Colorado Right

No - not the one you think.  Just a reflection from Harvey over at IMAO:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The number of Iraqi citizens not killed by Saddam Hussein has reached 200,000, the U.S. military said on Monday, just days after the fifth anniversary of a war that President George W. Bush says the United States is on track to win.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the grim milestone was reached when 200 civilians were not murdered by Iraq’s tyrannical dictator late on Sunday when no large groups of people were rounded up and shot in the head for making statements critical of their government. No one was wounded in the non-attack.

The non-deaths came on a day when the very dead Uday and Qusay Hussein were unable to pick women at random to rape and slaughter, owing largely to their inability to breathe, circulate blood, or stop being eaten by bugs as their bodies rotted in the ground.

And the inevitable conclusion:

Anthony Cordesman, a respected Iraq analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said he believes, however, that the 2000,000th non-death could trigger another wave of ears-covered, eyes-closed “la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you” from those who oppose the war.

From the Anti-Idotarian Rotweiller:

This is what living in a free country is like:

Police say two suspects are dead after an attempted home invasion.

Catawba County sheriff’s deputies say two men dressed in black and carrying pistols forced their way into a home on 33rd Avenue in Hickory around 11:00 last night. According to a sheriff’s official, the homeowner was armed with his own gun, and shot the suspects. Both suspects were pronounced dead at the scene.

Major Coy Reid with the sheriff’s office said both men were wearing masks and latex gloves.

This is what living under gun control is like:

WEST COVINA, Calif. (AP) - A woman was asking a 911 dispatcher for help when her pleas were interrupted by gunshots, then silence. She was shot to death.

The woman told the dispatcher someone was trying to break into her home in upscale West Covina, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Dan Rosenberg said. “Deputies heard gunshots followed by silence and an open phone line,” he said.

Deputies arrived at the house, 20 miles east of Los Angeles, a few minutes after Wednesday’s late morning call.

The woman, whose name was not released by police, had been shot several times. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

Remember: When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

What was that about universal free health care?

Of course, its happening in the area around the Communist Democratic People’s Republic of San Francisco:

Buoyed by Super Tuesday’s record Latino voter turnout, a San Jose State University student group — made up of both legal and illegal residents — is planning a widespread, grass-roots campaign to register voters, especially those who can speak for them at the polls.

“I don’t need to live in the shadows anymore,” said Ruiz, a 24-year-old San Jose State student whose mother brought him from Mexico on a tourist visa when he was a child.

Live in the shadows?  Since when does anybody in California actually have to worry about living in the shadows.  Brought here illegally as a child?  Not a problem.  You can attend a state university (wonder if he’s getting instate tuition rates?  not even a bet - I’m sure he is), you can register people to vote, you can give an interview to a local newspaper.  No one will even come check on your illegal butt.

  It’s unknown how many illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition in California, officials said, because the information isn’t tracked to protect students’ privacy.

Because of their status, the students are not eligible for financial aid, and most must earn tuition — more than $2,000 a semester — on their own.

Ruiz and Cardenas don’t hold their status against their parents, saying their time in the United States has given them opportunities they wouldn’t have had in Mexico.

“You can’t just live in a place and not became a part of it,” Ruiz said. “If I were still in Mexico, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

Just another example of Mexico dumping its problems on the US.  Otherwise they might have to actually fix their own third-world toilet of a country so they don’t export their own citizens.  But little chance of that happening any time soon.  All our Presidential candidates just want to either turn their backs or actually beckon them to come.

From the wonderful House of Eratosthenes:

People want, as the Obamamaniacs tell us, “change.” I say, go for it. Fight terrorism with a universal healthcare plan. Go ahead and make it prohibitively and artificially expensive to hire new people to a business or, God forbid, start a new business. Give ALL the money and power to our trial lawyers. Take all our guns away and punish violent crime with a finger-waggling and wrist-slapping or two, if you punish it at all. Pay criminals money to not misbehave. Negotiate with tyrants around the world — no exceptions. Let me know how that works out.

