From a good friend of mine in Arkansas comes two versions of a familiar fable:

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,  constructing  his home and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and  plays  the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no  food or shelter, so he dies, out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  Be responsible

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, constructing   his home and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference   and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and   well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home and a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that  in   a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to   suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and   everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration – calling it racial   injustice- in  front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group   singing….,”We shall overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel  down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter   Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper   Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer.  The ant is   fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs  and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is   confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a   defamation suit against the ant. The case is tried before a panel   of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of   the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens  to  be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t  maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize  the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  Vote Republican

Thanks, darkstar218, for bringing this to my attention:

From the Chicago Sun-Times comes this gem from Teresa “I’ve got so many houses, I can’t remember where I left my toothbrush” Heinz Kerry:

‘Let them go naked’

Teresa Heinz Kerry, encouraging volunteers as they busily packed supplies Wednesday for hurricane relief efforts in the Caribbean, said she was concerned the effort was too focused on sending clothes instead of essentials like water and electric generators. ”Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while, at least the kids,” said Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. ”Water is necessary, and then generators, and then food, and then clothes.”

————–

I would like to know what Terayza has done to lessen the suffering of the storm survivors?  She could buy out the entire clothing section of a Wal-Mart store to give to those people and not even notice a dent in her wallet, allowing others to focus on the water, generators, and food that she’s so worried about.  Or, send over a few Sparkletts trucks loaded up with bottled water, Sears generators, and grocery suppy trucks . . . and let the volunteers focus on the clothing. 

This is what burns me up about rich liberals.  They sit on their pedestals criticizing the good-hearted efforts of volunteers and rather than jumping into the fray to make up the difference where there may be lack . . . they prioritize what the volunteers should be focusing on.  Because as we all know, liberals are MUCH smarter than the average joe.  And they are quite adept at telling the average joe what he should be doing . . . with his time, his money, his life . . .

Ortho Evra Patch is not the dream contraceptive depicted in television ads:

I read the following article regarding the “Patch.”  I wonder how many young women (single and married) are looking to this patch as a safe, reliable means of birth control?  Please note the comment at the end (emphasis added by me).  I suppose “unplanned pregnancy” is a much more serious issue than unplanned death?

FDA Reveals 17 Fatalities in Two Years from Contraceptive “Sex Patch”

NEW YORK, September 21, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The contraceptive “sex patch” has been found responsible for 17 deaths in women age 17 to 30 since its release in 2002, according to a recent exposé by the New York Post. The Post used Freedom of Information laws to obtain records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which also revealed 21 other “life-threatening” conditions such as blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks.

The contraceptive, marketed by ads with super models and Olympic athletes, is touted as a sexy alternative to the Pill. The Ortho Evra patch’s manufacturer, Ortho-McNeil, claims the patch is easier to remember than the pill because it requires only a once-weekly replacement, rather than the Pill’s daily dose.

Doctors who reviewed the report were staggered by the numbers. “This is a cause for concern,” NYU Medical Center gynecologist and professor Dr. John Quagliarello said. He said it was the first time he’d heard there was such a high death rate from the patch.

The Ortho Evra patch delivers a dose of contraceptive hormones into a woman’s blood stream via the skin. These hormones can trigger fatal heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots.

Ortho-McNeil claims the death rate from its patch is “consistent with the health risks” of taking the Pill. According to them, the Pill kills 0.3 to 1.9 women out of every 100,000 15 to 29 year old users. Smoking significantly increases the risk of death.

A spokeswoman for the UK’s Family Planning Association told the BBC news that “Women shouldn’t suddenly stop using the patch as they could then be at risk of unplanned pregnancy.”

