Celebrities and Narcissism

Do you remember the myth about Narcissus? He saw his reflection in a pond, and became fixated upon it. Day after day, he did naught but sit by the pond and stare at his own image. Finally, the gods just turned him into a flower.

In my previous post called Those Radical Christians, I registered my anger about Rosie O'donnell and other celebrities who foist their uninformed and often unintelligent opinions on their vast audiences. I said, "We know that many other famous entertainers are spreading their ill-formed views of world affairs on the public. They should know better."

Recently on ABC talk radio, Sean Hannity has been complaining about his interview with Alec Baldwin. When Hannity tried to use some simple facts to get Baldwin to adjust his views, Baldwin barked at him some words to the effect that Hannity is an ignorant, no-talent, former construction worker. So apparently, Hannity has been dumping on Baldwin almost daily. Hannity blasts Baldwin for opining that construction workers are some sort of lesser human being than, say, actors. Hannity also points out that Baldwin is not exactly an "A-list" actor, and may not have any more talent than Hannity does.

Both Rosie and Alec demonstrate that characteristic I loathe--the attitude that, they are better than the 'common folk,' smarter than the 'common folk,' and that their opinion on various social and political topics is therefore right and good. Why, I have often wondered, do these idiots behave that way? Most of them have not had the quality of education that I have, and have probably not had any more enlightening life experiences. What they have that I do not have is a large public platform and a bright spotlight.

Well, I found the answer in an article in the Health and Science section of this week's issue of The Week magazine.

Dr. Drew Pinsky, physician and host of the radio show Loveline, collected personality data from 200 of his celebrity guests. He tested them for narcissistic traits. These traits include the (unsupported) belief that they are smarter, more talented, or more worthy than other people. Pinsky found out that male celebrities are significantly more narcissistic than average people, and that female celebrities are even worse. He found that the narcissism is less in celebrities whose fame comes from actual talent, such as musicians. So the most narcissistic celebrities are the female reality show contestants. Pinsky also points out that narcissism should not be confused with egotism, or genuine self-love. Narcissists actually have low self-esteem, due to abandonment, abuse, or other childhood emotional trauma.

So there we have it--Rosie and Alex appear to be perfect examples of the narcissistic celebrities. In their eyes, they are more worthy than you and I and smarter than you and I. That's why you and I should take their political opinions as gospel, even if contrary to the facts in evidence.

As I think about some of the really intelligent and talented celebrities, I note that they pretty much keep their opinions of things other than their trade to themselves, and eschew the tendency to abuse their very public platforms. Some examples might be Anthony Hopkins, Sir Alec Guinness, and Dame Judy Dench.

The anecdotal evidence all correlates with Dr. Pinsky's analysis. We bestow fame and celebrity on someone who has modest or no talent, and he becomes a Narcissist! It apparently just comes with the fame.

First Europe, Then The World

Europe is in a sorry state. England, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy have all imported Muslims the way we have imported Mexicans for cheap labor. Europe seems to be totally forgetting, or ignoring, the former occupation by the Moors. Gradually they are transforming from Protestant and Catholic nations to Muslim nations. Many Russian provinces also have significant Muslim populations. I worry that, if that trend continues, our country will be alone in the world.

What also bothers me is that we still do not hear a loud defiant outcry, or, more important, see specific actions from the supposed majority of Muslims that believe in peace. The Muslim responses to the Pope’s speech only confirm its content. – “We are not violent, and if you say otherwise we will kill you.” “We are the religion of peace—peace is only achieved when everyone is a Muslim. Join us, or we will kill you.” To my knowledge, in the last 100 years or so, no Christian, Jew, or Buddhist has said that someone who criticizes his faith or caricatures it should be killed, nor taken action in that direction.

It seems that only a few relatively soft-spoken Muslims have denied these tenets. It boggles my mind that so many people believe that we can negotiate or compromise with people who take that position. These people are not all that dumb; they must just be naïve.

A New Law

In a previous post, I stated that we have too many laws. The result is we are unable to enforce them all.

Today, I emailed some weird court cases from a site called The Courtroom Jester to a few friends. The site summarizes frivolous lawsuits, and lawsuits with strange outcomes. It's really fun to read--I added the site to the links in my profile.

