The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

What must our enemies be thinking?

By JEFFREY SCOTT SHAPIRO

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president.

AP

According to recent Gallup polls, the president’s average approval rating is below 30% — down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.

The president’s original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there.

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.

Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. Perhaps if Americans stopped being so divisive, and congressional leaders came together to work with the president on some of these problems, he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.

Like the president said in his 2004 victory speech, “We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.”

To be sure, Mr. Bush is not completely alone. His low approval ratings put him in the good company of former Democratic President Harry S. Truman, whose own approval rating sank to 22% shortly before he left office. Despite Mr. Truman’s low numbers, a 2005 Wall Street Journal poll found that he was ranked the seventh most popular president in history.

Just as Americans have gained perspective on how challenging Truman’s presidency was in the wake of World War II, our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years — and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Mr. Shapiro is an investigative reporter and lawyer who previously interned with John F. Kerry’s legal team during the presidential election in 2004.

Time flies

My little girls are just growing up so fast, before my very eyes.  I’m constantly amazed by the grace and blessings God has given to our family.  Leah just seems SO intelligent and so sweet (while somehow still garnering the title of “little monster” more than a few times, lol) and Lily is also sweet beyond compare and a beautiful little - not so little – friendly & happy baby.  This past weekend we were blessed to be visited by my brother, and Leah & Lily loved meeting their Uncle Paul for the first time finally.  I think Leah dragged him around by the hand all weekend long    Here are some recent pictures.  Hope you all are having a great day.

Power to the PEOPLE! :-)

The ladies love their Uncle Paul.

Freudian Slip

Indeed.  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Who said that?

“(Our Country) does not commit to any quantified emissions-reduction commitments . . . our efforts to fight climate change must not come at the expense of economic growth.“

The Chinese Government. How could they be getting this so right while we are in danger of getting it so wrong.  Things are backwards.

Tennessee to Sanction Mixed Martial Arts

Way to go Tennessee!  Last week, the TN state legislature passed laws that call for the official sanctioning of mixed martial arts events in the state of Tennessee, opening the door for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and other major organizations to host events in Memphis, Nashville and other cities.  There’s no question this campaign to saction MMA – which was of course heavily supported/led by the UFC – is ultimately about profit for their organization, but I still have to give them props for lobbying lawmakers and making the general public aware of the benefits and positive aspects of MMA despite some recent heavily biased stories by high-profile national mainstream media.  (For the record, I rarely disagree with Bill O’Reilly, but he’s way off base on this one.)

UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who until this past Saturday was the UFC’s  light-heavyweight champion, and Marc Ratner, the UFC’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs,  were especially prominent in the process. Both met with lawmakers to describe the benefits of MMA, and Ratner even wrote guest columns for local media.

“Stateside, Tennessee is a hotbed for MMA,” Ratner recently wrote in The Tennessean. “‘Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, our light-heavyweight champion and one of the sport’s true superstars, is a proud native of Memphis, and once the new Tennessee Athletic Commission is formed and has all the rules in place, we will be looking at Tennessee as a state to host a fight. We believe that with their beautiful arenas and diehard fan base, Memphis or Nashville would be great hosts for a UFC event.”

The next thing that is supposed to happen in the process is that Tennessee will create a state athletic commission to regulate the sport, after which I’m sure events will begin to pop up in our area, much to my delight.  The campaign to sanction MMA in Tennessee began this past October.  State Rep. Curry Todd (R-Collierville/Germantown) was the key legislator in the process, and he received help from Sen. Doug Jackson (D-Dickson).  Events will most likely be held in Memphis venues The FedEx Forum and the Pyramid Arena, and in Nashville at the Sommet Center and possibly Memorial Gymnasium.

Yay! Let’s Calculate our Carbon Footprint!

How big is your footprint in relation to the atmosphere?  Grab a ruler, and let’s go for a walk!

Make each step about one meter long, so walk as though you are a football referee.  As we are walking we will both count each step and do some math.  How much CO2 is in the atmosphere?  Current estimates put it at 350 -380 parts per million. For ease of computation, we will round it up to the nearest 100, to 400 parts per million.  Now let’s use that old fashioned math and reduce that down.  400 parts per million can be reduced to 4 parts per 10,000.  When we have finished taking 10,000 steps, stop and turn around.  You will have just walked 10,000 meters or 10 kilometers, which marathon runners know well as roughly 6 miles. At average walking speed this takes about 2 hours.  (If you do not want to take the walk, get in your car, and drive 6 miles, just to see how far it is.)   Once there, look back at where you started.  Remembering that all the CO2 in the atmosphere is 4 parts per 10,000, take 4 steps back towards your starting point.  Those four steps out of the 6 miles traveled represent the entire amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.  Moving on.

Global warming alarmists determine that the carbon dioxide caused from man is defined as the amount we have today over the amount that existed before the Industrial Revolution.  That definition is debatable, with some scientists estimating that man is only responsible for 15% of that amount, but for our demonstration purposes we will concede to the alarmists that all the additional CO2 came from man.

