Been a while since I wrote last, and I'm still ticked about the Elian Gonzales deal, especially since our federal government raided the house. Now the kid's being paraded around to heavy-hitting democratic contributors, and not being given any free exposure to the press. And not too many in the press are yelling about it. The "rehabilitation" of this sad little boy has started. The people who are perpetrating this are monsters. And this country full of adult idiots voted them into office. [pant pant] I will not rant about this anymore. But I will kill the next Castro-loving liberal I see.

5/8/2000 7:16:56 PM

Thursday, April 13, 2000

Is it really possible people don't understand that Cuba is a prison island?

Look, I'm all for fathers and sons getting together, but if anybody thinks Juan Gonzales' appearance here in the states isn't completely orchestrated, complete with an "If you know what's good for you and your family back home," threat hanging over his head, they're crazy. I can't stand the thought of that little boy going back to Cuba for immediate indoctrination in how bad everything he saw and felt in America is.

4/13/2000 10:35:55 PM

Monday, April 10, 2000

Today I took my son Dylan to the Cubs opener at Wrigley Field in Chicago. It was cold, even snowed toward the end of the day, but it was a great day nonetheless. We were the guests of WGN Radio, because my company is an advertiser on the station from time to time. We attended the WGN opening day party at The Cubby Bear, Dylan got a baseball signed by Pat Hughes and Ron Santo, and at the bottom of the 9th, the Cubs pulled it out and won the game. Great memories for a kid and his dad.

4/10/2000 11:43:39 PM

Thursday, March 2, 2000

Shillong: The Media, Education and Sports Center is a great, very comprehensive collection of media online. Newspapers from around the world, radio (& video) stations, college newspapers, are all here. The interface isn't exactly what it should be, but you'll figure it out. One of my favorites, and it should be on any news junkies list.

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3/2/2000 7:45:10 AM

Wednesday, February 23, 2000

MATT DRUDGE // DRUDGE REPORT 2000® MCCAIN BLASTS RUSH LIMBAUGH Sen. John McCain is privately fuming over talkradio sensation Rush Limbaugh's repeated criticism of his candidacy. "What did I ever do to this guy?" McCain told an aide Wednesday morning. "He's just beating me up for running a fair and honest campaign. I just don't understand it." "The Limbaugh stuff is having an effect on the trail," one McCain adviser conceded. "He's been more effective mounting a defense than Governor Bush." McCain aides are deliberating whether to publicly fire back at Limbaugh.

McCain is showing his extremely thin-skin here. But the aide is right. LImbaugh probably IS better at defending Bush than Bush is. All above is credited to Drudge Report. Read it.

2/23/2000 11:43:30 PM

Radical Sheesh

Today at lunch with a very good friend I expressed the view that the welfare state creates victims more than it helps people. I'm a fan of Allan Keyes, who also believes this; that minorities and African Americans in particular are in fact more enslaved by welfare than helped by it... for a variety of reasons I need not dwell upon in this writing.

Anyway, my friend said that this was a "very radical" point of view. Radical? Compared to what? Galileo was a radical, as was Martin Luther, or Martin Luther KING for that matter. Radicals all, but it didn't make them wrong. It just made them feared until their ideas became mainstream.

2/23/2000 11:51:47 PM

Tuesday, February 22, 2000

I know I have the overzealousness of a kid with a new toy, but if you aren't reading the DRUDGE REPORT 2000®, you are missing a great resource.

2/22/2000 12:02:22 AM

I'm getting to the point where I hate politics.

I think it's the relentless pandering to what politicians think people think they want that bothers me. Few politicians really talk about what's right and wrong, and that these things are always right or wrong, regardless of what people vote for.

Politicians have trained people to believe that everything is open for discussion, "input" and vote by the public. If the public votes to deprive half the population of their incomes to support the other half, it isn't right. Politicians must know this, but they carry on the work of redistributing wealth -- without regard for who created it. They certainly didn't.

I realize this sounds like a standard Republican rant, but it's much more than that. Republicans are little better than Democrats these days in dancing around truth and right. Allan Keyes (I hope I've spelled his name right), is one who steers a moral course. Forbes is another. Look where they are in the polls. I don't agree with either of these men on absolutely everything, but I have a great respect for them, because their ideas on the rights of people, as they relate to economics and social policy, are dead-on. I part with Keyes in that I am not a religious man, but in most everything else, I have to agree with him.