After reading some of the case summaries, one of my friends, J.L., proposed that we come up with a new law. I find myself supporting it 100% for both the federal government and all 50 states.

I took the liberty of rewording J.L.'s proposed law as follows: No person who has committed a felony crime against another, whether or not said person has been arrested or convicted of said felony, shall be allowed to sue his victim for compensation for injuries that he received accidentally during the commission of said felony.

For example: Some jerk breaks into your house, ties and gags you, and steals your priceless collection of jeweled button hooks. On his way out, he stumbles on a loose throw rug and breaks his wrist. Subsequently he sues you in civil court for medical expenses, loss of income, pain and suffering.

Such suits have taken place, and the damages have been awarded. After all, a homeowner is responsible to keep his home in safe condition. As far as I know, under existing tort law, he is liable for injuries that result from neglected maintenance, regardless of whether or not the injured person was invited in, and regardless of what the injured person was doing at the time of injury.

With the proposed law in place, the jerk is not permitted to sue you in civil court for expenses that result from that accident because he was in the process of robbing you and unlawfully imprisoning you at the time. The judge should dismiss his suit and turn him over to the D.A. for criminal prosecution.

The proposed change is long overdue. When the man files the law suit, he is confessing to the crime. So, at that point, trial and conviction are a foregone conclusion. He is guilty. We should not be rewarding him in any way for accidental injury or damage that he incurs during his commission of a crime.

Does anyone want to help me write an initiative and get it on the ballot? Please secure those loose throw rugs before you do.

Anonymity

I searched my name on Google the other day. Wow! There were 4,490,000 entries! I only looked at the first 50 or so. Of course, none of them was about me. There was a foul-mouthed comedian, a hockey player for Notre Dame, and a personal injury attorney among my namesakes. I figured that if there were a reference to me, it would be somwhere around number 4, 489,900. To quote from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

The eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd

Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour.

Civility

Oh, give me a home

Where the buffalo roam

And the deer and the antelope play.

Where seldom is heard

A discouraging word...

For the would-be cowboy, civility is an essential part of his Utopia. But notice that he says, "Where seldom is heard," NOT, "Where never is heard." The would-be cowboy is both practical and wise. He realizes, you see, that even in Utopia, a discouraging word creeps in now and then. In fact, that occasional discouraging word is essential to his dream. It keeps him both alert and humble. It offers him an opportunity to improve himself or his surroundings.

Most of the people I know desire, or even demand civility in their relationships. Most of these same people detest 'political correctness.'

The reason is simple: when a person demands political correctness, he is making a fetish of civility. In case you didn't know, a fetish is an absurd extreme compulsion.

The same people who want to shield their children from any and all adverse consequences to their choices want to protect themselves and their children from even the slightest hint of a discouraging word. They think they can change a man's ideas, his feelings, and even the facts of history by permanently erasing and replacing any word that they deem to be even mildly discouraging. Just take your history book and delete the paragraphs about slavery or delete the pages about the holocaust. Then, they never happened. Ain't life grand?

So, they change the words to Old Man River (with Oscar Hammerstein's permission) and the words to Stephen Collins Foster's songs (without his permission). Or they leave out the words by doing an instrumental performance.

These people would have all of us walking on eggshells for the rest of our lives, in constant fear that an improper word may offend their ultra-delicate sensibilities.

When I was young, we were taught to say,

Sticks and stones

Maybreak my bones

But words will never hurt me.

Sure, people have said things to me that offended me, perhaps even hurt me deeply. But I recited the rhyme to myself, discarded the comments that were untrue or unfair, and thought about those that had a grain of truth. Then I went on, either undaunted by the uncivil remark, or perhaps changing something that was not so good. Sometimes a discouraging word tells me more about the person who said it than about myself. That too is useful, becuase it helps me to decide how to deal with that person in the future.

I certainly agree that there is a difference between discouraging words and 'fighting words.' The latter certainly are not part of civility. And some folks also transgress the seldom constraint, and pummel us with excessive use of poor taste. These transgressions need not be tolerated. But I also recognize that a person may make a mistake, not intending to be discouraging, or at least not so extremely discouraging. And for him a gentle correction may be appropriate. As with so many things, the boundaries of civility are a little fuzzy.

