DADvocate

After reading a couple of posts, I decide to add The Anchoress to my blog list. just muttering directed me to The Anchoress and, being impressed, I wanted to be able to be more easily able to reach The Anchoress and also spread the word.

Or, I stole $30 Million But I Really Didn't Hurt Anyone

Bill Erpenbeck swindled homeowners and banks out of $33 million dollars. For his crimes he received 30 years in prison. Today Erpenbeck and his attorneys went to court to ask for a sentence reduction.

If you read through the stories linked to on the referred page, you will find Erpenbeck's antics and crimes would make most organized crime bosses jealous. What I loved was his attorneys' reasoning.

Because the victims he defrauded were eventually compensated, the attorneys argued, they didn't count as victims under the law. The attorney said that as the number of victims goes down, so should Erpenbeck's sentence.

Erpenbeck claimed that because only the banks can show that they lost money, they're the only victims recognized under law -- not the homebuyers.

So if you steal from someone and give it back after being caught, it's not really stealing. I'm sure about the details of the claim that the homeowners are victims because they can't prove they lost money. I do know Erpenbeck had the best legal services his stolen money could buy.

Since Erpendbeck's conviction the guidelines have apparently changed for sentencing for this type of crime. Erpenbeck wanted his sentence reduced to 15 years. The judge reduced it to 25. Still more than the current guidelines. Good job, judge!

Instapundit pointed out this article in the Boston Globe concerning MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen and his dissenting views on global warming. The article looks into global warming, open scientific debate and freedom of speech.

Global warming fanatics are working furiously to stamp out any dissenting view points.

More curious are our own taboos on the subject of global warming. I sat in a roomful of journalists 10 years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible.

Indeed. I attended a week's worth of lectures on global warming at the Chautauqua Institution last month. Al Gore delivered the kickoff lecture, and, 10 years later, he reiterated Schneider's directive. There is no science on the other side, Gore inveighed, more than once. Again, the same message: If you hear tales of doubt, ignore them. They are simply untrue.

[----]

Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.

``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."

Funny that the "open-minded" liberal types take a similar approach to belief in global warming that the fundamentalist Christians, which the liberals so despise, take to interpretation of the Bible. "The BibleGore says it, I believe it, and that settles it."

When a group tries to hinder free speech and eliminate all opposition to their view point, something is wrong, very wrong.

Sometimes tragedy strikes close to home. One of the victims of the Lexington airplane crash was a sister of a teacher at my son's middle school. Usually when you read of plane crashes and the like it seems so distant. But it isn't always.

Few things make me sadder than the murder of a young child who never got a chance.

Investigators said Fiesel was left in a closet for two days while the Carrolls attended a family reunion in Kentucky.

"Marcus was wrapped in a blanket and wrapped in tape with his arms behind him," Deters said. "This was not the first time it had happened."

Fiesel was dead when the Carrolls returned to the Union Township home on Aug. 6, Deters said. David Carroll then allegedly took the body to a chimney in Brown County and burned it.

Georgetown police told News 5 that the remains were discovered Monday night on an 88-acre estate in Lewis Township.

"They were committed to covering this crime up. They went back repeatedly to burn the body," Deters said.

Most of us are wondering how these people became foster parents. The placing agency founder made some statements.

Just like the thousands of people who searched for Fiesel, Lifeway for Youth founder and executive director Michael Berner said he was fooled by the Carrolls' double life.

Berner said his private foster agency placed Fiesel with the family because of their experience with children. Liz Carroll was even a certified day-care provider.

The couple had no criminal history or medical problems that concerned Lifeway.

"They had a public persona and a life they lived privately, and they were astute at keeping those lives separate," Berner said. "On the surface, this looked like a good opportunity for Marcus, where he could have a stable, good environment."

However, a sub-heading in the article states "Numerous Complaints Filed Against Lifeway".

Tragically, preventing such vicious crimes is probably impossible. But, more vigorous enforcement of regulations and closer supervision is needed.

