 |
Thursday, February 19, 2004 |
--------------------
Marriage Smarriage
In our blessed land of the free, you can define a piccolo as a baked potato and then slather the thing with sour cream prior to chomping down. But mere assertion doesn't turn a piccolo into a baked potato. Only a judge, it seems, enjoys that prerogative.
Judges, at both state and federal level, are in the process of stealing cherished possessions such as the people's right to determine for themselves the moral relationships on which their society rests. A jurist who claims to know better than the rest of us how to define reality steals the older reality, dropping on us, for replacement purposes, nothing more than a personal interpretation. Stop, thief. Stop.
That is what we now must shout. With all that's in us. [washingtontimes.com]
9:08:17 PM 
|
|
--------------------
American pols should stop dreaming of "universal health care" and visit Britain.
Whenever I hear the words "universal health care" — as I did during Sunday night's Democratic debate in Wisconsin — a shiver goes down my spine. You see, I grew up in Great Britain, where the National Health Service supposedly provides top-quality health care to all Britons, free at the point of delivery. That's the theory, at any rate. Yet you pay for it in taxes, of course, and in practice, the NHS provides below-par service. Sometimes the treatment can be excellent, but more often, you have to wait months or years for operations; equipment is outdated, and doctors are overworked. Britons are beginning to wake up to the idea that the NHS is no longer "the envy of the world," and even Tony Blair's free-spending government has realized that universal, taxpayer-funded health care is an unsustainable ideal. [NRO]
9:00:24 PM
|
|
--------------------
Three Cheers for the Redskins Cheerleaders
First Lt. David Hoe, a member of the U.S. Army's 608th Ordnance Company, has an inspiring letter to the editor in the Washington Post:
I want to thank the Washington Redskins cheerleaders for visiting us in Fallujah, Iraq, on Valentine's Day. I find it odd and impressive that the first entertainers to risk boarding a Black Hawk helicopter to fly into the most restive and hostile town in Iraq were cheerleaders. Not to discredit their visits, but we have all become accustomed to watching on TV as celebrities such as David Letterman, Robin Williams and WWE wrestlers land at the airport in Baghdad, smile for the cameras, entertain a few soldiers from the 1st Armored Division and then fly home.
The Redskins cheerleaders had the courage to take a daytime helicopter ride over Fallujah to visit with the soldiers who are fighting in the front lines of this war.
Sort of puts all the whining about the Redskins' "racist" name in perspective, doesn't it? [WSJ]
7:18:02 PM
|
|
--------------------
Mr. Populist
"Sen. John F. Kerry sent 28 letters in behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling campaign contributions to the Massachusetts senator and four other congressmen," the Los Angeles Times reports:
Between 1996 and 1999, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a guided missile system that defense contractor Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes. . . .
Kerry's letters were sent to fellow members of Congress--and to the Pentagon--while Majumder and his employees were donating money to the senator, court records show. During the three-year period, Kerry received about $25,000 from Majumder and his employees, according to Dwight L. Morris & Associates, which tracks campaign donations.
Court documents say the contractor told his employees they needed to make political contributions in order for him to gain influence with members of Congress. He then reimbursed them with proceeds from government contracts.
Federal prosecutors initially determined that $13,000 of the donations were illegally reimbursed, but they now say that nearly all of the money was tainted.
Important caveat: The prosecutors "said there was no evidence Kerry or other members of Congress would have known" the contributions were illegal. But, the Times notes, "as the Democratic presidential front-runner, Kerry has promoted himself as a candidate who has never been beholden to campaign contributors and special interests." As we've said before, stories like this make such a claim look even more ridiculous than it does on its face. [WSJ]
7:15:02 PM
|
|
--------------------
Top Cat
Does a photograph show a woman holding a large domestic cat? [New Urban Legends]
I have no problem with this picture. My mother has a cat just like that. CP
9:19:14 AM
|
|
----------------------
2/19/2004 Day By Day by Chris Muir
8:03:57 AM
|
|
---------------------
Prognosis Negative The Ayn Rand Institute recently released a new op-ed by Alex Epstein: The Terror of "Animal Rights". The "animal rights" movement is celebrating its latest victory: an earlier, more painful death for future victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's... [Cox & Forkum]
7:38:17 AM
|
|
----------------------
 Astronomy Picture of the Day
McNeil s Nebula
7:35:33 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2004 Lopsided Poopdeck.
|
|
|
