Endangered species

This morning I received an email full of pictures of strange and sometimes disgusting animals, many of which I already knew and saw up close and personal when I lived in Panama and other countries. Animals like the marmoset, alpaca, sloth, etc. I have handled and, in a couple case, rescued with my father's help. He also loved animals of all kinds. I don't know whether or not these animals are endangered, but one thing I have learned is that many times what we think is gone is not always gone. There are reports of land and marine animals long believed extinct showing up all over the world and this is a very big world with lots of places to hide that we have barely seen, places our eyes in the skies cannot penetrate, even when they can trace ancient and long lost caravan routes through the desert of the Middle East. Much is still hidden from their highly polished and technologically marvelous optics, just as things and the motives of people we think we know are often hidden or obscured even when they seem to be in plain sight.

I engaged someone I thought I knew in a discussion of politics. Nothing new there. He was going on about how we have to hold Obamessiah to account for his actions. I agreed, but asked why it should be any different from holding any other elected representative to account for his or her actions, listing Bush and Clinton and Carter. Then he flamed me. He called me a Neo-Con, homophobe, Bible-beating, gun toting, slack-jawed redneck whose only source of information was Fox News and Sean Hannity. I'm surprised he didn't throw in Rush Limbaugh. And all because I said we should hold ALL elected representatives to account for their actions. Oh, and there was that mention of Obamessiah's decisive response to the Somali pirates by writing them a huge check because the only reason they have turned to piracy is lack of funds, despite having the funds to buy shoulder mounted missile launchers, heavy artillery and high grade munitions and speed boats.

Anyone who has read this journal, or any of my other blogs and articles, whether or not they agree with me, could tell him that none of his descriptions or epithets are in any way accurate. I don't watch commercial television so that lets out Fox News and Sean Hannity and I am far from homophobic or fundamentalist as a pagan. I don't own a gun, but I do have a nifty collection of edged weapons ad the rest of his description is just plain ignorant. But that is what this country and the Left are beginning to do, lump all opposition into very narrow stereotypes. It doesn't matter that he called my just and honest questions based on extensive reading and study as a diatribe and denying me the right to speak freely. It's a sign of the times and freedom of speech is headed for the endangered species list.

The Fairness Doctrine is being bandied about again. Broken down to its basic elements, it says that no radio or television station will air any point of view without giving equal time to the opposing side. It sounds like it supports free speech, but it doesn't. The financial bottom line is that liberal talk programs don't make money and conservative talk programs do, and historically more people listen to people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity than they do to anyone the liberals have fielded. So, if radio stations airing Limbaugh cannot find and make viable a talk program with a liberal then they have to take Limbaugh off the air. Does that sound like freedom of speech? It's like saying, if I can't make money having my say then you can't make money having yours. It's a child's raspberry and "nanny nanny boo boo" argument against an opponent from a safe distance behind a teacher or other adult authority. At this rate, I can see Radio Free America being broadcast from bomb shelters and offshore radio studios so Americans can listen to something other than the liberal party line.

Demonizing opponents of the left, stereotyping and denying free speech. What's next? Thought crimes? Oh, right, we already have those and more are coming. Honesty is not tolerated in a world where the President's dog rates front page coverage and is all over the news while his more important policies are either hidden in blurbs or as an aside in reports in liberal newspapers and those who question his policies are flamed and screamed down, like the demonstrators at the Tea Parties that took place on April 15th and have been taking place since February in the wake of the giant pork fest that was the stimulus package.

There was one other thing my detracting fan said about me, that I was one of the people in the rainbow wigs at the Durban II conference in Switzerland when most of the European representatives walked out during Ahmadinejad's speech about Jewish racism. I was right here working, but that also tells me that he supports an extremist terror monger who denies the Holocaust happened and calls for the extermination of all the Jews in the world, and specifically of the complete eradication of Israel in the Middle East with a nuclear bomb. The Iranian president's fiery rhetoric isn't playing at all well back home where his opponents in the upcoming elections are coming out for Israel's right to exist. Looks like we can add Ahmadinejad to the endangered species list. I see it as a portent for the future of this country as well.

Israel should have learned by now that whatever Ahmadinejad touches, turns to dust. He promised to put oil money on the table of every Iranian family. Instead, he took money away through high inflation and irresponsible expenditure policies which have ruined the Iranian economy. Ahmadinejad promised to “cut the hands of the corrupt”, instead they now have longer hands with bigger biceps. He promised to bring justice to Iranian society, instead the gap between rich and poor is growing every day.

I wonder if the liberals will rush to Ahmadinejad's defense now that he's endangered. After all, they do prefer the underdog, which is going to prove quite problematic for them as they continue to marginalize any opposition. Soon those who speak out against the current President will be marginalized and become the underdog. I wonder if it will be as spectacular a logic bomb explosion as when Kirk and Spock faced Nomad.