Oil or Lawsuits, Which Do We Need More?

Newt Gingrich YouTube Video Newt Gingrich makes several excellent suggestions to help solve the problem of the high price of gasoline. Build nuclear power stations, open the national reserve, drill all over the US and off shore are all good ideas. We need to move to create more energy. Conservation is only able to buy time, when you buy time, you need to have a plan to get over the crisis, using the time you have bought with conservation. His idea about opening the national oil reserve is brilliant. He thinks it will drop the price of oil immediately and wipe out all the speculators. Commodity speculation is just a form of legalized gambling, and wiping out a few of them is not a bad idea. It is interesting to note that Republicans keep coming up with ideas to actually produce more oil, more coal, more electricity, where the Democrats want to hold hearings, raise taxes, sue OPEC, and otherwise do things that will not create a single watt, or horsepower of energy. Something to keep in mind when you vote next. Vote for people who will get us more energy, rather than people who will give us more lawsuits. I think we need more oil, rather than more litigation, that's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Too Many Lawyers

Should being a lawyer disqualify you from holding public office? Lawyers are vastly over represented as law makers. No wonder our legal system is so complex. Laws should be simple to understand and the way we understood the law yesterday should be the way it is understood today. The California State Supreme Court interpreted the marriage laws to say that men can marry each other. That was not what the legislature intended when they wrote that law. That is not how that law was interpreted for the last 150 years that California was a state. Why should a group of lawyers make changes in the law without the consent of the people? Far too many of our laws are so complicated only lawyers can understand them. With lawyers making all the laws, how can we expect otherwise? It seems to me to be a conflict of interest to have lawyers make the laws, sit as judges and then make money on lawsuits and trials. It seems like many of them could simply be making laws to their own advantage. By restricting lawyers from holding office, perhaps laws will be simpler, not so in need of interpretation. If a law is properly written, why do we need interpretation? I have always thought that an interpretation should simply be at the margin, rather than the main idea of the laws. In California we have a state preemption on firearms laws. Local cities can't make laws to restrict most firearms ownership. Yet liberals in city after city pass illegal laws to restrict firearms ownership. What penalty is there for these city councils who pass illegal laws? Should they be prosecuted for making laws that are illegal? The rest of us are required to obey those laws until we can go to court and get them invalidated. Again the entire procedure is filled with lawyers making laws and making each other rich while restricting the freedoms of the rest of us. Perhaps if we restrict the ability of lawyers to infiltrate every aspect of the legal system we would all be better off, that's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

No Stepping Stones

Caroline Kennedy's New Profile: Politics - AOL News Another Kennedy tries to get into politics. The wife of an ex-president runs for Senate, and then tries to run for president. The son of a president gets elected as president. Too much political power is in the hands of too few people. I think that both presidents Bush have done a good job but with hundreds of millions of people in our nation, we don't need to have such a small pool of people running the government. I am not related to anyone who was ever president. If I was president it would be unseemly for me to have my wife or son or grandchild to become president. Many people complain that Washington is filled with insiders who don't understand the real world. The people who run the government need to be people who live in the real world. I have to deal with taxes, and pot holes, and crime and high gas prices. I suspect that Hillary Clinton and President Bush don't have to live with any of those as individual problems. More regular people need to become involved in politics. Term limits should keep politicians from having lifetime careers as politicians. In my opinion, no politician should be permitted to run for one office while holding another. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain should have to resign their office as Senator to run for president. Maybe that would make people think twice before they try and use each position as a stepping stone to the next level, that's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Free At Last!

On April 19, 1775 a battle for firearms freedom was won by the citizens of Massachusetts when they fought the Battle of Lexington Concord against the British army regulars who wanted to take their guns from them. This week another in the continuing battle for firearms freedom was won by a private security guard against the City of Washington D.C. who wanted to take his guns from him. The Supreme Court of the United States sided with freedom by ruling that the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights applies to individuals, not to the states. Foolishly several members actually dissented and declared that individuals have no right to keep and bear arms. How could anyone think that the American Revolution which started as a shooting war to protect the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms would end with a Constitution that did not protect those very rights? This is the first time in many decades that the Supreme Court has ruled on the Second Amendment and I hope that this is the first of many attempts to remove restrictive and illegal gun laws that oppress our people across the nation. The next few years will see the retirement of several members of the Supreme Court, and so keep firearms freedom in mind when you vote in November. The person who is our next president will likely be able to appoint enough members to affirm or destroy this ruling. The Second Amendment is the protector of all of the others, that's the view here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Fingernails and Your Son?

