“In a rapid turnaround, our civil rights leaders have gone from attacking nepotism and embracing merit, which was the Martin Luther King approach, to embracing nepotism and attacking merit, which is the Jesse Jackson approach.” –Dinesh D’Souza

Acutally, here is Rumsfeld’s complete speech:

I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples’ heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word ‘terrorized’ is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

The words “shot down” can be interpreted in different ways from this speech. I don’t think Rumsfeld literally meant being shot down from the sky.

Donald Rumsfeld made a controversial remark to the US troops in Baghdad on Christmas Eve. He spoke on the terrorist attach of September 11, 2001. He said in his speech, “the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania.” Oops!!! Many people are skeptical about the US government shooting down the airliner over Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Now, people are questioning what Rumsfeld said. “Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy”, asked a posting on worldnetdaily.com. I hope it was a mistake. With the comment Rumsfeld said, I am now starting to wonder.

Scientist says that the earthquake that was released on Sunday wobbled the Earth on its axis. Also, this earthquake shifted a couple of islands.

LOS ANGELES, (AFP) - An earthquake that unleashed deadly tidal waves on Asia was so powerful it made the Earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map, US geophysicists said.

The 9.0-magnitude temblor that struck 250 kilometers (155 miles) southeast of Sumatra island Sunday may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters (66 feet), according to one expert.

The northwestern tip of the Indonesian territory of Sumatra may also have shifted to the southwest by around 36 meters (120 feet), Hudnut said.

In addition, the energy released as the two sides of the undersea fault slipped against each other made the Earth wobble on its axis, Hudnut said.

This earthquake have been one of the most powerful earthquakes in the last 200 years, killing over 25,000 people, where one-third were children. Also, scientist says this earthquake was equivalent to 1 million atomic bombs.

Before, I took some excerpts on a book called “Letters to a Young Conservative”, by Dinesh D’Souza on the topic Conservative vs. Liberals. This half, I will take some excerpts on this topic about conservatives and liberals belief more in politics and economics. There will also be some excerpts on moral beliefs like the previous Conservative vs. Liberals post.

Conservatives emphasize economic growth, while liberals emphasize economic redistribution.

Conservatives like to proclaim their love for their country, while liberals like to proclaim their love of humanity.

Conservatives insist that force is required to maintain world order, while liberals prefer the pursuit of peace through negotiation and dialog.

Conservatives are eager to preserve moral standards; liberals cherish personal autonomy.

Liberals tend to believe in Rousseau’s proposition that human nature is intrinsically good. Therefore they believe that people who fail or do bad things are not acting out of laziness or wickedness; rather, society put them in this unfortunate position.

Conservatives recognize that there are two principles in human nature—good and evil—and these are in constant conflict.

…conservatives seek a social structure that helps to bring out the best in human nature and suppress man’s lower or base impulse.

These points seem to be very true about conservatives and liberals. Many liberals do emphasize on economic redistribution (more like socialism if you ask me). You see that when many liberals propose to raise taxes, while conservatives try to reduce taxes for economic growth.

You can also clearly see that there are more conservatives that are patriotic than liberals. For example, the Iraqi War. I see more conservatives for the Iraqi War than liberals. Many of the liberals that I see are either against the war or they are out on the streets protesting it.

Some examples of conservatives wanting to preserve moral standards are keeping the definition of a marriage being between a man and a woman, keeping God in the “Pledge of Allegiance”, and keeping “In God We Trust” in court buildings.

This point I have to strongly emphasize on, regardless if you agree with it or not. This point is that many liberals do feel that people who fail or do bad things are not acting out of laziness or wickedness; rather, society put them in this unfortunate position. I have argued this point many of times (matter of fact, this topic came up on Christmas day). Many liberals feel that all because you where born in a poverty community, that you cannot do better than someone that was born in a wealthy community. This is not true. Yes, it maybe more difficult, but it is not impossible. You cannot blame society for the lack of your own success.

A very strong earthquake triggered a massive tidal wave across the coast of Asia, killing more than three thousand people. The 8.9-magnitude earthquake centered off the west coast of the Indonesian Island of Sumatra.

Hello all, my niece wants to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Hello, my name is Kylar and I am Tavares’ niece and I’m 12 years old. I want to wish you all a very Merry x-mas. I hope you all eat your stomachs out and explode and enjoy all of your x-mas gifts.

