First CA Driver's Licenses, Now This.

Living in California all of my life (and thereby having more than my fill of "multiculturalism"), I thought I had seen and heard almost every product of political correctness known to humanity. Apparently, one must travel to Nebraska to see the latest in PC absurdity. Two Native American tribes are being investigated for selling tribal membership to illegals, under the auspice of providing legal documentation for these people. Neither of these tribes are recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (so they're kinda like Ward Churchill). Since the tribes are not federally recognized, simply being a member is not enough to prove U.S. citizenship. Two illegals were caught trying to procure passports with their tribal membership documents.

For those of my readers that do not know me personally, I am one-eighth Chippewa. Since I was born outside of the community were my tribe originates, my parents were supposed to fill out registration paperwork for me to be recognized as a tribe member. They didn't realize this, and so the registration period passed. My younger siblings were, however, registered within the allotted time. In spite of the fact that my mother and siblings were tribal members, I was not allowed to register until the tribal government had an "open enrollment" period. I was finally able to register...when I was twenty-five years old!

The fact that I was not registered does not change the fact that I was still of Chippewa descent. It did affect my legal standing as such. Since I was not a registered member of the tribe, I was eligible for neither financial assistance for college, nor health insurance through the tribe. Likewise, paying a membership fee and a laminated card will not make you a Native American. I am sure we will hear Chicano studies majors all over the country saying, "Technically, Mexicans are the descents of Spaniards and Native Americans, so they are members of Native American tribes." Well, they're half-right; they're of Native American descent with regard to tribes found in Mexico (e.g. the Maya and Aztecs). I have blogged previously on why illegal immigration is bad for both law-abiding and the immigrants themselves. Sadly, this is further proof that I was correct.

Playing the Roman Fool

According to the latest report by the U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, the federal government is on the verge of collapse in a very similar manner to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (read the Financial Times article summarizing the report). "The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon." Walker, a Clinton appointee, raises some valid points, but is certainly not the final word on the matter.

At the time of its decline and fall, Roman citizens were paying more than 25% of their income to cover taxes. The holidays to celebrate and honor Roman deities were reduced to being an excuse to indulge in gluttonous behavior. The empire covered vastly different cultural and geographic regions. Government officials were emptying the coffers by building palaces and putting on diversions for the plebes (gladiators and public executions at the Coliseum, anyone?). Fast forward to the 21st century. We have redistribution of wealth through taxation and government programs, mention of God has been removed from our institutions, and newcomers to our country are not encouraged to assimilate into our culture. Our elected officials bring home the bacon for their constituents in the form of pork spending attached to legislation that's supposed to help the men and women of the armed forces and secure our borders.

I wholeheartedly agree with Walker's assessment that “declining moral values and political civility at home [...] and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government" have set us on the path toward self-destruction. I would have to take issue with Walker's additional citations of "slashed government services" and an "over-confident and over-extended military". Maintaining and expanding "government services", like starting government-run healthcare, go hand-in-hand with the fiscal irresponsibility that is the hallmark of "The Great Society". In the face of retiring, and presumably ailing, baby boomers Congress should reform Social Security and healthcare regulations so that we of younger generations will be better prepared for our own golden years. Currently, we bear the burden of footing the bill for today's benefit recipients. Skyrocketing healthcare costs are a result of the rising costs of practicing medicine and fewer individuals choosing this profession. Who can blame today's college students for being turned off by the threat of malpractice suits and dealing with HMOs? Even in the face of higher doctor's bills, we're still better off than nations with "socialized medicine".

As to our military operations overseas, it is necessary to protect ourselves from the enemies without, as well as within. The Visigoths were able to cross into the Roman Empire and ultimately sack Rome itself, due to weaken border defense. Enforcement of immigration laws in addition to routing the enemy abroad is the key to ensuring victory in the battle that will define us for centuries to come, while preserving our civil liberties. I don't know about the rest of you, but I would rather not have to fight al-Qaeda in my own backyard (though I wouldn't hesistate to take pot-shots from my kitchen window). If we do not vanquish the people who have dedicated their lives to the destruction of everything that America stands for, we won't have to worry about falling our own sword.

The Quote of the Day!

