What an extreme disappointment to listen to the variety of Republican Party pundits over the last few days. The profound lack of understanding of how disenchanted the GOP is with the RWC (Right Wing Conspiracy) is stupefying. All we hear is McCain is not a Conservative, the true Conservative is Romney and Huckabee is just a fluke and has no chance. A vote for him is taking the win away from Romney, think again maybe some of them are anti-Romney votes and anti-McCain votes, and the only way the republican voters can show the RWC how extremely annoyed they really are with all the candidates. Although, I guess maybe that's why we have Ron Paul, sorry Dr. Paul. 

Thanks a lot! Maybe if the RWC had been with the members of the GOP in supporting either the Hawk RUDY or the conservative Fred, we would not all be so forlorn. I literally drug myself to the polls today and cast my ballot. For the first time in years not feeling like there was anyone on my party ticket that I was excited about at all, or believed would make a good President.

I do not care or believe that Romney has had an awakening on the Abortion issue, too little to late and too conveniently timed for a Presidential bid. I don't think we will get conservative judges from him, RUDY or Fred would have done better. Romney also will get slaughtered in the General election by either Obama or by Clinton. He has NO CHANCE. And I can't believe Republicans have such big blinders on and such effective earplugs that they can't see or hear that the majority of people do not like him at all. Romney lacks Obama's passion, his only hope is that Clinton gets the nod and he gets the anti-Hillary vote, because no one is Yippee it's Romney. Forget about Romney getting any independents, because it looks like Hillary is already colluding with Bloomberg to enter the race to pull that vote. Don't forget that both times a Clinton sat in the White House it was due to a Third Party candidate that was able to siphon off votes from the Republicans and capture independents. He's even picking his states, I'm sure they will all be battleground states.

As for McCain, he's an old horse, who has led us astray too many times to count. And don't forget his temper which he displayed so adeptly during the run against BUSH. I am not excited about his chances against Clinton; she knows every button to push and every skeleton. There will be no discussion of ideas or issues, just out of bounds personal attacks.

Huckabee gives a good speech and a nice debate, but I'm really not sure about his Presidential chops. He knows the Clintons but will probably get eaten alive by them in a general election due to his lack of funding. As for a run against Obama, we might actually hear some ideas going back and forth, as neither of the two seem to be an extreme mud thrower. But again YIPES.

So thanks again VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY for elbowing out the likable, and leaving us with the distasteful. No wonder people are keeping their contributions in their pockets; the GOP is not being listened to at all. Our legislators are not doing what we elect them to do and our candidates do not make you want to run to the polls and cast your votes.

I'm starting to think the Vast RWC has been infiltrated by moles that are set on tearing apart the party and giving a free ride to the other side. Get your heads out of the country clubs and talk to the people at your church, your schools and in the coffee shops and even the local pubs, their conservative, but their mad as hell with the candidate choices.

All this being said GET OUT AND VOTE, make the best choice you can.

The challenge that the “Moral Majority” faces in this election is in one word tolerance. And quite simply what exactly are they willing to tolerate from their elected officials.

So often we hear the outright condemnation hurled at people who are willing to listen to all sides of issues and make information based decisions. In the coming election many issues are important to Republican, Libertarian and other generally conservative voters. Those issues deal in part with controlling government’s impact on day to day life in the land of the free; protecting life (at all stages); immigration; and national security.

As we sit down to listen to the candidates, who have put themselves forward in the coming Republican primary season, we must stop and ask ourselves, who meets our objectives best. We can not stop at anyone issue, but must force ourselves to examine all issues rationally.

For me the key is the Republican wins. No more sitting out the election due to temper tantrums because candidate XYZ didn’t do what I demanded. It is certain, that if you are not voting because you disagree with a position held by the Republican Nominee, the position held by the democratic nominee will be even less to your liking, and your failure to vote will support the elected democrat’s even less favorable position. 

Are the people who chose not to vote last time for moral reasons, happy with the Democratic Congress they helped elect? What legislation has this congress passed that they are proud of? Maybe the failing to timely fund the troops, are they proud of that? 

There are many key issues, and isolating one issue is a demonstration of profound intolerance. It is our duty, our responsibility as Republicans to be rational and thoughtful in our decisions and to show tolerance, not to act rashly.

We are faced with a less than exciting slate of prospective candidates, not one is perfect, but let’s all listen carefully to everything and act rationally in our decision making. Truthfulness, credibility, consistency, and character should be elements we focus in on, and then we should examine policies, not just one policy but all policies. 

