Schools Switch their Focus to Saving Jobs

Or so says the headline from the Wednesday Jackson Sun. Silly me. I thought they were supposed to TEACH CHILDREN. My Bad. (OK, now you can whack me for bad grammer.)

I suppose it can be hard to teach all those children on only $94,000,000 per year. AT $6700 per student, I suppose that ain't bad. But mind you, that's still more than the tuition at the best private school in town. (That has an equally full scale athletics program) Having spent most of my career in manufacturing managment, I am well aware of the economies of scale. So I suppose the natural question is: Why does it cost more to provide an "public" education that is without a doubt sub-standard to the local competition?

Its a shame that people are more than happy to have you and me pay the bill for their obligations.... How much would they really be willing to pay for the junk that passes for "public" education were it coming out of their own pocket.


(Note: I drafted this on the date shown below, but it never made it through editing until tonight (Friday the 5th).)

When government breaks it’s own laws.

This in from MSNBC: The TSA violated privacy act laws, by gathering personal data on about 250,000 in a pilot project. For all you math whiz’s out there, that’s .1% of the entire population of the US.

TSA had promised it would only use the limited information about passengers that it had obtained from airlines. Instead, the agency and its contractors compiled files on people using data from commercial brokers and then compared those files with the lists.

So this wonderful agency who is only there for your own good, now gets data from commercial sources and “compares” it with data in their own watch lists. No. Really, what are they “really” doing? And why do they still have the data?

Oberman also said that the test has no impact on anyone who travels and that the data will be destroyed when the test is over.

After more than a decade of Clintonian parsing of sentences, I can’t help but interpret Oberman’s comment to mean that it probably will have an impact on people who don’t travel. And even though they’ve broken the law, they are not going to stop, they are just going to keep doing what they are doing until they are done. Try that one the next time the Feds show up at your door! I can hear it now “Well, I know I broke the law, but this is really important and I’m not going to stop until I’m done.” Faster than you can say “Bookem Danno,” you or I would be in jail trying to find one of the few lawyers that isn’t incompetent.

But not the wonderful beneficent TSA, who is only there to help you. They get a free pass with a mild rebuke:

The letter drew a sharp rebuke from Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and the ranking Democrat, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff dated Friday.

“Careless missteps such as this jeopardize the public trust and DHS’ ability to deploy a much-needed, new system,” the letter said, citing the project’s “unfortunate history.”

So even your fine elected representatives won’t help you. Despite the “sharp rebuke” comment from the article, the rebuke quoted is non-existent. And who made those rebukes? Why the incredibly liberal Susan Collins of Maine and the phenomenally moderate Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. When two staunch privacy rights advocates really don’t care about your privacy anymore, what does that say about their principled advocacy?

The façade is wearing thin. But at the rate the populous is being groomed, it really won’t matter any more. Even though the government of this country actively works against your freedoms, and doesn’t even obey it’s own laws anymore, more and more people will think it’s okay because they are only doing it for our safety.

This in from Patrick Henry:

Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased with the bonds of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God! I know not what path others may take, but give me liberty or give me death.

Obviously one of the radical fringe fanatics….

How often do I blog?

I try to publish about twice a week. Usually two to three entries on the weekend, and one or two on Wednesday.

Hooray for sprawl!

The new newest reason for totalitarian control of your life is that we just can’t protect you from those horrid bombers in the mass transit system. (Witness the London bombings.) So now we are intermittently checking bags of the people that enter into the system. People who refuse are denied the privilege of using these (heavily) government subsidized systems. But then, presumably, all the bomber has to do is wait for a few minutes or hours then try again. Or perhaps try at another station. I suspect this will have no impact on the security of these systems. It will however, train a few hundred thousand (million?) people that giving up their privacy is required to provide for their safety.

But what is the alternative?

As I alluded to the other day: Once the government told everyone that their safety lies in the cities; that cities are good for the environment; and that urban sprawl is bad. Now, having corralled too many people in a too small a space, they must deal with the inevitable results.

Is community gone? In cities the required mass and communal transit systems are an invitation to those looking for bigger and bigger headlines. In little towns in TN, and even in little cafes in the UP of Michigan it’s not unusual to be asked “where you from?” or my personal favorite “You ain’t from round here are yeh?”

