On Monday night, members of a Community Board in New York Cityvoted 29-1 in support of the construction of an Islamic mosque atGround Zero. The Manhattan project plans to open its doors onSeptember 11, 2011, the 10-year anniversary of the deaths of 2,996 people in the name of Islam.

Yeah.

Frankly, I can’t think of anything better than building a place of worship for the religion responsible for every single terrorist attack on America in recent history. Wait, maybe I can. How about not building it?

Islam is not cool. I’m all about free choice, so I have no problem with people choosing to believe whatever they want to believe. If someone wants to be part of a community that oppresses women and encourages violence, then they are welcome to join it. I just hope they never change their minds, because the penalty for leaving Islam is death.

Read More (And be sure to check out the comments! I’m everything from a hero for bringing this to light to the cause of the 9/11 attacks.)

I just found out about CTAP today.

The California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) distributes telecommunications equipment and services to individuals certified as having difficulty using the telephone. CTAP is a California State mandated program, under governance of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Equipment and some network services are available at no charge to eligible consumers.

Californians who are deaf, hard of hearing, speech-disabled, cognitively-disabled, blind, or who have low vision, or restricted mobility, are eligible to receive equipment with certification by a medical doctor, a licensed audiologist, a qualified state agency, or a hearing aid dispenser.

CTAP is funded by a small surcharge that appears on all telephone bills in California. The money collected from this surcharge pays for both the California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) and the California Relay Service (CRS). This surcharge appears on your phone bill as “CA Relay Service and Communications Devices Fund.”

No wonder California is broke as a joke. No denying that being blind, deaf, or having fingers too fat to dial on a regular keypad are all tragic conditions. But why do the rest of us have to buy you a phone?

It’s almost as ridiculous as forcing tax-payers to pay for other people’s TV converter boxes.

PS- This picture makes me giggle.

"Your call could not be completed as dialed. Your fingers are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now."

Ok, there are lots of problems with the new legislation signed into law today in Arizona by Governor Jan Brewer.

The sweeping legislation makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. It also requires local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.

So basically, if you have a tan and can properly pronounce “carne asada,” then you better carry your identification with you at all times. Otherwise you might get arrested. This new law is ridiculous, and I suspect that it is more a bold proclamation to shed light onto an area of federal government that badly needs reform.

Seriously. Just take a look at this chart.

The new *law* does nothing to address the real issue. It is so flippin’ hard to come into this country legally that millions are doing it illegally. And they are living in fear of the government, to the point where they won’t report crimes in their neighborhoods for fear of being deported.

I am in no way advocating open borders, but I think it’s ridiculous not to offer visas to the hard working men and women that want to become legal citizens, but lack the money or political connections to do so.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to come off like a bleeding heart liberal by saying this, but I can’t get this Thomas More quote out of my head:

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them. (Utopia)

I only hope that this weird new law sheds light into an area that badly needs reforming. Please, can we let more people in that want to work hard and build a better life, and try harder to keep the panty-bombers out?

Thanks.

As I was perusing the news sites this morning, one headline in particular caught my attention: 6th-grade boy arrested for taking mom’s jewelry, giving it to female classmate… What?? Why the heck aren’t parents parenting their kids anymore? I would’ve been spanked six ways to Sunday, grounded for 3 years, and probably not allowed to date until I was 32 if I had pulled some shenanigans like that.

This story obviously warranted more attention. *click*

Here’s the whole story:

CALLAWAY — Police arrested a sixth-grade student Monday at the request of the boy’s parents, after he said he stole and then gave away more than $7,000 worth of his mother’s jewelry.

The boy told police he gave a classmate at Everett Middle School a white gold ring and a diamond ring, which he had taken from his mother’s jewelry box the previous week. When he asked the girl to return the jewelry, she gave back the white gold ring but said she “had lost” the diamond ring, according to a Bay County Sheriff’s Office report.

The boy gave a sapphire ring to another friend who, when asked, said he had given it to a female classmate, according to the report. Another boy told his friend that he could have his mother’s emerald and sapphire ring back if he gave him a reward.

The boy’s stepfather was adamant about filing charges, police reported, so the deputy “placed (him) into handcufffs (double locked) and placed him in my patrol vehicle.”

Police booked the student into the Bay County Jail on grand theft charges, and then took him to the Department of Juvenile Justice. (emphasis mine)

Sweet! I love hearing stories about good parents, and it’s even better when it’s good stepparents. I hope that kid got scared straight and never forgets the lesson of treating other people and their property with respect. I wish Congress felt the same way about me and my income.

Both.