The one thing Ron Paul said in the recent Republican Debate, that hopefully will be supported by everyone was that, he is a Republican and will support the nominee, whom ever it is, when the primary is over. Let’s pray for guidance in selecting the best candidate to be successful against the opposition.

Are they really that far off their rocker, will this be forgiven and over looked like all of their other missteps? It was shocking today that while watching Fox and the various pundits discussing the horror of Oprah campaigning with Obama, one of them stated something to the effect of ~’She is lucky that she is on the PUBLIC airways, and able to take a position.’ Not the exact quote and I really don’t know the pundit’s name. But Golly Gosh, are they for real? If you are on public TV you are not allowed an opinion?

What about free speech? The Dems worry so very much about the alleged infringements on our liberties by the “evil” Bush empire, maybe they ought to examine their back yard a little more carefully. It appears it is plagued with trolls and gremlins that are prepared to take away talk show host’s ability to express a view point they find contrary to their own.

Now that’s scary stuff and what we should be talking about this election season. For without this fundamental corner stone freedom, Free Speech, our nation falls short of its’ Founding Father’s goals.

Freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas is the corner stone of our society. People who wish to squash others ability to express themselves in the political and cultural arenas have no right to govern our nation. And if these same people who wish to govern fail to speak out against misguided supporters that indicate squashing a person’s right to speak out, equally should be barred from governing our nation.

Enough already, it seems that Romney is like a dog with a bone, on the issue of his faith. We know… we’ve been listening... Now it’s time for Romney to start listening, especially to his own advisors, stop, stop, stop talking about your religion as if the Republicans are so small minded that they won’t listen to you because you’re a Mormon. Nonsense, we really are a brighter party than that. Romney continues to insult the electorate by inferring that the Republicans are all religious bigots and that we are going to put his faith up as a road block. Get with the program.

Romney's more formidable roadblocks are:

He looks like a Ken Doll – no offense to Ken – just a little too plastic, well groomed is fine, plastic is scary.

He and his wife use the exact same sentence formulations to answers questions during interviews that have taken placed months apart. While I realize they get asked the same questions, over and over, reciting the same phrases over and over without changing the sentence structure is a bit robotic. He needs to give us a little more detail regarding his former business adventures, we don’t want to get a surprise if he’s the nominee.

We need a candidate with passion. I don’t see that fire in Romney, in fairness it’s very clear he loves the USA.

This is a great country, we need someone who can express that message with passion and draw in the haters, not someone who will alienate them even more. It’s time for our country to find common ground, to grow in pride and love country.

As the elections approach and the debates continue, one must think about wether or not they are getting the information they need to determine who should be President.

A candidate who offers continuous platitudes to every inquiry is not providing the electorate with a fair chance to evaluate their positions and qualifications, voters should reject such candidates.

Candidates who will not outline their position clearly on immigration are not providing the people with a proper opportunity to judge what they have to say and vote accordingly.

On the current threat from fundamentalist organizations that wish the destruction of the free society that exists in America, politicians needs to at least acknowledge that they understand the threat.

There are many issues facing the electorate; war, health care, immigration, environmental concerns, human rights issues and general international policy. Very few candidates are clearly articulating definitive positions on the key issues facing the Nation moving forward.

It's time to cull the heard and get down to brass tacks and start to drill the top tier.

Pop Culture is taking over another part of Americana. Why is it when the “cool kids” decide they want in on the fun, they suck up all the oxygen and objectify the event for the rest of us not so cool kids.

For years and years the folks in Hollywood all came out in their wacky over the top splendor and paraded up and down Hollywood Boulevard showing off their inner kookiness. Those of us returning home from trick or treating with our little ones would watch the evening news and be amused at the silliness.

Now however we find that this weirdness is spreading into the local kids’ costume shops. Girls are offered costumes that look like they are ready for a pole dancing session and boys are offered ax murder costumes. Some of this is the Hollywood influence; some of it is a gang bangers twist on the Day of the Dead celebrations. Kids are getting it drilled into them that they need to be frightening and sexy.

Personally I like creative and funny. How many kids make their costumes with their parents anymore? I miss the kids with the parent who doesn’t know how to sew running around with two rolls of TP wrapped around their body. This is what made Halloween fun, the creativity.

Where are the children spending hours and days before Halloween, mixing up paper Mache to create a space ship costume? Or the others gluing together foam and getting out paint to make a giant Dancing Raisin costume. These were great, they were creative and they taught kids stuff, like building, constructing and painting.

