Inside, outside, high or low.
Where's the strike zone?
I don't know.

Is it up, or is it down?
Who's the umpire?
What's this town?

Past my eyes, and it is done.
Took it looking.
Stee-rike one!

I hunker down, tap my shoe.
Blows by my shins.
Stee-rike two!

Here it comes, looks wide to me.
Outside the plate.
Stee-rike three!

High or low?  More or less.
Where's the strike zone?
Take a guess.

We’re always hearing about how we on the Right are so intolerant. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. The Left has no use whatsoever for any viewpoint that differs from theirs. If you disagree with the Left, then you are wrong. It’s as simple as that.

It was the Intolerant Left that called for the revocation of the charter of the Boy Scouts of America because of its stance on homosexual scoutmasters. The Boy Scouts wanted to have standards and protect their young charges from predators, and the Left said that was wrong.

Members of the Minutemen, a group of individuals who patrol the United States/Mexican border, were asked to speak at Columbia University. It was angry young leftists who stormed the stage and successfully put an end to the event saying, “The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration,” so they’re not allowed to speak.

On the TV magazine show formerly known as the CBS Evening News, the father of boy killed at Columbine offered his opinion on the recent murders at the school in Amish country by saying, “Violence entered our schools when we threw God out of them.” His view was greeted with criticism.

A post on the issue of global warming in some Left-leaning magazine stated that when all of the dire consequences of global warming come to pass, then all those who were skeptical of the concept should be put on trial. So, according to the Left, you should be put on trial simply for having an opinion that is different from theirs. I e-mailed him and asked if history proved him wrong, should he be put on trial for having the “wrong” opinion. I haven’t heard back yet.

France is trying to make it a crime to deny that the Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of the Turks. Those who are guilty could get a year in jail and a huge fine. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Apparently, it’s already a crime to deny the Nazi Holocaust. Imagine that. Somewhere on this planet it’s a crime to have an opinion that differs from the orthodoxy.

This intolerance stems from the fact that the Left has no absolutes that stand from day to day. When the Right was justifiably upset over the loose morals of the previous occupant of the Oval Office, the Left was outraged. His private life is his own, they said. Now that the shoe’s on the other foot, there’s no end to the moralizing from the Left. Apparently, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything, and the Left demonstrates that on a regular basis.

. . . and they’re stubborn things. Regardless of the fact that it was Democrat incompetents who gave President Bush the North Korea crisis - much as it was a Democrat incompetent who gave him 9/11 - the fact is, we must deal with this crisis.

It is time to realize that what North Korea really wants is to be the 51st state. It cannot take care of itself, and it wants the United States to adopt it and fulfill all its wants, wishes, and desires. This is why North Korea insists on bi-lateral talks with America. Why isn’t it dealing with China or South Korea? Because it knows that those two countries can never support it in the lifestyle to which it would like to become accustomed. Just what the American taxpayers need, another mouth to feed. As if the U.N, Congress, and foreign aid aren’t already draining us dry.

But everyone knows that North Korea is nothing more than a boil on the butt of humanity that needs to be lanced. If North Korea ceased to exist tomorrow, it would not be missed.

It’s past time for this administration to stand up to its critics and say that we will not accede to North Korea’s blackmail. It’s past time for the cowardly Republicans to stand together in support of this President and this country. It’s past time for the liberal left to stop being a fifth column for the people who want to destroy this country.

It’s past time for the American people to come to grips with the fact that we’re in real trouble here. If we cannot defeat these new and deadly dangers - North Korea, terrorism, liberal ideas of appeasement - America as we know it will cease to exist. We have the most awesome powers of destruction in the history of mankind. It’s time to let the world know that we will not hesitate to use them in our defense or in defense of the civilized world.

America: strong, safe, and free or everything else is a moot point.

     A few months back, Australia told its Muslim population that it could accept Australian law or it could “clear off.” They were told that if they wanted shari’a law, there were countries they could move to.

     Now it appears that Europe is finally waking up. Political parties campaigning in Austria on the unspoken premise that Austria should start to deport its immigrants are polling well. The owner of a wine bar in Antwerp said, “You saw what happened with the pope. He said Islam is an aggressive religion, and the next day they kill a nun somewhere and make his point. Rationality is gone.” Ain’t it the truth.

