Pretending they are interested in "clean air," the kindly union bought folks in the Mayor's office in Los Angeles signed a new law that makes independent trucking basically illegal in the ports of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed the law on the 26th that requires independent truckers to join trucking companies, and, therefore, the unions.

The law requires independent truck drivers servicing the port to become employees of trucking companies, and bans independent contractors. Both Villaraigosa and port authorities argue that independent, low-income drivers will not be able to afford the new $100,000 trucks that meet the port's strict low-emissions requirements.

And, of course, this makes sure every trucker is forced to join a union just to have a job, since their privately owner business have just been made illegal.

That requirement was backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which believes the provision will make it easier to organize truckers. But it’s opposed by the American Trucking Assn., which has vowed to file a lawsuit to block that part of the plan.

“This isn’t about clean air,’’ Curtis Whalen of the trucking association said of the pending legal action. “It’s about control of a deregulated industry and LA’s a pro-Teamster point of view.’’

Exactly right. We have arrived at a day when the fake worries about global warming and the environment can be used to destroy businesses and force them into becoming vassals of the state and the minions of corrupt union thugs.

We are witnessing the death of the private sector, slow but sure.

There is always one guy in a bar spoiling for a fight and will take any movement or glance, any sound, any word as his excuse at bellicosity. In the race mongering biz the equivalent would be people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both men who take immediate umbrage at the un-umbragable, just so that they can use the excuse to extort money out of businesses or get their mugs splashed across the papers and TV. In Dallas County the loudmouth looking for a fight is Commissioner John Wiley Price who foolishly decided that the scientific term "black hole" was a racial epithet and verbally attacked another commissioner for using it.

Here is the whole, stupid, story:

During a special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets the discussion turned to the central collections office that is tasked with processing ticket payments and other paperwork. This discussion prompted Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, a white man, to say that central collections had become a "black hole" of paperwork as often times paperwork simply disappears there.

And now the stupidity:

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Commissioner Price and Judge Jones seem to be very stupid men.

For his part, Mayfield told them to lump it because not only is the term "black hole" a perfectly common idiom for what he meant, it is a scientific term for a collapsed star into which all matter is sucked, unable to escape. And nowhere, anywhere has anyone ever used the term "black hole" as a racial epithet. Any fourth grader or sci fi TV fan understands what a black hole is and none of them would peg the term to race.

I'd say that if this is the sort of stupidity that comes from a race monger like Price and Judge Jones, then we have arrived at a post racial period in America. If THIS is all they have to worry about for being "racist language" then we have, indeed, effectively eliminated racism in America.

Commissioner Price and Judge Jones should be ashamed of themselves.

OK, I am wondering here if the hanging of a black Southerner by the KKK in the American south would be reported by the Chicago Tribune in the same kind of vague language of “cultural” murder as a recent Muslim murder in Georgia was treated? More likely, of course, the story would be immediately pegged to the racist, white motives that actually led to the murder. In essence that is how the Chicago Tribune mishandled their reporting of another so-called Islamic "honor killing" that occurred in Georgia this week. They wrote about the "culturally rigid Pakistani" immigrants and said that "honor killings" occur with "other South Asians" without ever once mentioning that this is more often than not a Muslin practice. Instead of pegging this murder to Muslim "culture" the Tribune makes it a vague and nondescript "culture" so that the reader is unaware of the connection with Islam.

The Tribune reports that 54-year-old Chaudhry Rashid, a Pakistani immigrant and pizza shop owner, strangled his 25-year-old daughter Sandeela with a bungie cord as they argued about the arranged marriage she was forced into. All the facts about the case were in the story but one: the connection to Islam.

The problem comes where the Tribune and other western news services are completely leaving out the fact that this is an Islamic custom. The Trib did its level best to avoid using the words "Islam" and Muslim" and replaced them with "cultural," et al, throughout the story.

The problem of "honor killings" and other domestic violence after failed arranged marriages is spreading as some culturally rigid Pakistani and Indian immigrants settle in different parts of the country...

Even laughably comparing this barbaric custom to what "European royalty" had once done.

Such cultural unions serve as social contracts among South Asians and other communities, where a marriage agreement is more about families joining forces than about two people finding love—akin to the arranged marriages of European royalty...

Last I checked my history books common Europeans didn't regularly go around killing their daughters for marrying "wrong" and neither did their ages old Monarchs. Sure there are examples of such stuff, but it was not endemic in the culture of the west as much as it is in Islam.

This sad tale is repeating itself all across the west as more and more Muslims stream into democratic countries and their girl children become acculturated to a world of freedom and modernity instead of the cultural oppression common in the Muslim world. As these kids begin to grow up acculturating themselves to our ways and as our own societies drift from our own practice of expecting immigrants to become westerners these clashes of cultures grow.

But, repeatedly, the western media is not reporting this as a Muslim centric crime and is merely treating the news as some sort of "cultural" habit. This refusal to give the whole story does a disservice to the reader and gives this murderous practice cover in the west by allowing it to hide in plain sight, invisible until the next young girl is murdered by a warped and evil family member. It keeps western citizens from understanding from where this practice comes and keeps law enforcement in the dark about the potential activity.

As the misnamed "honor killings" pile up one after another, keeping the public ignorant of why they are happening is a crime in and of itself.

It looks like Reuters is trying to say that the United States stands against the rule of law with their latest piece on a recent ruling from the so-called World Court -- the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ wants the U.S. to vacate the death penalty sentences of several Mexican nationals that sit on death row in prisons in several states and Reuters is shaking its finger at the nasty Americans that deny the jurisdiction of the self-styled World Court.

Mexico has been agitating with the World Court to force the United States to vacate (or at least revisit) the convictions of 51 Mexican nationals now on death row because they claim that these murderers were not alerted to their right to seek consular assistance before they went into the American court systems.

Naturally, the ICJ happily complied with Mexico's request and demanded that the U.S. comply with the World Court decision. Bush made an unfortunate decision in 2005 to ask the various states to comply with the ICJ, but the issue has since been settled by the Supreme Court of the United States. Fortunately, just this month the SCOTUS said that our courts are not bound by the ICJ rulings.

