Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 3, No. 29 If a cow laughs hard, does milk come out of her nose? Shame, Shame Well, another city election has come and gone. Mayor Phil claimed victory and a mandate (thanks to a 2% voter turnout) from the people on Thursday night as Nashvillians went in droves (Ok, so the voters drove.) to the polls to vote. Phil survived the multiple-choice controversies over the Land-Phil Dome and cruised to victory against people no one has ever heard of. One fellow by the name of Saad kept flashing on the television screens here at the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River, with no votes. The man had zero. He didn't even vote for himself. There was one other race we would like to see. It is one election we would be all for, but alas, will never happen. The subject of our contempt is none other than federal judge John T. Nixon. We have been searching for quite a while, folks, and we can now report that we have found the most evil man in Tennessee. Ned McWherter was annoying. C. Bob (formerly O.C. Bob, formerly Y.C. Bob) Clement is silly. Bill Boner was self-explanatory. Bart Gordon is a hypocrite. John Nixon is just plain evil. For those of you who don't know the details, Nixon is the judge who takes the appeals cases of convicted death-row felons and sits on them--in some cases for years--and then overturns them for one stupid fake reason or another (such as, the case has been delayed too long and the felon has suffered enough). In this case it was the conviction of William Groseclose. In the 1970s, Groseclose hired a thug, whose conviction Nixon also overturned, to kill his wife. The thug not only left Deborah Groseclose in a hot car trunk to die, he also raped her. And this evil jerk overturned both of their convictions. Is it any wonder people are fed up with the justice system? There is no justice here, only the political views of one man who has the authority to force his views on the rest of us and put a family through hell. It's not right. In fact, it stinks, and Nixon should be ashamed. Bombing the Truth You knew it would happen. As we approach the anniversary celebration of the end of World War II, the same crowd who likes to ignore history has jumped up again with an attempt to make us all feel guilty for using the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945. Let us just say this. It was not worth one drop of American blood to invade Japan when we had a better option at our disposal. And the bomb was a better option. These people who want to change history, telling us now that Japan was begging for us to allow them to surrender long before the bomb was dropped, conveniently forget that the Japanese army was a brutal and inhuman killing machine. Stories of Japanese soldiers bayoneting babies are not uncommon in the lands they occupied. We say this not to claim that the people deserved to be bombed. We say it to back up the fact that they never would have quit or surrendered until the last man, woman, and child had died. The decision was right. It was justified. And, yes, it saved lives. Just Say Dope In the years since Mrs. The President left the national stage as First Lady, her approach to getting young people to stop using drugs has been assailed by the smarter-than-thou liberal establishment and their pals in the media as simplistic and too little to address the problem. A quick review (not revision) of any statistical guide bears out the fact that Mrs. The President's efforts raised drug awareness to unprecedented levels and forced a decline in drug use. Since taking office, those same libs who attacked Mrs. The President's work approached the drug issue in a radically different way. In order to make sure that the continued the progress that The President began and that President Bush continued, President Clinton and Bill slashed the Office of Drug Policy enforcement staff by more than 100 people, leaving it with fewer than 10 staffers, and appointed a drug czar who immediately vanished from public view. The strongest comments that emerged from this administration were from ex-but-not-forgotten-Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. You know what her thoughts on the subject were. Unfortunately for him, her son tried to follow his mother's policy before it became law. Do you even know the name of the current drug czar? If you don't, don't be embarrassed. We here at Spiff probably wouldn't have known it either, except that Lee Brown made an appearance on national television lately to announce his new offensive in the war on drugs. Those same statistics that we mentioned a moment ago also show that drug use is on the rise again. Why? Because we have a president and her husband who refuse to speak out on the subject, and definitely can't lead by example. (Do we hear any inhaling out there?) With the number of users going up again and more people's lives in danger from the crime drugs produce, Lee Brown marched out to the front lines of the drug war to launch his great crusade against... Packaging! Yes, you read it right. No hard sentencing. No attempts at stricter enforcement. Not even the usual liberal fallback of drug treatment and compassion and government spending. Nope. The greatest problem facing our youth as they make the choice to use or not to use is the packaging of the products in the corner market. For example, according to Mr. Brown, you will be stunned to learn that a can of Pepsi is remarkably similar to a can of beer. Now, Pepsi may be fattening, but there is no problem with its look. The fault lies with the evil beer companies that have the gall to cleverly disguise their product by putting it in an aluminum can as well. Can you imagine? We are beyond asking if these people are serious. For three years now, we have watched these boobs try to simulate rational thought, only to fall short every time. But as usual, we want to be helpful, so we will make a suggestion to Mr. Brown and his boss. With intelligent defense budgeting restored by Congress, we should take an aircraft carrier or two, park them in the Gulf of Mexico, and dare any boat or plane that looks suspicious to try to make it to American soil. Then we'll see how many drug shipments get through. While they're waiting, they can practice shooting at beer cans. The Best Defense Is a Good Self-Defense We never thought we would be cheering for anything that has to do with Bosnia, but we here at Spiff were heartened to watch as, on two fronts, the Serbians got smacked last week. In Washington, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in utterly rejecting misguided Clinton policy and voted to lift the ban on providing arms to the Bosnian people. The vote came down to the fact that it is a simple, basic right of humanity for people to defend themselves. The policy of denying the Bosnians that right was a low point in American foreign policy (and you know there have been a lot of low points in the past three years). The really great thing is that both houses passed the measure with veto-proof majorities. Given the fact that the current occupants of the White House are too stupid to wake up and smell the gunpowder, those majorities will be needed. On the front lines, it was equally heartening to watch as the Croatian army awoke from its hibernation and struck back at the Serbs who had captured some of their territory in 1991. Vowing to come to the defense of the U.N.-declared "safe areas" (which may be the most unsafe areas in Bosnia), the Croatian forces hit the Serbs hard and inflicted the first setback on the Serbs since the war began. We are not in the habit of cheering for more fighting, but it sure is good to see someone stand up to the Serbs. Our leaders certainly don't. Quote of the weak: "Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman." Barney "Dick Armey Was Right" Frank, in the House Whitewater hearings, over and over and over and over again. Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River, at 615-847-2259.