The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) today is reporting that President Bush is really asking citizens to take more risk.   This is the pessimistic view of Bush's vision, the glass half-empty approach.   The other view is a glass half-full one, Bush's vision is for citizens to reap more rewards.   What strikes me about the article is the notion that because this direction is opposite where we (as a country) have been going for 70 years, it is somehow new, radical, or perhaps wrong.

Discussions about where this country is, where it has been, and where it is going are made more important, not less, than ever by Bush's victory in November.   The intelligentsia of this country is hard at work on the next round of congressional elections, not to mention the big one four years from now.   This is really an attack on conservatism rather than an attack on Bush and it is a terroristic assault of one thousand cuts rather than a frontal attack on the foundations of conservatism.   Conservatives need, now more than ever, to not only be on guard against this attack but to apply the Bush Doctrine in the arena of ideas by rooting out this erroneous thinking in the place of its origins.

The WSJ article begins by characterizing Bush approach as "The emphasis would be on the individual, supplanting a 70-year-old approach in which citizens pool resources for the common good." Obviously use of terms like "pooling" and "common good" are meant to evoke positive things.   Another way to phrase this would be using big government supported by big taxes for common mediocrity.   The Soviet Union was all about "pooling resources for common good." Likewise China might claim this phrase as a mantra.   To those who watch only network news and believe the New York Times presents an intelligent unbiased presentation of the news, this may come as a shock to you but the Soviet Union went bankrupt years ago and China, wishing to stave off bankruptcy is placing an ever greater emphasis on free enterprise.

There is a lie taught in our schools and supported by much of what we hear from our media which is that America is the "world's only superpower because of what we achieve together as a whole" as opposed to our collective efforts are great mostly because they are comprised of tremendous individual efforts." As Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying, a review of the history is overdue.   The notion of collective efforts, if it is said to be seventy years old, is not the foundation of this country.   This country was formed well over 200 years ago and the foundations of it were laid long before that.   What was new about our country before it was our form of government was personal liberty and limited taxation.   In the years prior to the discovery of North America by Europeans, the vast majority of people suffered under a form of collectivism we call feudalism in which one person or family owned vast lands and "allowed" those who farmed that land to live there so long as they paid huge sums in the form of taxes to the lord who then decided who got what.   In years subsequent to feudalism, there was some free enterprise which was replaced with another form of collectivism we call mercantilism.   In this collectivism, the lords were basically consolidated into kings who allowed greater economic freedom than had existed in the centuries prior.   This new form of freer enterprise was a greater success, which is why it pushed feudalism into oblivion, at least in part because of the new more free enterprise but it still encumbered its people with large taxes.   Individuals made more money than before but truly existed for the good of the state in the form of the king.   The radical notions of personal property for all and unencumbered industry, if not given their original birth in the New World, at least found fertile fields like never before and defeated the systems which predated them.

The New World gave birth to a new system of representative government not because of some great notions of a few people or because of the tremendous resources and cheap land of North America.   The new system of government sprang forth specifically because of the experience of those who founded it which were rooted in free enterprise.   That is why the early revolts were heavily steeped in anti-taxation protests and why are constitution frequently deals directly with economics.   For those who suffered a poor education, the "Boston Tea Party" was not a revolt about tea.   It was a revolt about the cost of tea which was high because of taxes.   The Bill of Rights was not almost an afterthought by comparison. The United States Constitution, a very brief document and not a bad read if you have an extra ten minutes, mentions the word "tax" seven times.   Taxes were on their minds before, during, and after the American Revolution.

For over a century, this country did not even have a tax on income.   Taxes were mostly upon wealth created mostly from income but they were not intended to encumber enterprise.   In the twentieth century we began to tax income and today we really do a great job of encumbering enterprise.   A reasonably successful self-employed person (you know, the guys responsible for most job creation in this country) will likely be taxed in the 30% range by the federal income tax, 5-8+% by the state, and then an additional 14% by the social security system including federal health insurance.   Add it up, that's more than 50% and that's before the 5-8% sales tax on everything purchased and the personal and real property taxes.   That means government is in to you for more than half.   The media is fond of declaring "tax freedom day" sometime in April but for the guy offering you college kids a job, he doesn't get out of servitude until July!

My apologies for the length of this piece.   This blog is supposed to be a bunch of short quips but sometimes that is just not enough.   There are going to be elections in a couple years for congressional seats and then there is going to be one for President.   To me, Hillary is the most logical candidate for the Democratic Party.   And now she is appearing in public wearing conservative attire.   But make no mistake about it, she is a socialist as much as anyone out there can be said she is a socialist.   Do you doubt me? Do you remember the socialized medicine plans she had for all of us? Do you think these would have cost you? If you think this person is not a socialist, I urge you emphatically to go out and prove me wrong.   You must quarantine yourself from all media and interaction with intelligentsia types.   You must work hard and check out all organizations of which she has ever been a part.   You must read everything she has ever written and spoken.   You must take a good long look at everything legislative she has been a party to.   Last but not least, you must take a good look at what she proposed for your healthcare.   Once you are firmly educated in what she proposes, you will see that she is a socialist and maybe, at your heart, you are too.   So now I urge you emphatically to take a good look at how socialized medicine works in the UK, in Canada and elsewhere.   Talk to ordinary folks whose parents have died while they stood, figuratively speaking, in line to even have their conditions properly diagnosed.   Meet with despondent parents who lost a child and think to themselves I would rather have been in debt for my entire life than to have lost this child because of the lousy care or lack of care he or she received.   Read the news stories of how the Canadian government cut the list of potential doctors one year not because more doctors aren't needed but because funds were short.   Free enterprise takes care of these things by making doctors YES more wealthy after years and years of difficult study.   Would you make the guy who saves your life or your child's life more wealthy?

THE SYSTEM does not take care of anything but itself.   Hillary advocated socialized medicine because she is an advocate for the system.   All so called "progressives" are advocates for the system.   Don't let them twist words around and make you think that going back to collectivism is PROGRESS.   The new government of the New World rooted in free enterprise is progress.   That is why the poorest people in this country live better than the middle class in the poorest totalitarian governed countries.