One step out of the 6 miles traveled represents the human race’s carbon footprint from the 1880’s until today.    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  (NOAA) and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL)  the entire CO2 increase for the earth in the year 2007 was 2.4 parts per million.  Once again we will assume it is all man made and, furthermore, we will round up to 2.5.  The 2007 world wide carbon footprint of 2.5 parts per million translates in our 6 mile walk to two and a half centimeters, or about 1 inch out of the entire 6 miles.

Now, some environmentalists suggest that the 300 million people in the United States are responsible for as much as one fifth of all CO2 released in a given year.  Because it is easier to find the ¼ inch mark on our ruler, let us be generous and say that the U.S. population is responsible for one quarter of all CO2 released in the world last year.   Look at the ¼ of an inch mark on your ruler – that span represents the carbon footprint of the entire United States population.  Now look back over the 6 miles you walked that represents the entire atmosphere…

Next,  all you need to do to find your carbon footprint (or rather an average representation of it) is divide that ¼ inch by 300,000,000.

I’m having trouble sleeping/living with all this guilt now that I’ve figured out my personal impact on our fragile environment.  And I drive an SUV now, so I’m really screwing humanity over big-time.

Whitey go home?

Universal Health Care?

Ahh, Universal Health Care (UHC) – a term being thrown around quite a bit this election cycle (well every cycle in recent memory, for that matter). After a recent discussion with a friend about health care in the US and the varying perspectives Americans bring to the table when examining and debating the current state of our nation’s medical/health care system, I would like to explore the definitions, history and empirical data relating to this hot-button political issue. Let’s start by speaking clearly about the actual definitions of these words. Nothing can be “universal” that is not also “mandatory”. Since everyone is different in what they want, in order for everyone to have anyone’s version of “universal” anything, it has to be mandatory for all individuals. To put it another way, in the words of Thomas Sowell, we are talking about forcing people to belong to whatever program the politicians and bureaucrats come up with, regardless of what the people themselves might prefer.

Now, someone’s overall “health” is actually an all-encompassing term used to sum-up the end result of several things – diet, genetics, exercise, lifestyle choices, etc – which government cannot control, and a few – doctors, hospitals, medicines – that government can control. What we are left with when we talk honestly about UHC is politicians and bureaucrats forcing people to get their medical treatment and pharmaceutical drugs the way the politicians and bureaucrats decide since all other things relating to health care are outside of the scope of government control.

As I mentioned to my friend during the conversation, it always seems implied by proponents of UHC that the government would do a much better job than the private sector does on health care, and at a much-reduced cost. While I have trouble coming up with two things that the government does better and cheaper than private individuals and organizations, mostly anyone could give you a laundry list of things our government does worse and at higher costs. Running hospitals, administering pharmaceutical companies and managing doctors is an extremely costly and cumbersome venture currently handled by the private sector. There is no logical argument that can be made that will convince me that this cost is going to be somehow magically reduced by the addition of the hundreds of government bureaucrats and massive amounts of red tape it will take to effectively remove the private sector from this enterprise – quite to the contrary, I believe the cost will go up exponentially while choice and benefits go away.

Now before we go on to comparisons between the US private health care system and some government-run “Universal” health care plans around the world, let’s get some common “misconceptions” about health care out in the open.  First, one commonly held belief in UHC circles is that a lack of insurance coverage equals a lack of medical care. This is a LIE.  Another one is that health care and medical care are the same thing.  Many people who are currently uninsured in the US have no coverage by choice. They can afford to buy insurance, but would prefer to spend their money elsewhere, counting on their youth and perhaps good luck to keep them from medical bill catastrophe.  (I know – my wife and I did exactly this during the first few years of our relationship and marriage)  When the financial burden of medical bills is not offset by insurance, people are more likely to be more careful about what they choose to go to the doctor for, which can bring down costs overall.  Conversely, in an emergency, ANYONE can go to the emergency room and be treated, US law says no person can be turned away for any reason – of course most Americans today would laugh at you if you suggested they should pay for this type of care themselves…

Virtually every aspect of the so-called health care crisis boils down to the fact that everybody wants somebody else to pay for health care.  The basic underlying fact that is not going to change is that medical care is costly, whether those costs are paid by HMOs, the government, the patients or anybody else. We can try to pretend that these costs don’t exist or hope to force somebody else to pay them, but none of that changes the costs or the fact that they have to be paid.

With our country’s record prosperity, surely it is not too much to expect adults to face up to trade-offs. We are not talking about going hungry so that a child can have an appendix removed. We are talking about not eating out as often, or not buying so expensive a watch, so that a mother can spend another day or two in the hospital.

Politicians see all this very differently. They leave trade-offs to economists, who don’t have to get elected. Politicians win votes by passing laws creating “rights” for patients to get this or that, without either providing any money to cover the costs or expecting the patients to cover the costs. The additional costs will be left to be paid “somehow.”

