Game Week - San Jose State

Well, game week has finally arrived. This week the Washington Huskies prepare for their first game of the season, against San Jose State. It has been a tough couple of years for this Washington transplant living in Southern California. Most of the people here are either UCLA or USC fans. Since it is just up the freeway, there are some Fresno State fans here as well.

Quite a few people here root for UC Berkley, mainly because one of Wasco's own has played and started there over the last few years (by the way, his name is Aaron Merz and he was drafted by the Buffalo Bills, go Aaron). Aaron started playing for Cal, the year they broke the losing streak to UW. Mostly people here have been gracious about the condition of my Huskies, but it has been humbling to see how far this once mighty program has fallen.

I was excited when they hired Rick Neuheisel, but he was a big disappointment. He and Barbara Hedges helped take Washington from the best and most consistent program in the PAC-10 to where it is today. Our record for the last two years? 3-19, it even pains me to write that. Keith Gilbertson (the most recent coach) probably should also get some credit or rather blame for our sad state of affairs, but he was put in a no win situation.

I was not very thrilled when they hired Ty Willingham as head coach because I considered him to be a retread, and what we needed was fresh ideas and new blood. However, Ty is a quality individual and a great man of character. He has put together a good staff and there is some talent on this squad...we are going to find out very soon if this staff can get the job done, let's hope so. Here is this year's schedule and it looks pretty tough.

Sept. 2 San Jose State
Sept. 9 at Oklahoma
Sept. 16 Fresno State
Sept. 23 UCLA
Sept. 30 at Arizona
Oct. 7 at USC
Oct. 14 OREGON STATE
Oct. 21 at California
Oct. 28 ARIZONA STATE
Nov. 4 at Oregon
Nov. 11 STANFORD
Nov. 18 at Washington State

GO DAWGS!!!!!!

The 527 Media

Jed Babbin has an excellent letter to Ken Mehlman of the RNC. Nothing drives conservatives like me crazier than the Bush bashing, Republican hating MSM. It is time for the Republicans to fight back and to tell the truth to the country. In his article, he quotes Washington Post editor Marie Arana who confirms what we all know to be true.

"The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness ... If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I've been in communal gatherings at the Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democratic candidates."

Babbin's advice, "Tell America that it's a media culture, not a conspiracy."

In one of my favorite movies "You've Got Mail," Meg Ryan's boyfriend (played by Greg Kinnear) tells her as they are breaking up that he has fallen for a Conservative T.V. Talkshow Host. Since his character is a left wing columnist, Ryan's character is shocked. Kinnear's answer is, "I just can't help myself." That is the problem with the 527 media, they just can't help themselves. The only people they are around, the only people they listen to and read are fellow liberals. They really don't know anyone who lives in "fly over country" (i.e. middle America). They live and work in an echo chamber and they are narrow in their worldview.

But what can conservatives and republicans do to counteract the 527 liberal media culture? Or, as Babbin asks, how can republicans find "the pony in this pile of macaca?" Babbin offers some interesting ideas.

· Renounce any idea of using the power of the government against the press. The New York Times should be publicly ridiculed, not prosecuted. Remember the best lesson we can learn from Rush Limbaugh: You can do much more political damage with humor than with insults.

· Produce a series of television ads going after the "527 Media." Expose who they are and show how the typical newsroom is more like a dysfunctional, liberal family than a business run by adults.

· It's time for the Vice President to give a speech taking the press to task. He should name names. If Pinch Sulzberger wants to be a political activist instead of a publisher, why not call him on it?

· Organize a group called the Swift Veteran Reporters for the Truth. Every time one of those contrived stories comes out, make sure your team, experienced reporters all, can access the facts and get them out -- fast -- on blogs, talk radio and everywhere else.

· Get Republican congressmen and senators to write letters to their local papers and local network TV affiliates. Ask how they can pretend to be fair if they have nothing but liberals in the newsroom? Why did Clinton crony George Stephanopoulos get a big show on ABC? Culture, not conspiracy.

