Do you watch CNN?

I was flipping between channels the other night watching the various network's coverage of the tsunami aftermath when I noticed CNN had preempted it's regular broadcast in favor of CNNI.
Wow.

CNN International should rename it's network to Al Jazeera West. I know that my friends on the left think that FOX News is a right-wing church organ, and from time to time , I see the news anchors slant their reporting to the right. But the main difference is I see it and recognize it. When I ask liberals about CNN or the legacy media network's coverage, they don't see the slant. They will not acknowledge it, they don't see any slant because it fits their view of the world.

If I were ever appointed to run the FCC, I would make the networks run a scroll below the talking heads and anchors stating who they voted for in the past 5 elections and a 'score" from the ACLU and the NRA. At the very least you could reasonably assume if the person talking about news story had a bias. They do a similar thing with financial advisors that talk about stocks and mutual funds. There is a disclaimer on the screen that must say if the advisor on the show owns that particular stock or fund.

Can you imagine Judy Woodruff''s score?

Tens of thousands are dead, let the eco-spin begin.

The old media is awash in stories from agenda driven journalist bent on using this tragedy to further their cause. Can we please stop blaming American capitalism for the deaths of people half a world away.
The real story of this event will start making itself known in a few days. As thousands of coastal inhabitants start dying from drinking contaminated water, cholera and typhoid. This situation will get much worse before it gets any better.

I would like to find the UN bureaucrat that had the gaul to call our initial 25 million dollars contribution to the UN relief fund 'stingy". I would like to yank his diplomatic credentials and send him back to Norway to find a real job without a US taxpayer funded expense account. Please show me a successful UN led program. Please?
Haiti? No.
Rwanda? No.
The Congo? No.
Oil for Food? Oh hell no.

A question for President Bush. When will we stop sending the UN money?
We fund about 22% of the UN budget, the most of any nation. Let them keep bad-mouthing the United States, but without using our money to do it.

Let us put that money to good use. Send it to Worldvision.

Tragedy strikes, the people of the United States respond.

Unless you have been in the County lock-up drying out, you have seen the story about the tsunami that has left 22,000 plus dead. My prayers to the families of the lost and missing. As Hugh Hewitt has suggested, please give to Worldvision, they will be need more than we can imagine.
I wonder how hard currency financial aid will come from the EU or Arab nations? I know that the people of the US will do most of the heavy lifting in this crisis, like most others that have come before. The 'Great Satan' helps more of the starving and stricken people on this planet that anyone else. Why? It must be because of the guilt we feel for driving SUV and hogging all the resources in the world. Or just maybe it is because we are a kind nation founded on Christian principals. My vote is for the latter.

Please give. Tonight, far away a father combs the beaches looking for his lost children. He does not care about politics or the Kyoto treaty, he just wants to hold his children again.

Christmas, from a saddle.

I have tried over the years to keep a personal tradition. A Christmas day horseback ride. In my home growing up we opened our presents Christmas eve night. I loved waiting in my room to hear Santa land on the roof with his sleigh. I would hear footsteps on the roof and what seemed like three hours later, my mother would tell us to come in and see what Santa brought. I would later figure out that Santa's reindeer don't wear cowbells and the thought of my father running around the house clanging the cowbells while my Mom put the wrapped presents under the tree stills makes me chuckle. The best part was on Christmas morning, the parents can sleep in and the kids can wake at any hour and go outside and spend the entire day riding their new bike or skating or what have you.
When I met my wife and started going to her house for Christmas I was shown the other, more traditional way to open the presents. Christmas morning everyone gets up, the kids who will not stir any other day of the year until 8:00 am will wake at 6:05 and start pestering the parents to get up and start opening presents. Everyone stumbles to the tree and the paper storm starts. Then there is clean up, breakfast, a shower and then by 10:30 you can start playing with your toys in ernest.
Now that I have grown, I still love Christmas. My wife has won the battle and we open our presents on Christmas morning, but I do get to have some time for myself on that day. When we lived on the ranch, I would saddle a horse just after the presents were opened and ride for a few hours by myself. I don't think there is any better decompression for me than a quiet ride alone. Time to think, time to reflect, the rhythm of the hooves on the ground, the feeling of the horse moving under you is unique. This year we are going to the snow on Christmas day. We will go tubing with the family and have a picnic lunch in the snow. I am looking forward to it, but I will have to put off my ride until Sunday morning after church.

College Terrorism?

Frontpage magazine reports a disturbing piece about the College Republican Club at UCSF.

Tolerance? Peace? Free Speech? Oh, don't be silly, Republicans don't deserve any.
The left in this country wants to call themselves the party of free speech?

