Yes. Our Government is great.

Yes, you read the title correctly. An obvious hater of America saying something good about our government?

But, it's true.

We used to use lead based paint in America. Lead poisoning can cause brain damage in children leading to learning disabilities, hearing loss, and many behavioral problems. Pregnant women who are near lead paint put their unborn children at risk.

However, thanks to government regulations, lead paint is off of the market in America.

Unfortunately, the Chinese government doesn't have these same regulations, and their unregulated products are being exported to America.

Some of the products include:
Children's toys covered with lead paint
Toothpaste with antifreeze
Toy ovens that use electricity and have burned children's fingers.

Check the labels on products you buy. If it comes from China, don't buy it.

Thank God for our government.

Where's your tough on crime now?

President Bush. He says he's tough on crime. He executed over 100 criminals when he was the governor of Texas. He calls himself a defender of America.

We're lucky to have such a brave man in office at a time like this.

NOT

Former Cheney aid Scooter Libby leaked top-secret information about the CIA agent Valerie Plame. This was a threat to national security. It is dangerous to have someone in the executive branch leaking information.

Bush is a coward. Instead of letting justice be served, Bush commuted Libby's sentence and let him avoid jail.

Apparently you can get away with threatening national security when you're friends with the president.

"There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends," Albus Dumbledor.

Is there justice when someone can get away with leaking national security?

Oh for the days when scandals consisted of oral sex.

Bong Hits For Who?

We have just witnessed a gross violation of First Amendment rights. Who was the culprit this time? The Supreme Court.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against Joseph Frederik, an Alaskan high school student, who held up a sign reading "Bong Hits For Jesus." He was suspended from his school for 10 days.

However, Frederik was off school grounds when he held up the sign. The school had no authority to punish him there.

In a complete coincidence, the four religious conservatives on the court (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) voted against free speech in this situation. (Maybe they would have ruled in favor of "Bong Hits for Allah.")

So much for President Bush's preference for Justices who "don't legislate from the bench."

By the Supreme Court's ruling, a high school student could be suspended from school for holding up a sign 500 miles from his school.

The American people shouldn't stand for this. We need to fight back and protest. If the Supreme Court isn't going to protect our Constitution, we need to.

The Last True Conservative

The Republican party was once okay. When men like Gerald Ford were in power, it was a legitimate party.

Today, the GOP isn't really a party. It's more of a string of ideologies backed by fundamentalists.

The word "conservative" used to mean someone who stood for limited government. A true conservative would not support Bush's expansions of power (The war, wiretapping, etc.). The old Republican party wanted to keep the government out of people's lives.

So now I ask, "Where have all the conservatives gone?"

Then, on The Colbert Report, I saw the last true conservative.

Ron Paul, a republican representative from Texas, is running for president. He calls himself a constitutionalist, or someone who is in favor of following the constitution.

There's something we haven't seen in a while. A president who follows the constitution? The same constitution that our entire government is based on? What a crazy idea.

Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act and the War, two unconstitutional things. However, he is against gun control and taxes, common Republican beliefs. Paul believes that the government should stay out of people's lives.

I don't agree with all of Paul's policies, but I would pick him over Bush and the other GOP lunatics of the any day.

Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter and advisor to Ronald Regan believes that President Bush is leading the GOP to a crash worse than Watergate.

If the Republicans want to avoid this crash, they need break away from Bush and lift the blanket of fundamentalism surrounding the party. People like Paul need to become the Republican norm, not the exception.

I do not pray for the Republican party to crash. I simply hope that the ideologies and fundamentalism will die in favor of reason and constitutionalism.

R.I.P. Journalsim

Here lies respectable
Journalism.
It will be missed

It's a sad day when you can find more news in a 30 minute comedy show than a 24-hour

"news" station.

Journalism used to be about uncovering wrongs. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein helped uncover Nixon's Watergate Scandal. Nellie Bly, checked herself into a mental hospital, published an insiders account, and got the place shut down.

