Mel's Diner

Even blogging about food, you get into politics:

OK, I'll come out and say it, I'll say the remarkably unpopular thing - it's not President Bush's fault that Katrina took out New Orleans. The blessed chef Leah Chase has been living in public supported home for TWO YEARS? How about sucking it up and getting a house of your own? You know, I'm a fat buyer from New Hampshire, but I knew over five years ago that a strong hurricane hitting New Orleans would flood the place. What was Chef Chase's problem? Why did this surprise her and so many others? Was it walking the streets and seeing the river higher than the road? Come on, people! Show some shred of intelligence!

OK, lets assume she had the brain power of a sunflower and got flooded out - why is that my problem or Bush's fault? How about the Midwest getting dumped on with blizzards - why aren't they living in Houston, complaining? How about those that got flooded this year - where is the outcry from the left to rebuild them?

Look, it's not George Bush's fault anymore than it is you fault Katrina flooded New Orleans. New Orleans is a bad idea, that's why the oldest part of the city is still dry - building under water is STUPID!!!!

You really must wonder at the depths of Bush-hatred that permeate the mainstream press. Check out this headline from Washingtonpost.com via MSNBC:

“Hamas takeover shows failure of Bush's vision”

You see, everything is all George Bush’s fault. Because a group of people would rather kill themselves then act like human beings, George Bush is a failure. Here’s some of President Bush’s failures:

“The United States championed Israel's departure from the Gaza Strip as a first step toward peace and then pressed both Israelis and Palestinians to schedule legislative elections, which Hamas unexpectedly won. Now Hamas is the unchallenged power in Gaza.”

Ah, the Washington Post would much rather have had Israel occupy the Gaza Strip. No, wait…that’s can’t be right, Israel is supposed to LEAVE the lands it occupied in 1967. And Heaven forefend that there be Democratic elections.

“After his reelection in 2004, Bush said he would use his "political capital" to help create a Palestinian state by the end of his second term. In his final 18 months as president, he faces the prospect of a shattered Palestinian Authority, a radical Islamic state on Israel's border and increasingly dwindling options to turn the tide against Hamas and create a functioning Palestinian state.”

Idiot called for a separate Palestinian state. Of course, Hilary has done the same thing, but that was different.

I may not love President Bush as much as I used to, but I do feel for the man. Oh, and the press sucks, too.

Today is the anniversary of D-Day. June 6, 1944. On that day, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France to begin the invasion of Europe proper (we had landed in Italy the year before) and so the fall of Nazi Germany had begun. For the two American beaches (Iowa and Omaha), it was a nightmare. The “softening up” of the Atlantic wall from the air, the sea and under water had been iffy at best, usually it had gone badly. The three British and Canadian beaches (Juno, Gold and Sword) were not nearly as bad, but running through the ocean at people with guns pissed at you is never easy.

We should all take a moment to remember.

We should also take a moment to think what the ilk we call Democrat Presidential candidates would say about this invasion. Firstly, why are we invading a “friendly” country – France? We didn’t break from the beachhead for over 30 days – does anybody hear the word “quagmire”? And what about the allies having such an easier time of it? “Mismanagement at the highest levels”, perhaps? ”Why do we want to get into the middle of a European civil war?” “Maybe if we just tried to understand that Germany was oppressed by us after the First World War and tried to reason with them?” “For the love of God, where was the diplomacy?” “Roosevelt lied, people died!” “We need to focus on Japan!”

Sometimes, you need to love press censorship.

Meg at megnut has made such a good point about this New York Times article about “vaccinating” for E.coli., that I am harboring jealous feelings that I didn’t come up with it first. So, because I can’t take credit for it, this is what she said:

“Scientists Look to Vaccines in the War on E. Coli states "cows and their manure are considered the major sources of the pathogen" but in two pages of this New York Times article there isn't a single mention of the fact that E. Coli grows in the gut of corn-fed cows, but not in grass-fed cows. Instead of switching cows to a natural diet of grass, here are the solutions under consideration to protect us from E. Coli: feeding cows sodium chlorate, a chemical used in the pulp and paper industry; probiotics, which are good bacteria; phages, viruses that infect and kill bacteria; and E. Coli vaccines for people and for cattle.

