With the problems going on in Lebanon right now, I think it would make sense to once again stop and assess the human-based causes of major world problems right now. By that I mean - who is creating this mess?

For you America-haters who are looking for an “America is bad” answer to that problem, you might as well leave now because we’re not the problem. And for you political extremists who think that the problem is solved by preemptive wars (i.e. Iraq), you might as well leave, too.

The cause of the world’s major problems right now are all religious extremists. More directly, the Islamic fascists that demand the entire world to convert to Islam by choice or by the sword. It’s disgusting. The problems in Lebanon are being caused by religious extremists (Islamic terrorists are hiding in the refugee camps of the Palestinian people). What a crock of shit!

These poor Palestinians have been without a home state for decades, they’ve been embroiled in a sometimes-war-sometimes peace situation with Israel for just as long, they recently had most of their international funding cut off (rightfully so because they elected a terrorist group to run their government) - I mean enough is enough! The last thing these people need are the opportunistic Al-Qaeda scumbags jumping in their lot and causing problems with the Lebanese.

But it’s obvious what Al-Qaeda’s goal is here, right? They want to cause a rift between the Lebanese government and the Palestinian people so the people begin to revolt against Lebanon. It’s disgusting that innocent people are dying because of this - it really is. And what’s even more horrifying is that these assholes are motivated by a small sect of Islamic religious extremists who hide in caves because they’re too scared to come out and face reality.

And everywhere. High adventure that’s beyond compare. They are the Gummi Bears!

For those of you that travel to Alaska for hunting or fishing, be careful of the Gummi Bears! In case you haven’t heard, wildlife officials will be capturing “problem bears” and dying their fur different colors in some parts. This is to alert tourists, hunters, and fishers of which bears to stay away from.

I guess this is a good idea. I mean hey, it put the Gummi Bears theme song in my head for a few minutes and that’s always enjoyable!

There may not be a better solution to the problem. No one wants to kill these animals and displacing them would be wrong. Maybe dying their asses green and blue is the best way to handle the problem.

This has to be one of the greatest stories in the last week. A Florida man won half a million dollars on a scratch-off card, but he’s NOT getting the money. Apparently the card didn’t scan through the lottery machine as a “winner” and the officials down in Florida are saying that this is because the card was a misprint.

Ha ha ha ha!!!

Oh what a bitch! Imagine scratching off a lottery ticket, thinking that you hit the big money, and then being told that the card was a misprint. Now I think it’s obvious that the guy will get some money out of this deal - I mean the card DID identify him as a winner. But oh, what a punch in the mouth.

With the passing of the Revered Jerry Falwell, many people are letting their feelings about the man be known. Most of what you hear are traditional-minded Americans who are mourning a religious leader. Everyone once in a while you hear a secular relativist who denounces Falwell’s recitation of the Bible where it is made clear that certain behaviors are against God’s intent. But whatever your view is on the man’s personal beliefs and what he preached, you have to absolutely hate what the Westboro Baptists are doing now.

If you don’t know, the Westboro Baptists are the assholes who picket military funerals with “God hates fags” signs. Their message is that since America has become a less religious place and since personal indulgence has become a way of life for most of America, that God now hates this country. They spread this message at military funerals because they believe that God strikes down those who defend this country. Obviously, these people are mentally deranged. I watched a BBC documentary on their cult and it’s scary to see the brainwashing that takes place. Really.

Now these bastards will be protesting Jerry Falwell’s funeral. If that’s not a cry for attention, I don’t know what is. Again, you can like or dislike Falwell’s stances on the issues, but there is no logical reason for these idiots to be at his funeral. Then again, when does logic ever apply to the Westboro Baptists?

You’ve got to love how Reverend Al Sharpton put his foot in his mouth in the last few weeks. First, he goes on some crusade (word choice appropriate) to get Imus booted off the air and he succeeds. Then, he neglects to do the same against Opie and Anthony when they start attacking conservative women - one of whom is the first black woman in history to hold the Secretary of State position. This tells the entire world that Sharpton is a hypocrite because he’ll fight one battle but not another.

And now, Sharpton’s stupid mouth got him in trouble with Mitt Romney and the Mormon Church! For those of you that don’t know, this idiot was in a debate and said:

As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry about that, that’s a temporary situation.

What part of that demented fool’s head thought that this was a good idea? The best part of this story is that now Sharpton is asking to meet with leaders of the Mormon Church to apologize! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

What goes around comes around, you stupid, ignorant, self-promoting scumbag!