80% of Roman Catholics don't go to church on the average Sunday. What percentage of Muslims in Iran do you think missed going to the Mosque this week? We look at our nation and act surprised that with most people claiming to be Christians and they belong to denominations that don't believe in abortion and yet, hundreds of thousands of abortions happen every year. They happen because the faithful don't practice the faith that they believe. Science tells us that when they take the egg of a cow and the sperm of a bull and combine them together and we get a new cow or bull. They do this in test tubes all the time to breed new cattle and even to clone copies of animals. When this happens naturally inside the cow, again science tells us that a new animal has been created. Yet, when this series of actions happens inside a human, we are told it is just "tissue." It is no different to destroy that "tissue" than it is to cut your hair or trim your finger or toe nails. Destroying that "tissue" is not a moral issue because it is not "alive." It is alive. It is alive and developing. It is alive and developing and growing. It is fully alive and fully human once the egg and sperm unite. All that is left is development and aging and natural death. Unless it is killed. And killing that separate new life is what abortion is, not simply cutting your hair or trimming your finger nails. I pray that those Roman Catholics will go to church this Sunday. I pray that they will begin to live their faith in the world when they go out of the church. I pray they will vote their beliefs when November comes and we have to choose between life and death. That's what is happening here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Barring a Third Party Problem

GOP Frets Barr Could Become Spoiler - AOL News The GOP is worried that a third party candidate may cause McCain to lose the election by taking a few points away from him in the election. People who vote for third party candidates need to carefully analyze the effect their vote will have. I have voted for a third party candidate in the past. If I am a generally conservative voter and I don't like McCain, I have to think carefully about what my vote for a third party person will do to the election. If I do not vote for McCain and he loses, I may have helped give the election to the very ultra liberal Obama. If I vote for the third party candidate and McCain wins then I have sent a message that McCain is not conservative enough. Is it worth sending that message when the election is very close? Is it worth the damage an Obama presidency can do if he gets elected because we avoided voting for McCain and voted third party? I would like a president who is much more conservative than either President Bush or McCain. I do not think that any third party conservative has a chance to win the election. I do think that a conservative third party candidate has a good chance of taking a close election away from McCain and giving it to Obama. It is not a good idea to vote for the conservative we really want, knowing not only that he can't win, but more importantly, knowing that voting for him will bring a disaster to the nation. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Poll This

Americans Tolerant of Religions, Poll Says - AOL News A new poll shows Americans are tolerant of other religions. Then they go on to make many assumptions about what that means. They allude to people who are strongly religious being opposed to gay marriage and abortion, but don't bother to cite the figures. Then they cite figures when they think they can show that there is strong evidence to support liberal causes. I think too much time is spent on polls and what they mean. Yet, two polls will be taken at the same time on the same subject and have two different results. Polls are what I like to call "made up news." They really don't provide any real information, often they simply tell us what the pollster wants to prove. News shows on television and radio often tell us they are short of time, yet have time to waste on polling data. AOL seems to have polls on something nearly every day, yet almost never has any news about the War on Islamic Terror. If people want an opinion, they can come here and get one...from the Hysterical Right Wing.

A Group of Dim Bulbs

Congress is considering making the compact fluorescent light bulb mandatory in the next couple years. These bulbs contain mercury and have to be disposed of as hazardous waste. They are only made in Communist China. So the same Congress that thinks that it is a waste of time and effort to drill off shore and to drill for oil in Alaska thinks so much energy will be saved using these new light bulbs that we have to make them mandatory? We are at war, and I think that a fair amount of the price of oil is due not only to escalating international demand for oil, but also due to fear that the war will spread, especially to Iran. If war comes with Iran or if the Israelis attack Iranian nuclear facilities, there could be another Tanker War. Iran could use it's tiny navy and coastal defense weapons to try and blockade the waterways that border their nation. Much of the Middle East's oil passes within missile range of Iran. Companies are hedging their bets in case this happens, if for no other reason that the price of insurance for tankers will increase dramatically. Seems to me like the Congress is concentrating on marginal issues that really won't do any good, and ignoring the big problems that have caused oil prices to increase. Fear of war, and short supply. But it is easier to force housewives to buy new light bulbs than it is for them to buck the environmentalist lobby or stop Iranian nuclear ambitions. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Not Lost More Like, Not Taking Any Calls Today

