The BURDEN OF PROOF?!?!?!?!

How insane are the libs?

"The burden is on the nominee to prove to the Senate that he is worthy of the position -- not on the Senate to prove he is unworthy."

What the holy heck is Mr. Frizzy Dem Commentator thinking? The Senate is NOT supposed to stand in the President's nominees' way unless it knows of some reason they shouldn't be confirmed.

I'm just glad Pres. Bush nominated someone with a spine. And I sure hope the Senate doesn't give him too much guff (either of the "him"s). (Although it would certainly be demonstrative of certain Senators' characters...)

Conversation Killers

You know, I've run across two posts in the last few days regarding pro-Iraq action people being conversationally ambushed by dishonest morons. One here, and one here.

Which brings me to my question: How is it that we as a society have become so self-centered that the only reason we ask a question is to vomit our own opinions all over their day? I say we, because I used to be guilty of this absolute rudeness on occasion, too, but I try really hard not to ask people what their opinions are unless I want to hear them. And engage in an actual, empathetic, intelligent, intellectually honest conversation.

Can't we all just get along???

Kudos to the Brits

...for their astonishingly deft handling of this week's bombings. (I apologize for my laziness in not flying the Union Jack!)

I really like one common reaction in particular -- "hello you !@#*^&!$%# terrorists -- we've been living next door to the IRA for how long now? Get a life..."

It is so nice to see people refuse to be intimidated by evil. And yes, the terrorists are evil. They know what they're doing is wrong: the leaders are after power, and the lackeys serve out of fear. Service should be motivated by love instead.

So here's a good stiff Ginger Ale around -- thanks, gentlemen and -ladies!

Taking a stand

Apparently the Anglican Church in the rest of the world (you know, the division with a spine) is fried enough at the US & Canadian Anglican Churches' ordination of homosexuals that they've voted them out.

Which is to say, good for them. BeCAUSE...it's about time peole realized it's okay to stick to your guns. We choose our associations. Organizations set guidelines. If someone wants to change the guidelines, they're free to set up their own. But they do not have the right to demand that the organization change its guidelines. If I disagree with an organization's agenda, I do not join; if I am already associated with them, I leave. Very simple concept.

And we can all have legitimate differences of opinion.

Too bad everyone doesn't always have the self-confidence to do what they believe to be right, on their own.

Today's inspiring story

A 12-year old girl is rescued and defended from a gang of brutes on two legs by three lions.

I love it when noble beasts win over the ignoble ones.

Grunts-R-Them

This is so inspiring -- I'm not the only one weirded out by those "grunts" from female tennis players! :-)

One referee thinks they just might be making noise deliberately...

Neither law nor order

OK, so it's late and I may be a bit hyper-sensitive, but I have to say I was disappointed tonight in one of my favorite "catch-occasionally" shows, Law & Order. Well, the second one of the night. (Helps to have them on while laundry is going). And since I'm up, I need to say something about it.

Political agendum #1? US Special Forces were encouraging opium production by a shady character so they could ostensibly catch some more terrorists. And oh, the outrage! How could the US military support people who are doing illegal things? Opium, of all the evils! Oh, wait -- drug use is a victimless crime, right??? Which liberal agenda are we promoting here? I'm getting all confused.

Political agendum #2 presented as fact -- granted, it came from the "bad guy" that the "evil Special Forces guys" were encouraging -- was that Afghanistan's only potential for cash crops is opium, so that's why all the poor good people were happy that the Taliban was gone -- they could make money now that Big Bad Corporate-Conspiracy America was facilitating their sin crop.

Puh-LEEZE.

As a "pending" military wife (won't pretend to that honor until DH is in BMT...*sniffle*), I'm "pretty T.O.'d" at Law & Order. Casting aspersions on our servicemen and blaming our country's facilitation of freedom for illegal activities in Afghanistan because they can't find anything else wrong with the country does NOT fly in this house.