We are an ownership society.   Bush's views are equally as radical as our founding father's views.   Those views gave birth to the greatest country in the world.   Don't give the country back to collectivism.   Don't be bullied by the intelligentsia.   Read history and join the fight to defeat Hillary and/or anyone else with similar views.

Now that all eyes had turned to Winn-Dixie and the recent news that it is reorganizing under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, all eyes immediately turned to WalMart as the "problem".

But Winn-Dixie management would do well to use WalMart as a model, as Winn-Dixie's business plan ain't working anymore.

The United States would do well to have a couple more companies like WalMart, not only dominating the retail industry in the States, but also in countries around the world.

We Americans have always been the winners. We Americans have always been the leaders. It's time we all get behind a winner, and ride it until we can't ride it no more.

If indecency laws do not permit TV stations from airing references to sexual and excretory functions between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., why am I almost constantly seeing commercials discussing "four hour erections" during the middle of the day? It occurs to me that maybe I don't watch the network channels very often and what I am seeing most often is cable channels such as ESPN, FOX, CNN, etc.

I understand the distinction between channels which are broadcast using the "public spectrum" and those which are not. Those which don't use the public spectrum instead use public lands to run their lines to our homes.

It seems to me that these folks would like not to be regulated and I agree, they shouldn't be regulated. But they need to do a better job of policing themselves. I grow weary of explaining what "ED" and "four hour erections" are to my children. I'm sure there are a few others like me (maybe tens of millions). Keep it up guys. See how long it takes to get yourselves regulated.

The employees of the FCC will be looking for work as soon as satellite radio gets really big. Maybe someone over there will get smart enough to propose the Federal Cable Commission.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a gun owner.   I never have been.   Guns scare me.   My family has been seriously harmed by guns.   But I have grown weary of the comments made by those who are against gun ownership.

The typical comment made by anti-gun folks begins with something like "I don't think the founding fathers" and is followed by something like:

• wanted people living in a city the size of New York to ...
  
• expected that ordinary people would have armor-piercing ammunition
  
• thought people would one day have automatic weapons
  
• favored a population of 300 million heavily armed people walking around
  

Let's face facts.   The founding fathers had one thing and one thing only in mind when they established a "right to bare arms."   They wanted to make sure that the populace maintained the ability to stage an insurrection in the event the government overstepped its constitutionally defined limits.   If we forget this, we forget that the government exists because we grant it authority to exist.   We too often try to apply the thinking which established this country to our "complicated and nuanced world."   The founding fathers saw the need to maintain the ability to overthrow a corrupt government as no less important than the separation of powers they set up which is currently under fire as the judiciary oversteps its bounds by creating law, or as the legislative branch hijacks the executive branch with its filibusters, or as the legislative and executive branches continue to appoint or view judges based on political views rather than qualifications.

If we ignore the foundations of our society, we are doomed.

The AP reports suburban sprawl is endangering many Civil War battlefields.   I am, to a very small extent, a history buff.   I like to occasionally visit battlefield parks from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War as it helps me to visualize what our ancestors went through to preserve our freedom.   But how many battlefields do we need to preserve?

Preservation groups have saved 21,000 acres of battlefields in 19 states in the last few years.   21,000 acres?   That is a lot of land.   Would we remember what the war was about or what the soldiers went through better if that number were 100,000 or 1 million acres?   Isn't decent housing part of what makes this country great?   Why should we preserve millions of acres where a battle may have been fought as "sacred ground" while current citizens do without decent affordable housing?

Please don't take me the wrong way.   I don't advocate building residential or business space on every tiny spit of land.   I strongly believe there is an absolute need for park space including large wildlife preserves and some Revolutionary and Civil War memorial parks.   But we cannot continue to devote huge spaces to memories that aren't actually served by the preservation effort.   I don't have the figures for how much acreage is involved but when the numbers get this big, something is fundamentally wrong with the way we are thinking about things.

Here is an interesting article about the FBI targeting NAMBLA, the organization which advocates sex between men and young boys. Down quite a ways in this article the ACLU is representing as defending NAMBLA in a lawsuit. The ACLU says they are protecting free speech. They say the standard of what is protected free speech cannot be what the majority of people believe is acceptable behavior. I suppose I could agree with this notion. On the other hand, free speech is not unlimited. The usual example of this is you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. But there's a pretty wide gulf between "I advocate democracy" and "fire." Everything in between the two poles is not protected as free speech. For example, you cannot design a web site which details how to murder the President. In fact you cannot discuss plans to kill someone without running the risk of being arrested for planning a murder. So how is the advocacy of engaging in sex with underage children any different? This organization teaches their members how to seduce and engage someone who cannot legally have sexual relations. In essence this is a criminal organization which advocates the commission of crimes. The thing should be shut down.

The ACLU is evil, even criminal, for advocating a criminal advocacy organization. If you are giving money to the ACLU because you think "they do wonderful things," I have to ask you, are you an advocate of men raping boys? That is effectively what you have accomplished.

Its been a couple weeks since we were told to get happy about the success of democracy in the Ukraine. Putin and the other Russian pretenders finally lost out to the guy the US was backing. Hooray, democracy wins, the evil soviets lose. So why then are we hearing today that the Ukraine is pulling their troops out of Iraq? Have we been fooled about this?

This happened last week, but Massachusett's Lieutenant Governor, Kerry Healey, a Republican, introduced legislation that would require certain people to wear GPS collars. According to an article by the Associated Press:

Under the proposal, courts would be allowed to force abusers who violate their restraining orders to wear a monitoring device as a condition of their probation. The system would alert the victim and police if the offender enters certain restricted areas, such as a home, workplace or child's school.

The technology already is being used in Massachusetts to track the state's most dangerous sexual predators.

Wow. It was last month that I blogged about RFID microchips being used someday to monitor the whereabouts of registered sex offenders. Well, Golllllly! It's already been done, with GPS collars.