     There’s a whole lot of bloodletting going on by the so-called religion of peace.  We know how they treat the people they kidnap.  A high school teacher in France had to go into hiding after receiving death threats for writing an article calling Muhammad a “merciless warlord, a looter, a mass murderer of Jews and a polygamist.”

     It’s past time for the civilized world to stand up and tell this one segment of the population that they are not in charge. If you live in America, you will obey the law of the land, and that includes free speech. We allow God and Jesus to be disparaged, and by golly, we’re going to allow Allah and Muhammad to be disparaged. You will adapt yourself to us. We will not adapt ourselves to you. You don’t have the right to live here. You have our permission to live here and, quite frankly, many of you have overstayed your welcome. Any time you don’t like the law of the land, you are free to leave and don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.

     Alas, however. The flag of Islam will be flying over the White House before the idiots in charge of this country will ever grasp the fact that they were asleep at the switch while trouble was brewing. Trouble that could have been prevented had the overpriced glory hounds in D.C. thought about the country instead of the next election. Showing some backbone would have been a good thing, too, but we all know that D.C. politicians traded in their backbones years ago for campaign cash.

Liberal folly was on full display today in an editorial in the Boston Globe entitled “The North Korean Test.” The editorial staff of a paper from the state that keeps giving us Ted Kennedy and John Kerry said that the current North Korean crisis “represents the most preventable, and one of the most damaging, failures of President Bush’s foreign policy. The administration has stubbornly rebuffed the North’s offers to cede its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for economic and security benefits in direct, two-party negotiations . . . North Korea has repeatedly declared that it is willing to divest itself of its nuclear weapons capabilities for the right price. That price would include a guaranteed provision of energy . . . and also economic and security assurances that would end what the North calls the relations of ‘enmity’ between it and the United States.”

There is so much wrong with this statement that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Firstly, North Korea has already reneged on its promise to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What on earth would possess anyone to think that North Korea would honor any new agreements? Secondly, the North Korean crisis is just one more Democrat mess that President Bush has to clean up. He is not the reason that North Korea might now be a nuclear power, and he should not be blamed for the belligerent actions of its leader. Thirdly, what exactly is the definition of “economic and security benefits.” What exactly is “the right price?”

North Korea is blackmailing us, and the Boston Globe thinks we should pay. Once we start paying, when would we stop? The answer to that is never. And once we knuckle under to one country’s extortion, who will be next? It is beyond frightening that there are people who in this country who actually think that appeasement is the right course. What’s even more frightening is that these people might once again be at the helm of this country.

Whoever believes that buying off North Korea is the right course, then let them pay.

The world is a much more dangerous place today. North Korean, a rogue regime that sells weapons to Iran and starves its people in order to feed its military, tested a nuclear bomb. It is so very important to remember why North Korea now has weapons of mass destruction: Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the twin incompetents of foreign policy, thought that it was a good idea to give North Korea, at taxpayer expense, everything it needed to become a nuclear power. Why? Because North Korea promised to use its nuclear capabilities only for good. Two people, who for 12 years were charged with looking out for America, were foolish enough to believe this lie. And here we are today.

In addition to the North Korea fiasco, the Carter presidency aided the rise of the Muslim militancy, and the Clinton presidency allowed the terrorist threat to grow unchecked. It has been shown that Democrats cannot be trusted with our national security. They don’t have the foresight to see the dangers, and they have amply demonstrated that they can be suckered by anyone.

In less than a month, Americans will go to the polls. With the Mark Foley scandal sucking up all the available oxygen, Republicans are that much closer to losing control of Congress. A Republican will be in the White House through 2008, which will be somewhat of a check should the Democrats regain the power they have so sorely missed. However, the rank partisanship the Democrats will show will be so shrill that all the dogs in America will be howling.

American taxpayers paid for North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction, even if unwittingly. If Americans are foolish enough to return government to the hands of the very people who have consistently made America less and less safe, then we will have effectively financed and voted for our own destruction.

Feel free to hate President Bush all you want, but don’t be foolish enough to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Roxanna Moser

I have decided that the stench emanating from the rank hypocrisy of the democrats in Washington has become an actual, pervasive force that it is beginning to affect the brains of our nation's lawmakers.

Is there still a war on terrorism?  Is there still a war in Iraq?  Are there still detainees at Gitmo?  Who knows.  It's All Foley, All The Time.  And in that regard, the vapors wafting over from the democrat pig pen are anything but aromatic. 

