In Fornicalia, every proposition on our ballot went down in engulfing flames. Not just little but Bigly and Ugly. At first blush, our electorate took their collective right fist and rammed it into Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger’s stomach. For someone who knows how to punch and fight, Arnold exhibited little if any will to put up his dukes, much less unleash his own barrage of counter-blows.

Common sense got beaten down by a barrage of repetitive, misleading ads that were occasionally outright lies. The campaign against Gov. Arnold was absolutely effective and, as such, Fornicalians sent a remarkably conflicting message to the rest of the country, and that would be: yes, we hated Gray Davis and voted him out, voting Arnold in under the guise of regime change trumpeting our need to turn government “back to the people” and remove the influence of “special interests.” Then we said we liked things just as they were via this election. Huh?

Except, of course, that “our own” oxen were subject to becoming gored and special interests once again stomped on clearheaded ideas. As I’ve always indicated, never let rationality, common sense, proportion and logic get in the way of a good screwed-up decision process. Hence, the ill-educated Fornicalia electorate spoke; and what they said is:

• We can’t be bothered to actually read the propositions;
• We are confused when more than a couple propositions are on the ballot;
• When we hear lies repeated more than twice, we believe them;
• When things are the least bit confusing or we as voters are the least bit fatigued, it’s easiest to simply vote no;

So here’s what we believe in Fornicalia:

• Parents have no right to be notified before abortions can be performed on girls under 18;
• Teacher tenure will continue to be 2 instead of 5 years;
• Any Fornicalia union can continue to use members’ dues for any political purpose against the wish of the individual member, who has no say;
• There are no spending limits for the State of Fornicalia; we may continue to spend more than we receive in taxes from the taxpayers;
• We like our gerrymandered districts in Fornicalia; it keeps those currently in power and gosh, why should we brook those pesky incumbents?
• There should be no discount prescription drug program for the state (fine by me);
• There should be no incentives paid by the state to prescription drug companies (fine by me);
• We will not re-regulate our energy market (fine by me).

In San Francisco (you’ll really appreciate this!), voters decided to ban handguns and oppose the presence of military recruiters in city schools. City of San Francisco residents passed their Proposition H, which requires city residents who already own guns to turn them in to police by April 1, 2006, and makes it illegal to buy, sell, distribute and manufacture firearms and ammunition in the city.

One out of 8 US citizens currently live in Fornicalia, the 6th largest economy in the entire world, not just our nation. Sturdy American stock of all ethnicities settled in Fornicalia originally because it offered the dawn of a new tomorrow, there was promise of an unfettered future where people could make their fortunes with hard work, minimal if any regulation, new hopes and adventures.

But here’s the rub: according to the New York Times, in 2004 half a million people left Fornicalia for other parts of the United States, while fewer than 400,000 Americans moved into the state. The net outflow has risen fivefold, to more than 100,000, since 2001, an analysis by Economy.com, a research company, shows — except that immigration from other countries and births have kept the state’s population growing.

In the San Francisco, Fornicalia area, more people are leaving than arriving. Housing prices are beyond horrendous and this has the the literal driving force behind the trend. Most people move to adjoining states like Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Arizona, but the trending also indicates more folks moving to the Southeast and Midwest.

Whereas financial issues weigh heavily upon the minds of those leaving Fornicalia, I submit that an even greater emerging issue will be social and political philosophies.

To all this I say: Fornicalians will in fact reap what they sow; this is the Dawn of a New Tomorrow, taxpayers will foot the ultimate price, and we get what we deserve.

To the rest of you in other states: beware. What happens in Fornicalia first happens elsewhere later. So guess what? Here come our “state-d” thoughts, beliefs and trends!

Are ya ready?

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An afterthought: Arnold Schwarzennegger really is a fighter at heart. He’s been a huge competitor and this has translated to his being a clever and productive businessman. Arnold has taken a big hit; he may be down but don’t count him out.

Since beginning to regularly post in October of this year (though I’ve been on Blogger since June of 2004), in one meagre month I’ve somehow managed to cultivate a loyal band of readers, some new friends, and insight into the worlds of other Bloggers. I’ve been in digital contact with Kansas, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, New York and other portions of Fornicalia.