That's why I detest the political correctness fetishists. Their constant whining and their endless "correction" of minutiae both irritates and disgusts me. A pox on them!

Torture and International Law

The many recent discussions about the United States policy regarding torture of detainees and its relation to international law got me to thinking about what, exactly, is international law. I googled the World Court in the Hague, and studied their history to get a better understanding of who writes international law, who adjudicates it, what penalties exist for the violators and who enforces it. The International Court web site explains the first two topics pretty well, but the other two are a little harder to figure out. International law comes from conventions and treaties between nations, as well as established customs, and, to a limited extent prior court decisions. As far as I can tell, it's up to the UN to enforce the court's decisions with the use of sanctions as well as military intervention. The latter, of course, is seldom used.

A letter to the editor of the LA times by Professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond prodded me to send the professor a response. Rather than paraphrase it, I will just copy the entire letter below:

Professor Tobias,

I read with great interest your letter to the editor of the LA Times in response to the editorial entitled Tortured Logic.

I take issue, however, with your concluding sentence, “Congress must uphold the rule of law and remember that other countries will subject Americans to the treatment that Congress allows.” If I misunderstand it, perhaps you can enlighten me.

It seems to me that most of the U.S. and international law deals with our treatment of the uniformed soldiers of another country with which we are at war. I know that the Supreme court does not accept this narrow definition, but the court has erred before. Today we face enemies who are not agents of a country. Their treatment of the people they capture does not in any way conform to the Geneva Convention, or any other conventions or treaties. They wreak unspeakable tortures on their captives, and then they behead them. In other words, they do not accept nor feel bound by any of the treaties or conventions that comprise the body of international law. These men are thugs and bandits who have no respect for the lives of their enemies. This is no army of uniformed soldiers attacking another country’s army in accordance with mutually-agreed rules. And they do not deserve the protection that would be offered by the very laws that they disavow.

Furthermore, the last part of the statement does not correspond to what I have observed in my lifetime, e.g.:
· In World War 2, neither Germany nor Japan treated American prisoners in any way that the American Congress allowed.
· North Korea never treated American prisoners in accordance with any laws passed by our Congress.
· North Viet Nam did not treat American prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention, or in any manner allowed by our Congress

I firmly believe that, as a Nation, we should try to take the high moral ground. The adage that “two wrongs do not make a right,” certainly applies in a situation where the parties involved have a mutual level of respect for human life and dignity.

But we do not have that situation today. We are not involved in a conflict that involves two or more countries that have mutually agreed to be governed by specific conventions or treaties. Any country that will “subject Americans to the treatment that Congress allows,” probably is not nor will it be at war with us. Rather, it will most likely turn to the International Court for a decision on any conflict.

I am especially discouraged by those who expend energy criticizing our government for the techniques (such as moderate deprivation of food, sleep, etc.) that we use to get information from captives. The energy should be expended in doing all we can to end the vicious and brutal torture and killing perpetrated by the terrorists who have no respect for any law that we subscribe to.
If our boxer enters the ring with one hand tied behind his back, he will lose the fight.

Sincerely,

My opinion is shared, and expressed in more detail, in the link I have provided to a column by David Rivkin Jr. and Lee Casey.

Those Radical Christians

I was about to select among "Are they worth it?--CEO salaries vs. worker salaries," "Political Correctness--the numbing of America," and "Is torture prohibited by international law?," for my next topic.

Then I heard a sound clip from The View, in which Rosie O'Donnell said words to the effect that "...radical Christians are as bad or worse than radical Muslims...," and people in the audience actually applauded.

That quickly derailed my other topic selections.

Now, according to my blog description I am agnostic, which does not put me in the category of Christians, at least not very deeply. And our constitution does guarantee us freedom of speech. But what will protect us from celebrities whose mouths are bigger than their brains?

Rosie did not bother to check the facts, so we have to: In the last five years (or the last 105 years for that matter), how many radical Christians have captured, tortured, and beheaded people? How many radical Christians have hijacked airplanes and crashed them into skyscrapers, killing thousands? A few radical Christians did try recently to bomb a couple of abortion clinics, but the scale and scope of those acts are considerably smaller than the recent radical Muslim atrocities. Rosie's statement may have had some validity during the Crusades of the middle ages, but the facts show that the radical Christians have mellowed a lot in the last 800 years or so. The facts also show that the radical Muslims have not.