Story Behind 'Lost Tribe' Photos Revealed - AOL News When I read a story that someone says they have discovered a lost tribe of Indians deep within the rain forest of Brazil, that conjures up an image of guys in pith helmets wandering the jungle for weeks. They hack their way into the trees and discover natives that were never before seen by civilized men. Apparently the new definition of finding a lost tribe is that we fly over some folks we have been watching for the last twenty years! Twenty years. That hardly seems like much of a "lost" tribe. Come to find out that what they really had is a political agenda to get logging stopped in the area. All right then, it is okay to mislead people as long as you have the appropriate political agenda. That seems to be the message in the story. I am opposed to illegal logging. I am opposed to illegal activity of most any type. I am also opposed to lying to achieve your political goals. These folks used the media and their special relationship with these indigenous people to try and fool the rest of us into a crack down of illegal loggers. It makes it hard to make good decisions when the information that you are given is false. I think the people who took these photos and made these false claims should be fired. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

We Are So Proud of You

Today I was reading a copy of Life magazine from 1945, printed during World War Two. It struck me that nearly everything in the magazine was working toward victory in the war. What struck me the most was the advertising was all about the war. These cigarettes are smoked by our submarine sailors. Don't tie up the long distance phone lines in the early evening so our soldiers on leave can call home. Our automotive company makes products for the military and civilian use. Later, I was watching television and saw a commercial that showed a young man in fatigue type clothing in a tent surrounded by supplies. He is talking on a video conference call to his family, obviously from a very remote location. His family was talking to him and saying how much they miss him and how important it was that he was doing international relief work!!!!!! We have tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines overseas fighting a war against a terrible enemy and this company features some shrub doing relief work! Our nation needs to do a much better job about showing support for our troops. Even the anti-war people claim that they support the troops, so why don't we see that support? Nearly every Hollywood movie and TV show is not merely anti-war but anti-troop as well. Our nation needs to get serious about this war. The enemy is serious, that's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

No Substitue for Victory

In World War II Nazi spy's and saboteurs landed on the Eastern Seaboard and thanks to a couple who turned states evidence and alert FBI agents all of them were captured. They were tried by military tribunals and most of them were executed within a couple months. After the war, an International Tribunal tried the defendants at Nurenburg for various war crimes. Some of them, like Rudolf Hess had been held in custody for years without lawyers or representation of any kind. Recently, the US Supreme Court held that illegal combatants in custody at Guantanamo were entitled to legal representation. Why is that? We are at war. They do not deserve legal representation. They are not prisoners of war and they are not criminals. The war is still on going. They do not deserve any special rights because they do not fall under any of the categories that are entitled for special rights. Then the news media explains this ruling by saying that President Bush has lost in front of the Supreme Court. President Bush is not the enemy. International Islamic Terrorists are the enemy. And our media and our courts need to get serious about fighting this war. We lost the Viet Nam War and they did not follow us home. We lose this war and the bad guys will come here again and again; they already have. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Suffer the Little Children

Mom Fights Church Ban on Autistic Son - AOL News It's all about me. Me and mine. I want my son to attend this church and no matter how disruptive he may be to the service and the other parishioners, I want him here and you have to accommodate me. A woman has an autistic son and wants him to attend church services. That's a good thing. He has a history of being disruptive during the service and as he is getting older the church is concerned about his conduct during services. He may knock over some old person, he makes noise and distracts the other worshipers, and that's a bad thing. The church says they have offered to make alternate arrangements for them, but the mother has refused. The mother says he is not dangerous and he has never hurt anyone. I am sure that he would not intentionally hurt anyone. But just because his intention is not to hurt does not mean the result will be no harm to others. He is over six feet tall, and over 200 pounds, and sometimes must be restrained due to his behavior. I can imagine the disruption that creates to a church service when a family is wrestling with a 200 pound teenager in the back of the church. The mother wants to attend services because she says there is an obligation to do that. She is correct. But there is no obligation to attend when everyone else does, the church could perform a private service or even take communion to their home. The boy has an illness, no different from any other illness that might prevent someone from attending church. The article says the boy at one time started someones car in the parking lot. Is there really no danger when a 13 year old boy is trying to drive someones car? What would have happened had the boy ran someone over? Or if during the time they are wrestling with him in the back of the church he knocks over some little old lady and breaks her hip? Is the mother really acting in the spirit of humility that Jesus wants us to act in? The church is obligated to try and figure out a way that the boy can worship, but he does not have to attend church with everyone else if it imperials others, that's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Mystery Fuels

