Eric Florack on February 3rd, 2004

My Way News

“The judgment of the voters is now clear,” Lieberman told supporters gathered at a hotel in northern Virginia. “

Uh… Joe? Wasn’t it clear four years ago?

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Eric Florack on February 3rd, 2004

… No real landslide for Kerry today. Closer look as the numbers start taking shape.

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Eric Florack on February 3rd, 2004

Mudville Gazette has a really great article online, regarding what the story calls “the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space, which resulted from Pirated software.

Great stuff and explains a lot.

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Apparently, Right Wing News is doing a ‘most popular right wing blogs’ contest. Trouble is, BITSBLOG has already lost.
Reason?

“– Alexa can’t properly read all the Blog*spot pages so they all receive the same rank. Because of that, none of them were included. “

Bummer.

Hey, John, ain’t it about time you found another tool to do this with?
Sheesh.

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Eric Florack on February 2nd, 2004

AP is reporting

“WASHINGTON (AP) – A white powder, which preliminary tests indicated could be the deadly substance ricin, was discovered Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.”

Prelim updates from other wires are suggesting it is in fact Ricin.

Isn’t it interesting that now that the left is screaming about such weapons, that they show up?

Developing, as Matt says….

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Eric Florack on February 2nd, 2004

NewsMax is reporting:

“Kerry Took Cash From Chinese Military Intelligence”

….documents that surfaced over the weekend raise serious questions about whether Kerry was duped in the 1990s into helping the Chinese military perfect its ability to strike the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

Hmmm. What did I say?

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Eric Florack on February 2nd, 2004

GReyhawk over at Mudville Gazette tells a story you may be interested about Russians pirating US software and the consequences of it. How much, I wonder, did this alter the course of the USSR?

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Bloomberg says:

“Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) — An index of U.S. manufacturing rose to a two-decade high in January as factories boosted production to replace depleted inventories and meet improving demand.”

Getting the message, Democrats?

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Eric Florack on February 2nd, 2004

1500am/107.7fm WTOP is passing along some news as regards Gore’s kid:

“ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) – Albert Gore III will have to complete a substance abuse program under an agreement approved Monday by a judge presiding over a marijuana possession case against the son of former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore. “

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With all the other things going on, we’ve forgotten one of the simpler pleasures, I guess. Very little mention of Groudhog Day.

Finally, we started seeing stuff moving on the wires. Granted that it has all the news impact of a Dennis Kucinich endorsement, but…the prediction finally showed on on the AP a short time ago.

AP is reporting:

“PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) – If you’re tired of winter, Punxsutawney Phil had a message for you Monday – get used to it. After a rap on an oak stump roused him from his home on Gobbler’s Knob, the world’s most famous furry forecaster ‘saw’ his shadow this chilly Groundhog Day morning, which according to tradition means six more weeks of winter.”

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Eric Florack on February 2nd, 2004

To be honest, I’m reluctant to even bring out into the open, so to speak.

Not that I have any worry about exposing the overly biased boobs running things at CBS, but I’m not too happy about adding a lot of head-turning and staring at an event that was so obviously started as a promotional gimick. I’m speaking of course about the half-time showing.

What the beep did the boobs at CBS expect when they get MTV to do the work of arranging the halftime? To claim innocence now strikes me as foundationally laughable. Apparently, the FCC chair … ummm…has his nipple in a wringer….. over the event this morning, as does Tagliabue.

And in any event, explain to me how Jackson ummm…. hanging out… with Timberlake is any different than the titillation that a goodly chunck of CBS’s entertainment is about. I don’t see the difference, myself.

If I’m Tagliabue, I’m arranging it so CBS doesn’t get the Superbowl for years to come. I doubt, though, he has the guts.

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Eric Florack on February 1st, 2004

I’m running through some of my older posts today, as I burn a lot of the older columns off to CD…. It’s interesting how relevant some of the columns I wrote then are today.

A few years ago, when I wrote this one, gun grabbing was all the rage on the left. But I pointed up that there was a bit more going on. The bearing this has on the politics of today will be obvious, once you read this. It also gives a little perspective of what was hot, pre-9/11 attacks. It’s from March of 2001. Enjoy.
/Bit

03-05-01 –Rochester, NY—

With the events out in California today, it’s time to address the issue of Guns and the liberals intent to remove them from the hands of the people.

Travel back in time with me, to a few summers ago..  Way back when the Lewinsky scandal was under the surface, Remember? We were inundated with more and more news reports about kids going out and breaking out massive firepower, and using it to deadly result. The left was screaming (as usual) that it was all because guns were too easy to obtain, and that the only salvation was Clinton’s new gun controls. It got to the point where even President Clinton, apparently seeing a diversion from his legal problems, took a stab at it. (Pun intended.)

Clinton at the time said, among other things, something which I can actually agree with; (A fairly unique happening, I assure you…) He stated that these violent attacks the result of a changing culture, and the pressure that those changes bring to bear.

As has been pointed out by me in this medium previously, the left gets an occasional point right, but refuses to come to the only logical conclusion that such discoveries offer. Clinton it seems, is no exception, apparently understanding that at the core of the problem is the social agenda that liberals have been pushing for decades. It’s all come home to roost, now, and the left doesn’t know what to do about it, or, more likely, is unwilling to do what’s needed.  What Clinton to this day doesn’t get, is that it is he, and those on his side of the political and social isle, who have been generating and encouraging those changes in our culture, which have resulted in such destruction. Each are cultural changes which, alas!, even ostensibly conservative people have been caving in on for years, now.  Instead of dealing with the cultural problems he’s identified as being causal, Clinton went on to attack not that problem, but GUNS… something which despite his best efforts, we Americans can still legally own, and use.