Tim Tebow is a Heisman trophy-winning quarterback for the University of Florida.  As a home-schooled kid from a Christian family, he shatters the stereotype that kids taught by their parents at the kitchen table grow up to be abnormal, socially stunted adults.  Arguably the best college football player in the country, Tebow remains centered in his faith and family.

Pam Tebow was serving as a missionary in an orphanage in the Philippines with her husband Bob and Tim’s older siblings when she was pregnant with Tim.  She suffered from a parasitic infection, and doctors predicted a still birth and advised Pam to abort the baby for her own health.  She refused, and gave birth to a healthy, full term baby boy.

Focus on the Family has sponsored a 30 second add to appear during Superbowl XLIV, which features the Tebows and include some sort of “choose life” message.  And you know how pro-women groups feel about people choosing life.  They really can’t stand it, can they?  It’s interesting to me that they get so angry about it.  I mean, if there’s nothing wrong with abortion, why do they get so upset about women choosing not to do it?

The Women’s Media Center and the National Organization for Women are going absolutely bonkers, accusing Focus on the Family of being “extremely intolerant and divisive and pushing an un-American agenda,” and pushing an “anti-abortion vitriol has resulted in escalated violence against reproductive health providers and their patients.”  Whoa, that’s harsh.

So what does Tim Tebow have to say about the ad and about his mother’s decision to choose life?

“I know some people won’t agree with it, but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe…[T]hat’s the reason I’m here, because my mom was a very courageous woman. So any way that I could help, I would do it.”

Bravo to the Tebow family for standing firm in their beliefs in the face of tough opposition.  I applaud you for not being afraid to exercise your 1st amendment right to free speech.  Even if that speech is difficult for some people to hear.  And to those that would deny the Tebows, Focus on the Family, and CBS the 30 second advertisement, I have two words for you: mute button.

After being briefed on the findings of the security reviews that he ordered on the failed panty-bomber on Christmas day, Barack Obama has figured out how to make it safer to travel the used-to-be-friendly skies.  In a press conference this afternoon, Obama gave his 24,374th speech since assuming the Presidency to assure the public that he really (really!) is doing his job.

He said that our government failed to connect the dots to prevent a known terrorist from boarding a plane inbound to the United States and attempting to detonate a bomb. It was the shortcomings of our intelligence agencies, and their inability to connect the dots that allowed Abdulmutallab to board a plane in Amsterdam with a bomb in his underpants.

Even though our intelligence agencies had info on al-Qaeda’s presence in Yemen, they did not aggressively follow up on and prioritize particular streams of intelligence related to a possible attack.  This contributed to a failure of analysis and connecting the dots across the intelligence community.  Which in turn led to shortcomings in the watch system that failed to place the man on the no-fly list.

Since it was not a failure to collect the intelligence, but to integrate the intelligence, the President came up with a four part plan for other people to do their job better.

Step 1: The intelligence community should assign specific responsibility on high priority threats. Not just some of the time, but all of the time. Clear lines of responsibility will lead to clearer communication.

Step 2: When threats to the United States are identified, they should be spread rapidly and widely.

Step 3: They must strengthen the analytical process, including how the annalists examine the intelligence gathered.

Step 4: They must strengthen the criteria for adding people to the watch list and no-fly list.

Obama stated, “My new reforms will help our intelligence community do its job even better, and protect American lives.  Even so, we need security at our airports and borders and through our partnerships with other nations.”  He also told us that it will require significant investments into this area- including 1 billion dollars in new systems and technologies, more baggage screening, more passenger screening, and more advanced explosive detection capabilities.  I think that it’s been proven time and again with education, with the automobile industry, with the banks, with poverty, and with so many other things that the solution is not to throw money at a problem.  It never works.

The President said, “In the never ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary.  That’s what these steps are designed to do…We are at war… war against al-Qaeda…and we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.”

President Obama is blaming the intelligence community of the United States for the attempted attack, but it’s politically correct over-thinking and the lack of common sense that led to Abdulmutallab boarding that plane.  Less intellectual intelligence and more smarts please.  That’s what will keep terrorists off of our planes.  Not a billion dollars worth of nekkid body scanners.

If we will do whatever it takes to keep our citizens safe, why is airport security wasting time confiscating my bottled water, instead of profiling passengers that fit the description of al-Qaeda operatives?

This says it all.  We Americans are entirely too politically correct.  Why was this man not required to purchase two seats (allegedly from American Airlines)?  Was the airline afraid to hurt his ginormous feelings?  Seriously people- have some common sense!  If you take up the space of two seats, then you need to purchase two seats.  It’s not discrimination, it’s common sense.  And if the fat guy’s feelings get a little bruised?  Well, maybe he would think twice before picking up that double bacon cheeseburger.