I find this absolutely astounding. And quite admittedly, a whole lot of fun.

It became more fun when I updated the look of the blog itself, figured out how to add links, add photographs (like the Northern Fornicalia Mesomorphic Zippered Squirrel to the left — not your average rodent and found only in the Sierra Nevada Mountains), change titles and the like.

In other words, personalize and customize it just a bit more. I’m still working on the “add a photo to your profile” thing. And some day I’ll figure out how to add more titles to the blogroll bar.

Oddly enough, that nicely transitions to an update of my blogroll. I had initial aspirations of linking up with the Western Alliance in the Sacramento, Fornicalia area (where I work), but there exists no application form for this and I fear my request to Eric Hogue, who likely receives 179 e-mails per day from various nutjobs like myself, has been placed on Ignore Mode.

With that in mind, and in consideration of those who have so scrupulously supported me in my freshman blogging efforts, I realize I must remake my blogroll. To wit:

You may already know Mahndisa Rigmaiden from Manhdisa’s Thoughts, an exquisite and detailed blog consisting of “ethics and morality discussions with a bit o’ physics.” Her posts are heavily researched, annotated, and open a wide variety of discussions on tons of topics — hence her vast comment sourcing and the reason for her being a comment magnet of the First Degree in the Blogosphere. She has been an unflagging supporter and promoter of my site, and for this I humbly doff my hat. Thanks, Mahndisa!

Speaking of hats, one must always visit the Big White Hat, a God-fearing Texan with a Texas-sized heart who couples his thoughts by way of an incredibly facile writing style. BWH can put more thought, emotion and insight into one paragraph than I can in an entire post. I challenge you to read one of his posts and not pause, exhale, and reflect on the deep meaning within. He’s just that good.

Fetching Jen delves into local (meaning: Sacramento, Fornicalia) power politics and describes herself as “a modish, semi-hip, conservative woman of today’s world.” She’s a founding member of the Western Alliance of bloggers, and absolutely had me hooked when I first read her post about a “right student,” where her son delivered a remarkably mature analysis of abortion in his class at school. Go here and see what her son said — and don’t dare miss her posts!

Eddie Lamperts’ A Conservative’s Conservative blog offers the “deep thoughts of a proud right winger,” by way of erudite, educated observations of the political world. Eddie is precisely what he professes to be: a true Right Winger and sharp-witted advocate of the GOP. Smartly equipped to handle the most acerbic of left wing attack, Eddie writes with panache, a touch of sarcasm and an eye to God.

One day Little Miss Chatterbox started appearing on my comments, and I knew I had to find her blog, The Chatterbox Chronicles. I can relate to her having a bit of an epiphany whilst upgrading the look of her blog — and a very nice job you’ve done, I might add! She asks: “What happened on Fox News? What is Rush talking about today? Has something happened to provoke the ire of conservatives everywhere? Little Miss Chatterbox is happy to tell you all about it!” A mother of four with wonderful religious insight, LMC writes with authority, style and charm.

A resident of America’s true Kansas heartland, Rebecca of Revka’s Take is a mother, likewise with four children (all sons — kinda like my mom!), who has taken on the huge task of homeschooling her eldest — and I can sure see why, with the 9th Circuit’s recent ruling! A big fan of Anne Coulter (and what Right-thinking person isn’t?), Rebecca is pondering the transition from a political bent to a bit of a home journal about the raising of autistic children. She writes with clear and present passion and, quite frankly, I’d kinda hate to see her give up the political spectrum entirely. When I want to immerse myself in the passionate right artery, I go see her!

And, of course, the usual assortment of high-powered suspects, bloggers and idealogues.

All subject to change. Member FDIC. Batteries not included. Contents may have settled during shipping. Go get ’em!

Get Out And Vote
No matter where you are, exercise the American right to vote today and participate in your local elections. In Fornicalia, some amazingly-important propositions are on the ballot; I’ll deal with that in a moment. Absentee voters: please, please tell me that ballot isn’t still laying on the kitchen counter!