To the point: I used to love politics. I still listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly, and I enjoy him, but am increasingly pessimistic about the chances that America will stay capitalist and free. Wimpy Republicans are much to blame for this, but also the whole tenor of politics. Winning arguments at all costs is OK, even if you win by lying, distorting and shouting the other guy down. Too stressful anymore. I've got enough to be worked up about.

Trouble is ... I'm afraid I'm addicted!

2/22/2000 10:09:14 AM

Monday, February 21, 2000

This is a journal I'm starting. However, it's not here because I want to do a lot of personal navel-gazine, etc. It's here because I want a regular, easy way to post opinions, political and otherwise, that can be read and archived somewhere on a regular basis. Plus, I'm trying out this Blogger technology that allows for this kind of remote-posting of information and ideas.

My politics -- Capitalist

I am and always will be a devotee of Ayn Rand. Her philosophy and politics are mine, 99 percent, anyway. The other 1 percent probably doesn't matter, and offhand, I couldn't tell you what comprises that small part of her philosophy with which I might take issue.

If you want to know what my philosophy, read Atlas Shrugged. It is as close to a Bible as I will ever have, probably. There are some problems with this philosophy, if you want to call them problems. but here are a few

• You can't make others responsible for your mistakes.
• You can't "trust in God" when you have something you can't understand or when misfortune befalls you.
• You can't bring yourself to vote for mindless boobs who promise you a better life at someone else's expense.
• You have to (gasp) think to survive.

More later from the trenches.

2/21/2000 11:00:52 PM

Following are some posts I laid down back when I started a journal that never got off the ground. Kind of interesting to see how the perspectives of then square with the reality of now.

October 3, 1999

The Candidates

It's a little early for this, but here are my thoughts on the various and sundry candidates and potential candidates for the 2000 presidential election.  

• John McCain: Basically a good guy, but his views on election reform, and more baffling, his support of the cigarette lawsuits, leave me quite cold. I'm a Republican, you see, but even more than that, I'm in favor of peoples' rights to do business, etc. Yes, cigarettes are bad for you, but they're legal, and you have the choice to purchase or not. This hand-wringing over Joe Camel being appealing to children is pretty silly, considering that a lot of adults enjoy the character as well. In an age when liberals are defending a dung-laden Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn Museum, it seems quite hypocritical for the same liberals to ban Joe Camel in clear violation of free speech principles.  
  
  Anyway, McCain's approach to this issue seems to fly in the face of free enterprise and freedom in general.  If kids are smoking (which is the grand excuse for all this curtailing of freedom), the problem lies with the people who sell ciggies to kids (this is already illegal) and the kids themselves, not to mention the parents.  Maybe the point is not to make sense, but to protect the right of lawyers to make money by suing the pants off law-abiding citizens.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, John McCain.  
  
  Having said all this, if McCain were the candidate against either of the two current Democratic candidates, I'd still have to vote for him.
  
  
• Orren Hatch: A Republican with a certain penchant for situational ethics. Contrary to what's fashionable opinion these days, I do not believe that Microsoft has, on balance reduced our choices in the world. Mr. Hatch was a strong defender of Clarence Thomas, as well as other conservative points of view. However, he has a blind spot (as do most legislators) when it comes to technology and the computer market. His support of the anti-"monopoly" attacks on Microsoft were obvious attempts to create artificial market-shelter for WordPerfect (originally based in his home state). The world of technology and the net is changing too fast for anyone to claim monopolistic control over it. Microsoft is dominant in desktop software because they make some of the best and most popular programs available. Sure they wheel and deal, and maybe some of their deals have been aggressive, but they don't "own" the market.
  
  I can cogently present some of these points of view at another time, but suffice it to say, by the time Orren Hatch (or any politican for that matter) identifies a problem in the techno world, it's already too late for any solutions to be meaningful. The market will have moved on. How many versions of Internet Explorer have come and gone since the Microsoft/DOJ trials have started? At least two. Sorry Orren, you're all wet.
  
  
• Steve Forbes: Despite the FDR-as-Howdy-Doody looks, despite the somewhat nerdy demeanor, this guy is very sharp. Put him on the ballot, any ballot, and I'll vote for him. He is the only candidate that really acknowledges that tax money, federal money, etc., is really OUR money and should be given back to us whenever possible.
  
  
• George W. Bush: Who the hell knows this guy? If he's the GOP Candidate, I'll probably vote for him, but ONLY because I wouldn't vote for Gore or Bradley. I'd like to know a lot more about him before I have to make that decision.
  
