CDC alert "PASSIVE COW DISEASE", do you have it?

As a public service this blog site would like to alert you and in turn ask you to alert your friends of an epidemic that has consumed the independent will of millions of otherwise healthy Americans. In stark contrast to the neurological disorder Mad Cow Disease,...
Passive Cow Disease creeps into your system slowly and steadily, but stealthily rots away your will to stand up and make a difference.

The first signs are benign, even guised as appropriate social behavior. Reasonable tolerance becomes confused with lying down and playing dead. Here are a few examples from scientists currently studying this culture disrupting pandemic. Look for these in yourself, a loved one or friend;

1) Do you or someone you know quietly and without objection put your metaphorical tail between your legs when the freckled face teen behind the fast food counter tells you that it's past 10am and the ovens have magically transformed into burger only burners. Hence your breakfast sandwich is unavailable?

2) Do you or someone you know accepts without protest the re-directing of your flight plans because you failed to anticipate the 1 hour long line at the air carriers cattle rope-a-dope, which then resulted in you appearing at the self-serve kiosk 43 minutes before departure instead of the required 45. Did you passively sign off on the ticket accepting that your bag may not be at your destination when you are?

3) Do you or someone you know accept without protest the hostage holding practice now know as standard operating procedure by NFL owners? More specifically, do you live in a city where the owner has essentially told the community..."build us a new stadium or we are headed for neo-ville"? Have you reach stage two of the disorder but still supporting the team, watching, buying tickets and memorabilia etc. This is known as the Helsinki strain of the disease where you actually fall in love with your hostage holders.

I'M SORRY TO SAY...IT GETS WORSE

4) Have you or a friend ever...sat idle while thousands of illegal immigrants marched in your city, disrupted your daily commute as they demanded rights, access to services and earned the disproportionate attention of YOUR ELECTED officials? Did you fall into stage three? Actually feeling sorry for the poor employers who have been forced to hire this labor pool so that they can compete with foreign-based businesses due to an unequal playing field constructed by YOUR ELECTED officials?

5) Are you at stage 4? When you are driving to work and notice your fuel gauge is nearing "E" and you pull into the nearest Hostage Fueling Depot are you resigned to accept that this is the American dream or free enterprise? Has the memory of a time when "service" stations actually provided a service fallen out of your biological hard drive? Have you noted that to get air for your tires or water for the radiator now costs 50 cents? (No, not the rap artist).

6) Are you at stage 5? Have you or someone you know come to the conclusion that the WAR on TERROR requires that you accept an open-ended trampling of your civil liberties. Did you watch and passively pass by as the security screen demanded that the 75 year old lady remove her wig, where it was discovered that the metal detector accurately discovered the presence of "bobby pins" holding the last strands of natural hair? Did you also see and do nothing as the 22 year old Pakistani carrying the book "the evil of America" was apologized to as the screener asked to peek inside the back pack making that curious ticking noise? Does it seem normal to you that we are at War, but the borders to this nation can be as porous as if we were not?

7) Please tell me you aren't at stage 6? Have you sat down flipping through your TV screen seeking a half-hour escape from reality. You have resigned yourself to the premise that while we are told we are at war with terrorists...we have no plans to encircle the un-controlled region of Pakistan (where Bin Laden is) and engage the supporters of terror there? Have you forgotten to demand from your commander and chief that the war on terror should (at a minimum) engage the enemy?

8) If you are at stage 7, it maybe too late! We can however offer some pain mitigations as you fall into the last stages of the illness. Have you eyes started to blur as you try to distinguish between the Do-Nothing Democrats and the Used-to-be Conservative Republicans? Have you found it difficult to imagine the power you actually have to throw the bums out? If you illness has reached this stage you have two options;
a) Seek out your vice of choice (Vodka, Bourbon, Prozac etc) and up the dosage
b) Get off your bum ass and support someone (regardless of their current poll numbers) who is speaking to the issues you used to care about. In short, fake it until you make it!

EVERYBODY OUT OF THE POOL

Okay, clearly the Iraqi's are not stepping up to secure our vision of freedom for them. Perhaps it is time to leverage the FEAR FACTOR to spur them to act.

Remember how fast the pool got emptied in the movie "CADDY SHACK"! When the mis-identified flying Baby Ruth candy bar plopped into the Swanky Country Club Pool? Everyone scurried away to avoid the brown turd-pedo?

Watch how fast people galvanize if we let the Iraqi's stare down the barrel at the very real prospect of an un-mitigated Civil War as we exit the cities and form a defensive perimeter around the country's borders.

We should blow the metaphorical Lifeguard Whistle and shout to the populace..."Hey, anyone not an Iraqi citizen...out of the pool"! Then seal-off the borders and make a comprehensive sweep of each community. We can look for proper documentation and toss out anyone without "papers" or a "purple thumb". Then reduce our role to maintaining the integrity of the Iraqi border. Perhaps we can plop a few extra well-equipped Marines on the Iranian border and see if President Ahmadinejad continues to smile and pop-off verbal scuds or if he'll start to soil his shorts.

Then the Iraqi's can have their nation clarifying civil action (in whatever form they opt for). We can step out of the no-win, attrition-plaqued, urban police role and let the Iraqi's do the heavy lifting. However it turns out, we can proudly and honestly say to the Iraqi's, the world, and to oursleves...we gave them "a chance at self-determination"! What they create for themselves is what they earned for themselves and they can take pride it that.

