You know, you just can't get away from liberal myth making.   At every turn another one is perpetrated or prolonged.   Tonight while minding my own business, I heard the words, "John F. Kennedy was immensely popular, perhaps the most popular President of modern times."   That's perhaps the biggest myth of modern times.

The man was president for less than 3 years.   He won the office in one of the most hotly debated election counts in history, barely slipping by Richard Nixon.   There were loads of allegations of vote fraud including those in Texas and Illinois where there was an almost impossible margin of victory in Democratic machine controlled Chicago which countered the heavily Republican vote throughout the rest of the state.   Kennedy did do well resolving the Cuban missile crisis but he also was responsible for the Bay of Pigs scandal and personally responsible for a sizeable increase in the number of American fighting men deployed to Vietnam.   He may not have been as unpopular as Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson who continued the unusually large Vietnam troop deployments of Kennedy.   But he can hardly be said to be one of the most popular presidents of any time.

A long time ago I had a couple day stay in the hospital.   My insurance was the kind where you pay the bill and then file it with your insurer and get reimbursed.   So I took a look at the bill when it came to my home and examined each of the charges.   Aside from bills for doctors I had never seen and medicines I had never received, there were some other items of interest.   One in particular was a charge which was applied to every such invoice of people who had insurance.   My insurance company refused to pay it.   So I asked someone at the hospital what the charge was for.   Her answer was, "that's the charge the hospital applies to every bill in order to recoup some of the cost of services provided to illegal immigrants who are uninsured and who will never pay their bills."   It became common knowledge that one should dispute this charge and the hospital would quickly remove it.   Eventually the hospital stopped the practice and I believe it is currently illegal.   But for how long had the hospital been doing this?   How many people had paid the charge without ever questioning it?   How much expense had been shifted to innocent people simply going about their business?

I have some family in southern California.   At one point I had family who worked on a ranch which produced a good amount of fruit.   They had a lot of interaction with illegal migrant workers and as a result, so did I.   It was common knowledge back in Mexico that if you were going to have a baby, the thing to do was to go to California and have the baby there since A) your child would be a US documented citizen and B) you would get high quality healthcare for free.   Well, the care wasn't really free.   Somebody paid for it.   Californians paying their tax bills paid an implicit surcharge to cover the cost of this "free high quality healthcare."   The Washington Times once reported that the state's nearly 3 million illegal aliens "costs the taxpayers of California ... $10.5 billion a year for education, health care and incarceration."

I don't remember all the lessons from my college history minor so I rely on what is out there on the web to delve a little into the history of immigration in this country.   One site says, "For much of its history the United States allowed unrestricted immigration.   Toward the end of the nineteenth century, various restrictions were placed."   The pretty much is what my weak memory tells me.   At one point in time there was little control of immigration in the US.   And there was good reason for this.   The vast expanses of lands and the quickly expanding numbers of factories required more people.   We had something to offer peoples of other countries and they had something to offer us.   They needed us and we needed them.   But at some point we as a nation decided that chaotic immigration had costs we didn't want to bare so we restricted it.   We purposely crafted laws to limit the number of people who came here in a given year.   That was our right as a nation.   At some point the cost of enforcing those laws became too much so we did little to enforce them.   That is where we find ourselves today.

Before I go further, I want to talk just a bit about this new euphemism in the press, "undocumented immigrants."   As Michelle Malkin points out in her commentary on the term "undocumented," these people have plenty of documents.   They have drivers licenses, social security cards and many other forms of identification provided by various governmental agencies.   There is nothing undocumented about them.   The press thinks of them as not having citizenship documents.   That's because they are not citizens!   They are illegal immigrants.   So let's stop coercing the public into thinking of illegal immigrants as people who have lost their wallets and IDs.

Today one of the burning issues facing my state as well as, I believe, most states around the country is the issue of government funded benefits to illegal immigrants (hereinafter "illegals").   A cover story in my morning paper discussing a proposed law providing in-state tuition for "undocumented immigrants" points out that what we are talking about here is children.   One child says, "I came to this country when I was two years old.   It's not like I had a choice."   She says the only country she has ever known is the US.   So why should she be penalized?   Another line of the argument in favor of the proposed law wonders, "if we're not going to get them out of the country, and we're not, then how do we find a mechanism to make them an asset ... to the communities in which they live."   New Jersey Governor Corzine spokesman, discussing the Governor's cutting of the state's higher education budget by hundreds of millions as well as raising of taxes to cover a heavy budget deficit during these times of economic prosperity, says "This bill is just one step in the process which would allow hard-working young immigrant students to become self-sufficient and enable them to contribute to New Jersey's society."

So, there you have it.   We're talking about innocent victims who are not going to be sent back to their country of citizenship, who are hard working, and who need to be made into assets rather than liabilities because they are going to stay here.   That is fine liberal logic but who is going to pay for all this largesse?   Perhaps the Governor of he state of New Jersey can claim there is no cost since he is actually cutting state aid to colleges.   Our taxes won't go up due to such a law because we're just not going to give more money to higher education.   But there is a cost.   The college game is a zero-sum one.   State universities gets so much money to work with and not a penny more.   Their budgets control how many students they can afford to have.   For each and every illegal who attends college and pays the in-state rate, there is an equal and opposite number of "documented" citizens who will not.   The result of allowing more illegals to attend our colleges is an equal an opposite reaction of providing these services to fewer and fewer citizens who, by the way, also pay taxes, almost always in greater amount than the illegals do.

But let's talk a little about illegal immigration at its roots.   You know, there is a mythology created around the "need for illegal migrant workers" to pick fruit and vegetables, and to perform other agricultural work around the country.   They are said to be needed because Americans are unwilling to work these jobs.   That's actually not precisely true.   What Americans are unwilling to do is work these jobs for these wages and/or pay the higher prices for produce which would ensue if farmers had to pay a proper wage for the work.   How do I know this?   Tonight I'm going to go out to dinner and I'm going to have crab legs.   The crabs for my dinner will be caught by fishermen who work the most dangerous job in America.   Several fishermen will die in the process of trying to bring crab dinners to Americans.   Why do they do it?   They do it for money.   There's no shortage of people wanting to work inhuman hours aboard dangerous boats.   And many of these hold college degrees to boot!   They do this because the compensation is incredible.   They are Americans who are willing to stand amongst fish guts in dirty and frigid conditions and risk their lives for compensation.

The truth is Americans would wrestle wild lions, tigers and bears, oh my, for the right amount of compensation.   Americans would wipe feces off of public toilet walls for the right compensation.   I know.   I used to do just that at a place called "Sundance Lodge" where I was employed for many years along with a number of friends including one who perished in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.   He was one of those people Ward Churchill called "little Eichmans."   He was a wealthy bond trader at Cantor-Fitz when he was murdered but I remember him having to go into restrooms at the facility and clean feces from the walls!

Don't tell me there is a job on Earth Americans are not willing to do.   That isn't true.