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
18 Year-Old New York Student Dies Suddenly from Birth Control Complications
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/04040606.html

Here’s a frightening bit of information from Jeff Jacoby regarding our voting system:

How to steal an election
Jeff Jacoby (archive)

September 20, 2004 | Print | Send

A recent story that didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved was the New York Daily News report that 46,000 registered New York City voters are also registered to vote in Florida.  Nearly 1,700 of them have had absentee ballots mailed to their home in the other state, and as many as 1,000 have voted twice in the same election.  Can 1,000 fraudulent votes change an election?  Well, George W. Bush won Florida in 2000 by just 537 votes.
 
It is illegal to register to vote simultaneously in different jurisdictions, but scofflaws have little to worry about.  As the Daily News noted, “efforts to prevent people from registering and voting in more than one state rely mostly on the honor system.”  Those who break the law rarely face prosecution or serious punishment.  It’s easy — and painless — to cheat.
 
    I learned this firsthand in 1996, when I registered my wife’s cat as a voter in Cook County, Ill., Norfolk County, Mass., and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and then requested absentee ballots from all three venues.  My purpose wasn’t to cast illegal multiple votes — I think I’ve still got those absentee ballots saved in a file somewhere — but to demonstrate how vulnerable to manipulation America’s election system had become.
 
    It was a simple scam to pull off.  “Under the National Voter Registration Act — the ‘Motor Voter law’ — states are required to accept voter registrations by mail,” I wrote at the time.  “No longer can citizens be asked to make a trip to town hall or the county office.  No longer do they have to provide proof of residence or citizenship.  In fact, they don’t have to exist.  Motor Voter obliges election officials to add to the voter list any name mailed in on a properly filled-out registration form.  Anyone so registered can then request an absentee ballot — by mail, of course.  The system is not only open to manipulation, it invites it.”
 
    As journalist John Fund shows in an alarming new book, “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy,” the United States has an elections system that would be an embarrassment in Honduras or Ghana.  It is so unpoliced, he writes, that at least eight of the 9/11 hijackers “were actually able to register to vote in either Virginia or Florida while they made their deadly preparations.”
 
    How fouled up are the voter rolls?  So fouled up that in some cities there are more registered voters than there are adults.  So fouled up that when the Indianapolis Star investigated Indiana’s records a few years ago, it discovered that hundreds of thousands of names — as many as one-fifth of the total — were “bogus” since the individuals named had moved, died, or gone to prison.  So fouled up that when a Louisiana paper filed 25 phony voter-registration forms signed only with an “X,” 21 were approved and added to the voter list.
 
    Illegal aliens have been registered too, since under Motor Voter, any recipient of government benefits can sign up to vote — no questions asked.  Did that wide-open door to fraud cost former GOP Congressman Robert Dornan his seat in Congress?  An investigation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service following Dornan’s 1996 defeat by Democrat Loretta Sanchez found that 4,023 noncitizens may have cast ballots in that election.  Dornan lost by 984 votes.
 
    It shouldn’t take a degree in rocket science to fix a system this sloppy and chaotic.  But not everyone wants to fix it.  Some operatives don’t mind electoral cheating if it brings more of “their” voters to the polls.  Fund cites the findings of Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson and political scientist Larry Sabato, co-authors of a recent book on corruption in American politics.  Some liberal activists they interviewed go so far as to justify voter fraud on the grounds that such “extraordinary measures” compensate for the weaker political clout of minorities and the poor.
 
    One simple fix — requiring every voter to show ID when registering and voting — would seem to be a no-brainer.  Opinion polls show the vast majority of Americans in favor of such a reform.  After all, ID is required when boarding an airplane or buying liquor.  Why not when voting?
 

©2004 Boston Globe

Here’s an interesting news tidbit — I’ve put in bold some of the more interesting points:

Catholics Give Kerry Cool Welcome in Steubenville

STEUBENVILLE, September 7, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of Catholic protesters gave John Kerry an unexpectedly cool welcome in that working class, traditionally Democrat town. Students, children, workingmen, housewives and nuns in full habits arrived in the rain at the park where Kerry planned to speak hours before his arrival. Carrying signs that read, “Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church,” “You Can’t be Catholic and Pro-Abortion,” and “Pontius Pilate was Also Personally Opposed.”

