Once again, disaster has struck in our own backyard, but I don't expect to see aid flooding in, so to speak, from other nations. New Orleans appeared to have escaped the worst effects of Hurricane Katrina until two of the levees broke, flooding an estimated 80% of the city. Since New Orleans is built in a huge bowl-shaped depression, the levees were necessary to keep out the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain.

Animal and human bodies swirl in the floodwaters, while tree trunks and downed power lines obstruct rescue operations... but nothing seems to deter looters, nor the rioters who took hostages inside a prison. The tens of thousands of people who took refuge in the Superdome are being forced to evacuate by the rising waters, lack of air circulation, and overwhelmed facilities. There is hardly any drinkable water anywhere in the city, no electricity for millions in the area, and it may be months before power is fully restored.

Meanwhile, 30-foot waves slammed into Biloxi MS, destroying its power grid and sewage systems. Floods engulfed parts of Alabama, destroying homes, shipyards and businesses. The number of people who were left homeless and nearly helpless by Hurricane Katrina can only be imagined at this point.

People around the world, even in countries whose governments consider themselves our enemies, know that when disaster strikes they can depend on the generosity of Americans to help them survive and recover. The rest of the world is so used to our automatic offers of money, food, doctors, engineers, medicine, clothing and other forms of assistance in times of trouble that our government has even been called "stingy" when their response was not quite fast enough or the checks not quite large enough to suit our beneficiaries. But it's not really the job of our government to send our tax dollars overseas that way. It's not really the government's responsibility to help domestic disaster victims, either. It's ours. And Americans always respond brilliantly to calls for help from around the world. Yet charity, it is said, begins at home.

When Americans are in trouble, they can only truly depend on the help of fellow Americans, the same people who are so quick to help people of other nationalities in distress. The effects of Hurricane Katrina are unprecendented, and it will take an unprecedented amount of help to recover from them. Please call the American Red Cross at 1-800-HELP NOW, the Salvation Army at 1-800-725-2769 or Mercy Corps at 1-888-256-1900 to give what you can.

31 Aug 2005 UPDATE: Here is FEMA's list of organisations to which you can donate money or volunteer service.

3 Sept 2005 UPDATE: France and Germany have begun to offer relief for New Orleans. France offered to send 35 relief workers from the Caribbean (with 60 more from mainland France). Both countries offered hundreds of tents and beds, along with generators, water treatment plants, planes, ships and medical supplies.

The time has come to offer our heartfelt apologies to the people of Iraq. Oh, don't get me wrong. Only the far-Left fringe would even consider apologising for removing a brutal tyrant like Saddam Hussein from power. One would have to be mad to apologise for freeing 25 million people from over three decades of injustice, preventing Saddam from filling more mass graves and ending forever his predilection for genocide. Who regrets giving Iraqis the opportunity to hold free and fair elections for the first time ever -- making the oldest civilisation the youngest democracy? How could any American want to apologise for exposing and halting the massive corruption in the United Nation's Oil-for-Food program, which funneled billions of dollars into Saddam's pockets while doing nothing for his people? Or for the way France, Russia and China sold Saddam their influence with the UN Security Council in exchange for oil exploration rights, to be exercised as soon as the sanctions -- which only hurt the Iraqi people, while keeping Saddam in power -- were removed? No, there's only one thing that America needs to apologise to Iraq for: inflicting our Liberal agenda-driven media on them.

During the actual Iraq war itself, the "mainstream" media was quite fair in its coverage. It could hardly be otherwise, with reporters taking the field alongside the soldiers themselves. The talking heads on the home front started using the "Q-word" and making Vietnam comparisons before even a week had passed, but their dour outlook was negated by reports from their own embedded colleagues. Of course, they projected the same negativity during the Afghanistan campaign, too. All battles are quagmires, and all wars Vietnam, when a Republican is in the White House.

After the short war to topple Saddam was over, the embedded reporters returned home, or retreated to the relative safety of Green Zone hotels, from which they now rarely emerge. "The journalists among us agreed that our work increasingly relied on phone calls to Iraqis on the scene, rather than real reportage of what we could see and touch," lamented journalist Dan Murphy in April 2004. Two years after the liberation of Iraq, most of the "news" they report from Iraq consists of reciting death counts or bewailing the costs of Iraqi freedom. They get most of their information and slant from old contacts, formerly Saddam's "minders," or by taking phone calls from... who knows who?

