Who let the dogs fight?

Apparently Michael Vick did. You know, there have been so-called superstars in many different sports that have done some pretty despicable things, but this one just about takes the cake for me.

Making dogs fight, and then killing them when they loose?? I can't wrap my brain around that kind of cruelty and depravity. The dogs were killed in pretty disgusting ways. They were hung, drowned, electrocuted, and even shot for losing the fight. What would Vick think if the Falcons decided to do that to him if he lost a game? I don't mean to compare Vick to a dog. I don't want to insult dogs that way.

Michael Vick is one of the lowest forms of life on this planet for this. I hope he gets the maximum penalty that the law allows when he is convicted of this unspeakable cruelty. If he is allowed by the Falcons or the NFL to take another single snap, then both organizations will lose credibility and will prove themselves to be just as despicable as Vick.

And, a message to Emmit Smith, choose those whom you publicly support more carefully. I have always respected you as a person of class, intelligence, and integrity. To come out and publicly support this low-life seriously calls all of those qualities into question. Surely you don't condone what he did? And if you do, what does that say for you? Not much. Don't let Vick suck you into the vortex that he is currently in. I would hate to see you Emmit become as ill thought of from this point forward as Vick will be all because for whatever reason you decided to stick by this guy.

Vick's career and personal reputation are swirling around the toilet bowl, just waiting for someone to pull the handle. And, for my part, I already have. He's been flushed. I just hope that large of a load of feces doesn't do permanent damage to the plumbing.

Jim Chitty
"Be alert. The world needs more lerts." Anonymous.

A War or A Game?

Our illustrious politicians in DC have apparently forgotten that we are in a war and seem to think we are merely playing some sort of game. Here’s what I mean. In a war, there is not a pre-determined time that it will end. There is no date certain for cessation, withdrawal, or surrender. You fight until one side wins decisively and one side loses decisively, how ever long that takes.

In a game however, a football game for example, there is a pre-determined time of four 15 minute quarters to play the game. Whoever has scored the most points in that four quarters is the winner. Baseball has nine innings, NASCAR has a set number of miles and laps. You get the picture.

To call for a date certain for withdrawal is their defacto acknowledgement that they think were in a game and not at war, and they are calling for us to forfeit the game. They are asking our brave troops in the trenches to just give up. Those of us who are decent, freedom loving Americans must not allow these bozos in our nation’s crapital to succeed in planning and scheduling our defeat in Iraq. We must stay in it until we win it.

We were in Germany four about four years, and a little less than that in Japan. We won clearly and decisively in both conflicts. Why can’t we do that now you ask? Simple, we are fighting a war of half measures which really isn’t a war at all compared to those famous battles. We are more concerned about being politically correct and not hurting innocent civilians than we are about protecting our own troops and winning the fight. In Dresden Germany, what is best described as a 10 foot high wall of fire moving at 100mph consumed every person, place, and thing in it’s path. It sent a message to Hitler and his nazis that we were serious and they were doomed.

The same thing happened in Japan when we turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki into glowing green glass thanks to our nuclear weapons. It sent them a message that if they were going to come over to our country and bomb one of our military installations (Pearl Harbor), we were going to make them pay and pay dearly. And that we did. We didn’t care about being politically correct. We didn’t care if we made other countries mad at us. We did care about our national security and sending a message that we are not to be trifled with.

The difference is, the Nazis and the Japanese were clearly defined armies wearing the uniforms of their respective countries. We knew exactly who they were and exactly where to find them. The insurgents we are fighting in Iraq dress as normal, everyday people. They hide in shops, in homes, any and everywhere they can. Very often, they get unsuspecting women and children to carry out their suicide sneak attacks so it’s harder to clearly define who exactly is the enemy. They are not the army of a specific country. They are cowards who hide behind innocent women and children while carrying out their dastardly acts.

That’s why, as painful as it may be to think about the loss of innocent life of women and children, a fire bombing like that we unleashed on Dresden, or a nuking like we gave Hiroshima and Nagasaki might be what we have to resort to in Iraq if things don’t start picking up in the next few months. Let’s see what the Petreas report in September says, and go from there. Retreat, surrender, and tucking our tails between our legs is not an option. What we have to decide is, are we as a country ready to consider the drastic measures we have used in past wars to win them clearly and decisively? I am. I’m just not sure our nation as a whole has the stomach or the spine for it.

