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Day: March 26, 2005

FLASH: Democrats Criticize Bush

Rep. Sander Levin, D-MI., giving the Democrat’s weekly Saturday radio address, said that President Bush is out of touch with the American people on Social Security reform, but Democrats would work with him.

Just how would you and your colleagues work with the president Mr. Levin? Give me just one example. Come on, give me at least one!

Guess what? They can’t.

I haven’t heard one alternate idea from the Democrats. Not one. Their solution is to do nothing. Don’t touch it, don’t even sit by yourself and think thoughts that might be about changing Social Security. Instead, the Left points to polls that say Americans don’t support the president and they think they’ve got a revolution on their hands. Hah.

The Democrats are poll driven. They lost the Presidency, both houses of Congress, majority of state governorships by allegiance to will’o the wisp polls. Now the real polls don’t tell them what they want to hear, so they do their own polls, skew the questions to get the results they want and follow them as though it’s two minutes to midnight and a coup is underway.

Mr. Levin, a good idea is a good idea. Come up with some (or even one) and we’ll listen. Continue complaining and push a “do nothing” agenda and we’ll go our own way.

Lead, or be led.

Bring Back the Wall?

Via Reuters: Study Finds Many Germans Want Berlin Wall Back

Nearly a quarter of western Germans and 12 percent of easterners want the Berlin Wall back — more than 15 years after the fall of the barrier that split Germany during the Cold War, according to a new survey.

The results of the poll, published Saturday, reflected die-hard animosities over high reunification costs lowering western standards of living and economic turmoil in the east.

The survey of 2,000 Germans by Berlin’s Free University and pollsters Forsa found 24 percent of those living in western Germany want the Wall back — double the eastern level.

In Berlin itself, 11 percent of westerners and 8 percent of easterners said “yes” when asked: “Would it be better if the Wall between East and West were still standing?.”

The Berlin Wall was breached on Nov. 9, 1989, paving the way for the unification of Communist East Germany with the West on Oct. 3, 1990. But billions of euros (dollars) spent rebuilding the east have failed to prop up the depressed region, which is plagued by high unemployment and a shrinking population.

The poll also found that 47 percent of the easterners agree with the statement that the West “acquired the east like a colony,” while 58 percent of the westerners back the statement that “easterners tend to wallow in self-pity.”

A quarter of western Germans and 12 percent of easterners? To be more accurate, 75% of western Germans and 88% of easterners DON’T EVER WANT TO SEE THAT GOD-FORSAKEN WALL AGAIN! Isn’t that the real story? Talk about a worthless poll! To think that anyone would want to see the return of the kind of oppression that permeated eastern Germany for decades is a laugh. The 19% in Berlin who said, “Yes” when asked if it would be better if the wall were still standing have to be complete and total wackos, or raging communists, or both.

Go back to your lives citizens. There’s nothing to see here.

Gimme a Double Mocha Latte With Room for Liberalism

Some conservatives are angered by opinionated quotes that Starbucks puts on its cups.

StarbucksMoments after picking up a venti vanilla latte from a St. Petersburg Starbucks, Sam Maston removed his cup’s cardboard sleeve to inspect a message printed beneath.

“America’s national debt is now $7.5-trillion, and it’s skyrocketing, even as America’s population ages,” the cup read. “There will never be a better time to start paying off this crippling debt than today.”

The quote, from environmentalist Denis Hayes, didn’t faze the 29-year-old Maston.

“I’m a pretty hardcore Democrat,” said Maston, who wore a black rubber wristband bearing the words I DID NOT VOTE 4 BUSH. “I think they should put that stuff on there.”

Not everyone agrees.

The Seattle coffee chain has raised some eyebrows over its “The Way I See It” campaign, which prints quotes from thinkers, authors, athletes and entertainers on the side of your morning machiatto. The goal, according to the company, is to foster philosophical debate in its 9,000-plus coffeehouses.

The quotes aren’t all that inflammatory, though several mirror Starbucks’ hallmark tall-grande-venti pretentiousness. Take this one from film critic Roger Ebert: “A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.”

The problem, critics say, is the company’s list of overwhelmingly liberal contributors, including Al Franken, Melissa Etheridge, Quincy Jones, Chuck D. Of the 31 contributors listed on Starbucks’ Web site, only one, National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, offers a conservative viewpoint.

If anyone going to Starbucks is the least bit like me, they’re not looking at the cup or the writing on the cup or even that cardboard sleeve. We’re drinking the coffee! That’s it. I don’t even hang out in Starbucks. The place is too yuppie centric for me. Am I surprised that the place is run by socialistic tree huggers? Nope.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand being bombarded by leftist speak – I get enough as it is, in the newspaper, on the television, and on the signs waving in my face as I’m walking down the street to go to the local post office. I don’t need more of it from Costco, 7-Eleven, Denny’s or Burger King.

But getting angry about what’s printed on a cup and hidden by a cardboard sleeve is just plain silly.

To my fellow java loving conservative brothers and sisters – get a grip, relax, and have cup of coffee.