· Establish a media hotline for disgruntled reporters to call in about the contrived stories, connivance with the Dems and the bias they face in their newsrooms. Hire a couple of old-time conservative journalists to run it, guarantee anonymity, and then publish what the whistleblowers say.

· Get your best joke writers to study everything they can about the worst of the 527 Media and let 'em rip. I can just hear Mr. Cheney tut-tutting about the New York Times' stock collapse and comparing it to the dividends of, say, Halliburton.

The article is a whole lot of fun. HT NRO Media Blog

Now That I am Praising Bill Clinton

Nothing makes me more angry than the whole "Bush Lied" meme. It is dishonest and flies in the face of all the facts. Austin Bay has posted a column by Tom Nichols that makes this quite clear.

The article quotes none other than my new favorite person to praise,
Bill Clinton. Here is what Clinton had to say...

“It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of [Saddam’s] capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still
has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.”

Clinton then added:

“Now, let’s imagine the future. What if [Saddam] fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the
solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some
way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal. And I think every one
of you who’s really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too. [emphasis added] If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with
impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United
Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.”

That was Bill Clinton in 1998. Here he is on Larry King in 2003...

“People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn’t know. So I thought it was prudent for [President Bush] to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don’t cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions.”

Read the whole article, I think it is very convincing and a sharp rebuke to those who want to continue to scream, Bush lied.

Who Should We Believe - The New York Times or the Facts?

Check out this post at Gateway Pundit. Once again the blogs are doing the work that the MSM won't do (I will leave it to you decide why).
HT Instapundit

My favorite for 2006 Rose Queen

If you want to see who I am rooting for in this year's Wasco Rose Queen Pageant click on this link and then click on the bottom far right contestant. It is a good thing she takes after her mother.

A National Shame

Stories like this just make me shake my head in shame. What has our country come to? In the name of "choice" and "reproductive rights" a worker at an abortion clinic can deliver a baby, "alive, moving and trying to breathe," cut the umbilicial cord and then stuff "the wriggling, gasping baby into a biohazard bag" and seal the bag shut. According to the article this is not the first time something like this has happened.

The Hialeah City Council on Aug. 10 stripped A Gyn of its local license. Clinic owner Siomara Senises voluntarily surrendered her operating license to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. In 2004, Senises turned in her license to operate another clinic in Miramar, Fla., after authorities discovered she had allowed unlicensed workers, including a medical student and a janitor, to perform abortions. The Hialeah incident marks the third time in two years that Florida abortionists have had to surrender their licenses for endangering women's safety, and the second time in just over one year that a born-alive baby has died in a Florida clinic.

God help us!

HT Stand to Reason

Democrats and the Fertility Gap

Arthur C. Brooks has authored the feature article at Opinion Journal. In it, he explains why the liberals may have a larger political problem in the future because they are not multiplying, there is a "fertility gap" that they may not be able to overcome.

Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little
Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

Of course not every child grows up to have the same political views as his parents (see the 60's), but more often than not they do. Brooks doesn't see this fertility gap changing anytime soon, even when "we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race--or even religion."

He quotes one liberal columnist who insists that the gap is a real reflection of the cultural differences between the left and the right in the country today. As the aforementioned columnist wrote,

"Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation."

While I think the columnist's explanation is over the top, I do agree that there is a fundamental difference in how the left and the right look at the value of children. Call it "family values" or whatever you want, but conservatives generally think having a family i.e. lots of kids is not a bad thing.

I do think there is another factor that Brooks did not address that helps to explain the fertility gap. James Taranto at Best of the Web calls it the Roe Effect. In a nut shell the theory goes that...

"since those who favor legal abortion are much more likely to get one than those who oppose it, and since children often follow their parents' political leanings, support for legal abortions will decline over time, simply because pro-choice parents will have fewer children than they might otherwise have had. Since people frequently associate their views with political parties, those parties that oppose abortion, such as conservative parties, including the Republican Party, could gain power over time" (source wikipedia.org).