Congress says that we must not drill off shore in US waters, and we must not drill in Alaska either. What are we supposed to do in the meantime as gasoline prices continue to rise? Their suggestions are that we should conserve and rely on new technologies. They fail to tell us how much we are to conserve and what the new technologies are going to be. I work 50 miles from my home, am I to simply quit my job and look for new work closer to the house? I live in Southern California, am I to take the non-existent bus line to my job? They do tell us the new technologies will not be nuclear. Even liberal France and earthquake prone Japan use massive amounts of safe, clean nuclear electricity. Why is it good enough for them but not good enough for us? What do they do with their nuclear waste? Certainly a tiny nation like Japan must have figured out something that will work in a huge country like the USA. As the billions of people of China and India move from subsistence farming to middle class urbanites they will want the same sort of live we have here in the USA. Nice homes with electricity, running water, flush toilets, and a car in the driveway. The need for more energy will only increase the international demand for oil. As the US refuses to drill for domestic oil and looks to mystery technologies, I hope I can still get to work in a few years, and afford the fuel costs we pay here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

The Third World

I was on line today talking to a friend in Brazil. He and I both collect toy soldiers. I mentioned to him that it is nice that he is from Brazil and has the same hobby as me in the USA. I told him that with the billions of people in China, India and South America toy soldier companies should look to expand their markets in those areas. He buys a set of soldiers made in China, by an American company, that are then shipped to the USA and sold to him and shipped in Brazil. He says he pays as much as $50 for a set of figures that in the USA costs less than ten dollars. I wonder why American companies still flock to China when nations like India and Brazil should be able to produce most of the products the Chinese make? The difference is that the USA does not view either India or Brazil as potential opponents in any future war. I think that the US should focus trade policy on nations that are allies and nations that are not likely potential opponents. Giving billions of dollars to China does not make much sense to me. I would rather spend the money in other places that have better human rights records and don't rattle sabers at me here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Fill 'Er Up?

The price of gasoline continues to skyrocket, and yet the politicians in Washington do nothing about it. The Saudis actually announced they will increase production to help lower the price, after food riots in some areas. All the Congress wants to do is pass a windfall profits tax. So reward the politicians with more of our money to spend because some companies made more money. Nice plan. The government has been saying for thirty years we need to work towards both energy Independence and freedom from reliance on Middle East oil. After that time, we still depend heavily on imported oil and are no where near energy Independence. We have tried conservation and mandates for automobile fuel economy. These are a total failure. We need to use more domestic coal, drill for oil off shore and in Alaska, and build nuclear plants. Until we do these things we are not being serious about the price of gasoline, and energy independence. Windfall profit taxes, tax moratoriums on gasoline, and all the rest are simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. International demand for oil will continue to increase as more Third World countries develop middle classes and seek better lives. The US cannot conserve itself into energy Independence or prosperity, that's what drives us here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Teach Me by Lying to Me

Teachers Defend DWI Shock Tactics - AOL News Teachers and Highway Patrol Officers went to a local school and told the kids that some of their classmates had been killed in a drunk driving collision. Okay, I am all about the drunk driving prevention, but there are limits to everything. By lying to the students, the Highway Patrol Officers and the teachers damage their credibility. Often as police we have to tell people bad news and this will only make bad news seem more unbelievable. I have never seen any evidence that this type of shock training actually works to prevent students from drunk driving. Certainly kids are killed in drunk driving collisions every day, if you need to tell the kids about it, find a real event and describe that to them. A good story teller certainly should be able to bring tears to their eyes by telling them about the young lives that were lost prematurely. Creating false traumatic events for kids is not a good idea. Life can be hard enough without lying to kids to try and change their bad behavior. I understand the motivation behind this incident, to keep kids from drinking and driving by shocking them into the realization that drunk driving is potentially deadly for them and their friends. Despite this intention, it is not a good idea and they should not repeat this exercise. On the other hand, the parents should not rush out and hire attorneys to sue everyone involved in this incident. The parents should express their concern to the principal and to the school board that it is unacceptable for this type of training exercise to be repeated and it should end there. They should also contact their local Highway Patrol office and tell them the same thing. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