Doing The Logical Extension
Whilst enroute my very early morning workout, through a rain-streaked windshield, I began to attempt analysis of the next attacking point for the Liberal agenda — and it was gloomy. But foreseeable. Here is what I think may be next in the approach pattern:

First, the Dems via the DEM lost the senate. Strike one. Then they lost the Presidency — twice (and boy, that grates!) — to a man they perceive as slightly brighter than the average doorknob. Making the situation more critical is the fact that they’re in the process of losing another bastion of control, the US Supreme Court — now even more critical because the SCOTUS allowed the doorknob’s second election! Heresy! The potential SCOTUS turn to the right will be cemented if GWB receives the opportunity for a third appointment via a Stevens retirement. Strikes two and three. But wait, there’s more: it isn’t “sticking” to Cheney; it isn’t “sticking” to Frist; it isn’t “sticking” to Delay; it isn’t even really sticking terribly well to Libby. McCain and DeWine and Graham are all indicating they likely won’t recommend a filibuster of Alito — wow, it isn’t looking too keen.

But the Dems are not yet out. If you were in their corner, bloodied, beaten, leaking plasma and losing your traditional DEM stranglehold (newspapers are bleeding readers; on my Left Coast, the San Francisco Chronicle’s circulation fell 16.4%!) what would your next tack be?

My prediction? Hit the foundation of the nation: voting. First, an attempt to nullify the senate, then the Presidency, then the courts, now there will be attempt to nullify the process of voting. Look for the next push: the voting isn’t “fair,” the process is “flawed,” the system is in “question,” people (always minorities) are being “disenfranchised.” Sure, you’ve heard it all before. Expect an even larger, more forceful push.

For the Fornicalians: My Take On the Propositions
Prop 73: Parental Notification: YES
Kids can’t get issued an Advil from a school nurse without calling Washington, DC and filling out two pounds of forms. This is a no-brainer, if for no other reason than current policy makes parents immaterial and lets government decide what’s good for your kids. And hey, you didn’t really need to know your daughter had an abortion anyway, right? I mean, if you actually said no, you wouldn’t be your kid’s best friend anymore — and we can’t have that.

Prop 74: Teacher Tenure: YES
Again, pretty simple. One step towards making teachers accountable and perhaps even moving towards a real, honest-to-goodness merit pay for real, honest-to-goodness good teachers.

Prop 75: Paycheck Protection: YES
I’m currently a member of an organization that spends my “association” dues as it damn well pleases. My money, none of my input. Boston Tea Party? Taxation without representation? Sound familiar? My, how the unions are going to squall on this one.

Prop 76: Live Within Our Means: YES, YES (and then for those of you who just tuned in): YES
Takes a page from the Dummy’s Guide To Budgets: do not spend more than you make. Huh. Imagine that. What a concept.

Prop 77: Redistricting: YES
This would allow some fresh blood into the system. Go for it, Arnold!

Prop 78: California Prescriptions: YES
Nothing more than letting market-driven forces decide the cost of prescription drugs and pushing down health care costs.

Prop 79: Prescription Drug Discounts: NO
Sure, the State of California needs to get into the pharmaceutical rebate business. Not. Quote: “One-time and ongoing state costs, potentially in the millions to low tens of millions of dollars annually, for administration and outreach activities to implement the new drug discount program. A significant share of these costs would probably be borne by the state General Fund.” Who sponsored this initiative? The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Prop 80: Electrical Re-Regulation: NO
We just went through this. And we still won’t (read: Greenies have stopped us from) build more power generation stations in California. This would re-regulate the industry, killing competition. Here’s the key phrase: “Imposes restrictions on electricity customers’ ability to switch from private utilities to other electric providers.”

Now, go out and win elections — Fornicalians: put your vote where your mouth is. My union ox is getting gored and I’m voting for Prop 75! You too can “do the Right thing.”

The riots in France aren’t stopping and the French still seem oddly paralyzed by the scenario, though police are reacting — and getting injured as well. Shot at, oddly enough, by those who shouldn’t have weapons — France being regulated by very strict gun control laws.

Still, the DEM and European media insist on portraying the rioters are mere “youths” — as though this were merely the resulting of adolescent, rebellious growing pains. The rioters are Muslim. They are chanting: “It’s Baghdad here.”