The only sensible thing in the entire article was this quote from Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “What really is a concern to me about this issue is we always have a tendency to want high-tech responses to what in many cases are common-sense low-tech solutions.”

I hate it when I’m not first, but she is absolutely right. So much of what she is saying about current food regulations can be said about so many government programs, such a campaign finance and EVERY tax law. It’s broken, don’t try to fix it with “new and improved” versions. Get rid of all the garbage and let nature and/or the free market take care of it.
(Cross posted at my food blog melsdiner)

See more of Scott at Scrappleface

Check out what, who our friends at lucianne.com refer to, either Hildebeast or PIAPS, said in South Carolina:

"Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she sees her sometimes Southern accent as a virtue.

"I think America is ready for a multilingual president," Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C."

Uh, the dreaded Bu$hitler speaks Spanish, so is that what you are talking about? Are you a Bu$hCo supporter? And, I'm quite sure MANY of the former presidents spoke French and Latin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams come to mind from my own reading.

Yet, this simple fact was never mentioned in the article. No, there's no bias in the MSM.

This was the headline on MSN this morning at 9:20 AM:

Dem hopefuls show political heft
The overall impression from the first formal debate from this early-starting campaign is that the Democrats have a field of contenders that, by any historical measure, matches in quality any the party has offered in decades.

Have they just been insulted?

Naomi Wolfe, the woman who was hired to teach Al Gore how to be a man in the 2000 election, has an out of this world screed in The Guardian about how America is becoming a fascist state. I need to take apart some of her arguments, so lets go:

First check out some of her preamble:

“Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.”

And why don’t we learn about American History or Western Civilization anymore? Because of PC liberals just like you. So don’t pretend this is some George Bush plan to keep us all from wearing earth tones.

“1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it.”

Now, why wouldn’t your Congressmen have scarcely read it? Maybe because they abdicated their responsibility? Maybe because they are lazy, obtuse, half-wits in earth tones who know how to get elected but have no idea how to lead? Or is it because they actually agreed with the "nightmarish "Patriot Act? Who are your representatives, Naomi? Morons, people you don't understand or liars?

“2. Create a gulag.

…But Americans still assume this system and detainee abuses involve only scary brown people (bolding mine) with whom they don't generally identify”

Don’t YOU ever accuse me of being a racist. YOU and your ilk are the racists in this. If I was a better Christian, another fault against me to you I’m sure, I wouldn’t have the disdain and anger I feel for you now.

"3. Develop a Thug Caste

… Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000.”

I can only imagine she-whose veins-course-with vinegar-and-water is talking about the pink shirted dweebs who insisted on witnessing the re-count (as required by law) in 2000. I hate this woman more and more.

“4. Set up an internal surveillance system

In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched.”

Nobody is as surveillanced as the Europeans – they have video camera’s at every intersection and all over the Autobahn. What about that, beyotch?

“5. Harass citizens' groups

The fifth thing you do is related to step four - you infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, have been left alone.”

Which party consistently has candidates campaign in churches? Which President's detractors found themselves investigated by the IRS, especially if they accused the Gropenator of sexual misdeeds? Oh, yeah – it’s your party, Wolfey.

“6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the investigative reporters who wrote China Wakes: the Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, describe pro-democracy activists in China, such as Wei Jingsheng, being arrested and released many times. In a closing or closed society there is a "list" of dissidents and opposition leaders: you are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list.”

If this is so prevalent and used to stifle defense, why hasn’t your boy mentioned here, Nicky Kristoff been detained? For years he has been a very vocal critic of the George Bush in the paper of record, the New York Times. Wouldn’t it make sense to shut him down? Huh? Anything, Naomi? Anything?

“7. Target key individuals”

ibid.

“8. Control the press”

Double ibid. With another beyotch thrown in for good measure.