Of course, Reuters seems to imagine that the U.S. now stands against the rule of law because we have told the ICJ to take a hike. The Reuters report is filled with the stern scolding of a U.S. that "violated" international law and how the U.S. is "in breach of its international obligations."

Under a section helpfully titled "RULE OF LAW," Reuters informs us that all the rules and claims that the ICJ is preeminent are unquestionable.

The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is responsible for handling disputes between U.N. member states. Its rulings -- which often take years -- are binding and not subject to appeal.

Reuters also quotes Gomez-Robledo, Mexican under-secretary for multilateral affairs and human rights, to the effect that the U.S. is working against the "rule of law."

But he appealed to the United States to respect international law. "The rule of law is the foundation stone on which the United States was built," he said.

Let me disabuse both Reuters and the Mexicans that the U.S. is working against the rule of law, here. You see, the United States is not overarchingly bound by the ICJ. We are, however, bound by the Constitution of the United States first, foremost and solely. And, as it turns out, we followed our rule of law by taking the cases of these criminal aliens to the highest court and that court happened to rule against the ICJ.

There you have it, the proper rule of law concept followed to a "T." The ICJ lost. Too bad, so sad.

In his desire to look all cute and cuddly to the Europeans, President Bush overstepped his boundaries by trying to order the various state courts to revisit the sentences of these 51 murdering criminal aliens. The SCOTUS was right, Bush should have stayed out of it.

But there can be no question that the issue has been rightfully and legitimately settled duly following the rule of law. Reuters is wrong to flavor their article as if the U.S. has somehow violated the rule of law, that it is in the wrong for following its own duly constituted laws.

Unsurprisingly, no where in the story can you see Reuters admitting that the U.S. is governed by its own Constitution and the entire story is framed in the language and assumptions that the ICJ is the rightful arbiter of what the U.S. should do with its system of justice.

In any case, the day the U.S. allows itself to be ruled from the Hague and this so-called World Court, we truly will have arrived at a day when we've given up on the rule of law. For at that time we will have allowed ourselves to be ruled by the arbitrary rules of Europeans, rules written specifically to undermine American jurisprudence.

Mary C. Curtis is in high dudgeon. She is all twisted up inside over the seeming lack of support that feminists have for Michelle Obama. She has decided to scold all those recalcitrant feminists, too. Yes, she's all upset over this thing wondering, "Where are Obama's feminist defenders?" Curtis is even moaning that black women are second-class citizens, even with feminists. She is all in righteous indignation about the "The Loud Silence Of Feminists."

Curtis is agonizing over the fact that women aren't defending Michelle Obama. She imagines that feminists have failed women, specifically black women. Well, I agree at some point. Feminists have failed women, but the least of which is Michelle Obama. Not that Curtis seemed to notice, but femisinsts have indeed been silent on the treatment of women in the Muslim world. They have sat silent over forced weddings, beatings, female circumcision of children, rape, stoning and so-called honor killings going on not just in the Middle East, but in every western country that has a sizable Muslim population.

Still, Curtis is only interested in Michelle Obama. She warms us up with some hagiography of Michelle.

Michelle Obama has become an issue in the presidential campaign even though she isn't running for anything. An educated, successful lawyer, devoted wife and caring mother has been labeled "angry" and unpatriotic and snidely referred to as Barack Obama's "baby mama."

As if Michelle, the angriest possible first lady ever, doesn't have the spine to defend herself? Of course, like most Democrats whining about how Michelle Obama is being treated, Curtis forgets that Michelle is the one that went out on the campaign trail forcefully asserting her own point of view in the first place. Also, like most left-wingers, Curtis then wants to shut down anyone who reacts to Obama's "baby mama" by calling them a racist for doing so. There’s no better way to stifle debate than to start calling everyone a racist!

Amusingly, Curtis goes on to inform us that the feminist movement never much cared for their black sisters in the first place.

I've long been frustrated, as a black woman and a feminist, with our national conversation. I didn't hear the cause speaking up for women of color or for women who have always worked in blue-collar or service jobs. Choice was not their issue.

Ah, yes, when it comes down to it, it isn't about feminism at all for Curtis. Like most of her media activist type, it's all about the racism. As she says, "But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women."

I would laugh at this next line if I didn't think she was serious: "As a journalist, I have stayed neutral about political candidates." Well, maybe she has stayed clear of "political candidates," mostly because racism is her interest, not politics.

But all this whining and gnashing of teeth over how feminists are not supporting Michelle Obama is appalling in the end. You see, I am angry at feminists for their silence, too. They have universally remained utterly silent where REAL female oppression exists. Curtis might think that Michelle Obama is really oppressed and mistreated, but let's talk about the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Or perhaps if the feminists don't want to talk of an individual they can discuss how women as a group are mutilated by the Muslim practice of female genital mutilation? How about the story of how girls born in England are rounded up and sent to the Middle East as child brides? Maybe these silent feminists might find somewhere in their souls the ability to get just a tad upset over the increasing practice of "honor killing" that has left young girls dead all throughout the western world?

Where are the feminists with these issues? Not visible at all. Silence on real mistreatment of women is what we get from the feminists.

So, yes, I agree with Curtis. There is a "loud silence of feminists" but it isn't over something as silly and inconsequential as the pampered, fortunate life of Michelle Obama. Yes, there is silence, indeed, from the so-called feminists over real abuse and mistreatment of women in this world.

Too bad Mary C. Curtis is just as silent as the rest of them.

(Photo credit: Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University)

You know, I was wondering when this was going to happen, when someone in the MSM would say Bush has ruined July Fourth? The Philadelphia Inquirer didn't disappoint by wallowing in the worst example of blame-America-above-all as well as the most extreme case of BDS that I've seen outside the kind of nutroot sites like Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground. A mainstream paper has now gone that extra mile to let us all know that America does not deserve a July Fourth celebration this year because of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA secret prisons, and, lest you imagine otherwise, the fact that we have made George W. Bush our president. "Cancel the parade" because America is evil. It's all there in all it's anti-American splendor in A not-so-glorious Fourth, U.S. atrocities are unworthy of our heritage.

