THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

I have done everything I can do to try and save civilization.

Maybe I will feel differently after a weekend of recharging my batteries, but I am prepared to throw in the towel. Maybe al-Qaeda should just win and let us become part of the Caliphate. I can convert from Judaism to Islam and pray toward Mecca five times a day.

I truly believed America was the beacon for the world, a global light of intellect meant to nourish the cranial cavity of eager learners from everywhere. We had the best university system in the world.

This was all before “The View” came on television.

It is over. The war against nonsense has been waged, and I lost. Nonsense has won.

First President Clinton was asked if he wore boxers or briefs. Instead of verbally making the girl who asked the question cry (I praise Newt Gingrich for condemning the stupidity of the question vociferously when it was asked of him. The left called him “mean,” but he was not asked that again.), he answered it and laughed.

Now this. Now President Barack Obama decides that Chris Wallace or the Ghost of Tim Russert are not his speed. He always acts like he is the smartest guy in the room, but this time he did not have to act.

When George W. Bush as Governor went on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, a bitter David Letterman caustically remarked, “well there’s a real meeting of the minds.” Multiply that comment by 100 and we have the discussion between President Obama and Joy Behar.

Women get angry when I talk about repealing the 19th Amendment giving them the right to vote, but I can say with certainty that men do not make up the majority of the audience watching the dumbest program on tv since…well…ever (I heard “My Mother the Car” was bad but have not personally seen it). Women should be required to sign an oath saying they boycott this program before retaining suffrage.

(In the interest of gender equality, men caught watching the show should be excommunicated from the male gender and then denied suffrage.)

Even by liberal idiocy standards (an oxymoron) The View has wrecked what shred of desire I have to watch television outside of NFL Network and Fox News.

President Obama was asked about Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, and some ridiculous creature named Snookie.

(If he was being genuine when claiming not to know who or what Snookie is, I praise him for that. I apologize for knowing, and take an oath that I have never watched her show or a full episode of The View.)

We are in the middle of a War on Terror. The world is on fire. Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and other global hot spots threaten to blow up the entire world forever.

I care about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie taking on the teachers’ unions. I don’t care about some brainless twit whose hobbies most likely include making snapping sounds with her bubble gum.

(Enough about Behar. I meant Snookie on that one.)

I admit to watching Desperate Housewives, but I would not discuss it with the President of the United States.

How the heck did Barbara Walters go from interviewing Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to finding Paris Hilton fascinating?

(Bernie Goldberg brought up that point.)

Just because Joy Behag or Joy Bizarre or whatever her new nickname is decides to dumb down America does not mean the leader of the free world has to help her.

Doesn’t this man have any actual real work to do?

“Do you think Snookie should run for Mayor of Wasilla (Alaska?)”

How incredibly brilliant. A cheap shot at Sarah Palin’s intelligence, since that is all Behar has left. Behar claiming Sarah Palin is dumb is like the Klan claiming that Mother Theresa was insensitive.

This goes beyond politics. This goes to the very core of what type of people we want to be.

Do we want to be known as a nation of imbeciles? Do we want to be the stupidity capital of the world?

The left loves to paint every conservative as stupid (when not making them out to be evil), but I don’t remember President George W. Bush or Vice President Cheney being subjected to such idiocy.

Liberals who complain that conservatives in that administration violated the law indiscriminately are wrong. Joy Behar has never been waterboarded. In fact, if we dropped her in a Taliban cave she could talk them to death. If blaring rock music could bring down Noriega, one week of watching The View would get the most hardened terrorists to surrender.

(Liberals would be in a civil liberties bind since the program could be considered a form of torture.)

Some people will say that I should lighten up. I say these people should be beaten with baseball bats.

(I am not advocating violence. Besides, outside of my few liberal readers, I doubt violence is the approach of my audience. We don’t want to kill the left. We just want them to develop laryngitis.)

Unless Joy Behar can explain the Laffer Curve or supply side economics, she should be quiet and let the Wall Street Journal staff interview politicians. Every moment Joyless Bimbo is speaking is a moment the administration is not spending time with Dr. Walter Williams or Dr. Thomas Sowell.

I want to hear the president discuss how he plans to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not watch Joy Behar tell Whoppers while eating Big Macs.

(Doing “Joy Behar is fat and ugly” jokes are beneath the dignity of this blog, and used solely to illustrate her lack of talent in relying on “conservatives are dumb” jokes. Although in all fairness, she is overweight and hideous inside and out.)

Unless she can explain the intricacies of an oil rig and how to permanently stop explosions, the president should spend his time being interviewed by business consultants who work in the industry.

Unless she has connections to the National Security Council, the President should sit down with Colonel David Hunt, Colonel Ralph Peters, or Colonel Bill Cowan.

If a bunch of women want to spend time babbling about complete and utter nonsense in a dialect that is approximately 70% liberal gibberish and 30% apolitical idiocy, they can do so without the president.

The dignity of the office, assuming it still exists after this man, deserves better than this garbage.

Maybe I am overreacting. It’s not like we are locked in a life and death struggle for the very existence of liberty and freedom.

Oh wait a second…yes it is.

Every second spent flying to and from the studio, in addition to the minutes airing the show, was precious time that could have been spent on improving our national security.

Instead of focusing on Wikileaks, he was hanging out with icky freaks.

I will vote for any presidential candidate who has the courage to put a feedbag on Joy Behar.

After we win the War on Terror, we can remove it and let her speak her nonsense.

She can still do so without the president. When we are at war, the president should be doing hard news all the time. Inside Edition, Access Hollywood, or any program with Kathy Lee Gifford should never be on his radar.

Alan Colmes once asked, “Well what should we do, talk about the War on Terror 24/7?”

YES! That works for me, with interruptions for financial news.

(Even sports should be relegated to ESPN and NFL Network. I love sports, but it is not hard news.)

We used to have David Brinkley and Edward R. Murrow. Now we have Katie Couric and Joy Behar.

I hope I feel differently after the weekend, but on this day, civilization slipped away, thanks to a president who decided to overcompensate for his many inadequacies by spending time with the few people even more useless than he is.

eric

I have said repeatedly that I stay away from the illegal immigration issue because it is not my main issue, and it divides Republicans. I will not be covering the Arizona law or the judge who blocked it since the decision will be appealed. I respect the rule of law, and look forward to seeing how this plays out.

Yet the illegal immigration issue is on my mind on a more philosophical level.

I do not have a complete solution, but rounding up everybody and tossing them all out (which I have not heard anyone advocate, rendering it a straw man argument) and giving blanket amnesty to them all (which the left refuses to admit it really wants) are both non-starters.

We could deport 270 million people so that the U.S. population is as small as that of Canada. That way nobody would cry racism. I would happily give up political power if California would deport 90% of their people so there would be less traffic congestion. Anybody arriving after 1991 should be exiled since I arrived in 1990.

Yet one thing has never been done regarding illegal aliens. Nobody has asked them to simply not come by appealing to their emotional side.