So there is no evidence to support Rosie's absurd statement. Yet, because she is a celebrity, she is heard by thousands, and applauded by many. Meanwhile, the opinions of more informed and more analytic private individuals go unheard.

It's a gross abuse of free speech for any celebrity to make such idiotic statements. A person who is a good comedienne, or a good TV show host, or any other type of entertainer, is not necessarily qualified to impose his uninformed opinions on the public. We know that many other famous entertainers are spreading their ill-formed views of world affairs on the public. They should know better.

I welcome the informed and carefully thought-out opinions of prominent people, but not their emotional biases.

This week, the Pope, who knows a great deal more about both Christianity and Islam than Rosie does, has taken more guff for his public statement about Islam than Rosie did for hers about Christianity. He was asked to apologise, and he did so; but Rosie was not, and did not.

That's a measure of how many folks in our country are as mindless as Rosie is when it comes to religion and world affairs. How can some people be so oblivious of what the facts show about where the real evil in the world is? It would not be so bad, but those people vote with the same lack of informed analysis.

Our politicians know it too. That's why we seldom hear specific plans or solutions in their speeches. Whether it's Republicans demeaning Hillary Clinton or Democrats demeaning George Bush, they know they get more votes that way. After all, facts are both boring and confusing to the empty-headed ones, and specific plans are so easy for intelligent people to criticize.

War Is Not a Game

Games have rules. In a game, both sides agree to the rules before they begin. To ensure that the rules are fairly enforced, games have referees or umpires. When a player breaks a rule, his side is penalized. If one side breaks the rules too often or too flagrantly, the game is forfeited. Observers of the game will favor one side or the other, but they do not influence the outcome.

War, especially the one against terrorism, is not a game. First and foremost, the terrorists have not agreed to any rules. They lie, they spy, they target civilians, they torture and behead their captives, and they state outright that they intend to annihilate the opposition, literally. They bomb first, then indicate they may talk later about their demands (annihilation) being met. And they don't even wear uniforms so we can tell who they are. There are no referees or umpires.

The observers of war (the United Nations, individual countries, and many liberals in our country) claim that there are rules--for example, the Geneva Convention. But, as biased observers, they seem to think that the rules should be imposed only on the United States. In fact, they want to add more rules that apply only to the United States.

The old adage, "two wrongs don't make a right," applies only in a game situation, where the two adversaries share a common moral background, and where a judicial system penalizes the wrongs that are committed. Such is not the case in a war. If your enemy knows your rule book, he can anticipate your actions, counter them, and defeat you. Nobody worries about the rules until after the war, when the victor's judicial system determines what rules were broken by the loser, and applies the penalties after the fact.

The observers can make all the rules they want. Osama Bin Laden and his ilk will not adhere to them. And if the United States does, the terrorists will win.

I'm not implying that the United States should do some of the vile things that the terrorists do. I am just saying that we need more latitude than the leftists want to concede in the methods of getting intelligence, the handling of captives, and in attacking the enemy's communications, finances , and soldiers.

The French government, for example, should know better. They followed all of the rules in dealing with Adolph Hitler. They followed rules until Hitler's Army occupied Paris. Today, France wants the United States to negotiate, to practice restraint with the terrorists. In spite of their experience, the French think that the terrorists will leave us alone if we appease them. The nation that invented arrogance has the nerve to call the United States arrogant, and many other people who deny the very nature of war are doing the same thing.

As time passes, however, it is getting hard to believe that the war in Iraq is a vital part of the war on terrorism. Assuredly, Iraq has a few thousand terrorists, but those terrorists seem concerned more about the future of Iraq than about world domination. The real terrorist threats seem to be from Al Quaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas. But instead of acting to destroy those organizations, the U.S. has 130,000 troops in Iraq. We have essentially handed off Al Quaeda to our semi-ally Pakistan, and the other two have been handed off to Israel (and the U.N.?). Additionally, we have not finished our mission in Afghanistan.

Despite our large presence in Iraq, we appear weak and vulnerable to the insurgents. Immediately after we took Bagdad, we demonstrated weakness because we did not come down hard on the looters. And we did not attempt to disarm our enemy. To Iraqis who were accustomed to swift and grave consequences for even minor crimes, the message to the insurgents was clear--"you can get away with it." The U.S. should not have invaded Iraq when we did not understand their culture, did not anticipate the magnitude of the chaos, and did not have a detailed plan to control it.