Sure everybody knows everybody. That’s sort of the point. Even in the little city I live in now; I know everyone in my neighborhood by sight, and they know me. Of course if I go to the mall, there will be a bunch of people I don’t know. But even this “big” mall in this little city isn’t much of a target. The headlines might stay up a few days, but compared to the twin towers or the Chicago/NYC rail system, or even DC’s metro: it’s nothing. Not even worth mentioning. And if it was, then it’s just like every other small town mall in the US.

Even absent terrorists, the small cities and towns don’t have near the problems the metropolis’s have. Just about everybody knows your kids, and you know everybody else’s. If one or more gets out of line, it’s pretty expected that somebody will either have a talk with them, or talk to you about them. And those bullies? They got a way of working themselves out.

I’m not saying that small towns and cities are perfect. Fact it that they are human creations just like you or I. As such they are full of fallen sinners desperately in need of salvation and the daily grace of our LORD. But there’s less of them, and a greater opportunity hold each other accountable.

Cities? Just another opportunity for government to destroy community, family, and privacy, while at the same time telling you that it’s for your own good.

Mr. Roberts saves Liberty

So Bush picks Mr. Roberts. I always liked that movie. Sure it was a war comedy and we're not supposed to joke about things like that. But I'm pleased to hear that it's Bush's favorite as well.

Who could forget the stong, silent Lt (j.g.) Roberts and the evil Captain Morton. Morton really didn't know who he was dealing with. An unknown when appointed to the WWII naval Destroyer class warship, he quickly drew the ire of the evil Captain Morton when he opposed the Captain's liberty thieving schemes. The evil Captain Morton denies the crew liberty, even though it had been granted to the ship by god. (Well, COMNAVPACFOR anyway.) But the intrepid Mr. Roberts devises a scheme to bring liberty to the masses. The plot is then set when the evil Captain Morton soon holds Mr. Roberts hostage though the desire for the very liberty that he seeks to bring to the crew.

So Mr. Roberts makes the deal with the devil (the evil Captain Morton), to bring liberty to the downtrodden at the cost of his own freedom. But the crew's liberty is just an illusion, lasting but a few days. The servitude that follows for Mr. Roberts is felt by the crew, who find themselves, now more than ever, under the bondage of the evil Captain Morton.

When the full nature of the evil plan is revealed, the masses revolt. Sort of. The masses create a illegal documents scheme to help Mr. Roberts out of his voluntary servitude. There is victory when Mr. Roberts is released from his deal via the subterfuge of the crew. Alas, his freedom is short lived when he dies shortly afterward. But he died a free man.

His last message to the crew, and news of his subsequent death, arrive concurrently. Upon hearing them, the letters inspire the cowardly Ensign Pulver to rise above his cowardace, and courageously carries on Mr. Roberts' attack against the evil Captain Morton.

Lessons I learned:
Captain Morton was EVIL.
Lt. Roberts was GOOD.
Stealing people's liberty is BAD.
Liberty has it's price; if you didn't pay for yours, then someone else did.
Freedom has it's risks.
One man's freedom can inspire others.
If you are counting on a man to secure your freedom look in the mirror; the strong silent guy that nobody knew about, gave the crew nothing they didn't have before he came aboard. And in the end, it was they that saved him, not the other way around.

Eternal perspective

In both my Tuesday morning and Sunday morning bible studies, we have been looking at life and history, attempting to gain a more eternal perspective.

From the creation of Israel, through their growth into a nation while in Egypt, to their conquest of geographic Israel: through Judges, Kings, and captivity; God's sovereign hand was in control. Yet HE often gave them exactly what they wanted, and let them partake of the fruit of their labor. We ought watch what we pray for.

Now bear in mind that most of my friends are pretty conservative, and that most have Dubya stickers on their car windows. But there are several liberals that carried water for Kerry and for Gore before him. Of those in both groups who profess Christ; the vast majority prayed for victory for one or the other. (go figure) No problem. I was however, amazed at the (very) few Christians who thought that if their candidate didn't win that "It was over." Then I saw the newspaper where a Southern Baptist Convention speaker proclaimed victory for keeping W in office. Don't get me wrong. I like Dubya. I think he's probably the nicest nationally viable presidential candidates that has been near the office since Reagan. But as president? Well, let's just say he was a far better candidate.