Inquirer columnist Chris Satullo thinks that America is fraught with sin and that we don't deserve a Fourth celebration. "This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday," he whines. "This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement."

We have failed to pay attention. We've settled for lame excuses. We've spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago.

We've "spit on the memory" of the Founders? Does he mean when the Democratic Party helped us lose Vietnam? How about when liberals somehow divined in the Founder's name a "right to privacy" in the Constitution? Were either of those times when we spit in their faces? How about when the American left destroyed religion in America, or when they invented a "right" to abortion, or when they turned our various systems of education into places where fringe, wackos reign supreme and American history, civics and... well, anything actually educational... is banished into the mists of the past? Does Our pal Chris Satullo mean those times when the Founders saw the spittle fly?

You can guess that no is the answer to my questions.

No, to Chris Satullo, the only time we've "spit on the memory" of the founders is when we reacted to the time when 3,000 of our own were killed in New York City by Islamic terrorists. He is all upset that we've tortured prisoners, illegally imprisoned people "for years," and practiced "rendition."

The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner.

The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing.

The America they founded should never ship prisoners to foreign lands, knowing their new jailers might torture them.

Satullo hits all the anti-American, leftist tropes to be sure.

And, guess who's fault it is? (Cue the dramatic music...)

We have done such things, on orders from the Oval Office. We have done them, without general outrage or shame.

Bingo, right for the Bush Derangement Syndrome.

And what did that eeeevil Bushitler do?

Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. CIA secret prisons. "Rendition" of prisoners to foreign torture chambers.

Outrageously Satullo calls the War on Terror a "scam."

And all for a scam. The waterboarding, the snarling dogs, the theft of sleep - all the diabolical tricks haven't made us safer. They may have averted this plot or that. But they've spawned new enemies by the thousands, made the jihadist rants ring true to so many ears.

9/11 must have been an illusion. The War on Terror is merely a Bush lie, apparently.

And Satullo's idiocy isn't close to being expended. He also has to misappropriate the history of the Founders for his socialist inspired, Peace-in-our-times, blather.

The men huddled long ago in Philadelphia had better reason. A British fleet floated off the Jersey coast, full of hands eager to hang them from the nearest lampposts.

Apparently, Satullo doesn't think the nation had anything to fear on the afternoon of 9/11? And as to the real history of the Revolution, need I remind Satullo that the British neither intended, nor had the capability of killing 3,000 Americans with one incident? Might we have had a right to take measures against a foe that killed many thousands with a single strike?

Then Satullo goes on and on about "human rights" as if WE are the guilty party on that level, as if the U.S. can be compared to Islamofascists who send children to blow themselves up, who cut off the heads of live prisoners, who have manuals on torture, and who have no respect at all for human life on any level?

I might also want to direct this historically illiterate columnist to the real historical record of the American Revolution where tax men were covered in boiling tar and sent screaming back to their tax houses that were burnt down around them by colonists showing their ire against the crown. I might show Satullo where General George Washington summarily hanged spies and shot deserters and traitors. I might alert him to the vicious internecine fighting between Colonists loyal to the Crown and those Patriots that were rising up against them.

I could show this man where Revolutionary history -- the REAL history, not the sanitized, fake one he is selling in order to beat up George W. Bush -- was quite vicious and mean. It WAS war, after all, and at a time when people still knew how to fight a war to actually kill the enemy.

Anyway, this simple minded claptrap is all full of laments and moaning, but no where is there any real logic and no deeper discussion of the real historical record is offered. Neither is there any introspection that his fellow travelers are the ones responsible in the first place for casting us in the very situations he bemoans.

Satullo ends with his most earnest attempt at piety.

Let us atone, in quiet and humility. Let us spend the day truly studying the example of our Founders. May we earn a new birth of courage before our nation's birthday next rolls around.

Humility? He doesn't know the definition of the word. For a man who so obviously has no clue about history and who so blatantly wants to steal the luster of the Founding Fathers to burnish his cracker jack prize of a crown is certainly an outrage. For him to wag his America hating finger in all our faces on the day we are to celebrate our freedom from tyranny is the height of hubris.

Still, I know that Satullo is quite sincere in his hatred of the United States. In fact, I'm sure he feels this low at every July Fourth celebration. July Fourth is probably a black day for him no matter who is president. I feel bad for his heartburn, but that he spews his bile for the rest of us to be bothered with is downright unneighborly.

Happy July Fourth, folks. Be proud of this great nation, Satullo's nonsense aside. The U.S.A. is still the shining light on a hill shining the light of freedom on all the world. Anti-Americans like Satullo might have blinders on, but for those willing to see, we stand like a rock.

Unfurl those flags and let freedom wave.

We've taken notice that Iraq is suddenly out of the news now that things are consistently going so well for U.S. forces there. Well, since CNN can't find much bad to talk about in Iraq they've finally found some "bad" news they can use as a needle to stick in the Bush Administration's collective eye. In Coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan surpass Iraq, CNN has discovered that they can make a body bag contest out of casualties between Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh, joy!

For the second month in a row, U.S. and allied troop deaths in the Afghan war have surpassed those in Iraq, according to official figures tallied by CNN... In June, 46 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 31 troops died in Iraq. In May, 23 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 21 died in Iraq.

Stop the presses! And, did you notice that now they are adding foreign troops up because they can't get enough American deaths to report? Can you remember the last time the American press was worried about the casualties among our foreign coalition?

It also doesn’t escape notice that the headline is a bit misleading. Read standing alone, one would think that the headline is saying more troops have now died in Afghanistan than have died in Iraq for the entire war. After all, the headline doesn’t restrict itself to just the two months in question! A lazy reader might tend to take away the wrong impression by this badly composed headline.

