I continue to fail to see how the Georgia lottery 'preys' on the poor. The lottery is one of the most transparent institutions in the state. No one hides the incredible odds of winning, and certainly no one hides the fact that much of the lottery's earnings go to college-bound students. There are no warnings like, "If you make over $20k, don't play the lottery." If someone is poor and chooses to spend all their money on Pick 6, well that's probably just another example of a lifelong series of bad choices that led to a small income in the first place. One might even say the lottery is a tax on stupidity. Most rich people got there by being smart, and they pay almost half their income in taxes for being smart. So why not a tax on stupidity, with the tax dollars going to the smart, the college bound?

http://members.cox.net/macallan_the/GW/GWBush1_Start.htm

Not sure if it's a real ad, or just something someone threw together to see what they could do, but it's a good one.

What do you get when you ahve politicians with no oversight whatsoever, and no constituency to be beholden to?

http://canadafreepress.com/cover_story.htm

So the Palestinians want the Jews out of Gaza and the West Bank. At least that is their current stated goal, one which the world at large seems to feel is mutually exclusive from another stated goal of getting rid of Israel entirely. At any rate, if the Jews have to get out of those areas, isn't it only fair that all the non-Jews get out of the rest of Israel? This is a huge double standard. If Israeli officials even suggested such a thing, they'd be called racist, whereas the Arabs can do it all they want and get applauded.

One again Kofi Annan and the United Nations are making a deal out of how the UN ought to get control of the internet. They had a meeting with ICANN, the group that controls domain names. BUsh and company, as well as the rest of the citizens of the United States cannot let this happen in any way! The internet is the best, most pervasive devices for spreading the ideals of democracy that the world has ever developed, and the United Nations would most likely curtail this. Remember, the UN is made up of most of the world's countries, which means that there are plenty of member states that are opposed to democracy in any form. Just imagine, the UN takes control of the internet, and some third world despot complains that is citizens are protesting and rebelling from the status quo due to the influence of a couple of websites set up by expatriates. Next thing you know those websites are gone due to their negative impact on world peace. The UN cares nothing about freedom of speech and information, all they care about is making their member states happy so they can stay influential.

I'm all for judging people by their character, not the color of their skin, which makes me wonder at the divisive situation going on between black fraternities and other fraternities at Georgia State. Phi Beta Sigma, a black fraternity, is upset that two members of Phi Kappa Alpha wore blackface to a party some of the Phi Beta Sigma members were at. The leadership of Phi Kappa Alpha suspended the offending brothers and apologized to the school. That, however, was not enough. Phi Beta Sigma obviously saw this as a perfect chance to improve their lot on campus, demanding more black faculty members, and a suspension of the entire offending fraternity. Georgia State should not tolerate such racist demands, and should ask Phi Beta Sigma to show proof that they themselves have tried to recruit non-black members, have included non-blacks in their own parties, and perform philanthropy for any non-black organizations. Until the blatant racism represented by Phi Beta Sigma and similar all-black groups is reined in, I fail to see how the administration can do anything but shun them. Anything else would be hypocritical in the extreme, and an insult to such heroes as Martin Luther King Jr., who would be disgusted at the current level of "reverse-racism" in our society.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/032204A.html

What a great article! I suppose I'd have to call myself a Jacksonian. It's nice to see an intelligent look comparing current day views to the beliefs of groups in the past. I tire of seeing people writing about Democrats and spouting out nonsense that no Democrat has talked about in 100 years. It's not the same party anymore! Then again you ahve other people who talk about how the GOP is a racist organization and was founded to be such. Actually, if my high school history serves me, the Republican Party was founded chiefly to fight slavery. Doesn't sound racist to me. And today they basically serve the same idea, freedom for all.

Stories about how 'anti-war' and 'peace' protestors violently attacked people carrying signs favoring the other side are always popping up. Funny how you never hear about pro-war protestors attacking the peace marchers. I suppose it's because pro-war people understand there is a time for violence and it's called war. Anti-war people (as usual I understand that not everyone against war falls into this category) seem so full of hate and vitriol for anyone who disagrees with them that in their own minds they see no hypocrisy between attacking pro-war demonstrators and decrying Israel's assasination of a man who was responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of Israeli deaths.

If you don't like Bush's personality, then go ahead and bitch. If you don't like his tax cuts,a nd think that things that help the economy (check the numbers) are bad, then go ahead and bitch. If you didn't like the Iraq war, and still don't, then botch. But don't come to me bitching about how Bush is taking away your civil liberties if you can't then name a single civl liberty of yours that has been taken away. I see this charge against the administration all the time, yet never once have I seen it followed up with even a single concrete example of such.

I just read an article about a Palestinian that was murdered by other Palestinians who mistakenly thought he was a Jew. No word on whether European leaders are condemning this attack against a Palestinian. I suppose since he was not killed by a Jew, there's no political leverage to condemn it. No one cares.

Why is it that European leaders are quick to comdemn Israeli attacks on terrorist leaders, but never once have bothered to condemn terrorist attacks against random civilian Israelis?

I read an article where some guy was bitching about graduation rates for minorities and how they suck. Public schools with mostly white students have significantly higher graduation rates than schools that are majority minorities. The author takes that to mean that the school system is failing these minorities. Perhaps we should look at this a different way. Maybe minorities are failing the schools. Parents don't encourage their kids to learn, other kids make fun of high achievers, all that sort of thing is the problem. Sure, the schools are probably not as nice, but then again one of the reasons my school was so nice was that the students took pride in it, parents helped out, and teachers had a great teaching environment with kids that wanted to do well. None of that costs more money, all it takes is a community that wants good schools and is willing to put time in to it and not expect the government to solve everything by throwing more money at problems.

If you look at the numbers, the job losses and unemployment rates in the U.S. aren't so bad. Granted, if you're one of the washed masses currently looking for work, the numbers don't matter, you just need a job. But when I look at the numbers I see that far more people are employed than ever have been in history, and the unemployment rate, though higher than before the dot.com bust, is lower than it was for most of the 70's, 80's, and 90's. You'll never hear John Kerry mention that, because people might realize that the recession we had was relatively minor, and only bad in comparison to the dot.com era. Any comparisons to the dot.com era are unfair, as that created one of the largest bubbles in history. In other words there were far more people employed at the time than the economy really could support. Now that we are more realistic numbers, and still better than just about any westernized country has ever been, the Democrats complain that we aren't at the miracle numbers of a few years ago. That sort of economy is just not sustainable, but the average American will simply listen to what the media tells them.

A direct quote from an email sent to Instapundit:


Bush seems to be falling victum to his own success. We have been so successful in the war on terror that the country doesn't see it as a war anymore.

Consider the following: If you were told on 9/21/2001 that by this date:

The Taliban have fallen

Iraq has fallen and has become a bastion of free press in the islamic world.

Libya had given up its WMD's

North Korea is in multi-lateral talks about WMD's

A majority of the leadership of Al Queda are dead or in custody

Pro-democracy rumblings are going on in Iran

Arafat is isolated

Many convictions of domestic sleepers or Al Queda members (Portland, NY etc...) and finally

NO SUCCESSFUL TERROR ATTACKS ON US SOIL

And all of this has cost less than 1000 dead American soldiers.

You'd be thinking "not bad."

Bush said in his Sept. 20th speech that even if the country forgets he will not. He was right.