Of course, Marcus Fiesel fails to fit the MSM profile for lost, killed children worthy of attention. He will never get a mention on Nancy Grace or the like. I wonder who will remember him a year from now.

From CNN, Study: Polar Bear Genitals Are Shrinking.

The polar ice cap may not be the only thing shrinking in the Arctic.

The genitals of polar bears in eastern Greenland are apparently dwindling in size due to industrial pollutants, a new study finds.

"Apparently" industrial pollutants are the cause. I see two other potential causes. Polar bears live in a land of snow, ice and frigid water. That certainly shrinks my genitals. Secondly, The emasculating effects of feminism has reached the Arctic Circle.

Meow Abuse

Super Troopers showed us how funny "Meow" can be. But in Pennsylvania a boy has been charged for meowing at the neighbor lady.

JEANNETTE, Pa. -- Meow. A Pennsylvania judge is being asked to decide whether that word is a harmless taunt or grounds for misdemeanor harassment.

Police have charged a 14-year-old boy with that crime. Michael Loughner is accused of meowing whenever he sees his 78-year-old neighbor, Alexandria Carasia.

The boy's family got rid of their cat after Carasia complained that it was using her flower garden as a litter box. Now, she said, the boy makes meowing sounds every time he sees her.

Reportedly, after the hearing, Ms. Carasia rode her broom home.

Ray Nagin's love of the spotlight overwhelms his abilities. Nagin, once again, shows why the city government of New Orleans was so ill prepared for Katrina despite decades of warnings of the potential devastation.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized efforts to redevelop the World Trade Center site when confronted in a television interview about delays in rebuilding his city after Hurricane Katrina.

During the CBS "60 minutes" interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair," according to CBS.

For those who can't read between the lines, the meaning behind this is that Ray Nagin's an idiot.

I could point out the obvious logical differences between the WTC site in NYC and NOLA. But, people like Nagin won't understand and the others already do. NOLA needs their own version of a Giuliani. Or take a hint from Cleveland, OH and Chattanooga, TN.

In Cleveland the Cuyahoga River used to be so polluted the river caught fire. Chattanooga transformed itself for a dirty industrial city to a beautiful tourist attraction.

Of course, leading a city to the level of improvements as Cleveland and Chattanooga takes more than idiocy.

Wendy McElroy's column at FoxNews.com, "Take Back the Night' for Men as Well" sheds lights on victims and perpetrators of violence.

On Aug. 10, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the results of its first national Personal Safety Survey (PSS, 2005). It is the only national survey by a 'Western' country that analyzes a wide range of violence on the basis of a respondent's sex.

Thus, the PSS offers the best snapshot available of the comparative violence experienced by men and women in a society with laws and a culture similar to North America.

The results are remarkable. If valid, they have far-reaching implications for how issues of gender and violence should be addressed.

The current approach basically views women as victims and men as aggressors. The survey's bottom line: Australian men are twice as likely as women to become victims of physical violence or of threats thereof (11 percent of men; 5.8 percent of women). For the population between eighteen and twenty-four years of age, men were almost three times as likely (31 percent of men; 12 percent of women). But men were also three times more likely than women to be the perpetrators of violence.

That men are more frequently victims of violent crimes shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. From the Bureaus of Justice Statistics:

Males experienced higher victimization rates than females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, most murder victims were male, 78% in 2004.

In 2004 more than three men were murdered in the U.S. for every woman murdered. Is this why we have the Violence Against Women Act?

McElroy also pointed out a study in New Zealand on domestic violence. Some of its findings don't fit into conventional wisdom either.

The researchers found that among people in violent relationships, 13.8 per cent of women said they were the sole perpetrators of violence, and only 2.4 per cent of men said they were the only violent one in the relationship.

The study also shows attitudes regarding female violence towards men that would be totally unacceptable if reversed.

People tended to find female violence amusing.

