Doug

Good Question…

One of my employees posed an interesting question this morning… Living in a touristy area like we do here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, we have lots of service jobs- restaurants, hotels, etc. Many of the local businesses need to augment their workforce during the summer season. For whatever reason, they can’t find … Read more

Rare Species Sighting: Libs With Sense. Yes… It’s True!

As we proceed along in the new world war, or, as some call it (mistakenly, IMHO) the "Global War on Terror," there have been a few pleasant surprises offered up from several individuals who I never would have thought capable. While many left wing Democrats and their liberal comrades have taken the 60’s-like antiwar stance out of the mothballs and repackaged it for use against our present struggle, these lone voices of liberal sensibility are indeed a breath of fresh air.
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I can remember the days of cable TV news gone by when, during the Clinton administartion era, Geraldo Rivera hosted his "defend the president at all costs" talk show, where flaming lib Alan Dershowitz was among his most frequent guests. Nobody made my skin crawl more than Dershowitz. Then came September 11th, 2001- the day the world changed for everybody. The murderers of that day killed indiscriminately across the political spectrum. The dead included people that were left, right, and indifferent.  
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To his credit, Alan Dershowitz recognized the gravity of our new situation. Here was the defender of OJ Simpson, Bill Clinton and Claus Von Bulow – the darling of the ACLU- suddenly advocating the use of torture in some circumstances in the fight against the terrorist enemy. Whoa!!! On September 20th, 2002, CBS news reported on Dershowitz’s appearance on 60 Minutes:
Is there a place in the U.S. justice system for torture?

Alan Dershowitz, the civil libertarian defender of O.J Simpson, believes the law should sanction torture so it may be applied in certain cases, such as terrorist acts.

Mr. Dershowitz continues to "get it right" with regards to the present war.

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Dope of the Week: John Edwards

Like a really bad tune that just won’t stop buzzing around in your head, I give you former Democratic vice- presidential nominee Jonathan Edwards. The trial lawyer with "nice hair" doesn’t seem to ever go away… News Advisory: — Former Vice Presidential Democratic Nominee, Sen. John Edwards, To Hold Special Townhall Meeting as Part of … Read more

Fight Fire With Fire- Ben Stein

Ben Stein is the smartest movie actor/columnist/economist that I know of… and the only one too, now that I think of it. His writings are at times some of the best you’ll read anywhere. For example, consider this excerpt from a recent American Spectator piece: You cannot fight inhumane people with humane means. You cannot fight savages … Read more

DDT Set for Possible Return?

National Geographic News is reporting on some very good news: A possible return (albeit limited) of DDT! The August 1st piece written by Brian Handwerk  tells us DDT, a notorious symbol of environmental degradation, is poised to make a comeback. International experts are touting the widely banned pesticide as a best bet to save millions of human … Read more

Chavez and Ahmadinejad- Brothers in Arms

In several past postings, I have pointed out that in the new world war, one of the players worth keeping an eye on is Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. It has been widely reported that the Venezuelan would-be dictator has been buying fairly large quantities of military hardware from our Russian "friends" as of late. Now, we … Read more

Teacher Guilty of Student Sex Assault- This One Hits Home

As I perused the Saturday newspapers, the headlines shot from the pages. The Citizen: “Area educator guilty of student sex assault” The Laconia Daily Sun: “Former Gilford Middle School teacher admits to sexually assaulting 14-year-old student in 2000” The Concord Monitor: “Ex-educator pleads guilty in sex assault. Gilford High student was 14 at time” The Union Leader: “Former Gilford teacher gets two years in sex assault of student” Sounds like the stuff of cable news channels– except it’s happening right here.
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The Daily Sun article, written by Michael Kitch, tells us
Mathew McGonagle, 36, of Contoocook, who recently resigned as assistant principal at Rundlett Middle school in Concord, pled guilty to one count of felonious sexual assault and two counts of misdemeanor sexual assault in Belknap Superior Court yesterday. The charges followed a lengthy investigation by the Belknap County Sheriff’s Office and Belknap County Attorney’s Office undertaken after a young woman reported that McGonagle sexually assaulted her during the 1999-2000 school year when she was a student at Gilford Middle School.
 Remember- we’re talking about a 14 year old! Most of the sexual encounters occurred on school property! As a father of two school age children, I can absolutely feel the rage that must be felt by this poor woman and her family. For a person in authority to violate the trust granted him due to his position as a teacher and, as reported, family friend, is especially egregious. The news reports tell of the confessed child molester’s repeated attempts at pursuing a relationship with the girl after she began to distance herself from her teacher/friend/attacker-even sender her written letters of his desires- which the prosecutors had in their possession.

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Europe- Thy Name is Cowardice

Friend Bill A. of Dover forwards the following email:
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Food for thought from an enlightened European.  
Subject: Fw: EUROPE – THY NAME IS COWARDICE
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This is one of the most straight forward and to the point understandable, editorials, I have read for a long long time. Few people today can appreciate what our President is undertaking for the long term good of our country, and the short term abuse to himself. People just do not believe we are war today, and will be for many years to come. This is one we should all pull together on.
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If any of you still feel that this war on terror is a mistake, here is an opinion from an unexpected source. It’s fascinating that this should come out of Europe. Mathias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT, Germany’s largest daily paper, against the timid reaction of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat.

EUROPE – THY NAME IS COWARDICE

Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG
A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, Europe -your family name is appeasement." It’s a phrase you can’t get out of your head because it’s so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.
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Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.
 

