Here are some disturbing results from a recent study:

In the YouGov survey, nearly half of all Arabs in the Gulf, Levant, and North Africa said that they have met someone who holds extreme religious views.  Asked under what conditions violence is permissible, more than 60% cited Western interference in a Muslim country, while 55% said offensive words or behaviour was a trigger.

Troubling?  Well the U.N. - always on the lookout for the newest, most cutting edge way to appease extremists - is trying to eliminate such "offensive words" from the world!

Arab and Muslim countries defended Tuesday a resolution they pushed through at the United Nations to have the body's expert on free speech police individuals and news media for negative comments on Islam.

The United States, Canada and some European countries criticized the role reversal for Kenyan legal expert Ambeyi Ligabo, who has reported to the global body on measures by dictatorships and repressive governments to restrict free speech.

The U.S. and other Western nations warned that the Muslim-backed resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council could curtail freedom of expression and help dictatorial regimes block dissenting views.

According to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), children are a form of punishment:

I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.  I don't want them punished with an STD...

Certainly an unwanted pregnancy is a consequence of irresponsible sexual promiscuity, but calling a child a punishment in the same league as an STD?  How can that come from the mouth of a father?

Do "the poor" think they're entitled to absolutely everyting these days?

Low-income drivers would get a break on the $8 fee for driving into Manhattan under a revised version of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion-pricing plan released Sunday.

The discount and a proposed $1 billion contribution from the Port Authority are designed to overcome objections that the plan would hurt poor New Yorkers while giving a break to New Jersey drivers who already pay Hudson River tolls.

Generally I'm opposed to increases in taxes and fees, but it's a little bit easier for me to swallow if it is applied evenly, and thus fairly, to all citizens.  That's why this is so ridiculous to me.  They're whining because it taxes them once but fails to double tax New Jersey drivers who work in the city.  Boo hoo... Plus, if these people are so poor, how can they afford a car and gas?

Of course people are going to be affected by this!  The entire point of the fee is to discourage people from driving in the city so as to alleviate congestion.  Public transportation anyone?  I guess they're only going to discourage the middle class from driving since "the poor" will get a free ride out of this...

Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill) pastor Jeremiah Wright has openly preached that racist, rich white people are the root of the economic oppression and exploitation of black citizens.  Then he retires and asks his "economically oppressed" congregation to build him a $1.6 million mansion and to finance a $10 million line of credit.

Socialist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that relations between his country and the U.S. could worsen if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) wins the White House.

Remember when Democrats pretended to be incensed when Chavez called Bush "the Devil" at the U.N. podium and then "an alcoholic and a sick man" when he appeared with liberal actor Danny Glover in Harlem (granted, their "anger" was delayed a day so that they had enough time to run a couple of focus groups to find out if they should actually be mad)?  I wonder if they will be equally strong in rejecting Chavez's endorsement of their candidates.

Is this a sign of what's to come?

WASHINGTON - Anticipating a surge in troubled financial institutions, federal regulators will increase by 60 percent the number of workers who handle bank failures.

 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to add 140 workers to bring staff levels to 360 workers in the division that handles bank failures, John Bovenzi, the agency's chief operating officer, said Tuesday.

 

 

As Sens. Clinton (D-NY) and Obama (D-Ill) continue their fight to the death for their party's nomination, a deep and nearly irreconcilable rift continues to be revealed.  Ironically, for the party of "tolerance" and "political correctness," that rift appears to be falling mostly along age, gender, and racial lines.

So potentially disastrous are the ramifications of this rift that some superdelegates (party elites who will have the final say in who the nominee will be) are even floating a compromise scenario that would put a white man, none other than alarmist-in-chief Al Gore, at the top of their ticket if the nomination is decided by a brokered convention.  I don't think it could ever fly, but the irony is too thick to leave without comment.

The United States has finally allocated $23 million to build a border fence.  The only problem is that it is going up between Egypt and Gaza. 

Rasmussen Reports has just released a poll showing Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) with large leads over either of his potential opponents, Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-Ill), and gaining important ground in the vital swing states of Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, and Pennsylvania.  But with the Dems yet to unite behind one standard bearer (and they probably will unite), a potential financial crisis looming, and Iraq still a touchy subject, I will take a moment to warn Republicans not to start dancing just yet.

Here are a few articles that may help clear the intentionally murkied water regarding Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), and the man he used to refer to as his personal mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright has now resigned from his advisory post in Sen. Obama's presidential campaign and Wright's church is now comparing the recent media scrutiny of his  incendiary sermons to "the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr."

Just to recap, King said that he had a dream that his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," and his assassination was a national tragedy.  Wright blames the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks and calls on God to damn the U.S. of K-K-K-A and then is rightfully scrutinized for his extremist beliefs.  Comparable?  You be the judge.