Clutching Rosaries, a crowd that the Sheriff’s department estimated as large as 500, marched and silently protested the presidential candidate’s anti-life stand on abortion. Kerry who claims to be a devout Catholic, was visibly shaken when his speech was booed in this town that campaign organizers had expected to be enthusiastically supportive.

Steubenville is a union-based town that has been hit hard by tough times and is normally a bastion of Democrat support. However, Kerry campaign organizers did not know about the impact on the local community of Catholics organized around Franciscan University. Local churches and Catholics from throughout the Diocese of Steubenville took part in the march they said was meant for reverence, prayer, sacrifice and to challenge Kerry to stand up for life. “We prayed all four mysteries of the rosary,” Emily Bissonnette, a junior at the university, said. “We also have people praying back at school.”

The Kerry team tried several times to have the protesters barred from the park. The local constabulary was less than co-operative however citing freedom of speech and assembly and the fact that the rally, and therefore the protest, were being held in a public park. “They don’t look dangerous to me,” the Sheriff said.

One person present said that a little girl started chanting “we want Bush” in the midst of Kerry’s speech. “We all chanted along. The campaign staff was beside themselves.” The local councilman at large, Michael Hernon passed out Bush-Cheney signs to those waiting in line. “If you look at the record, Kerry is not good for this area,” he said. “He is not in sync with steel. This is the largest counter-rally protest during a Kerry rally in the nation.”

Herald Star coverage:
http://www.hsconnect.com/news/story/095202004_new04news090504.asp

Notes from those present along with photos can be seen at:
http://www.redstate.org/story/2004/9/5/123340/8278

Cool Sisters, Hurricanes, Miss O’Hara, and as the King of Siam said, “Etc., etc., etc.” . . .

I love my sister so much.  She came down Friday night and painted my kitchen for me.  I hate to paint.  Absolutely hate to paint.  And she came down with my niece and nephew and painted my kitchen while the kids played and I kept her company.  That’s all I had to do.  Am I lucky, or what?

She’s got exceptionally good taste and helped me pick out the colors months ago.  We painted the cabinets “Dark Indigo” with brushed nickel hardware last year, but I’d been procrastinating on the walls and trim because . . . I hate to paint.  Well, they are now the most beautiful colors.  The walls are “Hot Chowder” and the trim is “Scrimshaw.”  All three are from Alexander Julian’s paint collection at Lowe’s.  My kitchen is simply beautiful.  And it’s all because of my beautiful sister!

On a different note, our hearts are going out to those poor people in Florida.  We were greatly relieved to hear that our friends, Cathy and Marc, who live in Miami, made it through okay.  And now Ivan is brewing out there, headed for who knows what poor coastline.  We can only pray that he heads to the North Atlantic and dies a harmless death.

Thought of Miss O’Hara earlier today when I caught a bit of a program on PBS about Deusenbergs!  While I know she’s partial to the Chevy line, and Corvettes in particular, this little program focused on the classic Deusenberg and I couldn’t help but imagine our dear Miss dressed in 1930’s style cruising on a sunny Saturday in a Deusy (whence the term “doozie” came from).  Check out http://www.greatcarstv.com for more information about these very interesting programs.