It Is All Just Love

More Americans Find Living Together OK - AOL News As Western Civilization continues it's slow decline we get a survey telling us more people think living together without being married is okay. This is one reason why gay marriage is no big deal to people. We are allowing ourselves to accept any relationship as okay. First we accept that divorce is fine, the husband was abusive or the wife slept around. Then we accept divorce on demand, when ever people grow apart or just get tired of each other they can get divorced. Once marriage becomes easy to dissolve, disposable, people think that living together to see if they are going to be compatible is okay, probably even a good idea so they don't end up getting divorced. People do that for a while and eventually they accept living together with no intention of ever getting married, because it's all about the love. Now, of course, people don't even pretend that, it's all about the sex, or paying the rent. So naturally, why not let two gay people get married? Everyone just lives together anyway, marriage is just a piece of paper there is no meaning to it anyway. Groups get married in Texas, and have children. Men marry little girls and have children with them too. Marry your sister or your mother. Why not, it's all about people who "love differently." And love is a good thing. Marriage is a sacred bond between an adult man and an adult woman who are not related that is sanctified by God and this union is recognized by the state. This nation was founded on Christian values. As we move into the 21st Century we need to remember that and realize we are not smarter than the founders who gave us this nation 200 years ago, nor are we smarter than the Apostles who gave us these values 2,000 years ago. That's how far back we look here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Will a "California Style" Marriage Work?

http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2008/06/10/marry-or-be-fired-iranian-state-firm-warns/... A company in Iran has told it's employees they have to get married by September or they will be fired. Now, I am all about the family values, but I don't think it is correct for companies to force people to get married or they will lose their jobs. Under the totalitarian Muslim regime in Iran this sort of thing goes on all the time. Women are being told their clothing does not conform to the requirements of the government. This is the type of oppression that people in the Western world would find impossible to live with, yet they refuse to believe that nations like Iran pose a danger to us. They continue to think that radical Muslims will leave us alone if we just leave them alone. The radicals want to take over the world and create a one world government under Islamic law. They will not go away, they will not leave us alone. The Iranians tell the West what their goals are and yet we refuse to believe them, and act surprised when something bad happens. OBL declared war on the United States, and then we acted surprised when 9/11 came along. It is important to listen to what these people say and watch what they do, then extrapolate their capability to enforce their will on the future. These are the same people who say they want to destroy Israel and then try to develop nuclear weapons. What will it take before the West wakes up to the danger, or will they sleep until it is too late to act against them? Perhaps they will wait until their employer tells them to get married or get fired. Won't bother me, I am already happily married here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

If It's Profitable, It's Legal

Gay Marriage Could Be Worth Billions for California

Of course, it's not about right or wrong, it's all about the money. Our governor won't support an initiative to stop gay marriage, he wants the state to get the revenue. Bring all the gays into California so they will spend money here. Perhaps we can increase the marriage license fees to $10,000 per couple so we can see just how much revenue we can raise with this new opportunity? Straight couple can always zip over to Nevada or down to Mexico to get hitched, so this won't pose an undue burden on them.

This could be a golden opportunity for the Golden State. Raise marriage license fees to $10,000 per couple and then few gays will get married here because they won't have the money. Or if they manage to come up with the cash, we can help solve our budget problems. Naturally, those who don't have $10,000 will sue, but that will just generate more revenue for our states attorneys and certainly our economic slowdown must be hurting them too?

As slow as our courts are all this will become a moot point when the election is held in November and gay marriage goes down in flames, so to speak. There is an initiative that will be on the ballot to state what is obvious to all but state supreme court justices, that marriage is between one man and one woman. I anticipate this initiative will pass, but only after a difficult fight. The gay lobby has much riding on this and will try everything to defeat this bill. I think this is the real reason the justices won't stay their ruling until after the election, they want to have tens of thousands of gay marriages on the books before then so they can claim it would be wrong to revoke them.

The legal confusion caused by this ruling is going to be terrible with other states having to deal with this issue once their citizens return home from a trip to California to get married. Then if the initiative passes what happens to all those who got married under the present rule? Will their "marriages" be invalid? I hope they will be, but again another opportunity for the supreme court to defy common sense and good judgement. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Life Expectancy