"When asked, 'does a man deserve to be hit', women often laugh. They said they did often deserve it as they did things that wound you up."

How often do you see a bit in the movies or on TV where a man being hit by a women is intended for humor? A piece I saw on the old "What Do You Say To A Naked Lady?" (Don't know why I ever watched that show.) showed an elderly couple being photographed in a studio by an attractive naked lady. The elderly woman must have slapped her husband 50 times during a 3-4 minute span for looking at the naked woman. But it was sooo funny. BTW - do a little research and you'll find that in older couples with abuse the woman is more frequently the perpetrator.

aup at just muttering pointed out this post by The Anchoress dealing with the condescending attitudes of many left wing intellectual elitists towards President Bush. Some how they just can't accept that he reads Camus or even books they write.

One of The Anchoress' comments that aup (and I) particularly liked:

I wonder how they can reproduce with their noses so high in the air?

Well, through the magic of synchronicity (again), The Wall Street Journal published this op-ed piece by Arthur C. Brooks today, also:

The Fertility Gap

Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to multiply.

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.

---

The fertility gap doesn't budge when we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race--or even religion. Indeed, if a conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the conservative.

Indeed, the snotty nose snobs seem to have trouble reproducing. Thank, God. Brooks cites more interesting facts in his article.

Often I had wondered about this very thing because of the obvious discrepancy between the liberals and conservatives amongst my siblings and myself. There are three liberals and two conservatives between us. We have a total of seven children. Six of the children belong to the two conservatives, my brother and myself.

I've taken delight that no matter how much my liberal siblings rant and rave, between my children and myself, we will out vote them. Now I find that it goes far beyond just my family to our society as a whole. Yee Haw!!

Maybe, this is why liberals do things like this. (Thanks again to just muttering.)

Of course, a philosophy where same sex marriage and terminating pregnancies are paramount is not conducive to reproduction. Perhaps the new left should adopt the rallying cry of "Make Babies, Not War."

Woody at GM Roper has some thoughts on The Fertility Gap.

The Mary Winkler case prompted me to, once again, consider the concept of self-esteem and how one develops high or good self-esteem. I rarely think about my own self-esteem but do often consider my children's.

First, a distinction must be made between good, healthy self-esteem and high self-esteem. When a person holds a view of themselves that is positive, realistic and beneficial to the person and the world. High self-esteem may be good, healthy self-esteem of it may be a sociopathic, narcissistic version that is ultimately harmful to the person and society.

True self-esteem comes from experiences and accomplishments or lack there of. In general, a child who performs successfully in school, socially, etc. will have healthy self-esteem. Overly critical adults easily influence a child's perception of their own performance. My approach is to help my children perform at the highest level possible given their capabilities.

I have one son who is slim, lean, quick, fast and can jump through the ceiling. My other son is much slower and doesn't have much "hops". But he is big and strong for his age. Although a couple of inches shorter he out weighs his older brother by 20 pounds. Both are excellent athletes, one an excellent basketball player and the other an excellent football player.

Both naturally gravitated towards their sports of interest. My job was simply to help them excel. My youngest daughter, who is tall and slim but not skinny, has also developed a love for basketball which suits her abilities well.

Sports allows for a simple, easy anecdote. Intellectually, my children, an yours if you have any, are equally diverse. It is not my job to steer my children towards my interests but to enable them to pursue their's. I follow my interests also and if my children show curiosity, I welcome them to join me.

People develop good, healthy self-esteem through mastery and control over their environment and through good works, not through being told they're a "good person", they're "worthy", etc.

I feel like I've written a rather sophomoric essay. But humor me. My philosophy of parenting is best summed up by Kahlil Gibran:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Perhaps over quoted but, if understood, provides a clear philosophy for parenting and helping your child develop good, healthy self-esteem.

DrHelen posted earlier today concerning Mary Winkler. Winkler killed her preacher husband earlier this year. Winkler and her attorney have found a new and creative defense. Winkler and her attorney claim "she had been verbally and emotionally abused by her husband".

