DarkStar Spouts Off

Political Correctness: The Right

Just to tweek some folks, an example of "political correctness" from the right and what happens when you violate PC of the right:

Some of my former friends on the right have attacked me as an opportunist who sold out his party and his president to get a best-seller. They would not think so if they knew that I started this project knowing that I would probably lose my job with a think tank closely allied with the White House, which I did. My advance on the book was less than the salary I was making, so if I am an opportunist, I’m a pretty poor one.

...

Bruce Bartlett is a former senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis of Dallas, Texas.

This Is What I've Been Saying

Armstrong Williams knocks the ball off of the cover and sends the ball out of the ballpark!!!!

According to the federal Center for Disease Control, white males are 4 times more likely than their black male classmates to be a regular cocaine user. White high school seniors are three times more likely to have used heroin, three times more likely to have smoked pot in the past years, seven times more likely to have used cocaine, and nine times more likely to have used LSD. The recent meth drugs cannot be found in the nation's urban centers but its suburbs. The story is the same with illegal use of prescription drugs. According to the Justice Department, drug users tend to buy from same-race dealers, meaning most white users buy from white dealers. That's right, white dealers. Ask yourself how many times you have turned on the evening news and saw a story on white drug dealers and users? Now think back to that occasion when you did see such a story and think about the adjectives used to describe the offenders. Were the same adjectives used to describe black drug offenders? Of course not! Whites caught engaging in illegal activity are often described as being "confused" and "misguided", as if such behavior was unexpected because of the hue of their skin. Blacks accused of the same crime are described as "hardened criminals", "hoodlums" and "gangsters".

After hearing a story about white teens selling drugs to children, the media's bias give many the impression that the teens simply fell off the beaten path and deserve a second chance at life. However, upon hearing a news story concerning the "hardened black gangsters" the same audience will be ready to lock the offenders up and throw away the key.

 

Now, this is what I've been saying "all over the Internet!" I don't mean the statistics, just that all of the "negative news" about Blacks paints a picture that is wrong because it is incomplete and totally ignores what is happening in the society at large. How can you take a sizable American minority and act as if some of the problems involved is only particular to that group?

Commerical rap is garbage. But what was the number 1 movie this weekend? Saw III!

Hat Tip: Booker Rising

NFL: Week 8

OK, so for week 8:

• The Ravens won against New Orleans. From what I see, that was a must win game for the Ravens. They played great football the first half, after that, it wasn't much from what I can see. Again, the secondary got burned. However, the secondary played one heckuva first half.
• The Eagles: McNabb had a bad game. That's 3 losses in a row with 2 bad games for the QB.
• Dallas: Good game. But, in the NFC East, it's the Giants and maybe the Eagles if they can turn it around. But the Giants are still separating themselves from the rest of the division.
• Steelers: Wow. That loss hurt them. I think it's clear Big Ben isn't himself and they miss The Bus.
• Da Bears: Come on. What did you expect them to do against SF?
• Arizona: Say bye bye to the head coach.

Racial Politics: Maryland

I'm going to provide links and excerpts without comment:

Steele hits Cardin for paying lip service to black voters

"I'm tired of listening to leadership that fails to deliver," Mr. Steele, Republican nominee for senator, said after Mr. Cardin listed statistics showing inequalities for blacks, including their elevated high school dropout rate.

"I'm tired of hearing people quote statistics of our communities and over the 20 years that they have served in Congress have done nothing," said Mr. Steele, the first black elected to statewide office in Maryland. "I'm tired of leadership that fails to lead, but blames and name calls and points fingers."

...

Mr. Cardin has been criticized for missing the debate because the move might have offended black Southern Maryland voters, and also for stumbling and stammering through a televised debate Wednesday. Their next scheduled -- and perhaps final -- debate before the Nov. 7 election takes place this morning on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Mr. Steele blasted Mr. Cardin for helping gut the state teacher pension system as House speaker of the General Assembly, voting in Congress against prison-sentencing reform and failing to address school problems in his congressional district.