Thanks you,
Kylar Handy

I bought this book a while back called “letters to a young conservative” by Dinesh D’Souza. Being busy with work and school, I never got a chance to pick it up and read it. Now that things are much slower during the holidays, I will try to get through this book. I will also try to put some excerpts and thought of this book when possible. The first chapter talks about “Conservative vs. Liberals.” Here are some excerpts that I thought was interesting:

The term liberal, in its Greek meaning, refers to the free man, as opposed to the slave.

The American founders, for example, were committed to three types of freedom: economic freedom, political freedom, and freedom of speech and religion.

This classical liberalism underwent two dramatic changes in the last century: the revolution of the 1930s, and the revolution of the 1960s.

As Franklin Roosevelt himself argued, people who lack life’s necessities are not free. Roosevelt believed that to give citizens true liberty, the government should insure them against deprivation, against the loss of a job, against calamitous illness, and against an impoverished old age.

The second liberal revolution occurred in the 1960s. Its watchword was “liberation”, and its great prophet was Jean-Jacques Rousseau… Earlier generations, right up to the “greatest generation” of World War II, took for granted this moral order and its commandments: Work hard and try to better yourself, be faithful to your spouse, go when your country calls, and so on.

Rousseau argues that we make major decisions—whom to love, what to become what to believe—not by obeying our parents, teachers, preachers, or even God. Rather, we make such decisions by digging deep within ourselves and listening to the voice of nature. This is the idea of being “true to yourself.” It is the new liberal morality.

These chains of events clearly show how liberals evolved to what they are today. You can clearly see how many liberals today have the same view as Roosevelt argued himself in which I strongly disagree. Protecting people from deprivation, protecting people from a loss of job, etc… is not liberty, but a form of socialism. Today, you can also see Rousseau views upon many liberals. For example, gay marriages are a type of Rousseau view. Listening to yourself and being true to yourself does not mean that your decision is correct, but as D’Souza puts it, many liberals think so.

Hello everyone,

After my mammoth trip, I traveled to Las Vegas. I almost have been out here for about a week now. The place where I am staying only has dial-up, therefore I have not been doing any blogging. Supposedly, the library across the street had high-speed wireless Internet access, but they didn’t. Plus, being in Las Vegas, there is so much too do that I haven’t had time to log on.

I am checking up on you guys and saying hello. I will probably start up again once I head to Palmdale after my Las Vegas trip, which will probably be tomorrow or Friday. Hopefully, every one is doing well and enjoying the Christmas season.

Yours truly,
-BlackPundit

I just got back from Mammoth Mountain with three great days of snowboarding. This is a great way to start off a two and a half week vacation. My friend Brian took a couple of good video shots of me trying to jump this little jump. I wiped out big-time. I wanted to upload it to the site, but since the file size is so big, it would take forever to upload with dial up. Whenever I get to some high-speed internet, I will try to upload the video clip.

A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of Bin-Laden.

Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 20 miles north of San Jose.

Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was hospitalized in stable condition.

“For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun,” Sandoval told Channel 7 television.

Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defense.

This guy is nuts going around acting like Bin-Laden, scaring taxi drivers. Terrorisism is not an area for joking..

Blogging will be limited the next couple of weeks with Christmas holidays and vacation. Also, I will be heading to Mammoth Mountain tomorrow thru Friday. After that, I will be in LA for about two weeks, so I might only have dial-up access at my dad’s house. I might just have to break down and get DSL for pops even though he does not have a computer. I was thinking about giving him my old one, but he can’t even handle a modern day cell phone. So, a computer might be a lil too much for him right now. Since I didn’t do my yearly trip to Florida last summer, I didn’t take any vacation. Therefore, these next two and a half weeks are well deserved and needed. I really cannot compare how things were about 20 years ago, but these days and ages, it is extremely difficult to keep your head above water. Working a complicated and technical profession, keeping up on worldly issues, planning and doing for your future, plus taking classes here and there can really take a toll on a person. So when I get the opportunity to take trips to places like Mammoth, etc… I try to really enjoy myself, especially when I get that sensation of feeling like I’m doing 100MPH down the slopes and feeling all that adrenalin. Can’t wait!!! If I come back in one piece, that means I didn’t enjoy myself.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych accused the United States on Monday of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

Yanukovych, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the “interference” can be described as Western pressure intended to exert the will of the Americans on this country of 48 million.

