The Dickensian disdain for the poor resonates with some people today.

Hello, planeteers! Although I haven’t posted here in a while due to an overflow of work, I’ve been lurking from time to time and am glad to see that the quality of commentary here has not declined in the slightest. Keep up the good work! In my travels through the [...]

  America is a Nation with a mission — and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace — a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. ~George W. [...]

Robert Gates has served 9 different Presidents over the last 45 years.  Join us as we look back on that service and look forward on the challenges that face our nation.   Dr. Gates, thanks so much for joining me this evening.  I really appreciate your time. Gates:  No problem [...]

The Italian word for “secret” is segreto. Remember that. About 38 years ago, when Watergate was making a splash across the news media, one Bob Woodward was directed to California, by one of the plea-bargaining culprits and told to speak with an ex-JAG lawyer named Donald Segretti. Segretti was a college [...]

Here in Ireland there will be a Presidential election on the 27 October.

لا إله إلا الله ، وأن محمدا رسول الله.( There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.) ~Sunni Shahada    The Arab World Before Islam Before we delve into the religion of Islam itself, let’s look at Arab life before it’s inception. In the 5th [...]

    For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium. ~Albert Camus   Why do [...]

On the Debt Ceiling deal, the word was that Obama “caved”. Did he? The evidence indicates otherwise.

  America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~Abraham Lincoln   Lincoln’s words are as true today as they were over 160 years ago when he first spoke them. Since the birth of our nation [...]

When I was growing up in a Democratic kitchen, my parents made the difference between Democrats and Republicans abundantly clear. Keep in mind that this was in the 1960s, and I was a small child, just starting school, when Kennedy was elected. Before I knew the real difference between Democrats [...]

    In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior. ~Francis Bacon Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without that law is both. [...]

Loads of people love to talk about fascism coming to the United States, draped in a flag and carrying a cross. Well, maybe that’s so; but I happen to think that it’ll come the way good, old-fashioned fascism came to Germany. In fact, it’s almost here now. Last Sunday, the [...]

At the recommendation of a fellow Southerner, I’m currently reading a book I should have read long ago - Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic. It’s one of the most honest representations of the Southern psyche I’ve yet to read, without any of the snark, insinuation, condescension and assumption many on [...]

 The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit are not only critical elements in the quality of life we enjoy – they are a reflection of the majesty of our Creator. Rick Perry Where to begin with this guy. People think we’re in an unprecedented [...]

I was born a Democrat. My parents were Democrats before me. My father cast his first vote at 21 in 1936, for FDR. Four years later, when she turned 21, my mother did the same. She came from a long line of Democrats, going way back to Jackson, I suppose. [...]

I am Cyrus, king of the world, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters   In this post we will be discussing one of the greatest rulers to have ever lived, Cyrus the Great of Persia. King of Āryāvarta, King [...]

People are living longer. Just look at the number of ex-Presidents we have living yet. There are four, and I can’t remember when so many ex-leaders of the country have been alive and compos mentis. There have always been ex-Presidents who lived beyond their term of office. Herbert Hoover, Harry [...]

When I was a junior in high school, in the middle of Richard Nixon’s first term, I took a course in civics. Back then, this was required of all high school students, usually taken in their junior or senior year. Our civics course was simply entitled “U S and Comparative [...]

Considering the Tea Party’s candidates and leader’s (deliberate?) misconceptions about our founding fathers and what they truly believed, I am writing this in the hopes that some of them may read this. Today, we are presented such distortions about everything from religion to government and politics and the beliefs of [...]

Join me to check in on daily developments in the Arab Uprisings and add your own content.

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  “I am the punishment of God…If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.” ~Genghis Khan Temuijin – Early Years and Rise to Fame For about a 5 or 6 year period in the late 1980′s to early 90′s, Mike [...]

Religion in government is not new. There have been elements of religion that date back to our founders. There has been much debate about the theology of our founders, especially in recent decades. Evangelical and/or “traditional Protestants” claim that Christianity was central to the early history of the United States. [...]

  Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn’t every war fought between men, between brothers? ~Victor Hugo   2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. The first shots being fired on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in South [...]

I believe that socialism is the only system that we may subjugate ourselves to and still be able to call ourselves human and that society will slowly evolve into socialism, followed by the C-word, which I still have an unnatural reflex to.