All of these men have current or historical views on political policies. Some you may recognize, while others may look foreign to you. Here's a hint - Two are running for President, ten are founding fathers and two are communists. Of course, you can also mouseover the images if you don't know who they are still.

Over the next few days the viewpoints of these men will be compared on several issues:

• Second Amendment Rights
• National Defense
• Taxes
• Debt / Economic Redistribution
• Immigration

This isn't meant as anything other than to show what our framers intended, and how close (or far) the candidates today are to those ideals, along with that of famous socialists.

Michael Medved has some great insight regarding the strategic aspects of Iraq and Afghanistan:

In terms of strategic importance, Iraq is vastly more significant than Afghanistan – both for its keystone location in the heart of the Middle East and its enormous oil reserves. Why, then, do liberals say Iraq’s fate isn’t our concern, while simultaneously insisting we can’t afford to lose in Afghanistan ?

Yes, the terrorists who attacked us trained at Afghan bases – which is why we struck the Taliban before going after Saddam, destroying those vast al Qaeda facilities long ago. A total withdrawal from Iraq could enable terrorists to reconstitute their bases in that far more strategic location. John McCain is right that it’s no either/or proposition – success in Afghanistan requires securing, not abandoning Iraq , and we can’t afford to lose either country. Success breeds success and failure breeds failure, so the two struggles are inevitably interconnected.

Isias Vidal Maceda of New Jersey had a problem with bugs in his apartment. So he did what any logical person would do - attempt to exterminate them. As reported by Reuters, he went a bit too far however. When he was spraying the kitchen, he crossed an open flame, and blew up his apartment. At least the bugs are gone...right?

According to the 22nd Amendment:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

With that being said, Barack Obama was on Face the Nation yesterday and said the following:

The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to ten years.

Don't take it from me, or even the transcript though - here's the video:

Just a thought for those confused - Obama is going for his first term as President, which can be a maximum of four years. Should he win, and then be accepted by the American public to be elected for a second term, he'll serve a maximum of eight years. I guess those extra two years will be in the 7 states I'm unaware we have.

As the election cycle continues, the media simply cannot get enough of Barack Obama. Why shouldn't they however - Obama is a ratings goldmine. He has everything they are looking for in a candidate from his charisma and his liberal viewpoints shared by the general media, to the historical possibility of being the first minority President and simply being someone other than George W. Bush.

Having a preference of a candidate is, in itself, not a problem. Not actually admitting such and acting neutral however is. The media has been playing the PR game for Obama since the Democratic Primaries. As Obama's trip to the Middle East (his first since the surge began) is underway, we are reminded of the preferential treatment given to the mainstream media's chosen candidate.

Not only will his world tour be covered like a sitting President, rather than a candidate, all three network news anchors - Katie Couric (CBS,) Charles Gibson (ABC,) and Brian Williams (NBC) will be traveling with him on stops in Jordan, Israel and Germany, respectively. In the same regard, when Republican candidate John McCain made similar trips, the coverage was non-existent. While this story isn't meant to be a childish complaint about the world being "unfair" it is meant to simply point out discrepancies in journalistic standards.

The non-profit and non-partisan Project for Excellence in Journalism has done some research over the last month and found that Obama coverage has dwarfed that of McCain. In the same time period, an astounding seventy-seven percent of all stories had Obama playing an important role whereas the same could be said about McCain in only forty-eight percent. As mentioned earlier, there are many reasons for Obama to receive more coverage. However, PEJ's Tom Rosenstiel claims:

"No matter how understandable it is given the newness of the candidate and the historical nature of Obama's candidacy, in the end it's probably not fair to McCain."

Looking at the bigger picture, although the press is determined to have Obama elected, having the amount of coverage dedicated to him may turn out to be a bad thing. Even when stories are presented in the best possible light, having more time devoted to him may simply place Obama under the microscope, thereby generating an even bigger target for the opposition. Should he make a mistake while overseas, it may simply reiterate with voters his inexperience with foreign policy. John McCain was the benefeciary of the media in 2000, as was Howard Dean in 2004. The story didn't end well for either candidate those years.

As mentioned previously, I attended the live Glenn Beck comedy show. It was very funny, and well worth the admission. My wife wasn't able to attend, so hopefully I'll be able to get a recording of it for her. The great thing about the show was that it wasn't what you'd expect from someone on conservative talk radio, in the sense that it was a comedy show that poked fun at all politicians. Texas governor Rick Perry was in attendance, as well as one of the greatest men on the planet, American hero and Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. Supposedly, T. Boone Pickens from "Pickens Plan" was there, but I didn't see him in the audience.