No, I am not advocating asking nicely as policy. Yet as crazy as it sounds, moral suasion should be added to the list of tactics, for a very important reason. Illegal immigrants are hurting themselves. From a compassion standpoint, the solution is for them to have a better quality of life in Mexico, not here.

Let’s take a random person. I will call him “Pedro.”

Let’s say Pedro came here legally from Mexico. He did it the right way. He will pick lettuce, earn a few dollars an hour, pay social security and other taxes, and work long, hard hours in the hot sun. At the end of his life, he will have never ranked higher than that of a lettuce picker.

Yet Pedro’s son will benefit because Pedro saved up enough money through blood, sweat and tears. His son will own a house and get a college degree. He will work at a mid-size company and possibly even make it to manager.

Pedro’s grandson will eventually end up being senior management at a Fortune 500 firm, with a seven figure salary and all the stock options one could dream of. He will have a private jet, and at some point be the Company CEO.

(Let’s skip the fourth and fifth generations, where they squander most of it on frivolities and get killed on estate taxes like every other family. Sadly the American dream has become a parabola as inherited wealth breeds complacency.)

That is America. That is the American dream. It takes three generations over 70 years, but it exists.

My grandfather was the first generation. He escaped the Nazis, spoke almost zero English, came to America, and washed dishes in working class Brooklyn.

My father was the second generation. He escaped to Long Island, bought a house, raised a family, and was a schoolteacher until he retired.

I am the third generation. I became a Vice President at a Wall Street firm, and went on to own my own business. I live in an affluent area of Los Angeles near Beverly Hills.

This is America. This happens. America is extraordinary because my family’s story is so very ordinary.

Now let’s change the equation. Let’s say Pedro is here illegally.

He will never have the American dream. He will live in constant fear. He will be separated from his family, and look over his shoulder every day of his life, wondering when he will be caught and deported.

He will be afraid to ask people for help, because he will not know who to trust.

If his wife or daughter gets sexually assaulted, they will be afraid to report the crime for fear of deportation.

American criminals will not be the only ones to pray on him and his family. So will employers. He will be exploited practically to the point of slavery. The owners of the construction or agriculture company that hires him will pay the fine and move on to the next source of cheap labor. He will be deported, nothing more than a spare part in a car that uses him and gets rid of him.

Human beings do not deserve this. Compassion and dignity should be part of every creature of God.

Pedro may have a better quality of life in America than Mexico on a short term basis, but this is like winning the battle and losing the war. He will never have the American dream. Americans will have their cars and houses and fancy clothing, while he remains doing back breaking labor, never to climb upward. His son and grandson will not have what others have around them.

Some will say I am using fake compassion to get rid of people. These people are wrong. I genuinely want every American living here to have the American dream. A prosperous America benefits the world. It allows us to show our generosity and compassion on a global basis to help feed, clothe, protect, and defend the world. This is not about waging war. It is about helping people after a tsunami or other humanitarian crisis, such as combating diseases.

If my words positively affect even one person, then it is worth typing them. So my question to Mexicans and others thinking of coming here is simple. Do you care just about yourself, or do you care about your extended family for generations to come? Do you want your grandchildren to pick lettuce or own the farm? Do you want bread crumbs, or the entire American dream for generations to come?

There is no shame in picking vegetables or scrubbing bathrooms of other Americans. It is honest work. Yet given the choice, most people would rather be the person hiring others to pick their vegetables and scrub their bathrooms.

For those who truly love their family, coming here legally gives them the best opportunity to have the best of what American life offers.

Allowing somebody to have a dead end life is not compassion. It is humiliation.

Americans are better than that.

I hope the immigrants who come here like the Irish, Italians, and Jews did all those decades ago do it the right way, and reap the rewards that come with truly having the honor of being an American.

eric

Today is Global Idiocy Wednesday.

While I am on a plane to Nebraska, I pray that being trapped in a cocoon of normal mid-Westerners will keep me safely sealed away from the stupidity that is enveloping the entire world.

I now get all of my news from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, at least for one day. Several of their stories should be covered globally so the world can see what has become of us.

In Germany, a “Love Parade” was anything but. It was supposed to be like Woodstock except with music that may be even worse, unless one loves techno.

The Love Parade was held in an underground tunnel, since nothing says Love Parade like an underground tunnel. As expected, riots broke out in the form of a stampede. 19 people died and 342 were injured. The organizers of the Love Parade said it would never be held again.

The police chief presiding over the tragedy was Detlef Schmeling, who is most likely the athletic offspring of a gay German romance between Detlef Schrempf and Max Schmeling.

While the deaths are a tragedy, this entire episode was completely avoidable. As the song says, love hurts.

In Jordan, an activist named Amina Tarek was arrested in the town square when she showed up protesting, and dressed only in lettuce. Yes, lettuce. She wants Jordanians to “turn over a new leaf” and become vegetarians.

Given that Jordan is a beacon of human rights (spare me talk of how progressive they are compared to Saudi Arabia.), it makes perfect sense that a woman would have no other causes to worry about besides vegetarian lunacy. Perhaps if the police were to torture her in prison for merely being a woman and being outside alone, she may care more about the millions of Arab women living in oppression.

If she wants to care more about trees and animals than human beings, she does not belong in Jordan. She belongs in San Francisco. Actually, perhaps we can relocate PETA to Jordan. They can run around naked covered in lettuce. If they suffer violent consequences, CNN can always blame it on Israeli settlements. Perhaps this can turn into an adult video such as “Debbie does the Gaza (non-bacon) strip.”

In San Diego, Comic Con is a gathering of people who love comics. Like the Love Parade, it is supposed to be a peaceful gathering of people celebrating something fun. Instead, one man stabbed another man with a pen for sitting too close to him. In a disappointing insult to injury, not one comic book hero came to subdue the bad guy or save the victim. Batman, Superman, and the rest of the ilk are apparently make believe.

In Virginia, Senator Jim Webb made some provocative remarks about how diversity has marginalized white people. His remarks could have been worse, but the real surprise (when I say surprise I mean expected behavioral reaction) is the complete and total silence of people of all races. You see, Jim Webb is a Democrat. More importantly, he is a Democrat who publicly insulted President George W. Bush to his face. Therefore, he gets a free pass for any comment about anything.

Any Republican making such comments would instantly be Sherroded, which is like being an agricultural employee who gets cattle prodded.

In New York, Charlie Rangel is as entertaining as ever. I am withholding comments for now, happy to be a spectator.

Lastly, in Bell, California, top city officials came under fire for drawing salaries as high as 800,000 dollars. This led me to ask a question that is being asked all over America.

Where the heck is Bell California?

It is located in Los Angeles County. I live in LA County, and I still cannot ascertain where this place is.

The city is 91% Hispanic, which still does not tell me anything except that the media likes irrelevant factoids.

I have found Waldo with less trouble than Bell County.

I could make more of an effort, but somehow I think that if there is any reason to go there whatsoever, I would have already done so.