Now, veteran newsers know that the largest amount of news readers only read the headline and the first few paragraphs before moving on to the next story. For that matter, many people only read the headline before they move on. So, all the bad news is often pushed up front so that the worst impression is left with the half-readers. And this story is a classic example of that.

Still, one should give this CNN report some credit because it does say things are going better in Iraq.

Violence in Iraq has dropped. Among the reasons that have been cited are inroads made by the "surge" military offensive; Iraq's military operations against militants; the growth of the Awakening Councils, opposing al Qaeda in Iraq, among Sunni Arabs; efforts at political compromise; and the cessation of hostilities by mainstream members of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

So, kudos for that one. In fact there is quite a lot of good news in this particular report on how violence and deaths are down in Iraq and Afghanistan... all after the lede, of course.

Sadly, though, instead of headlining the story with the good news, CNN leads the reader with all the bad news first. All the better to leave the worst impression possible even while actually reporting some good news.

(H/T NewsBuster reader Frank)

**Video Below the Fold**

Last week, with an "Assignment America" report on the CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman perpetrated a perfect example of why the media simply has no credibility on any subject, even humor. Hatrman’s report was not only dishonest, but missed the main point by a fair margin.

To set his report up, Hartman claims that before his son was born he had wondered why parents universally felt their own children were be so darn cute? He wondered how it could be that every parent thought theirs was the cutest child ever born? So, after Hartman himself recently had a son, George, he thought that he might go out and explore his curiosity on the subject.

The result was Is My Baby Cute? Really? where Hartman went out on the street to ask parents if they thought their own babies were cute. CBS had also previously asked parents to send in to them photos of babies, ugly and cute, in preparation for the story.

Hartman said that...

Nearly 200 people sent in pictures of their supposedly adorable offspring, but not one parent copped to having even an average looking child. It's not right, since logic demands that half of all babies must fall in the bottom 50 percent of cuteness.

Fair enough... if it weren't for that whole human nature thing where babies evoke the visceral desire to love and protect them. Still, it is an amusing bit of human nature that finds few parents ever thinking their progeny was in that "bottom 50 percent."

Hartman next admitted that, despite being a "journalist" he was succumbing to that blasted human nature thingie, too.

That's why, after my son George was born, I tried to maintain my journalistic integrity. Now, the older he gets, the more I fall in love with him, the more I find myself thinking like all the other parents.

I suppose he imagined that the god-like powers of journalists made them better than all they survey and this magical power might have shielded him from becoming just like the rest of us lowly humans. Still, that is a niggling point, to be sure, and I don’t want to beat Hartman up too much for merely being human, despite how it must have disappointed him to discover the singular truth.

Here is where it got dishonest, even for a report that was supposed to be lighthearted.

Hartman then took a photo of young baby George and asked folks on the street if they thought his baby was cute or not. "As I expected," Hartman quipped, "everyone said he was cute."

So, Hartman had the art department do a little photoshopping of his baby photo to make the face appear just a little odd. He "uglied him up" as Hartman termed it.

The picture I originally showed people was an actual picture of my son. Then I started showing an “uglified” version. Believe it or not, everyone still gushed over my little monster, although some more convincingly than others.

And so it went, no matter who I asked, or how ugly I made the picture. I couldn't find anyone who'd give it to me straight. I even showed a priest the picture.

Isn't that funny?

To end, Hartman gave us his best aphorism:

After all that, I've come to the conclusion that cuteness is relative ... if the baby's your relative, it's cute.

OK, so what's the big deal, you might ask? It's just a fluff piece, a Summer time throw away to make the Katie Couric show seem more likable and human, right? Why get so darn picky?

Well, you'd be right with all of those questions should you ask them of me. It really was a meaningless, throw away, faux report to fill space on TV. But, still, despite how flippant the report was, despite how unserious in nature, there is still an underlying dishonesty about it.

See, here is the thing: no one will look a parent straight in the face and tell them that their baby is ugly. It just isn't nice, it isn't neighborly... it isn't even human. Besides the fact that people don't want to be seen dissing the babies, who wants to stand in the middle of the street and get in a fight with a proud parent by telling them that their kid is ugly? Even if the kid is uglier than Helen Thomas, no one is going to say to a parent that his kid is ugly.

It just isn't done.

So, in the end, Steve Hartman did not find out that everyone thinks babies are cute, even ugly ones. What he found out was that people are too nice to look him in the face and tell him his baby was ugly... and that is a whole different issue.

Now, they showed little George (you can see him in the video clip below). I thought he was a fine lad. He was not Gerber cute, but he was no Hunchback of Notre Dame! Still, I can't imagine looking proud papa Steven Hartman in the eye and saying, "Eh, this kid's just average."

Could you?

OK, now go read that headline again. There is no trick to it. I am saying that government is aggregating unto itself the power to tell you, a parent of an 8-year-old child, which of his school classmates he is allowed to invite to his birthday party. And government has decided that if your child doesn't invite every kid in his class, then he isn't allowed to invite any of them.

It's about discrimination, don't you know?

You see, our wilting flowers, our fragile, unable, emotionally unstable children will grow up to become serial killers if they don't get invited to YOUR child's birthday party. The government cares, see, and has so decreed. YOU will just have to invite everyone or you will be barred from having that party.

Fortunately this stupidity hasn't yet happened in the United States but it did just occur in Europe. Sweden to be exact. The AP is reporting the Nanny State in Sweden has forcibly taken away the birthday invitations to an 8-year-old boy's birthday party and told his father that he isn't allowed to pass them out to only some of the other kids. If it isn't all of them, then NONE should be invited.

The boy handed out invitations to classmates at his school in Lund, southern Sweden, but did not invite two boys because they were not his friends... The school, 360 miles south of Stockholm, confiscated all the invitations, saying it objected because it had a duty to ensure against discrimination.

The Father of the boy told authorities that one of the two boys had bullied his child and the other had not invited his boy to a past party.

