The original site for the snappy video on the economic crisis has been shut down, but the snappy video can now be found here.

Here's a snappy video on the economic crisis.

Al Gore's film and book, "An Inconvenient Truth," is filled with errors, distortions and misrepresentations. 

You can educate yourself about the problems in the Gore film by going to a comprehensive analysis at this link. 

In one of the most important victories for racial and gender justice in recent memory, Michigan voters on Tuesday approved the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative which ends affirmative action racial and gender preferences by government entities in the state of Michigan.  The measure passed with 58% of the vote in that state.

This result comes on the tenth anniversary of the passage [November 5, 1996] of Proposition 209, The California Civil Rights Initiative, which similarly ended affirmative action racial and gender preferences in California.  Ward Connerly, who had been active with Prop. 209 in California, likewise helped to bring about the initiative in Michigan.  

Make no mistake, these civil rights initiatives are some of the most important civil rights legislation in our nation's recent history.  They put an end to the racist and sexist components in state, county and municipal law -- they end government coerced racism and sexism. 

These initiatives provide the acid test on civil rights.  Namely, one's stance on these initiatives reveals if a person is really against some of the worst forms of racism and sexism in our country -- government coerced racism and sexism.  When groups and activists oppose these initiatives, they immediately show themselves to be frauds on civil rights. 

Democrat candidate, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth, who campaigned as a conservative on many social values enjoyed an easy victory over Republican incumbent Congressman John Hostettler in Tuesday's election.

Sheriff Ellsworth positioned himself as a "pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Israel, pro-traditional marriage, pro-House immigration bill, anti-federal funding of embryonic stem cell candidate, who doesn't want to cut and run in Iraq."  Indeed, such stands would garner him the moniker of "arch-conservative" by activists in the national Democratic party.

What probably is most amazing in this year that everyone understood would be a good one for Democrats, and in which Representative John Hostettler was seen as possibly the most vulnerable Republican Congressman in the nation, is that the Democrats were maneuvered into choosing a congressional candidate who was conservative on many social issues.

There will be many important early tests for the Congressman-elect.  Among them will be what kind of pressure he can bring to ensure that Rep. Alcee Hastings, impeached by the US House of Representatives and convicted by the US Senate for bribery and other crimes when he was a judge is not appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

There's no question now, but that John Kerry has reported for duty in the 2006 midterm election campaign. 

On Monday at Pasadena City College, Kerry made these outrageous remarks, seen here on this video concerning our troops in Iraq (you'll see other videos with previous anti-military remarks.) (hat tip to Kevin McCullough for the videos and photo below.)

The best analysis so far of Kerry's disastrous comments comes from Victor Davis Hanson (hat tip to Hugh Hewitt.)

President Bush's response can be heard here. 

Our troops in Iraq have responded with their own poster. 

The Republican National Committee has come out with a great ad calling on Senator Kerry to apologize. 



- posted by Glen Kissel.

************Must Credit The Eagle’s Quill ************

The taxpayers of Indiana have unwittingly footed the bill for the publication of soft-core porn.

A few weeks ago at the publicly funded University of Southern Indiana, The Aerie, a student journal of arts and letters, was published. This 48 page journal includes short stories and poems and a few randomly placed photographs. One of the photographs shows two naked women in bed kissing, in which one woman appears to be masturbating the other woman.

Three lawyers in Evansville have told The Eagle’s Quill that in fact the image constitutes soft-core porn. The names of at least two of the lawyers would be well known to administrators at USI.

Follow the Money

It turns out that Indiana taxpayers helped finance the publication of this soft-core porn.
The funding breaks down as follows:

$844 from the state of Indiana (including tax dollars)

$656 from the university (almost entirely from tuition fees)

$500 from student activity fees.

A total of 700 copies were printed according to a well placed academic source on campus. Another of the photographs in The Aerie was of a “topless” woman in the woods. It is not known if either of the photos was taken on USI property, which would be a potential violation of the student code of conduct.

Reaction

Reactions have been quite clear and sharp concerning the photograph. Here is a sampling of the reactions known to The Eagle’s Quill:

Upon being shown the photo, a faculty colleague of this blogger exclaimed, “Holy Sh-t!” Another faculty colleague shook his head in disbelief.

USI students have variously described the image with terms ranging from “pornography,” to “soft-core porn.”

A father of one USI student described it as “repulsive,” and thought that the Indiana Attorney General should be alerted.

A mother of a different USI student, upon seeing a digitally blurred version of the image on a local TV station last Friday reacted with “Sh-t!” Some links to the TV coverage can be found at this posting.

One USI alumnus described it as “obscene.”

Even the instructor of journalism who is advisor to the student newspaper, The Shield, was opposed to the photo being reprinted in the print edition of that student newspaper.

When the image was described to an academic administrator here at USI, that administrator was visibly surprised.

Action Taken

Upon finding out that state government funds and tuition and student activity fees had gone for the production of soft-core porn, the USI administration apparently went into action.

A source very high up in the USI community spoke with The Eagle’s Quill earlier in the week and stated that everyone the source had contacted agreed that “freedom of speech had been abused,” with the publication of the soft-core porn.