Jim Chitty

I couldn't agree more!!!

We got this in our email a few days ago. I thought it was worth posting. Not sure where or with whom it originated, just one of those things that goes around......Jim Chitty

Love This Comeback!

One of my sons serves in the military. He is still stateside, here in California .. He called me yesterday to let me know how warm and welcoming people were to him, and his troops, everywhere he goes, telling me how people shake their hands, and thank them for being willing to serve, and fight, for not only our own freedoms but so that others may have them also. But he also told me about an incident in the grocery store he stopped at yesterday, on his way home from the base.

He said that ahead of several people in front of him stood a woman dressed in a Burka. He said when she got to the cashier she loudly remarked about the U.S. flag lapel pin the cashier wore on her smock. The cashier reached up and touched the pin, and said proudly," Yes, I always wear it and probably always will." The woman in the Burka then asked the cashier when she was going to stop bombing her countrymen, explaining that she was Iraqi.

A gentleman standing behind my son stepped forward, putting his arm around my son's shoulders, and nodding towards my son, said in a calm and gentle voice to the Iraqi woman: "Lady, hundreds of thousands of men and women like this young man have fought and died so that YOU could stand here, in MY country and accuse a check-out cashier of bombing YOUR countrymen. It is my belief that had you been this outspoken in YOUR own country, we wouldn't need to be there today. But, hey, if you have now learned how to speak out so loudly and clearly, I'll gladly buy you a ticket and pay your way back to Iraq so you can straighten out the mess in YOUR country that you are obviously here in MY country to avoid."

Everyone within his hearing distance cheered!

What are we so afraid of?

As it usually does, the Friday the 13^th that just passed sparked a discussion of legitimate fears, and phobias, which are unreasonable fears that some people have. Triskadekaphobia is the fear of the number 13. Another common one is Agoraphobia, which is the fear of being trapped in a place from which there is no escape. Not to be confused with Algoraphobia, which is the fear of Al Gore. Ironically, Demophobia is considered the fear of being in a crowd. I would have sworn that was the fear of Democrats, which is a very reasonable and rational fear to have, especially now.

I have come up with a name for a new fear or phobia that appears to have many of our politicians in Washington and a number of everyday U.S citizens in its monstrous grip. It is what I call Iraqnaphobia, or the fear of winning the war in Iraq. You see, our hanging tough and eventually winning the war in Iraq is not good for Democrat politicians or for the left-leaning, Bush-hating members of the general public, both of whom want one thing, and one thing only. To see President Bush discredited.

Even if that means surrender. Even if it means tucking our tails between our legs and leaving before the job is done. Even if it means making or brave troops out to be a laughing stock. They don’t care about our troops. They don’t care about their mission. They don’t care about the Iraqi people. If they did, they would not have voted 223-201 to have them pulled out by Spring of 2008. All they care about is getting re-elected and expanding their power base. If it wasn’t so pathetically sad it would almost be humorous that they are misguided enough to think this is the way to go about doing that.

If we stay long enough to win the war in Iraq, everything the Democrats have run and campaigned on will be taken away. They will have nothing left in their arsenal. Right now, they have enough poor misguided souls won over to their side to win their case in the court of public opinion. But, as soon as it becomes glaringly evident that the troop surge is working and things are getting better, they will have no case. It is already glaringly obvious to those of us who are paying attention and that know and understand the importance of what we are doing in Iraq to our national security that we are in fact winning this war.

The problem is that far too many of our liberal Democrat politicians, and sadly now some Republican so-called conservatives, are so heavily invested in defeat and surrender that they can’t or won’t see the truth. The truth is, we are safer as a nation because we are taking the fight to the terrorists over there rather than here. We are fighting on the streets of Baghdad, not Boston.

If we cut and run, the terrorists will follow us over here. They will take more innocent American lives. And, the blood of those innocent victims will be on the hands of both the terrorists and the anti-war politicians who support ending the war before we win. It will also to a lesser degree be on the hands of those who voted these bozos into power. How sad is it that it has come down to the fact that what is clearly in the best interests of America, is bad for one of its political parties?