The people of Bell may be offended at my remarks, but why would anybody want to live in a town with a dirt poor median income being fleeced by city officials?

The only logical step for these Bell officials is to be promoted to the state level. California is broke, so being governor of the state would be a perfect match.

In honor of the people of Bell, I will eat at Taco Bell. Perhaps that will pour some residual funds into their coffers.

Whether at the national or count level, we get the government we deserve. As for Rizzo, I think he was one of the characters on the Muppets. I think he was in the band.

In Mexico, Jesus Quinonez was a law enforcement officer who was considered by a U.S. officer to be the go to guy for the Baja Attorney General’s office. He has just been arrested for helping drug traffickers. I love hearing about the great strides Mexico has made. Apparently winning the drug war means getting a better supply to market. If Mexico were any more corrupt it would be Chicago.

Ok, fine. I apologize for that cheap shot to Mexico. Chicago is much worse.

The Phil Collins song “Land of Confusion” sums it up.

This is the world we live in.

This is before even getting to problems in Afghanistan, upheaval at British Petroleum (not since 1814 has an American taken down a British institution), and an imbecilic media that is more focused on Hollywood celebrities acting like themselves.

The world is on fire, and people are too busy loving each other to death to notice or care.

I pray that my commentary on Global Idiocy Wednesday leads to Common Sense Thursday, but that would be about as likely as a naked Arab vegetarian moving to America, becoming Jewish, and cramming a burger into their mouth to prevent speech.

eric

Chelsea Clinton is getting married, and I am sadly declaring her special day a disaster for me.

(I wanted to run this column a couple weeks ago, and genuinely regret it running so close to her wedding day. Event driven items take priority over topic driven ones.)

No, this has nothing to do with other weddings that may get interrupted. That is part of life. Chelsea is not intentionally trying to hurt anyone. She requires Secret Service protection, and justifiably so. These things happen.

I am just dismayed that she is getting married. No, I am not attracted to her. This has nothing to do with sex.

It has nothing to do with politics. Her parents may be wretched, but she has never raised my taxes or pardoned a terrorist.

I don’t mind Chelsea Clinton getting married in general. I mind her choice of spouse.

Chelsea Clinton is marrying a successful Wall Street professional who could very well be a good guy.

Yet when all is said and done, Chelsea’s wedding will be a funeral for what I hold dear, and too many of these funerals are taking place.

Chelsea Clinton is a Christian, and she is marrying a man who is Jewish.

I am totally opposed to Jewish intermarriage. It is the destruction of Judaism.

I want to make it crystal clear that I have a deep respect for people of all faiths, and people who choose not to have religious faith at all. Christianity is a beautiful religion with rich traditions.

My neighbors were Christians. Some of the best people I have ever known are Christians. Christianity is a beautiful faith. It also has no place in my home.

It is not my faith. My faith is Judaism.

My neighbors honored my Hanukkah traditions. They gave me chocolates around the holiday. They were lovely to me. I had the best neighbors a guy could ask for. Yet when it came time to engage in religious rituals, I went to Synagogue and they went to Church. I celebrated Hanukkah and they celebrated Christmas. One of my closest friends in this world is a devout Christian. We do not hang out on December 25th because that is his special day to be a part of a group that is a different group from mine.

Some will ask what business it is of mine to tell others how to live. I am not ordering anybody to do anything. I am just lamenting.

The reason why Jewish intermarriage is a tragedy is because there are so few Jews in the world. People think we are numerous because of our accomplishments, but we are actually tiny in numbers. There are over one billion Christians and one billion Muslims. Only 14 million Jews exist. We are 1/5 of 1% of the people of the world.

Combine that with a staggering 52% intermarriage rate and that means a faith that may not exist in 100 years. We have survived because hardship made us stronger. Comfort and acceptance are doing what Hitler never could. My father is a Holocaust survivor, and I cannot fathom the notion of what he and my grandparents went through. To marry outside my faith would be to kill everything my grandparents fought to preserve.

Intermarriage and secularism are killing Judaism. Intermarriage often increases Jewish secularism.

Is it possible that Chelsea will convert to Judaism? Not bloody likely. Statistically speaking, children of such intermarriages either embrace Christianity or nothing at all. Judaism is rarely chosen.

One reason for this is that while both religions have serious and fun aspects, Christianity begins by teaching the fun stuff while Judaism talks about responsibility. Getting gifts from Santa Claus and hunting for Easter eggs is more fun than fasting for 24 hours on Yom Kippur. Judaism has much joy to it, but we Jews are terrible at marketing our religion to kids.

Also, converting to Christianity and Islam is easy. Converting to Judaism is an arduous process that can take more than two years.

I have Jewish friends who have intermarried. I consider their spouses to be my friends. Their kids are wonderful children. My cousin (rest her soul) married an Italian man. He is one of the finest men I know, and his children are wonderful human beings with a fabulous father. I am honored to have them as my family.

Yet the loss of Jewish life pains me.

I just wish Chelsea would have chosen among the billion Christians, or anybody else among the 99.8% of non-Jews.

Some will say that they are in love, and not hurting anybody. This is false. Virtually every Jewish intermarriage results in one less Jew in the world. We simply cannot afford to lose any more people.

If a billion Jews existed, I would not care. We just cannot handle any more defections.

Christianity is beautiful, but so is Judaism. Christianity will still exist in the 22nd century.

As for Judaism, I hope it does. We survived pogroms, persecution, and torment. We survived the Romans and the Arabs. Yet we are withering under a daily assault of kindness and acceptance.

I hope that Chelsea Clinton and her husband give their future children plenty of Jewish experiences. The children will not be legally Jewish, but maybe as adults they may choose to convert to Judaism.

I am not holding out much hope.

I wish them no ill will, but I cannot celebrate their nuptials…not when my entire faith is fighting for its very existence.

eric

For those who are unaware, Barack Obama is the liberal version of God. He is perfect. He has no faults.

The comparison to God is not that far off the mark. How else would one describe somebody who Is loved not for doing anything, but for merely being?

The right is hated for the same reason.

Shirley Sherrod is the latest example of how truth and meaning are whatever liberals say they are.

As we now know, Andrew Breitbart posted a videotape he received from somebody (I would sure like to know who…perhaps a leftist plant, but we have no idea) showing Shirley Sherrod making racist comments. Those comments appeared to be taken out of context.

(I say “appeared” because since then she has made several comments about Fox News and Breitbart that are absolutely racist. For this reason the left no longer wants her on the talk shows. She went from sympathetic victim to racial bombthrower in 72 hours.)

Barack Obama…not “The White House,” or “The Administration”…but a singular individual man named Barack Obama…had her fired.

So Andrew Breitbart ran a video that got the ball rolling, but President Obama fired her.

(Despite the story of Tom Nilsack, formerly Vilsack)

How does she feel about these two men?