In the first place, we know that democrats have no values and, therefore, don't care who was sending dirty e-mails to who.  They don't even care if minors were involved.  How do we know this?  Consider the case of former Congressman Mel Reynolds.  He had sex with a 16-year old and gave her cash, a pager, and apartment keys.  He was caught planning to have group sex with this 16-year old and another 15-year old.  He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to prison.  The democrat party's Immoralist in Chief pardoned Mr. Reynolds in 2001, and he promptly went to work for the right Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Remember any democrat outrage?  No?  Which is why I say that they don't care if a minor is involved.  All they care about is that a Republican is involved.  That's all the chum necessary for these sharks to circle, and the feeding frenzy is a sight to behold.

The democrats don't hold the high ground on any issue of importance say, for instance, terrorism.  Because of their natural disdain for the riffraff, they genuinely don't believe that these murderous thugs pose any danger.  Their innate (and delusional) belief in their own superiority leads them to believe that they will be able to end the terrorist threat simply by appeasement.  "Give them some gewgaws, they'll go away."  So, you see, there's really no reason not to talk about Foley.

If Republicans actually had any grit, they would be pushing back, reminding those who live in glass houses not to throw stones.  But I have long since given up any hope of seeing Republicans do anything but whimper and cower in the corner.

I have had it up to my eyeballs with the calls for Dennis Hastert to resign as Speaker of the House.  Since, ostensibly, every member of Congress is an adult, it is not Mr. Hastert's job to babysit them. 

Why on earth are Republicans jumping on the blame someone else bandwagon.  Mark Foley did what he did, and he alone is responsible.  Congress is already doing as little as it possibly can.  Do we really want them to waste more time by patrolling each other's e-mails?

When are the Republicans ever going to be proactive instead of reactive.  The stock market reached an all time high.  Gas prices are down.  The Foley scandal is all the democrats have to run on.  Don't let them.

My God, people, find your backbone!

It wasn't a Republican president who stood accused of rape and sexual harassment and turned the Oval Office into his own private red light district.

It wasn't a Republican senator who drove a woman into a body of water, walked away, left her to die, and then showed up in a neck brace so that people would feel sorry for him and not the young woman who died at his hands.

It wasn't a Republican senator who wore a white sheet and recruited members into a racist organization that murdered men of color.

It wasn't a Republican congressman who allowed his boyfriend to run a prostitution ring out of his home.

It wasn't a Republican congressman who actually carried on an affair with an under-aged page and not only refused to apologize, but continued to run for office.

The smell of the rank hypocrisy emanating from Washington D.C. is overpowering, and we're all just going to have to put up with it.  The democrats are licking their chops over the burgeoning Mark Foley scandal, and their allies in the mainstream media are only too happy to give it unlimited airplay.

I don't by any means excuse Mr. Foley's disgusting behavior, but he's a bush leaguer compared to the democrats, who any day now will be calling for an independent counsel or special counsel or whatever it is we have these days to find out who knew what and when.  They'll ride this to election day as though nothing on earth is more important.

My party is giving this country back to the democrats, whose hunger to once again be in power is a physical force that has blinded them to everything but their own need.

My party is breaking my heart.

P.S.  Is now really the time for Newt Gingrich to be making the rounds of the TV talks shows? 

Hey diddle, diddle,
Clinton did fiddle
And Osama thought we were weak.

Along came the Texan,
"Enough of this messin."
And Osama?  Not even a peek.

Not wanting to be outdone by Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean has weighed in with the following gems:

"Five years after Osama bin Laden murdered 3,000 people, he's still on the loose in northwest Pakistan plotting to kill our people."
     *     Where to begin.  One:  We don't know where he is.  Two:  Pakistan is an ally, and we can't just bomb the northwest part of the country.  Three:  What's your plan to get him?

"Five years after George Bush identified Iran as part of the Axis of Evil, they are about to get nuclear weapons."
     *     Short of bombing Iran's nuclear sites or starting another war, how do we stop Iran from going nuclear?  What's your plan?

"Five years after George W. Bush identified North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil, they not only continue to have nuclear weapons, they are getting more nuclear weapons."
     *     One:  Don't ever forget that it was Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton who gave North Korea everything it needed to become a nuclear power.  Two:  Why is it always the responsibility of the Republicans to clean up after the democrats?  Three:  Short of bombing North Korea's nuclear sites or starting another war, how do we stop their nuclear ambitions?  What's your plan?