The classes in proper gun use and care being given to young people today, including the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program have come under attack from the left, as being the cause, not the cure for such problems. This is because, we are told, in one case in Oregon the young man in question was a part of those classes. (Notice it’s usually young boys?)

But the connection is less direct than the left makes it; There are many myriad self-defense and martial arts classes going on at any time in our country; my son attends one of the better ones. Given that one commonality they and the NRA’s gun classes share is training on the /proper use/ of their training and the tools given, why do we not see attacks by martial arts students in the news? Could there be an agenda, here, do you suppose? Now, it is not unlike the left to use a well-publicized issue to work it’s will on another, totally unrelated issue. Race, and welfare rights, are two such. (I.E.; There are more whites than blacks on welfare, but when someone proposes a cut of welfare payments, liberals will invariably scream about how it’s racial bias against blacks.) So, I suppose I shouldn’t be overly surprised when they pull that same stunt regarding guns. One need not look too deeply to find their over-riding concern. It is, of course, the same concern expressed by every other socialist in history including Adolph Hitler; the removal of guns from society, altogether… except for the representatives of government, thereby placing the power in the hands of the government alone. (Let’s not kid ourselves; the founder put the second amendment in place to defend us from tyrants within government.)

Let’s not let the left divert us into thinking that the solution to violence is simply removing guns. Let’s hold them to the core issue; violence vis a vis cultural changes… There has been quite a bit over the last few years, said and written, about the culture’s values, and the effect the change of those values would have on the people within
the culture.

Of the people affected by cultural change… a change of the roots, if you will, it is younger people, whose roots have not been established, who would be the most affected. No shock, therefore, that the largest number of crimes, particularly the massive violence under discussion, would be teenagers.

Simply put:These teenagers have lost hope.
And why?

Let’s look at the agenda of the modern America, as driven by the left. Perhaps we’ll find a pattern there. We’re told that man is destroying the earth. The problem is that too many of us exist, we’re told. We’re told that man is a problem for the further existence of the earth. We’re told that we can’t make it without that government handout. We learn quickly, thereby, that we have no real say in our lives, and therefore, no future. As if to give credence to the thinking that life is worthless, abortion has become commonplace. Jack Kevorkian is teaching us that killing ourselves is a valid option, and the government is at least powerless if not unwilling to deal with the issue. Every value we have ever had as a culture is now being abandoned by the government.. Indeed, the government has become outright hostile to the traditional values of the culture that built said government. Can such things be without consequence? The evidence suggests not.

Both parents now work regardless of wanting to or not, simply to pay the taxes… because the taxes imposed by the government consume upwards of 60-65% or our annual income. What kind of basic value will children hold of themselves when parents find they have to work? I understand well the forces that drive such choices, (being driven by them myself;) but can such choices be without consequence? The evidence suggests not.

Mothers who stay at home are universally castigated by the feminist left, as ‘not being in touch with themselves’ and ‘being a burden on the sisterhood’ whatever the hell THAT is. Can this kind of disdain for traditional family values be without consiquence? The evidence suggests not.

Remember when America used to have leaders whom you could look up to? Political leaders, ball players, and to a larger degree than today, even film and TV stars were people which could be held up as examples. Granted, many were never perfect, but they were trying to live up to the then universally held American ideals. Who do we have to hold up in their place today? PeeWee Herman. Tupac Shakur. Madonna. Dennis Rodman.  The Spice Girls. Larry Flynt, Bill Clinton.  Can this be without consequence? The evidence suggests not.

Is anyone of sound mind, foolish enough to suggest that our governmentally induced transition from a values-based society to what is now an essentially valueless society, which provides little if any hope on an individual level, has no effect negative on the people within it?

History, I think, will record the greatest failure of the governments of the last 60 years, to be not in the financial or political areas, and not with it’s law enforcement, regarding guns, but in the cultural… I.E.; support of the majority culture, and the values that it holds dear. Because in the final view, it’s this which is causing the violence, not guns, per se’. Guns are simply a tool. What people do with guns, and for that matter, what they do with all other weapons
of every type, and indeed, how they deal with all conflicts, and live their lives , is a product of their environs, as focused through their values.

And when you remove the values, our sense of right and wrong, the rest falls away.

What we need to reduce the violence, therefore, is a reinforced value structure, that, unlike what the left has been forcing on us, does not run afoul of traditional American culture.. Liberals of the last 40 years are afraid of this, they don’t want to be seen as being ‘judgmental’.  This is not an issue that is going to be solved by ‘finding the middle path’. If we really want to stop the violence, instead of making political points from it…it’s time to move those of the left who have for decades been neutering our value structure, in the name of ‘cultural diversity’, out.

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Eric Florack on February 1st, 2004

Good game for a change,
Carolina did better than I thought, to the point where I missed the prediction by 7 points.
(Shrug)

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Eric Florack on February 1st, 2004

Apparently, there’s a lot of folks out there who do not understand that the ratings currently being measured are the result of literally hundreds of millions of dollars of effort on the part of the Democrats… money spent, for example, bussing outsiders in to make rallys appear to ahve more support than they did…. with no responses from the Republicans whatever, in terms of campaign money spent.

Do the Democrats REALLY think that’s not going to turn around once the Republcians start campaigning, and rebutting what Soros and the rest have been selling??

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Eric Florack on February 1st, 2004

I am still convinced Hitlery will try to come out of a brokered convention with a nomination… THIS YEAR.

STOP Hillary PAC .com

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