"I've spent an academic year taking school buses, taking classes and teaching classes in our public school system," Mr. Steele said. "Mr. Cardin, have you visited Frederick Douglas High School, have you been to Carver High School, have you been to Fairmont Heights High School in Prince George's County? We've missed you, sir."

O'Malley Assails Ehrlich on Race

O'Malley hammered the governor for his past assertion that "multiculturalism is bunk," accused him of working to strip the NAACP of its tax-exempt status and said Ehrlich has been "talking out of both sides of his mouth" about Baltimore's arrest policies -- delivering different messages to white and black audiences.

"Our current governor of Maryland declares over and over and over again that multiculturalism is bunk, that history has shown that a multicultural people can never thrive and survive," O'Malley said. "Obviously, the governor does not come to Baltimore City very often. We are a multicultural city in a multicultural state in the strongest and greatest multicultural nation ever created on God's multicultural planet."

...

Ehrlich took a very different tack minutes later when he took the stage, by which time O'Malley had left for a funeral. Ehrlich ran through a list of 15 African Americans, starting with Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, whom he has appointed in the past four years.

He followed that with a list of such initiatives as construction projects at historically black colleges and universities, changes to minority business contracting rules and the renaming of Baltimore-Washington International Airport to honor Thurgood Marshall.

"And we have more to do, and thank you for your attention," he concluded, then walked off stage.

Washington Post Poll ( Scroll down to see the data on Black voters )

France Intifada

This is a woefully under reported series of events that have been occurring:

This might have dropped below the radar, but Al Qaida and its allies are literally battling the Crusaders every day in Europe. And so far, Europe isn't doing so well.

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."

The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.

The battles have been under-reported but alarming  to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.

This is serious.

Karma

This is subtitled, "payback is a b*****"

Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley can now feel the pain of thousands of city residents.

That’s the opinion of several politicians who told The Examiner that the recent revelation that O’Malley was charged with driving under the influence in 1987 and later acquitted is proof that criminal records can come back to haunt anyone, even the mayor.

“There is some irony here in the fact that he was found not guilty, but yet it comes up to haunt him,” said Frank Conaway, Baltimore City’s Clerk of the Circuit Court.

State Del. Jill Carter, D-District 41, said the old charge should not be held against O’Malley, just as the wrongful arrests of thousands of Baltimore residents, under O’Malley, should not be held against those residents.

“It’s troubling that this could be brought up 20 years later when it’s irrelevant,” Carter said of O’Malley’s old drunk driving charge. “It should ring a bell for the mayor that the 25,000 people in Baltimore who are arrested without charges are also going to be haunted by those arrests.”

In 2005, Baltimore city police arrested about 100,000 people — about 25,000 of whom were released from Central Booking without charge and another 25,000 of whom had their charges dropped in Circuit or District Court, leaving tens of thousands of residents with permanent records similar to O’Malley’s.

Yep, Karma. What goes around... Etc, etc, etc.

How To Fix An Election

Imagine a company makes a voting system that is under intense scrutiny because of security concerns and past failures with the equipment in previous elections.

Imagine politicians running for the top office in the state both say that if people don't trust the voting system, they should use absentee ballots.

Imagine the local voting boards run out of absentee ballots.

Imagine people who receive absentee ballots receive absentee ballots for local jurisdictions that are not their own.

Imagine the company who is responsible for printing absentee ballots is the same company who is responsible for creating the voting system that is suspected as being insecure and prone to failure.

Would you then imagine that is conflict of interest situation?

Would you then imagine a situation where the voting process is rigged?

Ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned because that is the situation in The Land of Queen Mary: Maryland.

Religious Beliefs or Politics?