So I guess we're back to only turning on the TV for reruns of House.

And Happy Belated Flag Day, BTW! :-)

Back from hiatus

...and figuring that I might as well get counted, even if my voice largely echoes a lot of other conservatives. It's better than remaining silent (that silent majority thing really sucked before the recent conservative uprising in the alternative media).

So...Carl's Jr. has pulled their nasty commercial (no, I won't link to it); haven't seen that nasty blue floating baby commercial lately, either -- success!

Some good news is getting published from Iraq -- success!

Israel may be restoring the old date palm (pray it's a girl!) -- success!

I find myself differing with a varying half of conservative spielmeisters, meaning I am evaluating ideas on my own -- success!

ScrappleFace always has a good belly laugh, too.

Anyway, yeah, success is great, and it's good to be back.

Honesty optional

Just a quick thought before bed -- the business world is a nasty one in general. People say one thing in a room and say another ten minutes later. Or they schmooze and BS their way through interviews and meetings. Honest knowledge, skill, and effot seem to be underplayed, if not undervalued. We need to change that. I'm open to ideas . . . :-)

Anyone for a new start-up company? :-)

Cruisin' got a bruisin'

OK, Drudge had this intriguing story about a 70-foot wave that attacked a luxury liner -- to make it up to the passengers, the company said this:

All passengers would be given a partial refund, a credit for a future trip and access to the ship's open bar, Robison said. (emphasis mine)

<snark>...well, at least they won't have to remember the horror!</snark>

Pardon the Pause

Starting a new job; last two weeks have been more than hectic, and I'm heading out of town next week on business (I can finally say that!!!), so posts will be sparse.

In the meantime,

GO MINUTEMEN!!!

And will the MSM please find something worthwhile to cover?

First post on the Minutemen

Man, I love citizens like these!

Guts and brains and initiative, all of which seem to be in short supply in the world in general . . . and taking heat as "vigilantes" -- they're concerned citizens, not lynch mobs, for Heaven's sake!

I should make them a (big) batch of cookies.

(Hat tip: Drudge!)

Truly "adieu" to the Pope

Although I don't subscribe to the Catholic faith, I'm feeling a measure of sorrow at the passing of the Pope. I recall being variously annoyed and impressed (mostly impressed) with his outspoken manner and consistent moral and ethical positions on timely issues, for which he took a lot of flak from the "tolerant" progressives, inside the church and out. He's a strong man; he did a really noble job all the way till the end, and I have my fingers crossed that the new Pope, when things are figured out, will carry on his integrity.

Prenatal Euthanasia Case in Idaho

Okay, it gives me hope that this suit was dismissed by an Idaho court, but the fact that it was brought in the first place says some awful things about our society -- not the least of which is, "if we'd known it was going to be hard, we wouldn't have done it!"

And would the baby have been spared pain by dissolution or dismemberment? Oh, that's right -- I forgot that it's not about the baby; it's about the parents. I'll simply say "slippery slope argument" for the time being and spare you lines of ranting.

Plus, they named the poor child "Bailey" -- enough with the gender-less names already!!!

For Terri

A heretofore unfelt and clouded mix of sorrow and relief;
A sense of overwhelming indignation and confusion;
Abrupt sensations of resolution
And great tribute.

May she now live in peace and love,
and her family the same.

Another thing we didn't know we didn't know!

Apparently, just like bone cells and fat cells, hair follicles contain stem cells, too -- embryos don't have the market cornered on healing! How nice that we don't have to kill something/someone in order to heal ourselves . . .

Tsu-not-mi

Well, it appears that the risk of tsunami following the Easter Earthquake in Asia has ebbed . . .

My sympathies -- (those that aren't quite numb yet) -- go out to the traumatized survivors of this series of disasters . . . as far as analysis goes, just yesterday an expert asserted a "100% chance" of tsunami. After all, we understand that earthquakes cause tsunamis by releasing energy into the water, right?