If all the food in this country were picked by people making 50 bucks an hour including benefits, there would be no shortage of "documented" workers to perform the task.   We need to understand that we make choices.   We are not victims of circumstances.   There is a way to reverse trends, to change things, if we merely find the will to do it.   We usually find the will only when exigent circumstances require us to do so.   Right now the threat of terrorists crossing our borders is providing that impetus.

What we don't need at this moment is a bunch of euphemistic PC-speak which claims we need illegals more than they need us and we have a moral responsibility to provide expensive services to them.   We pay for these services whether it is at the grocery store or the tax window.   They aren't undocumented, they're illegal.   We have laws about this sort of thing, let's either enforce them or change them.   But we cannot continue to live in a chaotic state of things and simply allow anyone who chooses to cross the border illegally to do so carte blanche.   We need immigration reform and since this is a representative democracy, that reform should come from Congress, not from the mouths of illegals themselves protesting in the streets, not from the mouths of euphemism speakers in the press.   We need reality not platitudes.

How would you feel if you woke up one morning and found yourself $10,000 in debt?   Ha, you say, I'm already in far more debt than that.   OK, but I'm trying to make a point here.   Let's say you were earning $10,000 per year, how would you feel about that debt then?   What if you were earning $100,000 or a million?   A million dollar per year earner doesn't think much about a ten thousand dollar debt.   It is there like some flee which can be removed whenever one pleases.   Debt is a relative term.   The word conjures up negative connotations whenever it is used but that really isn't necessary.

Today AFP reports on the nation's debt clock but the news is spoken of as if debt exists in a vacuum.   The country is $8.3 trillion in debt.   The sky is falling.

By national debt like all debt does not exist in a vacuum.   The country's gross domestic product is right around twelve and a half trillion.   So stated in common terms, we owe about two thirds of what we make in a year.   And that's total debt, that's the total equation.   We're told that the debt figure represent $90,000 per family.   That's not a pleasant fact but consider that the vast majority of American families are in far more personal debt than that when home mortgages are factored into the equation.

Our nation's debt is not sitting on revolving credit lines at 20% which were used to purchase consumer goods.   Much of the debt was initially incurred to build infrastructure.   Profligate spending habits over the many years has greatly contributed to the rise in debt.   We spend a lot of money on wasteful programs.   But much of this debt went to the creation and maintenance of substantial assets worth loads more in current dollars than the debt figure amounts to.   Would you live in a million or billion dollar home at the expense of carrying $90,000 in debt?   You already do.   Doubt that?   Spend some time outside the country by perhaps visiting your typical average country that doesn't have that kind of debt.   What's the infrastructure look like?

We are reminded in the discussion of the debt clock that once it actually had to run backwards.   Those were the happy Clinton years.   But what price did we pay for making the debt clock run backwards?   The military came out of that period in shambles.   The nation's security systems were seriously worn out.   And we paid, though not in dollars, for the reduction in debt.

Let us not forget that the spend, spend Bush administration would quickly have been thrown out of power had it not spent.   The administration spent on security - the newly minted homeland security department and all the assets it requires and distributes, a couple wars, a couple hurricanes, and assorted other programs not necessarily of the administration's own choosing.   And the administration had partners in these endeavors.   Homeland security in its current incarnation was not necessarily as George Bush would have done it if left to his own devices.   The wars were expensive and perhaps poorly planned.

And we knew on September 12, 2001 that the country was going to go into debt to deal with certain issues.   We knew it as surely as an in debt homeowner knows he is going to go into debt for repairs when his roof gives way.   Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Bush is some drunken sailor on shore leave.   Much of his spending was thrust upon him by circumstances outside his control.

Most importantly, we did not hear much about the nation's debt since September 11 unless and until we were in some election cycle.   That's because the debt has always actually been manageable.   It still is when it is spoken of in the context of the nation's productivity and wealth.   We are now in an election year and no doubt somebody will want to alarm us about the direction of the country's debt.   But consider that if we didn't have Iraq and Afghanistan, if we didn't have the need for a greatly expanded homeland security apparatus, if we didn't have this thing in New Orleans to clean up, where would we stand in terms of existing and newly incurred debt?

Before you give credit to Bill Clinton for running the clock backwards, before you transfer that credit to all Democrats generally, consider that there is something out there which will cause the debt clock to speed up and speed up significantly in the future.   It's called Social Security.   It holds the potential to eliminate anything any politician can do in terms of austerity just as a single volcano can wipe out everything the entire world does with respect to carbon emissions in a day.   George Bush tried to tame it but we weren't ready for the difficult choice he suggested.   If there's a devil out there which can bring us to our fiscal knees, this is it.   Bush tried to fix the problem but we decided to take the profligate road.

Children in the eighth-grade in Apopka, Fla. were traumatized by a holocaust re-enactment they unwillingly participated in.   The school required certain arbitrarily selected students to wear yellow five-pointed stars and then proceeded to treat the marked students, the Jew, if you will, badly.   "Jews" were not allowed to use water fountains, forced to stand in the backs of classrooms, and forced to the backs of lunch lines.   One boy when asked by his father why he was crying replied, "Daddy, I was a Jew today."   The project seems to some parents and others to have been a little too harsh.   Then again, life can be harsh.

I did not see in the reports about the project whether students were:

• had all their belongings taken.
• moved into deplorable, disease causing living conditions.
• required to take days-long train rides in cattle cars standing next to persons who died along the way and hadn't yet fallen to the floor.
• segregated by their apparent health alternately into gas chambers or slave labor camps.
• run up and down the calorie ladder.
• forced to smell the burning flesh of their siblings and parents.

With any luck, when these children grow up, have children of their own and tell them of their really bad day at school, there will be people around who can deny this ever took place.

So it is another midterm election year.   The party in power is not particularly popular with the voting public right now.   The other guy has been busily crafting alternatives into a platform for the people to use to judge their qualification for control.   Keep in mind that Democrat "positions" shift with the wind of popular opinion and the party is far too nuanced to be pinned down on any one particular issue.   The official party platform says nothing about how the party's representatives will vote all those months from now when they take office.   You cannot identify the party's positions by simply referring to a document.   You must examine their actual positions on the full range of issues.

The positions of the Democrat party are available to anyone with a computer and internet access - preferably broad-band since the words of party representatives are voluminous.   These positions include:

Fulfill the enemy's prophesies that Americans are weak, require instant gratification, and cannot handle the pressures of a drawn out conflict by removing troops from harm's way in Iraq, Iran and anywhere else they might encounter hostile individuals.   Immediately set a timetable and publish it so the enemy knows exactly when we will give up and go home.   Hopefully satisfy the public's concern over its military's casualties by making the efforts of those who have given their lives for the cause utterly meaningless by pulling up stakes before the job is completed or even finished to a degree which will cause permanent change.   Allow things to go back to the way they were before when our troops stationed anywhere were easy targets for the enemy and our public working in offices here at home needed to keep an eye out for planes being flown too low.

Don't try to expand democracy throughout the world because those people are just not ready for it.   Recognize that some people are just too backwards and poorly educated to vote on important issues.   Permit totalitarianism because some people need it.   Ignore the fact that these people need it because totalitarian regimes create the very dependence which limits the people's ability to engage in democracy.   Allow what is emphatically and deliberately prohibited from growing only to spring up naturally.