"If you wake up every morning and need to be validated by the editorial page of the New York Times, you have a pretty sorry existence." -- Karl Rove.

Those Muscles and Helmets are Just Fabulous!

In yesterday's Democratic debate, Mike Gravel stated that the Spartans encouraged homosexuality because men fight for the guy in the trenches next to them, not for love of country or an ideal. He mocks Der Schliekmeister's position of "don't ask, don't tell" as uneducated. I do believe that Senator Gravel needs to revisit his high school's class on western civilization. If that's not possible perhaps he needs to watch the History Channel.

From the time that a Spartan boy was six or seven years old, he was taken from his family and sent to live in military barracks. This was the beginnings of his education in the art of war. Rations were meager, so the boys had to steal food to stave off starvation. This practice was, in fact, encouraged to teach them how to forage. If caught stealing, the boys were beaten severely. The boys were also put to the test in war games, meant to sharpen their skills and toughen them for actual combat. There was no headgear or padding involved; if a blow was dealt by a more skilled opponent, the recipient could die. Another part of a Spartan warrior's training was to be "apprenticed" to a seasoned warrior.

Many people have the misconception that this relationship was homosexual. This may have been the case for some, but it wasn't the rule. In the ancient world, the idea of romantic love was not the highest form of love between two people. This was because a woman was not viewed as an equal to a man. It was brotherly love, the love between equals, that was held in highest regard.

I know that Gravel served in the military, but I have to wonder what he did exactly during his service that would lead him to believe that encouraging homosexuality would improve our military's performance. In my studies of western civilization and battles that defined our culture, the bond forged between warriors in the throes of battle is one that transcends physicality. These brave souls, past and present, fight for more than survival and each other. Through strength of conviction, they are willing to lay down their lives to defend family, faith, and country.

Besides, they already tried to destroy the cowboy image with Brokeback Mountain. The least they could do is let me ogle the film version of King Leonidas.

Huh???

I believe I speak for everyone with half a brain when I ask the carefully crafted question in the the title of this post. What am I asking about, you wonder. Oh nothing special. Just the "Breck Girl" who, I might add has been featured on the cover of Esquire underneath the headline "Sexist Woman Alive" (methinks somebody in the cover art department had to clean out his desk this morning). I just got done watch the national news highlights, and I was treated to John "Two Americas" Edwards saying that his solution to ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home is to "turn up the heat on George W. Bush". This, in and of itself is not unusual to hear from today's liberal establishment, but it struck me as strange that this would be used as a selling point...in a Democratic Presidential debate.

I may be mistaken, but are we not having debates amongst potential candidates within their respective parties so that G.W. gets a replacement? Why then, would it make one iota of difference whether or not the current President's feet are going to be held to the fire at a later date? Does Edwards own a calendar? I could have sworn that Bush has only 18 more months in office. Someone needs to leave the Aqua Net alone (at least pre-debate).

Hat Tip: Christina for this video (made by people with more time than I).

Senile Senators' Slumper Party (BYOB Senator Kennedy)

Just when political posturing (and emissions of CO2) couldn't get any more ridiculous, "Dingy Harry" Ried had to declare, along with his cohorts in the U.S. Senate, that they were pulling an "all-nighter" to cobble together a resolution to bring the troops home from Iraq. Oh, I'm sorry, the official language of the DNC is "redeploy" (kind of like Hitler's use of the word "relocate" to describe "rounding up and exterminating millions of Jews"). So, were the news cameras showing pages hauling in cases of Red Bull or their senator's energy drink of choice (and perhaps some Geritol for good measure)? Hell no! They were rolling in foldaway beds for our distinguished elected officials to take a nap. Senator Kennedy's pages must have been sneaking in the booze via the backdoor.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I was in college (two years ago) an "all-nighter" implied actually being awake and working all night powered by sugar, caffeine, and sheer will...and nicotine for a few of my classmates. You were considered "all-pro" if you could not only stay up, but be a fully-functioning student the following day (complete with class attendance). What a bunch of slackers our Senate has turned out to be.

