MORE CHECKS AND BALANCES, PLEASE

The Founding Fathers had it right: to function democratically, a government needs to have a variety of opposing views aired in full view of the public. When you have the Executive branch, Congress and the judiciary all controlled by the same party it creates one-sided deals and unhealthy excesses.

Witness what's happened in the past six years. Under the "fiscally conservative" Republicans' one-party rule

-a national surplus has turned into a crushing national debt
-federal resources such as oil fields are given away without royalties to billionaire companies
-virgin federal lands are earmarked for roads to enrich extraction industries
-federal regulations to protect our air, land and sea are loosened so that companies can avoid costly retrofitting
-lobbyists buy off our Congressmen and then write the laws to benefit their industries

The Republicans are selling our birthright. That's not to say that the Democrats would perform more honorably if they ran all three branches of government. What we need is control of one branch by a different party so that the politicians can keep each other in check. Remember that on November 7.

'AZZAM THE AMERICAN'

"Azzam the American," a turn-coat who now works for Al Qaeda, just issued a video tape urging Americans to convert to Islam. CNN played it and it sounds like a "Saturday Night Live" skit. If it weren't so tragedic, it would be comic.

Azzam, born Adam (how cutesy), is an American traitor extolling the virtues of an ideology that seeks to destroy his birth country. He's telling beer-guzzling, cheesecake-viewing, fast-food eating Americans they should give it all up to worship a desert god that delights in slaughtering "infidels," anyone other that its flock.
Right. Keep dreaming and praying in your cave, Azzam.

The sad part of this whole cartoonish affair is that the U.S. media takes it so seriously, airing this propaganda. Just exactly why are the fever dreams of a traitor newsworthy?

FEEDING THE WORLD

A disturbing new report says that famine will increase as the world's water supply dwindles and/or becomes polluted. Water shortages mean fewer crops. Population growth means more mouths to feed. Those trends will converge and overwhelm the world by 2050.

Instead of relying solely on coming up with sophisticated new techniques for saving or extracting water from the oceans, as the report suggests, here's a novel idea.
Let the world's poorest and driest nations stop churning out children. In fact, that's a good idea for all nations. There should be a family planning campaign to stop at two. Look how China is thriving now that it's limiting population growth.

Instead of trying and failing to export democracy, the U.S. should be exporting education and devices for birth control and abortion clinics. While opponents may yell that abortion is "murder", rational people realize that overpopulation is suicide. And those prim ladies sitting in their suburban cocoons are not going to be safe while the rest of the world is dying of thirst.

DETROIT'S DREAM WORLD

The automakers in Detroit must be inhaling too many car fumes. While the world struggles with escalating oil prices and terrorist-spawning countries that sell the fuel, the automakers blindly churn out gas guzzlers.

GM announced it will bring back the Chevy Camaro, a V-8 gas-hungry muscle car from the '60s. It will also continue to churn out light trucks and SUVs because that's where its profits are. Ford is planning to build a 325-horespower Shelby GT and a humongous Lincoln MKS sedan. Instead of giving the public what it wants, that is gas-frugal small cars, automakers continue on their disasterous road of forcing their monsters on the American public.

But consumers will not be fooled. That's why Toyota cars are the number 1 sellers in the country. And as prices at the pump escalate to $4 a gallon, more and more consumers will stop buying American-made clunkers. The automakers are committing suicide, and they better not come crying to U.S. taxpayers for a bail-out like Chrysler did.

STOP PLAYING NICE WITH TERRORISTS

Diplomats keep insisting that the way to counteract Islamic terrorism is to appeal to and support moderate Muslims. They delude themselves. There are no moderate Muslims.

After some of his neighbors were rounded up for a murderous plot to bring down American planes, a Brit Muslim said "They are considered ordinary British Muslims and they haven't caused any harm to anyone," accountant Mohammed Naeem said of the suspects. "They come from decent families." Mohammed has passed judgment and in his view they're all innocent, no matter what the facts show.

This follows on an alarming poll that indicates that 80% of British Muslims put their religion ahead of their allegiance to their country. The European community is once again hiding its head in the sand, hoping the threat will go away. Sorry, fellas, it won't. Like your Munich appeasement strategy of Hitler, this approach will fail.

Islamic fascists have to be confronted and defeated. It's painful, it's costly, but to defeat determined, murderous terrorists only their eradication will do the trick.