In order to tell us how badly everything is going in Iraq, the mainstream media must consistently ignore good news unless there's a down side upon which they can dwell. For instance, Americans have to check with the BBC to find information on the reflooding of the Iraqi marshlands. Saddam drained them to punish the inhabitants by destroying their land and culture, in what UN Environment Program Executive Director Klaus Toepfer called "a major ecological and human disaster." Don't waste your time trying to find an environmentalist giving Bush credit for their restoration. Civic and economic restoration are also largely ignored, except by independent reporters like Michael Yon, one of the few remaining embeds. The American media was quick to discuss Fallujah while Americans were taking casualties there, but have been as silent as the proverbial grave since the main fighting stopped and the city has undergone what can only be termed a renaissance.

Even when reporting positive developments they can't ignore, like the Iraq election in January 2005, the writing of a constitution or actions against terrorists and insurgents, they feel it necessary to mention unrelated American and civilian deaths or Abu Ghraib. Few, if any, reporters mention the rebuilding of hospitals, schools, roads and other infrastructure. Even overwhelming victories against the insurgents or the foreign terrorists -- of which there have been quite a few -- are treated as defeats in the press. The media seems determined to follow some sort of "equal time" law for both sides of our fight to protect and stabilise Iraq.

Hat tip to Publius Pundit for pointing out the NY Times' reaction to the Afghanistan Constitution.
And another tip of the hat to Skye for the link to Michael Yon's blog.

Due to a sympathetic, agenda-driven media, a slow news month, and support from high-powered Liberal groups, most people know who Cindy Sheehan is. (Pop quiz: without looking it up, can you put a face to any other parent who lost a child in Iraq?) For those who don't, she's the anti-Bush demonstrator who's allowed the loony Left fringe to use her son's death in Iraq as an attack on the President for liberating Iraq, as well as a shield from any examination of their accusations or motives. She's become a human megaphone, allowing every Left-wing lunatic with an axe to grind to blast accusations and demands through her. She has said the US had no business overthrowing the Taliban, demanded that Israel withdraw from "Palestine" (which, according to Palestinians, includes Israel), claimed we're waging a "war for oil," and asserted that "this country is not worth dying for."

I feel really badly for Cindy Sheehan. The poor woman's grief over her son's death has been hijacked by far Left radicals to further their own ends; when they're done using her they'll just toss her aside. She might do a couple of talk shows, put her name and face on a ghost-written book, and then vanish back into the obscurity she enjoyed when she praised President Bush for being "sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis".

In the meantime, she's allowed the "usual suspects" to use her like the family car -- everyone gets to borrow it to run their own errands. Groups like MoveOn.org (owned by George Soros, and claiming ownership of the Democrats), United for Peace and Justice and Code Pink (both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Heinz Family Foundation by way of Global Exchange and the Tides Corporation) have gotten into the act. If she were in her right mind, would she ally with the kind of people who actively root against America in favor of our enemies? Obviously, the poor woman is unhinged by grief. Her entire family is begging her to stop this travesty. She ought to listen to them.

Cindy's descent into madness has been sad, even tragic. Still, it does not grant her the right to demand that the President give her an opportunity to spew radical Liberal anti-war propaganda at him for the media's benefit. I'm sorry for the loss of her son, as I believe most everyone is. But I'm also sorry for the loss of her dignity and self-command, and her loss of respect for her son. For by allying herself with the same people who call his killers heroes or freedom fighters and compare them to Minutemen, she has repudiated what he believed in. He was killed by people trying to put a nation back in chains. She is letting others use Casey's death to attack what he held dear enough to put himself in danger to achieve -- a free and stable democratic Iraq.

Casey Sheehan should have made front-page news as a hero of the Iraq war -- a 24-year-old man who re-enlisted to go with his unit to Iraq, and volunteered for the dangerous rescue mission during which he was killed. Instead of a hero, he's portrayed as a witless child who earned and deserved no honors. His mother lamented that she should have "taken him to Canada," as though, in some fantasy of hers, he had been drafted and wanted to escape. If she had done so, Casey would have come straight back to do his duty. "That’s all he wanted to do was serve God and his country his whole life," his sister Carly told the Associated Press when he died. That's not the duped little boy we hear about from the protesters in Crawford.