The appeasing is already beginning throughout Europe. In Monday’s Mark Steyn commentary from The Washington Times, Steyn writes: “Today, a fearless Muslim advance has penetrated far deeper into Europe than Abd al-Rahman. They’re in Brussels, where Belgian police officers are advised not to be seen drinking coffee in public during Ramadan, and in Malmo, where Swedish ambulance drivers will not go without police escort. It’s way too late to rerun the Battle of Poitiers.”

Today on Bill Bennett’s Morning In America, he featured British journalist David Pryce-Jones, author of The Closed Circle. In a 12-31-2004 piece about the Islamization of Europe, Pryce-Jones wrote:

Does this (Islamist) crisis amount to a “clash of civilizations”? Many people reject that notion as too sweeping or downright misleading. Yet whether or not it applies to, say, the situation in Iraq, or to the war on terror, the phrase has much to recommend it as a description of what is going on inside Europe today.

As Yves Charles Zarka, a French philosopher and analyst, has written: “there is taking place in France a central phase of the more general and mutually conflicting encounter between the West and Islam, which only someone completely blind or of radical bad faith, or possibly of disconcerting naiveté, could fail to recognize.”

In the opinion of Bassam Tibi, an academic of Syrian origins who lives in Germany, Europeans are facing a stark alternative: “Either Islam gets Europeanized, or Europe gets Islamized.” Going still farther, the eminent historian Bernard Lewis has speculated that the clash may well be over by the end of this century, at which time, if present demographic trends continue, Europe itself will be Muslim.

Continuing, this morning David Pryce-Jones said on Bennett’s show:

There’s a new Intifada going on, that’s what it is, a sort of uncoordinated uprising of disaffected Muslims, and they are saying that’s their identity, and they don’t like France and they don’t like being French. And there’s no sense of organization which in some ways makes it more sinister, the fact that it has now spread over the entire country.

There are some really astonishing figures. Since January the first of this year there have been 28,000 cars burned in France and 70,000 incidents of violence. That is astonishing. That means several hundred cars burned a day.

It has obviously been building up for a very long time and it has caught the French state completely by surprise. It is a Muslim uprising and it is nothing else but that. They have decided that they’re not going to integrate, they’ve decided that they want separatism. Part of the thing that is so difficult for outsiders to understand is that they want all the advantages and the privileges and the rights, but they’re not prepared to give anything in return. If they don’t like it, they really shouldn’t be there at all, should they?

And it isn’t just France. All over Europe there’s an Islamization going on. The British shouldn’t be so smug; we had Muslims and black rioting a few weeks ago. There are riots in Holland, and there are riots in Denmark.

I think one of the things we need to see in the next few days is whether this is the beginning of a really strong Muslim anti-European Intifada.

The French state is completely and totally baffled; it doesn’t know what to do. We’ve had the extraordinary silence of Jacques Chirac. We had the equally extraordinary example of Mr. de Villepin; what he’s done would make Neville Chamberlain proud. And Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, who called them (the rioters) scum, he’s risking his position because he’s taking a stand. He is risking his position because he is calling for a clampdown, for law and order. This can only be done through the gendarmerie; this can only be done by force.

The state is now closing factories, it’s put thousands of people are on the dole, it’s unsafe to take trains, and they can bring France to a halt.

It looks as if there are only two possibilities. Either taking a firm stand, which means enforcing law and order, which is Sarkozy’s position, or de Villepin’s position which is to surrender.

If they use force, and there is bloodshed, then I think Sarkozy is finished. People will say, the attempt to enforce law and order will have created much more trouble than it was worth. Then the surrender will succeed, and what we shall actually have is infinitely greater Islamization as the result of it.

The French are tough on terror, but they’re not tough on people inside the country. The thing that is very striking is, the places where the Muslims are rioting are unpoliced. But now the police are being taken in by bus, but they’re unfamiliar with the terrain. The rioters escape inside alleys and into parks and hideaways and underpasses and so on.

What we see here is that the French state, for all its tough talk and the way it’s clamped down on terror, had taken no precautions at all to deal with something like this. There aren’t armored vehicles; they have torched hundreds of police cars. Why aren’t the police in armored vehicles? They’re going against Molotov cocktails, and that shows a total lack of preparation. And that in itself shows a failure of analysis.