But I don't think we should abandon Iraq. If anything, we should apply more resources to quell the Iraqi terrorists, and to strengthen the government forces. The real problem is how to help them establish a government that is strong enough to maintain order, and at the same time fair enough to provide a square deal for the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Nobody, conservative or liberal, has presented a solution to that one.

Consequences

In one of the courses I teach, the subject of "life choices" is a topic.

It's pretty straightforward: Good choices have good consequences. Bad choices have bad consequences.

If, for example, a child works hard in school, stays in school until he is graduated, and goes on to college or trade school, he can get a job that is rewarding both in cash and personal satisfaction. He may even become a world leader, or a great composer. But if he pays little attention to his studies, or drops out of school, he is forced into a menial, unsatisfying, dead-end job for low pay.

It's not just the occasional big choices that influence one's life; it's all of them. The student who listens in class and takes notes learns more than the one who chooses to look out the window, doodle, or pass notes.

Where you are in life today is the sum of all those choices, big and small, good and bad, that you have made.

All around us, people are making really bad choices: drug use, theft, assault, rape, murder. They do it because they do not foresee or fear the consequences of their actions.

Most of this mess results directly from poor parenting. Some parents, you see, believe that they should do everything possible to shield their children from the consequences of bad choices. Bad behavior has no bad consequences in their homes, and they do their best to see that the same is true outside their homes. They complain to the principle, or sue, if a teacher dares to assign bad consequences for bad behavior. After all, they don't want to bruise the esteem of their little darlings.

Part of that comes from parental ignorance--they don't understand that bad consquences are not necessarily spanking or degrading language. But some people do raise children to understand the choice-consequence relationship without a single spanking, and without swearing at the children, or degrading them.

Similarly, some teachers have fallen for this fallacy. Some judges and some jury members hesitate to assign bad consequences to a person found guilty.

Humans have been on the earth for tens of thousands of years (or as some believe, a little over 6,000), but a large percentage of them are making the same parenting mistakes that their ancestors did. Parenting is something that most people in every generation do. We can teach our children how to boil an egg, drive a car, grow a garden, or even make a computer. Why have so many in society been unable to get parenting right, and to pass the process on to their offspring?

The process is known, understood, and documented, but many people are not using it. Maybe it's because it takes so much effort to do it right. Bad parenting is the worst of bad choices--we all suffer the consequences.

Capital Punishment

In a Judeo-Christian society there is a commandment from God: Thou shalt not kill. It seems downright sinful, then, to have capital punishment in such a society. But, our nation, under God, does have capital punishment.

Some crimes are so vicious, and some criminals are so cruel,remorseless, and incorrigible that capital punishment is the appropriate response. Some murderers are so ruthless and so cunning that they continue to commit murder, even from inside the prison walls. I have no desire to give these guys free room, board, tv, air conditioning, etc., at the public expense for the remainder of their natural lives.

Some people argue that, because of the appeal processes (which were established to minimize the flaws in the system), it is more costly to carry out an execution than to imprison a criminal for life. In fact, the appeal process as it stands is unnecessarily long, and should be shortened.

There are those who argue that our judicial system is flawed. They say that, because of that, one or more innocent persons may be executed. What about those innocent people? Indeed, their loss is immeasurably painful, especially to their kin.

I look at it this way: fighting murderers in society is similar to fighting cancer in the human body. Think about it--when one undergoes chemotherapy or radiation treatment, the object is to kill the cancer cells, which we know will never re-habilitate and become friendly cells. If they are not destroyed, they will only spawn more cancer. Those therapies, however, also kill a few thousand good cells. The patient is sick, and maybe his life is shortened from what it would have been had he not been sick in the first place. But, when he is cured--no more cancer!! He survives, and is healthy again.

Fortunately, there are many, many fewer innocent people on death rows than there are "good" cells killed by therapy in only one cancer patient.

Did you notice that many of the terrorists these days have decided to apply the capital punishment to themselves? If they succeed in their mission, we don't have a trial and execution. If they don't succeed, maybe we should give them the capital punishment anyway.