A recent study shows the US life expectancy went up by four months, so the average is now over 78 years in the USA. This is good news. They say the greatest single reason this has gotten better was a mild flu season in 2006. So despite all our greatest medical advances, a mild flu season is more important than any other factor. I recently read that tens of thousands of people die every year from infections they get in the hospital. That is more people than are murdered and die in auto accidents. Why is it we don't have more people upset over this seemingly preventable problem? Perhaps it is another case of the media splashing headlines for every murder and every car crash on the 6:00 o'clock news but ignore the quiet death of people in the hospital? A few weeks ago I was watching a man explain his heart doctor told him he needed a triple bypass surgery. A second opinion showed not only did he not need the surgery but that his heart was relatively healthy. The first doctor apparently was simply trying to make money by doing an unneeded surgery. The man interviewed said that 5% of those surgeries result in the death of the patient. So if this doctor does one hundred unneeded surgeries a year, he is murdering five people a year! It seems to me with all these problems there should be greater scrutiny paid to our medical professionals. Whenever a police officer shoots someone there is a full investigation to determine if it was justifiable. Any injury traffic accident results in an investigation of the incident. Perhaps whenever someone dies in the hospital or under the care of a doctor, the incident should always be investigated by independent persons to determine the cause of death and the appropriateness of the treatment. It is done now by coroners only when foul play is suspected or when a doctor does not sign the death certificate. That seems like a lot of power to a doctor, much more than is given to any other member of society. This type of investigation of cause of death should give us a better analysis of the cause of death and the value of the various treatments. That's our prescription here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Knife Control, Inc.

Rampage Suspect Posted Warnings - AOL News Another mentally ill man attacks people and murders at least seven. He had posted messages on the Internet warning of his intended crimes, yet was able to carry out his threats despite the public warning. This attack underscores several issues that are not being dealt with in the Western world. People who are mentally ill are allowed to wander our streets unsupervised and obtain vehicles and weapons to murder and injure innocent people. The care of the mentally ill, even if it requires locking them up and treating them against their will, is an issue that needs to be addressed. Ironically, we want mentally ill people to commit themselves voluntarily before we will help them and we want them to be able to pay for the treatment. If they could make money and make good decisions, they would not need to be locked up! Then you have the issue of weapons. Interesting how the article about Japan says that gun violence is rare in Japan due to guns being tightly restricted and shootings rare but "he exception is gang violence, but gangsters do not generally attack the general public." You think? Just like Los Angeles and New York City where most gun violence is gang related. Now they want to regulate large knives, like the five inch bladed one this criminal used. Five inches, when did that get to be the definition of a big knife? Go into your kitchen right now and see how many of those you have on hand. Criminals and crazy people will always be able to get weapons, Japan shows that to be true. A good police force, courts that support law and order (in Japan nearly everyone arrested is convicted and they have and use the death penalty) and a populace the supports decent behavior, and a mental health system that locks up the dangerous people will make a safe society. It works in Japan were no one has a gun, and it works in Switzerland where everyone has an assault rife and a concealed handgun. That's the view through my sights here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Mayor Money

Mayor Plans to Veto Raise for Himself - AOL News Thank God for public servants who actually understand they are to serve the public good, not just serve themselves. The city council wants to raise the pay of this mayor by over $25,000 a year in order to attract top candidates for the job at the next election. Why can't public spirited citizens run for office, work for a term or two and then leave public life? Return to making a payroll and living under the laws and taxes they enact on the rest of us. The job of mayor probably already pays more than the average citizen of that city makes. Again, what happened to public service? I wonder if there is not another more sinister reason to raise his pay? How is the pay of the city council in comparison to that of the mayor? Is their pay tied to the mayors pay? Do they think it unseemly to give themselves a raise without raising his pay? If it is simply a matter of raising the mayors pay, why not make the effective date after the election, perhaps the present mayor would be more willing to do that. I don't think that any elected official should be able to raise their own pay or increase their own benefits. They should vote for it and have to wait until they have to face an election before any increases could go into effect. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Live Long and Prosper

Lost tribe discovered deep in Amazon: officials Lost tribes have been discovered in the Amazon and other parts of the world. They say there may be as many as 100 tribes that have no contact with civilization. I read more about it and find out the Prime Directive is apparently real. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive In Star Trek advanced civilizations are not supposed to contact more primitive ones. Now, here today, on planet Earth there are those who prevent others from contacting these primitive lost tribes. These are real people, not fictional people. If these people get sick, they may really die. If there is a famine, they may really die. These people are doomed to live the same harsh, brutal life that man lived ten thousand years ago. No vaccinations, no computers, no air conditioning, no phones, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury. These are not fictional people. These are not toys for anthropologists to play with. These are living souls who have human value. They will never know the word of God and the love of Jesus, because governments and scientific organizations want to play god with the lives of these people. Rather than keep them as playthings for scientists, they should develop protocols to make contact with these real human beings, and let them join the family of man. That's what I do here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Mom Forced To LIve In Car

