Why are we stuck in this politically correct hole? Do people really believe that the sons and daughters of our privileged citizens are seriously considering the military for a career choice? Especially at this time?

Because they aren't.

You don't need a college degree to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. I know, because my son has already spent a year there. He joined the National Guard to help pay for college. Most of the kids dying or getting maimed over there are in the same boat.

This politically correct bullshit, trying to suggest that they are all highly educated people serving out of sheer patriotism, or because they actually think getting shot at for Burger King wages is a good career path, that's truly stupid.

Yes, I think Kerry really said that: If you don't get an education, then the only job you'll be able to find is signing up with one of those recruiters who are desperately trying to fill their monthly quotas. I also think Kerry is wrong in trying to correct what he said. I've never liked that asstard.

A man should have the guts to stand by his convictions.

Gun violence seems to bring out two kinds of fools.

One kind of fool are the people who use the opportunity to call for more gun control. I am one of those who don't really see any legitimate reason for a private citizen to own fire arms (yes, I'm aware of the 2nd Amendment - are you?), but gun control laws are at best a tool to keep guns out of the hands of sane people - most of whom don't own guns in the first place. As long as people make and sell guns and ammunition someone who wants to badly enough will be able to get his hands on the means to kill a bunch of people for no apparent reason.

Of course, the other kind of fool are the people who use the opportunity to argue about how much better things would have gone if there had been more people in the crowd packing heat. "If armed students had been there, then Gill (the shooter at Dawson College) would not have been able to injure or kill so many people."

Yup, I can just see it. In response to Gill's first few shots, armed students in the vicinity draw their trusty "equalizers" and start blasting away in Gill's general direction. The results would make the evening news a lot more interesting.

Please shoot me. Ann Coulter and I have agreed on something.

Her recent editorial is titled, Terrorists Win: Deodorant Banned from Airplanes.

It's what I've been saying for some time. We are doing exactly what the terrorists want us to do by succumbing to the vague threat of someday being attacked in some unpredictable way. We are surrendering our sanity, and our leadership is aiding and abetting the terrorists by creating rules and restrictions that don't make us any safer.

Mind you, after the headline, it's all downhill for Ann. In addition to her blatant racism (implying Arabs don't use deodorants), her completely fact free writing is all vintage Coulter.

So I guess you don't have to shoot me. Even a stopped clock is right twice in a day.

So in what category would you suppose the USA is worse than former Soviet client states or extremely conservative religious cultures? Visit this graph on the National Geographic website.

When it comes to evolution, folks in the USA are less likely to accept it as correct than folks from most other Western nations. Only Turkey is worse, and the others that are near the bottom of the list are former Soviet client states or countries distinguished by very conservative religious cultures.

However, liberalism vs conservatism isn't a universal predictor. The Netherlands, a country which is notorious in the USA for its liberal drugs policy, has about 1/3 indicating they either don't accept evolution or don't know about it. On the other hand the UK, a country that in many respects echos USAn conservative values, ranks 6th highest as accepting evolution.

Curiously, Japan was included in the list. Since when is that a Western country? Not surprisingly, evolution is accepted by more people in Japan than in all but four Western countries in the list. Which kinda makes me think that the predictor for this result might be effective public education. I bet if you lined up test scores for science and engineering with this chart, they'd be a pretty close match.

LiveScience.com has another article about this situation.