There is absolutely no creativity in going to the costume store and picking out a $40 slutty outfit for your 5 to 18 year old to wear. What's going on in the heads of these parents? What exactly is the message these parents are sending their children? I know that personally I chuckle when my child says to me at the latest Brittany news, “Mom, I remember you not letting us listen to her, because she had a “bad” message.” Hint folks many of today’s costumes are giving that same “bad” message to your kids. As parents, it’s your job to hold the line and say no.

Please think about keeping your money in your wallet or spending it at the local craft store, buying glue, thread and other creative materials. Sure it takes time, but your kids, the Nation’s kids are worth it. Further, it is your responsibility, to spare your child the humiliation of being trotted out like a tramp or an ax murder. But then again, the parents buying these costumes are probably the same parents buying their 11 year old daughters the pajamas that have “hottie” printed across the bottom.

Just for fun if you post please make sure to include your favorite childhood costumes made from scratch.

Please, please stop pushing Romney. He is such a Ken Doll. He and his wife are beyond cookie cutter, they are like the plastic Barbie doll molds. People generally don’t like seemingly perfect people.

Why, because either

A.    They are untested

B.     They aren’t genuine

Today while Sean Hannity was interviewing Romney and his wife, he talks about how he knew she was perfect, by her looks. Clearly these two appear to love each other very much, but Romney placing such importance on her appearance, compounded by his Ken Doll hair is just too much for most women, and won’t encourage them to want to go in a pull the lever.

Do real men trust guys that spend so much time on their hair? I’m just wondering, how many votes will the Republicans loose, for no shows and anti-Ken Doll votes?

Romney apparently has his business history in mergers and acquisitions. How many folks are there our there that he downsized that will come out of the wood work after the primaries, when the Democrats go after him, forget about getting any labor votes. What do we know about how many times he closed US operations in favor of cheaper off-shore operations? Does anyone know the answer?

And then you have his weak, weak, weak explanation about some of his less than conservative past political positions, non-the least of which is Abortion. Well, I was running in a Democratic State, you have to understand… But that’s not how I feel now, I’m the real conservative. Give me a break.

The real conservative is Huckabee, however, he doesn’t have the National face time it’s going to take to defeat Hillary, nor the money. So let’s get real, the Ken doll is not going to beat her either.

In fairness to Romney, these are first impressions, but that's all you get with most of the electorate. He may be a perfectly nice guy, but he comes off a little too perfect.

There’s no way around it. The difference between the situation in New Orleans and Southern California  communities when it comes down to how they handled a crisis facing their citizens is the key to solving the gap in suffering between the two communities. One local government held a party in a hotel in the heart of the storm, while the other local government rolled up their sleeves and helped their citizens.

Specifically, one local government with days and days of warning failed to move its citizens out of the danger zone and into a safety zone, the other with most often less than an hour’s notice moved its people. No local mayor in California rented a hotel room and threw a party in town as the Santa Ana wind driven fire stormed their city. The Mayor of New Orleans did just that, he had a party in the middle of the disaster. California Mayors took the situation seriously from the start.

Both of these events involved elements of nature outside of man’s control, high winds. One event brought wind and water, the other brought wind and fire.

The key difference is the reaction.

People from New Orleans had days of notice of the imminent threat of Katrina. They were warned they were in the target strike zone and with all probability the city’s levees would break causing extreme flooding.  A significant number of people failed to evacuate. In fairness, some did not have the means to flee the danger, but many did and still failed to flee, due in large part to the cavalier attitude of the local authorities.

People in California often had only a few minutes to get out of their homes, run for their cars and drive threw the burning surroundings to safety. Yes, yes there was notice that the Santa Ana winds were coming, but a fire storm is not an event with substantial prior notice to evacuees. The local authorities in California notified their citizens, via reverse 911 calls to flee their homes, and unlike the Katrina folks, the people in the path of the fire fled.

Maybe it is human nature; maybe hurricane wind driven rain and flooding aren’t as scary as fires. But certainly the Gulf Coast has as much deadly history with hurricanes, if not more experience than Californians have with fatal fires. So why did the Californians get up and move, it’s simple… the local government took it very seriously. They did not crack jokes, throw parties and laugh. They sternly told their people to “Get out of harms way, period end of sentence.”