But now, they want to extend the technology to people who have not been convicted of a crime. These are folks who had a restraining order placed upon them, and then subsequently violated the restraining order.

Folks, we all know that restraining orders are misused, are bogus, and are so easily obtained, without testimony from the opposite party. Attorney Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, wrote about restraining orders:

"The facts have become irrelevant. Everyone knows that restraining orders...are granted to virtually all who apply... In many cases, allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage" [in divorce]. And the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has tacitly agreed with this view by writing that we must "resist a culture of summarily issuing and extending these orders." Most violations of restraining orders are non-violent, such as placing a telephone call about a sick child.

This also bolsters an argument I made in another blog about students being implanted with microchips: that if it proves successful in one area, it's going to expand into others.

I think the critical juncture for this came after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Legislators used the anger of Americans to propose new laws that further eroded our privacy. We were so blinded by our anger, that we've allowed government to take away more of our freedom.

Bad guys will always do their thing, despite the law. That's why they're bad guys. The GPS collar doesn't take the violence out of the man. We need to target the violent people, the terrorists, the crooks, and get them. We don't need policies that burden the innocent.

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments in a Connecticut eminent domain case. The issue is not an unimportant one. States and localities have long held rights to confiscate individuals' property but there were necessarily limitations on this right. Generally eminent domain has been limited to circumstances in which a serious public infrastructure was needed. For example, back in horse and buggy days, roads were pretty small as were the towns through which they ran. But as towns grew and transportation became a little more complicated and necessary, towns, counties and states confiscated individuals real property in order to build roads and rail. These decisions were not taken lightly and the owners of the property were paid fair market value in exchange for the land. Today we have an increasingly cluttered world and local governments in need of tax ratables. The Connecticut case involves a city desiring to confiscate private property in order to give hand it over to another private concern - a business. The argument the city is using is they need economic development, read tax ratables.

This is ridiculous, not so much from a local point of view, but from a philosophical one. The fastest way to make sure the economy of the United States falls apart is to put an end to the concept of personal property ownership. Either we own what we own or we don't. It doesn't matter if everyone is better off as a result from the proposed development project. The development is not infrastructure and it is not public in nature. If the business wants to build, let them do their own negotiating. Perhaps there is no price the folks at issue in the case would accept in order to sell their property. If that's the case, too bad for the business but that's reality. I wouldn't sell certain items I own for any price either. So, nobody can buy them. That's my right. I own the property. If we do not start right here and deny our government the right to confiscate our property in order to award it to another private concern, there is no such thing as property ownership and we are all going to suffer as a result. Government cannot arbitrarily side with one private concern in ANY negotiation. That oversteps their mandate.

An interesting AP article over the weekend discussed a case in which a lesbian who had adopted her partner's children was found to be liable for child support. Why would she not be? The ruling said, "Whether a parent is a man or a woman, homosexual or heterosexual, or adoptive or biological, in assuming that role, a person also assumes certain responsibilities, obligations, and duties." To me this is obvious. How does sexual orientation enter into the equation?

The AP article goes on to say:

"The ruling is part of a growing and sometimes contradictory body of family law grappling with gay and lesbian relationships.

The appeals court ruled in November that a person may adopt the children of a same-sex partner and retain parental rights, such as visitation privileges, following a breakup. Yet last month, the court found that state law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman."

I just don't see how these rulings are contradictory. The appeals court rules that a person may adopt the children of another and retain parental rights. Then they rule that state law defines marriage as necessarily involving a man and a woman. What does that have to do with parental rights?

The AP quotes Ellen Andersen, a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University, "The law is progressing, and as happens a lot as laws are reacting to social movement changes, there's a lot of one-step forward, two-step backing." Is it not plain that courts do not "create" law, they interpret it. Laws do not react to social changes, they may be written to address new and unforeseen circumstances but once written, they do not morph into something else. Indeed, when the judiciary looks to interpret existing laws, they must first view the circumstances in which the law was created. This is called legislative history. When truly "new circumstances" arise, laws are frequently held to be not relevant to the situation at hand. But it is not up to any judge to morph a law to address new circumstances. Judges may decide whether the circumstances could actually be addresses by the original law. Sometimes they find that they cannot. It is then the responsibility of the legislative branch of government to write new laws for the new circumstances. For example, if the only means of transportation were horse and laws were passed limiting horse speed to 10 miles per hour and then the automobile were invented, the speed laws with respect to horses would most likely not apply. The reason, the creators of the horse law could not have foreseen people driving cars and thus could not have wanted the law extended to include all means of personal transportation.

This whole discussion borders on the ridiculous. If the law allows a person to adopt a child, he or she is responsible for that child regardless of marital status. The issue of homosexual marriage is a separate issue altogether.

AFP reports "The US anti-war movement is looking for ways to revive itself." My first question is, what anti-war movement. I wasn't aware of anything close to forming a "movement" that involved protests against a war. Now I know there is a "movement." So where the heck is this movement? And which war is it that they are protesting? There are a bunch on nasty civil wars going on around the globe, some involving ethnic cleansing. There is also the war, or Jihad, declared by radical Muslim fundamentalist fascists against Israel and anyone who supports Israel (read, US). The Chechens are finding an insurgent war against Russia. But aside from these, I cannot think of any other "wars."

I guess I better go back and read further into the article so I can see which wars might be candidates. Let's see, in Afghanistan the United States went in and removed a theocracy which involved a few locals and a bunch of foreigners who were repressing the native population. But that war has been over for a while now. Then in Iraq the United States went in and removed a ruthless dictator who was flaunting UN sanctions, murdering his own people and openly advocating international terrorism. But, again, that war was over before it started. So what could this movement be protesting?

This article seems to be centered around the Iraq war. That's weird. Hey, you guys in the movement, you're too late! The war is over. Don't you read the papers?

I was lying in bed, minding my own business, trying to get to sleep this evening when my wife's habit of leaving the TV on caused me a little discomfort. The box was tuned to ABC and Ted "the head" Koppel's "Nightline" was on. I thought this show was about current events? The subject tonight was lynching. Ted introduced the topic by saying something along the lines of "from 1890 to 1966, there were 5,000 lynchings in America. Including those that weren't reported, there is almost certainly many, many more."