So, we have no reason to fear a continued war in Iraq. What we do need to fear are the clueless, agenda-driven liberal politicians and their supporters who are calling for our surrender in Iraq and our defeat in the war on terrorism. They will never admit it, but that really is what they are after. So we must conclude that the three biggest things we have to fear here in America currently are Osama, Obama, and Chelsea’s mama.

Jim Chitty

Police Comments - Funny!!

These 16 police comments were taken off actual police car videos around the country:

#16 "You know, stop lights don't come any redder than the one you just went through."

#15 "Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch after you wear them a while."

#14 "If you take your hands off the car, I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

#13 "If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

#12 "Can you run faster than 1200 feet per second? Because that's the speed of the bullet that'll be chasing you."

#11 "You don't know how fast you were going? I guess that means I can write anything I want to on the ticket, huh?"

#10 "Yes, sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I'm the shift supervisor?"

#9 "Warning! You want a warning? OK, I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."

#8 "The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?"

#7 "Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy and corn dogs, and step in monkey poop."

#6 "Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

#5 "In God we trust; all others we run through NCIC."

#4 "How big were those 'Just two beers' you say you had?"

#3 "No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we can."

#2 "I'm glad to hear that Chief [of Police] Hawker is a personal friend of yours. So you know someone who can post your bail."

#1 "You didn't think we give pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't. Sign here."

Something to think about!

Talent without personal growth limits our future! If we draw on our talent but never sharpen it we won't get very far, but when we take the time to sharpen our skills and develop our character, God can call on us at a moment's notice. Personal growth prevents stagnation! Nobody's keeping us down but ourselves. We impose the limits on our life. In order to accomplish more we've got to grow more. We must take a long hard look at ourselves, accept responsibility for what we see, pray, then decide to do something about it. Personal growth guarantees success! If we don't work every day on improving ourselves, we will end up stuck in the same place, doing the same things, dreaming the same dreams but never getting anywhere!

Anonymous

Pro-lifers not folled by Giuliani - by Cal Thomas

Rudy Giuliani is playing the role of the contortionist in his attempts to convince enough pro-life voters to support his presidential candidacy.

After an unblemished record as a pro-choice mayor of New York City (if you count the "blemish" of babies not allowed to live), Giuliani surprised a lot of people when he said if he is elected he would name only "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court.

That sounded pretty good to some until Giuliani added during a recent CNN interview that he thinks a person who believes the Constitution should be interpreted as written could also vote to uphold Roe vs. Wade and that he supports public financing of abortions for poor women who want them.

Twisting himself even further, Giuliani said denying a poor woman tax dollars to pay for an abortion would deprive her of a "constitutional right".

While the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and a free press, it does not follow that the government should buy me a newspaper if I can't afford one. And as a strong supporter of Roe vs. Wade, why would Giuliani name judges who oppose it? Would a pro-life candidate be credible if he promised to name only judges read into the Constitution whatever he or she wished?

Giuliani claims that Roe vs. Wade established a "constitutional right" to abortion. The Court, unable to find that "right" clearly stated anywhere in the Constitution, finally concluded that it was implied in the 14th Amendment, which protects one's right to privacy, or in the "penumbra" of the Bill of Rights.

Abraham Lincoln dealt with the danger of reading into the Constitution ideas and supposed right that are not therein his brilliant speech at Cooper Union in New York on Feb. 27, 1860. Addressing the issue of slavery and whether it should be allowed to spread outside of those in which it was then practiced, Lincoln said: "An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not 'distinctly and expressly affirmed in it 9Chief Justice roger Taney's decision in Dred Scott contends that it was). Bear in mind that the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge their veracity that it is 'distinctly and expressly' affirmed there - 'distinctly', that is not mingled with anything else - 'expressly', that is in words meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning."

Lincoln's point was there are no distinct words in the Constitution expressing the right of a human being to own another human. the Taney Court had to misread the Constitution in order to assert such a "right," which is what the Court did in Roe vs. Wade a cenrury later.

i Giuliani believes in a strict constructionist interretation of the Constitution, he could not support abortion, because a strict Constructionist does not find language supporting it. For hime to take the position he does on abortion and then say he would nominate strict constructionists to the bench twists him and the law into a pretzel.

CAL THOMAS writes for Tribune Meida Services. readers may email Cal Thomas at CalThomas@tribune.com