I am reminded of my menonite friends who ignore most politics, but pray for those in authority, and the nation in which they reside. Like them, I stoped placing my faith in any politician. There is not a politician who can save this country. This country is so far from recovery that there is no logical reason for hope. In fact: it would take a miracle for this nation to recover it's historical direction, legacy, and faith.

So I pray for miracles. For my God is in the miracle business.

But I am under no delusions. My perspective is horribly near sighted. If I must endure pain and suffering in this lift to enjoy greater joy in the next; so be it. (just for the record: I'd rather have peace, freedom and joy in this life AND the next) God's perspective is eternal.

The entirety of human history has been a demonstration of the futility of man attempting to create a society and find meaning apart from God. It is high irony how so many in the "church" forget that, and work so hard to find a man-centered solution to this spiritual problem. Obviously I love politics and governmental theory, so my point isn't to ignore them altogether. But to hold politics with as much of an eternal perspective as we can. To not confuse this kingdom with the next, and to place our trust more in the God who created everything, than the man who holds any particular office.

More unintended consequences

Now they try to use RICO to prosecute business owners.

The county's attempt to recoup its expenses would be filed under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly called the RICO Act, which has been used against targets ranging from organized crime to Internet spammers.

It would be the first time that a government has sued a business under RICO, enacted in 1970, legal experts say.

The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act (RICO), originally created to fight gangsters, now used against businesses who fail to do the government's job for them. This would funny were it not so serious. The RICO once used to put away gangsters, then used to jail abortion protesters, and fine/jail people for what used to be called freedom of expression, now used as an assault against the economic engine of this country. Why?

"Right now people say there's no money in enforcing the law, but now there might be for attorneys and trial lawyers. It could create a vested interest in enforcement," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C, which supports immigration restrictions.

The RICO Act does offer a tempting prize, since winners can be awarded triple damages.

I have no doubt that the patriot act will MOSTLY be used to fight terrorism. But just like the RICO before it, it will not be long before the meanings will change and a series of lawyers and judges will use it as an instrument against non-terrorists, business owners, Christians, and the faith to which we hold. It is best that we do what we can to kill it now.

ACLU: Enemy of the state?

So I'm reading yet another "conservative" blog and see this add for a T shirt with "ACLU enemy of the state" across the chest. I click on the add and get taken here. I suppose it sounds cute, but let's not be mislead. The ACLU is not the enemy of the state. They are the state's biggest friends. They advocate policies that lead to a greater and greater impact of the state on your life. With rare exception, they advocate against the liberty of those who would use their liberty for good, and for those who would use their liberty for evil.

As such, they serve as the ultimate straw man. They posit an argument to Christians that your choices are either Libery with terror and crime, or Safety with the government watching over you. This is a false choice, but one they make over and over by their actions. One they make extremely well.

ACLU: enemy of the state? I only wish it were true...

The rising cost of ID

Five people have been charged and hundreds more may be charged with stealing and forging social security numbers belonging to CHILDREN. ...
Investigators checked Utah state record and found that approximately 18-hundred social security numbers, belonging to children under the age of 13, may have been compromised.

So says KSL out of SLC...

Now could have thought that the rising requirements for ID would have driven people to steal the SSNs of 1800 children? Anybody?

If you premise that accurate identification is the key to terrorism and crime, then you will end up where the Germans were circa 1939, the Soviets were in the height of the cold war, and the Japanese are today. Each experienced a higher and higher demand for control while the counterfeiters got better at creating and stealing what they needed.

To think that people would not adapt their behavior to either make money or improve their lifestyle seems more than a bit naive. So I have to believe that the people increasing the market for these thefts, via raising the market value of the IDs, do so with the full knowledge of what they do. So is their goal the total control of everyone? The end of privacy?

While I confess to not knowing the hearts of those pushing this agenda, I can judge the fruit of their labor. Their labor is creating a more and more restrictive society, where privacy is rapidly becoming an abstract notion having no basis in reality.

Examining the trends in government/society today; the odds are that Christianity will be outlawed. Biblical prophesy says that Christianity will be outlawed. While that may have the sense of inevitability, there is no eternal profit for any believing Christian to help advance that evil agenda.