Now, the anti-American left in this country would have you believe that Europe is the closest thing to nirvana, they say we should be emulating what they do there. We've even had self-hating Supreme Court Justices imagining that we should jettison the Constitution and take up foreign precedent as our own.

Big Brother and his nanny state rules all, even your 8-year-old's birthday party.

Don't laugh this off as something that could not happen here. Total domination of government over our lives is the ultimate end of modern liberalism. From the most important decisions to the least, most personal decisions, government must take all power unto itself to fulfill the liberal mantras of "fairness," and "non-discrimination."

It is already happening in Europe. It will come here if the Democratic Party and their malcontent, meddlesome constituency have anything to say about it. It's just the kind of "change" just the kind of "new tone" they want. In fact, even if that isn't their ultimate plan, it IS the ultimate destination, regardless.

Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe has done it again. Now, usually Z is one of those columnists that is sure every white American is a racist and many of his columns are based on that assumption, but it looks like he is branching out from his normal black/white identity politics angle and adding a new twist to his column. You see, Z has just discovered that whites don't hate only blacks, they hate Muslims too. How inclusive, eh?

Even more ridiculously, Z imagines that white Muslim haters in "red states" are forcing Barack Obama to distance himself from his Muslim background. In fact, according to Z, Islam is the victim of white America's newest "red scare" and Obama is feeling the heat because of that undue hatred. It all means we are "Holding Muslims at arm's length" to Derrick Z. Jackson.

I wonder where Z was on 9/11?

Anyway, Z's latest Globe column lays into Barack Hussein Obama (yes, Z uses Obama's middle name here) chastising the candidate of change for turning his back on his Muslim heritage. Z is upset that Obama has pushed away Muslim assistance with his campaign and is incensed that Barack has taken pains to refute the Barack-is-a-Muslim line of attack.

I WISH Barack Obama were a Muslim. Better that than having supercilious staffers whisk women in Islamic head scarves out of photo-ops. Better that than telling Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the nation's first Muslim congressman, not to come help Obama in Iowa and North Carolina.

Better that than wooing red states by wobbling before the modern equivalent of the Red Scare. In his year-and-a-half-long run for president, Obama has visited churches and synagogues, but no mosque. This has the musty feel of light-skinned African-Americans passing for white, paranoid over daylight visits from dark-skinned relatives.

"Red Scare"? Again, where was Z on 9/11? Did he miss that little fracas in New York? What "scare" is there in a world-wide attack on the west by radical Islam? Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been murdered by Islamists, Z. How is that just a "scare"?

And, need we remind you Mr. Jackson, that the "Red Scare" itself was no mere pointless jeremaid? Once the Soviet Union fell and its archives came into public scrutiny, it was proven that the Commies had, indeed, infiltrated all levels of the Federal government and had intended to upend our country through sabotage in high places. Presidents from FDR to JFK were surrounded by Soviet agents, so continuing to pretend that the "Red Scare" was merely an artifice for wild-eyed American fascist, rightists to control the country is an idea long shown to be but leftist trope. It was not just paranoia. The Reds really were out to destroy us from within.

Z does cut Barack Hussein Obama some slack. He says it's "understandable" that Obama feels a bit wary about Islam because "Political woodpeckers hammer falsehoods from the right." But, Jackson still feels that Obama is somehow going too far in his desire set his religious record straight.

...Obama's "Fight the Smears" part of his website has some Muslims feeling betrayed by an over-the-top effort to denounce every Obama-is-a-Muslim claim as a "lie" and saying, "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." How about something like, "Senator Obama is a Christian who, having lived in the world's largest Muslim country [Indonesia], having traveled in Pakistan and having many Muslim friends, appreciates American pluralism like no other candidate in US history"?

What, exactly, is wrong with a candidate trying to make clear where he stands on something? In fact, this is the ONLY issue that Obama has not nuanced his way through to date. This is the only issue that Obama has stood firm on. The man does not want to be considered a Muslim. PERIOD!

Of course, it doesn't seem to matter to Derrick Z. Jackson that there is not one shred of evidence that Obama ever really embraced his Father's religion. I have to stick up for Barack on this one. All evidence says that he was an indifferent student of Islam as a child and once he turned away from Islam he never really looked back, embracing Christianity instead. Now, one can doubt Obama's sincerity on any religion, of course. It is easy to imagine that Obama only turned to Christianity to help along his political ambitions... but who can truly say what's in a man's heart?

The facts, the evidence, the history, though, say that Barack Obama never seriously considered accepting Islam into his life. So, for columnists like Z to get all upset that Obama has insisted that people understand where he stands on religion is a bit contrived to say the least.

But, Jackson's real message here is not Obama. He may be a bit miffed at him, yes, but Jackson's main point is that we eeeevil Americans are too mean to Muslims.

A lot of Muslims are waiting because, seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an undercurrent of suspicion remains. In the 2007 Pew survey, a third of Muslim Americans said that within the last year, they had either been treated with suspicion, called offensive names, profiled by police, or even attacked. Kaleem, a graduate of MIT, said he sometimes is asked during grant proposals how radical his group is.

Actually, this part is sort of humorous in the sense of Jackson’s lack of introspection. He says that we should get over 9/11 because it was 7 year ago? I see. Well, civil rights was passed 44 years ago and slavery was ended over 140 years ago, yet Mr. Jackson is still all upset over those little things. Can’t you just get over it, Mr. Jackson?

Now, it might help us to get over it and to feel that American Muslims belong standing beside the rest of us if Muslims in America would speak out loudly and continuously against their radical brethren. But all too often they remain silent against the radicalism of their own as they point fingers at Americans. It’s a bit hard for us to get over it when it doesn’t seem like too many of them even feel that their fellows did anything wrong that fateful day.

In any case, what we have here is just one more excuse for Derrick Z. Jackson to inform us all that white Americans are racists.

(Photo credit: Boston.com)

What happened when the Evergreen Freedom Foundation decided to request the public government records of the negotiations between unions and government in Washington State? All hell broke loose, that's what.