Mrs. Sheehan has left Crawford and her patchwork group of supporters, requesting the media give her privacy after weeks of seizing every possible opportunity to grab the spotlight. Her mother has suffered a stroke, and will hopefully recover in a Los Angeles hospital. Meanwhile, I wonder what it would look like were the tables turned, with anti-Cindy protesters demanding impossible answers to senseless questions.

LOS ANGELES (CA) - President Bush and his supporters have set up a camp outside the hospital where Cindy Sheehan's mother is recovering from a stroke, despite Sheehan's request for privacy. "We are not leaving until Cindy comes out to tell us the real reason for her mother's stroke," demanded the President. "I just want to ask why."

Bush supporters and other anti-hospital groups have littered the hospital grounds with crosses bearing the names of stroke, diabetes and cancer victims, without asking the families of those victims for permission to do so. "We're here to save people from debilitating strokes and other diseases, by protesting this and all hospitals," said an unnamed protester. "Doesn't anyone see the obvious link between hospitals and illness? You always find sick people in hospitals!"

The National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control have sent spokespeople to explain that the protesters are reversing cause and effect, to no avail. Despite claims that hospitals don't cause diseases, but help victims recover from them, the protesters remain unconvinced. President Bush has his own explanation for strokes, in particular. "We know that Mama Sheehan's stroke was caused by the close proximity of the Moon to Earth," stated the President. "People will continue to fall victim to these deadly attacks until the Moon is forced to move out of Earth's orbit." The President and his supporters demand that this be done immediately, though how they expect the feat to be accomplished they cannot say.

Other hospital protesters blame various illnesses on the decline of astrology as a reliable guide to stock market investing, the rise in celebrity trials resulting in acquittals, elf arrows and Michael Moore. Some people, marrying their own cause to that of President Bush, compared Moore to the Moon. All are agreed, however, that the link between sickness and hospitals is undeniable, citing the fact that more disease victims can be found in hospitals than in any other place.

"They call it 'recovering' and 'healing,' but we know that hospitals are the place to find all sorts of diseases and ailments," a slick, professionally-produced anti-hospital leaflet reveals. "That's where people go to 'study' such things." A color-coded map of LA showing the highest concentrations of illnesses in the city validates the anti-hospital claim, showing large colored dots at the location of every hospital.

President Bush and the protesters are vowing to maintain their vigil at the hospital as long as Cindy Sheehan remains inside, or until she agrees to a personal meeting with the President. "I can't wait to tell her to her face how wrong she is for letting this hospital give her mother a stroke." He added apprehensively, "I only hope she won't schedule the meeting during a full moon."

This map proves the link between hospitals and illnesses. Concentrations of diseases and medical problems are shown in yellow, while locations of hospitals are shown in red. Coincidence? *

* Yes, this is satire.

The biggest unreported story of the year -- at least, unreported by the "mainstream" media -- may be the story of Able Danger. A top secret Pentagon task force identified three of the 9/11 hijackers as terrorists in advance, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, but was told it couldn't touch them by government bureaucrats. This should be above-the-fold news in every paper in America, right? The problem is, this happened during the Clinton administration, so don't expect too much from the Liberal press, even though "Able Danger" is a cool-sounding name for a counter-terrorism operation.

Remember the 9/11 Commission, with their supposedly full and complete final report on exactly what allowed 9/11 to happen, and their recommendations for preventing another such attack? Nowhere in their list of suggestions was, "pay attention when the Pentagon identifies al-Qaeda terrorists plotting something." One might think the Commission had never heard of Able Danger. It turns out that some members were briefed on Able Danger on two separate occasions, but declined to look into it further, because what they were told didn't work with the 9/11 timeline they'd already decided upon. Former commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said, "The information that he provided us did not mesh with other conclusions that we were drawing." Is that how an investigation is supposed to proceed -- decide the outcome, then ignore any facts that contradict it? I'd be shocked at this failure of the 9/11 Commission to include all the relevant facts in its "comprehensive" report... if only this weren't the only time they ignored something that would reflect badly on the Clinton administration.

The 9/11 Commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was put together to answer two questions: how did this happen, and how can we prevent it from happening again? Most Conservatives saw the true purpose of the Commission as similarly twofold. Not only was it seeking to blame President Bush for 9/11, which took place only eight months after his inauguration, but it was also pursuing ways to exonerate the Clinton administration for ignoring the growing threat of al-Qaeda for eight years prior to 9/11. People on all sides of the political spectrum were surprised when they issued a final report which, if boiled down to a single sentence, would say, "everyone and no one was to blame."