The fertility gap helps to explain why the democrats are working so hard to court favor with immigrants because that seems to be the one area where they might experience actual growth.

What Bill Clinton Has Wrought

This is a first at accordingtothisjim, but I am going to say something positive about Bill Clinton. For all the issues I have with his presidency he did do some things right. One thing he did right was sign the welfare reform bill in 1996. This may be the greatest legacy of his presidency. Rich Lowry of NRO has an interesting article about the effects of that bill. Among other things Lowry writes,

Welfare caseloads have dropped 60 percent since the passage of welfare reform. Was that just the result of a strong economy? No. Caseloads didn’t decline significantly in any of the eight periods of economic expansion from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. From 1953 to 1994, the number of families on welfare dropped in only five of those years, and dropped two years in a row only once. By 2005, welfare caseloads had been declining for a stunning 11 straight years.

HT Justin Taylor

My Tax Problem is Nobody else's Business

I am generally for privatizing as much of the government as possible except when it involves sensitive information. This is a perfect example. It is a very bad idea. I can see the possibility for all kinds of abuses.

Although I guard my credit religiously and I haven't had much experience with collection agencies (medical bills I thought the insurance had taken care of), I know how they can be and I am sure that people will be intimidated into paying more than they owe.

Like with the bankruptcy bill (I have never declared bankruptcy) that was passed last year, I really believe that some in Congress have no clue what it is like to live in the real world.

Mexicans in America

Richard Rodriguez a CATO Institute (a Libertarian Think Tank) contributer, has written an interesting essay on Mexicans in America. For those of us who think that strong immigration reform is badly needed, it will not be an easy read. However, Rodriguez makes some very valid points.

Americans have tended to abrogate to economists the question of the costs and the benefits of illegal immigration. But, surely, beyond how much Betsy Ross is willing to pay for a head of lettuce, there is the question of morality, there is the question of Mexico. How much of Mexico are we willing to take within our borders? I believe the question might better be asked of a theologian, than an economist.

Rodriguez is a big believer in assimilation so he is not calling for a reconquista, only that we as Americans have a better understanding of Mexican immigrants and their values and how we should see them.

In response to Rodriguez, another CATO contributer, Victor Davis Hanson has written a reaction essay. He writes,

First, I share Rodriquez’s worry that migrant workers are sometimes being demonized. But aside from necessary censure against bigots, it is all the more urgent to ensure that Mexican immigrants arrive in the United States legally, and in reasonable numbers that ensure that they can assimilate and find opportunities in education and employment as quickly as possible.

Yet we too often forget that much of the unfortunate animus toward illegal aliens is most often predicated on class considerations, more than race or religion. Americans of the lower middle classes of all races—who do not have nannies or gardeners, who rarely eat out or stay at a hotel, but who do
compete for wages in construction and service industries with illegal aliens, and have their children in overcrowded inner-city or rural schools that are struggling with immigrants without English—are far more likely to demand reform than is our elite. The latter appreciates good cheap service while traveling and
dining out, or industrious day-laborers for remodeling and landscaping—and, of course, has little worry about rival illegal-alien film producers, professors, writers, lawyers, or doctors undercutting their own salaries or unions.

Pace Rodriguez, we need not ask either a theologian or an economist about how much of Mexico we are willing to take in. We already have a good guess that one out of every ten Mexican citizens currently resides in the United States, most of them under illegal auspices.

This influx is largely due to the cynical policies of American
business that wants robust Mexican youth to work cheaply at wages Americans apparently will not. When the worker’s vigor and health are exhausted, the employer expects to find a younger replacement from Mexico—with the added expectation that the government entitlement industry will provide for his former employee’s health and retirement needs.

But you can't lay all of the blame at the feet of American businesses.