Okay, so I’m a few weeks late on this one. Paris Hilton is a complete and total moron. This stupid dunce walks into a courtroom 20 minutes late for a probation violation hearing and expects to NOT go to jail?

Hey you stupid fucks out there - welcome to the real world! In New Jersey, when you get pulled over you get 5 tickets because the cop knows that 4 of them will be dropped and the township will get a hefty fine from you. In essence, you become a fundraiser for the township. That’s everyday life for everyday Americans. And so help you God if you show up to that courtroom late or if you give any lip to the judge or the cop - your ass is done.

What the fuck makes you think that you’re any different? Oooo, paparazzi follow you around with your stupid cocked-eye and your man-chin. Oooo…you’re going to get a bunch of hotels when the time comes. Big deal! You’re an idiot!

Don’t be fooled by the hype - the new, joint immigration legislation is nothing more than a blanket amnesty being granted to the 12 million illegal immigrants already in this country that allows up to 8 million more to come into the country via technicalities. If this is the best that our country can do on immigration reform, then we’ve failed at this aspect of existence.

Immigration reform is simple - you secure the borders (maybe use some of those billions of dollars that are being used in a desert half a world away to pay for it), you limit the amount of people coming in each year to a reasonable amount (less than 500,000), and you assimilate new immigrants into the country before you take in the next crop. Assimilation is the key to the entire immigration debate and the main reason why so many Americans are sick to their stomach with the entire issue.

Think about this convoluted situation - you have illegal aliens who are calling the rest of us a “nation of immigrants” in order to justify their presence on our soil. We - this mythical nation of immigrants (I’m certainly not an immigrant nor is my family) - talk about the pride in America that we have and the pride in our nation’s history that we stand on. Then the illegals walk in American streets waiving OTHER COUNTRIES’ FLAGS and tell us that we are xenophobic!!!

No, stupid. We’re not xenophobic! We’re descendants of immigrants who came to America to be AMERICANS! They assimilated into American society and embraced it as their own. Many generations later, here we are as their heirs and the pro-illegal immigrant lobby is trying to guilt us into agreeing with blanket amnesty by comparing our ancestors to the law-breakers who cross our southern border. How revolting is that?

And what’s just mind-boggling is how any Republican would vote for this bill. I’m not harping for them or anything, but every single major national election in the last few years has been won by less than 10 million votes. Most have seen victory margins of 3 or 4 million at best. The overwhelming majority of Latinos vote Democratic for one reason or another - in essence, the Republican Party will kill itself off in the next 10 years by granting this amnesty and continuing to have an unchecked immigration system where there is no cap on how many people can come to this country. How stupid is that?

The only decent thing to come out of this joint legislation is the creation of 370-miles worth of a border fence before any of the amnesty legislations kicks in. That’s a good start for our 1,951-mile long border with Mexico, but not nearly enough.

The folks at FOX News really ought to take a bow. The job that they did in comparison to the pathetic attempt at a debate that MSNBC put out a few weeks ago couldn’t be further apart. On MSNBC, the “spotlight” trended towards the moderators and the MSNBC group (this is true of both the Republican and Democratic debates on that horrible channel). With the Republican debate on FOX News tonight, the spotlight was clearly on the candidates and if you don’t believe that, then ask Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul!

Not only did Ron Paul show why he’s just not a good candidate for a national party, but Rudy got a chance to shine on his strong point (terrorism), but not before he was beaten up by moderator Chris Wallace about other issues. I also enjoyed the question that asked Tommy Thompson which three departments he would eliminate from the federal government to curb spending. At first, he didn’t answer the question, but they went immediately back to him and asked him to choose one department that he would ax upon inauguration. Great job by the moderators of making a candidate answer a question!

The Giuliani-Paul interaction will be covered ad nauseum on every website out there so all I will add to my previous comment is that Paul is a goof and time spent on him during these debates is really wasted time. In terms of who used their time well, I thought that McCain and Romney could have spent a few less minutes busting on each other and a little more time focusing on topical issues at hand. That being said, I still think that Mitt Romney came out looking pretty good at the end of this debate with Giuliani coming in a strong second.

Something really needs to be said about the awkward position that these Republican candidates are in, though. On the one hand, they are tasked with winning the nomination for the current party which holds the Presidency. However, on the back of that hand is the fact that the vast majority of America (and a few of those include Republicans) are not happy with President Bush! Former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell (who I think is a great political thinker) tried to make this point at the end of FOX News’ coverage.