Despite virtually every media outlet claiming that Barack Obama apologized, CNN of all entities actually got it right, proving the blinking VCR theory about being right twice a day.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/23/sherrod.firestorm/index.html

The column is entitled “Sherrod regards Obama’s call as apology.” That is not the same as saying that he apologized. This is a very important distinction.

“President Barack Obama didn’t literally say he was ’sorry’ when they spoke Thursday, but ‘by simply calling me,’ she believed he was apologizing.”

Are you kidding me? Does this guy ever not get a free pass?

Compare the comments by Tom Vilsack to the actions of Barack Obama.

The man could not even bring himself to say he was sorry. Yet by merely picking up the telephone and calling her, that is good enough for her, and most of the media.

This is like the prom queen in junior high school who calls the math geek for help with homework, which he interprets to mean that she loves him. He is so honored to hear from her that her meaningless gesture carries meaning just because she is her. Barack Obama is still the object of teenage crushes that put Obamagirl to shame.

“She said he didn’t precisely say he was sorry.”

Of course he didn’t. God does not make mistakes or have to apologize.

“I really didn’t want to hear the president of the United States say ‘I’m sorry’ to Shirley Sherrod,” she said. “I felt he was saying that in his talk just by simply calling me. I felt it was, in a way, saying ‘I’m sorry’ because he didn’t have to do it.”

So even though he fired and humiliated her, he did not have to apologize. A simple, meaningless gesture meant to do damage control is good enough.

“Asked whether she was able to enlighten him about her work, she said they didn’t have time to get into that.”

Of course they didn’t. Does anybody in their right mind think this president cares about this insignificant low level bureaucrat who works with cows and pigs? Why would he care about what she does for a living?

(Mr. Obama’s predecessor had a reputation for genuinely caring about such low level staffers, and the dignity of individuals. This gets ignored because it does not fit the media narrative of heartlessness.)

Mr. Obama had a political problem. He called up to make sure she was not going to be a bigger problem in the same way a man calls a mistress to make sure she is going to keep quiet and not tell the wife. Once she cooperated, he had no use for her. Shirley Sherrod should win the Susan McDougal award for unrequited love and loyalty.

While Mr. Obama gets a free pass for the emptiest of perfunctory gestures, Andrew Breitbart does not get any latitude.

Mr. Breitbart has refused to apologize. Good. She compared him to those who support slavery. He should not give one inch to this race baiter. He is right to point out that even if her story was one of redemption, her audience did not know that at first. They laughed out loud when she spoke of the reverse racism well before the moral of the story.

So what if Mr. Breitbart were to call her up and apologize?

“He would really need to come and sit down with me and look me in the eye so that we could see if we could find a place — I’m not saying I wouldn’t forgive him, but we would need to see if we could find a place for that to happen.”

Come and sit down with her? Are you kidding me?

Somebody needs to show this woman the “South Park” episode on race. A white man uses a bad word accidentally. Jesse Jackson wants an apology. Reverend Jackson pulls his pants down while the white man kisses Jackson’s bare rear end as cameras snap the “apology.”

Equality means everyone is treated equally. Otherwise the word equality is meaningless.

If Andrew Breitbart has to come down there and kiss her rumpus, then so does Barack Obama. If Barack Obama is allowed a non-apology phone call, then so is Breitbart.

She needs to look deep in Breitbart’s eyes to see what she thinks is truly in his heart. That is not required of Barack Obama.

This is just another example that racism according to an aggrieved liberal minority is whatever they say it is at any given moment.

So why would she have a higher standard for Breitbart than Obama?

One theory is that Breitbart is white and Obama is partially black. That theory would make Ms. Sherrod a racist, which she very well be.

Yet I suspect that this is not racial bigotry. It is ideological bigotry. Breitbart is a conservative. Therefore, she gets to decide what is deep inside his heart, and he must bow down to her to show he is not the evil bad conservative she thinks he is.

Barack Obama is a black liberal. He does not have to prove anything. He automatically gets the benefit of the doubt.

Liberals make excuses for those WHO they feel deserve such excuses. Even though Barack Obama did not apologize, she is sure that he meant to do so. Intentions trump results. The media claims an apology occurred and the matter is settled.

Unless liberals can claim that every human being deserves to be held to the same standards, then nothing they say about wanting to help people matters.

Liberals want to blame Breitbart and Fox News (despite the fact that she was fired before Fox News ever aired the video or spoke about it). They will simply not allow any direct criticism of Barack Obama. His half-hearted gestures of caring are taken as true love.

The more the media tries to protect this man from legitimate criticism, the louder the backlash will grow.

If the president wants to be respected, he may wish to try behaving in the same civil and dignified way that everybody else is expected to adhere to.

Then again, there is no need for him to play by the rules of life when he has his cult of leftist droolers reminding him that he is God, and that they are merely lucky to breathe his noxiousness.

As for black America, the issue will be whether the prevailing desire is equality or revenge. Conservatives should not have to jump through extra hoops and be guilty until proven innocent simply for being conservatives. Liberals should not be held to lower standards and be given full credit for actions not even taken simply because they are liberals.

Many black people just want equality. Yet enough influential black “leaders” (translate: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) just want revenge, especially against white, conservative, slave owning oppressors. Those men are deceased, so the sins of the great-grandparents shall be used as a battering ram against their offspring for a period slightly beyond forever.

(Forever is the intention. It keeps these “leaders” and their offspring from ever having to get real jobs.)

“Teachable moments” and “conversations about race” are worthless unless everybody is allowed to talk and alternately forced to listen and be graded using equal metrics. Then again, if liberals allowed this, they would not be the ideological bigots they are. They would not be liberals.

eric

Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, I will begin this Tygrrrr Express conference with a brief opening statement concerning my act of heroism as the new Rosa Parks. After congratulating myself, I will deign to take questions from you mostly worthless parasites. You will then refer to me as post-racial, which means that anything and everything I do will be above criticism.

Apparently MSNBC reporters are not in the room to cover my remarks due to a medical crisis. Their heads got lodged up Barack Obama’s (redacted), and surgeons are performing the first non-Siamese operation.

Your questions must be in the form of a question. You will not be making statements because this is not your press conference, and nobody cares what you have to say. This is about me.

Arab Jihadist Helen Thomas finally blew herself up, so she will not be in the front row to ask anti-Israel questions.

With that, I am proud to discuss the events of yesterday.

In an act of racial solidarity, I became the second coming of Rosa Parks. I gave up my seat to a black woman. She was denied the right to sit. This cannot happen in America. This is the 21st century, and I will not tolerate a land where a black woman is denied a seat. I voluntarily gave up my seat so she could sit down. Not since King has somebody like me come along. Of course I refer to Don King, who understands that only in America could I do what I did.

I endured 7 hours of uncomfortable positions, but the black woman was comfortable, and that is all that matters.

I will now take your questions.

Larry King, CNN: My eyes are not what they used to be. Actually, nothing is what it used to be. Are you absolutely sure she was black?

