Campaigning is always at its best and worst the last few weeks before the election, which is no surprise. Often, celebrities like to throw their names in with certain candidates, parties, or issues, and sit back while the praise and criticism rolls in. This should be expected, since everything a person does in the political arena is widely open to criticism. Badmouthing, vitriol, and others angrily stating their conflicting opinions are an occupational hazard when publicly voicing your beliefs. This angry game of politically driven pong goes on many times each day, and the media loves every second of it.

The plot thickens though, when someone with a progressive, debilitating disease goes to campaign for a candidate on a very controversial issue. Michael J. Fox was campaigning for Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill in political ads on the issue of embryonic stem cell research. McCaskill has made this issue one of her key points in her quest to unseat Republican Senator Jim Talent, who opposes embryonic stem cell research, and favors using federal funds to using adult stem cells for research.

Last Thursday, Conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh criticized Michael J. Fox for his ad, in which Fox had heavy tremors from his Parkinson's disease. Limbaugh said that Fox has likely gone off his medication in order to make his tremors worse for the camera. The backlash happened swiftly thereafter; with many people in media outlets further demonizing Limbaugh for his assumption. Limbaugh said "In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking. And it's purely an act."

Even though Rush has been publicly skewered for his assumption that Fox did not take his medication and was acting to further publicize his tremors for his candidate's political gain, Limbaugh had a reason to believe the way he did. Michael J. Fox has admitted on camera and in his book "Lucky Man" that he would stop taking his medication for public appearances on behalf of Parkinson's disease research. Fox told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer about going off his medication to give a speech to Congress in 1999 to "show lawmakers what Parkinson's looks like." In his book, he said "Learning to titrate medication so that it kicked in before an appearance or performance, sometimes within minutes of my cue, became a process of continuous tweaking and refining."

In the ad, Fox claims "Unfortunately Senator Jim Talent opposes expanding stem cell research. Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope." Fox is wrong in his attack, however. Talent has voted for using federal funds to support adult stem cell research many times, and only adamantly opposes embryonic stem cell research.

While Fox openly and unabashedly lied to the public about his candidate's opponent, Limbaugh was perfectly entitled to his assumption about Fox dropping his medication for the taping of the advertisement, due to Fox's publicizing his practices of doing so. While Fox feels he is perfectly entitled to make himself seem worse for public appearances, Rush Limbaugh is not allowed to say a word or make an assumption about something that Fox has admitted to doing in the past. The reason Rush was roasted about his comments is because he is a Republican.

The Democratic candidates wish to make it seem that Republicans do not want Michael J. Fox to be able to be cured of the ravages of Parkinson's disease. They want the American people to believe that curing people of these diseases is a partisan issue, and that Republicans want these afflicted with illnesses such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and others to die. Republicans are constantly painted as heartless, unfeeling creatures, and it's simply not true. Finding cures for these conditions is not a partisan issue, but the left is perfectly happy campaigning on the lies that their Republican opponent wants people to die slowly and painfully.

People cry for bipartisan support on quite a few issues, but while Democrats are spreading lies about Republicans being the only thing holding these cures back, there can be no working together on these issues. The left's candidates are exploiting sick people, and using them to further help their agenda of getting their people in office. Merely electing democrats into office will not cure Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, as they would like the public to believe. It would, only if lies cured illnesses.

Because I pay attention to the news here in Lubbock, it’s blatantly and sadly obvious to me that the Mayor Miller regime is in full swing. Unfortunately, those that don’t watch the local news are about to get reminders regularly, in the form of those terrible little red-light cameras Big Brother Miller has been stumping for since August. Now that there are actual locations decided for these cameras, it seems as though they’re a disgusting inevitability.

According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the first red-light camera may very well be installed by March of 2007, with the rest following soon. Last Tuesday, the Citizens Traffic Commission approved cameras in sixteen intersections, later to be narrowed down to twelve. The spending-addicted Lubbock politicians are salivating over the projected extra revenue, but do find time in their push against our citizens to suggest that these measures may help our citizens stay safer.

City traffic engineer Jere Hart discussed the new revenue for the already budget-busting city council last month. The Lubbock AJ said “Assuming that each citation warranted a $75 fine, and about 14 citations were issued per day, with 60 percent of those citations being paid, the potential net revenue for the first year could be about $2 million, with possible drops in revenue in later years” Councilman John Leonard, one of the two that is actually willing to fight for the citizens of Lubbock, was very displeased with the idea of the cameras, calling them a revenue-generating invasion of privacy.