The theater had more patrons than I would have expected, if only because Glenn isn't on a local station here in Detroit. You'll need to try to tune in Toledo, or as I've been told, Grand Rapids. You can also catch the show via XM if you are lucky enough to have a subscription (XM is really worth it by the way.) Ironically enough, there were multiple occasions when Glenn commented on how terrible Detroit was. Being from the Detroit area, in a Detroit theater, we all LOVED this and cheered wildly. There were other funny parts as well, many from the pre-show before the satellite feed started. As some of the pictures below show, they took standard movie pre-show advertisments and trivia etc...and turned them into a humorous political situation. Some noteworthy ones I missed were the word jumble of Britney Spears which somehow read Presbyterian and the picture showing McCain and Obama asking to find the differences between the photos, only to reveal that there are no differences.

While I wish I had smuggled in my HD Camcorder and/or DSLR, my Blackberry had to suffice for the show. Here are some pictures and videos, albeit in low quality:

 

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich explained the recent crime problems in Chicago:

"Violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control. I'm offering resources of the state to the city to work in a constructive way with Mayor Daley to do everything we can possibly do to help stop this violence."

Chicago has laws in place for gun control. Not surprisingly, the laws aren't working. So naturally, to reduce the crime, tougher laws have been put in place. The criminals will no doubt give up crime because they don't want to break the law. Gun control works - if you obey the laws in the first place.

In years past, we've looked upon Israel as a staunch defender against terrorism. Alas, today we can say that no more. A horribly lopsided prisoner swap occurred in which Israel gave Hezbollah five terrorists in return for the bodies of two soldiers. Mind you, the terrorists given in the exchange weren't just petty men. One of them, the brutal Samir Kantar, is one of the most despicable people I have ever heard of. He killed a man in front of the man's four year old daughter, then not satisfied, killed the four year old girl by smashing in her skull in with the butt of his rifle. This man didn't deserve to breathe let alone be placed in jail, and then released nearly 30 years later. As in the past, all that negotiating with terrorists will do is breed more terrorism:

"What we've done now has made kidnapping soldiers the most profitable game in town," said Israeli security expert Martin Sherman. That Israel paid such a high price for dead bodies could provide an incentive for militants to kill future hostages, said Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the opposition Likud Party. "This is a very dangerous precedent," he said. "We are telling them that they don't have to do their utmost to keep captive soldiers alive, to save them if captured."

If all the terrorists need to do is kidnap Israeli soldiers, kill them, and then give back the dead bodies for living terrorists, what do they have to lose? Israel needs to change the policies involved in this. If they wanted to crack down on Hezbollah, after receiving the two bodies, they should have simply killed 200 terrorists, in a show of "good faith." Sadly, the Israelis are on the defensive now, rather than the offensive, and being a tiny blip on the map in the middle east, with every other nation gunning for you does not bode well for them. It makes me wonder now, if the talk about Iran is simply that - talk.

Out of all the ideas for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and to use alternative energy, I find the most promise from T. Boone Pickens' plan. Part of the reason I am so intrigued by his ideas are because they aren't politically motivated. Pickens is eighty years old and is a billionaire, so he doesn't have any financial aspirations from this - by the time his plan is implemented, he'll probably be long gone. He isn't trying to attack "Big Oil" but simply find us an alternate method to reduce our dependence, which is a good thing. I highly recommend checking out his plan. You'll see the commercials soon enough if you haven't already.

Canadian teenager Omar Khadr's story has been receiving more attention in the media, thanks to the recent release of his Guantanamo Bay Interrogation Video. While I am against torture if unwarranted, and certainly a child pulls at our emotions, this propaganda piece to free Khadr from Guantanamo by using the media and bad publicity is simply shameful. First, the video in question is not any atrocities being committed by the United States.

It shows Khadr weeping, his face buried in his hands, as he is questioned by Canadian intelligence agents over four days in 2003.

When looking at the history of Omar Khadr and his family, the connections to terrorism are undeniable. While connections aren't enough to convict someone, a tape of him burying landmines in Afghanistan played on 60 minutes sure enough should be.

The video shows Khadr toying with detonating cord as other men including Abu Laith al-Libi assemble explosives in the same house as had just been destroyed, identifiable by its walls, rugs and the environment seen out the windows in the video, and planting landmines while smiling and joking with the cameraman. It has been suggested that these were the same landmines later recovered by American forces on a road between Gardez and Khowst.

The only reason this is getting any play is because of his age, pure and simple. Had this simply been another terrorist - he is a terrorist - then he would be sitting in Guantanamo, rather than being given sympathy. Worse in my opinion than his actions, were those of his "role models" who led him down this path. His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a known terrorist and close associate of Osama Bin Laden, as noted by the United Nations. In fact, Omar Khadr had previously met Bin Laden. The hunger strike Omar Khadr participated in while in Guantanamo was most likely due to watching his father do the same thing in 1995. It isn't hard to find more details on the atrocities committed by the Khadar family. The fact that Omar Khadr is still alive after killing some of our brave soldiers is a testament to how fair we really are. Had we granted him his wish and killed him after finding him wounded, the world would have one less terrorist. We would, however, be no better than Omar Khadr. The media found a sensational story, and unfortunately tried to put a human face on terrorism. Here's hoping that Khadr will cooperate to help stop the terrorism, and turn his life around, rather than throw it away with the terrorist lot he has joined with.