Also caught a glimpse of James Carville and Mary Maitlin with Tim Russert this morning.  Now there’s a prime example of the ability to compartmentalize!  I do not know how those two can be so far apart philosophically, and yet marry, have children, and supposedly get along in all areas but politics.  It absolutely blows my mind.  If I were Mary Maitlin (well, first of all, I would never have married Carville), but I might be tempted to smother the man in his sleep with a pillow.  He is SO obnoxious!  I just don’t understand it . . . One thing he kept harping on was how the Republicans “used that poor man in the twilight of his career” referring to Zell Miller.  Can you believe it?  He claimed that Karl Rove wrote the speech, but Mary insisted that Zell Miller wrote his own speech, and it was full of passion, like Miller.  I have to admit I’ve heard quite a few Republicans express concern over how angry Miller seemed when he was giving the speech.  I think he was angry, and with good reason.  Why is righteous anger seen as a bad thing?  I think more Americans need to get angry about what’s going on in our government.  The Dems have no problem getting angry.  The Republicans need to stop worrying about appearing nice, and start playing hardball. 

It’s like the Republicans show up in their tea party finest and the Dems are dressed out for a blood and guts rugby match.  I say, “Let’s spill some blood!  It makes the grass grow!”

Yes, I have a violent streak.  I try to keep it under wraps, except at events where it’s more acceptable . . . like hockey games and such. 

I hope you’ll take the time to read this, especially if you don’t have access to the cable news options . . .

Covering the convention
Linda Chavez (archive)

September 1, 2004 | Print | Send

I’ve been going to political conventions — Democrat and Republican — for 32 years, and I’ve never seen a bigger disconnect between what is actually going on at the convention and the way it is being reported.

Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Townhall.com member organization.

©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

I hope that what Senator Zell Miller says is true . . .

and that a lot of Democrats out there actually support President Bush.  He wrote the following:

There are many Democrats like me, Democrats who believe in a strong military, and giving our military what it needs to get the job done.

When the Democrats met in Boston, they talked a lot about John Kerry’s service in Vietnam, but barely even mentioned his 20 years in the Senate.

Let me say as clearly as I can, what Lieutenant John Kerry did in Vietnam, is to be praised, and we should thank him for it every day, but not his shameful record on national defense as a U.S. Senator.  And not for voting to send our troops to war, but against the $87 billion to give them the equipment to fight that war.

I am honored to be speaking in New York, and I am proud to be a Democrat.  Mostly, I am proud to support President George W Bush.

I was encouraged by what former Mayor Koch said regarding the President, and I’m hoping that the Democrats that sent Zell Miller to Washington follow his lead and vote for President Bush as well.  I think there are a lot of Democrats out there that are Democrats in the same way that they are Smiths, or Browns, or Millers.  Their daddies, grand-daddies, and great-grand-daddies were Democrats and it’s a heritage thing.  They don’t realize just how far from real America the Democrats have moved.  Hopefully, with prominent Democrats speaking out in favor of the President, they will see the truth of what John Kerry stands for and realize that it is possible, and responsible, to vote for the man rather than the party.

I tell you, if I lived in Georgia, I’d vote for Zell Miller and I’m a Republican!

This is greatly encouraging to me . . .

Why Koch is on Bush’s bandwagon
Jeff Jacoby (archive)

August 30, 2004 | Print | Send

 Ed Koch identifies himself with pride as a lifelong Democrat.  The former New York City councilman, congressman, and three-term mayor says his values have always been those of the broad Democratic center — the values of FDR and Harry Truman, of Hubert Humphrey and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  He disdains the Republican worldview as cold and unfeeling — “I made it on my own, and you should too.”  The Democratic philosophy, by contrast, he sums up as: “If you need a helping hand, we’ll provide it.”  No surprise, then, that Koch disagrees with George W. Bush on just about every domestic issue, from taxes to marriage to prescription drugs.
 
    But he’s voting for him in November.
 
    “I’ve never before supported a Republican for president,” Koch told me last week.  “But I’m doing so this time because of the one issue that trumps everything else: international terrorism.  In my judgment, the Democratic Party just doesn’t have the stomach to stand up to the terrorists.  But Bush is a fighter.”
 
    Koch was surprised and impressed by Bush’s resolve after Sept. 11.  “He announced the Bush Doctrine — he said we would go after the terrorists and the countries that harbor them.  And he’s kept his word.”  Koch doubts that the leadership of his own party could have mustered the grit to topple the Taliban or drive Saddam Hussein from power, let alone to press on in what is going to be a long and grinding conflict.
 
