When the “Abstainers” Aren’t the “Refrainers”

We’ve learned recently that a healthy skepticism is being shown by a growing number of states on the “abstinence only” sex education programs which are federally funded. We wonder what is causing that. They, the states, you see, have been distancing themselves from these funds because boys and girls in the program are doing just the opposite, to each other that is. In fact according to the Washington Post at least 15 of the 50 million dollars or so ear marked are not being taken. Also, on point is that after a 14 year decline, teenage pregnancy is getting more frequent, according to Federal Health officials. We hope the right wing does not wonder what is causing that.

FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

There is no kind of help nearer and dearer than non-judgmental help.

A MAN OF NOTE, WHO NEEDS HIS NOTICE

Time Magazine has just announced its Man of the Year is to be Vladmir Putin; their choice, but they’re wrong. Ours (and this is our first such choice) is President Bush, for a myriad of reasons, and we’ll enumerate a few. First, as we’ve previously allowed in the age of list and top 100’s, he’s one of our 50 GREATEST PRESIDENTS, EVER. Next, he’s had virtually no mistakes in office other than the bad break of not getting sufficient notice for impending crisis. We’ll explain. First, go back to Hurricane Katrina; reliable weather maps indicated that oncoming storm, a mere 5 to 6 days before it hit, less than a week and, given Mr. Bush’s legendary exercise and nap schedules, he had even less than that to react to the crisis. Then there was the Summer of 2001, early August to be exact, when Condi Rice and others received an intelligence memo entitled “Osama Bin Laden Determined To Attack The United States”, and sure there was talk about aircraft and people who wanted to learn to steer them (aim them, actually) but not land them, but this type of stuff just takes a while to get through our president’s radar. True, an intelligence operative visited Mr. Bush at his ranch but isn’t it OK to brush off information if you’re clearing brush instead? Besides, in the Republican spirit of Lincoln, our president eloquently replied “OK, you’ve covered your ass, you can go now”, or is that what the brush is for? But this was barely five (5) weeks before 9/11, and again a man’s got to have time to react; which happens some time after one actually reads the reports.
Now we learn that this past summer our National Intelligence estimates were that Iran had stopped working on nuclear weapons since 2003, but Mr. Bush only got that report in the summer of 2007, and we’re not sure if his schedule allowed him to inquire or go over them when he spoke in October of being focused on Iran and “World War III”.
So here’s the word to would be terrorists, and storm systems as well; be considerate, plan ahead, considering Mr. Bush’s reaction cycle, especially when he’s working out on his stationary cycle, reports on any potential destruction planned against the U.S. before January 2009 when Mr. Bush leaves office is due no later than the 4th of July; make that July 3rd, the 4th is one of his off days.

SOME BITS FROM MITT AS IN A ROMNEY AND A RODMAN MOMENT

Mitt Romney’s recent speech asking for tolerance of his Mormon faith was called by some a JFK moment was, alas, anything but. Where JFK assured the American people his religion would be separate from his presidential policies and that he’d respect all differences, Mr. Romney’s speech was in many ways quite opposite. His contention that all members of organized religions are united as in similar, versus those who are not religions is illogical and anything but inclusive. Guess what, there are
some . . . differences between organized religions, duh, try Old and New Testament and the Koran; they are not quite replicates. And for what it’s worth, there are some pretty decent non-religious people around too Mitt, maybe even the one who took your place in the draft; you remember three Vietnam era deferments, another story.
Again as far as Mitt “the inclusive”, facts are that until 1978, Mormonism was officially a racist religion and while Romney now embraces the Mormonist view of racial equality of today, he never flipped or flopped against their anti-black sentiments of prior years, although to be fair, his parents did. But they’re not running.
Now then our Rodman, as opposed to Romney moment; Dennis Rodman was a basketball player of some note; and maybe as good a pure re-bounder as the NBA has ever had. Off the court, however, he could be off the wall and said so in his biography, “Bad As I Wanna Be”. So when we see people like Mr. Romney who, a relatively short time ago, preached or at least tolerated racial prejudice and divide, but who now claim to embrace inclusionism, part of us says will their biographies read “Fair As I Hadda Be”?
And we have mentioned, but will again, that Mr. Romney kicked off his presidential campaign at the Henry Ford Museum and to all who are not familiar with Mr. Ford’s view on religious tolerance, you need to read.

LITTLE SOULS HAS GREAT HEART

Yesterday a youngster from the South, Little Rock, as in Arkansas, got his first real taste of a northeast winter and literally dashed through the snow. I say literally because his name is Dash and he’s a dog who’s been rescued from an untimely end by a warm and wonderful group who run the “Little Souls Foundation”. It’s based in Connecticut and adopts only a few dogs at a time, and these good boys and girls are given the chance they deserve and are placed only with people in Connecticut. Our pup is of a very rare breed: a Tibetan Squirrel Terrier to be exact. His lineage was discovered by his obedience school instructor (another good story for the future) and it should be of note that Tibetan Squirrel Terriers are unbelievably rare. Why, because it’s a made up breed, as our little mutt is not pure bred, he’s multiply pure bred, he’s that mixed. And, when my sister Lois pointed out that there are no squirrels in Tibet; that just shows the great job the “breed” has done.
Should you wish to consider having a warm friend of your own, all initial contact should be via e-mail to LittleSouls@att.net; include your home phone, as opposed to a call. And tell them you saw their name on Fauxnewsnetwork and we’ll keep on woofing.

FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

It does not bode well for any religion when the moderates only sit and whisper while extremists stand and yell.