TE: Larry, it is wrong to judge a woman’s race by the color of her skin. However, since you are obsessed with race, I will say that the evidence indicated she had a significant amount of melanin content. In short, she was what the Rolling Stones called “Brown Sugar.” Next question.

Amanda Carpenter, Townhall: Why did you give up the seat?

TE: That was an intelligent question. Insightful as always Amanda. The airline asked for volunteers. The flight was oversold. Given how black people have been treated since the beginning of time, I felt it would be an act of racial healing. I laid down my seat for her the way Sir Walter Raleigh laid down his coat. I figured if I did this, we could finally stop talking about race.

Richard Cohen, Self-loathing Hebrew, Washington Post: Were you compensated for giving up your seat?  If so, isn’t this all about money?

TE: Once again the liberal media takes a feel good story and injects poison into it. The significant compensation I received does not change the fact I gave up my seat for a black woman, and expect a monument to be built in my honor in Washington, DC.

Thomas Friedman, Jayson Blair Times: Given the compensation you received, wasn’t the race and gender of the other passenger irrelevant?

TE: Are you saying she is irrelevant because she is a black woman? I find your insinuation racist and sexist. She should be proud of who she is, the same way you should be proud of who you are. Actually, never mind, you work for the JBT so you should feel shame. If you were not so insensitive you would have remembered that the late Johnny Cochran once said that “race is a part of everything we do.” In a nation of Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Henry Gates, and Shirley Sherrod, everything is racial. To question this is racism.

Maureen Dowd, Jayson Blair Times: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Doesn’t that ruin your analogy in the same way that my attitude ruins my chances of having a man warm my seat?

TE: So you are implying I should have refused to give my seat to a black woman because she is a black woman? That is racist. I expect sexist, man-hating drivel from you, but your racism is too much for me to bear. You need to get past your venom and stop trying to hinder civil rights.

Rich Eisen, NFL Network:

What do you think Drew Rosenhaus should do regarding Terrell Owens and the upcoming season?

TE: Next question.

Bob Herbert, Jayson Blair Times: Do you think your situation is proof that reparations for slavery are in order?

TE: Excellent question. Yes, this compensation was a form of reparations for my being enslaved many times at various airports with inadequate remedies. My luggage has been lost, I have been stranded on the tarmac, and even been forced to sleep on the floor of airports without any redress. While this compensation today does not make up for all the past injustices I have faced, it is a good start from a reparations standpoint.

Major Garrett, Fox News: Barack Obama gets to fly around in a private jet while you fly coach. Is this reverse racism?

TE: The question Arianna Huffington planted on you to make you look bad worked perfectly. You are usually better than that. It is not just an issue of reverse racism. It is also class warfare. Barack Obama promised to share the wealth, yet he has not one time given up his seat on Air Force I for me. I have not even ridden on Air Force II, and that plane is not used to do a thing. They could fly coach, but they do not care about the people. It is all talk coming from them.

Ellen Degeneres, Gay and Lesbian Monthly: Was the black woman gay, and if so, does this mean we should have gay marriage?

TE: I do not know her sexuality, rendering me unable to comment on her sexuality in terms of broader social policy. I also do not know if any clergy members were on the flight, since I did not board the flight myself. Therefore, I am not sure if a gay or straight marriage could have taken place in the air. I do not know what the rule is regarding nuptials and sky miles. Regarding potential honeymoons, joining the Mile High Club is frowned upon except on redeyes when other passengers are asleep.

Wendell Goler, Fox News: Will you be having a holiday named after you due to your heroic act?

TE: Wendell, my favorite holiday is called “Shut the hell up and go to work” Day. It crosses every racial and ethnic strata. Now that I have healed the entire country, I am declaring an end to every grievance of every kind by every human being. There are now no more problems, and liberal bigotry bombthrowers will be forced to learn skills that would make them remotely employable.

Greta Van Susteren, Fox News: Do Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Kim Kardashian think…

TE: No, they don’t…not in the least. Although rumor has it that a couple of them offered to give up their jail cells including the seats to black inmates in a very generous racial gesture. When asked if they would do the same at their own mansions, they seemed less tolerant. They really do seem like Mean Girls.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: Since you will still be flying to Little Rock, Arkansas, will you be speaking to any state troopers who will be slandering my loving husband?

TE: I always suspected you and the rest of the State Department didn’t actually do anything all day, but posing as a reporter is a new low, which says a ton for you. I will not be delving into your husband’s trousers literally or metaphorically because the last thing I need is for you to ever get near mine. It would be mutually assured destruction in the bimbo eruption department. Besides, if you wanted a better marriage you should have stopped pushing gun control legislation. My girlfriend, her parents, and my parents all support the NRA, and believe me when I say that is the best way to eliminate infidelity.

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC: The operation was partially successful, so forgive my showing up all filthy and disgusting. I still have Mr. Obama’s umbilical cord wrapped around my waist, but I am here. Don’t you think it is wrong to turn every little incident into a racial issue?

TE: No, that would be Barack Obama. Keith, once again you “acted stupidly.” I see the umbilical cord, you sweet liberal boy. I would get the scissors but you might die, and nobody wants that. Unlike liberals rooting for conservatives like Rush to die, I want you to live so I can point out your idiocy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would take more questions but most of you are not fit to shine my shoes. My sneakers are black, which is proof of something that you can’t understand.

I just hope I have shown young people the importance of volunteering. When you give, you get back so much more.

Time to invest 1% of my compensation in an overpriced soda. Normal people would consider that an expenditure, but this is liberal fantasyland where such things are investments. I will even further the cause of healing by buying Coke Zero, which is black. Those who claim that the beverage is actually red are trying to drive a wedge between black people and American Indians, and I am tired of liberals and their racial division strategy.

You’re welcome America.

eric

For a man who likes to talk us to death, Mr. Obama is harder to find right now than Waldo.

As we all well know, agriculture bureaucrat Shirley Sherrod was fired for making statements that could have been interpreted as racist or redemptive. The NAACP audience sure chuckled at her tale of humiliating a white man before knowing the rest of the story. Somebody gave Andrew Breitbart an edited version of the tape that cast Ms. Sherrod in the worst light.

(She may not be a racist, but she certainly is a class warfare practitioner, which is not admirable.)

Under heavy pressure from the White House, she was fired by Agriculture Secretary and former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, beginning the Sherrod Charade.

As for the Vilsack, he should change his name to Nilsack since he just had his manhood blown off when he dove on the grenade to protect his boss.

I personally miss the old days when the liberal media would deliberately show edited footage taken out of context. The part where Rodney King puts tons of lives at risk before getting caught is not shown. Then the city burns. Nobody blamed the media or talked about context then.

The story coming from Ms. Sherrod is that she had to fired so that Glenn Beck would not attack the White House. Ironically, Beck actually defender her.

The White House supposedly fired her due to Fox News, despite the fact that Fox News did not run with the story until she was already fired.

