Some Past Annoyances....

[Warph]

Periodically, I find random thoughts running amok in my head, and the only way I have ever found to get any peace is to jot them down so that they can go run amok in someone else's head.

For instance, how is that individuals and corporations are constantly forking over big bucks to motivational speakers?  I mean, am I the only person in America who always thought having to pay off a mortgage was as much motivation as I could handle?

Next, I'd like to know at what point did any hint of true religious tolerance become a threat to the fabric of our society?  All the fuss that some folks make over Christmas wreaths and little bitty crosses on city seals strikes me as both outrageous and very silly.  It's embarrassing, really.  Who are these lunkheads who are so eager to make a court case out of something that's none of their business?  I always find myself wondering how empty their lives must be to have the time to waste on such matters.  What's next?  No more December airings of "Christmas Carol" on TV?

It's odd that these same screwballs don't seem to have a problem with Halloween, a pagan ritual which has become, I'm told, the second most celebrated holiday in America.  Apparently, it's only Christianity and Judaism that sets them off.  Sacrifice a goat, puff some peyote or paint pentagrams on your floor, and it's hunky dory with this crowd.

I hate to give these narrow-minded, joyless, bigots any ideas, but, frankly, I'm surprised that, considering their antipathy to "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on our currency, they haven't yet taken up arms against Sunday.  Why, after all, should Sunday be any more special than Thursday?  Why should Sunday be a day of rest, while Monday is stuck being a day of toil?  Clearly, the only reason that Sunday is different from Wednesday is because God said so in the Bible!  I mean, how did the busybodies in the ACLU let that one slip past them?

Another thing that annoyed me no end a few years back was France's Jacques Chirac. You remember him -- good friend of John Kerry, no doubt one of those anonymous foreign leaders who wanted to see him elected and moral arbiter for America's lefties.  What you might not know is that this is the same Jacques Chirac who back in the 1970s brokered the deal that gave Saddam Hussein his nuclear reactor, along with a plentiful supply of high grade plutonium.  It's true that France initially balked at handing over the plutonium, but when Hussein threatened to cut off France's supply of cheap oil, Chirac and France folded like a bad soufflé.  This was the reactor that Israel destroyed, much to France's annoyance, in 1981.  See video of Israeli jets destroying the reactor:

While we're on the subject of Iraq, remember their Olympic athletes?  In Athens, some of them actually said that if they weren't so busy competing for medals, they'd be back home with their friends and relatives trying to kill the Americans.  Well, considering how they fared in Greece, Saddam's "off with their heads" son Uday reminded them how also-rans were usually greeted when they failed to bring home the gold.

On a personal note, I'd like to mention a recent experience.  I was invited to attend a party celebrating an old friend's many years in Congress.  He's a democrat, but nobody's perfect.

Anyway, the day of the party, it was mentioned that my old chum, along with several of his like-minded colleagues, was planning to conduct an investigation of FoxNews because of its alleged bias in reporting the news.  So, when I arrived, I made a point of taking my friend aside and asking him to explain himself.  The constitutional guarantee of a free press aside, I told him that I watched Fox pretty often, and I knew that Bill O'Reilly not only invited people of all political persuasions aboard, but invariably let them have the last word.  In the hour following O'Reilly's show, we have Hannity and Colmes.  Sean Hannity is as conservative as they come, but his co-host is equally far to the left.  And their show, too, is as likely to have a guest list that includes Howard Dean and Al Sharpton as Alexander Haig and Newt Gingrich.

What could be fairer than that?  I don't see Bill Maher or Al Franken welcoming the opposition to debate the issues.  The liberals are only comfortable when they're bleating to the choir.

So, where, I asked my old chum, is the bias?  What's the beef?

He replied, "Well, those are opinion shows.  It's Fox's news coverage that stinks."

I asked the congressman for a for instance.

"For instance," he replied, "they're always saying that the Republicans are great and the democrats are terrible."

"Well," I said, mulling it over, "actually that sounds like pretty objective reporting to me."

My friend chuckled, but I could tell he didn't have his heart in it.

"Okay," I said, ever ready to compromise in good faith, "if you feel you have to investigate FoxNews for slanting their news coverage, go for it.  But when you've finished up with them, I trust you'll then turn your attention to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, all three major networks, the New York Times, the L.A. Times and the Washington Post.  Or is it only the exception to the rule that bears looking into?"

At which point, one of us went off to receive congratulations on passing laws and helping to run the country, and one of us went off in desperate need of a drink.


.......Warph

[Wilma]

Warph, this is really hard for me to do, to agree with you, but this article is so with what I was feeling about the news coverage of the presidential race that there is no way in you know where that I can disagree.  Free press or no free press, they still have an obligation to report the news truthfully without bias.  They can put all the bias they want in their editorials.  That is where it belongs.  I have to say that even our local Wichita news is sometimes biased in the way they report things, making it seem something that it is not.

[Teresa]

I would have had to join you for that drink..and I really don't like to drink.! 

Seriously.. it is just incredible that this trying to mess with the 1st Amendment.. rewrite the 2nd Amendment.. jack with this..and jack with that. Who in the hell do they think they are anyway?

It just makes me want to smack 'em...and smack 'em hard!  .