The bloated public employee unions banded together to stop the public from finding out what went on between the government and the unions during the negotiations of state contracts -- that is contracts FUNDED by tax money, by the way -- for employee benefits and rules. They filed suit saying that the public had no right to know how their own tax money was to be spent.

One union official even said that if he thought his words would become public record he would "not be comfortable speaking" until he had "fully thought through" what he had to say. Of course, this forces one to wonder why he would open his yap without thinking about what he is saying whether his yammering would be public knowledge or not?

Yes, the Unions fought the EFF tooth and nail to keep their negotiations secret from the very public that is paying their bills.

Check out the whole outrageous story at Capital Research Center's "When unions negotiate with governments" and download the PDF report. Its a great read and a cautionary tale that supports our contention here on the Union Label Blog that unions are antithetical to good government.

It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!

It isn't just conservative sites that Google's Blogger platform is eliminating. For instance, www.comealongway.blogspot.com has been frozen and this one is a Hillary supporting site. The operator of Come a Long Way has a mirror site off the Blogspot platform and has today posted this notice:

I used to have a happy internet home on Blogger: www.comealongway.blogspot.com. Then on Wednesday night, June 25, I received the following e-mail:

Dear Blogger user,

This is a message from the Blogger team.

Your blog, at http://comealongway.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

It turns out that there is an interesting pattern where it concerns the blogs that Google's Blogspot team have summarily locked down on their service. They all belong to the Just Say No Deal coalition, a group of blogs that are standing against the Obama campaign. It seems the largest portion of these blogs are Hillary supporting blogs, too.

All I can say is, WOW! If Google is willing to abuse its power like this even against fellow leftists, what does it plan against conservatives, the folks Google hates even more!?

Here is a list of the Blogspot blogs that have been frozen by Google thus far:

• Blue Lyon @ http://bluelyon.blogspot.com
• Come A Long Way @ http://comealongway.blogspot.com
• Hillary or Bust @ http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com
• McCain Democrats @ http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com
• NObama Blog @ http://nobamablog.blogspot.com
• politicallizard.blogspot.com @ http://thelizardannex.blogspot.com
• Reflections in Tyme @ http://reflections-in-tyme.blogspot.com

The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post's Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years. But, the Washington Post's article is so filled with assumptions and a singular desire not to really investigate the matter that it boggles the mind. Naturally, all the journalistic missteps serve to shield Barack Obama from any controversy and make all opposition seem nefarious or unhinged.

The Obama flak in question is one Danielle Allen of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton. Mosk wishes to assure us that she is one smart cookie, apparently. To settle any question to the contrary, we are treated to some earnest, if over-the-top, adulation for good Doctor Allen. Allen is called a "razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist," that she's "gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates," and that she works at the institute "most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein." Mosk tells us that Allen "boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University." The Post tells us that one winter morning Allen was "studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation's most brilliant minds." Mosk also tells us that Allen "works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don't have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe."

Jeeze, next Mosk will be telling us that Danielle Allen is the virtual reincarnation of Einstein himself!

Byron York saw how silly all this puffery was, too. Over at NRO's Corner Blog, York takes a jab at those vaunted “vexing problems in the universe” and succinctly sums up the big nothing that is the real underlying conclusion of the Washington Post's extensive four-page story.

And one of the most vexing problems in the universe, which Allen has decided to pursue in the tradition of Einstein, is the origin of a number of e-mails claiming that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Using the advanced research tools at her disposal, the razor-sharp Allen found…a couple of posters on the Free Republic website, plus a former political rival of Obama's who sends out zillions of e-mails to reporters every day.

The piece goes on and on in grave tones about the chain email that seems to have first surfaced sometime in 2004. Allen "obsessively" worries about such things as chain emails we come to discover. Allen tells the Post, "I started thinking, 'How does one stop it?'" She then informs Mosk that the whole mysterious, shadowy email has a nefarious and unidentified genesis. Mosk assures us that this email is the "modern version of a whisper campaign," and worries about the "secret identities" of the Freepers that Allen reveals to him.

We are dealt the conclusion that all this email and Freeper stuff is… well, dontcha know it's scary, kids? I wondered if Mosk wanted his Mommy to keep the nasty Freepers away from him by the end of this curious piece?

So, what about this email saying that Obama is a secret Muslim? Where did it come from? Matthew Mosk doesn't know and neither does his main source, the brilliant Doctor Allen. But they are both sure it has something to do with the website Free Republic. Or maybe a perennial candidate from Illinois named Andy Martin... or a guy in Philadelphia who operates a website and posts on Free Republic... or maybe not. But whatever the case, Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post just took the word of open Obama supporter Danielle Allen as gospel, assuming that her "research" was indisputable.

Allen began her "investigation" by using key phrases that appears in the email and Googling them to see where else they appear. As a result, she found Andy Martin of Illinois.

Back in 2004 in Obama's hometown, Chicago, a fellow named Andy Martin was attempting to launch his own attempt to become Obama's opponent for the Senate. Martin is a political gadfly and perpetual candidate in Illinois who has never been elected to much of anything, the sort of guy who has been hanging on the fringes for decades without ever getting much traction. To be sure, he was an actual candidate in the last primary to determine who will be the poor GOP sacrificial lamb to face Dick Durbin in the coming general election, so he did get on a ballot for a change. One thing is for sure, that Martin is tenacious and knows how to publicize himself is beyond doubt.

In the run up to the 2004 election, Martin admitted to the Post's Mosk that he had circulated the claim that since Obama was born to a Muslim Father, Barack himself would be considered a Muslim by birth to any other Muslim. Martin also pointed out that the Obama campaign then, as now, rejects any claims that Barack is now or ever has been a Muslim. Martin was quite upfront that he believes that Obama is not being truthful over the whole Muslim question.

But, it is also completely obvious that Martin did not write the original email nor that he is a member of a secret anti-Obama conspiracy. Martin’s activities are well known to many and are completely out in the open.

On top of all that, there is no indication that Doctor Allen ever contacted Andy Martin during her "investigation."

