Thursday, June 28, 2007

I Saw A Bumper Sticker Today

The bumper sticker said:

Clinton Lied
Nobody Died


I thought about that for enough microseconds to figure out what they were trying to say.

The Lie is "Clinton Lied, Nobody Died"

The Truth is "Clinton Lied, Many Have Died"


Soap Box Ravings

Monday, June 25, 2007

From My Little Brother

This might interest you, some history detail I've never read before. Don't think I've ever seen the third stanza in print...I've seen three verses, but the 1st and 2nd, with the 4th stanza as the 3rd. Of course, Britain is still our ally..../D

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The Star Spangled Banner

Unless you know all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner you may find this most interesting. Perhaps most of you didn't realize what Francis Scott Key's profession was or what he was doing on a ship. This is a good brush-up on your history. (FYI: Francis Scott Key lived in and is buried in Frederick, MD)

Editor's Note - Near the end of his life, the great science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national anthem. However brief, this well-circulated piece is an eye opener from the dearly departed doctor......)

"I have a weakness -- I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time."

NO REFUGE COULD SAVE: BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas. This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.

"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff"

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack.

The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England.

The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west.

The central prong was to head for the Mid-Atlantic States and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release.

The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort.) The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise? During World War I when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling):

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears. Pay attention to the words. And don't let them ever take it away ... not even one word of it.

Soap Box Ravings Says: "Amen"

Torture Versus Humiliation

A Navy POW from Gulf War, CAPT Larry "Rat" Slade, retired recently with the ordeal of his capture still vivid in his mind.

During his 22 years in the Navy, he flew in the backseat of a Tomcat fighter over four combat zones, graduated from Top Gun school and won the naval flight officer of the year award.

But one moment of Slade's career fails to fold neatly into a shadow box with a flag, ribbons and medals.

On Jan. 21, 1991, a cloudy, damp night over Baghdad, an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile blew the tail off his Oceana-based jet at 25,000 feet. Slade and the pilot, Lt. Devon "Boots" Jones, ejected safely and floated into the enemy's desert a mile apart. Jones was rescued. Slade was captured.

For the next 43 days, Slade endured interrogation, torture and starvation at the hands of Iraqis. The military code burned in his mind: "I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability."

It still smolders: Did he resist to the utmost of his ability?

"I struggle with that question today," he said.

During a rare interview, Slade recalled the still-vivid pictures of being shot down in combat. As his F-14 tumbled toward the desert floor and with his altimeter unable to track the smoky and rapid descent he ejected at 10,000 feet and landed in a remote, rocky region outside the Iraqi capital a few miles from the burning wreck of his airplane.

He sent out emergency signals religiously. No answer came.

The next morning, an Iraqi soldier and Bedouin stumbled upon his hiding spot. The young Navy lieutenant, armed with only a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver, surrendered. "I had no expectation of living through the experience the moment I was captured," he said.

Jones, his pilot, evaded capture and was rescued by a special Air Force unit.

Once captured, the Iraqi took Slade to a secret, high-security prison and kept him in solitary confinement. The Iraqis videotaped Slade and other prisoners and broadcast their capture to the world.

At the prison, interrogators questioned Slade repeatedly about his target and other military intelligence. "I was going to fight every single one," he said during the interview at his office.

The Iraqis met his stubbornness with violence. They smashed his nose and teeth, and pummelled his ribs and spine with a bat. They threatened to kill him."Day by day, Rat," he told himself. "Day by day."

In late February, American air dominance over Iraq expanded. An allied bombing raid severely damaged the secret prison. The prisoners were then transferred to a municipal facility in Baghdad - now famously known as Abu Ghraib where Slade endured more days with nothing more than soup - "oily water" - for sustenance.

During his 43 days of captivity, Slade had lost 45 pounds. The Iraqi beatings left him with permanent damage to his organs and spine.


Soap Box Ravings says: "Torture is the destruction of tissue which causes grievous and often permanent damage to the human body. Humiliation makes you feel upset without causing damage to the body.

This is posted only so those of the liberal persuasion can learn about the subtle differences between when Saddam Hussein controlled Abu Ghraib prison and the United States controlled the same prison.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Wow, The Feds Got One

Unwitting woman votes, faces deportation
Posted on aol.com: 5:28 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2007

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- All of her life, Zoila Meyer believed she was an American. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto.