Breathing a sigh of relief for the people in and around Indonesia, I'll venture a guess that maybe we don't understand quite as much as we think we do . . .

Back to posting...

Apologize for the long gap in publishing -- the primary issue weighing heavily on my mind has been Terri Schindler-Schiavo's unjust execution, and I'd decided not to say any more about it . . . I've done everything I can; it's time to simply turn it over to a more infinitely just and intelligent Being.

Fingers are crossed for Europe!!!

Just when the day's news threatened to be dull and 100% miserable -- apparently France's citizens are starting to go a bit sour on the EU, which would - *gasp* - lead to a collapse of the group, so good old Jacques Chirac is trying to convince them it's still a good idea.

I'm liking the French people more and the French gouvernement less all the time -- my impression is that the people are too decent and smart for their leaders to be doing all the yapping.

Go, Citizens, go!

Not-so-buried in the sand

Have you seen this story?

ISRAEL IS COMPLIMENTING PALESTINIAN SECURITY ON THEIR EFFICACY!!!

Isn't it grand? (Not to mention that the story made it into the BBC news!)

Fingers are still crossed, of course, but it appears that - lo and behold - an elected, pro-reason, pro-peace leader is getting results on behalf of decent Palestinians everywhere. I could burst out in song! Let's all send Mahmoud Abbas a huge thank-you vibe.

And kudos to Israel for their evenhandedness. It takes cool heads on both sides to make this sort of progress.

Last thoughts

My last wishes thoughts on the Terri Schiavo case --

For all the barking moonbats (I love it when the online world adopts cute British-isms) who think Congress is so out-of-order, is that Article III in the Constitution specifically states that Congress can make laws governing the judiciary -- which yes, does include State courts, as they are established by Congress as inferior courts to the Federal Supreme Court:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. (emphasis mine)

So sit down, shut up, and accept that judges just might be fallible human beings, too.

Huge hat tip: Rush and Mark Levin. Whew!

I like blogs...

They're nice.

You can spout whatever you need to, and you can choose whether to let people attack your ideas. And there are so many blogs that the odds of someone finding yours (well, mine, lol) is relatively small unless you want them to.

Therapeutic, dontcha think? :-)

More issues later . . . a bit soured on net use at the moment . . .

Encore, Senator Reid!

This made my day!

Per Yahoo!, In light of the Republicans considering their filibuster-busting "nuclear option," Sen. Harry Reid threatened to work with Republicans only on matters that affected U.S. troops or that ensured the continuity of government operations: "Beyond that, we will be reluctant to enter into any consent agreement that facilitates Senate activities, even on routine matters..."

People keep referring to this as "virtually shutting down the government."

Silly me . . . I'd stopped believing in Santa a long time ago!!!

Another step toward State-sanctioned euthanasia

Check out this Texas story (linked from Glenn Beck).

A hospital decides they're tired of keeping a baby alive, so they go to court to have a judge tell the mother that, per Texas law, she can't make them continue life support. They win.

Off of life support goes the baby; baby dies.

Where is the outrage here?!?! When the hospital decides a case is hopeless, all of a sudden individual rights and parental rights don't matter?!?!?! And how many doctors' opinions would be needed in order to qualify as sufficient grounds to extinguish a life when we have the ability to help, instead?

Now, the baby would have died shortly after birth, had no life support been hooked up to him, but that is the parents' prerogative! If they want to keep trying to help their child, more power to them. Nowhere in the story (as I've seen the news) does it say that the hospital was working for free.

People are allowed to try to keep themselves and their parents alive indefinitely if they desire -- why not allow them at least that right with their children?

Interesting new "protection" found in Constitution

Okay . . . yet another judge has found that the Constitution says same-sex marriage must happen -- well, actually, his rationale was that not extending marriage benefits to same-sex couples violates their right to "equal protection under the law."

