Letter to Senator Bill Frist

I wrote to Senator Bill Frist, stating my opposition to any sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants. It was a summary of a post I wrote on this topic. Senator Frist responed. I can't say that I'm satisfied.

Boycott Borders

I'm joining the boycott of Borders and sending back my Borders Rewards card. Read this piece in the Hartfort Currant to find out why. A quote:

Borders, which also owns Waldenbooks, announced last week that it would not carry the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine, which contains the Danish cartoons that offended many in the Muslim world. Though there have been no reports of direct threats against stores carrying the magazine, a Borders spokeswoman says the decision was "based on the potential for a compromise of the safety and security of our employees."

As Andrew Sullivan put it: "[V]iolence against free writers and artists gets results. We have all but invited more."

UPDATE: It turns out, you can cancel your Borders Rewards membership online. This is what I did.

South Park and Cartoon Jihad

I do not watch television, and I don't think I miss much, but I've heard good things about the animated cartoon "South Park", with its clever, biting satire, so I do wish I had the chance to watch it streamed on the Web, or buy individual episodes for download. Apparently, the latest episode ridiculed the sheepishness of the West when confronted with (possibility of) a threat of violence from an angry mob of Moslems. The Political Pit Bull posted a clip from the episode - do go see it - and it is, indeed, very funny (and, at the same time, very depressing, because it's so true...) [Hat tip: Michelle Malkin]

In this clip, the townsfolk of South Park are panicking, because a popular show ("Family Guy") is planning to show the famous "Mohammed cartoons" that so outraged Moslems. Fearing that their Muslim neighbors might riot, they ask the mayor of South Park what to do. An invited university professor offers this solution: bring a few truckloads of sand and have the townsfolk bury their heads in it. That way they won't be accused of watching the offending cartoons, and the rioting Moslems may leave them alone.

A lone voice protests, "We should all display these cartoons, to show that we're united in defense of our freedom of speech, and that we will not be intimidated by the threat of violence. Otherwise, we believe in the freedom of speech, but are not willing to defend it." (I'm quoting from memory, so the words used might have been different, but I think I captured the gist.) After a moment of meaning-laden silence, someone from the crowd responds: "I like the sand idea better. Seems easier." The crowd agrees.

It truly is a sorry state of affairs if cartoonists are the ones standing up for the value we seemingly hold so dear, while politicians, the mainstream media, businesses, even academia, are eager to bury their heads in sand and offer platitudes about "sensitivity".

Stuck in a time warp

What is with these bumper stickers, "Gore for President" or "Al Gore 2004" (and variations thereof)? I see quite a few of them around in the liberal Ann Arbor. What is this, a "Groundhog Day"? (Remember that 1993 movie with Bill Murray, in which he had to re-live the same day over and over again?) It's 2006, people! The election is over. (Bush won, by the way. This time by the popular vote as well.)

Ironically, the most famous outfit of the Livid Left is called MoveOn. (Yes, that's the one that held a contest of anti-Bush propaganda, in which at least one of the submitted ads equated Bush with Hitler. How original.) I hope they mean it as a reminder to themselves, because, apparently, that's one of the things the Left is not capable of doing.

There is also this yard sign that appears here and there: "Impeach Bush". That one never fails to bring a smile to my face. Yes, the President of the United States will be removed from office on the request of a few morons who put a yard sign. Why don't they add other, easy-to-fulfill wishes alongside that one? Like: "End Winter. Start Summer.", or "Free plastic surgery for every American!", or "Keep Heaven for Democrats only."

Payback time

Whoever came up with this is a freakin' genius:



If I get a request to donate to the RNC, this is what I'm going to send.

Leader of the Free World?

Didn't it fill you with pride, when, during the murderous riots in Muslim countries, spurred by a few, rather tame Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet of the so-called "Religion of Peace", our President and Leader of the Free World, George W. Bush sharply denounced the violence perpetrated by the rioting Moslems and often directed at innocent Christians, and then announced that the United States would continue to stand firmly on the side of the tiny and brave Denmark, as free speech is one of the values America holds most dear?

Only... it did not happen this way. The President, ever so brave, denounced... the cartoonists. I felt ashamed and betrayed. I voted for him in 2003 (due, to some extent, to the lack of alternatives. I could not possibly consider John Kerry), giving him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I even admired how he kept outmaneuvering the UN, the Democrats, the Livid Left who considered him an idiot (at their peril). Now, whatever trust I had, evaporated in the aftermath of this shameful display of dhimmitude. His subsequent advocacy of amnesty (by any other name) to the illegal immigrants pushed me over the edge. I no longer trust or respect the President.

Creeping amnesty, creeping sharia...

Diana West has an excellent piece in The Washington Times [hat tip: Michelle Malkin], which she ends with:

"It all begins to make sense, in a leftist, anti-American, open-borders coalition sort of way.
My question: Why does George W. Bush seem to have signed onto this coalition? "

It is my question as well. Why, indeed?