But we're all safer now...

Coincident with the ever increasing drive for a national ID, we have more and more evidence that the drive has nothing to do with the whole “anti-terrorism” thing, and everything to do with controlling the law abiding portion of the populous. This little bit courtesy of the Washington Times:

A Virginia man who worked as a manager at a Department of Motor Vehicles office at Springfield Mall and his wife, a former DMV clerk, were arrested yesterday by federal agents on charges of selling valid driver's licenses for as much as $3,500 each -- mostly to illegal aliens. …..
Also arrested was Daniel Jose Guardia Lopez, 25, of Alexandria, a Bolivian national whom law-enforcement authorities identified as being in the United States illegally. "The integrity of state driver's licenses is critical to our commerce, as well as our national security," Mr. McNulty said. "By arresting Frank and Miriam Martinez, we have eliminated a source of fraudulent driver's licenses for criminals who want to conceal their true identity and others who are not qualified to legitimately obtain a Virginia driver's license."

Cool. Now they have eliminated “a” source of fraudulent driver’s licenses. How many more others are there? And the nice man and his wife who ran this illegal business were partners with a Bolivian national. I thought we were supposed to say “illegal immigrant.”

I believe that I’m being generous when I say that driver’s licenses are marginally effecitve at doing “something” with the drivers on roads. As a national ID, their value become so great that it’s no wonder that criminals will break the law to make money on them. This would be comical were it not so insidious. Government makes everyone get a card to drive. Then tells them they need this card to be identified. Then tells them they can’t travel from state to state without this card (witness the air travel rules…). Then gape in wide wonder when the price goes up on the illegal facsimily. $3500 a pop? Just how many of those would you have to sell (without paying taxes on) to replace the income from your job?

Just another typical day of your government making your life harder safer.

Harold Speaks Out!

As I live in TN, I am oft reminded of the brilliance of Rep. Harold Ford by the locale press, and the continual undercurrent of the West Tennessee Republicans hoping they can convince him to switch parties. As if there weren’t enough liberal Democrats in the Republican party now. Now comes this latest snipped, courtesy of Bob Novak.

Rep. Harold Ford, one of the brightest young Democratic lights in the House and a Senate candidate in Tennessee next year, stunned colleagues by endorsing the Supreme Court's unpopular Kelo decision. That ruling permitted a Connecticut city to seize homeowners' property and transfer it to private developers.

''We have a lot of properties in my city [Memphis] . . . that are crying out for development,'' Ford said on a Nashville radio talk show. The congressman asserted, ''I've always been one to believe that individual rights is a big thing,'' but added, ''there is some real value to this decision.''

Harold’s admission is surprising, though his attitude is not. The self-superiority of those who believe that things would just be better if you did it their way is indicative of a decidedly non-Christian worldview.

How many times have we seen in scripture where the ability to own and sell property is a right granted by God, yet once again, we have government deciding what the “best” use of the property is and taking it for their purpose. Even if it means the end of your dream home.

Even so, it is ironic that all those great social planners who campaigned so hard for cities to now complain about the blight that comes from their very existence. Once you start down the path of designing the perfect society, you can’t help tweaking with it. While it’s not that hard to encourage people to build a home, it’s not all that easy to convince them to leave it once they are there. Whether it’s the homeowners in Kelo, the farmers in the Klamath Valley, or even those poor souls in Memphis that Ford is supposed to be representing. To the statists on both sides of the isle, property owners are nothing but game pieces in big game. Pieces to be moved here or there, to the maximization of their own profits, power, or whatever “greater good” they believe in.

The problem is that property owners aren’t game pieces. They are people. Living, breathing creations of God. As such, they are endowed by their creator, (not by government) with certain rights. The root of belief and that national heritage lies within the Judeo-Christian faith, we ought not forget that...

National Paranoia

I'm watching the financial shows this morning. We've got the typical paranoia crowd and couple of guys who are advising us to Live. I'm thinking Hey! At last a guy with a head for liberty. Two of them actually. They advise us to stop trying to regulate everything out of commission. Good Advise.

Then I read about the train that employees just walked away from in San Diego. Then reading on, this wasn't some fluke, it appears to be policy!