But now she is facing a threat of deportation for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was 1 year old.

"To be honest with you, I'm scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?" the 40-year-old mother of four said in a telephone interview Friday.

"If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody," she said.

After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation.

Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,"' said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto.

She resigned after 10 weeks in office in Adelanto, a town of about 23,000.

Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse.

However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.

In April 2006, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting and was placed on probation, fined and ordered to pay restitution.

What Meyer didn't realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.

On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.

Her husband drove her to the office on Tuesday, "and they handcuffed me," Meyer said. "They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me."

"I said 'You're doing this because I voted?"'

The case is unusual but immigration officials were just doing their job when they arrested Meyer, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life," she said. "She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal. ... Everybody has due process when they're arrested."

Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.

Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.

Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.

"It makes me feel like we're all just numbers," she said of her case. "I see people writing 'this is my country.' It really isn't. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes ... you think you're free; you're really not."

Soap Box Ravings would like to point out that the Feds did not find this person, she was ratted out by someone else. As a police officer, we called the Feds to the Greyhound Bus Station to pick up illegal aliens, but the Feds were never interested and released everyone.

But I guess once you are outed, you are an easy kill for some lazy-assed armchair bureaucrat who can't get out of their own way.

Thirty-nine years of clean living in the good ole US of A and that is all the Feds can come up with.

When common sense can't be applied, blame is to be substituted.

It kinda makes you wonder, how much this deportation is going to cost the federal government in "well spent" dollars.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

It's All In How You Read The Story

Father Kills 300-Pound Bear With Log

AP, Posted on aol.com: 2007-06-22 21:19:43

HELEN, Ga. (June 22) - A 300-pound black bear raided a family's campsite, and the father saved his sons from harm by throwing a log at the beast, killing it with a single blow.

Chris Everhart and his three sons were camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia when the encounter happened Saturday. The bear took the family's cooler and was heading back to the woods when the youngest son, 6-year-old Logan, hurled a shovel at it.

The bear then dropped the cooler and started coming at the boy, said his father. Fearing what might happen next, Everhart, an ex-Marine , grabbed the closest thing he could find - a log from their stash of firewood.

"(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head," Everhart said. "I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear."


Everhart was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

"We've not had an attack in Georgia," Riddleberger said. "The key thing to learn from this is if there's a bear around, do not have your garbage or food available. If we manage our food, we won't have bears around."

The attack happened the same weekend that an 11-year-old boy was killed by a black bear while camping in a forest in Utah. Sam Ives was found mauled to death after he was pulled screaming from his tent in the Uinta National Forest, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

Authorities said it was the first recorded fatal attack by a black bear in that state. His family said there was no food in the tent to attract a bear.


Soap Box Ravings says "Since there has never been a recorded attack on a human by a bear in Georgia it is obvious in this case that the bear was the victim and Everhart had to be ticketed."

The Regional Game Magement Supervisor states basically that we should learn from this but it is hard to learn when you don't get the correct point. I can't help but wonder if those who actually work in the forest with the animals actually agree with this politically correct supervisor.

Soap Box Ravings says "The bears are there whether food is left out or not. It's the freaking woods, it is were they live stupid."

To me this is another reason why citizens should be armed when they are in the woods and they should be armed with large caliber weapons while in bear country.

As I have previously noted:

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Animal control, on the other hand, will be way, way, wayyyyy behind the arrival of the police officers.

Last year while on an alaskan tour to view bears, the Inuit guide carried a .338 Winchester Magnum rifle "in case we actually ran into any of the local bears."

Friday, June 22, 2007

Thursday, June 21, 2007

My E-Mail To President George Bush

President George Bush,

Just a few lines to let you know that my interest in Immigration has not died off.

I want:

1. The borders closed to illegal immigrants.

2. Convicted felons, sex offenders and people who have previously deported repeatedly either placed in prison or permanently removed from this country.

3. A realistic plan to allow persons to move across the border which eliminates the generation of anchor babies and wholesale attachments to our social security system.

4.After this is completed, then we can decide what to do with the remaining illegal immigrants in this country.

5. The language of this country is English.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

A Quote From Thomas Jefferson

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Soap Box Ravings asks:

What, was the straw that "broke the camels back" and ignited the Revolutionary War? If you think you know the answer, post a comment and let me hear your theory. A hint: The war was started when the first shots were fired at L******** and C*******. Waiting to hear from you.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Sound The Alarm, She's Coming

"Fairness doesn't just happen.
It requires the right government policies."