Next Allen found some similarities in the posting of Andrew Walden, founder of an alternative newspaper in Hawaii. Then it was on to one Ted Samply. Allen informs Mosk that she saw an "important pattern" with each of these sources, too. The same info appeared on Free Republic almost immediately after the web articles appeared.

From here we get the ominous revelation that about "23 Freepers" were "among those engaging in regular discussions about Obama's religion." Freepers Beckwith and Eva are focused upon as chief culprits. Allen tells Mosk that she has "identified" the key phrases of the Barack-is-a-Muslim story in these Free Republic postings. Mosk "outs" these two Freepers giving their names and places of residence and highlight how they post under "secret" names on Free Republic.

Yes, it's all so nefarious.

So, what is the conclusion of all this "investigating"?

"What I've come to realize is, the labor of generating an e-mail smear is divided and distributed amongst parties whose identities are secret even to each other," she says. A first group of people published articles that created the basis for the attack. A second group recirculated the claims from those articles without ever having been asked to do so. "No one coordinates the roles," Allen said. Instead the participants swim toward their goal like a school of fish -- moving on their own, but also in unison.

In other words, even this Obama flak is unwittingly admitting that there really is no grand conspiracy here and that this rumor, like all rumors in every area of human interaction, was started somewhere -- no one knows where -- and then took on a life of its own as people of like mind came to the story entirely on their own.

In other words, for all the supposed "investigating" there is no secret, shadowy group pulling the strings as this entire piece tries to make the reader believe there is. So, what IS the point to this article? Byron York thinks the subtext is that the Post and the Obama supporter might be trying to promulgate the idea that the Internet needs to be "controlled," presumably by government.

But the article has a pretty clear subtext, and it is that the exchange of such information on the Internet should be controlled. "I started thinking, 'How does one stop it?'" Allen told the Post. "Citizens and political scientists must face the fact that the Internet has enabled a new form of political organization that is just as influential on local and national elections as unions and political action committees…This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."

Personally, I think it is less the Washington Post, writer Mosk and Obama supporter Allen suggesting that there needs to be some sort of control on the Internet than that they are suggesting that any opposition to Obama is only made by what they consider to be fringe political candidates, conspiracy nuts, and Freeper nutcases. I think the purpose is to discredit Obama's detractors far more than to attempt a silencing of the Internet.

Still, there is another aspect to this story that impugns Matthew Mosk's journalistic integrity. He seems to have done little real investigating himself and merely took the word of our purportedly purely motivated Dr. Allen. Worse, Allen's "investigation" seems to consist of a bunch of print outs from webpages she tracked down and little else.

For instance, Freeper Beckwith posted a response to the Washington Post story at his The Obama File web page, and he informs us that Danielle Allen never contacted him during her so-called investigation.

The first thing I have to say about "An Attack That Came Out of the Ether," published by The Washington Post on June 28th, is that at NO time was I ever contacted by this woman, Danielle Allen. I spoke to two male Post reporters, who spoke to me over the phone for a period of months. The first contact was in the fall of 2007. They told me they were trying to track down the source of emails they considered negative to the Obamamessiah.

How much "investigating" could Allen have done if she never even actually talked to and interviewed the people she claims are at fault for this whisper campaign against Obama? It looks increasingly like all she did was Google stuff, use a printer and let it go at that. Voila… “proof” of her “investigation.”

The story also seems to have some misconceptions that result from Mosk merely taking Allen’s word as gold or not doing enough fact checking. One falsehood that Mosk hands us shows that Mosk didn't seem to do much by way of fact checking. "Beckwith said he built a Web site that features hundreds of pages of material intended to undermine Obama," Mosk wrote. Turns out that Beckwith only has 18 pages of web material at his Obama Files website.

18. That's a tad less than "hundreds."

Mosk also repeats the claim that Beckwith had an "unnamed 'colleague' in Europe" as if Beckwith had some secret source for some of his anti-Obama claims. But, according to Beckwith, there is no "unnamed" to it because the "colleague" is fellow Freeper ExpatGuy who runs a website called An American Expat in Southeast Asia. Not very secret, that.

What I am pointing out here is that Danielle Allen and the Washington Post is building a case of some underlying conspiracy with "secret" names and "unnamed" sources, but in reality it's all pretty easy to discover the who, what, and where of the anti-Obama blogosphere. It's all readily available right out in the open on the Internet for all to see.

In other words, it ain't very secret.

It is also sad that if Beckwith is telling the truth when he said that the Post contacted him way back in 2007 about this story and THIS is all they could come up with after all that time then there is no hope for the Post at this point.

So, what we can take away from this is that the Post and Allen are all up in arms about this darn rumor mongering, I guess? Of course, it all makes one wonder how upset they were at their own paper, the Washington Post, when the rumor mill was buzzing and the Post was printing stories about the rumored cocaine use of George W. Bush back in 1999? Or how about the fake-but-true story of Bush's supposed AWOL status from the Texas Air National Guard? Bet neither Mosk nor Allen were much worried about THOSE rumors being bandied about, eh?

Naturally, as is his penchant for dirt slinging, the redoubtable Andy Martin is positing that if Danielle Allen is using her tax exempt facilities to do Barack Obama's dirty work she might be breaking the law. Martin is also alarmed by the possibility that writer Mosk was "steered" to Allen by the Obama campaign in a back door effort to defame Martin and to further promulgate lies about Barack’s Muslim past.

And what of Allen's real association with the Obama campaign, anyway? For one thing, Beckwith helpfully tracked down the fact that Allen donated $2,700 to the Obama campaign. And, it seems to me that Allen is a bit less of a mere "Obama supporter" as Mosk says in his piece and a bit more of an active player in his campaign, at least tangentially. Allen is a bit higher up the food chain than simple "supporter" as her April 6 Philly Inquirer pro-Obama editorial proves. Ties to Obama’s campaign might be even closer, but who knows?

Finally, perhaps Byron York isn't too far off the mark when he says that the "subtext" of the piece is that the Internet needs to be controlled. Take a look at one of the last paragraphs of this exhaustive piece.