How is a discussion about lynching relevant to today's world? We are here in 2005 and this guy is talking about events more than 100 years old? I cannot think of one time in my 1960s childhood when news telecasts covered things that happened during the 1860s. No, I'm not so naive as to believe that lynchings ceased in the 1800s but they are certainly not on my current topics list and haven't been for several decades. If a lynching were to occur today, I should think somebody would refer to it properly as murder rather than make it into an institutionalized racist act.

So why are the lib.s like Ted the head bringing this stuff up now? The answer my friend is written in the wind. The answer is written in the wind. Today, as in 2005, Americans who trace their roots to African origin and who happen to be descended from slaves are quite busy moving out of the welfare cities into the deep south because today, as in 2005, there is great economic opportunity there. These folks are finding good schools available to those who want to work hard and make a good life there. African-Americans are making big bucks, buying up homes and generally experiencing the American dream. Some of this is most certainly attributable to a lot of good work done in the 1950s and 60s and some of it is due to affirmative action. But most of this is a credit to the opportunity which currently exists in America and to these industrious souls who are the ones making this happen FOR THEMSELVES.

The trouble is that the Democratic party is losing its grip on the African-American voter. You see, people who have good jobs, nice homes and kids who work hard in school and go off to college are listening to what the lib.s are saying and not finding anything in it for them. They are seeing economic opportunity at risk because of some odd belief that wealth should be redistributed by taking from those who have and giving to those who don't. They are hearing about a "tax cut for the wealthy" and happily returning from their PCs to tell their spouses that the removal of the marriage penalty has saved them thousands of dollars. They are seeing a powerful group that speaks as if it is currently 1960. They are turning to political conservatism. Sometimes they are becoming Republicans.

The Ted Koppel's of the world are tremendously afraid of this trend. I expect we'll hear more and more "independent news" stories like that aired this evening on "Nightline." But I also expect more and more African Americans will turn away from these old news stories and look for coverage about fixing social security.

Here's some news for Ted Koppel:

1) The telephone no longer has a rotary on it.
2) The VCR wasn't around in 1960, whoops, it is no longer around today!
3) The stand-alone word processor wasn't around in 1960, whoops, that's not around anymore either.
4) Color TV has already largely given way to high def.
5) Dial up internet access is not a hot new item.
6) There is a wave of African immigrants coming here in vast numbers willingly. This wave outstrips the wave that was forcibly brought here in the slave trade days which, by the way, ended almost 200 years ago.

Anyway, I hope you get my point. The world has changed so much since 1960. Ted, you and your friends really need to find a new song to sing.

Fox News reports Doug Wead is turning his tapes over to Bush and donating any future profits to charity. Said Wead, "I am asking my attorney to direct any future proceeds from the book to charity and to find the best way to vet these tapes and get them back to the president to whom they belong. History can wait." He also said, "personal relationships are more important than history."

So I suppose I should take back all the bad things I said about him. Nah. He made the tapes to begin with and already shared them with the New York Times and Democratic party pundit, Chris Matthews. Destructive mission accomplished. Too late for apologies. Besides he taped conversations with a "friend." That's reprehensible.

As a follow up to our brief mention of Alex Kunhardt's class' letters to an American soldier stationed abroad, I have watched and listened to a number of reactions on TV and radio. Overwhelmingly conservatives are outraged while liberals think there is nothing wrong with the letters! I have read and listened to others read several of these. For the life of me I cannot begin to comprehend how any American can think it is appropriate to send this garbage to a pfc. stationed in Korea (not even stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan). Sending anything along these lines to a pfc in Korea is essentially the same as sending something like this to an IRS agent or a clerk at the National Archives. It is irrelevant. But the idea that it would have been acceptable to send something like this to a soldier stationed in a hostile territory seems so obviously wrong that I am beginning to wonder what these liberals are thinking. I once, not that long ago, would have called myself liberal or progressive or, in the PC way it is done by certain lefties, "independent." I don't care what ideology one espouses, it is just unacceptable to send anything other than total, 100% support to America's sons and daughters serving abroad. If liberals are about supporting what these idiotic school, teacher and students did, you can clearly count me out and I will do everything in my power to make sure that whatever fleeting grasp on power that liberals have in this country is broken.

The New York Post is running a line of stories about a Park Slope, Brooklyn class of sixth graders who were assigned a social studies project of writing letters to a soldier based on foreign ground. The Teacher, Alex Kunhardt, reportedly reviewed each letter before it was sent to the soldier, Pfc. Rob Jacobs of Middletown, New Jersey. A few of the letters were supportive but most contained anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War propaganda. The Hannity and whatshisname show on Fox News is supposed to air contents of many of the letters tonight. The Post published some of the content in the paper yesterday.

Some of the letters suggested the soldiers in Iraq were "being forced to kill innocent people" and "destroying holy places like mosques." Others challenged the reader to name a single Iraqi terrorist. Others suggested that "GIs would die by the tens of thousands." One girl wrote "I strongly feel this war is pointless."

The questions that immediately come to mind are were these children supervised by their teacher? How much input did he have? Was this project approved by the school administration? How do the parents of these children feel about these? Does this class cover treason or even a common social decency?

In my mind, this teacher and his students are obviously misinformed on so many levels it defies understanding. Any teacher who would not correct such complete ignorance needs to be removed. This is not an example innocuous misunderstanding. These letters border on treason and are to be held up to the American public as an example of what is way too far over the line.

I am extremely emotional about this and seem to have lost my way but there is one point I would like to make. Aside from the fact that Alex Kunhardt has permitted his students to blame the wrong person, a soldier" even if he disagrees with the administration's policies; aside from the fact that Kunhardt has missed the clear fact that there are indeed many international terrorists in Iraq, some of them Iraqi; aside from the fact that Kunhardt has allowed his students to essentially demoralize a soldier, it is important to note that pfc. Jacobs is not nor has he ever been stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other Muslim country. He is stationed in Korea. Who decided where to send this trash? Kunhardt? I mean he can't even do well at doing a bad thing. What a moron. He should be fired for complete and total stupidity above and beyond what has previously been thought possible in human beings. Do you want this guy teaching your kids? Oh well, I suppose New York City deserves no better since they hired this incompetent to begin with.