Let’s look at the Federal Government response, with Katrina the disaster declaration preceded the impact of the storm, the President urged residents to flee to safety. The local government did not act and deploy resources, and failed to back up the Feds call to flee to safety.

The aftermath of the New Orleans’ local government failure to take the proper preventative measures to protect their citizens is the true outrage. All reporters and citizens of the United States should focus like a laser beam on this simple truth.

What could New Orleans have done, well with the President’s declaration they could have mobilized resources to help evacuate the citizens who couldn’t leave by their own power. The Governor of Louisiana could have had the National Guard help evacuate people, California used them. The also could have stocked the stadium to ensure people were comfortable.

These simple steps would not have diminished the vast property damage, but the human suffering and loss would have been drastically reduced in New Orleans. The Federal Government is not at leisure to force a State Government to evacuate its people, it’s the State’s job. Think twice before you vote for people who think like those in charge of Louisiana, clearly the needs of their citizens are not a primary concern. Instead they took every action or inaction they could have to maximize the suffering and trauma to their people.

This is not to excuse the Federal Government, who clearly at some point sooner could have flown in choppers to the stadium to help the people, even if they were invading the State against the Governor’s wishes. I think the American people would have been much more forgiving of the Federal Government if they had acted boldly, and would have forgiven them the trespass.

About the shelters, a local reporter in Los Angeles who was in the Superdome during Katrina and at the stadium in San Diego stated simply, there is no comparison. People were trapped in New Orleans by flood waters, because this evacuation site was in the middle of the danger zone and very poorly prepared to house and take care of the people who fled there for safety. There was little to no security and food, compounded by no way out.

Had a local California mayor told his people to flee to a building in the middle of the Fire Zone, I don’t think people would be holding the San Diego evacuation centers out as an example. The key here is moving people out of harms way and into a SAFETY ZONE.

People afflicted by Katrina did not act to get away from the danger and the local government did not sternly warn them and help those unable to flee on their own leave. There was no lack of transportation to help those without means to travel, it just wasn’t used or employed by the city government.

People affected by the fires fled to the Safety Zone, only a very small number of people stayed behind, at one point more than 800,000 people were displaced by the fires... and they did this coming down mountain roads and driving on notoriously congested California Highways in a fraction of the warning time given to the Katrina victims, surrounded by burning brush.

Sonia Nazario, of the Los Angeles Times wrote an article that every pro-life person has an obligation to read interpret and understand. At first, after reading her Sunday article Part 1 I was going to claim she thought the adoptive mother was brilliant. In reality after reading Part 2 on Monday, it appears she attempted to give the whole issue a fair shake. I was however very disappointed with the lack of a successful example of open adoption and the failure to provide more complete information on the study details used with her two articles. The article appeared in the Sunday, August 5^th edition of the Los Angeles Times.

The lesson learned from the article is never let adults performing experiments in the hopes of writing books adopt children (who will be their living specimens). Dorothea McArthur, the adoptive mother reminds me of others in history who wontedly conducted experiments on living human beings, without the persons consent or knowledge.

Who keeps a daily journal of every sputtering of an infant? Answer Dorothea. Who among us, who has raised children believes that children as young as 4 can absorb someone callously explaining to them “This lady didn’t have the time, money or a daddy to raise you the right way. So she gave you to us to raise.”¹ Answer Dorothea. Even an adult would have a hard time processing this psycho babble. A child will simply understand he/she is a burden who takes up a lot of time, money and needs a daddy (so much for single parents and widows).

This type of crap makes expectant mothers considering adoption terrified to place a child up for adoption. There seems to be an unspoken reason the McArthur’s had to go through a private adoption. We routinely accuse the public officials of not being lenient enough in allowing people to adopt. However, in the McArthur's case, the public officials may have gotten it right.

The poor birth mother faced with the sad reality that she had created a life she was unable to financially support had no chance in the private adoption world. Clearly she didn’t have the resources to demand an independent psychological evaluation of the prospective parents. It was never disclosed to her that Dorothea McArthur was adopting this child to perform a research study on adoption on the child (the child would be her specimen). She looked at the MacArthur’s credentials and saw David MacArthur a psycho-physiological researcher from UCLA and Dorothea MacArthur a PhD in Clinical Psychology and double master degree holder as an educated couple that would open door for her daughter.