Robert Gibbs did his best Baghdad Bob impersonation in a rambling incoherent press conference where he was apologizing for an administration currently led by the invisible man.

The argument that the right holds any blame for this leftist mess is ludicrous. First the left spends years stating that every conservative is stupid and evil. Fox News is not a real network. Andrew Breitbart has no credibility. Every single conservative thinker on Earth is somehow stupid and evil, even though those are contradictory notions.

So what did the left say when the tape turned out to be edited? The NAACP claimed to have been “snookered.” The left in general was “tricked,” “duped,” and “fooled.”

So if the right is stupid, and the left overreacted based on something they learned from the right, what level of idiocy describes the left?

The left claiming that they will now no longer take Fox News seriously implies they ever did. That would be like me being surprised if Mary Mapes and Dan Rather brought me fake but accurate memos. When the left does it, somehow they rationalize everything as proper.

I would not make such a mistake. If the Jayson Blair Times is cited, the article is automatically invalidated because they wrote it. If the JBT claims that 2 + 2 = 4, I am going to check with another source just so I do not take the word of a leftist, plagiarized, badly written rag that is virtually always wrong.

Yet the left has nowhere to go on this one. The Sherrod screwup was 100% the fault of the left. The White House ran with it. The reasons are irrelevant. The First Coward in Chief needs to man up for once in his effeminate life and look Americans in the eye.

Admitting fault is not his specialty, but luckily he has staffers to cover for him.

Today is the one year anniversary of when an elitist Harvard gasbag professor (redundant, I know) who happened to be black played the race card against a good cop who happened to be white. Like that incident, Sherrod provided a “teachable moment” where the person most needing to learn sits in the White House cowering.

The media is not at fault here, nor were they at fault when they stoked the fires that led to Los Angeles burning. They did not put the rocks and bricks in the rioters hands. I watched the videotape. I did not burn my city or destroy store windows.

Does anybody think Andrew Breitbart or anybody else cares about the Department of Agriculture? Does anybody even know what they actually do? I think they raise taxes on cows and other incredibly scintillating things.

The right has better things to do than attack people who manage livestock. We are not the poultry police.

If the left wants to blame this on the right, then the right should really turn up the heat. I have always said if accusations are going to be leveled, they might as well be true. Conservative bloggers should find the most low level staffers and make them miserable for sport. Maybe we can investigate if the White House janitors wear white pants instead of black ones, and whether their tailors once went bowling with somebody who looked like a skinhead but actually had chemo.

Come on! The left is like a cheating spouse at this point. Paranoia sets in, so they assume that the other spouse is cheating also since they are.

The left has spent the last 25 years trying to destroy conservatives ever since Ted Kennedy brutalized Robert Bork. Therefore, it is natural that they think the right does the same.

I will say this again until it is drilled into leftist skulls.

We on the right do not hate you. We disagree with you. We are simply tired of you hating and demonizing us. The moment you stop smearing us as bigots simply for being alive and breathing, you would be surprised at how kindly we will treat you in response.

If President Obama wants the racial divisions in this country to recede, he can stop demonizing his opponents using race as a club.

He may wish to follow his own oil spill advice and find out “whose @ss to kick.” Then he can look in the mirror on this one.

Barack Obama screwed up and had an innocent woman fired from her job.

He is human. Humans make mistakes. Honorable humans own up to these mistakes.

It should not fall to Baghdad Bob Gibbs or Tom Nilsack.

President Barack Nilsack Obama needs to reach down and find his own.

It is one thing for the left to be an entire ideology of crybabies blaming the right for their own failures.

It is quite another thing for the leader of the free world to be led by one of them.

eric

For those wanting up to date information on Lindsay Lohan or Jersey Shore, look in the mirror and apologize for being an imbecile contributing to America’s intellectual decline. That concludes today’s pop culture report.

The story of the day is a low level bureaucrat who worked at the agriculture department named Shirley Sherrod.

Ms. Sherrod told a story about how as a black woman she had the power to shabbily treat a white farmer who was desperate to save his farm. The sinister interpretation of her remarks is that she used her power to engage in racism. A more charitable explanation she has offered is that this was a soul searching moment that forced her to confront her racist attitudes, leading her to become a better person.

Ms. Sherrod has stated that she did end up helping the white farmer, and that she tells the story to condemn racism, not advance it.

Personally, I am willing to give her explanation some serious consideration. I do not know what is in her heart, nor do I wish to be guilty of attacking a woman without having all of the facts.

Yet the real issue is that Ms. Sherrod is the least important aspect of this story.

(I do not mean to say she is unimportant. She is a human being. She is just much smaller than the larger picture.)

Conservatives may find her comments to be reverse racism while liberals will make excuses for her, but both sides should switch to the other team on this one. Republicans should hope that her comments were harmless, while Democrats and liberals should hope that her comments were malicious.

Before breaking that down, let’s get to who the real player in this story is. It is not Fox News or Andrew Breitbart. They broke the story, but their roles end there.

The left loves to blame the right for everything and anything, but nobody at Fox News or working for Mr. Breitbart has any power to fire any government employee. Roger Ailes runs Fox News. Andrew Breitbart runs Big Hollywood.

(Full disclosure: I used to write for Big Hollywood.)

Neither of them have any control over government staff.

This story is about President Barack Obama. The left is doing back flips to obfuscate this fact, but he is what matters here.

He is the president. Ms. Sherrod is his employee. He can fire her for any reason without explanation. If she wears a red shirt on blue shirt Wednesday, he can sack her immediately. She is an at will employee. He has every right to fire his employees…again…for any reason.

This is exactly the same as George W. Bush being criticized for firing eight U.S. attorneys. His only mistake was not going on television and saying “I’m the president. I fired them because I can. Deal with it. If you don’t like it, win an election and sit in my chair.”

I don’t have to like Barack Obama’s policies to respect his authority as the boss over his bureaucracy. He hired her. He can fire her.

Some liberals will do what they always do, which is to jump belly first on the live grenade to protect their beloved Obama. They will say he was out of the loop, and that the (Tom) Vilsack did the sack.

For once in his charmed presidential life, Mr. Obama needs to take personal responsibility.

There are only two possibilities. Either the comments were wrong, or they were not wrong.

If the comments were abominable, Mr. Obama should simply say that he fired his employee because he can. Republicans would be going ballistic if he did not fire her, so everyone should back off because he did.

The president cannot be blamed for firing a bad person, and being a racist makes one bad.

To make things even more surreal, the president should then praise Fox News for helping him be aware of an employee that is bad for America, and Fox News could praise him for standing on principle.

If the comments were not wrong, then President Obama shoved another innocent victim under the bus. This makes him a spineless jellyfish.

The left will blame the right to deflect from their own leader’s gutlessness.

When the left tried to have Condoleeza Rice fired, President Bush showed loyalty and leadership when he banged the podium during his defiance.

“Condoleeza Rice is a fabulous person and America is lucky to have her service. Period!”

Mr. Obama is not known for emotion, but being “cool” can be seen as coldness.