Interpret the US Constitution liberally because the founding fathers had no way of knowing how complex our society and technology might become.   Attempt to infer what the fathers would have said had they been alive today.   Empower the judiciary with the responsibility of carrying out this interpretative work on a "living, breathing Constitution."   Ignore what the founding fathers said in the document including specifically limiting the authority of the judiciary and creating a specific mechanism whereby the Constitution could change, Amendment.

Take everything from Socialism and Communism that is "good and pure" like socialized healthcare because it just isn't fair that actions have consequences - like not listening to everyone who tells you if you have sex, you're going to get pregnant and not finishing high school is the fastest way to poverty.   Ignore heavy burdens placed on successful people.   Avoid phrases like wealth redistribution and instead refer to creeping Socialism as simply taxing those who "have benefited most" from the system.

Roll back tax cuts on the "rich" folk like anyone married or owning their own home who can't even afford to send their children to college in order to increase governments ability to be the benevolent father who gives money to his adult children who didn't listen to his advice about staying in school, keeping one's nose clean, and working hard to get the things one wants.   Ignore the fact that tax cuts enriched the nation's treasury by spurring economic activity, creating jobs, and generally staving off recession.

Amend the centuries old institution of marriage to include homosexuals so they can enjoy the decades old right to be taxed as heavily as heterosexuals.   Permit same-sex couples to adopt children because some heterosexuals hit their kids or suffer other sorts of domestic violence.

Allow unrelated adults to obtain major surgical services for children without parental permission or notification in order to protect an "institution" created by racists who wanted to make sure poor people would curtail their procreation in order to prevent them from over-running the superior races.   Call it a "woman's right" of control over her own body and reproductive functions, and ignore a parent's right of control over their own minor children.

Open the borders for those poor, downtrodden Mexicans because their standard of living is below ours.   Don't make it a crime to break the nation's laws on immigration because we need cheap labor and the Mexicans are ready to provide it.   Instead permit anyone who would like to cross the border to do so regardless of their intentions or national origin.   Put simply, don't strengthen the nation's laws on immigration and don't do anything to enforce the ones already on the books.

Engender peace by relinquishing national sovereignty over the military to the corrupt, ineffectual United Nations.   Ignore the crimes the organization has committed in the name of international harmony like raping children where its "peacekeeping" forces are located or ignoring real human plights because on its inability to take any initiative or build any sort of consensus on any real issue of human rights.

Prohibit our government from listening in on phone calls like the ones originating from or ending in terrorist havens in the Middle East so the good folks at PETA can organize events to throw blood on fur coats and the ACLU can pass on information from incarcerated terrorists.   Claim civil rights to privacy in the name of handcuffing the executive branch at a time when real dangers can be averted and real terrorists can be brought to justice before they kill our innocent civilians.

All these real positions of the Democrat party are expressed daily in a variety of outlets and preserved for you on the internet.   Ignore them at your own and the nation's peril.   It is no fun to be attacked by a wild dog but you really don't want to be saved from it by a pride of lions.   The dog may kill you but the lions most assuredly will.

You really shouldn't miss this report on Captain's Quarters:
Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) decided to set the record straight .. by slugging a cop

"Today the Democrats launched their mission to revamp their image on security and national defense ..."

Did you hear about the media mogul who said President George Bush is "a reformed alcoholic who has his finger on the nuclear button."   He suggested that Bush "might decide to get drunk again" and then what might he do?   How can anyone be so monumentally stupid as to make a jackass comment like that?   Oh, it was noted imbecile Ted Turner.   Now it all makes sense.   Some people ought not be allowed out in public.   Isn't anyone in charge of making sure Ted gets his psych meds?

I think back to when my children were in pre-school and remember teachers suggesting one of them was "socially immature."   She wasn't boisterous like the other children.   One teacher suggested that she lacked self-confidence.   Another thought she should repeat Kindergarten because while she was in private pre-school, she would be going to public schools beginning in first grade and, this teacher said, "she will be eaten alive" by the other, "more developed" children.

You know, the same things were said about me when I was young.   But back then they didn't hold kids back for social immaturity the way they sometimes do now.   And I wondered about this notion that every kid is supposed to fit the mold of the "normal, boisterous, self-confident child."   I certainly didn't until about 8th grade.   This teacher who wanted to hold my kid back seemed pretty self-confident for someone who had attended a third rate college and probably barely gotten by.   Magna Cum Laude students with multiple serious majors don't frequently become kindergarten or grammar school teachers, or even high school teachers.   That's a shame but it is what it is.

A child doesn't fit the pattern a second rate intelligence expects in a "normal child" so he or she is held back due to "social immaturity."   In my kid's case, no harm no foul.   But I imagine some kids suffer the consequences of this improper recognition of potential.

It's not just the being held back thing.   It's also the way teachers interact with kids.   I can recall a number of kids who fit the pattern of "socially immature" when I was in my early years of school.   These kids were even less socially mature than I was.   And the teachers treated them very poorly because they became frustrated that their attempts to "bring the kids up into the real world" were not coming to fruition.   I remember one teacher in particular instructing the class to bring in pacifiers for "Brian" because he is a baby.   One girl did and the teacher presented the pacifier to the kid in front of the rest of the "normal, boisterous, self-confident class."   There's a special place in hell waiting for her.

A few of these "socially immature" and mistreated kids became druggies or failed in various other ways.   Some overcame the obstacle of being categorized by a dullard into the overly needy group and became some of the best students in my high school class.   Many of the "socially immature" were rather intelligent when they hit higher education and went on to do great things no thanks to their early chiuldhood teachers.

Today there is a news report which discusses a scientific study which concludes that smart kids' brains develop ore slowly than the "C" student type.   So perhaps these "socially immature" kids should be treated differently, just not the different way the dullards who populate our school teaching profession treat them.   All you teachers out there please take note of this truth: a little knowledge in the hands of a person with below average intelligence can be a dangerous thing!   Unless you know what you are doing, at least consider the consequences of your actions on other people, especially the potentially very bright ones.

There is an argument out there which says the United States simply must accept whatever a democratically elected system of government decides to do in Afghanistan and Iraq.   We defeated the despotic governments we set out to defeat and then decided to set democracy in motion.   If the people decide they want a theocracy in the guise of democracy, then so be it.   If they decide they want Sharia, Islamic law, so be it.   If they decide to burn Christians at the stake, so be it.   They are, after all, a sovereign nation ruled by majority views.   weeeeelllll ... it isn't quite that simple, or at least it shouldn't be.

While it is difficult to visualize, in the "olden days" war was a generally more horrible circumstance than it is now.   If you look at World War I, for example, your examination is incomplete unless you consider what the German civilian population suffered under the Kaiser.   The British naval blockade of Germany prevented food from reaching German ports and devastated what had once been a proud commercial shipping industry.   Much of the blame for the deprivations the public experienced was placed on the nation's leadership whose navy sat in port unwilling to engage the British fleet throughout much of the blockade.   The deprivations were significant with pregnant mothers standing in bread lines for hours, perhaps days.   The people did not have the bare minimum of goods needed to sustain life for long.   There was no coal to heat homes during harsh winters.   The typical civilian lived a harsh existence.   The war dragged on for years and once it was over, the German people had had enough of the monarchy.