I encourage you to read the whole article - a very well thought-out defense of conservatism in a time of McCain.  Does America need to be shown just how illogical, impractical, and self-defeating liberalism is every generation?

Do we need to just shut up and do what the Republican Party elders tell us to - regardless of whether it is good for the country or not?  Just because Obambi and the Hildebeast would be so much worse?

Its going to be an interesting 2008.

The slant of this article is sickening:

Times are tough for the 27-year-old illegal immigrant and day laborer

For the most part, Rodriguez says, he’s doing what hundreds of other day laborers are doing these days: Standing around and waiting for jobs in Santa Cruz instead of actually getting them.

The bad times are trickling down to the lowest rung of the work force: the illegal labor pool, 

And somewhere in Mexico a wife and a family are having a rougher go at it than usual. 

A couple of questions:

1.  If its so tough in the US, why not go back home?  This article implies that the poor illegal hasn’t had regular work since last summer.  How in the wide wide world of sports is he able to live here?

2.  If there’s no work at home - why not?  Just when did it become America’s issue to deal with unemployed Mexicans?

And most of all this:

“Everybody is going to suffer in a recession — from the top on down,” says Patti Decker, a branch manager with Labor Ready in Soquel, whose number of Spanish-speaking customers, she added, has been on the rise in the last few months, in part due to the poor economy.

Labor Ready is an “employment contractor”.  Just why are they able to break the law with impunity and knowingly hire out illegals?

I think you can just about characterize anyone’s views and outlook depending on how they respond to this statement from Bookwormroom:

America is far from perfect, but it does a better job than any society ever created at ensuring that everyone who works hard has a chance to succeed.

If you get some horrified look at the very suggestion that America is good or if you start getting hemming and hawing about the wonders of Cuba and its free medical care - in either case you know that you are dealing with someone who has been successful in America but doesn’t want anybody else to have that opportunity.  Someone who hates the freedom that America represents to the world.  Somebody who believes that what some twit in Germany or France thinks about our country is more important than what we ourselves believe.

Why does hard work contribute to success in America?  For one thing we try to make sure everybody has the tools to succeed.  Take education as an example:

The goal of the conservative is to ensure that even those who do not start out with many advantages can succeed if they work hard.  For example, free public schools are a conservative invention.   They are a statement that every child, no matter how poor, will have access to the basic tools of success.  Granted, some schools are better than others, but the biggest difference between school isn’t funding, or materials, or the quality of teachers.  The biggest difference is the students.  Students in successful schools work harder than students in unsuccessful schools.  They arrive at school every day, ready to work hard and learn.  Compare absenteeism and drop-out rates in successful schools and unsuccessful schools and you’ll see what I mean.  Even in our worst public schools, the student who works hard and tries to learn will learn and will obtain the tools necessary to succeed in life.

Now we are not talking about equality of outcome - merely equality of opportunity.  It is up to the individual to take advantage of the freedom in America.

Conservatives teach to the test.  Liberals teach, uh, unearned self-esteem.  Conservatives reward accomplishment.  Liberals reward, uh, breathing.  Conservatives reward hard work.  Liberals denigrate hard work.  Conservatives believe you earn the right to move on to the next grade by passing the test.  Liberals beliieve in social promotion and would rather eliminate the test.  Conservatives don’t give a hoot about things like skin color, religion, and gender that have nothing to do with accomplishment.  Liberals are obcessed with skin color, religion, gender, etc.  Conservatives abhor discrimination.  Liberals eagerly discriminate against white males (God help the person who by unhappy circumstance is born a poor white male in American — he has all of the handicaps that accompany poverty but lives in a society that assumes he is rich and punishes him for being white and male).

And in the end, rewarding hard work is only practical:

Conservativism is more practical than liberalism, too.  Societies that reward hard work have always been more successful than societies that do not.  Why?  Because most people simply will not work all that hard if they see the rewards for their labor taken from them and given to someone who did not work at all.  They recognize the unfairness of this at a gut level, and ultimately, rebel by not working so hard.

As real-world examples like Russia and Cuba and Maoist China have shown.