Trust is gone.

A trusted friend of George W. Bush has stabbed him in the back, for the sake of making money on a book. Dave blogged about this yesterday.

You can be sure that the President will now keep his mouth shut, and keep only his most closest family by his side. If this happened to you, wouldn't you also?

So who will prevent guys like Wead from doing sort of scummy deed?

The book publishers can stop it by not publishing this. The consumers can stop it by not buying this book. The media can stop reporting it so that no one knows about the book (Ooops! that means this blog too).

There was a time when the media chose not to report about John F. Kennedy's affairs out of respect for the Office of the President. That respect is gone. In this country, we don't respect our leaders.

If you can sell out a trusted friend, then why should you deserve to have friends?

One of the things that strike me when I read other blogs, is that some of these folks sound as if they are "righteous". They speak with such passion, and fury, that I bet they would be pounding their fists on the podium, and wiping the foam from their mouths.

There is no liberal who is "right".

There is no conservative who is "right".

There are only opinions.

What happened to respecting each other's opinions? It seems that there is less respect for what each person has to say, and more "you're either right or wrong".

I read one blogger's complaint about a website called DogAge.com. Albeit DogAge is indeed a commercially-oriented website. I don't think that's a secret. But this blogger seemed to think that it was a conspiracy designed to brainwash people into thinking that many of them are poisoning their dogs. Why can't people see marketing for what it is? Why must they play the conspiracy card?

Then you've got the animal rights activists, who seemingly never stop at trying to get federal legislation passed on how everyone should treat animals. Why must they go straight to the federal level? Don't they realize that their actions are partly to blame for deepening the political divide in this country?

These kinds of matters are for the States. When one special interest group tries to force its medicine across all states at once, it creates resentment in some of the states. That resentment leads to revenge, by enacting more federal legislation that tries to force the opposite medicine on other states. If you instead allow each state to address these issues, then the people in each state feel better about making the right decision for their state.

This is an example of "righteousness". Animal activists are not "right" in their beliefs that all animals must be treated in a certain way. There are some states that don't have an issue with "backyard breeders". While animal activists insists they are right in trying to stop backyard breeders, the backyard breeders are also insisting they are right about themselves. You've got two groups insisting that the other is wrong. How do we go about deciding which is right?

Let me phrase it to you this way. You've got one person holding up the Bible, and another person holding up the Koran. Both are arguing that their book is "right". How do we decide which book is "right"?

You can't. That's why you can't point your finger at a backyard breeder and accuse them of animal cruelty. There is no such thing as right and wrong. There are only opinions.

That's why it is necessary to let the states handle these issues, so that the people in each state can decide what is "right" for them. Somewhere along the line, the issue of right versus wrong must be defined. I say to let it be defined within each state, and even down to the local level. With a country so diverse as the United States, it is SO IMPORTANT that laws are enacted at the state and local level, just to ensure that people in each local area have control of themselves.

Please people, stop trying to force your medicine down everyones' throats

The New York Times, one of the well-known ubnbiased publications in America is salivating over the prospect of publishing conversations with George Bush secretly recorded by Doug Wead. In the tapes, Bush reportedly hints to Wead that he smoked weed. He says he wouldn't answer questions about weed use because he didn't want kids who might view him as an example to make the same mistakes he made. He also says he doesn't feel comfortable "bashing gays" because he, himself is a sinner. Geeze, Bush must be an evil person, smoked weed and refuses to stand in judgement of others because he sees himself as imperfect.

Will everyone who hasn't smoked weed please stand up. OK, now sit down. Sir, please sit down.

Now, will everyone who refuses to judge others because they see themselves as imperfect please stand up. I said, will everyone who never judges others please stand up. Anyone? OK, forget it.

Now, everyone who has ever recorded a conversation with a friend who completely trusts you please stand up. There's a few of you out there. You guys can now leave the planet because we don't need your kind here.

Me? I smoked weed once but I didn't inhale it. I have a recording of the event if you don't believe me.

Yesterday, while on an hour-long drive, I heard a brief story on the radio about an Iraq War Veteran who had lost his legs in battle. He said that as soon as he saw his legs were gone, he became resigned to the fact. He also said something along the lines that he was happy to have paid this price in order to give the Iraqi people the same freedoms we enjoy including, among other the things, the right to vote.

My first reaction to this was, wow, what a guy, what a man. Not only was he brave enough to be there in the first place but he was brave in the face of such a horrible injury. His only concerns were in regards to the artificial limbs he would be getting and what their capabilities would be. No bitterness, no commentary to the effect that maybe his price was too great.

My next thoughts were who in the world raised this child. This man's parents have got to be awfully proud of him. Any of us who are parents knows how difficult it is just to raise a healthy child let alone one of such character and strength. They have done a magnificent job. My life's goal is to accomplish even a small percentage of what they have done.

I wondered how I might send him some money or even a letter. I want him to know how much in complete awe I am of him. I know I don't have enough inside me to deserve even to stand in the same room with him. But I would like to let him know how much I respect him and if he needs a few bucks, I would like to send him some not because it makes me feel better but because I think I owe him probably more than I can afford.

As I sit here on the anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, I am reminded of how many people just like this fellow have done battle on my behalf. This one soldier stands for so many others who have died or been maimed in the name of human freedom and dignity. For this I give thanks.

If you know of any foundations or organizations which aid wounded American soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other conflict, please post them to this site.

Looks like we found the reason why there are so many reports of bomb blasts in Iraq. Reporters have been using the Bomb-a-Tron.

