!

I spent over two hours today writing a great piece on Al Gore. However, as luck would have it, my computer got sick and threw it up all over the keyboard. Since I spent so much time and effort creating the masterpiece, I had no more energy to reconstruct it again.

I blame it on Global Warming.

Seriously, it was a very good bit of writing and I can only hope to remember all the details I used to make my point. But since that has since proved so difficult to repeat, I can only summarize what I'd written. I mention this all now because it has recently been discovered that a grass-roots organization has been created to influence the former Vice-President to consider another run for President. While Gore has not declared any intention to run, he has considered the viability of creating an exploratory committee.

My initial point was that it must be very hard to be Al Gore. Since he lost the election of 2000, he has many been pitied by most Americans. This was further enhanced by his speech Global Warming on January 15, 2004 - one of the coldest days in the history of New York, where he made the speech.

But suddenly, through the magic of Hollywood, Gore has been reinvented as not only a statesman, but as the Czar of the Global Warming crusade. With the success of his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore’s position from the butt of many a joke to the Global Warming deity has been nothing short of remarkable.

However, it’s also remarkably dangerous for our country.

As far as comparison is concerned, Global Warming is just like any other religion. The tenets of any religion include strong faith, an almost irrational belief, an attitude of superiority and of course, TRUTH. Moses, Jesus, and I suppose Mohammad had TRUTH – the unshakable belief that what they said was undeniably true. Well, Global Warming is no different. Like Liberalism, Global Warming adherents have strong faith, an almost irrational belief, an attitude of superiority and they have the word of their deity, Al Gore.

Let’s face it. Al Gore is the prophet of Global Warming.

There are many people who disagree with the various religions of the world. Christians vs. Muslims, Muslims vs. Jews, etc…but one thing they all agree upon is the nobility of the prophets and the deity. Why is that? Because within all religion lies at the center, TRUTH. Even Islamofacists believe that the story of the Bible was true.

But what about Global Warming? What about Al Gore? Does he preach the TRUTH?

According to James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute, Al Gore does not tell the truth. In an article published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Taylor takes Gore to task for the many discrepancies, half-truths and outright lies told by Gore in his film:

Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims.

He then continues to point out many of the inaccuracies that Gore continues to ignore. (You can read the entire article here.) And Tayor isn't the only one. More and more scientists are breaking free of the Global Warming followers and writing their own findings which contradict Gore as well. What makes matters worse is that even after learning the truth about all of this, Gore continues to accept the role and use it as a means to reinvent himself as a viable political force.

As a Global Warming Czar, Gore makes an awful prophet. And therein lays the danger.

Because most of us (including myself) live at a time where presidential conventions are relatively meaningless, it is hard to imagine what a real contest these conventions used to be. Many times in the past, the nominee was not decided prior to the convention and often times, the candidate that seemed most likely to emerge victorious lost. In modern times, however, the primaries have been quite successful at choosing a nominee prior to the convention, which then just turns into a three-day, paid political advertisement for the candidate.

But this year may indeed be very different. The main two parties are both up for grabs. The GOP could embrace Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, or any number of other possibilities. For the Democrats though, it really looks like a two-person race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I certainly do not consider John Edwards a serious contender.

With Senator Clinton’s disproval rate being higher that her approval rating and Senator Obama still an unknown commodity, it is indeed very possible that the 2008 Democratic convention will be deadlocked for this first time since 1952. In that scenario, is it so hard to fathom Al Gore coming in to save the day?

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should ignore the environment. On the contrary, I believe we should all do what we can to keep from polluting our land that our children will inherit. However, I refuse to be brow-beaten by false prophets who treat Global Warming as the gospel. If Al Gore were true to his calling, he would also consider the possibility that not only in Global Warming unavoidable, but it’s cyclical as well. Often times we find ourselves sacrificing our money and our lives to combat enemies that don’t exist. I find it ironic that many of these same people fail to recognize the enemies that do.

Al Gore is still a joke. But, his candidacy for President is no laughing matter. I swear to G-d.