There was a time when things made sense

This has been a tough weekend to write a blog. There are several good, albeit, short topics begging for commentary. Concurrently, however, there exists the realization that this Holy Weekend represents something larger and more important than a politically and socially oriented blog written with as much depth to story as an episode of Three's Company after the departure of Suzanne Summers.

I picked three subjects to write on and struggled to create the proper irreverent tone each warranted. It wasn't long after I raised the white flag of surrender and turned out the light last night that I realized that these stories were related. The relation is as tenuous as Woody Harrelson's hold on reality but it is there if you look closely.

The lunatics has taken over the asylum:
The school board in Plano, Texas has decided to change their grading standards for middle school students. No longer will cheating or turning in an assignment late have an affect on one's grade and homework often won't even be corrected.

According to the Dallas News "... a growing philosophical shift is putting more emphasis on what students are learning overall, rather than mostly focusing on a grade that can be pulled down by smaller assignments, quizzes, bad behavior or poor study skills." I'll tell you what this philosophical shift will help the young skull's full of mush learn. It will teach them that cheating is acceptable and deadlines and standards are flexible targets with very large bulls eyes. Assignments that are handed out (i.e. homework) are meaningless and require no effort as there will be no review.

For the alarmists who have for years accused state run school systems of dumbing down the country's children this is is another arrow for their quiver. To me it is an ego inflating realization that the condescending view I hold of the youth of today and the fact they seem to be getting more stupid with each school year is accurate and hasn't been tainted by my affliction toward children. I've blogged before about how cheating seems to be a part of today's sports world. The obsession video gamers have with finding "cheat codes" rather than winning their games legitimately is even more evidence cheating is no longer frowned upon.

The days of honesty, hard work, determination and personal fortitude are fast becoming nothing more than a part of our nostalgic past. Senator Chuck Shumer agrees with me although he doesn't seem to mind.




There ought to be a law:
The amnesty providing DREAM Act (Ed. Note: yet another reason to vote against Orrin Hatch) has been reintroduced to Congress. The discussion of this waste of paper, like debating whether Ginger or Marianne is the hotter castaway, is sure to continue to light up patrons in bars across the country as the light themselves up on domestic beer and shots of Jagermeister. Since when does a person's legal status in the United States matter?

In July of this year a law takes effect in Utah that allows local officers to enforce federal immigration law. Fortunately for taco stands across the state, police in several cities have announced they will not participate in this cross-agency effort. Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said "If we start taking action based solely on immigration status, we would be making enforcement decisions based on race and ethnicity". Really? The law makes absolutely no mention of race or ethnicity. I get the feeling Burbank's statement is the racist one. Canadians, Germans, Pakistanis and Samoans can be in this country as illegally as any Mexican or Guatemalan.

Refusing to enforce immigration law is akin to a highway patrolman deciding that only red cars should be clocked for speeding. But hey, we can't run the risk of making anyone feel singled out. What difference does it make if they are here legally or illegally?

Fawlty Towers foreign policy:
During the Obama European Apology Tour 2009, the President of France insisted the First African American President of the United States take a trip with him to Normandy to pay his respects. In a move that filled plenty of time between commercials on talk radio stations across the country, Obama refused to go so as to not cause the Germans feelings to be hurt. Other people's feelings seem to take a pretty high priority in this White House. We can't have the Germans upset that Obama is spending more time on the beach in France than in Bavaria. All banks had to take TARP funds, even not at risk ones, so that banks at risk would not feel bad (True statement). And we can't call terrorist acts "man caused disasters" for reasons I can't even begin to comprehend.

If it weren't for the reason offered for not going to Normandy being so stupid, I wouldn't really care. Obama is scheduled to go to France in June for the specific purpose of a battlefield tour and that is wholly appropriate. While there, he might be able to reconstruct the rock art memorial built by former President and skirt chaser Bill Clinton years ago when he walked the beach. Obama seems to have the same people making his excuses regarding travel and bowing as are buying his gifts.

The whole "don't upset the Germans" argument has prompted me to seek out a clip from the BBC show Fawlty Towers. John Cleese was told, under no circumstances, should he mention "the war" to his German guests. Just like the White House efforts to deny bowing or their emphasis to not hurt a country's feelings, their lame excuses are only drawing more attention to these acts.



I will leave it to you to link these three topics in your own way. Here is my take in a poor wrap up to a rambling post: Instead of relaxing the standards we teach our kids, choosing what laws we enforce and what ones we ignore and worrying that countries like us so much that we make excuses instead of standing up for what is right, we ought to spend some time reflecting on what is important.

S2

An essay about the war Ese'

We are losing the war. Violence is up, the death toll is rising and the money being poured in to continue this fight is disappearing down a hole so deep Alice’s White Rabbit would need Jefferson’s Airplane to get out. The elusive enemy doesn’t wear a uniform and they don’t fight by the strict code of the warrior. They are thugs.