It is a great game for those in the business of getting re-elected. But the costs don’t disappear, no matter how much they are shuffled around.

If you ask most people about the cost of medical care, they may tell you how much they have to pay per visit to their doctor’s office or the monthly bill for their prescription drugs. But these are not the costs of medical care. These are the prices paid.  The difference between prices and costs is not just a fine distinction made by economists. Prices are what pay for costs — and if they do not pay enough to cover the costs, then centuries of history in countries around the world show that the supply is going to decline in quantity or quality, or both. In the case of medical care, the supply is a matter of life and death.

All the existing efforts to control the rising expenses of medical care — whether by government, insurance companies, or health maintenance organizations — are about holding down the amount of money they have to pay out, not about reducing any of the real costs.

There is no fixed amount of medical “need.” There are some minor ailments that you may either ignore or treat with some over-the-counter medication, perhaps with the advice of a pharmacist. There are some other ailments that might cause you to phone your doctor for advice but which neither you nor he considers serious enough for an office visit. And of course there are other things that require immediate and perhaps extensive medical attention.

When you are paying your own money, you sort these things out accordingly. But when someone else is paying, then the trivial and the urgent are both likely to find their way to the doctor’s office. This means that both are likely to get less time and that patients with serious problems are the biggest losers.

Prices not only ration existing supplies, they also determine how many new supplies will be forthcoming. When a new pharmaceutical drug costs an average of $800 million to develop, there is no point talking about “affordable” medications.

Either the $800 million is going to be paid or the supply of new drugs will dry up. Controlling prices does not change that.

Well, it appears I’ve gone on much longer than I originally anticipated, and this blog on the health care situation in the US will have to be carried in to multiple blogs, or a “blog series” if you will.  See you there.

Worth your time. I would not lead you astray.

Wesley Layton Walters.

Listen here.

Fathers

This father’s day, with my own interests now deeply entrenched in the tumultuous but heavily rewarding world of fatherhood due to my two young daughters, I’m compelled to write down a few scattered thoughts regarding dads and their role and importance in our society. Special thanks to Mark Alexander at The Patriot Post for his insightful article on this subject, quoted and paraphrased in the smaller font.

“And as to the Cares, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children; and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the most delightful Cares in the World.” —Benjamin Franklin

“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.” —James Wilson (1791)

It is quite amazing to me the cause & effect correlation between the overall welfare and quality of development of a child (and society in general) and whether or not that child has the good fortune to benefit from the love, affirmation, discipline and protection of both their mother and father (preferably together under one roof as a family). This correlation is the subject of an article written by the Patriot Post’s Mark Alexander, in which he writes: “Marriage is the foundation of the family, which in turn serves as the foundation for society. “

Broken marriages lead to broken families, which lead to broken societies. The most successful fathering is rooted in a healthy marriage. Therefore, to be good fathers, it becomes obvious we must first be good husbands.

Dr. Jim Lee, director of Living Free ministries, writes that the Christian marriage paradigm is built on a foundation of five principles: “First, God is the creator of the marriage relationship; second, heterosexuality is God’s pattern for marriage; third, monogamy is God’s design for marriage; fourth, God’s plan for marriage is for physical and spiritual unity; and fifth, marriage was designed to be permanent.”

When this pattern is broken, the example we set for our children can and often is gravely and irrevocably damaged or corrupted, leading to staggering consequences. Mr. Alexander provides these statistics, from the United States Centers for Disease Control, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services and the Bureau of the Census:

Children who live apart from their fathers will account for 40 percent of incarcerated adults, 63 percent of teen suicides, 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 71 percent of high-school dropouts, 75 percent of children in chemical-abuse centers, 80 percent of rapists, 85 percent of youths in prison, 85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, and 90 percent of homeless and runaway children.

About eight percent of children in married-couple homes live at or below poverty level, while almost 40 percent of children in homes without fathers live below poverty level. The latter group risks a much higher incidence of serious child abuse or neglect.

Not included in the above is the very common and very severe emotional damage children can suffer from rejection, parental separation due to divorce, emotional abuse, and/or a broken or dysfunctional relationship, (or non-relationship, as it were) with parents during their crucial developmental years. Their emotional development is impeded, resulting finally and ironically in more adults and parents without the emotional faculties to deal with the pressures of adult life, and without the ability or desire to connect, love, nurture, support and actively raise their children as functioning members of society.

It is no small irony that divorced parents were, in all likelihood, themselves the child-victims of generational patterns of familial dissociation and dissolution. Daughters bear a particularly difficult burden in the absence of fathers. A broken father-daughter trust bond can disable the formation of a trust bond with a husband in later life.

As I grow older, and my children grow up, it has become extremely obvious to me that the job I do being a daddy to my wonderful children and seeking God’s guidance in their upbringing may very well be one of the most, if not the single most important part of the work that God has put me on this Earth to do, and a job that I truly relish the opportunity to carry out, despite all my fears and apprehensions regarding my performance at it so far.