Saturday Food For Thought:

Sorry for no posts this week. I just haven't found much to post about when I had computer access. I have done some rambling this morning though, and thought I'd provide a few thoughts I found for your perusal:

These are from Chuck Muth's News and Views at Citizen Outreach:

WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN: “Don't expect the Bush administration to get much credit, but the wall holding back Arab democracy is beginning to crack. From elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine to reforms throughout the region, it's unlikely any of it would've happened under a different U.S. president. In a surprise move over the weekend, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak used a nationally televised speech to call for a constitutional amendment to allow opposition parties to participate in presidential elections.” - Brendan Miniter, Political Diary, 2/28/05

TRICK OR TREAT: “Hillary, in her true skin, is too stridently liberal and unlikable to be electable in a national election. But who says she has to show her true skin? . . . Hillary has done a far better job than I expected in faking her ‘centrism.’ She'll only get better in her ‘performances’ as time rolls on. . . . Hillary will never be a conservative. She'll never be a moderate. She'll never be anything other than a liberal. But she is getting quite accomplished at making it appear otherwise.” - Columnist David Limbaugh

BIG-TIME BACKFIRE: “We know that the amnesty (for illegal aliens) program didn’t work. We have done that once before under the Reagan years, and it backfired big-time.” - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION: “I have one question. If cigarette lighters are such a threat to air security, why is OK to take them on a plane on April 13th, but not April 14th? I\'d really like to hear the line of reasoning for this from the enlightened TSA. If they are such a huge threat, why aren't they being confiscated immediately? - News & Views reader Matthew Best

SECRET OF THEIR SUCCESS: “Home-school success is not a new phenomenon. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers were home-schooled or received private one-on-one tutoring. The advantages of one-on-one tutoring are clear: no distractions and an environment where a child can learn at his or her own pace. So much more learning can take place in the home, which is the main reason home-schoolers score an average of 20 to 30 percentile points higher on standardized tests than public school students.”- Michael Smith of the Home School Legal Defense Association

U.S. OUT OF WTO: “The World Trade Organization, which the United States joined in 1994, has been disastrous for American sovereignty. . . . Make no mistake about it: WTO ministers tell Congress to change American laws, and Congress complies. In fact, congressional leaders obediently scrambled to make sure the corporate tax bill passed before a WTO deadline. Thousands and thousands of bills languish in committees, yet a bill ordered by the WTO was pushed to the front of the line.

“...Our membership in the WTO is unconstitutional, which is to say illegal. The Constitution grants Congress, and Congress alone, the authority to regulate trade. . . . Fortunately, Congress has an opportunity this year to withdraw our membership in the WTO.

“When the U.S. first joined the organization in 1994, a rushed lame-duck Congress inserted a 5 year review clause to garner some last-minute votes. This clause allows members of Congress to bring a resolution every 5 years calling for a vote on our continued membership. I plan to join with other House colleagues this year in demanding withdrawal from the WTO.” - Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Texas Straight Talk, 2/28/05