To this observer it is truly evil what these so-called professionals in human behavior did to this little girl. They diagnosed her with all sorts of issues, from behavioral problems to social disorders. They blamed every problem on her birth parents or genetics, never looking into their abysmal parenting skills. Maybe moving her from school to school frequently contributed to these problems. Maybe the diabolical clinical psychologists were doing this to see how much stress they could inflict on a child before she exploded. Of course she questioned her stability; her adoptive parents provided none, constantly yanking her away from people.

Once Dorothea decided to include the child’s birth mother in her life, she only proceeded in using this information as another weapon in her assault against the small child. She used visits as rewards/punishment. As if she was cancelling a play date with a friend, and not cancelling the professed bonding experience she was claiming to be so forward thinking in creating. This was when I got nauseous and looked closely for the girl’s current age as if she was still a minor she needed to be immediately removed from the cruel and inhumane McArthur’s. Alas, she is now a full grown adult.

Clearly as evidenced by the heated call before the birth mother’s deployment when the child was 11, Dorothea was pushing around the child and manipulating her into making unreasonable demands of her birth mother. What happened to the keychain Kendall received from her mother? Was it really “lost”? Why was Kendall worried about being Jewish? Who put these thoughts in the young girls head, that it was okay to be Christian and police men would arrest you if you were Jewish, what on earth were the McArthur’s drilling into this young child’s head? Why wasn’t she raised in the faith of her adoptive family? All the adopted children I have encountered in my life were raised in the faith (Jewish or Christian) of their adoptive parents and this provided stability and love, regardless of the faith of the birth mother.

Often within the body of the article, we hear of Dorothea’s theory that Kendall’s childhood and later adolescent behavioral issues are all due to her status as an adopted child. Get real, after years and years of study and education and degrees, she failed to get the basics of a child, they push you to see where your limits are on different issues. If you never set boundaries, because you believe the child is insecure, you have simply failed the child. Learned people frequently are very knowledgeable and have no common sense.

Dorothea treated Kendal like she was different; she was never treated just like a child that needed to be loved. She was horrendously cruel to this little girl by failing to provide unconditional love and by only providing psychologically analyzed love. What a shame and a disgrace. This is a text book example of why people don’t trust psychologists. Mind you she may have been doing the best she could, but her initial desire to write a book about her adoptive experience belies that belief. Kendall is remarkable in displaying the resilience and unconditional love of a child, she still loves Dorothea. Bravo for her maybe now she can teach Dorothea to love.

The article goes on to talk about how the child was made to feel inadequate intellectually within the boundaries of her home. It is the sole responsibility of a parent to boost a child’s self esteem. Academic achievement is not the only path to success and failure, to fail to recognize this is further evidence of the pitiful state of Kendall’s adoptive parents.

The final injury is seen in how Kendal describes open adoption to her birth mother within the article she states “Open adoption really helped me understand who I am- where I came from and why I am the person I am,”² Somehow the McArthur’s convinced this poor child that her birth parents pre-destined her to a life of drugs, sex and out of wedlock pregnancy. I don’t buy that for a second. It was her adoptive parents who set her up with the horse trainer who introduced her to the person who hooked her on drugs and eventually impregnated her. The McArthur’s are pathetic blame layers, they need a mirror. They need to ask themselves how many times did they dump, Kendall at the stables, alone to be looked after by the trainer. This is on their shoulders solely!

For some reason Kendall was taught that adoption should bring on a sense of loss. Even in an open adoption, a child should never ever have the impression or the feeling that they lost something, they didn’t they gained something. Another set of individuals to love them, with all their hearts unconditionally. Clearly the McArthur’s never gave Kendall this feeling of unconditional love. Instead they chose to psycho analyze everything she did within the narrow prism of her adoption, blaming everything, every foible on her birth parents being a less than perfect people.

A least Dorothea had the rare burst of common sense to apologize to the birth mother for making her “feel bad”. Dorothea seems self centered, with a need to make a lot of people feel bad.

It is heart breaking to hear that Dorothea McArthur is trusted to work with other adoptive children. Her status with children should be reviewed in the hopes of protecting other minor children from her irrational, supercilious and twisted sense of what being a loving parent truly means. The article in the end showed some love, but it seemed to come more from David who insisted Dorothea allow Kendall, pregnant and homeless, back into their home.

The most common sense thing found in the companion article was that birth mothers should “become like a loving aunt”. This makes sense, then the child can understand the extra love, this person is just an extension of the family. Not a pariah or a person at whose feet, the adoptive parents can lay all the wrong doing of the adoptive child.