Nobody disputes that Barack Obama fired one of his own employees. The issue is if he did so honorably or dishonorably. If Tom Vilsack acted wrongly, Mr. Obama can reverse the decision.

Ms. Sherrod has insisted that she was wronged. If she backs down under pressure, she loses credibility. I would not be willing to shatter my own reputation to protect my political party. Susan McDougal did this with the Clintons, and it makes as little sense now as it did then.

If Ms. Sherrod was smeared, she should not give an inch.

Neither should the right. The right broke the story, but Mr. Obama either acted on principle or on political expediency.

Legally he can fire her either way. Morally we need to know if our president is a soulless block of ice who will hurt anybody else to save his own skin.

The character of Mr. Obama is on the line.

The left can unleash their typical ball of rage at the right, but no amount of breathing fire will change the fact that this story is 100% owned by the left.

Let’s get to the truth.

eric

I have made no secret of the fact that as a Wall Street Journal Conservative, I worship at the altar of big business. I am a rah-rah cheerleader for corporate America.

When the famous quotes “The business of America is business,” and “What’s good for big business is good for America” are offered, I usually respond with a hearty “Amen!”

Yet there is a major difference between big business and corrupt business. I support big business. I do not support corrupt business in any form.

What this means is that if I hate a big business, then everybody hates them.

I hope big businesses are listening to me right now. If you lose my support, you do not have a place on this Earth to hide. If I am not defending you, consider yourselves abandoned.

I have defended oil companies, gun manufacturers, food and beverage firms, and of course Wall Street with zero regrets.

Yet apparently one large industry is too corrupt even for me.

I hope the stewardesses (now known as flight attendants so that less attractive women and hairy men can be hired in place of the hot women who used to dominate the position) are not looking over my shoulders as I type this on the plane, which by the way took off 2 1/2 hours late and overcharges for the wifi.

The airline industry needs to burn to the ground.

(I am NOT advocating plane crashes, especially since again, as this is typed, I am on one.)

The airline industry is the most corrupt industry on Earth, and every link in the supply chain needs to be blown up (again, metaphorically) and replaced with something that actually works.

Does anybody believe that the pricing structure is honest? More importantly, can anybody that works for an airline actually explain their own pricing structure?

I want to know three things with any product…1) What is it? 2) Where can I buy it? 3) How much does it cost (and is it on sale)?

If you cannot give me a simple answer, then your product (or service) does not merit being transacted.

Airlines say that if you fly often enough, you get “free” flights. This is a lie. There is still the airport tax. Also, programs involving miles claim that 25,000 miles gets a free coach flight. Try finding that deal. It is usually closer to 40,000 miles. It depends what the meaning of 25 is.

Airlines are failures, and they get rewarded for their failure. Stockholders like myself lose their investment (I knew the risks going in) while getting federal bailouts or bankruptcy protection that does not punish those who drove the airlines into the toilet to begin with.

One airline decided to add on debt to buy more company stock, rather than do the sane thing and sell stock to pay down debt. They took out the debt and bought the company stock at $60 per share. The stock dropped to $1 per share, destroying their equity and debt value.

Airlines blame everything from 9/11 to higher fuel prices, but did they think that oil would stay cheap forever? Couldn’t they have had an ounce of foresight? Why bother with planning when the consumers can pay the costs.

As for the pricing structure, “price leadership” is not the same as collusion.

How about the hub and spoke system? The three largest airlines are Delta, American, and United. They all have hubs, which prevents other airlines from servicing those hubs. Try getting a straight flight on Delta from Los Angeles to Chicago, which as far as I know are still major cities. You can’t.

In a couple areas of Idaho, Delta is the only airline servicing the area. That makes for a real fair deal if one counts exorbitant prices as fair.

Every aspect of this industry involves gouging.

It is illegal to bring liquids past security. It would be very easy to have technology that can tell the difference between a Molotov Cocktail and Coke Zero. If they can analyze food and luggage, they can analyze drinks.

By making us toss out our drinks, we then have to buy a drink on the other side of security. Naturally, that $1 bottle of Coke Zero costs about $4 at the airport.

I am all in favor of big business making profits, but gouging is illegal. It is not legal for a store to jack up the price of batteries and lanterns after a hurricane.

Monopolies and oligopolies in many cases are illegal, but if the stores inside the airport artificially keep the prices of sodas high, why should that not be investigated?

Cold medicine is exempt from the rule. What is to stop somebody from bringing cold medicine past security and then purchasing the mixer ingredients?

Several athletes including one very prominent football player got arrested for purple drank, which is made from codeine syrup, soda, and candy. Airport security would not stop this at all, yet my bottle of Coke Zero is a threat.

This does not even get to the disaster that is airport security.

Rules are fine, but at least enforce them consistently at every airport. For those who wonder why a conservative is not making a states’ rights’ case, if there is one thing that should be nationalized by definition alone, it is national security! That is why it is not called local security.

I wear a hat. As a Jewish person, I prefer to keep my head covered out of respect for God. Every single airport I see a different situation.

Some airports say absolutely nothing. Other airports request that I remove the hat and put it through the conveyor belt.

I could do this, but I politely refuse and explain that it is a religious hat. Besides, are Arabs required to take off their turbans? Of course not. That would hurt their precious feelings I care so little about.

Also, my hat is not cheap. It belonged to my grandfather, and cost a bit. So I do not want it getting mashed up under the conveyor belt. Some airport screeners are very reasonable. They have me walk through, and then ask me to remove my hat when I get to the other side. I oblige, and the problem is solved.

Other airport screeners insist on giving me a full search. One guy was so rude that I looked at him and said, “Do I look Arab to you? I’m Jewish. We don’t blow stuff up. Keep Arabs off airplanes and you won’t have this problem.”

Yeah, I am well aware that I am saying things that may offend some people. So what? I am offended that a religion that is responsible for 0% of the world’s terror attacks has to face an indignity when those belonging to a religion causing nearly 100% of them get a free pass.

No, most Arab Muslims are not terrorists.

Yes, most terrorists are Arab Muslims.

So what do namby-pamby do-gooders like to do? Bother Jewish guys wearing hats and 80 year old ladies in wheelchairs with knitting instruments. Real helpful.

Some people could choose not to fly. I do not have that luxury. I am on the road approximately 300 days per year. I have to fly for my career.

It is my hope that enough people not in my situation will refuse to fly. Bring the airlines to their knees.

Otherwise people will be standing in long lines for hours, only to find out that upon reaching the counter that they were told to get in the wrong line.

They will be sitting on the tarmac for hours (legislation to prevent this has no teeth) without any explanation. The people will be told that their plane is 20th for takeoff. Why should this even happen?

Their bags will be lost because the airlines do not face any punishments for lost bags.

Lounges will be open to people forced to sleep at the airport overnight so they are not sleeping on the floor.