Hillary Clinton, May 29, 2007

China Is Our Friend, They Need Our Money To Conduct Business As Usual

China Attempting Cyberspace Dominance
Taken from Military.com

By Christian Lowe

June 14, 2007

The Air Force has been tracking aggressive cyber incursions by computer technicians in China, primarily focused toward gathering information on military network infrastructure and American trade secrets, the Air Force's cyber warfare commander said Wednesday.

"China has put a lot of resources into this business," said Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of Air Force Cyberspace Command. "China, at this point, is not interested so much in attack as they are in using the Internet to pull [industrial] data."

"They're interested in doing this in a way that they can be dominant without even having a fight," he added.

A recently-released Pentagon report on Chinese military development said Beijing is crafting an aggressive computer network operations strategy that the People's Liberation Army "sees as critical to achieving 'electromagnetic dominance' early in a conflict."

The vulnerability of networks and the disruption computer hackers can cause to a country's infrastructure was demonstrated in early May after cyber attacks on a wide range of civilian and government networks in Estonia crippled state-run banks, telecommunications companies and news organizations for weeks.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

At Least One Democrat Has Balls

Lieberman Favors Strike on Iran

Taken from Military.com

By Associated Press June 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our Soldiers."

The U.S. accuses Iran of fostering terrorism and Tehran's nuclear ambitions have brought about international reproach.

Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 who now represents Connecticut as an independent, spoke of Iranians' role in the continued violence in Iraq.

"We've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American Soldiers," Lieberman said. "Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them."

He added, "If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."

Lieberman said much of the action could probably be done by air, although he would leave the strategy to the generals in charge. "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran," Lieberman said.

"They can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Gun Control History

Here are some interesting historical situations from world history to think about:

Turkey established gun control in 1911. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

The Soviet Union established gun control in 1929. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million 'educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

A rough total of defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control is approximately 56 million.

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Also, it should be noted that in the first 12 months after Australian gun owners were forced by their newly passed gun control law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, (a program which cost Australian taxpayers more than $500 million dollars) the following results occurred:

Australia-wide, homicides increased 3.2 percent
Australia-wide, assaults increased 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed robberies increased 44 percent

In the State of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms increased 300 percent.

The weapons collected by the Australian Government were only the ones turned in by law-abiding citizens, criminals did not comply with the law and therefore, criminals still possessed their weapons!

Figures over the previous 25 years (before Australian gun control) showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms. However, this changed drastically reversed itself in the first 12 months after the weapons turn-in, as criminals were now guaranteed their prey was unarmed.

There was also a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns.

Results similar to Australia have also occurred in Great Britain and Canada.

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This information will not be presented by any of the American news media nor will you hear of it from our pandering politicians who must constantly invent situations in order to save the uneducated masses to ensure their re-election.

Our forefathers believed that "With guns, we are 'citizens' but without them, we are 'subjects'."
Soap Box Ravings likes to remind all:

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away!

Friday, June 01, 2007

Here Is An E-mail That Says It All To Me

Subject: GOODBYE GEORGE

We all have our disagreements with President Bush. Immigration, U..S. Attorney firings, Iraq , Darfur , etc. are all hot topics these days. The following "speech" was written yesterday by an ordinary Maineiac. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. An excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living. Sent with the author's permission.
=========================================

The speech George W. Bush SHOULD give:

Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not "fellow Americans" any longer.

I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people.

I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of minority homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don 't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq 's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this "Bush Lied, People Died" crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could been "discovered." Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.

Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named "William Jefferson Clinton" established that policy. Bet you didn't know that either, did you?

You idiots need to understand that today we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the bastards are all over the globe.

You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.

When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor'.

Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream of such a place) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there're just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

So that's it. God bless what's left of America .

Some of you know what I mean.

Three Things To Think About

1. COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a single cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, then track that cow's calves to their stalls. But, they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around the country.

Perhaps, we should give each illegal alien a cow.

2. THE CONSTITUTION

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them our Constitution. It was written by a lot of really intelligent people, and it has worked for over 200 years.

Besides, we're not using it anymore.

3. TEN COMMANDMENTS

The truth is, the real reason that we can't post the Ten Commandments in a courthouse is this:

Posting "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians would create a hostile work environment.