Right now is the height of "earnings season" as the trickle of a few super-efficient companies issuing earnings turns into a torrent of reports. This is perhaps the most interesting year in many decades for corporate earnings as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) makes auditors double their efforts in scrutinizing their public clients. One of the most significant parts of SOX is a requirement that public companies review and fully document their systems of internal controls. Auditing companies are required to review this documentation and opine as to the sufficiency of the control environment. For many companies this meant huge expenses in terms of time and even money to create documentation for systems that were supposed to exist all along as well as larger audit fees to test these systems. Along with this review and audit comes the specter of disclosing certain aggressive practices that might have avoided the auditors' scrutiny in years past.

One recent earnings release by Nextel held an example of the type of cost this may entail. Nextel reported sharply lower earnings due to a higher federal tax liability caused by the company having to withhold at a higher corporate tax rate because of recent increased profits. Huh? For one thing, withholdng does not generally impact corporate earnings. For another, US Federal tax rates do not vary very much after a certain pretty low point. IRS publications indicate a blanket federal rate of 35% after $15 million in net income - far below what Nextel is reporting. This is purely speculation but for many companies, a disclosure like this could lead one to believe that the company was accruing expenses for the risk associated with some sort of aggressive tax strategy it is employing.

Nextel is hardly unique in disclosing higher tax liabilities this year. As auditors scrutinize practices of whole industries, many more dollars in tax exposures will likely be disclosed. For example, one of the areas that auditors must scrutinize is how a company handles sales and use tax collection. Many very large periodical publishing companies have traditionally ignored sales tax collection on subscriptions to their publications because not all that many states taxed subscriptions. This has changed in recent years as states have tried desperately to balance their budgets. Now approximately half of all states tax periodical subscriptions. But publishers have largely not kept pace preferring to play "audit lottery" and pay the piper only when he comes calling. These tax exposures can be huge since there are generally no statutes of limitations for sales tax non-filers. And since the tax is calculated at an average of around 6% of the full subscription price, having many years open may cause these companies to recognize huge expenses.

There are many other types of companies which allow these types of situations to grow for sales taxes, state income taxes and even "abandoned property." I have singled out periodical magazine publishing because it is the industry I know the best. But as these companies analyze their past practices and as auditors examine them, one wonders what the impact will be on the coffers of taxing authorities around the country! SOX may unexpectedly end up balancing many states budgets!

Here's a novel approach to avoiding laws aimed at preventing nudity in strip clubs:

Idaho Strip club provides patrons with sketch pads and pencils

The club in question charges $15 for any perv from the street to come in for an artistic session of drawing nude girls. I knew I should have taken art class more seriously!

Over the past year or so I have noticed an extremely high volume of television, radio and print advertisements for the New York Times print edition. Most newspapers have struggled to increase circulation and revenues in this new age of the internet. The New York Times is no different. But today brings news that NYT has acquired About.com in a deal with Primedia. Times representatives claim they are adding "fast-growing, highly profitable Web site" but lets get serious. About.com is a dog with fleas.

Primedia learned that the hard way, trading around half of their market value for the company several years ago. Since then Primedia has spent an inordinate amount of money and effort in an attempt to turn the dog around, firing most of the staff and pouring money into the thing. The whole business model seems a throwback to simpler times on the web and never made a lot of money. The company rarely broke even and when it did, it showed very slim overall margins. It will be a long time before NYT sees any sort of return on its more than $400 million investment. The article at Marketwatch notes that the deal will allow NYT to "and add a cost-per-click advertising business" but that business was sold off to Google around a year ago and replaced with Google delivered ads. That particular deal was the only time Primedia made any real money from About.

It seems as if the NYT is desperate for any way to increase earnings. The stock price is languishing in the high thirties after dancing at just over $50 about a year and a half ago. Net Income has been down significantly from 2001 levels the past two years and this event seems unlikely to help.

It looks like publishing liberal propaganda is not much of a business model any longer.

The AP reports that the audience for the Grammy Awards was down 28%. In an unrelated story, this year's host for the Oscars, Chris Rock, has stirred up trouble by saying that awards shows in general are "idiotic" and the Oscars themselves appeal mostly to gays. It is noteworthy that much of the potential audience for the Grammies was watching "Desperate Housewives" on ABC. What will desperate housewives do during the Oscars?

I am no fan of these ridiculous award shows. They have little impact on the movies, television or broadway shows I go to see. And I am unlikely to pick a CD to spend my money on based on some industry awards. I would be very happy if they moved this garbage off the air and instead showed something worth watching. Actually I would be happy if the stations not airing awards shows would put something worth watching on. But invariably, whenever there is one of these ridiculous things on, it seems as if the other stations just give up and put on re-runs. I'm not a housewife but I am getting pretty desperate. I guess I'll have to use these nights to catch up on my needed 8 or 9 hours of sleep.

Florida has some of the worst road rage / aggressive driving problems in the country and because of the high number of injuries and fatalities attributable to these two problems, the state has been busy with prevention efforts. A number of laws have been passed to track down and penalize aggressive drivers but one of the most interesting developments is an enforcement effort aimed at one possible cause. The Road Rage Reduction Act submitted by state Senator Mike Bennett is an attempt to get slow drivers out of the fast lane. Hopefully this law will be passed and, more importantly, aggressively enforced so we can get a look at how well it does or doesn't work. I suppose what Florida needs is enforcement of existing laws but at least recognition of a possible cause of aggressive driving wouldn't hurt.