Mr. Bennett mentioned that a listener recently watched a BBC program and noticed that not once did the BBC refer to the rioters as Muslim. Mr. Pryce-Jones responded:

The BBC has completely given up its integrity. It is now just a
propaganda organ for the Left.

Look, what’s actually happening is that thousands of French people are being put out of work. And many thousands of people have lost their livelihood, they’ve had their shops burned out, their businesses burned out, banks have been burned out and robbed. This is the beginning of anarchy. Can that be a good thing?

Bill Bennett asked: why should America be concerned, and what are the policy implications?

It means that we all have to consider very, very carefully what we’re going to do with the Muslim communities in our midst. We have to make quite sure that they assimilate. If they don’t assimilate and go the way of separatism, there can only be violence, and we are seeing that now in France.

The first recorded death due to the riots has occurred today, as a 61-year-old man beaten into a coma has died.

As urban unrest spreads to neighboring Belgium in apparent copycat attacks (5 cars have now been torched outside a Brussels train station) and possibly Germany, the French government faces growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm. The police are also afraid that the types of weapons they face could soon include grenades.

The match has been struck; it is apparent that other fuses are now being lighted.

I did a bit more research last night and again attempted to see through the DEM cloaking device to the various root cores of the violence in France, and tried to forecast where this might lead. Oddly enough, I think perhaps I can distill it down to the following paragraphs whereupon, afterwards, I shall give my stab at hypothesizing about its effects and ramifications.

The DEM has typically cast this story as various disaffected rioters upset with the deaths of two teenage boys who were electrocuted attempting to escape the police. Wrong. The rioters are young Muslim males and the rioting now has nothing to do with their two deaths.

These rioters have no money and are unemployed. Partially correct; most are unemployed but they also are what the British would call “on the dole;” France is a socialist society.

The rioters are now second-generation Muslims (France is now 14% Muslim, with 5 million, the biggest Islamic population in all of western Europe), non-integrated into the country, whose parents hailed primarily from Algeria, say 30 years or so ago. The Muslim rioters are not French and they are not Algerian. Algeria flatly refuses to repatriate any.

France refused to assimilate them, the populace dislikes them, so they built enclaves where hatred, disrespect for the hosting nation, for French culture, mores, a secularized society that was not theirs, built and built and built. And France did nothing — to the point where French police declared certain areas to be absolutely unenforceable and left everyone to their own devices. Hatred, discontent, a “huddling, bunker effect” leads to the disaffected breeding their own bubbling, boiling cauldron of rancor, and is a perfect medium for the creation of Islamist extremism.

The riots began back on October 27th. And there appears little evidence that the police are making a significant dent, and that the riots will stop any time soon. Some are even theorizing that France will be the location of a new Intifada where the goal will be to wrest control of the entire country, where already more than 1 in 10 is a Muslim.

“What we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting more organized,” arranging attacks through mobile phone text messages and learning how to make gasoline bombs, Hamon said. Police found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a derelict building in Evry south of Paris, with more than 100 bottles ready to turned into bombs, another 50 already prepared, as well as stocks of fuel and hoods for hiding rioters’ faces, senior Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press.

All of France, western Europe, perhaps even the UK, had best be prepared for the ramifications if the rioting continues unabated. You can rest assured that, with ten, soon to be eleven and more days of rioting, messages are being delivered, e-mail sent, calls made, and an unofficial Al Queda presence will soon (if it has not already) turn to a real presence of those who know how to craft much more than Molotov cocktails.

Unstanched, this rioting wound will likely be the galvanizing point, a stepping-off point, an escalation of the continued violence and terror utilized by Islamist extremists against western societies — any society that is not steeped in Islam.

I poked fun at the French in my last post because, basically, anything French provides me a target-rich environment. They are collectively a nation of Moonbats. But this, now? It’s beyond Moonbat. Either the French will come down hard and draw lines in the sand, or the situation will escalate beyond their borders and people will die.

People do what they can, when they can, because they can — if they are not stopped.