I support big business because big business usually has an incentive to behave. At the very least, they answer to shareholders. Even customers have more power than they realize. Coca Cola is a giant, but it was not immune from wrath when the 1985 debacle of New Coke came out. The company quickly reversed gears. The free marketplace worked.

I am not advocating that prices on plane tickets be capped. I still believe in the free market. However, I do believe that collusion should be rooted out, monopolies in cities should be eliminated, and specials advocating free tickets for a certain number of miles actually means what it says.

Not every airline is awful. Southwest is one exception. CEO Herb Kelleher is one of the best CEOs in America in any industry. That is why his airline makes money while the rest are bleeding. His staff is pleasant.

Yet the other airlines continue to make flying a potentially miserable experience (while flying first class does have benefits, those passengers are as powerless as anybody else when stuck on the tarmac without explanation. Also, first class passengers still have to pay for internet access. At least their seats have plugs. I am in coach at the moment draining my battery.

Don’t lie to me and tell me that a flight is oversold when it is not. I offer to volunteer to take a later flight. I am told not to board the plane, despite having status that allows me to board early. Only after everyone else is boarded and all the overhead cabin space is used up am I told that the flight is not oversold and I am not needed to volunteer. I get stuck boarding last based on a screwup not of my making.

Also, is charging for pillows really necessary? If you charge for headsets, can you at least have them be static free? Can you ask the customers what they want in an in flight movie rather than choosing yourselves? Also, can airlines finally admit that the idea that cellphones can mess up the navigation system is a complete lie?

The solution is to let the airlines go bankrupt and not have the government help them. The airlines should be forced to liquidate. What would then happen is that other people such as Herb Kelleher would come along, buy the businesses on the cheap, and run them better. This is called creative destruction, and it should be at the heart of capitalism.

I don’t expect anybody to sue the airports over $4 sodas, but something has to be done to stop the gouging.

The airlines are the worst of the worst. They cheat the customers and still lose money. If you are going to rob people blind, at least be intelligent thieves. Sometimes I think that when organ grinders fire their trained dancing monkeys (I have not seen an organ grinder in awhile. The recession really did take its toll on them.), the least qualified to find new organ grinders instead end up working ticket or baggage counters at airports.

The answer is not more regulation or government intervention. Some people want to blame deregulation, but the issue is with lower standards existing because consumers allow this.

The answer is for private citizens to fight back (legally). The record companies bullied Napster, and filesharing successfully led to consumers fighting back and obliterating what once was Tower Records.

Apple and Microsoft know that their customers will butcher them if their products are flawed. Consumers do fight back.

We will not be turning into pterodactyls any time soon. Yet if we just accept the abuse of the airlines, they will continue bullying us.

The solution is to name names. Ever single time an airline or airport employee messes with your livelihood, get their name and report them. Do not be afraid to complain. When an airline lost my expensive tuxedo jacket, I burned up the phone lines until I got my check in the mail. They really do listen, but so few people stand up.

Conversely, on the rare occasions that an airline employee does something positive (most likely Southwest), call their boss and compliment the employee. People are humans. They feel unappreciated, only hearing the complaints. A personal phone call of gratitude can save a good employee’s job and even get them a raise or promotion.

I would say more, but this 6 hour flight from New York to Los Angeles coupled with the 2 1/2 hour delay and 2 days of trying to leave early that went ignored have me spent.

So yes, even the world of big business has its evils. I hope the airlines realize that their last line of defense has had enough. Let the anti-business people wreck them. I will defend other big businesses that have made my life better, not worse.

eric

In an Earth shattering decision that may have global ramifications, the nation of France has decided to ban the burqa. Women in France are no longer allowed to wear that piece of Muslim garb.

While I am a proud Neocon who wants to eradicate Radical Islam, I am surprised myself at the fact that I am not so sure I am in favor of this decision. What I am sure of is why this law passed, and what it means for the future.

I am totally in favor of banning the burqa and any other face coverings in drivers license and other identity photos. The right of law enforcement to see the face of the person is paramount. It is called identification to begin with. In America, United States law supersedes religious law.

Yet a total banning of the burqa does seem to be an encroachment on religious freedom.

Some will argue that the burqa reduces women to second class citizens. However, if religious law does not interfere with government law, then the government does not have a role.  Honor killings are illegal because murder itself is illegal.

Yet many religious communities have separate existences. Some very religious sects of Judaism have their own Rabbinic courts for issues such as divorces, and federal and state law often defers to these Rabbinic courts.

If Sharia law does not infringe on American law, there is no legal issue. The problem with Sharia law is that it does impose Sharia on non-Muslims and others who have their own traditions. It is one thing for Muslims to have foot baths at airports. This does not hurt anybody. Yet cab drivers refusing to allow alcohol, pork, dogs, or other items banned under Sharia into their cars crosses the line.

People should be free to practice their religious faith without encroaching on the freedom of others.

While strict Islam is a male dominated culture, the issue becomes whether women are forced into this life or if they do so voluntarily. While social pressures exist in communities, women in places such as Europe and America have legal protections to prevent subjugation.

Why should a woman in France who wants to voluntarily wear her traditional garb be banned from doing so? Isn’t this an issue between her and her husband?

Yet while I want to be sympathetic toward the women who choose their garb, I am more sympathetic to those instilling the ban. It is important to understand why the ban was enacted.

In short, parts of the non-Muslim world has had it.

I have had it with third world genocidal lunatics running around like Ali Baba in the Bugs Bunny cartoon yelling “Hassan Chop!” I am tired of the words “infidel,” “blasphemer,” “Jihad,” and “Allah Akbar!”

I have just had it.

Peaceful Muslims are collateral damage, and they have only themselves to blame. They will not stand up and condemn Radical Islam.

I understand the need for silence in the Middle East, where the penalty for speaking out is death.

Where are the Arab Muslims in Minneapolis, Detroit, and Dearborn?

When England turned into Londonistan, it was another sign that Europe had surrendered. This makes it even more ironic that the French of all people are not surrendering. Nicolas Sarkozy is not your typical French appeaser. He does not want France to be part of the Caliphate.

Is he taking an elephant club to mice? Sure. Is this the best way to handle things? No. Is it better than doing nothing? Yes it is.

With France the issue is secularism. In America it is Christianity. Christian Americans would sooner bring back the Crusades than surrender to Radical Islam.

The word “crusades” is a term that is deeply offensive to Muslims. They can get over it. I am offended by beheadings and towers being blown up.

Should I stand up for the right of Muslim women to wear their burqa? Sure. I am willing to do it? No. I have my battles to fight, and I have better things to do than stand up for people who won’t fight for themselves.

This ban is a backlash that is years in the making. Yet backlashes often rage out if control, resulting in innocent people getting hurt.

The backlash will not always be justified, but the anger behind the backlash is certainly proper. If Radical Islamists do not stop their craziness, it is their fellow decent Muslims who will feel the pain.

The Radical Islamists don’t care. If Moderate Muslims do care, they should speak up now before the burqa bans are only the tip of the reactive iceberg.

eric