Similarly, Russian civilians suffered during the war and so did the soldiers.   The unhappiness permitted the rise of Communism.   Soldiers returned to home en masse and demanded change.   People wanted food and other necessities.   They supported regime and system change.

During World War II, the German civilians were again forced to suffer some of the worst portions of the pain resulting from the bad decisions of their leaders.   They were in no position to re-elect a Nazi government which had risen from within a democratically elected parliamentary system.   But, what if things were different?   What if the Allies were to have defeated the Axis powers in a matter of weeks or months?   What might have ensued then?

I posit to you that it is not unlikely the Germans would have elected a number of Hitler aids to power.   I suggest that the system of government chosen by the people might not have differed greatly from what it was under the Nazis.   I believe the root of the Nazi movement, organic nationalism, would have continued for quite some time.   Non-Germans would have continued to suffer.   Likely the country would have again retooled its military and shortly thereafter, threatened its neighbors.

This is the situation we find ourselves in with respect to Afghanistan and Iraq.   The regimes in power in those nations were defeated militarily rather quickly.   They were defeated too rapidly for the public to become disenchanted with their existing systems of government.   As a result, each moves towards returning the same type of government to power.   These countries are currently democracies at least in theory but many of the same players are rapidly rising.   Many of the same principles of government and law remain well entrenched.   Iraq continues to inject totalitarian principles and leaders into its Constitution and Parliament.   Afghanistan continues to embrace laws putting to death anyone bold enough to covert from Islam.   The United States and its allies in these conflicts simply cannot allow this kind of thinking to continue.   And it shouldn't.

When one conquers a sovereign nation, there is no international rule which requires the voctor to set a plan and then stick to it absolutely.   There are political and diplomatic pressures which inject their own ethos to the situation.   But the bottom line is one side is victorious over the other and should strongly contrl what follows its military victory.   Sure the United States needs the support of its own people and the opposition political party seeks any sort of moral or strategic high ground.   But the US is still in the position of dictating the events in the countries it has defeated on the battle field.

It is not sufficient to say the people of Afghanistan are completely innocent of what a dictatorial political leadership did.   The same is true of Iraq.   The fact is the Taliban were a large number of Afghans who sought to control the remainder via authoritarian government and religious law.   Any sort of a move back in the direction of either of these elements is intolerable.   While the government of Iraq was secular, it's legal systems were founded in religion.   We cannot tolerate any sort of totalitarian government to rise there but just as surely, we cannot allow law founded upon religious extremism.   In the case of Afghanistan, the current furor over Abdul Rahman is demonstrative of a fundamental flaw in the way the country is ruled.   The US cannot tolerate this situation to continue.   National sovereignty be damned!   There were no spoils in this war but to the victor goes the final word on EVERYTHING.

Violence in sport is nothing new.   I have told you on this forum of a story I once read in a late 1800s newspaper which told the story of a fan at a baseball game pulling out his revolver because he did not like the umpires call.   The man was an important local leader, a professional man, a respected man.   The game was not a professional one.   This sort of thing has gone on for just about as long as athletic competitions have.   Nothing has changed.   But if we are as smart as we think we are, if we really want to progress as a society, we can change things now.

Yesterday there was a brawl at a spring training game between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.   If you are not familiar with the term "spring training," it is the time when games do not count.   Spring training is a time for professional athletes to get ready for games which do count.   They stretch, work on fundamentals, get their timing, and generally do everything they can to get themselves ready for the coming season so they can perform at a high level and justify their current high salaries or qualify for higher ones.

A brawl at a spring training game is the rough equivalent of a bar fight at an executive training seminar.   We don't tolerate that.   Every participant in such a bar fight would be charged with a crime, possibly doing jail time as a result.   If we as a society chose to treat the few talented, wealthy individuals who conduct themselves this way on the sporting field the same way everybody else is treated, we could do away with 99 percent of this.   But we won't do that.   Instead we will chose to turn a blind eye.

Picture this one, if you can.   An atheist is released from prison and a hundred catholic priests march in the street calling for the man's death for the crime of apostasy.   It could happen.   It really could, provided that the year was 1500, 95% of the population was enslaved in serfdom, and the church held total sway over government.   That hasn't been the case in the western world for centuries.   But it is still the way things are in the Muslim world.

Yesterday hundreds of Muslim CLERICS took to the streets chanting "Death to Christians!"   They did not call for death to one criminal.   They did not call for death to one Christian convert.   They called for death to all Christians.   They might just as well have called for death to Jews, Christians, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, etc.   That is what they meant.

Had Abdul Rahman declared that he was a Darwinist, a secularist, an agnostic or atheist, the same clerics would have marched in the street calling for his death.   Had he joined the ACLU and spoken out against Christmas trees in the public square, they would have wanted him executed by the state.   Had he been an international voice calling to abolish the teaching of Intelligent Design, they would have hated him equally.   They called for his death because he was not Muslim.

And these are the religious leaders of the people.   They are not merely orators seeking public support for their candidacy for elective office.   They are not seeking to build a movement the way Hitler was in pre-Nazi Germany.   These are the teachers.   These are the instillers of values.   These are the judgers of morality for one quarter of the population of the world.

Do you now see that we are really at war?   Do you now see what Islam is all about?   Are you still concerned about playing loud music in prisoner of war camps?   Are you still outraged by the placing of the Qu'ran on a toilet seat or the use of dogs to humiliate prisoners?   Are you ashamed that your government listens in to some phone calls?   Does it concern you that our soldiers are harsh to the populace?

The truth is we in America are far more unified than anyone ever supposed.   Many of us have one thing in common, we are non-Muslim and, as a result, we are equally hated by the Muslim world, by the leaders of the Muslim people.   Still we consume our time arguing about whether we should allow every blessed soul who wishes to enter this country illegally to enter free of any scrutiny.   We argue about whether our treatment of detainees from the BATTLEFIELD should be granted rights under our Constitution, a Constitution they would like torn down, ripped to shreads and trampled beneath their feet.

What complete and total madness.

There was a whisper started well over a year ago about how American families were getting into revolving debt problems by funding current purchases with credit cards carrying exorbitant interest rates and fees.   It started with some talk radio types and journalists raising the issue with respect to college kids who had no income.   There was a litany of victims.   Examples were discussed at length.   There was talk of legislation of the floors of Congress.   There was a new demon in the long list of corporate demons, the evil credit card companies.

The whisper has not grown to a ground swell but this issue is still out there.   Oprah even did a recent segment called something like "debt diet" which delved a little more deeply into how people get painted into this corner from which there is no way out.   Some people have gotten into circumstances so bad they may even lose their homes.   And the notion is floated that while the victims are not entirely blameless, much of the problem is not their fault.