This source communicated to The Eagle’s Quill that we should expect to see new editorial processes put in place that would ensure such photos would not appear in The Aerie in the future.

Such a result is consistent with an incident earlier in this calendar year in which an unfortunate drawing appeared briefly in a public hallway at USI, and, after being alerted, the administration demanded that a new vetting process be put in place for hallway posted images.

There is yet more to this story, and readers should anticipate more postings. 

- posted by Glen Kissel.

The University of Southern Indiana Engineering Department faculty are all smiles after the events of the past two days.  The official announcement about why we are all smiles will have to wait until August of 2007.  Check back then.

-posted by Glen Kissel.

A few weeks ago at the University of Southern Indiana, The Aerie, a student journal of arts and letters, was published.  This 48 page journal includes short stories and poems and a few randomly placed photographs.  One of the photographs shows two naked women in bed kissing, in which one woman appears to be masturbating the other woman.  Another photograph shows a "topless" woman in the woods.  More details and discussion about The Aerie will appear in upcoming posts.

The USI student newspaper, The Shield, carried a story just this week about the photos in The Aerie, and also ran the photograph of the two naked women described above on page 2 of its print edition. The story was an incomplete discussion of the issue, and, again, there will be more posts on this topic soon.

Apparently the vast majority of the copies of The Shield, which carried the above story and photo, were confiscated from newspaper racks Wednesday evening, soon after they had been delivered.

In a story covering this theft, the Evansville Courier and Press reported that the faculty advisor to The Shield, an instructor in journalism here at USI, was opposed to The Shield publishing the above mentioned photograph in its print edition.  The Courier and Press story was incomplete on a number of details surrounding the larger issue of the photograph.

Subsequently, several television stations serving Evansville also covered this story.  Among them were Channel 25 (an ABC affiliate), which carried a digitally blurred version of the photograph in its coverage.  The NBC affiliate in town, Channel 14 also covered the story, and, it too, carried a digitally blurred version of the photo in its coverge.   Some details surrounding this issue were not complete in these reports.

So these questions can now be asked:

Why did an instructor of journalism at the University of Southern Indiana, and advisor to The Shield, oppose the publication of the photograph in the print edition of The Shield?

Why did TV Channel 25 show a digitially blurred version of the photograph, and not a clear version of the photograph in its news story?

Why did TV Channel 14 show a digitally blurred version of the photograph, and not a clear version of the photograph in its news story? 

- posted by Glen Kissel

Well what are the latest "torture" techniques awaiting the terrorist detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison?  This is what Senator Patrick Leahy sees facing these captured terrorists, referring to the Bush administration:  "Before they just did it quietly, and against the law, on their own say-so, but now they are obtaining license to engage in additional harsh techniques that the rest of the world will see as abusive, as cruel, as degrading and even as torture."

Columnist Mark Steyn has just returned from Gitmo and reports on the conditions there.  Torture?  Well, in fact it's fresh baked Baklava pastries for the terrorist detainees for the Ramadan holiday season.  And, oh, don't forget the terrorist detainees are allowed to relax in La-Z-Boy recliners during their interrogation.  Is this what Senator Leahy means by harsh and degrading torture??

For the jihadis over 50, Steyn reports that free colon cancer screening is done, complete with colonoscopies.  Sounds like it is Senator Leahy is the one in need of quite a few colonoscopies. 

It is bad enough that illegal aliens are breaking the law by residing in the United States without proper authorization, but it's worse when some of them commit crimes, but even worse than that is when some commit those crimes against the very police that are charged with protecting us all. 

In Evansville, there are enough legal and illegal Hispanic immigrants that there is a Latin Sports and Dance Bar called "Karanchos."  As this article (and accompanying affidavit) in the Evansville Courier and Press points out, this bar was the starting point for a variety of crimes by at least one illegal alien, that included resisting arrest, slashing the tires of a police car, driving without a license, having a stolen credit card, and other disturbing behavior including flashing gang signs. 

It was worse though in Houston.  A police officer was murdered last week in the line of duty.  The accused is an illegal Mexican alien, who had already been deported once.

- posted by Glen Kissel

In a reversal of an agreement signed years ago by the controversial Bill Lann Lee (head of the Clinton Justice Department's civil rights division, who was recess appointed after Republican opposition in the Senate) that had granted retroactive seniority to minority and female janitors in the New York City school system, a judge ruled such retroactive seniority amounted to illegal discrimination against white men when it came to layoffs. 

The retroactive seniority had originally been granted because, it was argued, that the civil service exam administered to job applicants amounted to discrimination against women and minorities.  But, as the judge pointed out, this resulted in the white males being subject to layoff even though they had been on the job longer than the minorities and women with retroactive seniority.   The judge determined that this was illegal affirmative action.  Details can be found here. 

Now that's real justice for janitors. 

- posted by Glen Kissel

Bernard Lewis, an emeritus professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, makes the case that there are "elements in Islamic society which could well be conducive to democracy."  This runs counter to those who simply see any attempt to bring democracy to countries like Iraq as "imperialism."  Read this adaptation of a lecture by Lewis in which he makes the historical case for the possibility of western style freedom in Islamic societies and explains how such moves were torpedoed by Nazi and Soviet influences in the 20th Century. 

- posted by Glen Kissel