SANTA BARBARA RANTING
There were just so many Santa Barbara related topics to discuss last week that I decided to sum them all up in one entry ...
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On Thursday, there was a short article on the Santa Barbara Independent web site about developer Jerry Beaver and his desire to seek donations to help make up for the $35,000 he spent fighting the Light Blue Line project. Maybe I'm overreacting a little here, but this really chaps my hide. The Light Blue Line was a nice little endeavor with the sole purpose of bringing awareness to the very real threat of global warming. The fact that a small group of vocal opponents was able to kill this project was a sad day for my town and makes Santa Barbara look pretty lame in the eyes of other more progressive cities who will take this enlightened action.
So, now we're so supposed to feel bad that some rich developer wants his money back? No one asked you to spend your money to fight this fight, Mr. Beaver. If you didn't want to pay the piper, you should have kept your feelings (and your dollars) to yourself. As much as I despise Wendy McCaw, I doubt you'll see her looking for handouts to pay for the legal fees she's incurred fighting the union, Jerry Roberts, the NJR, the former NP employees, the businesses that posted signs, everyone who's worked on her house, people who want to walk on the beach, bloggers ... Ow, I think I'm getting carpel tunnel. Anyway, Mr. Beaver, if you do get 35K in donations, will you make a pledge give it to the people who's houses are under water when SB is swallowed by the sea?
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On the front page of Thursday's Santa Barbara News-Press was the headline "ROOT OF THE PROBLEM - Removal of El Paseo eucalyptus spurs controversy over protection of landmarks." Was I the only one that had that "deja vu all over again" feeling upon reading that? Since Wendy is now famous for being enraged by the removal of trees and then pointing to Travis Armstrong as proof of a community-wide outrage, I can't help but ask if that is what is happening here. I know that El Paseo is a local landmark, and you're not supposed to make changes without permission. But the question I'm asking is if "locals are really upset" about the tree itself? Can anybody help me out here? Are people other than the NP editorial section really angry by this? Inquiring minds want to know.
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Apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't like the Daily Sound's Conservative Turtle debut. Reader Kevin McDaniels had the audacity to write a letter to the Sound stating that he wasn't so happy with their portrayal of liberals. So, the Turtle decided to spend its entire second column (on Thursday) tearing apart Mr. McDaniels's statements. Is this what we get to expect from the new column: Turtle makes outrageous statements about progressives, someone writes a letter calling Turtle on it, and then Turtle picks apart letter? If you feel the need to spend an entire column responding to one negative letter, I think you need a thicker shell.
I will give the Turtle credit for one thing, though ... they actually discussed an issue in this one instead of simply taking pot shots at the left. Specifically, they talked about Das Williams's efforts to convert city vehicles to run on biofeuls. You'll be surprised to hear that I actually agreed with many of their statements about this up and coming fuel source. But then they quickly lost me again by going on a tirade against compassion and tolerance, frequently linking those traits to Nazism. After that, the Turtle -- once again -- went back to the "poor me" stuff ...
We fear the effects of their [progressive liberalism] attacks on traditional institutions such as a biologically related family (based on marriage and procreation between a man and a woman), attacks on religion, attacks on our culture by those from other cultures, and the undermining attacks on the military.
Why don't you stop making these high level vagaries and give specifics? For example, what attacks on religion have I made? Are you talking about the fact that religion is often used to justify homophobia (as you've done here)? If so, then yes, I attack religion in that case. And how have we attacked the military exactly? Democrats want to give the military body armor, better health care, and more time at home with their families (your side just fought and defeated that last one, by the way). Being against Bush and against the Iraq war is not attacking the military.
You state you want a constructive confrontation ... then start talking about something of substance.
Sincerely,
The Liberal Rabbit
Labels: conservative turtle, light blue line, santa barbara daily sound, santa barbara news-press, wendy mccaw
posted by Trekking Left @ 2:22 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
You can hop on over here...
http://liberalamphibian.blogspot.com/
attacks on religion, attacks on our culture by those from other cultures
First, no doubt it was hard for Conservative Turtle to leave out the "our" before religion. (There is only one real one, you know.) Second, to pretend America has a mono-culture is to deny what makes America great. Shoot, if only we killed all the Injuns and sent all the freed slaves to Liberia....
The local neo-con rag had a sports editorial critical of one of the local college football players. The coach ripped the newspaper a new one at his press conference. The whole press conference was one long rant, with spewing venom toward said writer and paper. I loved it! Whenever I see people get pissed enough to take on the establishment they go up three notches in my estimation. I went from not liking the coach to wanting him to run for governor. The old rich fuds need enemas, every one of them. They think their money makes their opinion more valuable than mine. I hate them, because actually their money does make their opinion more valuable than mine. Sickening.
Diversity is perversity. According to the multi-culti leftists in this country it's a GOOOOOD thing that the Muslims are trying to assimilate themselves into our democracy at a previously unheard of rate. More shish-kebabs for them, I guess. But also more mosques, more Muslim kids learning bad things about America at the mosques, and naturally more radicals.