Victim after victim is paraded before the American conscience.   This family had two earners out "working their tales off" 35 hour per week jobs (but don't forget the combined ten hours per week commuting - a harsh American reality), how could they find the time to make dinner?   They ended up buying dinner out almost every night!   Then they reached and exceeded their credit card's limits causing huge fees to kick in.   A limit of $10,000 gets ugly when one more dollar of debt is incurred causing fees for exceeding the limit of as much as $100.   You add that Caesar salad to your Outback take-out order and it costs $100!   And then the mortgage and revolving credit payments are due on the same payday causing families to decide between keeping their home or creating a few bucks space on their cards.   What's a person to do?   Pay for the home, of course.   But the result is a late fee on the card and a kicking in of the higher interest rate making it even less likely that the next payment will be on time.

Within this debate there is the notion that the cardholder was caught completely unawares of the terms he or she signed for in the first place.   While it is true that this stuff tends to be found in the smaller print found somewhere in the small print, it is still a buyer beware world out there.   Nothing is free.   So when you make the decision to accept that solicitation for a new credit line, bigger than you ever thought you could qualify for, at a rate lower than you though imaginable, it is your responsibility to be at least a little suspicious.   Why would anyone want to lend you that much money and charge you almost nothing for it?   Your part of the bargain is to understand your risks and responsibilities.   You cannot truly be a victim by any sort of contract you enter willfully.

How much should we be expected to feel sorry for people who have those 50 inch SONY HD TVs on salaries which just barely rate the mortgage on the well-furnished home they occupy?   There is this thing called the "American Dream" filled with a nice home, high quality appliances and furniture, etc. but it is called a "dream" not a birthright.   And while those of us in less dire financial circumstances sat at home eating hamburgers and pasta, these people were out eating three-course meals including bloomin onions, Prime Rib cooked to a bloody red medium rare, mate, with a few adult beverages.   They didn't even have to clean the dishes after they stepped away from the table!   It isn't as if it was a one-time celebratory event, but rather occurred with several-time-a-week regularity.   I didn't make the decision to spend $600 a week when all I had was $200 extra.   neither did the highly paid marketing exec.s at the banks which issued the credit cards.   The debtors made the decisions knowing full well what the consequences would be, although putting those out of their mind "temporarily."

There is a way out of severe debt shock.   It is not governmental regulation of the credit card industry.   It is called austerity.   If you've got a $300,000, 3,000 sq. ft. house with a beautiful slate-counter 500 sq. ft. kitchen with all the latest shiny appliances yet you insist on visiting the restaurant take-out spot in order to feed your family, maybe you need a smaller house or at least one without a kitchen.   You can use the price differential to pay for your dinner's out.   Aside from that, there are a million decisions you make in your life which could be made just slightly differently.   I like having an HD TV.   But I'd also like to have a 50 inch one - mine is smaller.   I do have room on my credit card to get the bigger set but I don't have room in my budget to pay the card payments.   And if ultimately I leave it up to the government to make these decisions for me, they won't let me get the bigger set either.   In fact, they'll probably end up taking away the smaller HD set I own now.

One article discussing Madeleine Albrlght says: "Albright experienced evil as a child living in Prague under the Nazis and then the Communists.   She believes we have a choice: 'to live in fear or in faith and boldness.'"

She herself has said, "When I was an infant, Nazi stormtroopers marched into my native Czechoslovakia.   After the war, my nation was taken over by Communists. So I learned early in life that there is much evil in this world."   (Let's overlook the fact that when she said this there was no country Czechoslovakia and that during the brief period there was one, very few natives would ever describe their home of origin as "Czechoslovakia.")

During the most recent presidential campaign Albright had a few choice words in support of John Kerry's candidacy:

"in recent years, we have seen arise a new and evil tide-terrorism."

"America is a champion of liberty, prosperity, and peace.   John Kerry knows that it is not enough just to say that America wants to defeat terror and rid the world of evil.   Wanting something is not the same as doing something."

Today Madeleine Korbel Albright says in a letter to the LA Times:

"Good versus evil isn't a strategy

... It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad.   It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction ... Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex ... In the long term, the future of the Middle East may well be determined by those in the region dedicated to the hard work of building democracy.   I certainly hope so.   But hope is not a policy. In the short term, we must recognize that the region will be shaped primarily by fairly ruthless power politics in which the clash between good and evil will be swamped by differences between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian, Arab and Kurd, Kurd and Turk, Hashemite and Saudi, secular and religious and, of course, Arab and Jew."

So which is it Mrs. Albright?   Do you think of the world as consisting of both good and evil forces as you professed for most of your life including your tenure with the Clinton Administration or should we view things in a more nuanced way and eschew such simplistic terms as good and evil?   Is that not precisely what we tried to do with Germany around the year 1938?   We saw two sides of a complex debate over whether the Sudetenland was German or not?   We considered the point of view of a rising leader who was simply trying to bring his people back to the community of nations.   We understood that he was merely trying to protect poor unfortunate Germans living under non-German governance and suffering as a result.   We bowed to his demands and understood where he was coming from.   He was, through the prism of history, evil and that specific accomodations cost tens of millions of lives!

So you tell us, Mrs. Former Secretary, did you grow up in evil or were you merely the victim of confusion caused by differing systems of values, beliefs (organic nationalism), and governance (communism, nazism) innocently imposed upon you by members of different ethnic groups (Russians, Germans)?

AP reports: "New Home Sales Down by Most in 9 Years"

Reuters reports: "New home sales tumble"

Bloomberg says basically the same thing but tells a far more complete story by discussing the whole picture.

You see, there is a fundamental flaw in viewing only the new home market.   The total housing market includes new and existing homes.   While new homes were down more than 10% from about 1.21 million annual units to around 1.08, existing home sales were up more than 5% from around 6.58 million units to 6.91.   That means home sales were up substantially.   The annual rate of all home sales last month was almost 8 million units over the number for the previous month, 7.79 million.

While new homes mostly represent stock which was not previously in the marketplace, the total amount of selling activity is more indicative of the overall housing market.   Activity continues to be hot.

Have you read about this debate concerning whether Encyclopedia Britannica or Wikipedia is more accurate?   The Journal Nature claims they are about equally accurate.   That's a hoot.   I'm an advocate of neither - I like to refer to both but I rely on neither.   If I were limited to one source of information, I think I'd have to choose Britannica since it has a well established editorial process which has been refined over hundreds of years.   I'm sure both contain errors.   You have to look at published information that way.   Never assume anything.   But on balance, my choice would be Britannica.

I wondered what might have caused the rift between Nature and Britannica.   As usual, I figured there might be some politics behind it - it seems as if there are politics behind every fight these days.   So, on a whim, I decided to check out what each has to say about global warming.   Wikipedia has determined that global warming is happening, it is happening mostly because of human carbon emissions, and very few scientists disagree.   Britannica says that with every advance in climatology, more new questions are asked than answered.   Britannica does come down slightly on the side of the debate which blames humans for global warming but it comes nowhere near the extremes expressed in Wikipedia.   Consider a few passages from each:

Wiki:
"The scientific consensus on global warming is that the Earth is warming, and that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are making a significant contribution."