While I cannot say that I have any evidence supporting this approach, I suspect that making slow drivers move over, may at least mitigate the problem. The other day I drove 60 miles on a major 3-lane highway in the northeast. I was surprised by the high volume of traffic at a pretty late hour. The first traffic law ever written in this particular state is the old favorite, drive right, pass left. At some point I found myself in the right lane driving with my cruise control set at the speed limit of 65. I was amazed to find myself driving by car after car, riding the center lane. Often I found myself, at the speed limit zooming past several cars in the center lane riding comfortably alongside a similar number of cars in the left lane. Two continuous lanes of traffic all traveling at below the speed limit isn't a big deal but when they are all driving to the left, you can see how this might create an aggressive driving situation. It is important to note that I was most likely not obeying the same law by passing these slow pokes on the right. But if they are going to write me a ticket for doing this, they ought to do the same for the numerous cars in the middle and left lanes while not passing anybody.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) online edition is carrying a story about arguments between both sides of the global warming debate. The opponents are squabbling over data interpretations that have been used to draw the "hockey stick" graphical depictions of global temperatures. One side claims that the earth is much warmer due to manmade greenhouse gases while the other side says the analysis is biased to show the need to reduce greenhouse gases. But what struck me about the debate is that the side which claims humans are causing a global catastrophe is slow to share their "science" because they think the opposition will use this information to try to discredit their research. Isn't that the way science works? A scientist observes something, forms a hypothesis, performs experiments, forms a theory as a result of the experiments, then shares 100% of the underlying work with peers who either disprove or prove the theory. Anything short of this is just a guy in his basement with a stupid theory playing around at some kind of hobby. And we do not make decisions affecting the economic well being of everyone on the planet based on some guy in his basement. We make decisions such as this based on real, hard, cold science.

If scientists want to be taken seriously regarding global warming, the time is now for everyone on both sides of the equation to take the extra time and effort for full disclosure. Science must be 100% objective and 0% politics. Before we can go any further, we must have FULL DISCLOSURE. Anything short of this is childsplay.

I have a confession to make. I'm an addict. I'm addicted to baseball and sports talk radio. In my condition it is impossible to miss the story of Jose Canseco's new book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big." Jose's book is meant to be a story about his life in baseball but most of the sports world has focused on a couple chapters in which he discusses his and others' use of performance enhancing drugs during Jose's years with Oakland, Texas and a couple other teams. The story is completely filling sports radio and even 60 Minutes aired an interview with Canseco. I refuse to watch 60 Minutes since they tried to perpetrate a fraud by using fake documents to attack George Bush. But many clips from the Canseco interview have been airing on sports radio so it is hard to miss. His book and story are huge news in baseball because they implicate Mark McGuire who held the single season homerun record. The interview on 60 Minutes was done for other reasons.

Canseco was a career 266 hitter with 462 homeruns and a lot of RBIs. He was an American League most valuable player. He was arrested and subjected to house arrest in June 2003 for violating his probation (for previously pleading guilty to charges related to a brawl in a bar) by leaving Florida for several weeks and failing to start community service and anger management classes. During that time he was again arrested for testing positive for steroid use which was also a violation of probation. Obviously his life hit the skids and there is some question about his veracity. Tony LaRussa, manager of Oakland during many of the years in question, claims that the entire steroids story is a fabrication made because Canseco needs money and wants attention. It is difficult to question the story in light of the BALCO trial and the fact that baseball has largely turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the steroids issue for any number of reasons.

Aside from McGuire, Canseco also claims that Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro used steroids while he was on the Texas Rangers. This got my attention for two reasons. First of all, neither Pudge nor Palmeiro are the kind of muscled up power hitters that Canseco and McGuire were. Pudge is still a wiry catcher with an epic arm who is really more of a contact hitter. He drives the ball and hits for a good average, sometimes knocking it over the fence. Palmeiro is more of a homerun hitter but his trademark is an incredibly sweet swing. Any guy with that good of a swing is gonna drive the ball hard and far. But he doesn't muscle the ball. If you've ever caught a hopping fastball or seen a big league curve up close and personal, you quickly realize that strength is not enough to be a big league hitter. McGuire got angry a number of times when questioned about performance enhancing drugs. He often got angry and replied by saying something about hand-eye coordination. In order to hit a line drive, let alone a home run, you have got to make really solid contact. Strength just isn't enough. I find it entirely believable that some (maybe most) major leaguers have used steroids and I really want the sport to clean up its act. But I know it takes far more to hit the ball the way McGuire, Pudge, and Palmeiro did.

I can understand Canseco's desire to bring McGuire down. He has to be at least a little jealous of the attention McGuire received during that really big season when he and Sosa slugged it out to beat Roger Maris' record. But I don't quite feel the same way about Pudge and Palmeiro. Like I said, these guys were not muscle players, they were finesse players both in the field and at the plate. So why pick them?

The answer came to me when I realized that George Bush was one of the team owners when Canseco played for the Texas Rangers and for a while we have been hearing rumors that the Rangers' management tacitly approved the use of steroids by their players. As Jose, who seemed to being wearing some kind of lipstick during his interview on 60 Minutes from the clips I have seen on TV, mentioned his time with the Rangers, 60 Minutes seemed to focus their attention like the fine point of a knife. They wanted him to emphasize that he had personally injected not only McGuire but also Pudge and Palmeiro during his 193 games with the team.

I haven't read Canseco's book - I'm not about to spend the money. I think the guy is looking for both attention and money regardless of the truth of all or part of his story. Not even this could make me watch 60 Minutes. But it is plain to me that the reason the two converged has more to do with taking a stab at George Bush than it does with cleaning up major league baseball. And that's too bad for 60 Minutes, Pudge, Palmeiro and even Mark McGuire.

Looks like Howard Dean will be the head of the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future. Good. Great. The party deserves him.

Dean is being described as a fiscal conservative who has balanced budgets. That's because he was a governor of a state of a little more than half a million people. Bush balanced numerous budgets in a much larger state. Fiscal conservatism just isn;t enough. It is not possible to be conservative with entitlement programs unless you reform them. The biggest entitlement program anywhere on the planet is Social Security. Unless you reform that, nobody is going to balance anything. Also, whenever anybody, Dem or Rep, tries to cut discretionary spending, there is hell to pay. That's what's going on now in Congress. Bush proposed cuts and everyone is going wild telling us why their program should not be cut. Dean did make a comment that went something like it is always the Democrats who balance budgets. Which Democrats was he talking about? Let's see, since the 50s, there are Kennedy/Johnson, Carter, and Clinton. Forget about the first combo. Carter was a disaster as President in terms of his stewardship of the economy. Remember money market accounts that yielded 16% interest and still lost ground against inflation? I don't recall whether he balanced the budget or not but it doesn't matter. Nobody wants a return of Jimmy Carter. Clinton was a little more conservative fiscally than any of his predecessors - don't take that to mean Hillary will be fiscally conservative - can you say socialized medicine. And Bill, while conservative, was more of a numbers manipulator than reformer. He projected budget surpluses for years in which he would be out of office. There never was a surplus while he was in office - go back and check the numbers. And the effort to cut down the spending of the federal government was a bipartisan effort since congress was pretty well balanced, though controlled by Rep.s at the time.