“9. Dissent equals treason

Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalise certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor". When Bill Keller, the publisher of the New York Times, ran the Lichtblau/Risen stories, Bush called the Times' leaking of classified information "disgraceful", while Republicans in Congress called for Keller to be charged with treason, and rightwing commentators and news outlets kept up the "treason" drumbeat. Some commentators, as Conason noted, reminded readers smugly that one penalty for violating the Espionage Act is execution.”

I would throw this back on Wolfe. If this isn’t treason, OK. So, what DOES constitute treason? I’m not saying it was treason, but I would like to know, what, if anything, is treason?

“10. Suspend the rule of law

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens.

Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spears's meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole's baby, the New York Times editorialised about this shift: "A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night ... Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any 'other condition'."

Are you basing fact on an opinion piece? That’s stupid from step one, and gets dumber after that. This last bit proves to the world you are an idiot. Who can we take you seriously? If I didn't think you were out of your mind before this, this might just push me to pat you on your pretty head and say, "There, there, honey - it will be all right. The nice men in the white coats are here to help."

I'm sorry to have another abortion post up - the past 10 are almost all abortion related, but this is beautiful. And it summarizes everything I feel about the Partial Birth Abortion ban.

I found myself harboring a fantasy that the New York Times was telling an allegory today in it’s Opinion section. In there, we find an editorial about fishing in the south Pacific titled Pacific Miracles. Here’s some bits:

“The trouble with modernity is how efficiently it obliterates the troves of age-old knowledge otherwise known as wisdom. The good news from Palau, a Pacific island nation near the Philippines, is that some wise old ways have reasserted themselves to the great benefit of that tiny republic’s fish and reefs, and the people who depend on them.

Under an ancient system of laws known throughout the South Pacific as tabu or kapu, rulers would forbid fishing in certain areas to let them recover from overuse. Their decisions relied on deep knowledge of seasons and of the habits of fish and plants, and were strictly obeyed by islanders, who understood that depletion of fisheries meant death.”

“…Native Hawaiians know all about kapu. What the lobbyists pushing the legislation are banking on is that Hawaiians will forget the usefulness of the old ways and bristle at the supposed paternalism. It would be a perverse victory for “rights” if such an attitude hastened the demise of a shared, precious and vulnerable resource like an island fishery.”

Now, I do care about reefs, ugly fish, blah, blah, blah – but, that’s not what this about. See how the Times is pining away for the “old ways”? See how they are even willing to call a victory for “rights” (notice the scare quotes?) a bad thing?

To me, this is all an allegory for the loss of social norms. I have wept for the demise of social norms for years in this blog and I still do. Social norms were those little rules we all knew and lived by. They were not the law of the land and they certainly did infringe upon your “rights”. You didn’t dress like slut. It was a BAD thing to get pregnant if you weren’t married. You married that girl, deadbeat. Being on the public dole was something to be embarrassed about and you did everything to get off it.

Now, the Times, of course, is not saying this at all. They support the loss of norms and the damage it has done to society. But, I’ll still live in my fantasy world and read this article the way I mean it to be.

Seven years ago, in a different venue, I wrote the following words (or thereabouts):

“If George Bush is elected for one term and appoints some conservatives to the Supreme Court, it will be a successful Presidency”. I, of course, was thinking about stemming the abortion problem in this country and today, I have to say “This is a successful Presidency!”

The Supreme Court of the United States of America has ruled today the 2003 Partial Birth Ban, (ending the most disgusting, abhorrent, inhuman medical procedure dreamed up in Hell) LEGAL in the United States. This does not reduce the number of abortions, but it does open the door to end this infanticide we have been allowing for the past 35 years.

More on the doomsday scenarios we will see in the MSM tomorrow.

PS. Notice how the Supreme Court had a "Conservative Majority?". Do you remember the Court having a "Liberal Majority" when it upheld McCain-Feingold? Me either.