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More Bad New for “Big Wind”

The battle against wind generated power rages on. As I noted in these earlier postings on the topic, President Bush says our nation is "addicted" to foreign oil and that we must pull out all the stops in a quest for alternative energy. What could be better than harnessing the wind? We must all work together … Read more

World War IV

Here is my weekly Exercising the First column for the July 27th Laconia Daily Sun:
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There has been much talk of late as to whether we are in the early stages of a new world war. I believe we are. Some have been calling it the “third world war.” I see it more as the fourth, with World Wars I and II followed by a third, the Cold War- a “world” war fought mostly by proxy, with the main opponents never openly engaging each other directly. Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Afghanistan (versus Soviets), Grenada, China (to a lesser extent), Cuba, Angola, and even Berlin itself- all were actual battle zones in the 45 years or so of “warfare.” Additionally, we all know that many covert battles took place, with propaganda and economic conflicts as well. The war played out across the globe with most nations on one ideological side or another.

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Still Outfoxed… FNC: Liberals’ Bane!

Friend John H. of Laconia, NH forwards the following on the latest in the ongoing discomfort Fox News Channel causes their news media brethren, whom they happen to whip day after day in the ratings. From the FreeRepublic.com, courtesy of Newsmax.com:
About two-thirds of the 150 attendees at a Television Critics Association’s gathering walked out of the room before Fox News Channel chairman and CEO Roger Ailes took the stage for a news conference. Several critics even openly voiced their scorn for what they view as Fox News’ conservative spin. Ailes then gleefully reminded the critics who did remain that Fox News has led all cable news channels in the Nielsen ratings for the past 55 months and has more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined.
Liberals have long feared Fox News, as it finally allows a more balanced look at the important news to break through the singular viewpoint and control as long offered by the old-guard media. What follows is a piece I wrote on the subject involving local libs for my Daily Sun column back in 2004…
 

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UPDATE3: A man’s home is his castle? Not quite…

After several weeks of waiting, we finally have some news on the story (links at end of this post) about the Nashua man arrested for audiovideo taping police as they stood within that man’s home. And no, at that point, they did not have a warrant- they got that later, after they found out they … Read more

Handy Form Letter- Re: Illegal Immigration

My friend Bill A. from Dover NH was kind enough to forward this handy form letter ready to send to Sen Judd Gregg (or whoever your US Senator happens to be that voted against the value of true US citizenship). Simply fill in the blank and send. . _________, 2006 The Honorable Judd Gregg393 Russell Senate Office … Read more

David Gelernter: (Liberal) Jewish Suicide

David Gelernter is considered an important pioneer in the field of parallel computing. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia tells us David Hillel Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale University. In the 1980s, he made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda … Read more

“Dope of the Week” Nominee: John Kerry

The July 23rd Detroit News is reporting via its online Detnews.com website on a recent utterance of Sen. John "Loathesome" Kerry. This time, he’s pontificating on the recent events of the Middle East.:
"If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened."
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"The president has been so absent on diplomacy when it comes to issues affecting the Middle East…We’re going to have a lot of ground to make up (in 2008) because of it."
The story further tells us that Loathesome John’s statements were made during a stop at a Detroit bar ironically named Honest John’s bar & grill. He also remarked that
This is about American security and Bush has failed. He has made it so much worse because of his lack of reality in going into Iraq.…We have to destroy Hezbollah,"
Now how does Sen. Kerry propose to "destroy Hezbollah?" Being the consummate liberal, he despises the military. How would a Kerry administration have dealt with these terrorists? Bore them to death with his snotty "Boston brahmin" pseudo- intellectual dialect?

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How often does this happen in YOUR town?

Foster’s Online reports on the use of taxpayer funds to promote voting one way or another. One such case has reached the NH Supreme Court. Attorney Charles Douglas, who represented the organization in court, said taxpayers should not be funding government-produced newsletters urging support for a particular viewpoint. He said the town spent $1,300 to … Read more

Update: New World War- Somalia

In a previous posting, I noted that we should add Somalia/Ethiopia to the list of new or re-emerging fronts in the coming world war. Ethiopian troops began crossing into Somalia to help defend that country’s battered and fragile government against the rising tide of Islamist militias. Now, as the AFP is reporting, comes the response: Somalia’s powerful Islamic council has … Read more

Burton “combs” the district, trolling for votes

The July 22nd Foster’s Online tells us that Executive Councilor Ray Burton took his campaign for re-election to the streets Friday afternoon when he toured Laconia and Belmont in his orange campaign bus.  If re-elected, this would be Burton’s 15th term on the New Hampshire Executive Council and his ninth on the Grafton County Board of … Read more

NH’s “Governor Do-Nothing”

For the past year and a half, it has been an inside joke between me and my wife: whenever New Hampshire’s Democrat governor John Lynch appears on TV, we each do our best Howdy-Doody imitations, wildly waving to some imaginary crowd with the dumbest, blankest looks we can muster, complete with exaggerated smile. Of course … Read more

New World War- Update

I questioned in a previous posting whether we were witnessing a long march towards a new world war. As I opined, the list of active "fronts" in the war includes Israel-Lebabon-Palestinian Territories Iraq Afghanistan Chechnya Bosnia-Kosovo India-Pakistan (Kashmir) North Korea We should get ready to add Somalia to the list, where, as reported by the July 21 Times … Read more

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