As a child there was nothing more fun in grade school then singing those wonderful patriotic songs.  This Land is Your Land, America, America the Beautiful, God Bless America, The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the mother of them all, the Star Spangled Banner.  The room would shake with the voices of us wee bairns singing our hearts out.  Loudness was more present then accuracy, but heck we were enthusiastic.

Now days I think you would be harder pressed to find that happening, but the Star Spangled Banner remains legend in it’s own right.

In the Air Force there were not too many days where I did not hear it played.  When the music played we stopped whatever we were doing, we saluted the flag and we maintained silence and respect.  Like my views about the flag,  I admit I am somewhat biased about the Anthem.

But even the general public treasures their Anthem.  Sung at sport events, played to honor athletes at the Olympics and even the rock instrumental versions by Boston and Hendrix: It is timeless.  Whitney Houston, in her glory years. brought the nation to its knees with her rendition years ago, and Roseanne Barr brought the same nation to its feet in anger with hers.

Now there is a contradiction, eh?  I want you to go , but I won’t.  The reasons why are fairly complicated, as is my feeling about the movie.  In certain ways the movie is a good thing and a bad thing.

The story of how the passengers of Flight 93 is a grand epic on some senses and a tragedy in others.  To look at it in the terms of the "hero" film one can easily see the elements that make it compelling:  The drama was playing out live, via cell phones and recordings as the passengers of the flight found themselves not only hijacked but due to the timing, forewarned as to what there fate would be, and in knowing that, they took fate in their own hands,

That immediately brings many conflicting emotions and images.  For the families, the heart wrenching feeling of loss and despair, as the families knew their loved ones were doomed.  There must have been an intense feeling of the inevitable, the waiting for their deaths, then a rush of adrenalin as the revolt takes place, pride then fear as contact is lost, and lingering hope that is shattered with the news of the crash.  Hollywood prides itself on movies that take you on "an emotional roller coaster" but the reality of this event makes that seem tame.

The lawmakers on Capital Hill are frantic tio take the gas crisis and turn it to a partisan advantage.  President Bush speaks about our addiction to foreign oil, while the Politicians on the left accuse him of being cozy with big oil companies and everyone around them scream for an investigatoin into oil profits and price gouging.,

I am of two minds about the last item.  Living in a free market economy we have to deal with prices that inflate due to market speculations and demand.  It happens.  That said, I think there should be some scrutiny to ensure that the players are not greasing the process to their profit outrageously.

As for the big oil and republican conspiracies, I would say it’s just a baseless aprtisan attack.  But it resonates with the people and the dems know it.

Bush though is on the track to the heart of the issue.  We are too dependent on foriegn oil and our habits are hurting us.

Ann Coulter points out the inherent hypocrisy in the Democrat’s wailing and gnashing of teeth over high gas prices. 

It’s Hard Out Here For A Pump

By: Ann Coulter

I would be more interested in what the Democrats had to say about high gas prices if these were not the same people who refused to let us drill for oil in Alaska, imposed massive restrictions on building new refineries, and who shut down the development of nuclear power in this country decades ago.

But it’s too much having to watch Democrats wail about the awful calamity to poor working families of having to pay high gas prices.

Imposing punitive taxation on gasoline to force people to ride bicycles has been one of the left’s main policy goals for years.

For decades Democrats have been trying to raise the price of gasoline so that the working class will stop their infernal car-driving and start riding on buses where they belong, while liberals ride in Gulfstream jets.

I am a little under the weather tonight, so i am just going to repost this essay from Stop the ACLU. ~ LSU

Many of us find it disturbing to hear the sympathetic apologists defend the ACLU’s work to protect pedophiles over our children. We watch the ACLU fight for sex offenders to live next to Elementary schools, and playgrounds. We watched in horror as the ACLU defended NAMBLA, under the banner of free speech, to plan and talk about how to rape young boys. It doubles the anger to hear the apologists defend the ACLU with some twisted talk perverting the Constitution.

In Mississippi, billboards of sex offenders and child molesters are being errected, but of course the ACLU oppose this. Of course all of these things we hear excused away by liberal apologists, but lets take a deeper look at the ACLU’s agenda. Let’s take a deeper look at the industry that the ACLU wants to defend here.