Obama said he never heard these sermons or even knew the kind of message being preached by his personal mentor of twenty years, though an eye witness account puts him in the church for the "Hate America" sermon on July 22 of last year, along with a Secret Service detail (they have been protecting Obama since last May).

This scandal clearly contradicts the persona that Obama has been building for nearly four years in the public eye.  How can a man who claims to be "post-racial" and "post-partisan" attend a church for twenty years that preaches such venom and hatred... all the while calling its pastor his personal mentor?

Remember when Berkeley City Councilwoman Dona Spring told us she was voting to grant special privileges to anti-war group Code Pink so that they could hold a protest outside the local military recruiting station?  She said that she would never grant such privileges to Conservative protesters because “this is different than abortion because we’re not saying anybody can’t go in there, we’re just trying to give them the other side of the story, so to speak.”

I've already posted one update showing this statement to be an outright lie.  Here's another.  To use Councilwoman Spring's logic, can you imagine if something like this happened at an abortion clinic?

Kusmiss said CodePink and a group called The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime began rallying at the center about noon Friday.

At one point in the rally, Marine Capt. Richard Lund returned to the center, where protesters had affixed signs and stickers on the windows. When Lund began removing them, protesters tried to stop him, police said.

Someone slapped a sticker on Lund's back.

When a police officer forced one of the protesters back from Lund, the protester challenged the officer, police said. Tensions rose but Lund did not want to pursue prosecution, police said.

Later at about 3 p.m. the women entered the recruiting center and sat down on the floor, blocking the door, Kusmiss said. Police warned them several times and tried to negotiate with them but they refused to leave, Kusmiss said.

Tomorrow, Friday March 14th, we will again be guests in Mac's World and potential Iowa gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats will be joining us from 1:30-3:00 p.m. central time! Iowans can tune in to 98.3 WOW FM and everybody else can listen live online here. Please feel free to suggest topics for discussion in the comments section.

I often lament the fact that governments are getting into the habit of meddling in issues that are absolutely none of their concern.  Take restaurants for example... Governments are trying and are sometimes succeeding in telling them if they can be smoking or non, what food they can and can't serve, what customers they can and can't serve, and now, how much toilet paper they must have in their restrooms!

TALLAHASSEE (CBS4.com) ? A proposed law currently making its way through the Florida legislature might help you with what can be an embarrassing problem. Here's the bottom line, the bill would be a mandate that all eating establishment must have enough toilet paper when you go into the restroom.

 

The only problem is the bill doesn't dictate how much toilet paper is "enough."

State Senator Victor Crist, a Republican from Tampa, felt the problem was so important, a law must be passed to protect the backsides of anyone in Florida. The measure will also try to regulate the cleanliness of restrooms in eating establishments.

Crist, says in the bill, restaurant inspectors, "should also check the restrooms along with the kitchens to make sure that basic cleanliness necessities are in place."

I don't mind with inspectors ensuring the cleanliness of restaurant kitchens.  After all, patrons cannot tour the kitchen to find out for themselves, nor would we want them to!  But we can find out pretty quickly if an establishment has a nasty bathroom or is lacking toilet paper.

Guess what... people don't go back!  Capitalism wins!  No need for arbitrary government regulations.  Same goes for smoking or having healthier choices on the menu!  Restaurant owners will make these decisions based on free market demands (i.e. if not enough people eat there because it's filled with smoke, the owner will ban smoking to attract more customers).  It's much easier and doesn't waste tax dollars enforcing arbitrary rules.

As bloggers in Iowa, we try to keep our finger on the pulse of state politics as well as the national scene.  It is in that vein that we would like to encourage Bob Vander Plaats to run for Governor in 2010.  It's not too early to get started!

Mr. Vander Plaats has been a high school business teacher, basketball coach, and principal.  He has real solutions to bring to the Iowa education system which has been in decline over the last decade of Democrat rule, which has seen special interest groups given priority over our kids.

Though he has not held public office before, Mr. Vander Plaats has abundant experience as an executive, and not only as a principal.  He has also served as President and CEO of Opportunities Unlimited, a non-profit health care organization that specializes in helping young adults with brain and spinal cord injuries, and he now runs his own successful consulting business.  Bob served as state chairman on Mike Huckabee's Iowa campaign for president as well.  It's no accident that the former Arkansas governor went from a virtual unknown to the winner of the first-in-the-nation Caucuses seemingly overnight. 

Though there has been a great deal of speculation that Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) will resign in the wake of a prostitution scandal, I wonder if he has received a pep talk from the Clintons recently, encouraging him to hold on.  We keep hearing that he has already drafted a letter of resignation, but he did not announce it yesterday and we're told he has no plans to do so today.

If indeed the Clintons are at work here (as I suspect they are), we may see Spitzer attempt to hold on to the office at their behest (despite the fact that it will tear the state apart... believe me, the Clintons don't care).  And if Spitzer does decide to fight it, don't be surprised to see Bill mobilized to Albany.