When I was in college, I remember a depressing theme coming up in one class. Granted, I majored in Writing – in literature classes, they tackle a lot of depressing themes, but I remember this one especially: Is the American Dream dead?
The answer to that question is simple: no. And no. And no and no and no.
Why am I bringing this up? For one, it’s good to remind readers of the pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps attitude that seems to be overshadowed by gloomy economic news these days. …

Thought you Republicans/conservatives might enjoy this one. Democrats, not so much.

I wasn’t the only one who felt obliged to go after this column that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about four or five days ago. Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan beat me to the punch with his own column that I found to be a great success:
I even found myself nodding in agreement as community columnist Thomas Zachek expressed his indignation over the bizarre and at times dangerous behavior of those he calls “religious” fanatics. The author seemed on target as he took aim at some actions of these …

I just sent a letter to the editor to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in response to a community column I read yesterday. What can I say? I saw someone broad-stroke the Catholic Church because of pedophilia and saw the Dan-signal.
Here’s the original column written by Thomas Zachek:
I don’t get religious fanaticism.
adsonar_placementId=1266526;adsonar_pid=527757;adsonar_ps=1371709;adsonar_zw=300;adsonar_zh=150;adsonar_jv=’ads.adsonar.comI don’t mean the fanaticism of suicide bombers in the Middle East (though I don’t get them, either). I mean the kind of home-grown fanatics that we breed right here in the good ol’ USA.
The kind of people who …

Here’s the new trailer for Oliver Stone’s movie, “W.”:
Looks pretty lame to me. It’s already common knowledge that Bush used to be a BlackSheep/BadBoy partier – big deal, old news, he’s almost not the President anymore. Besides, isn’t Bill Clinton’s life in the White House even more saucy than that?
I’ll admit, I’d see this if all I had to do was switch to On-demand, but I probably won’t see it in the theatre or bother trying to go rent it when it comes out on …

Bill Gates is one of the world’s greatest philanthropists – without him, there wouldn’t be the giant Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – and now he wants people to stop a habit that the WHO predicts will kill a billion people in our century: smoking.
That’s right: both Gates and Michael Bloomberg are spending $500 million to stop people from smoking:
Bill Gates and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Wednesday that they would spend $500 million to stop people around the world from smoking.
…
This time, most are expected to …

Ah, yes, that old song. People claim there is a strong conservative influence in today’s media, but they’re usually referring to someone like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly, who aren’t actually journalists but just talking heads. It’d be like saying BipolarNation.com has a conservative bias – difference is, I don’t pretend I’m being fair.
Media bias comes in the form of amount of stories run or amount of time given to particular candidate. Claiming conservative bias for opinions is like saying a newspaper is balanced because it runs …

Peter Coyote, the actor who played a high-powered lawyer in Erin Brockovich and the scientist after E.T., made this interesting suggestion the other day:
Actor Peter Coyote has suggested that stars who earn millions of dollars for their performances in movies ought to share the wealth with established character actors, who have seen their earnings rolled back as the stars’ skyrocket. Coyote, best known for his role as the scientist trying to track down E.T., suggests that the Screen Actors Guild ought to call upon leading actors to kick back “a …

David Evans, a consultant for the Australian Greenhouse Office for several years, has come out and said the evidence is lacking that carbon pollutants are causing a greenhouse effect or, for that matter, global warming:
The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, …

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell made some interesting remarks on the Senate floor last Tuesday that tore apart the Democratic plan for oil bit by bit and I wanted to comment on them:
The proposal that the Democratic Leader outlined on gas prices last week falls laughably short. It has all the marks of a political exercise nervously cobbled together in the face of constituent pressure and none of the elements of a serious plan that would actually lower the price of gas or reduce our dependence on the Middle East. …