Mom forced to live in car with dogs - CNN.com Mom forced to live in car with dogs. A woman loses her job and so lost her apartment, and ends up living in her car with two golden retrievers. She parks her car in a parking lot where homeless people go to live together in their cars. The woman refuses to take help from her daughter. She works and gets paid $8 per hour and gets Social Security. Notice the manipulation of the headline. Mom. Not just woman, but mom. She is a mom, in that she has three adult children, but I don't think I would have described her that way. Mom makes it seem as if her four year old is living there with her in the car. According to the article she has refused help from at least one of her children. And if she lost her job, shouldn't she have been getting unemployment insurance for six months? Certainly that could have helped in the transition to a cheaper place. With two big dogs that will make it really hard to get an apartment someplace. Most apartments don't like pets at all, and certainly two big dogs are rarely welcome. If she won't take help from the kids for herself, let the daughter take the dogs. What kind of life is it for a big dog to live in a car? What does she do with them at work? Leave them locked up in the car for eight hours? That seems like the animal rights people should be after her. If she is staying in a parking lot set aside for pre-screened homeless people, perhaps they should hook up a couple of them to allow them to share apartments. Most people have to take in a roommate in college or once they leave school. I have had non-relative roommates living with me. Certainly picking a roommate has got to be safer than living in a car. She lives in Santa Barbara, California, one of the most expensive places in the world to live. She has a car. Drive to Arizona. She has an $8.00 per hour job, and no home, it's not like she would be giving up much to move to a cheaper state. I feel bad that she lost her job. I feel bad that she lost her apartment. But when you lose your job, often you have to change your lifestyle. I have been out of work several times in my life and I know that means you cut back on a few things. Sometimes that means you have to move to a cheaper place, or give up a dog, or accept help from relatives. It is not what you may want to do, but until you get back on your feet, it's sometimes what you have to do. Sometimes you try and make a living blogging, like we do here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Immigrant Rights or Responsibilities

http://www.alternet.org/rights/85506/ "And so, a discussion that should have been about exactly three things -- improving border security, smoothing the path for legal immigrants, and deciding the fate of 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States -- became about outlawing taco trucks, limiting the number of people in a home, blasting pizza parlors for taking pesos, banning Spanish language library books, and other nonsense." Why should we allow others to frame our arguments? Immigration is about many things. Not just people coming into this nation, but the effect that their coming here has on this country. It is about being a sovereign nation that controls it's borders and then local governments that control the activities that effect the local quality of life issues. Border security is the most critical immigration issue. If a poorly educated farmer can walk across the border with no plan, how hard will it be for well educated Muslim terrorists to come across that same border with plans to do us ill? Building a fence and placing more Border Patrol agents are two items that should have been done years ago, should have started right after 9/11, and be done by now. Smoothing the path for legal immigration? Why, I want fewer immigrants, we are having difficulty absorbing the immigrants we have now. Does your city have too few people in it? When you drive at rush hour do you feel we need 12 million extra people? Perhaps a few years after the border is secured and the flood has stopped we can talk about that, but not now. As for the 12 million illegal immigrants that are already here, send them home. Make conditions here so that they will want to go home on their own. Deny them benefits like California tried to do with proposition 187 and millions will go home on their own. Why stay if the free health care, free education and streamlined path to citizenship is denied them? As for banning taco trucks, do you want catering trucks in your neighborhood? The horn honking, people queuing up, blocking traffic. It has nothing to do with tacos or Hispanics, it is a quality of life issue. Pizza parlors should not take foreign currency, that is what currency exchanges are for, we have a Federal Reserve who's job it is to regulate the amount of currency in circulation. Having companies take foreign currency circumvents that government function. These issues remind me of people who move into a very nice exclusive private gated community and then complain they can't paint their house purple or park on their lawn or own six dogs. Why should the English speaking majority pay for Spanish language library books? When you move to a new country, learn to speak the language. If you want Spanish language books, buy them yourself. My wife and I went on our honeymoon to Berlin and one of the first things we did was try and learn some German, and we were only going there for a few days. That's what I am talking about here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Drive Home Safe

Defensive Driving School Makes Streets Safer - AOL Autos Kids go to school with a three inch GI Joe type toy gun and are expelled due to zero tolerance for violence, because we care about the children. The same school districts then cut driver training to save money, yet have money for football, and poetry, and tennis. How much time will the average high school student spend in their lifetime playing football, writing poetry or playing tennis? Probably not much. But how much time will they spend in the car, driving? A lot. How many of those same kids will die in traffic accidents every year? Thousands. Traffic accidents are the number one cause of death for teens, and tens of billions of dollars are spent annually on traffic collisions involving teens. If we really do care about our children, we need to teach them skills that they will use, and skills to save their lives. Driving is an essential skill that most adults use everyday to go to work, or school, or church, or shop. Failure to provide driver training in a school is negligence of the worst kind, because it kills our children. Schools need to stop worrying about toys, and worry about the real dangers our children face, every day. That's what drives us here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