Booker Rising provides a quote from Harry Jackson, Jr.:

"I want to call on all African Americans of faith to go the polls in two weeks and vote their values and their faith. Your vote will determine the moral direction of the nation for the next few years. We cannot sit back and wait for others to do the right thing or make the right move. It is time for blacks to take a leadership role in the nation. We must recognize the unique position to which we have been called by God. We can no longer be guilty of following blind men. Instead, we must cut a new path. With God on our side, we are not a minority; we are a majority! If men like Martin Luther King, Jr. had not dared to speak out as prophets of God against an evil and corrupt system, life for many of us would be unbearable today. The evils of pre-civil rights America would still be in full force. The courage needed today is a little different than the courage it took to stand up to dogs and fire hoses. Our civil rights heroes needed the courage to die for the cause. Today we must have the boldness to endure being misunderstood while we rebuild America’s moral core. We all know the issues that are of concern to the black community in this election. First of all, we are concerned about the war simply because so many of our family and friends are in the military. Yet, I cannot vote out one party because they 'started the war,' while condoning the genocidal murder of black babies within our borders. A little more than 2,000 people have died in Iraq and we don’t take that lightly. But what about the millions of black babies sacrificed on the altar of personal convenience? The most recent statistics say that 36% of the babies aborted in the U.S. are black babies---that amounts to 12 to 14 million casualties in America’s war on life since Roe versus Wade. Second, immigration reform is important to African Americans. The current liberal amnesty and porous borders approach to immigration is a part of what I call, 'The New Slavery.' Hispanic workers are taken advantage of by corporate employers and subjected to unsafe work environments and poor wages because of their current illegal status. This has directly affected black employment opportunities at the lower end of the employment spectrum. The result is a black unemployment level of over 10% versus a national unemployment level which is under 5%. We should advocate closing the borders, encouraging immigrants to obey the laws of the land, and refuse blanket amnesty. In addition, wealth creation (home and business ownership), education reform, criminal justice reform, health care access, protection of marriage, and promoting a culture of life are all hot buttons for thinking African Americans who embrace a biblical worldview."

Here is a point I think I have to make.

Immigration, employment, wealth creation, education reform, etc, are political stances not religious stances. So, what is the point of bringing those issues to the table? I'm not saying they should not be addressed, but why use the cloak of religious values, when they are not?

Here is something to think about: since "we" are having more abortions, proportionately, than others, than how does anyone expect the appeal to "pro-life" values to hold sway, unless the disproportionate number of abortions is done by a very small minority within the Black community?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the genocide angle being any good. Now, if people showed a growing baby...

Hard Solution To Iraq

When the U.S.S.R. was in existence, it was the ruthlessness of the leaders of the U.S.S.R. that kept Yugoslavia from descending into the war that happened after the U.S.S.R. fell apart.

It's been reported that George Bush "the elder" didn't go into Iraq after Desert Storm because of the pledge to the Arab nations and because he didn't want to get the U.S. involved in maintaining Iraq after the invasion. It's also been reported that Colin Powell told George W. Bush that if the U.S. went into Iraq, "we" would own it.

What do these two things have to do with a solution to Iraq?

From my point of view, the U.S. has to take a "U.S.S.R."-like stance to Iraq to maintain order in the nation. Actually, I think the U.S. has to take a page from the past of Iran and Iraq.

The U.S. backed the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was pro-West. The
U.S. backed Saddam for a time being. When both rulers took extreme measures, by U.S. standards, to maintain their rule, the U.S. looked the other way and let the rulers do what they had to do.

The U.S. needs to find "someone" who will be pro-West and then install them as leader of Iraq. Then, the U.S. should allow the military to do his bidding to get control of the country. Then, the U.S. should announce they are leaving the country to be ruled by the person the U.S. installed as leader, with the understanding that we will return, if needed, to help the ruler keep control. I assume that during this time, the ruler will set up the forces necessary to keep control. And if they have to take extreme measures, by U.S. standards to keep control, the U.S. will turn the other way.

That's a hard solution to Iraq. We have to go hard core.

This Is Why MD Dems Need Checking

This is why Maryland Democrats needs checking:

Constellation Energy Group Inc. and a major Florida utility owner have decided to cancel their merger plans, ending a $12.4 billion deal that executives concluded had become hopelessly mired in the political debate over electric deregulation and a 72 percent rate hike for customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric.