What a joke.

Agnostic? Secular Liberal? Merry Christmas anyway!

I spent the past few hours Christmas caroling with my local 4-H club through the town of Esparto, the kids had a great time and the residents of our small town enjoyed the entertainment. I am sure this would infuriate the ACLU members in our town, if we had any, a government supported youth group singing about Christmas!

How dare these rural hillbillies take our tax dollars and use them to celebrate a religious event. Start plucking the chickens and boiling the tar, we need to run these Jesus freaks out of town.

The people who want to eliminate all symbols of religion from public view are the same ones who rail at conservatives for not celebrating diversity. Let me give you a little something to chew on. Secularism is a religion too. Just look at the way the secular left in this country views the role of government. To them it is the way, the truth, and the light. The courts and the law have replaced God and the Gospels. The model that they want to emulate is socialism, if not out-right communism. Just ask any member of the ACLU, after they have had a few too many glasses of chardonnay.

The reason behind this pursuit of the all powerful government? The more powerful the government, the less powerful the citizens that inhabit that nation will be. If on the other hand, the rights of the people come from God and it is the job of government to protect and not to infringe upon them, the citizens remain free. Free to practice their religion, free to check the staggering growth and power of the government. Free to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

When George Bush outlaws all religions except his brand of Christianity, then I will be out in front of the Whitehouse with my picket sign, or rifle, marching on Washington. Short of that, this is still a Christian nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Have a Merry Christmas, while you still can.

Hogue vs. Williams - a Sacramento street fight

While I love a good debate, I am getting rather tired of the media mud-clod throwing match between KTKZ's morning host Eric Hogue and KFBK's evening host Mark Williams. While I do support Eric's side in this ongoing feud, I do wish both would get on to more important items, the upcoming media battle over Ted Costa's Fair Districts plan as one example. The Sacramento Bee's staff will be looking for ammunition to debunk any effect from talk radio, they will use the feud to undermine the influence both shows may have in the battle for the hearts and minds of the listening public. Lets agree to disagree. If there is another mud-clod thrown, duck. The capitol region listeners and blog readers deserve better.

Too smart for our own good?

I am sure that for as long as people have pondered things, people have pondered weather humans have grown too smart for our own good. I am sitting down at my laptop listening to Sheryl Crows' greatest hits on my headphones so as not to disturb my wife, blogging on the internet, sharing my random thoughts with people around the globe.

What would my grandfather think of that? Would he think it was even possible?

I often thought my father's generation saw the most change. My father was born in 1915, he rode a horse to school, lived through the depression, built PT boats during WWII, saw the advent of passenger air travel and a man walking on the moon through a device called television.

I was born in 1965, I remember Neil Armstrong's walk, remember listening to Walter Cronkite tell is how many US soldiers were killed in Vietnam that day, watched the "duck and cover" films about what to do in the event of a Solviet nuclear attack, saw the same Solviet Union die under it's own weight without a shot fired, bought a commodore 64 and thought it was pretty cool.

I now ponder what my children's generation will see? It is my hope that his generation will do wonderful things. Every son is sure that they are smarter than their father, every father is sure their son is a hopeless slacker. Every generation thinks the next will learn from their mistakes. I pray my son learns from our generation. The biggest mistake that I can think of right now is forgetting that there are people in the world that want nothing more than to see and your family dead. Democrat or Republican, a member in good standing of Greenpeace or the NRA, a pacifist vegetarian or a beer drinking redneck, they want to see you convert to their radical form of Islam or die a horrible death. That is a cold hard fact.

It would be nice if we could convince these people that we are not evil, but it's not going to happen. They want to send everyone back to the 14th century. That would be a bad thing. Although I would stop getting SPAM and popups, I would like my daughter to go to school and have the right to vote and run for the presidency. We have the means to make the world a better place, the technology, the most productive and creative workforce the world has ever known. What are we doing with these gifts? What does the world see when they think of American products?
Porn and fast food more than likely.

Why don't they think of the medicine and food we send around the world? When there is a natural disaster, who gives the most? The people of this nation are the most generous when it comes to the suffering of the needy. I should say that some of people in this country are generous. The American Christian, regularly maligned by the mainstream media and the liberal left are the most generous and the best friend of the poor anywhere in the world.

In our quest for new technology and a quicker buck, we have lost sight of what is most important. Leaving our children a better world than the one we inherited. A world without terrorists nations operating openly. A world where basic freedom is embraced. A world where America is looked upon as the greatest force for good. Let's start with a better America, one with a little less Hollywood and porn and a little more Christian faith.