Most Americans seemed to accept that judgment, despite all the omissions in the report that were pointed out (though, of course, not in the "mainstream" media). For one thing, the report did not mention that Bill Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden by the Sudanese government but refused to take him, as confirmed by his own words. On 15 February 2002, the former President was asked about terrorism while speaking in Woodbury, NY. He said, "At the time, 1996, [bin Laden] had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

The Intelligent Design debate continues, fueled by President Bush's recent comment that "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought." The problem is that Intelligent Design theory (or ID for short) is not a scientific theory at all. ID is an attempt to "prove" that God (or, in some versions, space aliens) created human beings, using the fact that we don't yet know everything about the universe. It's a philosophical belief, not a scientific one.

It's depressing that some people feel there is a competition between science and religion. Science is merely a tool like any other; a method of using our intelligence to investigate the world around us. It's not science's fault that Liberals have tried to use it to "prove" that God is non-existent or irrelevant. Of course, it isn't possible to prove such a thing; all a religious person has to ask is, "So who wrote all the laws of Nature that scientists are trying to learn? Who determined the value of Pi, the speed of light or Planck's Constant?"

ID is an attempt to disprove the idea that humans evolved through natural selection, by pointing out the fact that there are questions the current theory of evolution doesn't answer. The general argument is that some things are so complex that they must have been deliberately designed; they cannot have evolved naturally over any length of time. There is no actual proof of external interference, however. ID proponents claim that since evolution by natural selection cannot explain everything, the theory must be invalid or incomplete. While that's certainly possible, it doesn't mean that those things can't possibly be explained by further scientific investigation.

Unfortunately, that's precisely how scientific advancement works -- by finding ways to explain what current theories cannot. Science does not mean pointing out that something is not yet fully understood, and deducing that it must therefore have been authored by an outside agency.

Consider the history of another branch of science. Sir Isaac Newton is most well known for the discovery of the laws of gravity. In 1687, he published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, three books that forever changed the course of science. The first two dealt with the laws of motion and forces, the third with gravity. Falling objects accelerate at a rate of 32 feet per second, every second they fall -- a rock dropped off a tall building will fall 32 feet, then 64, then 96, and so on until stopped by the ground, or an inconvenient passer-by. Newtonian physics seemed to explain everything very well for centuries.

As scientists dug deeper into the limits of the physical universe, cracks began to show at the edges of Newton's laws -- situations were found that the accepted theories couldn't explain. No one could predict the relationship and interactions between matter and energy on the very large and very small scale using only Newtonian physics. Along came Albert Einstein, with a whole new explanation of physical science. Did that mean Newton was wrong? Did gravity suddenly stop working when quantum theory was discovered? Of course not. Under local conditions, Newtonian physics are just as applicable as ever. Force still equals mass times acceleration. He simply didn't cover everything -- a fault of the available technology of his time as much as anything else.

A century or so later, Einsteinian physics also begins to show cracks around the edges. There are some situations in which the known laws of quantum mechanics don't seem to apply. Why does time itself seem to act differently under extreme circumstances, like in the presence of black holes? ID as applied to physics would simply conclude that black holes must be alien artifacts. Suppose a new kind of particle is discovered that travels faster than light, like the tachyon. Would that make Einstein wrong? Would his theories become garbage? Of course not. Einsteinian physics would explain and predict the normal interactions of matter and energy as well as ever. His theories simply couldn't cover everything, again due -- at least in part -- to the limitations of his time and available technology.

Even today, Newtonian physics are more than adequate for most everyday situations. Falling objects still accelerate in Earth's gravity at 32 feet per second per second. You don't need string theory to calculate how long it takes a rock to fall, but the fact that such advanced theories exist does not invalidate previous ones. In fact, more advanced theories could not even exist without the groundwork they provide. And at no point should anyone decide that there are Things We Just Cannot Explain, and stop trying to understand them. The same holds true for evolutionary theory as physics.

The laws governing heredity were first published in 1866 by Gregor Mendel, a monk experimenting with pea plants. Plants, like animals, generally have offspring that almost exactly resemble them. He realised that some traits are inherited, but that some variations of those traits are dominant over others. The dominant characteristic would appear in all the results of cross-breeding with plants that had different traits. Even so, the recessive variations don't disappear -- they can return in later generations, if combined with another plant carrying them, though neither plant currently shows the recessive characteristic. Two brown-eyed parents might have a blue-eyed child, if each parent has a blue-eyed ancestor somewhere in their past. Mendel codified the rules by which farmers and breeders of all sorts of plants and animals had operated for thousands of years, without understanding the science behind them.