Today Journalism is at an all time low. If you expect to turn on one of the 24-hour stations and find news, you are out of luck. However, if you watch a 24-hour station looking for mindless entertainment, you'll get what you want.

There are only two news programs where you can expect to find any news today. They are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. They're comedy shows, but they have more news than CNN and Fox News combined.

In fact, a tabloid magazine has more news than CNN and Fox.

Lets talk about CNN. Every day people die in Iraq. There is genocide going on in Darfur. What does CNN spend the majority of time covering? Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton.

I hope I speak for the rest of America when I say, "I am sick and tired of hearing about Paris Hilton. It is not an interesting story, so shut up about it."

Then there is Fox "News." It's not news . It's a talk show. It's not fair and balanced. It's a right wing talk show.

Fortunately, Journalism is not dead. There is still hope. Citizen Journalists are the ones who will continue the tradition of uncovering wrongs. Bloggers are the future hope for Journalism.

When Trent Lott made the racist comment, it went unnoticed by all the major news stations. Bloggers are the ones who uncovered it. Afterwards the news stations picked up on it.

The tradition of Journalism is noble and good. Since the current media has given up that nobility and goodness, we must turn to bloggers.

Praise for John McCain

I do lean to the left, and my distrust of the current White House administration has pushed me even farther left. I have no intention of voting for Senator McCain in the next election. However, I still believe in giving praise where it's due.

During one of the Republican debates the issue of torture came up. All the candidates spoke in favor of using "enhanced interrogation techniques."
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" is the new code word for torture. You can either face facts or deny it.

Fortunately there is still one Republican candidate who still qualifies as a human being. That brave man is McCain.

McCain was the only one who spoke out against the use of torture. He is also the only one who can be taken seriously on this issue. He has experienced torture and knows that it is an evil practice.

Torture does not fit with our American values. If we torture we will be no different from those we are fighting. We will be showing weakness and immorality instead of strength and humanity.

Thank you Senator McCain. You are the lone voice of truth and reason in a debate full of blowhards.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Whenever I hear someone make an argument for slavery, I have the urge to see it tried on them personally."

I wonder if Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee would still be in favor of torture if they had experienced what McCain had.

Abortions

I'll admit, abortions make me a little squeamish. They aren't something I would openly endorse, but I don't believe that they should be banned.

Many people say that abortions are a problem. It is possible that this is true. However, the solution posed by President Bush and others is to sweep the problem under the rug.

Banning abortions is a cowardly and foolish solution.

It's not even a real solution because it wouldn't solve anything. A ban on abortions would create a wave of underground abortions. These underground practices wouldn't have any sort of regulations and would probably be performed by unlicensed people.

What would happen next? Women would get hurt and possibly killed.

There are better ways to solve this problem.

School curriculum's need to teach about birth control. Students need to learn, from a young age, about condoms, pills, spermicide, etc. They need to know were to get contraception, how to use them, the risks, and how effective (or ineffective) they are.

Students also need to learn about the risks of sex itself. Oral and anal sex have to be included.

Now don't get all high and mighty and tell me that these things are offensive and indecent. Pretending that they don't exist is cowardly. Yes, it's true, sex happens.

Most importantly, these health curriculum's need to stress abstinence. Students need to know that abstinence is the best method of birth control. It's the safest and the only one that will work 100 percent of the time.

Abortions should also be taught about. However, they should be discouraged and seen as a last resort.

In addition, birth control needs to be readily accessible. Young people need to know that you don't need to be 18 to buy a condom, and they need to know where to go to get one.

Abortions should still be allowed, though. They are necessary. If a woman is raped, she shouldn't have to bear the baby if she doesn't want to. If there is an danger to the pregnant woman, denying her an abortion would be evil. If a family is too poor to afford to have another child, they should have the option to abort.

Yes, these things won't stop abortions, but neither will a total ban.

Bill Clinton put it the best when he said that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.

Banning abortions would be so much easier than the solutions I (and others) have proposed, but as Albus Dumbledore said, "Sometimes we have to make the choice between doing what is right and what is easy."