Then there is the Mexican City government that counts on $15 billion in remittances to prop up a near-failed state, without much care how minimum-wage workers abroad survive after sending so much of their wages home. Illegal immigration for Mexico is a safety valve that ensures dissidents migrate rather than agitate. And Mexico also nurses ethnic chauvinism and old grievances, delighted to discover that its expatriate community grows fonder of Mexico the longer and further it is free from it. Rodriquez thinks it is “curious” that “Indians” are coming north from Mexico. Perhaps, but instead of condemning the “cold heart” of America, he should ask why they apparently find“white” or “Anglo” culture more tolerant than the “Spanish” establishment of Mexico that is apparently relieved to see its own mestizos leave.

This is a healthy discussion that I would like to see more of.

Finally, Some People in Hollywood Get It!

Just when I think I can't be surprised by Hollywood, I am! Duane at Radioblogger has posted the following on his website. Notice who they are blaming for the civilian casualties....those who are really responsible for them!

15 Websites that Changed the World

I have used most of these websites, although I have not heard of two of them (friendsreunited.com; easyjet.com). This is an informative read. I love wikipedia and youtube. HT evangelicaloutpost

Also see 25 Greatest PCs of all Time and 50 Coolest Websites

The 25 Most Important Questions in the History of the Universe

Can a pregnant woman drive in the carpool lane? How can a person win at that ultra-important-corporate-decision-making-process, rock-paper-scissor? Was turkey a country or a bird first?

These pressing questions and 22 others have been answered for us and can be found here. HT The Corner

OK GO Treadmill Dance

These guys have way too much time on their hands!

How to Become a Notre Dame Fan

Click to Enlarge
Football season is just around the corner and the message board is burning at dawgman.com. Someone there named nukemdawg posted this chart. I don't know if he made it up or he copied it from someone else. I would be glad to credit it to the person who developed it if they step forward. As you will see, I am not much of a Notre Dame fan, in fact I can't ever remember rooting for them, ever in any game! I think they get special treatment and don't deserve it.

The Media's Warped Sense of Perspective

This article by Jeff Jacoby is excellent. While I was very angry that Mel Gibson said what he did (not only was it wrong, but it played into the hands of those who cried anti-semitism against "The Passion of the Christ"). However, lets keep some perspective about the degree of offenses, especially given the difference in the contrition between the two men (one was very contrite, one wasn't). HT Hugh Hewitt

Lebanon

In the midst of all the turmoil and strife in the Middle East we forget how beautiful that area can be. Also, it is amazing how small an area it really is. Michael J. Totten who lived in Lebanon, has posted some great photos of Southern Lebanon near the Israeli border (make sure you keep scrolling down). In addition, check out the links he provides to more photos of Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.

A Good Day To Be A Washington Husky

Husky Stadium - Seattle Washington

Warren Moon got the Huskies started on their roll back in the seventies (and sadly ended in 2003). I have always been a big fan of his. Congratulations go to Warren on being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Ann Coulter

My mom over at leezy's slice of life blog has commented on the recent Ann Coulter interview at beliefnet.com.

Rather than go through the interview question by question and respond to Ann Coulter's comments, I am just going to link to the interview and then a discussion that followed over at the thinklings blog. The Redeemer Church referenced in that discussion is Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC.

Why does Ann Coulter elicit the kind of response she gets, like the one from my mom? I have said before that most liberals are not used to having conservatives speak the harsh realities of truth to them, as Ann Coulter does. I have to admit that I usually cringe when I hear her speak, but I secretly admire they way that she can "tell it like it is."

Unfortunately, because of her style and because she has become the issue, her effectiveness has been diminished. Anything she says is really just preaching to the choir. I think that is sad because as an intelligent and articulate woman, she has some very important things to say.

Scary

What is so frightening about this clip is that this man is one of the highest ranking dems in congress. Do we really want to put him in a position of power? This is why the elections in November are so important.