According to the city by their projections, the cameras will generate an extra 14 thousand dollars a month. They said this money could go to additional police officers, public safety dispatchers and equipment. I find these noble expenditures a little hard to believe, considering the lack of incentives to become a city employee such as a police officer, since Miller’s council cut their health benefits. All the council wants to do is inflate the city’s budget even more, so they have more money to play with.

The Washington Post did their own study into the effective capacities of red-light cameras in their area in October of 2005. They said of intersections with cameras, "The data are very clear," said Dick Raub, a traffic consultant and a former senior researcher at Northwestern University's Center for Public Safety. "They are not performing any better than intersections without cameras.” The Washington post spoke with a spokesman for AAA mid-Atlantic, who had quite a few harsh things to say about the cameras. “They are making a heck of a lot of money, and they are picking the motorists' pockets on the pretense of safety.”

According to the Virginia Department of Transportation, Rear end crashes and total crashes with injuries increased under the watchful lens of the cameras. If the city were truly concerned about anything but their already belt-busting budget, they would have looked into the idea of extending the yellow light period, as brought up by a Lubbock citizen in the local paper. Brad Johnson, a Lubbock citizen, brought many damning facts to light in his letter to the editor, my favorite of which is “Extending yellow intervals to 3-4 seconds and incorporating a 1-2 second overlap on reds decreases intersection accidents (by 94 percent in one Virginia DOT report).”

Not only are red-light cameras ridiculous, due to their blatant nature of invading the privacy of motorists in the cause of allowing the city council to waste more of our money, but they will also pose as yet another distraction to the addled motorists of our city as well. Driving has plenty of hazards and distractions, already coupled with the terrible timing of the Lubbock traffic light system anyway. The last thing the city needs is yet another distraction, all at the expense of the safety of our citizens. The Mayor and the City Council have never had their citizens at the top of their priority list. At this point, I’m inclined to believe that the best thing that Mayor Miller and most of his city council could do for Lubbock is quit. Until Miller and his band of Big Brothers are out of office, the residents of Lubbock will likely be able to look forward to more inflated taxes, bloated local government spending, and sadly, surveillance for our daily lives.

Illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico has been an issue for many years, but the government has failed to do anything about it so far. Finally however, it seems as though the United States government may finally take real action against illegals crossing the border. President Bush promised on Wednesday, October 11^th to work to fence off the most vulnerable parts of the United States’ border with Mexico.

This would be no ordinary fence, however. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, this would be a “700-mile barrier that would consist of physical and electronic “virtual” components.” Many critics of the “virtual” components say that a physical barrier is the best way, due to the possibility that the electronic devices could be overwhelmed by large numbers of illegals rushing spots on the border all at once.

Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security has been pushing for more high-tech methods to help police the border. President Bush said in response “We're going to do both,” including, he added, utilizing a “combination of fencing and technologies – UAVs, sensors.” President Bush allotted 1.2 billion dollars last week as a type of down payment towards the projected 12 billion dollars of the finished product. This was also an opportunity to further publicize his favored guest worker program.

Mexico’s President-Elect, Felipe Calderon is not pleased about the fence. He was quoted in an interview last Wednesday saying “This fence they are leaving me is going to enormously complicate relations with the United States.” Many Mexican officials think that the fence is disrespectful to the work that current Mexican President Vicente Fox did with the United States on immigration during his six year term.

To me, it doesn’t really matter what Mexico thinks about the inevitability of improved border security, because it would cause their government to actually take responsibility for the problems in their own country, instead of relegating care of their people to the United States. While they try to feign outrage through something that they would like to be considered righteous, the Mexican government and its leaders really are only trying to save their own national pocketbooks and resources. They have depended on the United States for years to take the overflow of poor that need help, and border fences will help to end their inactivity towards their own citizens.

Not only are there problems with regular people coming across the border, but criminals and drug smugglers cross daily, yet again allowing Mexico to happily pass more problems onto the United States. Also, innocent people coming across the border to try for a better life die regularly, because they have been abandoned by their own government. Even with this, the Mexican government claims that the fence will cause more deaths, but seemingly will not do anything about trying to prevent them.

Last Thursday in protest, Mexican groups in Ciudad Juarez helped to begin the “First Social Border Forum” taking place in Juarez. These protestors blocked the bridge leading into El Paso, Texas for half an hour before breaking it up. According to the International Herald-Tribune, The protestors were mainly concerned with the building of what they dramatically dubbed the “Wall of Death.” Instead of pulling the old international standard of blaming the United States for everything, they should be protesting their own government for their blatant and deadly failure to take care of their own citizens.