    “Already, most of the world is caving.  If you didn’t have Bush standing there, you’d have everybody following Spain and the Philippines” in retreat, he says, trying to appease the terrorists instead of fighting them.
 
    How much of his party does Koch speak for?  We won’t know for sure until Election Day, when exit polls help gauge how many Democrats crossed party lines to support Bush.  But Koch knows he’s not the only Democrat to regard the war against militant Islam as the most critical issue of the campaign.  And he doesn’t think he was the only one dismayed by what he saw at the Democratic convention in July.  From Michael Moore’s seat of honor next to Jimmy Carter, to the thunderous applause that greeted Howard Dean, to the 9 out of 10 delegates who want to pull the plug on Iraq, the convention exposed the radical antiwar mindset that dominates the Democratic Party leadership.
 
    But hasn’t Kerry pledged to stay in Iraq and to go after the terrorists?  “That’s what he says to appeal to moderates and conservatives during the campaign,” Koch replies.  But the party activists who nominated him would compel him to back down once he was in office.  The people now running the Democratic Party want no part of the war, and “when the chips are down, Kerry will do what they want.”
 
    It bears repeating: This is a faithful Democrat talking.  And it is as a faithful Democrat that Koch so sharply resists his party’s left wing.  (“The radicals don’t like me,” he once wrote.  “And they have good reason, because I despise them.”) Though he calls himself a “liberal with sanity,” he governed the largest city in America as a decided centrist.  Twice he was re-elected in massive landslides.  New Yorkers came to trust Koch’s instincts and judgment because they resonated so closely with their own.
 
    And what those instincts and common sense tell Koch today is that nothing matters more than beating back the threat from Islamic terrorists.  “I want a president who is willing to go after them before they have a chance to kill us,” he says.  “Party affiliation is an important consideration,” but it’s not more important than winning the war.
 
    In his 1984 autobiography, “Mayor,” Koch tells of his appearance before the Republican Party’s platform committee in 1980.
 
    “I was the first Democratic mayor to do so in anyone’s memory.  And it caused a stir.”  For the better part of an hour, Koch gave the Republicans his views on some of the era’s most intractable municipal issues, including unfunded federal mandates, block grants, and the heavy burden of Medicaid.
 
    “They were with me on all of these items,” Koch recalled — so much so that when the session ended, GOP Chairman Bill Brock half-jokingly invited him to join the Republican Party.  “I respectfully decline,” Koch answered.
 
    “Then we all went outside for pictures.  There I was asked by a reporter, `Mr.  Mayor, isn’t this political treason?’
 
    “I said, ‘If this be treason, make the most of it.  But it ain’t.'”
 
    It ain’t treason this time either.  In 1980, Koch’s highest concern was the fiscal security of New York City.  In 2004, it is the national security of the United States.  Americans are at war with fanatical enemies, and above all else, they need a commander-in-chief who can face those enemies without flinching.
 
    Koch’s political home remains where it has always been — in the party of FDR and Truman, Humphrey and Moynihan.  He is a loyal Democrat.  But as JFK once said, sometimes party loyalty asks too much.

©2004 Boston Globe

I just love Mike Adams’ columns . . . he’s so intelligent and witty, and his columns are incredibly on-point (IMHO):

Of mice and menopause
Mike S. Adams (archive)

August 27, 2004 | Print | Send

You probably know her. She’s only in her forties, but she’s already on her fourth marriage. Her kids are grown so she decides to get a job at the local university. Now she has secure employment, even if her salary and benefits are not up to par. But, most of all, she likes what she hears from day one; namely, that her employer will assiduously defend the rights of blacks, women, and gays never to be offended in the workplace. She is protected by the campus speech code.

©2004 Mike S. Adams