What are same-sex couples not being protected from? (This just screams for a satire, but I'm trying to be rational first). I think we've managed to thoroughly confuse the meanings of "protect" and "promote."

The Constitution doesn't specify anything about what constitutes marriage. Yet there are all sorts of laws on the books about who can and can't marry, some of them patently unjust and actually unconstitutional, but not in over a hundred years has anyone made a real peep about those.

As much as I oppose sanctioning gay marriage, it's not because I don't like gay people, because that's just mean, not to mention stupid; and it's not because I think they shouldn't be allowed to see each other in the hospital, because I think they should. It's not about hate or spite. It's because of the inevitable consequences of equating same-sex relationships with God-ordained marriage: adoption rights. Fight over the estate, if you will, but God has set up a framework for raising and teaching children, and He has a perfect idea of what He's doing. We're subject to that -- it's not about whether we want to be nice and helpful or mean and hurtful; it's about doing what He tells us to do.

I would say there's got to be a way to make both sides happy, but unfortunately, I don't hold out that hope for this particular issue, given the vitriol being flung around.

Ethical Climate, part II

I thought this deserved its own post --

The Jarrett House North blog that I referred to in my previous "ethics" post has some interesting comments -- ones that are shaping my opinion as I go. Quite possibly the most impactful in the "students were wrong" department was the statement that: "That information wasn't theirs to have at that point in the process." (Comment by Tim Jarrett, #4866) Presupposing that to be true, then yes, what the MBA students did does indeed qualify as unethical and rather theft-like. When I read that, I thought, "well, okay, that settles it."

Until I thought some more (always a dangerous thing).

This is exactly like credit report information. I fully believed (up until this point) that you have a right to know what information is being published about you, for purposes of keeping it true. Domain squatting and credit-report-seeking issues have been decided on this "my name is my property" line of thinking.

HOWEVER . . . I can't say that anymore for sure. This may get overly intellectual, but if you'll bear with me, you'll see where I'm going.

(Alert! Libertarian/individualist streak showing!)
Nowhere in the Constitution is a "right to honest report" established. We do have a right to our lives, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our "life" could be understood to include our personal information, as much as our brain activity. So do we or do we not own our personal information? Our reputation?

I've concluded -- at least for the time being -- that we do own our personal information. But we do not have the right to how other people use that information -- our "report" or reputation. That is the decision-maker's right. If something is accurate, and is being presented accurately, that is sufficient. If others choose to form negative opinions (to refuse credit, for example), because of an accurate fact, that's their right. If their decision is based on inaccurate information, we have a right to defend ourselves (also found in the Constitution) by challenging the lie -- a defense which may result in a change of decision/report -- but we do not have a right to change their decision itself.

But I also believe that "Truth will out." Dishonesty, of course, is technically illegal in almost any form (if you can think of exceptions, too bad -- it's still wrong). Eventually, though, we are simply responsible to do what is right, letting the consequences come as they may -- to be who we are, regardless of whether people think good or ill of us. That is our right.

Now for how this applies to this case (in my opinion):

In the case of the MBA students, they have the right to apply to the school with accurate info. They do not, however, have the right to the school's decision, whether to change, view, etc., until the school deigns to release that decision.

As hard as this issue is for me to call, I think my instincts were wrong on this one. But it's nice to be a step closer to a conviction of what's right and why!

What about the "Ethical Climate" in the US?

OK . . . aware that I may be costing myself admission to grad school somewhere, should I ever apply, I must question the fracas over students checking their application status.

I may be insufficiently informed, but here's my understanding of the issue:

Using available information and a bit of common sense, some MBA applicants "hacked" (that is, "assembled that info and put it into a useful context") some business schools' admission decisions. From what I can tell, (and I'm a web app programmer by day, so I do this sort of URL adjustment every day, albeit in my own programs), this may have consisted simply of using their ID numbers plugged into a webpage's querystring value to check their own admission status.