The Good News is on Fire

Hundreds of New Testaments torched in Israel - CNN.com In Israel people burn the New Testament. Their spokesman says they were collected to prevent them from being distributed, but he never intended to burn them. So preventing the distribution of the New Testament is okay, but burning them is bad? Part of the Christian religion is to spread the Good News of the Bible and that requires distribution of the New Testament to people who are not Christians. While a nice gesture, giving them to each other does not spread the Gospel. Then the next question becomes, if he is collecting them to prevent their distribution, what was he intending to do with them? Warehousing hundreds of Bibles indefinitely? Even I don't own hundreds of New Testaments. Why is it okay to collect Bibles that are not yours? Even if they were being given away, he was not the intended recipient of them all. Okay, you can have a couple but that's it. Why is this not a big deal in the media? I noticed that my AOL link to the story is already dead. An American shoots a Quran and it is all over the news, but New Testaments are burned and it is reported once and disappears. It seems stopping Christians from practicing a part of their religion is just not big news. That's the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Let Them Eat Cake

Countrywide CEO's E-Mail Draws Fire - AOL Money & Finance "Countrywide lost $1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2007 and another $422 million in the fourth quarter as the subprime mortgage crisis hit. The company's stock fell 80 percent between February and the end of the year. During the same period, Mozilo received a $1.9 million salary. He also received $20 million in performance-based stock awards and sold $121 million in stock. " So a mortgage company loses $2.6 billion dollars in six months, and the stock falls 80% and the CEO gets $140 million dollars in the same period? I could drive a company into an 80% loss in value, for half that much. It seems to me if a company is paying performance based stock awards, shouldn't the company actually do better, perhaps even make a profit? I would think that if you are not making a profit you should not be paying bonuses. Then the same CEO expresses little sympathy for people who are behind on their mortgage payments. How many of the people who are behind on their mortgage payments would be caught up if they had a fund of $140 million to draw from? Those people who are now behind in their payments are their customer base. Customer service means helping your customers to enjoy your product and to get the most out of your services. People writing on a company email system should realize that whatever they write may become public knowledge. If some clerk wrote a rude comment about a customer that became public, what would happen to that clerk? And should the person who makes more in a day then the clerk does in a year be held to a higher standard? Many questions, with few answers today, here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Florida Republicans reach out to Hispanics - AOL Noticias Beta I want to read a headline that says "Candidate Reaches out to Whites." Is it okay to reach out to Hispanics but not to Whites? Is it okay to reach out to Blacks, but not to Whites? Are Whites so inherently evil that it would be wrong to reach out to them? Or are Whites who you campaign to all the time and Hispanics or Blacks require a "special" message because issues like crime, and taxes, the environment, the economy, the war don't interest Blacks and Hispanics? Recently I was in a J.C. Penney store and they had tee shirt with various logos and the phrase "Brown Power" on them. While I looked, I failed to see a section of "White Power" tee shirts, so I did not buy anything there that day. Perhaps that was the day J.C. Penneys was "reaching out to Hispanics?" Aren't we supposed to be Americans? Isn't the melting pot analogy applicable anymore? Are we using America as a substitute for White? And then every other group gets it's own special "reach out?" What if you belong to more than one group how do you know how they should reach out to you? If the rally to reach out for Hispanics is downtown, but the rally to reach out to Gays is uptown, where do you go? That's the question of the day, here at the Hysterical Right Wing.

Keeping up With the Jones, Chans, and Kahns.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FqfunyCeU5g This video speaks of the challenges the United States faces from China and India. They speak of the rise of the middle class and the sheer numbers of people that are in those two countries. With nearly a billion people in each of those nations the number of college educated people in each of those nations can equal the total number of people who live in the USA. How will we maintain our economic and military status as number one with that type of competition? Our nation faces challenges that must be overcome in the next few decades. The ongoing War on Islamic Terrorists is certainly not going to go away anytime soon. The influx of illegal aliens from Third World nations is a serious problem. The massive influence of illegal drugs in our society, frivolous lawsuits crippling institutions, the decline of marriage and family, and the polarization of politics. Anyone who runs for public office should have plans to deal with these potentially devastating problems. Can they keep us competitive with our world rivals and safe from our enemies? That's what I want to know, here at the Hysterical Right Wing.