So do you believe in Hard Work?

Why has this science not been reported too much?

For some years now, reports have been growing from around the world that the massive amounts of synthetic birth control hormones being pumped into the water systems through sewage outflow is changing the sex of fish stocks. Recently, scientists have also begun to warn of the possible carcinogenic effects of the build-up of estrogenic chemicals in drinking water. 

As early as 2002, the UK Environment Agency warned that fish stocks in British rivers were showing signs of gender ambiguity as a result of high levels of estrogen in the water. A survey of 1,500 fish at 50 river sites found more than a third of males also displayed female characteristics.

Dr. Conrad Daniel Volz from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology, warned that the rise in steroid hormones in the drinking water in the Pittsburgh area is a threat to health. Numerous studies have shown a link between contraceptive estrogen and hormone problems and some cancers, including testicular cancer.

There are ecoNazis screaming about snowmobiles in Yellowstone, but possible cancer risks in the water and there’s no noise from the environmental activists at all.  Wonder why? 

But scientists and environmental groups are careful to avoid recommending restrictions on artificial contraceptives.

The National Catholic Register, reporting on the issue, quotes George Harden, a board member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, saying “If you’re killing mosquitoes to save people from the West Nile virus, you can count on secular environmentalists to lay down in front of the vapour truck, claiming some potential side effect that might result from the spray,” Harden said. “But if birth control deforms fish - backed by the proof of an EPA study - and threatens the drinking supply, mum will be the word.”

Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, told the Register that people “would not take kindly” to the suggestion of banning or restricting hormonal contraceptives.

“For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue,” Cunningham said. 

So birth control pills are a personal freedom issue.  But having the government put restrictions on your land to keep some slimy snail in breeding territory isn’t a personal freedom issue?

Your hypocrisy is showing.

Wonderful new blog - Stuff White People Like.  There is a plethora of things there, but to whet your appetite - Recycling:

Recycling is a part of a larger theme of stuff white people like: saving the earth without having to do that much.

Recycling is fantastic! You can still buy all the stuff you like (bottled water, beer, wine, organic iced tea, and cans of all varieties) and then when you’re done you just put it in a DIFFERENT bin than where you would throw your other garbage. And boom! Environment saved! Everyone feels great, it’s so easy!

Here’s an interesting proposition mooted from the UK:

Last week, an intriguing proposition was mooted by Government minister Dawn Primarolo.

Teenage girls, she said, could be steered towards what is described as “long-term contraception”.

This is now possible thanks to the development of contraceptive jabs and implants which can last up to five years.

In other words, there is a way of effectively sterilising girls for a lengthy period of time.

At what age? Well, doesn’t 12 until 17 sound rather sensible?

Its the underlying assumption that I find most despicable. Do you own your body? Or does the government? After all, the UK government “gives” you absolutely 100% free health care. (Just don’t look too closely at what you actually get). So if the government is responsible for your health care, does that mean it should be able to control your actions and bodily functions?

This is just an extension of the thought process that treatment for smokers and fat people and sick old people costs too much and should be curtailed. Why not keep these young sluts from having babies? Just look at the positive outcomes:

• fewer abortions - theoretically
• no welfare payments for those illegitimate rug rats
• lots of time for these teenagers to practice sex without getting pregnant so they will be experienced, available, and willing
• less maternity health costs paid for by the all-knowing and kind government

While this might be considered some sort of hypothetical trial balloon to demonstrate absurdity - do you really think that there aren’t some government planners who are actually planning for this action? Of course, no one would actually try and implement mass sterilization, would they?

But remember that doctors organizations and government bureaucrats now consider it safe to say that some people should not be treated because of the choices they have made in their life.  20 years ago, would the average citizen believe that this would be considered mainstream thought?  Its funny that all the liberal hysteria about loss of freedoms completely misses the fact that the biggest loss will be coming as the “gift” of government.

Remember that this free Obambi-care or Hillarycare will change the basic standing between government and citizens. Once you give responsibility for your health care to government, government will own you and your actions.