Yanukovych is running against Viktor Yushchenko in a Dec. 26 rerun mandated after the Supreme Court ruled that a Nov. 21 runoff election was marred by fraud. Yanukovych was the declared the winner of the Nov. 21 vote, which was nullified by Ukraine’s Supreme Court after massive fraud was alleged by Yushchenko’s camp and Western countries.

“The United States’ meddling into Ukraine’s internal affairs is obvious,” he said. “It is appearing as the financing of Yushchenko’s campaign.”

The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine. U.S. officials say the activities don’t amount to interference in Ukraine’s election but are part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide.

“Here’s the deal on politics and race in America: Republicans don’t need black voters, but they want them. Democrats don’t want black voters, but they need them. Blacks have been the Democrats’ most loyal voters, typically giving the party upward of 90 percent of their vote. But Democrats ignore blacks. ” — Ann Coulter quoting Jesse Jackson

A victory for America. A great weapon of liberal propaganda has been destroyed!

Read the opinions of prominent Chinese Generals pre 9/11. Think they feel that way now?

If you cannot make out the overtones of my praises and only think they are proud of the American military for having fully realized their war objectives by defeating Iraq with the aid of high technology weapons, then you may think that this however is the typical nonsense spoken by two who have different opinions regarding the ability of technology to bring success, and you also are not yet fully aware of the meaning of American style warfare. What you must know is that this is a nationality that has never been willing to pay the price of life and, moreover, has always vied for victory at all costs. The appearance of high technology weaponry can now satisfy these extravagant hopes of the American people. During the Gulf War, of 500,000 troops, there were only 148 fatalities and 458 wounded. Goals that they long since only dreamt were almost realized — “no casualties.” Ever since the Vietnam War, both the military and American society have been sensitized to human casualties during military operations, almost to the point of morbidity. Reducing casualties and achieving war objectives have become the two equal weights on the American military scale. These common American soldiers who should be on the battlefield have now become the most costly security in war, like precious china bowls that people are afraid to break. All of the opponents who have engaged in battle with the American military have probably mastered the secret of success - if you have no way of defeating this force, you should kill its rank and file soldiers. [14] This point, taken from the U.S. Congressional report’s emphasis on “reducing casualties is the highest objective in formulating the plan,” can be unequivocally confirmed. “Pursuit of zero casualties,” this completely compassionate simple slogan, has actually become the principal motivating factor in creating American style extravagant warfare. Therefore, unchecked use of stealth aircraft, precision ammunition, new tanks, and helicopters, along with long distance attack and blanket bombing - for all of these, weapons are okay as are tricks, so that there are no dual objectives that at the same time carry contradictions - there must be victory without casualties.

As we all know, the US is facing a very large growth of Hispanic immigration. With this large immigration scale comes a language linguistic barrier. The native language of the US is English, in which many Hispanics immigrants are failing to become proficient in. I came across a good article that demonstrates the different rates in which immigrants in the United States learn the English language. This article also goes into naturalization rates between different immigrants. The high light of this article goes as follows:

• There exists an English Acquisition Gap between Hispanic immigrants and immigrants of other ancestries. Seventy-one percent of the foreign born speak English proficiently, with different ancestries acquiring English at widely different levels. The ancestries above the median are diverse in continent of origin and native language. The ancestries at the bottom of the scale are disproportionately of Mexican or Central American origin.
• The English Acquisition Gap cannot be explained by the relative recency of immigration. When comparing different immigrant groups, it is crucial to control for any premature conclusions arising from different times of entry into the United States. When recency is taken into account, the English Acquisition Gap between the Hispanic and the non-Hispanic foreign-born is still evident; in fact, the gap exceeds 20 percentage points.
• The English Acquisition Gap is evident between the most prominent immigrant groups, and cannot be explained by “issues” with the Spanish language. Recent arrivals from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe are significantly more likely to learn English than natives of Mexico and Central America. Sub-Saharan Africans and Russians speak English at well above the 71 percent national average, while Mexicans and Guatemalans speak English at the lowest levels of proficiency. Nonetheless, many groups that hail from Spanish-speaking countries speak English at well above the national average, including Venezuelans and Argentineans.
• There exists a Citizenship Acquisition Gap between Hispanic immigrants and immigrants of other ancestries. As with language, different ancestry groups display vastly different rates of naturalization in the United States. For immigrants that arrived in the United States between 1980 and March 2000, the naturalization rate was 26 percent. However, on one end of the scale, Vietnamese immigrants are naturalized at twice this rate. On the other hand, Mexican immigrants are naturalized at only half the national average. These varying rates are evident on both a national and state level.
• The English Acquisition Gap may be explained in part by the phenomenon of Demographic Dominance. The U.S. immigrant population, once made up of a diverse mix of nationalities, has become dominated by a single nation. Though the Mexican-born percentage of the immigrant population in 2000 is roughly identical to the German-born percentage of the population in 1890, the lack of representation by other leading immigrant nations may have led to the development of a de facto “second national language.” In 1890, the combined total of the second, third and fourth most common immigrant homelands represented more than 44 percent of the foreign born. In 2000, the nations in the same standing accounted for just over 10 percent.