The Washington State Democratic Party today filed an FEC complaint against Us Senate candidate Mike MCGavick.

The essence of the complaint is that when Mike announced his candidacy to run against incumbent Maria Cantwell, his employer gave him a retirement package that amounts to an illegal campaign contribution.  The core of this is that Safeco Insurance modified an agreement to allow him faster access to several hundred thousand stock options via accelerated vesting.  This effectively gave him a war chest for what will be a hard battle against Cantwell.

The irony here is on two levels.  First, Maria Cantwell played a similar game when she successfully ran for Senate in 2000.  At the heart of the complaint filed against her were:

• Cantwell pledged as collateral a $375,000 home to set up a $600,000 line of credit despite FEC rules requiring collateral for a campaign loan to be at least as much as the loan.

Congratulations to Tony Snow who will be announced as the new White House Press Secretary tomorrow.

I know it will cement the accusations about Fox News being in the pocket of the Republicans but honestly he is exactly what Bush needs, if Bush let’s him do his thing.

Sources: Tony Snow to Be Named White House Press Secretary

Tony Snow will be named new White House press secretary on Wednesday morning, FOX News has learned. Snow is expected to be at the White House for the announcement. He has been mulling the offer for the last several days.

Long before the announcement, oddsmakers were banking on Snow, host of FOX News Talk’s "The Tony Snow Show," to be tapped for the highly visible White House post.

"I expect to see him at the podium in just a few days, in the press room at the White House," Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor, said Tuesday.

The call has been issued for Diane Sawyers resignation over a Primetime special that aired last Friday.  This is a case that illustrates the cold hearted callous disregard for people that the news sometimes exhibits in order to get a "good story."  And their actions have ensured a child abuser gets to go unpunished.

During the filming of a story on dysfunctional step families, ABC cameras caught a beating of a teenage girl by her father on video tape…and did nothing about it….for 4 years

Calls for Sawyer to Resign After Teen Beating Report

The shocking beating of a teenage girl by her father that aired during a Diane Sawyer report about dysfunctional stepfamilies has set off a firestorm.

State police officials in upstate Lake Placid say they are going over the tape of last Friday’s "Primetime" news magazine to determine if charges can be brought against the natural father, a Iraq War military reservist, and the teen’s stepmother.

The investigation — which includes the local Franklin County DAs office, police said — was only part of the fallout from the broadcast.

In case you have not seen it, Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and author has launched new site called Hotair.com

According to the site:

Our mission at Hot Air is to:

• Expose new viewers to the revolutionary world of videoblogging, animation, and Internet broadcasting;
• Recruit dynamic, enterprising people with creative skills from across the country to help us challenge (and CONQUER!) the dinosaur broadcast media outlets;
• Laugh. Report. Laugh. Entertain. Laugh. Inform. Laugh. Make money. Did we say laugh?

If this recent submission is an indicator, they are serious about their laughter and on a good track.

Doug TenNapal is a brilliant animator, artist, filmaker and musician.  And now he is a contributer to Hotair.com

It’s a Hot Air exclusive as animator Doug TenNapel weighs in on the immigration “debate.” Click the image for video. A most unholy union indeed.

(video link here)

If that looked amazingly professional to you, well, there’s a reason. Two reasons, actually. Our deepest thanks to Doug and EEF for gracing us with one of their originals. (And there’s more on the way.)

I just got this email from Factcheck.org concerning a new video produced by Russ Feingold.  He claims it is just a parody shown at a fund raiser, but the group who produced it indicates they may use it as an ad in a shorter version. 

You decide:  Parody or Parisian hatchet job.

http://factcheck.org/article388.html

Is This A Joke?

Sen. Russ Feingold’s Leadership PAC suggests the White House wants to wiretap political opponents.

Summary

Sen. Russ Feingold’s leadership PAC sponsored an Internet video making an unfounded suggestion that President Bush is being urged to eavesdrop "on anybody who has the nerve to disagree with [him] - court order or not."

A Feingold spokesman says the ad is a parody. Funny or not, it makes an accusation for which there’s no evidence.

Feingold himself says in the video that "our country hasn’t stood for this kind of abuse of power in 200 years." We think he’s forgetting such things as FDR’s forced internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans in World War II, and Lincoln’s summary jailings of Confederate sympathizers.

Analysis