Reporter Sonia Nazario cites a Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project which found 50% of children in closed adoptions wanted them to stay closed and 50% of children in closed adoption felt a sense of loss. I wonder why did all these children in closed adoptions know they were adopted, if the adoption is closed why was it so important to point out to the child that they were adopted?

There are many issues that the experts seem to have ignored or the reporter failed to report on, how many of the children who have been adopted and were not told of their adoption status had all the reported problems of the children told they were adopted. We also have no information regarding how many of the children in the study who had behavior problems were born with medical issues (such as fetal alcohol syndrome, etc.). There is no mention of a control for these issues, which would clearly skew results.

It seems to me that people who feel an urgent need to tell a minor child that they were given up and were adopted, really more desperately need to feel rewarded and praised for the fact that they adopted a child. It is to their advantage to tell the child.

I am not going to tell anyone that closed adoption is better than open adoption, but why when a child is child, do adults feel the need to dump all of their personal garbage on the shoulders of the child. Let the child be a child. The child does not need to know they have been adopted until they are a legal adult. Surely any medical crisis can be discretely handled by competent adults. And the Auntie/Uncle option seems grand for the birth parents within open adoptions.

Adoptive parents who feel the need to tell children who are very small that they have been adopted are selfish cruel individuals. Children do not think about these issues. I would gander that it is the rare child that asks his parents… “Am I really yours?” It is presumed. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this presumption.

Further, if we look at the Disaster of Dorothea’s experiment we find repeated occasions where the child was compared to her birth parents, for bad judgments based on her birth parents behaviors. I thought psychiatrists believed that humans learned behaviors and that their behaviors were not innate. Dorothea seems to have treated her adoptive child as having the DNA of a chimp, or other non-human animals and assumed she acted in certain ways because of her birth parents, nonsense, and what a load of … garbage. Shame on her and she should give her degrees back and resign any position that allows her to counsel children. The behaviors her adopted child exhibited throughout her life were all learned, and learned by her primary care givers, her adoptive parents.

Stories like this make it very hard for young woman with crisis pregnancies to choose adoption as an option. The article points out how the birth mother is tormented by the problems her child encountered as a teen, and wondered would she have faired better with her? Yipes! Adoption is a wonderful option. It seems that open adoption may work in some cases, but when people enter with an ulterior motive (Dorothea’s book) it is an uphill battle.

I think of a family I know of, whose daughter was faced with a crisis pregnancy. She was to give birth to a Downs Syndrome baby, her husband was outraged that she dared to consider having the child. He flatly advised he would leave her if she did. She compromised and made the heart breaking decision to offer her child up for adoption. They found a wonderful group that places Downs’s babies with loving homes experienced in raising children with this condition.

The adoption is open. The mother and father do not take that much advantage of the open adoption, but the grand mother takes every opportunity to visit the baby. The baby is in a wonderful home and is truly loved and valued.

In the end we need to write articles that encourage adoption and don’t make it sound so scary to birth mothers, prospective parents and the children who find themselves, to be adopted. Adoption should be held in high esteem by society and looked upon as the overwhelming expression of love that it truly is in most cases.

^{1 Quote} from page A24 Sunday Valley Edition of the Los Angeles Times, by Sonia Nazario.

^{2 Quote} from page A14 Monday Valley Edition of the Los Angeles Times, by Sonia Nazario

I preface all that follows with the simple statement that YES CONSERVATIVES CARE ABOUT THE ENVIROMENT, WE HAVEA KIDS (more kids than liberals) THAT BREATH THE FILTHY AIR!

This post is the first in many to follow about the bane of the gas blowers used by gardeners to clean yards. I submit that one lawn yard blower emits more pollution in one week than 10 automobiles. I submit this on purely personal observation, without a shred of scientific evidence.

Noise pollution: This is annoying, but if this was it I would shut up and not post about this.

Air Pollution: If you live in a neighborhood that is frequented by professional gardeners, that utilize gas or even electric blowers, I ask you to perform a simple experiment. Clean the table in your yard that day before the blowers appears. The go our the morning after the blowers have arrived and view the build up of dirt an grim left on your table, chairs and what else is in your yard.

For those of us in arid climates like Southern California, the problem is extreme. Drive past a gardener with a blower and just head straight for the car wash, your car is covered in soot. Even if the guy turns off the blower as you pass, it doesn't matter.

The reality is that the blowers, place tiny particulate matter into the air. All these tiny particles in communities like those in Southern California just sit in the air. So many children and adults in Southern California have asthmatic conditions that it is shameful.