There’s nothing better than a foreigner who talks out of his butt and, because he’s doing such a stupid thing, has no idea what he’s saying. Case in point, Ian Bell from the Glasgow Herald. In a knee jerk, total jerk reaction to the killings in Virginia, he slams this countries Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the same spirit of Bellsy, I’ll let the first idiocy “pass”, that the Bill of Rights consists of the first TWELVE Amendments, instead of the first Ten. Because his country isn't so “rights” oriented as the United States, this isn’t so surprising.

The first thing I’ll take umbrage with his assertion that,

“Contrary to myth, in fact, nothing in the constitution prevents the US federal government or state governments from passing laws forbidding the ownership of certain weapons, or from legislating on the way others may be used. Nothing at all. But we'll let that pass.”

If this moron had spent, I don’t know, 23 seconds searching the net instead of reading the DNC, AFL-CIO, CCCP handbook, he would have found this little ruling from just over a month ago:

“Court Rejects Strict Gun Law as Unconstitutional”

This is the first paragraph from the notorious gun-hating New York Times:

“Interpreting the Second Amendment broadly, a federal appeals court in Washington yesterday struck down a gun control law in the District of Columbia that bars residents from keeping handguns in their homes.”

The rest of the article is a pie in the sky, if I wish hard enough I can un-invent gun technology, clap trap. Typical garbage from the MSM.

The obviously senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech yesterday saddens and horrifies me as much as everyone else. I can’t imagine the terror of being chained in a building with an armed madman casually shooting people for fun. My heart races and my blood boils at the thought of those helpless students.

This incident of course brought out the liberals and their gun control fetishes. John McCain was asked about it at a campaign stop in Texas. But, I couldn’t help but think of an incident this weekend at a local dive/bar in Manchester. A patron was thrown out and pulled a gun on the bouncers, firing at them and thankfully missing. It would have ended up quite differently if another patron hadn’t come to the defense of the staff and pulled his own gun, firing three, better aimed shots, striking the assailant twice.

Tales from the armed citizenry…

There’s an abortion crisis happening in Great Britain and it’s not the one you imagine. No, it’s not the 190,000 abortions every year (silly me, I thought THAT was the crisis), the crisis is there aren’t enough doctors to kill, I mean abort, no, terminate that many pregnancies every year.

“Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which carries out a quarter of all abortions performed in England, said: "There is a real crisis looming. Unless we can address the problem and motivate doctors to train in abortion, we may well face a situation in five years' time in which women's access to abortion is severely restricted. It is our biggest headache."”

Fortunately, the abortion lobby in Britain isn’t at the point of making abortion procedures a mandatory work requirement, which I thought was going to be tossed out in the article.

“Kate Guthrie, a spokesperson on family planning for the RCOG and a consultant in sexual and reproductive health in the North of England, said…"There is a new core curriculum being introduced in August and my view is that we must ensure abortion care is part of core training. We would not make [carrying out terminations] compulsory but we need to ensure trainees are given the knowledge so they are more likely to want to develop the skills."”

It take a special kind of person who wants to learn that type of skills.

The scariest bit of the article was a throwaway line,

“One in three women has an abortion at some point in her life.”

Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it’s a lot scarier, too.

Survivor this season is separating the teams by race.

Yeah, you can guess what’s happening.

People are flipping out. A New York City Councilman wants CBS to pull the show. It seems he feels

"The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous," City Councilman John Liu said Thursday. "How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?"

Really, does he feel that same way when teams are separated by sex? Hell’s Kitchen just ended and the teams were boys against girls. Where was he outrage there? How does Mr. Liu feel about the Congressional Black Caucus? There’s a club where people who aren’t the "correct" color can’t join. What about the University of Michigan Law School admission’s policy, where people of the “right” color get an extra boost? Mr. Liu? Anything? Anything?

People are outraged by this because they want to be. Freely joining a competition where teams are separated by sex or race or age or anything is not going to

“encourage racial division and promote negative typecasts.”

Get over yourself, Mr. Liu.