What precisely did they do wrong? One admin bureaucrat opined that it was like "using the keys to the admissions office to enter at night and see how his or her application fared". Sure, that analogy holds up -- if every student gets a key to the admissions office with strict instructions to access the office only between 0800 and 1700 with a parent accompanying them . . .

Before I start feeling ethically degenerate, I have to say I'm waiting for more info. We need to actually know whether something definitely, identifiably wrong happened. The article doesn't say they were hacking other applicants' info (bad), or using a compromised administrative username and password (bad) -- so far, they were just trying to read their own info by accessing a non-linked URL. Not even change their grades (also bad). Especially in our life of continual order and shipping status updates and instant communication, this is really not a big deal to me.

And the other question is, why should the applicants not know of a decision as soon as it is made, if it pertains to them?

UPDATE: This blog has a lot more info, although his initial reaction is the opposite of mine; it appears that the students may have known they were countering policy. I guess I'm a bit odd, then, since it still doesn't seem harmful in the least. I mean, just because a hack is "easy" (which this one was -- incredibly so) doesn't make it right, but what's a "hack?" Any tweak, or a harmful intrusion? (Programmers call modifications to improve program functionality "hacks" all the time -- "hacking" = adapting; "cracking" = criminal hacking). And what exactly was the harm done to these schools, aside from exposing how insecure their third-party admissions agent is? I'm still waiting . . .

Keep the wolves off EBay!

The only political news worse than this new Ohio law is that the legislature evidently passed it without much consideration whatsoever, most notably to potential unintended consequences. The sponsor of the bill (SB 99) says this:

"We never intended for this to apply to people who sell things on eBay," said state Sen. Larry Mumper, a Marion Republican who was primary author of the bill. "This was to insure that auctioneers were abiding by the established rules and regulations. The bill is flawed. We will amend it and correct the problem before it goes into law."

They'd better!

And the governor who signed it into law in February? Gov. Bob Taft -- someone I used to think was an okay guy -- is just now "asking for a clarification" . . .

And they wonder why consumers are feeling so terribly wronged when they don't read license agreements?

Together with all sane people, (which group evidently doesn't include legislators residing in the Buckeye State), I ask, "WHAT ON EARTH?!?!" In the interest of full disclosure, my brother works for a company whose entire business is run on EBay -- to ask that little mom-and-pop operation to pony up over $50K and take a year off to have everyone "play auctioneer" is ridiculous.

Lesson of the day: Licensing requirements are the real mom-and-pop business killers.

UPDATE: For the actual text of the bill, see here; Sen. Mumper's website is here, and Gov. "what did I just sign" Taft can be reached via this page.

UPDATE 2: Corrected bill id from HB 210 to SB 99 (what was I thinking? :-)

"Troubled by Moral Climate"

Okay -- this one was just too good to pass up. Drudge linked to an interesting story this afternoon; headline:

Gallup finds Americans Troubled by Moral Climate

So as I'm reading the title, it occurs to me that that's probably true, but it really wants some clarification:

Conservatives, yes, are troubled by the moral climate;
Liberals are troubled more that there is a moral climate.

Just remember -- you heard it here first! LOL . . .

The ultimate crime

. . . according to liberals, at least:

As much as I hate linking to the NY Times for any reason, Drudge linked to an exceedingly inspiring and entertaining story from them today; my favorite part:

...the nomination of Mr. Bolton appeared to show that hard-liners on foreign policy still carry clout in a clearly divided administration. Mr. Bolton has been championed in the past by Vice President Dick Cheney. (emphasis mine)

Get it? As if the administration's being "divisive" weren't bad enough, Dick Cheney thinks he's got the right idea -- BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!

Starting up again

OK, yes, I'd set this up before, then decided it was a bit pretentious to assume that just because I thought something, someone wanted to hear it ;-).

But now that I've decided it's a really simple way to archive thoughts, regardless of whether it gets read, here we go again . . . a bit more formal this time around.