The merger with FPL Group Inc. would have created a Fortune 100 company with an estimated $28 billion in annual revenue and operations stretching from Maine to California. The decision to walk away was made after Constellation initiated a request to terminate the deal, ending months of feuding with lawmakers and regulators.

"As we considered the situation in Maryland, we determined the risks and uncertainties were too significant to overcome," said Mayo A. Shattuck III, Constellation's chief executive officer.

In the end, I think this means higher energy costs for those who get energy from BGE. More later, I'm not feeling 100%.

Wash Post Endorses Ehrlich

I'm surprised today. The Washington Post editors endorsed Robert Ehrlich for governor of Maryland.

Here, they state the same thing I have previously written:

More worrisome yet is the fact that an O'Malley victory would herald a return to the brand of one-party Democratic rule that has served the state poorly in the past. Mr. Ehrlich, for all his faults, has shaken up the old guard in Maryland politics -- while appointing plenty of Democrats to his cabinet and judgeships. If he were wise, he would use a second term to start anew with the legislature and build on his record of achievement.

Basically, if O'Malley wins, the state Democrats would have a field day. Endorsements don't matter to me, but this is still interesting news.

Odd Thoughts

Some disjointed thoughts:

• Unless you are living it, you have no idea the hell a person with mental problems can bring on themselves and family. It. Is. Not. Pretty.
• The idea that some group wants people in Omaha to call 9-1-1 if they see someone smoking in public is just unbelievable. The fact that it's true is sickening. If I saw someone about to dial 9-1-1 over some bull like that, I'd have to pimp smack them.
• The Unit is good television.
• Obama is being set up. They are pumping up his head and pumping up some of the ignorant  masses, then they, the media and the Democrat elite who need to put the freshman in his place, are going to cut, gut, and leave his carcass to rot.
• I need some FUNK!

NFL: Week 7

OK, so here we are at week 7.

• Steelers vs. Falcons was one heck of a game! Charlie Batch looked like a NFL quarterback after Big Ben got knocked loopy. It was an exciting game.
• Giants vs. Dallas: Giants handed Dallas their heads. Romo is a gamer but I think Bledsoe was pulled too soon. However, I haven't seen enough of the Dallas games to be source about it. Once again, Tony K. brings nothing to the play booth and now more people are saying it or saying it louder.
• Eagles vs. Bucs: I started off switching between this game and the Steelers and ended up staying with the Steelers. When you win a game with a 62 yard field goal, you were supposed to win the game. I'd like to be in Philly now just to hear the radio sports talk shows. I didn't see enough of the game, but 3 interceptions, with 2 returned for touchdowns, isn't a good game. But then McNabb brought them back. 22-35, 302 yards, and 3 TDs. I don't know what to say other than what I just did.
• Washington lost. They got stomped. Well, from the bits I saw, they got stomped.

The Ravens have to win this weeks game, and I don't feel good about it at all.

Life is good when you can watch the NFL in HD!

A Tune

You call me your friend
But You only want the ends
And I'd never see you if I had no loot

I'm just glad I know the deal
And I'm paying my own bills
And I'll never ever depend on you

Why I Still Buy CDs

These 2 articles that appeared in today's Washington Post are the reason why I still buy CDs. DRM is the devil himself.

A Messy Age for Music

These days, in the age of digital distribution, we don't need to buy CDs anymore. What we have, instead, are a bunch of online music services, offering songs for sale or rent via quick download to a bunch of digital music players that might or might not actually play them.

Take music fan Chauncey Canfield: He has a whopping 180-gigabyte music collection, an iPod and a smartphone he can fill with songs from his subscription Yahoo Music account. But he can't put Yahoo Music songs on his iPod, and he can't put songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store on his phone.

Canfield knows that iTunes is the most popular online music store, but he avoids it because of the playback restrictions. Instead, he prefers to shop at eMusic, which sells its tracks in the MP3 format, an open technology that works on every music player on the market. Even the iPod.

"The fact that they don't have [anti-piracy controls] on them is absolutely a major plus," he said. "I don't have to segregate my music into various ghettos."