Mendel's theories didn't cover everything, however. As exploration of the Earth's past progressed, ancient remains had been found that belonged to no living creatures... but which were similar in many ways. Obviously, there was some relationship between modern and ancient creatures, despite the differences. A link must have existed between animals past and present, with creatures slowly changing over vast amounts of time. Enter Darwin, and the theory of evolution by natural selection. Though the concept dates back to the ancient Greeks, Darwin codified the laws governing evolution as Mendel did the laws of heredity... and Newton and Einstein did for physics. Once again, science evolved from understanding the narrow focus and short term to the broad scope and long term, building on the work that had gone before.

Scientific evaluation of the past shows that as environmental conditions change over the course of millions of years, creatures slowly adapt; those who have a slight advantage live longer or better lives, and have more offspring. Due to natural variation, some of their descendants may be even slightly better able to survive, and so on. Did this invalidate Mendel's theories? Were all horse, cow and dog breeders put out of business? Did children no longer resemble their parents? Of course not. In the short term -- hundreds of years, even thousands -- the theory that inherited characteristics breed true is still solid. Your children will still look very much like you, or your parents. When people buy a dog, they don't need to worry what its descendants will look like in a million years.

Now, more than a hundred years on, there are some questions unanswered by current evolutionary theory. So, does that mean Darwin was wrong -- that nothing evolves? Does that mean we should burn that branch of science, and stop investigating our own past using scientific methods? Should we just mark that blank area on the chalkboard, "God did this part" and move on to something else? That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't agree with humanity's history of using our intelligence to discover how things work. Like physics before the advent of Einstein or Stephen W. Hawking, evolutionary science is in need of more investigation when there are unanswered questions, not less. When unanswered questions arise... that's when science takes the greatest leaps forward.

Today, we have access to tools of which Darwin could not even dream. We understand the workings of chromosomes and DNA, and have mapped the very genes that make us human. Turning our backs on knowledge has never really been an option, and deciding that an outside agency must have created us simply because we don't have a more clear mundane explanation YET is not a step forward.

Once again, Liberals bend over backwards to give jihadists who want to kill innocent Americans every chance to do so. Only this time, they have a point... though not the point they think they have. Less than a month after the Tube bombings in London that killed 52 people, the ACLU's NY chapter is fighting to end random searches on the NYC subways. The argument they make -- that random searches are unconstitutional -- is ridiculous. The Fourth Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." There is nothing unreasonable about wanting to check the bags and backpacks of people boarding public transportation, while terrorists are carrying bombs onto that same type of transportation in order to commit mass murder.

On the other hand, I happen to agree with the ACLU that we should end random searches on all public transportation. Don't expect to see me joining a patchouli-drenched protest mob anytime soon, though. I'm against random searches because they do no good, not because anyone's feelings might be hurt. We can do much better than that... if we just ignore the hysterics.

Many Liberals feel faint whenever anyone proposes glancing at young, Islamic-looking men while checking for possible terrorists. The fact that young, Islamic-looking men perpetrated nearly every act of terrorism committed in recent years escapes them (as facts usually do). The fact that nineteen out of nineteen 9/11 hijackers were young, Islamic-looking men also seems to make no difference to them. Almost all of the terrorists who deliberately murdered innocents on London subways and Madrid trains, a Bali nightclub and a Beslan school -- among many other places -- were also young, Islamic-looking men as well.

I'm not saying that all people of that description are terrorists, simply observing the fact that most terrorists are people of that description. We are at war with devotees of a radical sect of Islam called Wahhabism. If most terrorists were white-haired, blue-eyed female Protestants over the age of 80, I'd say we should pay particular attention to people of that description. Purposely checking more young, Islamic-looking men than old, European-looking women, Liberals seem to feel, would be worse than letting those young, Islamic-looking men murder dozens, hundreds or even thousands of innocent people. Yet the next time such an event occurs on American soil, the same Liberals will be the first to condemn the Bush administration for not making us completely safe from terrorist attacks.