Here's the bonus, once the 101st Airborne and other fine fighting forces fine-tune their border protection acumen, they can come home and teach the border patrol how to do it!

Did Wallace get Schooled or was he an Accomplice

For those of you who watched the Mike Wallace interview with Iranian President Ahmadinejad...I'd like for you to offer your opinion.



Did Mike Wallace actually get out-maneuvered by his guest or were Mr. Wallaces' occasional but weak-willed protests part of a cleaver plan to allow the Iranian unfettered access to a promote his propaganda?

Nearing 50 years old, I have been witness far too often to Mike Wallace's slice and dice style on 60 minutes to believe he has lost the tools of assertive interview techniques. The number of U.S. Businessmen, Politicians and other newsworthy personalities could tell you first hand how they were never allowed to get their side of the story on air. Yet, this U.S. agtagonists is provide full reign of the air waves to put forward his point of view on a wide range of topics.

So, in my mind...The old man has either lost his stuff or worse...He consciously opted to provide this man full and unfettered access to America. I have no objection to that except that the journalistic roadside is littered with publicly humiliated corpses of Mr. Wallace's work in the past. Many of whom were U.S. Citizen's who may or may not have made mistakes, but at least had never paid a terrorist to kill someone.

Mr. Wallace should provide Prime Minister Olmert equal time and more importantly equal treatment.

News Flash we're at War...Belly Up to the Bar

In a Democratic-Republic the root for political courage of our leaders comes from the collective courage and will of the electorate. So, when the people are divided, distracted or otherwise engaged, the "Leadership Acumen" of our governance suffers.

On occasion, we are blessed with leaders who due to their own inner strength of conviction and calling inspire the masses to a great cause, but that is not the norm. If I was a great mathematician I could graph-out the elastic limits of the political will in relation to the collective will of the masses, but suffice to say the relationship exist none-the-less. Perhaps a Gallop Pollster to handle that for me.

I heard President Bush tell us yesterday that we are "at war with Islamic fascists". Well, that is a clarifying statement that requires action. If we are at war with "Islamic fascism", then it is time for the people to galvanize and take the appropriate and self-sacrificing steps towards defeating the common enemy. Our nation has risen to such occasions in the past and now with this clarity of mission we should;

1) Deploy sufficient forces around the mountainous region of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and encircle Bin-Laden and his cronies. We no longer need to fear the stability of Musharif's hold on power as this is WAR and it is time to engage and defeat our enemies. At least this will delineate between those with us and against us.

2) We can no longer send dollars to regimes that use those dollars to finance the enemy and do harm to us and our Allies. Hence, we must embark on a true mission of energy independence, not to protect the environment and stem global warming, but to ensure the economic and strategic health of the nation and to dry up the revenue stream of our enemies. Yes, there will be pain as we transition, but this is WAR and we must galvanize ourselves and focus on the mission at hand. No doubt Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron and Arco will hear this call to action and step up to aid during this time of WAR.

3) We must secure our borders as one of the enemies tactics is to do harm to us with random acts of terror. They aim to cross our borders and use our various ports of entry to bring death and destruction and fear to our people and harm our economy. Yes, some of our businesses will be inconvenienced, but I am sure they will step up and support the nation during this time of peril. After all this is WAR and we must sacrifice to serve the greater good...Vanquishing our enemies. The divisiveness of partisan politics will be cast aside and the Democrats will abandon their open borders/amnesty plan and cede to the patriotic task at hand. They could at least defer the border argument for a time when we aren't on a WAR footing. Of course, the President will sacrifice his own personal view that the borders should be open as this is good for his businessmen/supporters. However such ambitions must give way to the nations’ safety. After all we are at WAR.

4) Now for us,...We should look to our grandparents as the example of how to prioritize during a time of world conflict. Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation" knew how to defeat a common enemy. So, if it isn't too much trouble, can you put down the Big Mac, set the X-Box on pause, unplug the ear buds to your I-Pod and let President Bush know you have the courage that will give him the courage to DO WHAT IS NECESSARY? By the way, we probably only need about 60% of you to do so…the rest of you can go back to your important activities.

The music stops and everyone lost

Well, only in this great land of ours...

The U.S. Congress conjoined the two issues of minimum wage rate and the death tax into one comprehensive bill. By the way; "comprehensive" actually means in Washington "an excuse for hogs to trot up to the trough".

As stand alone issues I agreee with both propsed adjustments.

As a stand alone issue the minimum wage...

...is woefully inadequate. Clearly having no raise in the minimum wage while gas is up triple digits, housing up triple digits (both expense categories that are required to function in America) over a 9 year period is lunacy. Even if you accept the government supplied inflation rate of 4% annually...the minimum wage should be in the $7 range.

As a stand alone issue the death tax is...

...the most insidous of government intrusions. It is not a mear metaphor to describe this tax strategy as grave robbing. In truth, regardless of who the deceased tax payer was...his/her taxes on those funds have already been paid.

So, out of two fundamentally sound propositions joined together and we get....


...NOTHING!

3 Republicans, 1 Independent and 38 Democrats joined to defeat this bill.

The Democrats have their wedge issue "they can claim that the Republican controlled congress failed to advoacte for the down trodden working poor".

The Republicans have their wedge issue; "they can claim that the Democrats blcoked death tax reform".

Americans must yet again conclude that their "do nothing" Congress is, if nothing else,...consistent in their inabilty to serve the people.