  
• Pat Buchanan: Pretty much a shot in the foot candidate at this point. I don't think he's really an anti-Semite (liberal media opinions notwithstanding), but he's gone loopy. As Kinky Friedman (see below) says, Pat is out where the buses don't run.  He's also against free-trade, which I think is wrong as hell. He's trying to appeal to a xenophobic union constituency with ideas that don't work and probably never will.
  
  
• Al Gore: I would almost never vote for a Democrat anyway, but here are my thoughts on Al. He's phony. Any dumb schmuck who would stand up and proclaim that Bill Clinton is one of our greatest presidents (as he did on the day of the impeachment vote) HAS to be faking it for the cameras. He's not actually dumb enough to believe that line, so he must have been lying. He could have defended Clinton without saying something that ridiculous.  But he did, and that alone makes him a jerk in my book. His environmental concepts are goofy, plus he talks in that kindergarten schoolteacher if-I-talk-slow-the-kiddies-will-understand-me voice. Real goddam annoying.

  A side note -- back when I worked for AAHA, the American Animal Hospital Association -- there was a veterinarian on our board of directors who liked to talk very slowly so the "lay people" would understand. We used to respond to him by talking even more slowly.  He never got it. 

• Bill Bradley: Generally, too liberal, too government-as-activist. I'd be quicker to vote for Gore, although not MUCH quicker.
  
• Jesse Ventura: Hmmm.  Not actually a candidate at this point, but a potential one.  I like his directness, his intolerance for political correctness, and his conservatism in general.  But he probably can't win even if he does run.  The head of the Reform Party asked for him to resign from the party over his comments about organized religion -- comments I applauded.  Jesse tried to backtrack on them, but I think it may be too late for him to take his remarks back and save himself with the bluenoses and religious-absolutists.  Too bad.  However unorthodox, Ventura is a voice of reason in many ways.
  

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Spam Report

I get a good deal of spam e-mail, and I suppose everyone who is online does, but a few days ago, I got something that was truly unique, even if the angle was pretty transparent.

It was an e-mail about spam. You could vote "yes" or "no" on spam (you're for it or against it) by calling one of two 900 numbers. What a brilliant scam! A spam scam!  Vote that you do or don't like spam like the one you've just received, and pay for the privilege of doing so.

When I first received this thing, I sat in amazement at it's bald-faced simplicity. Then I started wondering how many net-newbies would actually think it was legitimate. Quite a few, I surmised. The message stated that the price of "voting" would go toward publishing the "report" which would then be sent to the gods of the internet (Al Gore?)  This is tailor-made for frustrated people who don't understand how actual legitimate polling works, and who really think someone wants to hear their opinion.  

I guess it's sort of silly to analyze these things, but the net world would be a lot better off if more people would do just that.

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2/21/2000 11:14:30 PM

Here's another from October 3, 1999.

Kinky Friedman

I just finished "Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola" by Kinky Friedman. KF is a Texas-born and raised Jewish cowboy who plays the role to the hilt. In addition to being the leader of a band called the Texas Jewboys, who perform country and western songs with titles like "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns into Bed," he writes mystery novels, starring himself and several of his friends. "Elvis..." is a lot of fun, if not terribly deep. This book is a great entertainment with clever little joke lines like "They'd steal Jesus if he wasn't nailed down." Highly recommended, but not for children or the hyper-sensitive.

Kinky is covered by a number of web sites, but two good starting points are: Kinkajou Records and KinkyFreidman.com

2/21/2000 11:21:35 PM

This is what we get when Clinton is our commander-in-chief

From the Straits Times online edition

BERLIN -- China is ready to engage in war and even nuclear conflict with the United States should fighting break out over Taiwan, Der Spiegel magazine reports on the basis of a supposedly-secret Chinese file.

"Document No. 65", allegedly produced by the military sub-committee of the Chinese Community Party's central committee, discussed the possible course of a war over the disputed island claimed by China.

"We would have to make a military intervention as early as possible, before the American troops are fully operational," according to the document cited by the German magazine.

Faced with US bombardment of key sites and military installations, the document stressed that China has roughly the same level of conventional forces and would benefit from a fight close to its own territory.

While arguing that the US would have little interest in starting a nuclear war over the island, the file said that Beijing would be ready to turn to its nuclear arsenal should circumstances demand.

"We are ready to defend every square centimetre of our country," said the document.

Dated August last year, the analysis would appear to have been drafted during a low point in relations between Beijing and Taipei caused by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's insistence that his country should enjoy "state-to-state" ties with China.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has repeatedly warned that it would use force if necessary to ensure its return to the mainland.

2/21/2000 11:49:38 PM