And then this one:

Changing Her Tun on Apple's iPod

I've basically stopped buying music because I'm stuck at a digital music divide.

Every 99-cent song I buy from the iTunes Music Store digs me deeper into an ecosystem that depends on $250 (or more) replacement iPods and closes me off from other cool-but-incompatible devices made by non-Apple Computer companies.

But who among us doesn't find the ease of iTunes totally seductive? The 30-second sample clip? Love it. The option of buying one song off an album? Brilliant. And no more peeling off that super-adhesive tape they put on CD packages!

Once upon a time, music used to account for a measurable chunk of my monthly spending. Now, I agonize, scrutinize, and often forgo clicking "buy" on a song.

I got to this point the way I imagine many others might have.

Three birthdays ago, my generous, tech-loving boyfriend bought me an iridescent green iPod Mini I named Jazzhands. She was cute, light, and way outclassed the generations of Walkman cassette players that came before her.

Please read both of these articles because they are good.

I may be buying a digital player soon, but I won't use the download services. I'll just buy the CD and then rip it to the device I buy. Besides, I still have lots of vinyl as well.

Campaign Observation: Michael Steele

An observation about Michael Steele's campaign for the Senate:

For the four years that Steele was the Maryland GOP chairman, Steele would tell Black voters to vote values and ideas, not race, and no matter who they vote for, to hold those politicians accountable. Even if the person you vote for did not win, still hold those politicians in office accountable. That is an idea that I go by so when he said it, it struck a cord with me.

Looking at Steele's current most public campaign targeting Black voters, he is focusing on race, his, by saying that Blacks should vote for him because he is Black and because the Democrats have taken the Black vote for granted.

This is just an observation. It is not a slam on Steele.

Thawhts

Some random thoughts:

• Please pray for Baby G. Please pray for Baby G's mental, physical, and spiritual well being and that she may be covered in her life by the Grace of God.
• Please pray for Baby P. Please pray for Baby P's mental, physical, and spiritual well being and that she may be covered in her life by the Grace of God, that her parents marriage will survive the attack that it is under and that BOTH of her parent's faith is real to them so that they, as they said, will put God first.
• When the businesses that exist in a Republic, state they need immigrants from outside of the Republic because the native born people of the Republic don't want to work at the wages they are paying or that the people of the Republic are too lazy, then there is a problem.

When the military that protects the Republic is openly taking illegal immigrants from outside of the Republic to populate its ranks with the promise of fast tracking citizenship, there is a a problem.

When most citizens of a Republic decline to take part in the process of electing the people who lead the Republic, there is a problem.

When all of those happen at the same time to the same Republic, the Republic is living its last days. A Republic requires active participation of its citizens. A Republic cannot rely on people from the outside to maintain its economic engine nor provide for its self-defense.

• Dear Lord, I ask you to shower your love's grace over Baby G. I ask that you provide for her mental, physical, and spiritual well being and that she may be covered by your grace for all of her days on earth.
• Dear Lord, I ask you to shower your love's grace over Baby P. I ask that you provide for her mental, physical, and spiritual well being and that she may be covered by your grace for all of her days on earth. I ask that you protect her parent's marriage as it is under attack by the Enemy. I ask that BOTH of her parent's faith in you is maintained and that they remember to keep you first in their lives.
• Dear Lord, show me the power of your love.

What O'Malley's People Think About Preachers

This came out of the O'Malley camp during his first run for mayor:

In light of this week’s endorsement of Mayor O'Malley for Governor from the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, one key phrase seems to pop out from a packet of emails obtained previously by WBAL under a freedom of information request.

In a 2002 email sent from Max Curran’s Public Service Commission computer To Peter O'Malley's Baltimore City Government computer in respect the possibility of an Martin O'Malley run for governor in 2002, a line reads – Quote - “Who are these SOB politicians and so-called ministers who think they can pressure or push our boy around?".

Max Curran is the Mayor's brother-in-law and Peter O'Malley is the Mayor's brother.