In deference to the Liberal position -- i.e., "anything that would make America safer is a bad thing" -- random searches were introduced at airports in response to 9/11, instead of directed searches. Racial profiling is avoided that way, but so are results. Airports are now full of elderly women and confused children removing their shoes, thanks to a young, Islamic-looking man who attempted to blow up a plane by secreting explosives in his shoes. Meanwhile countless young, Islamic-looking men breeze through the lines. Surely there's a chance that more of them are likely to be terrorists than people who might have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Is it rational to pretend that everyone has the same likelihood of being a terrorist as people who may share a cultural background with those who have already attacked us?

Fine, let's not specifically target those who are most likely to be terrorists for personal searches before boarding public transportation. Let's simply cut down on the number of likely misses in those searches using reason and logic. We don't want to waste time and resources conducting searches of those who are least likely to be terrorists, do we? Instead of profiling, let's try reverse profiling -- cutting out the people who fit certain profiles from extraneous searches, leaving the rest to be checked more regularly.

Search the elderly at random? No way. I doubt Grandma will use that cane to beat an airline pilot into submission, nor is that hearing aid in Grandpa's ear likely to be a cleverly-disguised chunk of C-4. Treating them as uniformly dangerous is just statistically unreasonable. Same with children. Little Bobby is unlikely to be an al-Qaeda midget in disguise... but if a screener thinks he might be, then go ahead and search him. Families traveling together are highly illogical subjects for searches, based on past history of known terrorist behavior. Radical terrorists bent on mass murder don't usually invite the family along for the last ride to Paradise. The only time such people should qualify for specific searches is when their behavior seems out of character.

Focusing searches on those statistically more likely to be involved with terrorism is the best overall way to make us safer, but other ways have been tried in the past. It's odd that the people who are most outraged by the suggestion to concentrate screening where it will do the most good are those on the Left. Perhaps if President Bush herded people of Middle-Eastern descent -- men, women and children -- into internment camps for the duration of the war, they would appreciate his efforts more. After all, that was the course of action taken by a Democratic President when confronted by war with enemies of identifiable ethnic origins. 

Liberals always insist that they love America, despite their constant complaints, but they can never seem to point out exactly what it is they love about it. Whereas most Americans can simply say, "I love my country," and leave it at that, Liberals always have to follow that statement with a "BUT..." But what?

Consider a relationship in which one person demands that the other change his or her taste in music, books, television shows, movies and style of dress. Imagine that person also being coerced to stop wasting time with cherished recreations, cease eating favorite foods, alter old habits and drop old friends. Is that indicative of a healthy relationship? It's a selfish, controlling kind of affection... "I love you not for who you are, but for what I can change you into." That's how Liberals seem to feel about America.

Ask Liberals why they love America. Really listen to their answers. Do they say they love America for her tolerance and diversity? Then why do they not tolerate those who have opinions that differ from their own? Do they profess to love America's economic opportunities? Why do they want to cripple businesses with oppressive regulations and punish those who succeed with higher taxes? Do they tell you they love America for her beautiful forests, plains, rivers and mountains? If so, why do they complain about the manner in which those lands became part of this country, and demand that it all be preserved as if behind glass? Do they claim to love America for the freedoms we enjoy? Why, then, do they despise the military and police that protect our freedom? Why do they protest our military for helping others secure freedom for themselves and their children?

Liberals claim to support our military... but it's an odd kind of "support" that primarily consists of comparing them to Nazis and Soviet thugs, and accusing them of torture and wanton slaughter. What kind of "support" calls for them to abandon their mission before it's completed, and run away from an enemy who chose this fight? How can you say to someone, "I support you, but despise everything you stand for and everything you do, and will take every possible opportunity to make my feelings obvious for all to see?" That's not love and support; that's utter contempt, lacking even the common decency to be honest about it.

There seems to be nothing about America of which Liberals whole-heartedly approve. When they encourage teachers to stop using red pens because red is "pretty frightening," and feel that testing students at their grade level is "inherently unfair," you know they can't think much of our educational system. Liberals take no pride in our history, our political system, our traditions or our ability to exercise our religious freedom. Don't they frequently accuse America of committing horrible atrocities and being a nation of religious extremists? Don't they condemn patriotic displays and complain about "rigged" elections whenever they lose one, without serious evidence or reason? They claim they're just looking at America "warts and all," but the warts are all they see. Imagine saying to a person in earnestness, "Sure I love you, but you're ugly, stupid and smell bad." Wouldn't any reasonable person characterise that as emotional cruelty, at best?