"You can't trust the Republicans to defend America, not because they don't want to, but because they don't know how."
     *     And you do?  To date, Mr. Dean, the democrats haven't shown us how they're going to keep us safe.  So far, the democrat "plan" is simply to bash anything and everything the Republicans do. 

     If the democrats take back Congress - God help us - they will have to actually do something besides wring their hands and complain about Republicans. 

     I realize that running off at the mouth is what democrats do best, but that's not a plan. 

 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently had this to say:  "The damage that has already been done to our country in the last six years is incalculable."

According to her, the United States is "in a deep hole, and Republicans don't want to quit digging."
     *     We're in a hole, alright, and it was begun by Jimmy Carter and deepened by Bill Clinton, neither of whom knew anything about foreign policy and still don't.  President Bush is trying to get us out of that hole, and democrats are fighting him at every turn.

"It's going to take an enormous amount of effort to begin to repair and restore American values . . ."
     *     "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."  Bill Clinton
            "I hate Republicans and everthing they stand for."  Howard Dean
Are these the values she is talking about?

"On every issue, there are big differences, but the biggest difference is the disregard for our constitutional democracy . . ."
     *     We are a constitutional republic.  We are not a democracy of any kind.

". . . the disdain for checks and balances . . ."
     *     Remember what Paul Begala had to say about Clinton's executive orders:  "Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kind of cool."  No disdain for checks and balances there.

". . . the denial of accountability that marks this president . . ."
     *     "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."  Bill Clinton

". . . and that's really our entire system being put at risk."
     *     Our entire country was put at risk, Madame Clinton, because your husband refused to do anything about terrorism, opting instead for tawdry trysts, world travel, and denial, all the while desperately searching for a legacy.

What's frightening is that there are people in this country who will actually believe her blather.  Not only do these people vote, they reproduce.

If there is anyone on the planet more capable of being the master of his own destiny than the President of the United States, I don't know who that person would be.  Bill Clinton had it all in his hands, and he frittered it away.  Having a tawdry quasi-affair with some girl whose name he didn't even ask until some subsequent encounter was more important than doing great things.  He chose his path, and now he's whining about the consequences.

Is there ever going to be an end to the revisionist history we are being subjected to by this man and his minions.   It was only a short time ago that his response to why he didn't get bin Laden was that he had no legal grounds to do so.  Now, of course, his response is that he tried and tried and tried again.  In fact, he now says that he was accused of being too obsessed in his quest to get bin Laden.  Funny, I don't remember it that way.

It's understandable that the whole topic would come up now, what with the fifth anniversary of America's worst day and "The Path to 9/11" miniseries.  But what's done is done and if Mr. Clinton's hands are so clean, why did he send Sandy Berger to the National Archives to steal and destroy classified documents?  That, also, is done and unchangeable.

On Sunday the world was treated to the real Bill Clinton:  a spoiled, willful child who wants what he wants when he wants it, who is absolutely incapable of taking any responsibility for his own actions, and who is arrogant in the belief that he has the right to skate through life unquestioned and unchallenged.  The world is a much more dangerous place because for eight long years the Leader of the Free World was a child in the world's biggest playpen, stocked with all the latest toys.

Respect is earned, not demanded, the temerity of Mr. Wallace aside.

In all of history, only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:  Jesus Christ and the American military.

One died for your soul, the others for your freedom. 

Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, came onto U.S. soil the other day just to bash our President.  He referred to President Bush as the devil and said that the U.N. still smelled of sulphur.  Big words from a little, little man.

His best comment was that the U.N. should move to Venezuela.  I agree.  Let Venezuela put up with all the shiftless blowhards whose only interest is to live the high life.  (Is there a high life in Venezuela?)  More importantly, let Venezuela foot the bills that we've been paying.

But, of course, that's not what Mr. Chavez wants at all.  He loves to rant and rave, but at the end of the day, he'll never be anything but a mouth that runneth over.  He even thinks that cozying up to terrorists is a good idea.  It's not.  They'll slice his head off just as surely as they would anyone else's.

A culture that worships death has no respect for life, even one that bashes President Bush on a daily basis.