Yes the level of car emissions have decreased but a look into the sky line shows the icky orange tinge of all the dirt blown up into the air by the blowers. I vote for a ban on blowers for all private properties. And a minimum of 10 minutes of run time for commercial properties under 10 acres.

If there are scientists with access to fancy air quality equipment I request you go out and study the air quality around said blowers.

 As summer slow down towards the beginning of the school year, those with children look to what happened yesterday in Minnesota and realize that sometimes we as Americans need to focus on things close to home. Our entire country is obsessed with foreign affairs and global economies, etc. The reality is if all is not right at home, nothing else truly matters.

Conservatives are accused of putting the mighty dollar above all else, however, there’s an equally large portion of the conservative movement that is interested in the welfare of the family. Conservatives believe that fiscal responsibility in government leads to a better economical situation in the home. Having the final say of where our hard earned dollars are spent is a pivotal concern for conservatives. We want to donate any extra money to the causes of our choice and not to mandated taxation for unknown governmental projects.

When we pause and we look at what happened in Minnesota, we all have to stop and ask why is money from tax payers in our society going to fund stadiums and useless studies when instead it could be going to the infrastructure that supports all citizens equally. The roads, bridges, sidewalks, waterways, aqueducts, sewers, etc. benefit every citizen. Roads transport goods that are used by even those who don't own a car to drive on the roads.

It is a sad state of affairs when money is diverted to pet projects of politicians over maintenance and upkeep of the basics.

We keep demanding the same silly platitudes from our politicians, while the infrastructure of our society falls into the abyss. It's time to look to politicians who will stand up and have common sense approaches to dealing with issues that are solely the government’s domain.

Why is the Santa Monica/Los Angeles DA office failing to do the hard work and find a way to stop Jack McClellan, the self-proclaimed pedophile, from stalking of children in their district? Clearly it is because they are lazy. No other explanation. I am sick and tired of hearing talking heads explain why they can’t find some law this guy violated. Clearly he is stalking children. California has laws against stalking! He is identifying them by photo and explaining to others with his twisted desires where to find what he deems particularly desirable children, according to local news reports.

The legislature needs to act now. A bill for the Governor should be ready and on his desk by no later than Monday, August 6^th, 2007. This is why they were elected - - to protect the public. No one in their right mind or even their left mind thinks for half a second that the founding fathers felt that a grown man’s right to lust after a child, direct others to finding said child, etc… falls under the first amendment protections. We have already deemed that stalking is against the law. The inaction by those with the charge to act is despicable, they are all becoming culpable in any harm this evil individual may cause.

Where are activist judges, on this issue…, silent. I am not condoning activism on the part of judges, as this isn’t their domain; it is our elected official’s responsibility.

Governor Schwarzenegger also has a responsibility to approach the state legislature and demand they send him a bill post haste to prevent pedophiles from stalking, publishing children's photos and intimidating the citizens of the great state of California. Children should be a special class under the stalking law. The law should protect children from having their photographs intentionally taken, for lurid purposes and plastered all over websites.

Let’s all find our local representative (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html) and demand they put forward an expansion of the current stalking laws that deals directly with this problem, the intentional photography of minor children with the intent to publish said photos on pedophile websites.

When we fail to protect the least of us we fail to protect all of us. This is a tremendously serious issue that demands immediate action.

Santa Monica Residents here’s

Your State Representative:

http://dist23.casen.govoffice.com/

One you’re your Assembly Persons:

http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a41/

Santa Monica District Attorney's Office
1725 Main Street # 228, Santa Monica, CA 90401 (310) 260-3648
Demand these folks act and do the job you elected them to do, to protect the public, especially the children and definitely not the pedophiles.

Some Key Conservative Issues:

Abortion: Can you be pro-life a support Giuliani? In this writer's opinion, clearly yes, Giuliani is not pro-abortion, and is pro-adoption. Following the law, as an officer of the court is his responsibility. Let’s look at the cold facts that while he was in NYC, the city’s abortion rate dropped. Stating your personal moral objection to something, while allowing someone else to come to their own decision often has a greater impact than being a blow-hard and condemning everyone who disagrees with your point of view.

In this specific arena, many conservatives often fall into the trap of becoming shrill and hysterical when attempting to put forward their position on the abortion issue. Living in the heart of LA I have many opportunities to speak with lefties, and it is rare to find a lefty who personally, (as a choice they would make for themselves) supports abortion. The support for abortion is always in the third person, they support someone else’s right to choose.

