Can you believe the elections are still 17 months away?! The way things are going in Washington, you’d think they were next week.

Last I heard the Alien Amnesty bill is dead… for now. The senate rules require 60 votes to bring a bill up for consideration in the full senate and it only got 45. This thing has been so mutilated in committees that some even those who where all gung-ho about it voted to kill it.

The bigger story here is the impact that this bill has had on the GOP. Some have said that John McCain has destroyed his chances for President by getting in bed with Ted Kennedy on this bill. Others say that the divisions among republicans brought to light by the immigration debate have split the party so badly that the democrats have a slam dunk for president in ’08.

The Dems were very successful in 2006, some say, because of their “We hate Bush” platform. Don’t be surprised if Republican White House contenders take up a similar rallying cry to try and salvage their bids for the office.

Speaking of the ’06 Democrats, Pelosi’s posse has discovered that running on a campaign against Bush and Republican corruption was the easy part. Now the proverbial other shoe has dropped and America has noticed that all that promised reform and house cleaning has not been done. Lo and behold, the Democrats are as (or more) corrupt than the Republicans they were supposed to be cleaning out. Pelosi’s congress now has an even lower approval rating that the previous congress. In fact, Pelosi’s congress has a lower approval rating that Bush!! The latest numbers proport that as few as 29% of Americans are happy with this congress. “We hate Bush, but we hate Pelosi more!”

Despite this, the Dems in congress are forging ahead with that left-wing agenda. This week they are pushing through a bill to spend tax dollars on embryonic stem cell development regardless of the fact that private industry is strongly supporting stem cell research and is finding more and more that embryonic stem cells are not helpful. Adult stem cells (donated from the patients themselves rather than harvested by destroying a human life) have proven far more effective. Just last week a study was released in which a team at MIT said they were able to produce useful stem cells with the attractive qualities of embryonic cells by using adult cells.

The push for embryonic stem cell research in the congress is not inspired by science. It is nothing more than an attempt to codify the idea that humans are expendable until their mother hears them cry. The abortion industry needs bills like this to strengthen their position because with conservatives on the Supreme Court, it may soon get much harder to make money killing babies.

This week’s white board quip is influenced by the fact that I attended a middle school youth pool party this weekend. I didn’t bring a swim suit and had not planned to partake eye-burning goodness, but who was I kidding. Thankfully, we have good kids and they took off my shoes before they threw me in.

Swim in the lovely pool while you drink it all in.
– Hotel Ad

In June of 2004, I spent a week in a Microsoft training class being bored to tears. During breaks, and sometimes during the actual sessions, I read through every page of Cockeyed.com, the closest thing to a blog that I’d read to that point. I’d heard of blogs and the whole notion sounded pretty stupid. Who wants to read every joe-schmoe’s on-line diary. But after spending several days taking in the wit and creativity of Rob Cockerham, I thought it might be a cool creative outlet.

On June 9th, 2004, I created an account on BlogSpot. My first post was titled “Surely you’re not serious” because for so long I had bemoaned the blog concept. The name stuck and so did the blog.

Happy birthday, SYNS! Three years and counting.