Luckily, the United States is committed to looking out for its own citizens and their wallets, which is why the border fence must be built. Even though it’s not feasible to build a fully contiguous fence across the massive border, President Bush realizes what has to be done. “You can't fence the entire border, but what you can do is you can use a combination of fencing and technology to make it easier for the Border Patrol to enforce our border … And so I look forward to not only implementing that which Congress has funded, in a way that says to folks, the American people, we'll enforce our border.”

Mexico has been able to claim righteousness in their fight against the border, but that’s simply not the case. Mexico has had an easy way out of responsibility for too many years. If something has to be done to help those that are unable to produce a living for their families in Mexico, it should be done by their own government for their own people.

With only a short time before the election where our four main gubernatorial candidates square off, they had their first and only debate on Friday evening. Quite a bit of it was comical, and the funny stuff wasn’t coming from the one who usually tries to be. Rick Perry, Chris Bell, Kinky Friedman, and Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn were all put on the spot by a panel of media questioners in Dallas on Friday, and gave Texas the first real chance to see what their candidates are really made of. Not surprisingly, with the exception of current Texas Governor Rick Perry, the other candidates don’t have much going for them.

Our own angry Grandma, Comptroller Strayhorn looked incredibly uncomfortable and spoke very awkwardly from the first time she opened her mouth until she had the last word in the closing speeches. Unfortunately for the viewers, while she was stumbling over her own bottom lip, she managed to repeat the same things for an entire hour. We knew within the first five minutes that she plans to “shake Austin up”, and she kept saying it for the rest of the hour, with not many real ideas on how she plans to do so. She also shot plenty of barbs at Perry, which didn’t do much good. I’ve known that she’s absolutely nuts for a long time, but being the epitome of an Austin insider, I would have at least expected a small amount of professionalism. I’m amazed she’s even more of a screw-up than I had first though.

Kinky Friedman didn’t do very well, and he admitted to the Star-Telegram that he was struggling throughout the debate. One of the moderators called him on quite a few of the figures that he’s been using, and Kinky was unable to back himself and his campaign up. His clichés and euphemisms ran cold throughout the whole thing, and I think it gave him the first real taste of politics. About thirty minutes through the debate, Friedman said that he felt that everyone was ganging up on him for no reason, even though he was the first to begin bashing Perry in a question to the democratic candidate, Chris Bell. Possibly after publicly displaying his inadequacies, the end is in sight for Kinky’s jocular joust through Texas politics.

The least colorful of the challengers was former congressman Chris Bell. He was calm, cool, and condescending. His speeches and answers relied heavily in the hopes of mobilizing democrats to get to the polls. He began by bashing Tom DeLay. Last I checked, DeLay had nothing to do with the gubernatorial race. Later on, Bell refused to stay on topic on an issue so he could keep talking about another that was just left behind. Bell attacked almost all aspects of our public school systems, but doesn’t offer much in the way of reforms. I believe those in his party nationally are proud of his negative, vapid campaigning. He does obviously have an enjoyment in referring to himself in the third person, which he did regularly throughout the evening. One of the moderators even brought up that former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez was not supporting his run. While he remained cool, he found plenty of problems within the state, but failed to offer feasible solutions.

Perry was taking abuse from all sides, and handled it steadily with real answers. He was very knowledgeable from issues ranging from the broadest Texas programs to the electric bill at the Governor’s mansion, when the angry grandma had no clue as to who Felipe Calderon, the President-Elect of Mexico was. Governor Perry handled every question with figures and his track record, while the rest had some interesting spins on what they want the voters to consider truth. Even during the toughest questions about his property tax reform and the Trans-Texas Corridor, he successfully defended his policies while still remaining respectable throughout the entire thing. I find it amazing that the most successful politician on the stage that night did less politicking than his supposed outsider challengers.

After this debate, the gubernatorial race should balance out quite a bit, because it truly showed who was fit to hold office, and who isn’t fit to hold a towel in a restaurant restroom. The comedian flopped, the angry grandma just worked as hard as possible to remove any doubt that she was absolutely incapable of having any ideas except those written for her on the campaign trail, and Bell had plenty of complaints but no real solutions. After this, the choice is clear for me, and that’s sticking with Governor Perry.