"Although the combination of scientific consensus and economic incentives were enough to persuade the governments of more than 150 countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, there are issues about just how much greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet.   Some politicians, including President of the United States George W. Bush [9], Prime Minister of Australia John Howard [10], and public intellectuals such as Bjørn Lomborg [11] and Ronald Bailey [12] have argued the cost of mitigating global warming is too large to be justified.   However, some segments of the business community have accepted both the reality of global warming and its attribution to anthropogenic causes, as well as the need for actions such as carbon emissions trading and carbon taxes."

"It is therefore not correct to say that there is a debate between those who "believe in" and "oppose" the theory that adding carbon dioxide or CH4 to the Earth's atmosphere will result in warmer surface temperatures on Earth, absent indirect mitigating effects.   Rather, the debate is about what the net effect of the addition of carbon dioxide and CH4 will be."

Regarding alternate theories:
"At present, none of these has more than a small number of supporters within the climate science community."

Brit:
"Scientists have further shown that human activities can indeed influence the climate.   However, research also indicates that the human influence on the climate system is deeply woven into the fabric of climate variability, which makes the detection and attribution of specific sources of change very difficult.   If these difficulties were not challenging enough, researchers have postulated that, in addition to the production and emission of greenhouse gases, human-related activities such as changes in the use of the land surface—deforestation, afforestation, desertification, irrigation, urbanization—can also affect local, regional, and even global climate patterns."

"However, after years of intensive research, three realizations have changed the international debate on global warming.   The first is that even a full and successful implementation of the Kyoto Protocol may have only an imperceptible effect on the climate system, because the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions mandated by the protocol are dwarfed by those that scientists in the IPCC have said are needed to have a discernible influence on climate.   Second, problems encountered in negotiating and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol suggest that political, economic, and technological considerations will make the protocol very difficult to implement.   The protocol's proponents can only characterize it as a small first step or symbolic gesture, whereas its opponents can label it a costly boondoggle.   The third realization is that the growing environmental, economic, and human costs associated with changes in climate depend less on the changes themselves than on patterns of development (e.g., demographics, wealth and poverty), decisions about where and how development takes place, the characteristics of health care systems, ecosystem management or exploitation, and other factors."

Now, please understand that I'm not saying the rift between Nature and Britannica is due to any sort of disagreement on a particular issue.   I'm simply asking you to consider that this may be behind the argument.

I set myself up to watch NCAA basketball by sleeping a little late Thursday morning and getting a cupa mocha java late in the afternoon.   I thought I was all set up for a late night.   After dinner I sat down to the TV figuring maybe CBS would pump its hot ticket by breaking away from the news to do a little pre-game.   I was wrong.   Instead I sat through 15 minutes of Bob Schieffer anchoring the CBS news, or tried to.   The next experience I had was a feeling of not knowing where I was or how I got there.   And to beat it all, Shelden Williams was making a face I had never seen a human being make and J. J. Redick was crying!

A grown man was crying, on national TV!   What had happened, what had I missed?   Had I done a Rip Van Winkle?   No, the D-U-K-E was visible on Redick's jersey.   He was still in college, it was still 2006.   But, I wondered, had we just experienced a terrorist attack?   What was causing the man to cry?   Then I saw the score and even though I didn't really understand why he was crying, I felt a little like crying too.   I had missed the great Duke going down and all because I dared to watch CBS News.   Bob Schieffer once quipped that CBS News ratings were partially inflated because people watching the channel frequently die in their sleep leaving the set on and tuned to the channel.   I think I understand that now.   But this all is really my clumsy way of segueing into the "hottest political news" on the web.

Dick Cheney has an actual list of things he must have when he travels!   The smoking gun reported and Cheney's staff verified this troubling fact.   The left hemisphere of the blogisphere (it isn't really a sphere but let's not go in a circle) is totally abuzz with criticisms of Cheney's "rock-star-like" demands.   He demands all lights be on; the temperature of the room be 68 degrees; and the room must have a queen or king bed, a desk with a chair, a private bathroom, a container for ice, a microwave oven and a coffee pot, with decaf brewed before arrival.   Last time I checked into a motel, all those things were present except for the already brewing coffee and, of course, I had to flip the light switch.   But this "rock star treatment" is not all Cheney requires.   He also requires all televisions sets to be tuned to Fox News.   fox news.   We knew there was a conspiracy there!

So, what's up with Cheney's choice of Fox News?   Why can't he watch one of the "real news" shows on the networks?   Maybe he doesn't want to suffer the same circumstances which befell me.   Maybe he wants to stay awake to see the annual Duke-sweet-16-ouster game.

I suppose he could watch NBC but, with all due respect to Brian Williams, NBC has hardly been doing the news justice these past couple of years.   Regardless of who is reading the copy, the broadcast is so slanted, Cheney, or anyone else for that matter, would risk falling off the bed and onto the floor, if he did that.   And if that happened, presumably there would be another trip to the hospital to explain to the Whitehouse Press Corpse.

Well, there's always ABC.   Right!   They present the news accurately, don't they?   Sure they do if you want to see only the bad right, good left half.   The only thing I can stomach on ABC is John Stossel.

OK, so he's forced to tune into cable news, what's wrong with CNN?   Bahahahahaha!   Wolf Blitzen in the situation comedy room?   Anderson Blooper?   If you want to see crying, you should watch Duke losing a basketball game.   Cooper's crying got him this gig but that only goes so far.   You can't even get GOOD biased news from CNN anymore.   Now that Aaron Brown isn't stoically smirking (if that's possible) at anything positive while delving deeper into everything negative about those evil Republicans, there isn't much really available on CNN.

That leaves only Brit Hume and company on Fox who, you've got to admit, do a pretty good job.   O'Reilly gets to be a bore unless he's bullying somebody.   Hannity and Clumsy is a bit over the top as they bring in left and right to talk over each other.   Greta Van Hillary needs to do something besides talking to a stable of lawyers about the most sensational crime case of the day but that's the only gig she knows.   And when these shows are contrasted with what their competition is doing, well, that's why they get ratings.

After all, the Vice President is supposed to not only stay awake, he's also supposed to be informed about what is going on.   It is part of the job description.   Be the President's right hand man, know what's going on, stay awake, and if the Pres dies, you're it.   I guess Cheney does need to sleep sometimes but for that, his hotel demands include copies of the New York Times and USA Today.   Also I suppose the king-of-the-hotel-castle could always work the remote so CBS news is on.   Working the remote is not part of the job description but something tells me he can handle it.

Jeeze, Duke loses and its a light news day?   We should care that the VP wants decaf?   What was I saying about the network newsies?   What are they focusing on today?

Afghan clerics are demanding the government put the Christian convert to death.   The AP reports, "Senior Muslim clerics demanded Thursday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to 'pull him into pieces.'"   So goes the notion that Islam is a religion of peace, love, God.   So goes the notion that these people are worth helping in any way.   Maybe we should just leave them alone, isolate ourselves from them, and let them pull themselves apart.   Savages.