Yesterday, the FDA ok’d the sale of “emergency contraception” over the counter to girls 18 and over. This , “Oops, do over!” is just a super dose of a normal prescription daily contraception, so I wonder if it’s really safe. I’m sure the idea is that it will be economically prohibitive to use on a daily basis or to O.D. on, but never underestimate the stupidity of college kids – so look for some tragic mistakes to happen in the near future.

And now let’s talk about the name. The name of this product is so morally repulsive, that when I first heard about it a year or so ago, I just about fell over. And the name is:

Plan B.

I can’t comment any further. You either know what I’m talking about or you have no soul.

So, how do I feel about the newest development? I don’t like it. And you can guess why, according to the FDA website, this is how Plan B works”

“Plan B works like other birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation). If a fertilized egg is implanted prior to taking Plan B, Plan B will not work.”

Yeah, the money quote here is ”Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation)”.

Once again, we cavalierly kill another human being. I’m sorry to bring abortion into the postings three days in a row, but it just keeps coming up. It keeps coming up because of the shear number of abortions. There are roughly 3,200 abortions performed in America EVERY DAY. You want to talk carnage? This makes Genghis Kahn seem like a choir boy.

Let me digress quickly – USA Today prints the names of the American soldiers recently killed in Iraq. I’m not sure it’s done everyday, but at least weekly and it’s nice. I will assume this is done to recognize and give value to the lives of these fine Americans. And I applaud that.

I also give value to the lives of the children killed in abortions. So, that’s why it keeps coming up. The MSM made a huge deal when the death toll in Iraq reached 2,000 – yet in the abortion mills in this country, that’s called a “slow Tuesday”.

I haven’t written a lot about embryonic stem cell research, but most people could guess which side of the argument this proud member of the vast, pro-life conspiracy comes down on. Today’s New York Times has an article about a new procedure that seems to produce the raw material’s to form new ESC lines without killing the embryo the cells are harvested from. As the Times itself said:

“This method, if confirmed in other laboratories, would seem to remove the principal objection to the research.”

And maybe it does. My question is this: If this magic cell can grow into the panacea of establishing colonies of stem cells and these stem cells can grow into anything, livers, toenails, etc, everything the liberals promise, can it not grow into a whole person? Seriously, is this 1/8th of a person able to form into a whole person? Senator Brownbeck shares my concern and the answer he received was:

“…there was no evidence that a single blastomere could develop into a person. “

Is there no evidence because the single blastomere was never given the chance? The good doctor’s answer seems like a Clinton obfuscation, “I’m confident no evidence will be found of any wrongdoing….”

So that’s my question concerning this new procedure and I welcome anything that doesn’t kill babies. Sad I have to be happy with the lack of a negative, but when it comes to how we treat our weakest and most innocent members of our society, that’s about the best I can hope for.

The article does bring forth a whole slew of other observations worth mentioning:

Look at the verbal knots the writer ties himself into so as to give NO impression that a fertilized egg might be a human life. The embryos are referred to as a “blastomeres” and “blastocysts”. On the other hand in Mr. Wade’s defense he did get this past the editor:

“Harvesting the blastocyst-stage cells kills the embryo, a principal objection of those who oppose the research.”

I’m surprised the word “kills” was used, that seems to give weight and value to the “blastocyst-stage cells”, not something I expect from the Times. So maybe I’m all wet here.

Also in the article was the fact that ESC research is not illegal in this country. If you got your news from the MSM, you would be sure, given the hysteria and doom-mongering on the left that Bu$h/Hitler had made ESC research a crime punishable by death or at least imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay. In fact, as the article says:

“Mr. Bush has allowed federal financing for research on human embryonic stem cells, provided they were established before Aug. 9, 2001. Although that might seem to rule out any new cell lines derived from blastomeres, Dr. Battey said that was not clear because the embryo would not be destroyed, and that he would seek guidance on the point.

The federal policy does not affect privately financed stem cell research, like that done by Advanced Cell.”

That’s right, the only thing Herr Bush won’t allow is Federal financing of the NEW stem cell lines. Research on the existing lines is still Federally funded and private funding can do whatever they want.