This could also be subtitled, "Mostly Black Religious Group Sells Out."

Political Observations: Maryland

Some thoughts about the current political season in Maryland:

• Michael Steele scored with the puppies commercial, in my small circle of the world.
• In my small circle of the world, Michael Steele laid a big egg with the endorsement by Don King and Mike Tyson. The latter is interesting since Tyson "just gave it" while Don King was a media event to give his endorsement of Steele. Of course, I quoted "just gave it" because it happened on the same day that King endorsed Steele. From what I've heard from my circle, the comments about endorsements matched mine: they don't matter. But Don King's seem to have insulted a few people.
• If those who call into Black talk radio are representative of those who are likely to vote, Ehrlich is going to get a greater percentage of the Black vote than he received in the last election. In the last election, it's guess-timated that he received 8-12% of the Black vote. Right now I think he could easily double it.
• O'Malley has brought in Obama and now Bill Clinton. He has been endorsed by Magic Johnson. But, again, that means nothing to me. When Mrs. D.S. heard the advertisement this morning, she said, "What does Magic know about Maryland!?!?!?!?!?!?!" The last time Clinton came to town to endorse a political candidate, the candidate got killed in the election.
• The results of the Maryland election may really hinge on Black voters. The question is if the "Black vote" will come out. Right now, Cardin and Steele are in a statistical tie while O'Malley leads Ehrlich by 6 points.
• If O'Malley wins, I'll have to consider leaving Maryland. A Democrat governor with an increasingly out of control Democrat lead state assembly may be too much for poor, middle class, and "rich" families in the state to handle.

How?

This is unbelievable:

Apple Computer this week warned customers that some Video iPods sold over the past five weeks were shipped with a computer virus capable of infecting computers running Microsoft Windows and exposing them to attacks by hackers.

Apple said the virus was embedded in less than 1 percent of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006. Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPod product marketing at Apple, said the company traced the virus back to a Windows machine used to test iPod software in the manufacturing process.

Joswiak declined to say how many devices were affected, citing the potential impact on investors closely watching the company's earnings reports today. But he said Apple has corrected the problem and that all video iPods the company is currently shipping are virus-free.

 

Gregory Kane on Don King and Steele

This is a good opinion piece by Gregory Kane on the endorsement of Michael Steele by Don King:

Butch Lewis, who's also a black boxing promoter, alleged that King subjected him to race-baiting after Lewis cut a deal with white promoter Bob Arum for one of Ali's fights.

"King was [bleeped] about losing Ali," Lewis said in Thomas Hauser's Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. "He kept using all that black [bleep] against me, saying, 'Butch Lewis is just an Uncle Tom; he's just a front man for Arum."

In the past, Steele has rightly complained about Democrats using race-baiting tactics against him. Those tactics included Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller hinting that Steele was an Uncle Tom for being a black Republican instead of a black Democrat. Now Steele has happily accepted the endorsement of a guy who has been accused of using the same tactics.

...

On the matter of endorsing one of Maryland's three candidates for the U.S. Senate, I'm leerier. I have no doubt King sincerely supports Steele's promise to turn boarded-up buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue into businesses. But I have to wonder who will vote for Steele with King's endorsement who wouldn't have voted for him without it.

King's endorsement of Steele -- like that of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, who endorsed Steele yesterday -- is one the lieutenant governor really didn't need.

Steele Is Annoying the Hell Out of Me

[ Update: 6:55 PM ]

Steele is complaining about a comment being made that said Steele was slavish to the Republican party. He said the comment is racist:

After speaking to members of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce gathered in Ocean City, Steele called the description "the height of arrogance."

"It goes to just the sheer craziness of some in the Democratic Party who think they can use racist terms and infer things about me just because I'm an African American Republican," he said.

OK.

What about him defending his use of saying Blacks are stuck on the Democrat plantation?

mo' later, with relevant links.

[ Update: 6:55 PM ]

MSNBC reports:

Cardin, a dry and detailed-oriented career legislator, was upstaged at his Upper Marlboro event Sunday by the irrepressible Rep. Steny Hoyer, who did a comedy routine about the event’s host, Cool Wave Water, and told the audience that Steele had had “a career of slavishly supporting the Republican Party.”