As tonight approaches, millions of Americans are going to become overwhelmingly excited at the prospect of staying up too late so they can catch tonight's third round action of the NCAA basketball championships.   They'll leave work early or watch games on their office computers.   Reuters concludes in a segemnt called "'No work please,' it's basketball time" that as much as $3.8 billion in productivity is lost to companies as workers eschew normal work to catch the tournament and interact with each other regarding their office pools.   But that's not necessarily a bad thing.   Reuters cites John Challenger, chief executive of a Chicago-based firm that studies workplace and business trends, as claiming the value added to the enterprise due to the interaction which might otherwise never take place.   he suggest office pools encourage relations between team members, corporate team members.   I'm no longer stuck in a corporate job but I have to agree with Mr. Challenger.   Some of the strongest bonds I built with co-workers were initiated over the 65 team bracket.

Challenger says, "We think it's a good buy.   It's probably good for morale.   When you can find ways to bring people together, take advantage of it.   It's worth the price tag"   and "I've had some employers say, 'Hey, we end up wasting more time doing birthday cakes every month than we do doing the NCAA pool.   It's lost productivity, but at the same time, I think employers are gaining something from it from the standpoint of morale in the office."

If groups of human beings cannot obtain common understanding of some few fundamental things, there is no hope for communication of any sort.   Some things are so obvious that if one person cannot see them, there is no opportunity for understanding between two people.   Languages are built upon common understanding of something.   That's a bird, this is food, you're a person, I'm a person, this is mine, that's yours, etc.   If there is no common understanding of something, then language is impossible and no expertise can provide translation.   Without such communication, we might just as well beat the hell out of each other, or alternatively, agree to live apart, completely segregated from each other.

Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor, of Reuters today compares the uproar over a threatened death sentence for Abdur Rahman, a convert to Christianity, to the Muslim reaction to the Prophet Mohammad caricatures printed in newspapers.   He cites comments made by Muslims claiming a similar belief.   If the differences are not patently obvious to a person who earns his living and proves his value to society via the use of language, there is no hope of ever forging any sort of understanding between the West and Muslim countries.   So, let's get on with things.   We're wasting time by trying to forge any sort of friendship with Muslims.   Let's just build a wall or go to war - total war - with each other.

And in the process, Tom Henegan gets the boot since he cannot distinguish between expressing opinion in a cartoon and killing a person for making a choice which impacts nobody but himself.

Here's the contrast:

On one hand we have a religion based on: Jesus Christ died on the cross to atone for every homan being's sins and was resurrected to fulfill prophecy proclaiming him the son of God.   Easter is the celebration of fulfillment of the prophecy.   We are capable of redemption and ressurection by act of God provided that we atone for our sins.

On the other hand, we have one of Darwin's creatures, a mammal with long ears which hops and which brings children bird eggs which are died in accordance with Russian and Ukrainian custom on a day which runs in contrast to the Orthodox Christian calendar's date for Easter, and hides the eggs so kids can have fun while celebrating the new spring and, of course, Easter.

This is so offensive that St. Paul (ahem) Minnesota has decided it must remove it from the lobby of the City Council offices, because of concerns it might offend non-Christians.

Message to the government of St. Paul: Everyone, including Christians who do not revere "Saints," is potentially offended by your city's name.   Maybe you ought to change that!

Ignorantia juris non excusat.   Ignorance of the law is no excuse!   It is a well settled principle of law that we, as citizens of a nation controlled by the rule of law, are responsible to know that law.   A bank robber cannot defend himself by saying he didn't know it was illegal to rob a bank.   That one is fairly obvious but it hardly describes the whole universe of law.   Laws are voluminous, complicated and change constantly.   This year there will be so many new pages of laws generated within these United States that it will be impossible for you to read them all, even if you devoted your life exclusively to the pursuit.   Theoretically we have underpinnings to our laws which enable you to understand the basics even if you cannot be expected to grasp any of the subtleties.   But that's really not particularly true any more as the Supreme Court's decision yesterday in Georgia v. Randolph ("Randolph") should make eminently clear.

Americans have a fundamental right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, particularly in their own home.   That right is expressed by the Fourth Amendment which provides "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

So police cannot enter your home to search without a valid, court issued, search warrant for which they had to show probable cause that you committed a crime.   That's pretty straightforward, right?   Not really.   There are, of course, nuances.

In its Randolph decision the Supreme Court reminded us that it "has held that the Fourth Amendment recognizes a valid warrantless entry and search of premises when police obtain the voluntary consent of an occupant who shares, or is reasonably believed to share, authority over the area in common with a co-occupant who later objects to the use of evidence so obtained."   The exception for consent extends even to entries and searches with the permission of a co-occupant whom the police reasonably, but erroneously, believe to possess shared authority as an occupant.   (see Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177 (1990))

The Court also reminded us that who has authority to grant permission for entry to the police have nothing to do with property ownership.   Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 provided that the right of consent stems from an understanding of ordinary mutual use of property by persons generally having joint access.   "It is reasonable to recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to permit inspection in his own right and that others have assumed the risk that one of their number might permit the common area to be searched."   There are certain specialized tenancy arrangements "apparent to police."   For example, a landlord cannot consent to search of a tenant's house. (see Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610 (1961))   Similarly, hotel staff may have access to a room for the purpose of cleaning it but have no authority to admit police.   Additionally, there are circumstances in which an occupant can permit entry but has no apparent authority to allow police to search.   For example, a child may permit an officer to enter the home but this does not confer authority to search other residents' rooms because "no one would reasonably expect such a child to be in a position to authorize anyone to rummage through his parents' bedroom."

The Randolph decision cited United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164 (1974), ("Matlock"), saying, "Matlock's explanation for constitutional sufficiency of a co-tenant's consent to enter and search recognized a co-inhabitant's 'right to permit the inspection in his own right.' 415 U. S. at 171, n. 7, The right to admit the police is not a right as understood under property law.   It is, instead, the authority recognized by customary social usage as having substantial bearing on Fourth Amendment reasonableness in specific circumstances.   The question here is whether customary social understanding accords the consenting authority to prevail over co-tenant's objection, a question Matlock did not answer."   Also, Matlock and other precedent establish police may not simply place the objecting tenant in a squad car or fail to wake a present but sleeping tenant in order to avoid obtaining consent.   Matlock held that an individual who chooses to live with another assumes a risk no greater than "an inability to control access to the premises during [his] absence," and does not contemplate that his objection to a request to search commonly shared premises, if made, will be overlooked.

Adding to the complexity is Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91 which provides, "overnight house guests have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their temporary quarters."   So, if you invite somebody over, they sit in your living room doing drugs, you call the cops and admit them into your home to put a stop to this, they cannot search your home over the objections of your houseguest!

Thus a disputed invitation by one tenant gives an officer no better claim to reasonableness in entering than he would have had absent any consent.   The police can always obtain a search warrant to search the home but that takes time.   However, the Court stated "The informed and deliberate determinations of magistrates empowered to issue warrants as to what searches and seizures are permissible under the Constitution are to be preferred over the hurried actions of officers."