To most of us, human life is the most precious thing there is. If one person deprives another of that precious life, he forfeits his right to keep his own.

Enforcing the Law

One problem with having full time lawmakers is that we end up with too many laws. It becomes impractical to enforce them all. Our executive department selects some laws that will not be enforced.

Two such laws are (1) that when a person enters the country, he must complete certain paperwork, and if he desires to remain permanently, he must apply for citizenship and fulfill certain citizenship requirements; and (2) that a business owner shall not hire an employee who is not a citizen and/or who does not have the proper documentation for temporary residence.

Our executive department, under President Bush and his recent predecessors, has decided to offer at best token enforcement of these laws. As a result we are dealing with 12 million illegal aliens in the country today. Their adverse impact on schools, health care, and other public services is well documented. But our president would rather line the pockets of his wealthy cronies with ill-gained profit than enforce the laws and reserve the public services for our citizens.

I don't oppose immigration. I'll say it again--I don't oppose immigration. Immigrants bring new ideas, new talent and much more to our nation. But immigration MUST be done in accordance with our laws.

At least two other presidents addressed immigration issues in the 20th century. President Eisenhower, having been made aware of in increase in illegal immigration, cracked down immediately. He sent thousands more agents to secure the borders, and they returned captured immigrants into their home countries, not just at the border, but hundreds of miles inland. He also prosecuted the employers of illegal immigrants. Within a few months the illegal crossings slowed to a trickle, and many illegals left the country voluntarily.

Theodore Roosevelt in retirement became aware of the increased immigration right after WWI. He firmly believed that those who come to America should become Americans. An excerpt from his letter written in 1919 to the American Defense Society has made the rounds on the internet:
"...In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. "If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. "We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul [sic] loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."

Most of us know some illegal immigrants. The ones I have met are earnest, hard working, congenial people, and some have lived here for many years. If they want to become citizens, we should help them. If not, we should deport them.

First, however, we need to secure the border as President Eisenhower did. Second, we need to enforce the restraints on employers. Once the influx is stopped, we can work out a reasonable plan for the lawbreakers who are already here--citizenship and assimilation for some, deportation for others.
I call them lawbreakers because that is what they are, even though most may have broken only one law. We should not selectively obey our laws any more than we should selectively enforce them. And our elected officials should see that the laws are enforced.

Starting on 9/11

I wondered for a long time whether or not I should start a blog. Today seemed like a good day, since so many of us have strong feelings about what happened on this day five years ago.

As usual I am on the fence--strongly supportive of the President at first, but disappointed after five years. We bit off more than we can chew. We should have finished Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden before we jumped into Iraq. Or, we should have applied even more resources than we did to both. I was neither surprised nor disappointed that we found no WMD. But it is a shame that we grossly underestimated the chaos that followed the invasion, and the fanaticism of our terrorist enemies.

And the president has not expended enough effort to keep us supporting at home. He compares the enemy to the Nazis, yet he has not achieved one tenth of the public involvement in this war that FDR did in WWII. If he thinks our disgust with keeping scissors and bottled water out of our carry-on luggage and waiting 2 hours for a 45-minute flight will make us more supportive of the war, he is wrong.

I am glad, though, that we are now fully protected against the terrorist who disguises himself as an 80 year old lady with knitting needles, and the one who poses as a 4 year old with a bottled soft drink.

Pakistan is at best a half-hearted supporter. Maybe some folks think it's better to have them as a friend than as an enemy. But it's foolish to count on them to capture Bin Laden. Pakistan appears to view the taliban and the terrorists as favorably or more so than Hussein's Iraq did.

I read that the vast majority of Muslims oppose the radicals and their 'kill all infidels' philosophy. And my anecdotal experience supports that. The few Muslims that I know do not want to be associated in any way with the terrorists or their ideas. Yet we do not see a strong vocal, or physical, reactions among the America's muslims against the terrorists. As with the Pakistanis, inaction is tacit support.

Terrorism is one of the two most significant problems that the United States has to deal with today. The second is illegal immigration [not immigration, but ILLEGAL immigration--there is a difference]. I will comment on that one in a later posting.

Our politicians continue to be more concerned about getting re-elected than they are about solving either of these problems.

I am flying my flag today.