It's time for America to get out of this abusive relationship. We've put up with Liberals bad-mouthing our country for far too long without putting up a defense. The next time you hear a Liberal insisting that he or she loves America and supports the troops, "BUT..." gently interrupt and ask, "why?" If you get an answer at all, it should be enlightening.

Senate Democrats are preparing to play to the cameras once more while raking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts over the coals, but the fight may not be as fierce as some Liberals want. There's bound to be some huffing and puffing during the confirmation hearings, as many of the radical groups controlling the Democrats demand they fight a battle that cannot be won. It ought to be interesting, as the Senate unanimously approved Roberts in 2003. Though Democrats will probably use the "we need more documents" dodge to avoid an outright filibuster, Roberts will surely be confirmed in the end. One almost has to feel sorry for the Democrats, pushed into this fight by their own base. It's just another indication that the once-great party is losing coherence as various special-interest groups try to use them to pursue their separate agendas.

The Left dislikes Roberts because he's Conservative. That goes without saying, as they seem to hate anyone to the ideological right of Michael Moore these days. The far Right, on the other hand, distrusts Roberts because he's a relative unknown. Ann Coulter wrote, "Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever." She's right about that -- after all, Justices Souter, Kennedy and O'Connor all turned out to be huge disappointments to the Republicans who nominated and voted for them. I'm not sure I'd place Roberts in the category of "stealth nominee," however. If nothing else, he's already been in DC for years, and is less likely to have his head turned by the political atmosphere.

No one will learn anything about Roberts' judicial philosophy from the hearings that can't be discovered in his previous decisions and history. Endless questions regarding how he might rule on variations of hypothetical abortion cases is likely to take up most of the Senate's time. Those who do the best job of looking tough and serious about protecting the "right" to kill unborn children as an easy means of post-coital birth control will make a few points with the far-Left base, however. That's what the power of the United States Supreme Court has come to mean to Liberals -- it's merely a way to keep in place bad court decisions that created or altered rights and laws without going through the Legislative and Executive branches. Anything that threatens to return control to the people or their elected representatives -- as mandated by the Constitution -- threatens them.

The only thing about a Supreme Court Justice's personal beliefs that should matter is how well he can put them aside to do his job. The Supreme Court was created to oversee the rulings of lower courts, to ensure that our rights, and the limits on government set forth in the Constitution, are not violated. Only the elected branches of the government are supposed to enact laws and change the Constitution when necessary. Instead, the Supreme Court has increasingly become the author of autocratic change, bypassing the Constitution they are supposed to uphold. President Bush promised to appoint Supreme Court Justices, should he have the opportunity, who would return to the principles enshrined in the Constitution. Hopefully, Judge Roberts is that kind of person.

We can learn quite a bit about John Roberts' judicial outlook by examining his "french fry ruling" of 2004. Liberals are already pointing to it as an example of how Roberts is "hostile" to civil rights, but the facts show a strict interpretation of the law without bias. (The "mainstream media," however, makes its bias clear. The Associated Press story on Roberts' nomination began, "Judge John G. Roberts' views on abortion may be murky, but there's no question where he stands on the issue of girls eating fries in a subway station.") A twelve-year-old was arrested for violating a ban on eating in the Metro, DC's subway. The girl was taken to a police station and released to her mother. Through her lawyer, the girl claimed her rights were violated, calling the law discriminatory. The lawsuit claimed she was unfairly treated because of her youth -- an adult, being responsible for him or herself, would have merely received a citation for the offense.

Judge Roberts could find no "right to eat french fries on the subway" in the Constitution. This was inexplicable and unforgivable to Liberals, as was his failure to find a Constitutional right for the young to be treated as adults under the law (except, of course, when being sentenced for murder). Writing the unanimous decision, he said that treating the young differently was allowable as long as there was a "rational basis" for doing so. In this case, the logical reason was that the girl had no parent or legal guardian present to take responsibility for her behavior. Roberts agreed with the lower court ruling that the arrest was legal, though he chided the transit police for overreacting, calling the policy that led to the arrest "foolish." Foolish or not, the transit police did have the legal right to enforce an eating ban on the Metro.