"Citizens and political scientists must face the fact that the Internet has enabled a new form of political organization that is just as influential on local and national elections as unions and political action committees," she says. "This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."

Who doesn't know that those "unions and political action committees" of which Allen speaks are entities regulated by the Federal government? Who could easily miss that Allen must think that the Federal government should regulate political free speech on the Internet just as it does the political actions of PACS and unions? Allen seems overly worried about the "secret" identities of Freepers, but curiously hasn’t seemed to have become alarmed about a similar situation at the Democratic Underground website or the Daily Kos which also routinely allows users to use kitchy screen names instead of their real identities.

So, York could be right. Perhaps Allen does think we should outlaw anonymous free political speech? At least where it concerns the speech at Free Republic and other conservative sites, Allen seems to be saying.

Do we have to point out that one of the most important American political documents ever published was written under the pen name Publius? In fact, it was decades before it was generally known that James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay were responsible for writing the Federalist Papers. Even more to the point, the three authors were so secretive that there is still some debate as to which of the three wrote some of the papers.

It all begs the question: in the minds of the Washington Post and the Obama campaign is anonymous political writing good for the Founders but to be forbidden to us now?

Maybe one bit of "change" the Obama campaign wants is to outlaw political opposition ala Mugabe or Chavez? That would be "change," indeed.

(Photo credit: Princeton University)

She thinks she has lit upon a "responsible idea" to regulate guns. The idea Megan Kristen Lewis of the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat thinks is "responsible" is to put global positioning tracking devices (GPS) in every gun. That way the government could track down your firearm if it is "stolen" or used in a crime.

Miss Lewis attempts to assure the reader that she really is a fan of guns before she unleashes this great idea, of course. She knows people with guns, she claims, and she doesn't "fear" them. Why, she grew up around them, she says. Of course, they were always locked up in a safe so no one could get to them. Still, she says her Father taught her about "weapon safety from a very young age."

Sadly, her Father neglected to teach her about the Constitution or about world and American history because if he did her Big Brother gun tracking program idea would have never occurred to her in the first place.

To buttress her case, Lewis recounts a story where a local Florida man accidentally shot himself with a .22 and seems to imagine that this is something extraordinary. But, this sort of silly singling out of an accident obscures the fact that humans are sometimes careless. Further, it's a fact that gun accidents are not nearly as wide spread as other types of accidents. Car accidents, for instance, far out weigh gun accidents by many magnitudes of percentage. Does Miss Lewis want to restrict cars because of these accidents? I doubt it ever even occurred to her.

But, let's get to her brilliant idea.

Of those I know who are responsible with their weapons, I could guarantee that not a single one would be opposed to a simple proposal using GPS tracking chips, which are incredibly small and have become rather inexpensive to manufacture.

I find it hard to believe she knows anyone with a gun (except maybe her Constitutionally illiterate Father).

So how would this "responsible idea" work? Big government, of course.

Of course, the database and tracking system would take a bit of time to implement, but wouldn't it be worth it to have this substantial resource at hand?

"Of course" the system she proposes would take a "bit" of time? How about the costs? Then we'd have to have a new government agency to govern this program we cannot forget. That means more government employees, more of those "resources" Lewis casually mentions going to government instead of you and me, more money eaten up, and -- lest we not forget -- more TAXES needed to fund this program.

Bloating Big Brother government. Yeah, real “responsible,” Miss Lewis.

Then we get this bit of starry-eyed illogic:

When weapons are stolen, we could track them down more easily, and in the incident of a violent act, we would be able to more reliably piece together the chain of events leading up to the gunfire.

OK, so we have this "database" and these GPS chips in guns. Then there is a shooting incident. We turn on the GPS system. And we get the feedback locating thousands of guns in the area of the crime. Which gun was involved? We don't know. So what do we have to do to find out? Launch a giant drag net with hundreds of storm troopers and confiscate EVERY gun in the targeted area, violating the rights of thousands of people at once. And this will happen with every gun incident!

This woman hasn't a clue, does she?

Now, let's review why people are against gun registries. We have but to look to one historical lesson that occurred just before a little incident that has come to be called Kristal Nacht.

Stephen P. Halbrook wrote of what happened just before Hitler's henchmen began their campaign to murder Germany's Jews prior to WWII. It just so happened that a previous gun registration law made Hitler's campaign of mass murder just a bit easier. You see Hitler was able to sweep through the country and disarm his targeted victims because every firearm was registered with the government. Armed with those government records, Hitler was able to quickly and easily identify which homes had those he wanted eliminated and which might pose a problem because a firearm was present.

Finding out which Jews had firearms was not too difficult. The liberal Weimar Republic passed a Firearm Law in 1928 requiring extensive police records on gun owners. Hitler signed a further gun control law in early 1938.

Thanks to Miss Lewis, any next Hitler might be able to flip on the government computer and id his victims from the comfort of his office. How helpfully "responsible" of her.

But, even if we count out the admittedly extreme Hitler example, we still have the rights to self-protection and freedom from government oppression guaranteed in the Constitution. I give Miss Megan four little words: "Shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment is not an option, Miss Lewis. It is a right duly recognized by that thing we follow as the law of the land!

Meagan wraps up her call to Big Brotherism by telling us what she isn't "afraid of."

As one who is capable of handling a firearm responsibly, I would love for others to be able to see weapons in a different light. I am not afraid of guns; we have only to fear the people who choose to use them inappropriately.

Wanna know what I am "afraid of," Miss Lewis? I am afraid of people like you, do-gooders that don't care about human rights or the Constitution and have no clue about human nature or history attempting to make “responsible” rules for the rest of us to be ruled by. I’m afraid of the yoke of oppression people like you are readying for us all to wear. I am afraid of people like you who have no knowledge with which to base your “responsible” ideas upon, yet you go off attempting to force them on us anyway. All I can say is that you and your Dad need an education and until you get one, leave the “responsible” ideas to people who know better.