But we're not talking about either a candidate or the party platform here. The bigger question is whether Dean will be the face of the party in the way that his predecessor was. He has made a few comments indicating he will not. That's too bad. He is perhaps the only guy on that side of the aisle who honestly spoke his mind during the primaries. He had his positions (against the war and for gay marriage, for example) and he stuck to them rather than jumping around based on public opinion of the moment. I don't agree with his positions but I respect a man who sticks with his.

This country needs the Democratic party. We cannot make progress based on the leadership of a single party. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We can trust neither the Rep.s nor the Dem.s with a commanding control on the legislative and executive branches. If the Democratic party is to continue and have any degree of success, they must frame out their positions and stick to them. Sure they can change their minds on issues but they must speak honesty to the public about them unlike the way John Kerry waffled this past cycle. Let's be honest that Kerry jumped around like a Mexican jumping bean. Let's all be honest about our beliefs. Howard Dean is honest about his positions. Even if you disagree with them, you must respect that.

Confidence in the economic future of the country is falling according to a
poll conducted by AP-Ipsos. Interpretations of the drop in consumer confidence mostly tend to find that people are made anxious over the Social Security issue. Obviously the ennunciation of a future problem in the system has people on edge. Yet a majority of people in this country think nothing should be done to firm it up. This strange dichotomy of opinion is somewhat typical of American politics but the administration needs to find better words to make the case.

I realize it is boring to pour over financial explanations but somehow there doesn;t seem to be a better way. The time has come for politicians to level with us even if it puts us to sleep.

The AP reports that CNN news executive Eason Jordan quit after making remarks that were construed as implying that the American military targeted journalists it didn't like. CNN hoped to end the controversy which, according to the AP article, "had threatened to rival the Internet campaign last fall against Dan Rather for a CBS story about President Bush (news - web sites)'s military service."

I heard about Jordan's comments from a number of news outlets. It didn't seem to me as if anybody had "blown it out of proportion." But the tone of the AP article left me feeling as if they believe that Dan Rather was somehow wronged. The man fabricated a story dishonoring a sitting President during wartime in order to change the outcome of an election. Now this guy makes a freudian slip indicating that he may believe it is possible that the US army would target journalists. And he is the head of a news agency that is supposed to report factual information and interpret it. This is more slippage in the moral fiber of our institution of Journalism. Well, maybe that's extreme. The slippage occurred long ago. But just as a person who tells a really big lie must continue to lie in order to cover himself, the large institutional news organizations are having trouble hiding their lies.

The AP thinks we aren't watching. They do not understand that we have enough points of view to triangulate and see exactly who they are. But we've still got miles to go before we sleep. The media still doesn't get that a new day has dawned.

The London Free Press, a newspaper serving London, Ontario (not London, England), reports that a group is raising $35,000.00 to buy books promoting the tolerance of homosexual couples. Their goal is to get these books into each of the 156 elementary schools and 30 secondary schools in the Thames Valley School District.

Barb MacQuarrie of the University of Western Ontario's Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children says:

"We think it's really important for all children to see families and people with diverse sexual orientations represented in their learning material," MacQuarrie said yesterday. "Books are the best tools for teaching empathy."

Personally, I have nothing against gays and lesbians. Though, I don't think that school districts and special interest groups should have "carte blanche" to teach sexuality to school children. That's the parents' choice.

Of course, I'm no Canadian either.

Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, issued a blast at Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour yesterday for filing a lawsuit to eliminate $20 million in funding for the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi - a tobacco prevention program.

Myers argues that tobacco-use is the number one reason for the State's soaring Medicaid costs:

Governor Barbour has it backwards. Tobacco use is a main cause of Mississippi's soaring Medicaid costs and the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi is doing more to bring down those costs than any other program in Mississippi by dramatically reducing tobacco use.

However, Governor Barbour argues that the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi is a private organization. The $20 million is actually a portion of the $4.1 billion settlement arising from a lawsuit between the State and Big Tobacco in 1997.

"The original intention of the tobacco settlement was to recoup dollars for the state," Medicaid director Warren Jones said in a statement. "We believe this motion will ultimately allow the Legislature to fulfill that intention."

However, there appears to be a conflict of interest going on here:

Former Attorney General Mike Moore, who filed the tobacco lawsuit and negotiated the settlement, is the partnership's chairman. He vehemently defends the partnership and its funding. "Why is the governor wasting time with this frivolous lawsuit?" Moore asked. "The order is absolutely legal."

Moore said the original 1997 settlement authorized a two-year anti-smoking program, and the Jackson County Chancery Court agreed to amend the settlement in 2000 to extend the program indefinitely. The partnership finances ads and youth programs.

So let's get this straight. Moore negotiated the settlement with tobacco companies, and directed that a portion of the settlement be paid to his own private charity?

I'm sorry Mr. Moore, but the Courts, nor the Attorney General, have the authority on how to appropriate the People's money. I'd like to know if this charity is paying any money to Moore?

Let's assume that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Nominee for President in 2008. Who then runs against her on the Republican ticket?

54% of women voted for Gore in 2000
51% of women voted for Kerry in 2004

source: votesforwomen2004.org

I'm going to assume that Hillary gets a greater share of the female vote, by virtue of her gender. Perhaps 60%?

How do the Republicans make up for that?

If they ran Condoleezza Rice against Hillary, then the Republicans can nullify any advantage that Hillary has based on gender.

Rice is also black.

90% of blacks voted for Gore in 2000
88% of blacks voted for Kerry in 2004

source