An activist judge would have simply overturned the eating ban. He might have discovered a Constitutional "right to eat in public places," using the same mysterious method by which federal judges so frequently divine hidden "rights." The fact that he did not do so -- despite his personal feelings, which he made clear to all -- speaks well of Judge Roberts, and fuels hope that he can be the kind of Justice we need on the Supreme Court.

Finally, the long-awaited battle on Capitol Hill is about to begin. If you thought the fights over President Bush's appellate court nominees were full of vitriolic mud-slinging, just wait until he names his choice to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor in his first Supreme Court nomination. As the old saying goes, "you ain't seen nothin' yet."

Frankly, I'm happy to see this Supreme Court change at last. They've made some of the worst decisions since the Dred Scott case of 1857, in which the Court returned a free man to and upheld slavery, while denying citizenship to black Americans. In the last few years alone, this court has granted extensive legal rights to terrorists and illegal enemy combatants during a war while cutting%20down%20our%20right%20to%20free%20speech%20before%20an%20election%20(under%20the%20McCain-Feingold%20Act)%20and%20discovering a new "right to gay sex" hidden somewhere in the Constitution. They have made random and confusing decisions regarding our right to religious freedom, and admitted to basing decisions on foreign court rulings rather than our own Constitution. They only cite foreign decisions that agree with their predetermined positions, of course, so that's alright. At least I hope we won't be following Muslim shar'ia laws -- which include stoning adulterers, including rape victims -- anytime soon. The worst decision yet made by this court was to change the meaning of "public use" in the 5th Amendment from "something used by the public" to "something that might generate more money for the government." This latest decision, Kelo v. New London, allows your local government to seize your home if Wal-Mart or Home Depot wants to build a new store on the spot... or even if someone merely wants to build a larger house that could bring in more tax revenue.

During his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, President Bush promised to fill any vacancies on the Supreme Court with justices who understand and accept their proper role in the government under the Constitution. Someone like Miguel Estrada, for example, whose 2001 nomination to the federal bench was blocked by Democrats until he finally withdrew his name from consideration over two years later, would make an excellent Supreme Court justice. Democrats saw Estrada as "especially dangerous" because "he is Latino," as one of several memos setting forth the Democrat strategy to block Bush's nominations from coming to a vote pointed out. Whether they're good judges who would follow the Constitution doesn't matter -- anyone nominated by President Bush is likely to suffer attacks on their character and intelligence. Remember Senator Ted Kennedy's characterisation of Bush's judicial nominees in 2003 as "Neanderthals?" That was mild compared to the upcoming fight.

Any move towards originalism fills Liberals with panic. Whenever elements of their agenda are put to a proper vote by the people, they fail. Gay "marriage," for example, has never been accepted by the people when put to a vote -- not even in bluer-than-blue states like Oregon. In fact, a gay "marriage" ban was on the ballot in Oregon and 10 other states for the 2004 election, and passed in every single one. Californians passed Proposition 22, a similar ban, by 61% to 39% in 2000. In Massachusetts, on the other hand, the legislature voted to put a gay "marriage" ban on the ballot in November 2006... and the MA Supreme Court promptly ruled that it must be legal until then. The only way Liberals can get this or any of their unpopular programs enshrined into law is to have them forced on the public by the judiciary. The problem is that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution specifically states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The Supreme Court has repeatedly usurped the powers of the states and the people by finding hidden meanings in the Constitution whenever they want to create or curtail a law or right.

How could a branch of government created to protect our rights abuse their power with such impunity? This runaway judicial activism must be stopped. The fact that we even consider the ideology of a judicial nominee is an indication of how far we've allowed the Supreme Court to stray from its original role. The third, and intentionally weakest, branch of government was created to oversee the rulings of lower courts, and determine whether a decision violated a citizen's Constitutional rights. Why should a judge's personal beliefs matter, if they are working within the framework set down by the Founders? Now any five members of the Supreme Court can remove those rights and create new ones at will, with no real check on their power except advancing age. Their personal opinions have become important because "They the Justices," not "We the People," are in control.

They have lost the House, the Senate, the White House and a majority of governorships and state legislatures. Now the Liberals may lose control of the Supreme Court. But that's one of the main reasons the majority of Americans keep voting for more Conservative representation where they can find it -- to correct, if possible, these abuses of power. Bush's words about halting the actions of agenda-driven courts got some of the loudest applause during his campaign speeches. We're supposed to be a Republic, ruled by the people, not a group of lawyers carried away with their own sense of self-importance.