Officials told NBC 7/39 that they were concerned a terrorist could have stolen the train. Investigators discovered a note inside the train that stated that the train's crew had worked their maximum hours allowed so they left the train and got a taxi to take them home. Officers interviewed two train employees about the incident.

So instead of maintaining custody of the control centers of the train and providing security for those in key areas, they try to control the passengers on the passenger trains only?

It is time that we realized that the government's response to terrorism is not about security, but about control.

The right to murder

Once again we have another court opining that even the most barberous partial birth abortion is a right. We're not talking about self-defence in the event of a birth that could cause the death of the Mother, but the health, which the supremes and everyone else has accepted to mean anything at all, as the act that was struck down says..

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 says: "A partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman, poses serious risks to a woman's health, and lies outside the standard of medical care. There is no credible medical evidence that partial-birth abortions are safe or are safer than other abortion procedures."

As a Christian I have an obligation to respect LIFE that is a gift from God. Even the life still in the womb. So unless that yet unborn baby threatens the life of the mother, then it's taking amounts to an unjustified killing.

Social Gospel

For all those really interested in establishing a “Godly” government, I urge you to consider the fate of Israel, and contrast that with the early church.

The nation Israel was given land and several governments, each with the expressed purpose of creating a more Godly nation. By law, edict, custom, and culture the state religion was Judaism. By any measure it failed to deliver. In the re-constituted Israel today, that failure continues.

The Church was created in the midst of an oppressive government. Routinely on the short stick of things in a nation that flaunted it’s paganism; constantly in violation of laws that institutionalized the pagan culture. It succeeded.

What was the difference between the two? Israel was promised and given an earthly kingdom. The church was promised and given a spiritual one. The problem is that as oft happens, we Christians get our kingdoms confused. We try to institutionalize Christianity, as did Israel with Judaism. The end is the same; a faith in name only, where the words remain but the people believe not; and the symbol remains (on our courts, our governments, and on our money), but the object is gone. In the words of Murray Rothbard, We have created a social gospel:

The real evil – this crusading spirit itself – first swept over America in the late 1820s in the form of what is technically called "post-millennial pietism" (PMP). In the dominant "evangelical" form that PMP assumed in the "Yankee" communities of the North (New Englanders and their transplanted kin in upstate New York, northern Ohio, northern Indiana, etc.), this meant that every man had the bounden and overriding duty to maximize the salvation of his fellowmen, by stamping out sin and the temptations thereto. In short, he was bound to work his darndest to establish a Christian Commonwealth, a Kingdom of God on Earth. It very quickly became clear that sin was not going to be stamped out very quickly by purely voluntary means, and so the PMPers rapidly turned to government to do the stamping out and the creating and the uplifting. In short, as one historian perceptively put it, for the PMPers, "government became God's major instrument of salvation."

This turn to government was facilitated by the "pietist" part of the PMP doctrine, for this meant that the old Puritan emphasis on creed and God's Law, much less the Catholic or Lutheran emphasis on liturgy or the sacramental Church, was swept aside. Christianity became totally focused in a vaguely pietist, "born again," mood on the part of each basically creedless and Church-less individual soul. Shorn of Church or creed, the individual PMPer was necessarily forced to lean upon government as his staff and shield.

Slowly but surely over the decades since 1830, this mainstream Yankee Protestantism became secularized into an only vaguely Christian but passionately held Social Gospel. After all, with this sort of mindset, it was easy for God to gradually drop from sight, and for government to assume a quasi-divine role. [emphasis added] It was left to the monster Woodrow Wilson, a PMPer to his very bones and a Ph.D. as well, to take this domestic creed and extend it to foreign policy. It was essentially a "today the U.S., tomorrow the world" credo. Once the PMPers took over the U.S. government and imposed a Kingdom of God at home, their religious duty got raised to the planetary level. As the historian James Timberlake put it, once the Kingdom of God was being established in the United States, it became "America's mission to spread these ideals and institutions abroad so that the Kingdom could be established throughout the world. American Protestants were accordingly not content merely to work for the kingdom of God in America, but felt compelled to assist in the reformation of the rest of the world."