Probably the most disturbing thing in the article isn’t addressed directly, but clues are given for what I call the Dirty Little Secret of fertility clinics – the wonton destruction of life everyday in this little Menegle labs. Look at these quotes:

“In fertility clinics, where the embryo is available outside the woman in the normal course of in vitro fertilization, one of these blastomeres can be removed for diagnostic tests, like for Down syndrome.

The embryo, now with seven cells, can be implanted in the woman if no defect is found.” (Bolding mine)

What if a defect is found, like the one mentioned – Down syndrome? It is “discarded”. Or, in more simple terms, it is killed. If no defect is found, it can be implanted and nine months later – out pops a baby. So, we can’t pretend the blastomere with Down Syndrome is any less of a life than one without.

The objection we pro-lifers have to all of these procedures, including the big daddy of them all, abortion is that LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION. And that is why we still remain cautious with the new procedure; because it occurs after conception.

Two years ago, I wrote about the Roe Effect. The Roe Effect, in a nutshell, claims that of the 40 million + abortions since Roe v. Wade, the majority of them were from liberal mothers and their “lost children” would have, for the most part, grown up to be liberals and vote Democrat. Hence, Democrats have lost millions of voters they can NEVER get back.

I know, it’s like a terrible car accident – you don’t want to think about it, but you can’t help yourself.

In yesterday’s Opinion Journal, Arthur C. Brooks wrote of another Effect, let’s call it the “It's all about me”(I'AM) Effect. Here’s what he says:

“Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.”

Now, to be sure, some of the baby imbalance comes from the Roe Effect, but not all of it for sure. The self-centered liberals of today are much more concerned about their own creature comforts to give them up to have children. Kids are expensive in all sorts of ways, not just monetarily. You’re life becomes centered around them and you can’t just pack up and go away for the weekend anymore. Vacations to the Bahamas are impossible and going out to dinner becomes a production. Self-centered people would never give these up for ten to fifteen years. And that's just the normal left; of course, then there’s the angry left. Look at this quote from the article:

“As one liberal columnist in a major paper graphically put it, "Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation."

“Wonton breeding”? This is why liberals have abortions, to them the baby is not a person, it’s a breeding problem that needs resolution. And don’t get me going about “overpopulation”, Malthus and Ehrlich have been discredited over and over again, "overpopulation" is just a scare tactic to use when no real argument exists.

Anyway, the baby imbalance isn’t going to get any better for the Democrats:

“Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today's problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason than babies.”

Ah, the unintended consequences. They’ll get you every time.

For years I have decried “reality TV”. When the first Survivor came on, I told everyone the only thing I could think of was “The Running Man” and I still believe this. (Hypocrisy disclaimer: I really love Hell’s Kitchen and I watched the first season of The Osbourne's religiously, but only the first season). I think the absolute low of reality TV was the show on NBC (surprisingly, not Fox), Who Wants to Marry my Dad?

Now the Oxygen Network (the Network for Women) has hit not as low as Who Wants to Marry my Dad, but to a ridiculous level with Shannen Doherty’s new show (she’s executive producer), Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty. No, it’s not a show with camera’s following her around breaking up with boyfriends, the premise is that she will come to the aid of losers who want to break up with their boyfriend, but just can’t muster the courage and do it for them. Here’s the show description:

“Whether it's getting out of a bad relationship, an awful job or a toxic friendship, breaking up is never fun, so why do it alone? Let Shannen Doherty do the dirty work!

In Oxygen's newest reality series Breaking up with Shannen Doherty, Shannen comes to the rescue of men and women who need her expert assistance to break free. In each episode, Shannen puts the relationship and the "break-ee" to the test by creating a bogus situation caught on hidden cameras. And Shannen will be waiting in the wings to put the relationship out of its misery and deliver the news in her own unique way.”

For the love of God, people!! Back away slowly from the television set and don’t make eye contact. Turn it off and read a book, talk to your husband, go for a walk - anything but reality TV.