Is this the party you want?

I know bankruptcy reform gets a lot of support from conservatives espousing personal responsibility but what happens when someone is irresponsible (of just plain stupid) and ends up with enough debt to choke a horse? Debtor's prison? The Republicans have become a special interest group for corporate interests. I do not mean that in the same sense that the looney left states it, but what is good for GM is NOT necessarily good for America anymore, as Toyota is teaching many former union workers.

Immigration helps this country in dozens of ways and as the first born of immigrants, I STRONGLY support immigration. The pandering...no, the selling out of America to ILLEGAL immigrants is as bad as selling out the troops. I don't understand why Bush and the Republicans can't see that.

How many people that complained about people like me in November (that refused to vote Republican because of their behavior despite disliking everything about the Democrats) are watching in abject horror at Republicans defecting on the GWOT, taxes, minimum wage, immigration?

The political class...oh wait, there is not supposed to be a political class....needs to be sent packing and if the current behavior doesn't encourage more of the base to leave Republican politicians flapping in the wind, then we have truly lost the base.

The Pledge

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

If you agree or support this pledge, please join in signing it here

The Crusades

Recently read a post about the potential of Al Gore getting involved in the 2008 Presidential race. Also, so talk of Newt doing so. My one and only response at this time to such?

To the Rescue: The Knights in Tarnished Armor.

A final tally

Foreclosures in my area(6 counties) finished the year up 30.24%. Two counties were over 50% (Dane 57.11%, Jefferson, 54.61%). Over the last 5 years, foreclosures area wide are up over 66%. I am undecided if I will review all 2,188 foreclosures to determine their outcomes. In the past, more than half of all foreclosure filings resulted in the loss of the home.

There is no indication that the rate of foreclosures is slowing at all.

Civilization

Over the holiday I got caught up in a special about the origins of humans. All the other issues aside, the thing that caught my attention was a researchers finding that a people in Asia were descendants of the original migration out of Africa. Specifically, the people were living in a village of huts made of mud and vegetation. 25,000 years of these people living in that area had produced, mud huts.

How many Muslim nations (nations where the majority of the population are Muslim) have provided ANY significant contribution to civilization in the last...200-300 years? (Don't be pathetic by noting civilization would not exist without Middle East oil. Such a contribution could have been made fish in the North Sea also...)

Except for the mineral deposits found under their feet, would civilization be any worse off if they all just ceased to exist? I AM NOT SUGGESTING ANYTHING. I note that advancements in medicine, technology, biology and society (democratic institutions) have ALL come from areas other than those dominated by Islam.

It is not enough to look at the appalling lack of advancement in many parts of the world without noting the dangerous situation happening in the US.

Over the last decade, between 347,000 and 544,000 10th- through 12th-grade students left school each year without successfully completing a high school program (table C1). Status dropout rates represent the proportion of young people ages 16 through 24 who are out of school and who have not earned a high school credential. Status rates are higher than event rates because they include all dropouts in this age range, regardless of when they last attended school.

In October 2000, some 3.8 million young adults were not enrolled in a high school program and had not completed high school. These youths accounted for 10.9 percent of the 34.6 million 16- through 24-year-olds in the United States in 2000 (table A, figure A, and table 3). As noted with event rates, status rates declined from the early 1970s into the late 1980s, but since then have remained stable (figure 2 and table B5).

The time period indicated in the first paragraph was 1990-2000. The quotes came from this report.

My first question is: what kind of jobs are these millions of uneducated Americans holding? Any? Minimum wage? Second question: are illegals taking the jobs these Americans would normally hold?

In some areas, the United States and other western nations have stopped advancements so that financial resources could be spent on the poorer in our societies. NASA is a prime example. "Why spend billions in space when we could use that money to build new schools!?" Apparently, the new schools are not helping as many as 1/3 of the students entering them.

Civilization is being drained of its ability to move forward by the demands of some to "lift up" those lower on the ladder. Civilization is being held back from advancing by the demands of those that contribute the least to sustaining it.

It is time we acknowledge that some people are going to be left behind. That attempts to minimize their numbers is a waste of resources.