OUR INCURIOUS GEORGE

This past August, President Bush’s Intelligence Director, came to him with “new information” on Iran but according to the Prez, “he didn’t tell me what the information was”, continuing “he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze”. Dub, duh, couldn’t you have asked? . . . And then after they did, in fact, get a confirmation that Iran’s nuclear program was long done (2003), Mr. Bush still talked in October of “World War III” and . . . it seems, as always, there was regarding the truth, a dearth from Darth, as Mr. Cheney warned them (Iran) “against staying on their present course”, or the international community would “impose serious consequences”. But if they (Iran) change their present course, that would mean starting up their program again. Right, Dub? Darth? Duh?

GUNS AND SUPPOSES DEPT.

Mike Huckabee, Arkansas Republican running for president, is now the leader in the Iowa primary polls. As we at the Faux and others have mentioned, he’s now being taken more seriously and thus being examined position wise more seriously, and one such policy is his view on guns. He wants them, you see, for all our citizens, for hunting (quite logical), for home security (we guess if you don’t have a dog) and most interestingly, he also recommends that people arm themselves to protect them from the government. OK . . . this is a bit different, from mainstream politicians, anyway, but what if Mr. Huckabee actually wins the election. Then, seriously, when he is leading the government, doesn’t it follow that he’s advising the populace to arm themselves against him.

FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

It’s a query to President Bush:
What’s the difference between Ira(no nukes) and Ira(quagmire)?
Answer: Your deliberate misstatements about Iran didn’t get anyone killed.

OBAMA, NO LONGER THE DELAY LAMA?

We hear the phrase, we feel the timber, Barak Obama has found his voice. And as a result, he’s now 3% ahead in the Democratic Iowa primary polls and has closed the gap considerably as those of the New Hampshire contest as well. Perhaps, recent gaffs by Senator Clinton has made Democrats wary of the Hill she has to climb to be elected (sorry) and, perhaps the skilled Frank Rich is right by saying the number of those who won’t vote for Mr. Obama because of race is an exaggeration. We hope he’s right at least about America not being as racist now as in prior times but a glance back to an earlier age, say around 2000, gives us pause on the poll-arity of such an assumption, both as to race and gender. Consider please two races: Democrats Hillary Clinton and Ron Kirk ran for Senate, Hil in NY, Mr. Kirk, in Texas. The election eve polls, and we’ll admit this is partially by memory went like this, Mrs. Clinton was + 6% and Mr. Kirk was dead even. She won by 12%, he lost by 12. Now, what these numbers mean: as to race and gender, prejudice or participation, we’re not sure; we’re just telling you folks what the scoreboard said.

RUDY TUESDAY, JUDY NATHAN, A GETAWAY WITH A FULL SECURITY DETAIL: NOW THAT’S SAFE SEX

Rudy was in love, again, and from 1999 and on, while courting his 3rd wife, Judy Nathan, he took trips to Long Island. Well, his second and then current wife wasn’t invited, but there certainly was a crowd because he brought his entire personal security detail along. He then buried the cost of this outing in the budget of various NYC agencies to put if you will, a financial beard on these expenses: looks like despite Pat Robertson’s endorsements, when it comes to family values for Rudy Tuesday that was not a new day, but . . . with all that security around, we dare not say he wasn’t practicing safe sex.

THIS TIME, IN ADVANCE, IT’S A 3-PLAGE

We’ve all heard the term trifecta, most famously or maybe infamously used by our president referring to his political clout right after 9/11, and we know of the phrase “three –peat” which Lakers Coach Pat Riley unsuccessfully (thankfully) attempted to patent. But now, this week on the Faux, we did a three-plage; that is we plagiarized in advance not one or two, but three times.
First, in our article titled “The Cross Hairs, Carcass, Canvas, Caucus Dept”, we foretold of coming criticism as being taken seriously, aimed at GOP candidate Mike Huckabee and sure enough, in the latest Republican debate at St. Petersburg, Florida, for the first time really he was truly in the “crosshairs”.
We’ve also mentioned, at length actually, the duplicity of the GOP right, many of whom profess love and concern for Israel,
but . . . don’t seem all that tolerant to Jews. President Reagan’s conduct at Bitburg was one example and Richard Nixon’s anti-Semitic rantings were another; and it keeps becoming evident that if and when the GOP loves Israel, it’s way more with words than deeds. A stark example of this was just revealed in Richard Nixon’s tapes in which he had great reservations about accepting that the beleaguered nation of Israel had nuclear weapons to defend itself. This memo dates from 1969, just two (2) years after the Six Day War and with the (1973) Yom Kippur (sneak attack) War ahead. Mr. Nixon also was considering withholding the delivery of crucial phantom jets previously promised, but in meetings with Prime Minister Golda Mier, was somewhat mollified.
But more satisfying than plagiarizing and prognosticating on the political right (it’s often not that hard) is when we can do the same regarding a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist from the other side, namely Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution. This was not our first time with her, but our “Guns (And This Time) No Poses” article of this past week, emulated part of her column of this week where she points out the staggeringly low homicide rate in 2007 in New York City as one relevant judge of Rudy Giuliani’s effectiveness as mayor, although, to be fair, this has kept improving under Mike Bloomberg. We’ve credited gun control, which both men favor, and Ms. Tucker gives kudos to the larger police presence funded by Bill Clinton and we’d say both have worked. Although it would be a month of Sunday’s before Rudy Tuesday gives Bubba due credit on that one.