The reason that I bring this up is because all the Democratic candidates have to do is point at George Bush and say is, “I’ll do the opposite of what that guy is doing,” and they’d win a head-to-head poll against the sitting President. However, the Republicans actually have to put forth a different platform that adheres to the same basic ideals of the sitting President and find a way to get a majority of America to say, “Alright. This Bush guy goofed up while he was in office - let’s see if you can do a better job.”

Ain’t that a bitch!

I have to say this before I go, though - how great was, “We have a Congress who spends money like John Edwards at a beauty shoppe!”

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

One of the things that really irked me about graduate school was how subjective almost all of the academic “studies” that we read really were. Sure, I complained about this when I was a new student at the graduate school, but it got me no where. However, I clearly remember the day when I was sitting in a stats class and the professor (a committed far-left thinker) showed us how to manipulate the statistics program to pump out numbers that answered the research question.

Almost immediately I shot my hand in the air and said, “WHOA! That’s not right! This is intellectually inaccurate if you falsify the numbers!” The professor, to his great credit, said that there was no other way to answer the research question than to manipulate the code in a manner such that your question was answered. I came back with, “But if the raw numbers pump out a statistic that disproves your initial question, then isn’t THAT the answer? That you have to accept the null hypothesis and that your research hypothesis cannot be proven?”

At this point, those of you who understand that stuff about null hypotheses are smiling remembering your own statistics classes.

The professor returned with an argument that if the basis of the research is to find an answer to the question, then you need to find the answer to the question. Some of the political extremist students in the class began to agree with him at this point, though there were a great number of students who just looked really confused at his answers.

Let me note that I really liked that Professor’s class. He was a funny, intelligent guy who knew a great deal about the statistics field. Yet, the core of his argument has always sat ill with me because it IS intellectually false. If the answer to a question is “No, you’re wrong,” then that’s the answer! And I bring all of this up because of an article published by one of Bill O’Reilly’s editors on the Los Angeles Times website. Specifically, I am referring to this bit of the article:

Brooks also failed to tell Times readers that the researchers admit they had to make several changes to their “coding instrument” because the first attempts generated “unacceptably low scores.” That’s code for: they tried and tried until the results fit the preconceived notion of name-calling on the Factor.

I’ve seen this before! THIS is what the vast majority of Americans need to know! Folks, when you see these “studies” or these “scientific opinion polls” you’re being duped! The authors of these studies and polls can make the numbers say whatever they want. A great case in point is this O’Reilly article. Now, from my standpoint, I don’t care whether O’Reilly calls people names or whether he is all nice and dandy. It’s the point that his editor brings up that is way undercovered in American media.

The next time you hear that so and so is “up” x percentage points in the opinion polls, do yourself a favor and actually download the poll. Look at the margin of error (another opinion-based number). In fact, do some research on WHO is asked to participate in these polls. What you might find is interesting…did you know that ONLY people who have landline telephones are permitted, by law, to participate in these polls? Did you know that most, if not all, of the major media polls are conducted this way?

How about the fact that most people who still use landline phones are getting up there in years and are committed Democrats born of the 1960’s cultural revolution era? I’ve never, not even once, been asked to partake in one of these polls. I use a cell phone only.

Folks, if this doesn’t make you stop and think about what the media pumps out at you on a daily basis then nothing will.

You can’t even trust the pizza man any more! In a huge success for this nation’s anti-terror task forces, a plot to shoot-up Fort Dix was thwarted yesterday when six Islamic extremists were apprehended before their terrorist plans could become reality. Thank God for the diligence of the hero in this case, a simple store clerk who was vigilant following the September 11th attacks.

This guy should be given the highest honor that this country can give at every level it can be given. As the linked article says, this group of 6 was preparing a platoon to take on an army. Granted, the United States military would have dispatched their platoon pretty quickly, that does not mean that they couldn’t have killed a large number of our men and women who serve - even if they’re serving on stateside.

There are a few really disheartening things that come out of this episode, though. Not the least of these is the fact that now there are quasi-home grown terrorist groups that are springing up that want to be Al-Qaida, yet are not. So not only are the “professional” terrorists plotting against our country, now we have wannabe terrorists doing the same. Great.

And I’m confident that some multiculturalist fanatic out there already trying to find ways to NOT blame this on six men of Middle Eastern/near-Middle Eastern descent. When this country’s politicians get balls enough to endorse extra security screening for young, male, Middle-Easterners we will finally have a politician who cuts through the bullshit and works in favor of this country’s best interests.