Is an America with more radicals in it a good thing for you George? Last time I checked, you liked your beers, right? They don't. At the rate they are taking over Europe with their exceptionally high birthrates and the ease of which they can migrate there, they should have the Islamic republic of Europe up and running by 2050. And if we continue down the line that we're walking they'll come here too.
Be careful what you wish for.
Conservatives are self-parodying. That's why conservative politicians hire think tanks to help them lie about what they believe.
As usual, McC's rampant paranoia is matched only by his ignorance.
Just how does your link prove I'm ignorant? Here are some excerpts from the report you cite:
"Fewer than half of Muslim Americans...accept the fact that groups of Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks. Just four in 10... while 28% flatly disbelieve that Arabs conducted the attacks."
71% of those polled said they voted for John Kerry
A 2000 NES study showed that in the year 2000 Muslim adults made up .2% of the American population. This 2007 PRC study put the number at .6%. Don't need a calculator to see that that is a 300% jump.
"More than half of adult Muslims (56%) are between the ages of 18 and 39."
One chart shows that 86% of US Muslims beleive the Koran is the word of God, and 50% believe in the Koran literally, word for word.
(This might be the scariest statistic, expecially if you've read any of the Koran)
And hey I only had time to zoom through 34 pages out of 108. So how does this Pew study show I'm ignorant exactly? Read the book before you write the review, TAM.
And which of those statistics, exactly, proves that a single Muslim-American is here to kill anyone?
As far as taking the Koran literally, I'd be willing to bet that a similar number of Christians would answer the same way about the Bible. Which is equally terrifying...
The statistics I thought clearly revealed your ingorance were these:
American Muslims' view of American society (U.S. Muslim/General public):
Agree that one can get ahead with hard work: 71%/64%
Rate their community as "excellent" or "good": 72%/82%
Excellent or good personal financial situation: 42%/49%
Satisfied with the state of the U.S.: 38%/32%
Agree that Muslims coming to the U.S. should adopt American customs: 43%/(n/a)
Which shows that most Muslims (just like any other group of peole) have come to America for the opportunity of a better life. Obviously there's the occasional nutjob, but, just like with nutjob Christians, or nutjob anarchists, or any other brand of nutjob, the exception does not make the rule.
I don't think there's too many Muslims that are willing to go through the immigration process, which may take ten years, only to carry out a fatwa fifteen years after they first set foot in the country. No I'm much more worried about the ones that come here illegally, or just on temporary visas. They are more likely to be the bad guys.
At any rate the gist of my first comment in this thread was really fueled by the fact that I recently read the Mark Steyn book "America Alone" and it's a pretty scary read. You should check it out. Anybody here read that book?
I agree, there's definitely patterns of behavior that can be deduced -- I remember reading that many of the 9/11 hijackers had expired visas, were on watch lists, or had otherwise violated existing rules that, had they been enforced, could have prevented them from carrying out their plans. Not to mention reports of them wanting to learn to fly, but not to land! And of course Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.
Good intelligence, and communication between different agencies, has got to be far more effective than considering a huge group of people automatic suspects.
I hadn't heard of that book, but from the Amazon reviews, doesn't sould like too bad a read considering the insane fear-based POV. Tell you what -- you read either "A People's History of the United States" or "A People's History of the 20th Century" and I'll read that, and we'll compare notes...?
Agreed. Are we talking 1000 page tomes here? Because Steyn's book is a quickie. Right now I'm halfway through Hitchens' "God Is Not Great," with "The Reagan Diaries" on deck, but the Reagan book is huge so maybe I'll hit the library and pick up one of yours.
And yes Steyn's book is has a total fear mongering POV, but he mixes in some funny stuff to keep it from being 110% doom and gloom. Still, it's pretty enlightening if all of his facts are on.
Oh and I recently killed off the Tenet book, which is kind of old news if you'd followed the news over the last 10 years, but it does give alot of good insight into what the CIA DID do leading up to the attacks. It completely illustrates the disconnect between the agencies, and what they did to make up for those holes in the infrastructure. Mix in a little bit of finger pointing and you've got yourself a bestseller, but he in no way slams the President, he merely pulls a little ass covering in it while still taking a good part of the blame for the faulty intelligence.
The full People's History (isbn 0060838655) is 768, while the 20th Century (isbn 0060530340) is 512. Personally, I liked starting with Columbus' landing, as starting with Teddy Roosevelt seems like it's kind of picking up in the middle of the story. But either one gives an eye-opening look at just how much our government is, and has almost always been, by and for the rich and powerful.
Steyn's is a new one, correct? Looks like it's still at hardcover price on Amazon -- looks like the paperback will be out shortly, though.
Steyn's is fairly new, 2006 I think. I just got it from the library, off the shelf. You can kill it in two days.
I think I'll go with the People's history, starting with Columbus. I'll let you know what I think.
I read "Mayflower" this past year, another excellent history book, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Man they didn't tell us the whole story in grade school!
Indeed they didn't!!
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