Before you go calling me Cindy and think I’ve gone all Code Pink, I am not talking about Iraq. In fact, things are going so well there that Barack “surge, what surge” Obama says our troops may be out in sixteen months. U.S. Soldier deaths are at their lowest levels and, excluding a rash of recent bombings, so are civilian deaths. It might be time to switch the timeshare from Bagdad Beach in Mexico to the Tigris River outside of Bagdad. For you see, the war we are losing is being fought along the border between the United States and our labor supplying neighbor to the south: Mexico.



In 2007, 891 of the bravest men and women I will never get the chance to thank gave their lives in Iraq. The final toll for 2008 may well be half that number. A single city in northern Mexico, Ciudad Juarez, has had 1400 murders this year alone. Gangland style attacks have left over 4,500 dead across the country since the ball dropped in Times Square and we began breaking our New Year’s resolutions. There have been over 700 killings since we in the United States solved all our problems by electing the One.

While bleeding hearts spent Thanksgiving complaining about Sarah Palin holding a press conference while the turkeys they were eating were decapitated, the turkeys in the press were pretty much ignoring the decapitation of nine people near Tijuana.

It seems drug thugs are taking a page from their cowardly cousins in the terrorist community and are using beheadings to send messages and instill fear. They also aren’t opposed to using violence against women and children. The same weekend that the beheadings took place in Tijuana, 28 additional people were killed in the same area by these animals including four children and three police officers who had their badges stuffed in their mouths.

Fortunately we have a solid, impenetrable border keeping any of this violence, or the perpetuators of such, safely at bay and away from our citizens as they drive past illegal immigrants doing the jobs we won’t on their way to the jobs we will. Right, just ask the cook at your corner Taco stand how true that is.

These drug cartels and the gangs they spawn are more organized than your local ACORN office and are even less noticeable. Many of this notorious, extremely violent and usually butt-ugly slime maintain club house membership in Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13), a transnational gang that has recorded activity in 48 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. These little rascals are not our gang of old and it isn’t Buckwheat or Alfalfa they are pushing.

Interestingly, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, immigrant gang members rarely make a living as gangsters. They typically work by day in construction, auto repair, farming, landscaping, and other low-skill occupations where employers are less vigilant checking status, often using false documents. You know those jobs Americans won’t do. But at night their activities often turn violent. Violence is expected of members and those who refuse to join in the fun are brought to a court to be judged by their peers. The collective brain matter of these groups, which probably wouldn’t fill one of their readily available coke spoons, sends down sentences for 13, 26 or 36 (I guess they couldn’t quite grasp 3x13) second beatings with bats, machetes or guns. Sounds like a fun Friday night doesn’t it?

If these “examples for why the death penalty needs to be used often” would only kill each other I’d gladly wish them good luck and much success in that effort. But all too often innocents are caught in the crossfire and their recruitment efforts spread their disease to the playgrounds and parks where children deserve to spend their childhoods free from this crap.

And their numbers continue to grow. Nearly half of over 6000 illegal aliens arrested over a two and a half year period were affiliated with MS-13 or Surenos-13. The same study found some jurisdictions with serious gang problems had few arrests. Of course many these same cities are so-called sanctuary cities with “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies regarding immigration status. How’s that for a one-two punch?

So what do we do? Beats me, I just shine light on these Cockroaches. The citizens of both the United States and Mexico deserve better. The United States is trying to work with Mexican officials and we are sending around $200 million to them. I guess the leeches that came to Washington to beg for bailouts dropped a few million on their way out of town. Unfortunately in Mexico the police are as big a problem. A recent review found that 49.4% of the 55,000 officers evaluated were “untrustworthy”. Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s anti-drug czar and several top police officers were arrested for allegedly being on the drug cartels' payroll to the tune of $150,000-$450,000 per month. I’m thinking we might be on our own in this one.

We are at war. In a claimed effort to combat terrorism and in a direct assault on the Posse Comitatus Act, the Pentagon is considering deploying 20,000 uniformed troops within the United States by 2011. I’ve a few ideas. Let’s let United States citizens keep their guns to protect themselves. Let’s allow cops to inquire as to the legal status of people they arrest and let’s send this slime packing to whatever country they are sending their paychecks home to or to an 8x8 room with a cot and a big friendly roommate who thinks they are cute. Finally, let’s put the focus of 20,000 of the bravest and finest trained weapons of mass destruction on earth directly on our southern border with rules of engagement that will enable them to demonstrate to these chicken shit gang members what true bravado and justice is all about.



S2

For more info on this check out these searches:
Time Online
The Heritage Foundation
Fox News
Michelle Malkin