Law Enforcement: This is an easy one Giuliani has a solid track record of upholding the law and standing up against law breakers. A simple and readily accessible example is the turn-around of Time Square.

Foreign Affairs: As mayor of NYC Rudy secured many opportunities to engage foreign leaders and people who are part of the UN circle. This may play to his advantage in Washington. Some may also see it as a benefit that he has not been sucked into the Washington grid-lock way of getting things accomplished.

Business: Again here we can look to Times Square, Giuliani clearly saw that the way to rebuild this area was to get business back into the area.

Immigration: Rudy supports ending illegal immigration, securing the borders and finding out who is already here in the US.

Taxes: Rudy will work to cut taxes.

These are just some of the issues that conservatives will look at when looking at Rudy Giuliani. Here is a politician with a record in a time of crisis that he and we as Republicans can point to and be proud.

Teenagers born in America, especially in the Border States, struggle to find employment. The economy is flourishing so most are eventually able to find work if they persist, however, often the jobs that they once easily scooped up have been filled already by an army of people with suspect work papers and suspect legal status. Employers in certain areas of our great Nation are flooded everyday with requests for applications from people who barely speak English. Common sense might suggest that they question documents presented, but if they do they risk being in violation of something and facing serious legal consequences.

How many times have we heard, Americans don’t want the jobs being filled by immigrant workers. Open your eyes America, the jobs our high school kids once filled are no longer their domain. Many fast food chains in Southern California are foreign language only environments behind the counters. Good luck ordering if you are not bilingual. How many Americans in their 40’s today started out in the food service industry? I’d hazard a guess around 30% or more; well 30% or more of their kids no longer have this opportunity.

This is also happening in retail stores, in the malls, the restaurants and the local markets; which more and more opt not to hire the American kids. Where now does one expect these same kids to go to find employment? What do we, as a society loose when these same children do not get work experience in their younger years?

American teenagers need and want these jobs that are being robbed from them by the flood of illegal workers into our country. These jobs help put food on poor families tables, they help young kids from all backgrounds pay for college classes, a car, new clothes, etc. All the money these young American kids once earned stayed in America and fed the American economy. We know without argument that the money from these jobs that American kids once held, no longer solely goes into the U.S. economy, instead a significant portion of these funds flows out of the US to foreign countries.

Not hiring American teens for historically teenage jobs is a National Disgrace. Give the summer jobs back to our teens and help build a better nation from within our borders.

Once again we are greated with a dialy news bulliten about a young girl leaving a new born infant in a trash bin, This is a National disgrace! As Americans we bare the shame of every child placed in a bin on our shoulders. Evertime we stand by and let someone extoll the virtues of a woman's choice or it's her body, we fail to see the impact of this pervasive and dmaaging message on our youth. It is imperative that we as a society stand up and state with clear voices, not in my name! Especially those of us that are female. NOT IN MY NAME!

The casual acceptance of abortion in our society has lead our youth to minimize the value of a new born infant. Clearly these yound woman who aborted their parental rights into the bathroom trash bins, saw no difference in their actions and that of the abortion doctor's who perform late term abortions. In their minds they have accepted though years ot teaching that it is woman's perogative what she does with the life she carries. Clearly they see little difference in the office procedure, and the natural procedure ending in the trash bin o a local Denny's,a s in this latest case.

Society can go on and on about a woman's right and what if she was raped, insecest, etc. but here we have a 17 year old girl, who most likely conceived via a boyfriend of approxiamtely the same age and found no trouble in placing her baby in the trash with the rags she used to clean herself. She was tought this by all the pro abortion people in our country and around the world. Let me STRONGLY POINT OUT THAT THIS WAS A FEMALE BABY SHE DISCARDED. What kind of  woman's rights is she extolling???

I remember back about 10 years ago sitting in an office and reviewing medical records of a woman allegedly distraught over an incident while she was with child. In her medical records we found very clearly that this was her 9th pregnancy, but her 1st planned birth. She had elected to abort the 1st 8 babies, and as we read on, it was not due to insest, rape age or other factors that these other 8 were discarded into the doctor's trash bin , no it was beacuse of their gender.... they aborted babies were all female and discarded because of their gender. So all you femnist wake up not in my name will you stand up and say woman support abortion, we don't because it is more likely than not that in a noon-crisis ele3ctive abortion the child is female that will end upoo in the bin. Stop the nonsense and make some sense, woman do not win when woman chose to eliminate a woman's right to be born!