This comment has caused a [faux] firestorm of comments coming from Republicans, including Michael Steele, as saying the emphasized comment is racist.

To me, that's the "Niggardly comment Redux." It's clear that isn't a racist comment.

What about Michael Steele saying Blacks are stuck on the Democrat plantation? The plantation reference definitely aludes to slaves, correct? And if I go with the line of thinking, isn't Steele saying most Blacks are slaves?

Here is a previous comment I made about Steele and the "plantation" comments:

Observation: Michael Steele has used the "stuck on the Democrat plantation" rhetoric that some, including me, find offensive. In fact, one time Steele was on a radio talk show, I called him and argued with him that the comment is insulting and equivalent to the name calling he was complaining about. He disagreed with my comment.

BTW, Hoyer has apologized in the sleezy political way of "apologizing":

"I should not have used that word. If Mr. Steele did in fact take offense, let me assure him that none was intended," Hoyer said in a statement.

Frankly, just like I thought about the "Niggardly" comment, I think there is nothing to apologize for.

Do I need to pull out all of the uses of "plantation" by Republicans?

Steele is werkin' my LAST nerve and is close to losing my vote over petty stuff like this. I ain't stupid and what HE is doing, not the Republicans, but him, is bordering on insulting.

NFL: Week 6

The Ravens go into a bye week with back to back Ls.

The first loss exposed the O line. The second loss exposed the corners. Yep. Any coach who goes against the Ravens now has a good road map to get it done.

• Attack the corners from the first snap and don't let up.
• Make a big push against the O line. It seems to me the middle is very suspect.

But, at least the Washington team lost as well.

The Steelers whupped up on dem Chiefs real bad. Those Eagles are breaking hearts.

[ Update 10/17/06 6:20 AM ]

How in the HELL did Arizona allow the Chicago Bears to come back that far and beat them?

I'm in bed, watching the last 2 minutes and the Cards march down the field to within field goal range. Then I heard The Mouth, the reason why I RARELY watched Sunday Night Football on ESPN, Joe Thiesman say, "He's never missed a goal from within this range."

My heart sank because as soon as I heard The Mouth say it, it would be a miss and sho' 'nuff...

The Arizona Cards don't belong in the NFL.

More Than Just Screaming "Hey YOU! STOP IT!"

This is about more than just a "Cosby tour" or a "Juan Williams Cosby co-sign." This is about the people in the neighborhood, encouraging people who need to make changes, to make the changes:

"For a male to shoot a female in broad daylight gave me the constant thought: What is really going on in today's youth's mind?" Vaughn recalled. "What are they feeling that there is so much anguish that you would shoot a little girl? You didn't talk to her, you didn't beat her up, you chose your method of vengeance with firearms."

About a month ago, Ronald Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics, a District group that tries to stop gang violence, came to Vaughn with a proposal: Open your club for "peace-gos." Only teenagers who went through Peaceoholic training and signed a nonviolence agreement would be admitted. Other community groups would chip in on security, giveaways such as T-shirts and discounts for card-holders at local stores.

Vaughn agreed and joined a coalition with District and Prince George's County authorities, community groups, urban retailers such as Alldaz and the Critical Condition Band, a popular go-go group that recently recorded a stop-the-violence song.

"Membership has its privileges," Vaughn said. "We're hoping these kids will be able to stick their chest out and be proud."

When I mentioned Juan Williams in this blog entry, this is what I was saying I don't hear Cosby and Williams saying. I'm not hearing them showcase people like this to show how things can be done to turn things around.

For those who still don't get it, you're hopeless.

Check out all of the blogs that are gushing over Juan Williams. See if they mention this article or if they mention groups/people like this, who are doing things.

Bill O'Reily Is A Punk Ass

Bill O'Reily is a punk ass.

Oprah won't interview him for his books so now he is attacking Oprah W. for leaning to the left.