Gosh, I've never heard that claim before except for maybe every other woman who killed or attempted to kill her husband, boyfriend, children, neighbors, parents, talk show host, etc. If the "O.J." in O.J. Simpson stood for Ophelia Janine and Nicole was Nicholas, O.J. would not only been acquitted but throngs of liberated women would line the streets applauding.

Apparently, high self esteem leads women to commit murder.

"I have nerve now, and I have self-esteem. So, my ugly came out," Alabama investigator Stan Stabler quoted her as saying, according to a report on the hearing published in The Jackson Sun.

Emphasis added.

Seems all those generations keeping women down trodden and subservient knew what they were doing, keeping down the murder rate and protecting the lives of husbands, boyfriends and children everywhere.

A couple of months ago, DrHelen, a forensic psychologist, wrote about increasing violence in girls.

Has anyone ever asked whether or not this "self-esteem" is helpful to women and society or not? Pumping women up with fake programs and phony self-esteem seems to do more harm than good--hence the need for books like See Jane Hit : Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It.

In fact, scientists are finding that high self esteem may be harmful and low self esteem beneficial.

Last year alone there were three withering studies of self-esteem released in the United States, all of which had the same central message: people with high self-esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low self-esteem ...

The question needs to be raised: Can women handle high self esteem appropriately? Given the statement of Mary Winkler and others like her, the answer may be "No". If we continue to have programs and other efforts that focus on raising the self esteem of females, we need to include instruction on how to feel good about yourself without killing anyone.

Now I have to install a new lock on my bedroom door. My daughter has been feeling pretty good about herself lately.

And remember, ladies, kill whomever you wish and then blame your husband or boyfriend, even if he's the victim. What else are husbands and boyfriends good for?

I found this article via Instapundit. Seems Illinois Senator Barack Obama lectures on how the:

world's higher temperatures rests on gas guzzling vehicles. Obama says consumers can make the difference by switching to higher mileage hybrids.

After his lecturespeech, he drives off in a GMC Envoy.

Obama left in a GMC Envoy after admitting to favoring SUV's himself.

In an apparent attempt to save face, Obama's staff claimed the Envoy was a Flexible Fuel Vehicle capable of using e85 fuel.

The SUV in question, though, is a Flexible Fuel Vehicle that can run on E85, which the Senator fills it with wherever its available...

I searched GMC.com, Consumer Reports, e85.com which lists e85 capable vehicles, as well as Yahoo autos and MSN autos. I could find no evidence of any model of the GMC Envoy that is a Flexible Fuel Vehicle. Unless this is a customized vehicle, it ain't no Flexible Fuel Vehicle.

I don't know how Obama grew up but I know what he grew up to be. A limousine liberal.

More thought at GM Roper.

P.S. I know I pick on liberals a lot. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.

Justin at Knoxviews pointed out this article in the Wall Street Journal Online on giving lie detector tests to airline passengers. The tests were administered at the Knoxville, TN airport (Tyson-McGhee), which is actually in Alcoa, TN.

The purported purpose:

The method isn't intended to catch specific lies, says Shabtai Shoval, chief executive of Suspect Detection Systems, the start-up business behind the technology dubbed Cogito. "What we are looking for are patterns of behavior that indicate something all terrorists have: the fear of being caught," he says.

As I've said before, I'd rather risk being blown up than live in a society where our freedoms and privacy are so restricted that there is nothing left to "preserve".

Of course, as I've also said before politicians and governmental types often love to wield power and control over others. That is why they choose their careers in these areas. If one must endure forced polygraphs in order to travel on an airliner, the terrorists are winning.

Maybe this comes from the fear that Patrick Armstrong at HurricaneRadio talks about. A coward dies a thousand deaths....

Probably.

Our favorite misguided blonde has some thoughts and links related to terrorism, Islamofascism and WWIII. Definitely worth checking out.