I can see it all now. Ted Kennedy will be passed out on his cot, martini glasses strewn about, hugging a bottle of vodka, and hiccuping between snores. His junior counterpart will be hugging a bottle of ketchup, and have jumper cables hooked up to the bolts in his neck. Babs Boxer and DiFi will be giving each other quizzes from Cosmo magazine and playing MASH (each will be adorned with curlers and cold cream face masques). Senator Byrd will be busy with a pair of scissors, cutting eyeholes in all of the white pillowcases. Harry will be up in his seat, leaning back with drool coming out of the corners of his mouth. When morning comes, they'll all frantically wake up and try the cram the Cliff's Notes version of the bill that their collective staffs wrote in the night. Even if it's not worth the paper found in the restroom, it will be hailed as a stroke of genius by the MSM. Let's only hope that the producers at CSPAN have the good taste to blur out some of the images conjured in this paragraph.


Update: Wonder of wonders! The U.S. Senate has accomplished...absolutely nothing! I wonder how much money it cost you and I to have those rollaways brought in for them to not even be used (most of our distinguished senators went home in the wee hours of the morning to sleep it off).

I'm So Confused!

All the hype over Live Earth and global warming and the rash of wildfires in the western U.S. has brought me into conflict with my annoyingly persistent memories of junior high, high school, and lower division college science classes. How can this be, you ask? Isn't there a concensus amongst those of the scientific community that global warming is a real threat? Didn't global warming cause those fires? Well, allow me to explain myself.

From sixth grade science through university level biology, all we children of the 80s and 90s have heard is that the Earth is always in delicate balance. That each bit of flora and fauna has its niche to fill and if the population of a particular species in any given part of the world is dying off, it throws the balance out the window. Even in my differential equations class we had word problems for the "predator-prey model". For my non-geek audience, "diff e-q" is a pain in the butt branch of mathematics that I've used maybe twice since I graduated. The "delicate balance" view is consistent with the environmental wacko's paradigm. It's basic premise is that we humans are destructive intruders and the best thing we could do for the Earth is just die off and leave the apes in charge. Small wonder that the vast majority of enviro-nuts are also pro-abortion, no?

The "delicate balance" view is taught right alongside Darwinism, which in a nutshell teaches "survival of the fittest". The theory of evolution puts forth that species will evolve, either behaviorally or physically, to adapt to changes in their environment. According to scientists that monitor the finches on the Galapagos Islands (the same finches that Darwin observed over 150 years ago), this adaptation can occur as rapidly as three years. Keep in mind, however, that new species are not evolving from old species. The characteristics of the finch species are changing, but the genome of the finch species is not. Don't know what a genome is? Look it up. If you really want to get the goat of a rabid Darwinist, just mention the Cambrian explosion in the fossil record and the conspicuous lack of intermediate species (species that evolved...and flopped like that Mariah Carey movie Glitter).

Now, to my point of contention: the recent wildfires, regardless of catalyst, were dramatically escalated by dry, dead vegetation. Brush and dead trees that private citizens and members of the Forest Service are not permitted to clear out because this dead undergrowth provides habitat for endangered and threatened species. In Utah's Milford Flat fire, the moisture in the vegetation was at zero percent, while the humidity was at three percent! In the Angora Fire (near South Lake Tahoe), the fire was fueled by vegetation that was mandated undisturbed by state and local agencies to control erosion and maintain water quality in Lake Tahoe.

Won't the ash and debris running off into the lake cause more damage to water quality? How about all of those noxious "greenhouse gases" and their damage to the ozone? Nevermind the damage done to wildlife habitat (click here for a satellite photo of the burn area). Why would nature not have taken its course if people, in the interest preventing raging wildfires, had cleared out the dead vegetation? Since fires caused by lightning strikes are acts of nature, how is this not seen as overthrowing the "delicate balance"? Are we required to cover "acts of God" (to use the insurance companies' lingo) by the purchase of carbon offsets from Algore's company?

So many questions! Luckily, I hold firmly with the idea of Intelligent Design. Our Creator in His infinite wisdom made the Earth idiot-proof, much to the consternation of liberals. I'm by no means advocating wanton destruction of the Earth's natural (God-given) beauty. I merely believe that we need to be good stewards by using and maintaining our resources. To not use the bounty of the earth is to waste potential, and the only losers are all of humanity. Don't believe me? Take it from someone who lives in one of the most impoverished regions of the world.