HEZBOLLAH OCCUPIES LEBANON

The "Arab street" is quick to condemn "occupation" unless it happens to be Arab-run. How come there are no demonstrations against Hezbollah for bringing death and destruction to Lebanon? This is a foreign-run gang (read Syria and Iran) occupying Lebanese soil. The Lebanese government had six years after Israel left to get rid of Hezbollah. Yet it did nothing. It allowed a murderous gang to take over a country and now its citizens are blaming Israel and the U.S. for its own failures.

The "Arab street" is fixated on Israel and the U.S. as the source of all its troubles. When will its people realistically look at who and what are really destroying the Middle East? Until they lose their mass delusions there can be no peace. No diplomacy in the world can solve this conundrum.

The U.S. government should concern itself less with the "Arab street." It will hate us no matter what because hate is what the terrorist groups keep feeding the people and that's what its media keeps amplifying. The U.S. needs to follow its own convictions and hope that the day will come when Arabs will shake off their delusions and stop sacrificing their young people on the altar of false gods.

MEDIA GARBLES THE MESSAGE

Journalists used to report the news. Today's TV pundits act as conduits for terrorist lies.

One night CNN had a so-called reporter trailing a Hezbullah terrorist through some ruins in Beirut. The terrorist keeps up a running commentary on how there are no Hezbullah installations in the area, that Hezbullah is "protecting" the country from Israeli aggression. CNN treats this propagandist as a legitimate news source, never questioning his statements, obediently allowing his warped logic to reach viewers. It's as if the reporter has no grounding in history, comes to each story without background. As if Hezbullah weren't a war machine designed to destroy an legitimate country. As if the terrorists didn't manufacture an excuse for war by crossing the border and kidnapping two Israeli soliders. As if these very same terrorists didn't bundle together Israel and the U.S. in its hatred. While the terrorist is spouting high-minded-sounding Hezbullah lies, the reporter never questions him about the barracks in Lebanon they blew up, killing 200 Marines. It's an uneven match, the CNN simpleton versus the Hezbullah propagandist.

Then there are reporters who stand in front of clouds of gunsmoke proclaiming that Israel is losing. Says who? Based on what? Their one night stand in a war zone? Instead of questioning a real general, they play at being one. They can't claim "objectivity" because they're anything but. They cede the high road to Hezbullah, a terrorist gang that hides behind civilians, burying weapons in apartment house basements, and then claims Israel is causing civilian casualties. In the history of warfare, what army other than Israel drops leaflets telling civilizans to evacuate and even phones them before a bombing so as to minimize civilian involvement?

Reporters love wars. They're exciting, colorful and can prove their chops. Too bad the current crop is so ill-informed and easily brain-washed by terrorist lies and propaganda. With guys like this covering news, who needs Al Jazeera?

ISRAEL STANDS AGAINST TERRORIST GOLIATH

Brave little Israel, surrounded by sworn enemies, stands like David against the Goliath of world terrorism. The U.S. has its hands full in Iraq. Cowardly Europe talks and appeases. The United Nations remains a publicity forum for evil-doers. But Israel gets into the trenches and fights.

When will the world wake up? When Western civilization is on its deathbed? All of today's battles are incited by Islamic terrorists: Israel, Somalia, Darfur, Chechnya, Iraq. They ram the World Trade Center towers killing 3,000 and blow up trains in Madrid, London and Bombay, killing hundreds. To what purpose?

The purpose is to create fear and chaos, to marshal the billions of Muslims in the world to hate the West and incite them to murder all "infidels." Who benefits from this? The dictatorial Arab governments. They have huge numbers of underemployed, sexually-repressed young men who can turn their anger against their own countries. So they're instead encouraged to turn their rage onto the West. Who better to be the "devil" than Western "infidels?"

Even those who enjoy the freedoms and luxuries of living in a democracy, like the youths in France and Holland, turn violent against their hosts. They arrive as poor, illiterate beggars and, thanks to the European welfare systems, acquire the education, cellphones, computers and bomb ingredients to blow up their host cities. Why bother to assimilate the country's culture when they can demand it change to accommodate their religious fanatism?

World War III has begun. The stakes are high. If we lose, we can be catapulted back to the Stone Age. We have no option but to fight Islamic terrorism with all the skills and weaponry of our 2lst century civilization. The longer we wait, the stronger the worldwide Islamic net becomes. It's time for all freedom-loving countries to stop bickering amongst themselves and use the weapons of the internet, television, financial transactions, satellites and arms to wipe out the terrorists.