She hadn't blogged for a couple of weeks but now she's back.

Baseball Is a COMPETITIVE Sport

In Utah
some parents are angry because the other team intentionally walked the best hitter on their team. This controversy seems rather absurd to me.

During the championship game, the losing team is batting. When their best hitter comes up to bat with a man on third, the winning team intentionally walks him. The next batter strikes out, game over. Anyone knowing baseball beyond the most basic level realizes teams commonly walk good batters to win games.

The parents are angry not because they lost the game, not because the good batter was walked, but because it was an "insult" to the next batter! Admittedly, the boy up to bat is a sympathetic figure. He recovered from cancer and has a shunt in his brain.

The father of the boy seems to think such actions teach kids to pick on the weakest person. The winning coach says it just about winning a baseball game and the championship.

I agree with the winning coach. I'm sorry the one boy is not a good baseball player. I never was either. Which is why I chose other sports in which to compete. I believe the boy's father is teaching the boy the wrong lesson: that the boy should expect special treatment. WXPI in Pittsburg phrased their poll question like this: "Do you think the coach was right to intentionally walk a player in order to face a child recovering from cancer?" Nothing like framing the question in the wrong terms.

If you're up one run, facing the Giants in the seventh game of the World Series with a runner on base, do you pitch to Barry Bonds or whomever is behind him? Was the winning coach supposed to lose the championship so the father of some kid on the other team wouldn't feel bad.

Why is it that some adults believe that it is OK to hurt the feeling of some kids to "benefit" others who may be less talented in some way?

My youngest son, age 13, stand nearly 6 feet tall and weighs over 190 pounds. Needless to say, he enjoys football. During his last year of our local little league football, he was the dominant lineman, defensively and offensively. The man who runs the league and referees all the games has one major fault. He tries to even everything out.

During the championship game, this man kept making calls, and failing to make calls, in favor of the other team. At one point, when the other team was threatening to score, my son became quite angry when a holding was not called when a blocker grabbed his leg and held on. After calming him down, his coach moved my son to nose guard.

The previous year, a nulification of a fumble recovery by this man cost my son's team the championship.

It was 4th down and 5 for a touchdown and victory for the other team. When the ball was snapped my son hit the center so hard the center fell back into the quarterback, they both went down. My son's team won the championship and finished the season as the first undefeated team in the history of the league. (My son also returned a fumble 50 yards for a touchdown that game. Brag, brag.)

If you wish to compete in sports, don't expect special consideration unless you are in a league or setting, such as Special Olympics, that does so as a routine matter. If you're not as good, you're not as good, Accept it. Sports are about competition, playing hard and fair, and may the best team/person win. I've lost more than I've won but I love testing my abilities.

A player on a high school basketball team my oldest son played against had an obviously "withered" leg. The guy was good. He hustled, played hard, gave no quarter and expected none. Here's a kid who played high school football with no legs. He expected no special treatment other than to play.

As far as I'm concerned if you want you child to grow up to be a whiner, take the approach of the father in Utah. Otherwise, you teach your kids to play hard, play fair, study hard, work hard and use their brains. After that you just have to let the cards fall where they may.

UPDATE: in his comment civil truth points out that, once again, the kid knows how to handle the situation that the adults.

The child's name was Romney. Here is his response, quoted in Sports Illustrated:

By the way, the next morning, Romney woke up and decided to do something about what happened to him.

"I'm going to work on my batting," he told his dad. "Then maybe someday I'll be the one they walk."

Sounds like a great kid to me.

Yesterday I wrote about limousine liberals. On cue USA Today publishes this article "Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe" today. (Hat tip to Drudgereport.) The article points several instances of the liberal limousine approach.

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.)

The use of energy to build and maintain those homes most likely contributes to the greenhouse gases that Gore so fears. Nothing like excess.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

George may be more "green" than Al although you can be sure Al is green with envy.