Here is a figure that shows the proficiency of different immigrants compared to the average.

Have you ever been to a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant and when you order your food, you can barley understand what the person is saying who is taking your order? I’m pretty sure many of us experience this frequently. This becomes very annoying. I think if you are not proficient in English, than you should not hold a position were you have to deal with the public. I had some work done on my house recently and I approach one of the workers, which was a middle age Hispanic guy. When I asked him a question about some of the work he was doing to my home, he had the lightest clue in what I was saying. He was the only one working on my house at that time. Since I had to be at work soon, I didn’t have time to wait for an English speaking person to come. This disturbed me greatly. This then lead me thinking, “what is the accreditations of this construction/building company that is working on my house when they hire someone that cannot speak English. Does this person have credentials on building or construction work?” I seriously doubt it!

I think that many non-English speaking Hispanics feel that they don’t need to learn English because of the large population of Hispanics here in the US. Many fluent Spanish speaking Hispanics work throughout the community, which enables non-English speaking Hispanics to go through life without learning English. I often notice many Hispanics speaking amongst themselves in their native language when I go to places like grocery stores and other public places.

Here is another figure that shows the foreign born population in the US.

A couple months back, I was driving down the 105fwy heading west off of the 710fwy. Right there in Lynwood, CA smack on the side of the freeway to the right was this BIG GIGANTIC sign that said “Mexico Plaza”. What!!! I’m sorry, but I think this is going way too far. These are very good reasons why illegal immigration needs to be addressed.

Ukraine parliament has passed a reform bill, paving the way for a December 26 re-run between pro-western leader Viktor Yushchenko and pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. Mr. Yanukovych was declared the winner of the Novermber 21 polls in which Vladamir Puttin supported. Mr. Yushchenko claimed the polls were a fraud. Ukraine’s Supreme Court annulled the election and ordered the re-run. The package for this bill, which the outgoing president Leonid Kuchma immediately signed, includes the following:

• Reforming the Central Election Commission, dismissing the chairman and some other membersd
• Changes designed to reduce possibility of ballot fraud, such as limiting the use of absentee ballots and home voting
• Reduced powers for the president who may now only appoint the prime minister, defence and foreign minister, subject to legislators’ approval
• New functions for the regions, designed to ease tensions between the pro-Yushchenko west and pro-Yanukovych east.

Correspondents say votes are likely to increase Mr Yushchenko’s chances of winning.

This action will be better for the US and Russia relation.

Its good to see our president supporting our troops. President Bush visited Camp Pendleton for a day to meet up with Marines and families. Camp Pendleton suffered the highest causality toll of any US military base, 200 out of 1270 deaths since the last year invasion.

One of the holdups on the intelligence reform was illegal immigration issued driver licenses.

Also demanding attention has been Rep. James Sensenbrenner (search), R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who wants to tighten rules on illegal immigrants, in particular by prohibiting states from giving out drivers’ licenses to illegals. Some lawmakers say Sensenbrenner’s issue does not belong in this bill.

“Chairman Sensenbrenner is very concerned about immigration, but the 9/11 commission report said the failure was primarily intelligence communications. Let’s correct it,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., told FOX News.

Hunter said he agreed with Sensenbrenner that individuals issued drivers’ licenses in the United States should have documents to support their legal residency here. But, he said that is not his battle. He said the legislation is not a done deal, and the language needs to be changed first. He said he would not urge House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to get the bill to the floor because it’s not his place to say whether everyone’s issues are sorted out, though his are.

This is a no brainier. If you are an illegal immigrate, then why would you have the privilege to have a drivers license. I have not yet heard one argument on why an illegal immigrant should have a valid driver license. Besides, some of the terrorist of 9/11 had driver licenses. So don’t you think we need to tighten this issue up in order to help our homeland security?