He blew it

Many of my faithful readers are not going to like what I am about to suggest and as a conservative I hate to have to say it, especially so close to a presidential election but I think President Bush is a wuss. I couldn't believe it when he apologized and tried to appease Iraqi terrorists because there was some mistreatment of prisoners of war. In a perfect world the good guys don't do stuff like that but this, and the Iraqi war in particular is not a perfect world.
Has the President forgotten why our troops are in Iraq, has he so quickly forgotten the innocent women and children incinerated in the flying missiles of September 11th? Has he forgotten the thousands that died at the World Trade Center? Has he forgot the death of  U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl at the hands of Pakistani terrorists, his throat was cut? And the more recent beheading of Nick Burg, did he forget about him? I don't hear too many Muslim apologies for those atrocities. We are at war with a planet full of American haters, we refer to them as terrorists but despite the country of origin, they all have one thing in common, they are fanatically committed to destroy us. During wartime, discipline sometimes lapses and people do things that cannot be condoned but it does happen in every army, every war. It should try to be avoided but I would wager that anyone on one of those airplanes, in the towers, or killed at he hands of our enemies would have chosen humiliation instead of what was meted out to them in the name of Allah. That is why  I was dumfounded that the leader of our nation could be so weak as to try to appease people that hate us and have sworn to brutally massacre our women and children every chance they get. I believe President Bush made a fatal error in judgment by pandering to the liberal media. The move will not make friends in the Muslim world and will not win him liberal votes at home but it sure will lose him the respect of his troops and many of his loyal political supporters. I believe that with that speech he threw away the Presidency of the United States.

What do you think?

Inside-out

I am an outsider so it may be considered a little hypocritical to suggest that Bradley county should be encouraged to grow from the inside-out as opposed to the outside-in. The reason it is preferable to keep a growing population at home is that there is less social management costs involved and family pressure helps keep delinquents on the straight and narrow. If a town loses it's young and brightest to far away places, eventually it grows in on itself and dies. But if a town grows just fast enough to accommodate the natural increase in population because of the rise in birth rate, it retains the hometown atmosphere and is still commercially viable. It also avoids the problems a transient population can cause to the social service structure and law enforcement. Growth from the inside-out, providing it is managed to appeal to the brightest and most talented, fosters prosperity,  community spirit and oneness. Unfortunately, greed by a few selfish individuals, usually property speculators, tend to cause uncontrolled outside-in growth. Cleveland seems to be experiencing this kind of growth and is being forced to deal with the problems associated with it. Crime and strain on government services encourage a rapid rise in taxes to compensate. The problem is that the cycle goes into a tailspin, always trying to play catch-up by soaking up more money. Recently, the County Commission was approached with plans for a larger juvenile detention center than was budgeted for. The reason given by Judge Van Deacon was that juvenile crime was increasing in Bradley county faster than the national average because of an increase in the transient population. He also said that the type of crime being committed by juveniles was much more serious, requiring harsher penalties.
Unfortunately, Cleveland Mayor, Tom Rowland and his buddies are committed to the uncontrolled outside-in type of growth which is exasperating the problem on all fronts. 6th District County Commissioner, Roy Smith suggested a juvenile boot camp instead of a larger holding facility. Although his idea would not change the growth pattern, it would soon travel the grapevine that Bradley county is not the best place to be incarcerated. It would probably work on the adult jail population too and may be something to be considered by our leaders.
Judge Van Deacon's remarks are a warning that unless Bradley county's growth strategy is changed to the inside-out form, Cleveland's hometown character will be lost.

What do you think?


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