Humanity might be "sitting on a ticking time bomb," but Gore's home in Carthage is sitting on a zinc mine. Gore receives $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc, which operates a zinc concession on his property. Tennessee has cited the company for adding large quantities of barium, iron and zinc to the nearby Caney Fork River.

Polluting for profit, just like all those big, bad corporations supposedly do.

Gore's lack of real commitment to the cause he "champions" has been noted before by SFGate.com nearly six years ago.

The sad fact is that if Al Gore doesn't believe in his own signature cause, then he probably doesn't believe in anything.

aup has some thoughts on this at just muttering.

He generally bores me more than he annoys me, so I wasn't going to say anything, but hypocrisy kind of ruins credibility.

Amen.

Discussing the meaning and impact of Joe Lieberman's loss in Conneticut occupies much of the blogosphere today. Most of the discussion centers around whether or not the Democratic Party now excludes anyone supporting the war in Iraq. But I wonder if it signifies something else also, the dominance of the limousine liberal.

Bill Clinton, like him or not, raised himself up from humble roots in Arkansas. Since his presidency, wealthy elites seem to have dominated the Democratic Party. Al Gore grew up as the privileged son of a U.S. Senator. John Kerry married not one but two extremely wealthy women. And, of course, there's the Kennedys.

Now enters Ned Lamont, a member of a family with generations of wealth. Lamont essentially bought his electoral victory. Edward H. Crane at CATO Institute notes, "More than 60 percent of Ned’s campaign expenditures came from Ned. Without Ned, Ned loses. " (Hat tip to Instapundit)

Wikipedia defines limousine liberal as this:

Limousine liberal is a pejorative American political term for a wealthy liberal person who expresses a deep concern for the poor, but is not actually directly engaged with them on a day to day basis. The term can also carry the connotation of expressing concern for the poor but not spending any considerable portion of one's wealth to help them

It may be a pejorative but it sure sounds familiar. More from Wikipedia:

In the 1970s, the term was applied to wealthy liberal supporters of open-housing and school busing. In Boston, Massachusetts, supporters of busing, such as Senator Edward Kennedy and Judge Arthur Garrity, both sent their children to private schools or lived in affluent suburbs. To some South Boston residents, Garrity's support of a plan that "integrated" their children with blacks and his apparent unwillingness to do the same with his own children, seemed like hypocrisy.

By the late 1990s and early 21st century, the term has come to also come to be applied to those who purport to support environmentalist or "green" goals, such as mass transit, yet still drive large SUVs or literally have a limousine and driver, even for extremely short drives better served by walking. Washington governor Christine Gregoire is regularly cited as an example in the blog "Sound Politics".

Rich liberals possess a long history of actions such as the ones described in the first paragraph of the quote. With their wealth and power, they don't have to suffer from the impact of laws they pass or court rulings they make. They can live in gated communities and hire bodyguards. Illegal immigrants won't drive down their wages or take their jobs.

I know many liberals who "support" environmentalist causes who drive SUVs and otherwise use more energy, etc. than needed except to support a lavish lifestyle.

With so many people near the top of the Democratic Party that have never known what it means to struggle just to make ends meet, I doubt the Democratic Party feels the pain or joy of the typical American. The Democratic politicians continue to broadcast the same message, "Thru government, we can make your life better." But most of us just wish the government would leave us alone. And we see the pretense that they "care".

The quote on my header is new today.

We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Usually, this quote and others like it are interpreted in the environmental sense. Obviously, protection of the Earth's environment and conservation of its resources are part of the quote's meaning.

Another meaning can be derived from looking at the quote from a cultural/social perspective. What parts of our culture and society are we leaving for our children and what parts are we denying them? During my lifetime of 55 years, so far, many things have been lost and many gained.

The technological gains are obvious. My children listen with bewilderment when I describe life without personal computers, calculators, color TV's, CD's, microwave ovens, video games, ad nauseum. They wonder how I managed to enjoy myself. I did just fine, thank you.