I have no idea where Rothbard will spend eternity. But it seems that he accurately places his finger on the misplaced priorities of segments of the Church; who by their actions drive away the very people they are commanded to bear a true witness to. Christ deals with us as individuals. Regardless of which (more or less) orthodox denominations you follow. Whether Orthodox, Reformed, or Evangelical, etcetera: each is held to personal account with our Lord, according to HIS mercies. Institutionalized Christianity is an oxymoron. You cannot force someone to be a Christian, for Christianity demands a personal relationship. When Christians act to mandate the tenants of their faith into law, they witness falsely, and drive fear into the hearts of non-believers who become shut out of the process. How much better to pray for them, and to bear witness that they may look at us, and see Christ revealed in us?

Even so, how little faith we must have if we believe that God is not so powerful that he needs an earthly power to force people to piety. God has a perfect delivery unit to spread his Gospel and salvation. It is called the Church. It is a mission that the church cannot delegate or assign to someone else, and pure laziness, irresponsibility, and sacrilege to think that this could be so. Brothers and Sisters, do not put upon the spirit of fear. Take courage, for God does not need the US Government, or any government for that matter, to accomplish His will upon the earth. Do your own job, and let the peace of God, which supasses all earthly understanding, reign in your heart.

Alger's Fruit

WND’s excerpt of Jack Cashill in Hoodwinked

In July of 1995, however, the U.S. government opened its own files, the so-called Venona archives, a massive collection of the messages it had successfully decoded from the Soviet Union between 1942 and 1946. The files, however incomplete, were stunning. They showed that the Soviets had spies in every significant American military or diplomatic agency, no fewer than 349 in all. Among them was a particularly valuable agent, codenamed "Ales."

It is sad to think of how many evil and liberty-depriving institutions were instituted at the behest and assistance of these agents. The establishment of the United Nations and the Yalta agreement being perhaps the most notorious. What is even worse is that fact that so many citizens, Christians included, thought that these were great ideas. Only God knows the character of anyone. Better than they know themselves. While we can and do examine the fruit of an individual’s labor, sometimes that fruit takes years, even decades to ripen. The only rational course of action for anyone to take is to further the cause of liberty.

'And we're here to help...

A man who rescued a swimmer caught in swirling river currents found himself in trouble soon afterward when he was arrested by authorities who claimed he was interfering.

Save a life: go to jail.
I see clearly now. It’s very simple. People do not help people. Only government can help people. All you people out there want to help someone? Pay your taxes and let the professionals do their job. Or we will jail you.

Intellectual Property Too

I'll admit that I didn't readily think of intellectual property when I first heard of the property rights deprivation ruling by the Supremes. But it didn't take long for the DC council to do so. So now patients, trade secrets and other proprietary information that people and companies can be thieved just as easily as real property.

Catania introduced his legislation in February and amended it a month later. At first he wanted to use the city's power of eminent domain to force drug makers to lower their prices. His new version of the bill says that if drugs are found to be excessively priced, the mayor may request a compulsory license that would, in essence, allow the city to take patents from brand-name drug makers and reissue them to generic manufacturers that could produce cheaper drugs for the District.

The focus on the elimination of all property rights is indicative of the Post Christian philosophy that says that there is no ultimate absolute standard of right and wrong. According to this, each person or group is obligated to find their own reality, their own standard of right and wrong. We should not be surprised when Statist advocates use the nebulous concept of "fairness" to expand their own power.

Sandra D: Leaving at last

The fickel lady is at long last leaving. I lived in Arizona at the time that Reagan appointed her to THE court, so even if she hasn't been the first Woman on the Court I would have remembered.

Her court opinions have been both well and poorly written. I have oft thought that she must be rather tall; to be able to straddle the fence between liberty and governmental authority. Perhaps, being raised on a ranch in El Paso, TX, she was merely athletic enough to jump back and forth between the two sides.

Whether she will be missed or not will depend upon Dubya. He campaigned often upon appointing strict constructionists to the court. I know a dozen or more people who voted for him ONLY because of his promise to do so. Nominate Alberto Gonzales or someone like him and we will be wishing for her back, and the Bush they elected be exposed (again?) a fraud. Nominate Janice Rogers Brown and liberty loving advocates will be dancing in the streets. Joe Farah of WND has his picks. I second his motion.

It is a shame that at 5 years into his presidency, we are still waiting to see if the younger Bush is a man of his word.