I also remember buying premium gas for 14 cents a gallon. We could ride my friends Honda 90 motorcycle all day for a quarter. Energy was cheap, plentiful and often dirty. In the winter, coal soot would fall on my shirt and leave little black spots.

Health care, communications, etc., etc. have improved tremendously. But what have our children lost?

Today's world is much more crowded. My hometown/county has more than doubled in size since I graduated from high school. Roads I used to bicycle down are now too dangerous due to heavy traffic. Subdivisions and shopping centers occupy spots where we used to go to get away from it all or neck a little bit.

Condos spoil what used to be pastures along the lake. Traffic jams in the Smoky Mountains make visits resemble rush hour more than a visit to a virgin forest. City parks often suffer from over crowding or criminal activity.

Children in our society today face constant sexual messages on TV, radio, music, movies, etc. My children knew things about sex by age 10 that I didn't know till late high school or even college. No wonder teenage pregnancy and spread of STD's is a great problem.

Hopefully we will preserve for our children, and their children, that which is best in our society and culture. Preserve and protect nature, yes, but, just as importantly, preserve and protect the "traditional" values that make our culture great. Individual rights, freedom, opportunity, hard work, religion, family, the ability to walk down the street safely, innocence, and, of course, apple pie, need to be preserved also. We have no right to steal them from our children.

The other day I mentioned that a blogger called TallGirl stated, "I name all my dogs after Democrats". At first, I thought she needed to get a life. Being immersed in politics to the point that you name you pets after political figures isn't psychology healthy.

But then again, maybe she's on to something. I should give it a try. Aiming to keep an open mind and broaden my horizons, I decided to use names of Democrats, as does TallGirl, instead of Republicans and other conservatives. I feel better already.

My kids named our dog Shelby, after the Mustang Shelby GT 500. Now our dog's name is (Robert) Byrd. After all, she is a bird dog and she doesn't get along well with the black lab next door. At least she didn't used to.

My son's pet rat snake is now "Slick Willy." His over fed guinea pig "Murtha". We even named the oak tree in the backyard "Al Gore." My tomato garden bears the title "Heinz-Kerry Memorial Gardens."

In my enthusiasm, I have printed a list of all Republican Congresspersons and Republican Senators and posted it in the bathroom. Whenever I flush something down the commode, I pick a name off the list and give it to the matter being flushed.

Already I'm beginning to feel more compassionate. I have an urge to steal money from the wealthy raise the taxes on the rich (anyone making more than I do) and use that money to build huge social/governmental structures that "help" the poor. All politicians with a "(D)" after their names have become seemingly more intelligent, caring, and insightful.

I am beginning to understand why Hezbollah kidnaps Israeli soldiers, fires rockets into civilian targets and then claims it's all Israel's fault. Those poor terrorists have been oppressed for years. I bet John Kerry could have prevented this.

Can you believe George Bush has wreaked all this havoc? Do I feel the Earth warming? The ice in my tea is melting!

I think I was better off with my dog named Shelby.

First it was dysfunctional families, now it's dysfunctional reptiles. I don't watch much TV but last night I caught part of a commercial on reptile dysfunction. I wasn't able to see the entire commercial because my children distracted me insisting that I unlock the door and let them inside.

It seems some people are never at a loss for some sort of humanitarian or reptilian cause. The commercial seemed to be saying there was a product that would help reptiles when they were ready. The sexism in the commercial was obvious. Because of the sexist assumption that women are afraid of reptiles the commercial kept saying for him to use it to make her happy.

Probably the product helps endangered reptiles reproduce. The commercial did include a warning to be careful to control your reptile or you might end up having to see a doctor.

In this world torn by war, poverty, starvation, and the Hilton/Richey feud, it seems that people would focus on more important issues. But we have groups like PETA, etc. that prefer to put the imagined needs of animals above people. Then again, can you imagine a world without a blue tailed skink or a gila monster?