There were a number of descents to Randolph.   One suggested that this decision would prevent officers from entering a premise when an act of domestic violence was taking place because one co-tenant denied them entry.   The decision refuted this saying, "This case, which recognizes limits on evidentiary searches, has no bearing on the capacity of the police, at the invitation of one tenant, to enter a dwelling over another tenant's objection in order to protect a resident from domestic violence."   That is because there is a distinction between when police may enter without committing trespass, and when they may enter for purposes of searching for evidence.   No question reasonably could be raised about the authority of police to enter a dwelling in order to protect a resident from domestic violence provided that they have reason to believe a threat exists.   "(And since the police would then be lawfully in the premises, there is no question that they could seize any evidence in plain view or take further action supported by any consequent probable cause.)"

OK now, have you got it?   You are free from unreasonable search and seizure in your home - the police can enter to investigate, especially if they suspect domestic violence, but they have to have permission of all available tenants in order to gather valid evidence.   If one objects, they can't come in.   They cannot take one potentially objecting tenant and place him in the cruiser, then proceed to ask only the other tenant if they can come in.   If somebody is asleep, they have to wake him and ask for permission.   If your kid allows the police in, they can enter but they cannot search for evidence - they can obtain evidence if it is out in the open but they can't search.   And if you have a house guest, run out to get some victuals and your guest allows the police to come in and search, that's OK too.

Ignorantia juris non excusat.   Ignorance of the law is no excuse!   So, if you are not fully getting this tiny spec of one single principle of the mere underpinnings of our legal system, maybe you better quit your job and get busy educating yourself.   How much do we pay cops?   How much training do they get in the law?   What is the societal cost of having a legal system which is as clear as mud?

Mike Peters continues to be my favorite cartoonist, because he's one of the few comic artists who actually gets a smile out of my grumpy self.

You've already heard the comments / questions / accusations spewing forth from the mouth of once-important White House correspondent, Helen Thomas.   She asked, "I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime.   Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true.   My question is, Why did you really want to go to war?   From the moment you stepped into the White House, your Cabinet officers, former Cabinet officers, intelligence people and so forth .. but what's your real reason?   You have said it wasn’t oil, the quest for oil; it hasn't been Israel or anything else.   What was it?"

You've probably also heard some of Thomas' commentary over the past many years, though likely not very much since she quit the UPI.   In recent days she said, "This is the worst President ever.   He, George W. Bush, is the worst President in all of American history."   Yesterday in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, she said of those comments, "I sort of felt bad for the things that I had said that were not supposed to be transmitted."   Not supposed to be transmitted?   She says something like that to anyone and expects confidentiality?   It appears Thomas is slipping.

In regards to her diatribe before the President yesterday, Wonkette wonders, "What was Thomas expecting Bush to do? Break down at the podium, start sobbing uncontrollably."   I'd have to agree with that assessment.   An established professional never asks a question without some sort of expectation of a particular response.   So what exactly could she have expected?   She hadn't been permitted by the administration to ask any sort of question for a very long time.   What did she think was magical about this moment?   Did she think they permitted her to confront the President because, in a moment of weakness, they realized how really, really important she is?   Did she not see they were looking for that special moment to demonstrate the blatant media bias which has victimized the American public since the presidential campaign?

Helen Thomas once said she would never retire because she's having so much fun - why should you retire from fun.   I wonder if she feels that way today.   She has to be able to see her mental faculties have slipped quite a bit.   She walked right into a right cross without ever seeing it coming.   Prize fighters usually see that moment as the right time to retire.

Many old battle horses of the MSM have seen the writing on the wall during the past year or so.   They see that their faculties have slipped and rather than make the same sorts of mistakes, they have chosen to retire.   And it has been lucky for them and the liberal movement that they did.   Over the past couple of years, the old stalwarts of the MSM have made ridiculously biased comments and produced obviously slanted stories at a seemingly ever-increasing rate.   In the process they have provided easy fodder for conservative talkers.

But the problem is not merely the aging of liberal MSM stalwarts.   Another aspect of the problem is the people who are rising up to take their places have been trained in ararefiedd environment.   these Trainees have been raised thinking certain arguments have already been won.   These new Journalists do not understand that their forgone conclusions (the pristine environment should be preserved at all costs, all corporations are inherently evil, unilateral military action is always unjustified, conservatives represent only the interests of the wealthy, internationalism is the only proper course for the country, etc., etc.) are not shared by many in their audience in any fundamental sense.   The foundation which was built for them by the now retiring MSM icons has rotted out.   Conservative talkers were smart to attack the underpinnings of liberalism rather than the mere manifestations.   The new liberal talkers seem totally unaware of the lack of a foundation but even if they were aware, the mental discipline to make these arguments anew is dissipating rapidly.   Liberal media bias is rapidly approaching a belated retirement.

Perhaps it would be foolish of me to suggest you send your condolences to the retiring liberal media.   But you can certainly at least wish them a more dignified final chapter to life than Walter Cronkite.   You can start by sending a message along to Helen Thomas.   Her e-mail address is: hthomas@hearstdc.com

An FDA panel is considering requiring warning labels on all ADHD drugs because they can cause psychosis, mania, and hallucinations.   This is in addition to the serious cardio-vascular risks we discussed a month or so ago.   FDA officials said, "The predominance in young children of hallucinations, both visual and tactile, involving insects, snakes and worms is striking, and deserves further evaluation."   3.3 million children used ADHD drugs in 2005.   3.3 million children!

There are times when I really do not feel as if I have the energy to continue dealing with things on a reasonable basis.   This Afghanistan case in which a man is being prosecuted under Islamic law for converting to Christianity is one of those times.   My gut reaction is we should immediately bring all the boys home, kick every Muslim out of this country, amend the constitution to provide for freedom of religion except Islam, immediately confiscate all property in this country owned by foreing Muslims, and make sure to fire back in response to any attack against any non-Muslim interests using a multiplier of four.   Let the mongrels kill each other with their propensity to fight amongst themselves.   If we need oil, go in and take the land from which it is drilled.   Screw them.   You know I honestly feel that way until I recognize that this is essentially what Hitler did.   Thank goodness the rest of the country is more restrained than I am.   But how much patience can we reasonably be expected to have with these people?

Time Inc has settled the lawsuit raised by 23 states alleging "improper marketing and billing practices" with respect to the company's automatically renewing subscriptions.   The company will pay back millions to more than 100,000 subscribers who had their subscriptions automatically renewed.

Automatic renewal is a device used by many web based subscription businesses.   It will be most interesting to see if this practice is ended.   Many companies provide only the option to subscribe on an automatically renewing basis.   This defies normal contract law in which it is impossible to contract for anything beyond a reasonable period of time.   The practice has been adopted almost uniformly in, for example, online database accesss.   No legal precedent is established in this case since it was settled but those who engage in the practice may want to think twice about it.   And those who have had to hold on the line waiting for a customer service representative to cancel something they didn't realize they had bought might consider spending that time typing out a clear letter to their state's attorney general rather than playing solitaire.

Greens are energized by the increasing investment in "alternative energy" technology concerns.   Reuters reports "Alternative energy attracting more investors."   "Well known investors such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the Carlyle Group and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. have all made recent investments in wind and solar power." And "Last year, U.S. ethanol production reached a record 3.9 billion gallons, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.   There are 97 ethanol plants operating and another 33 under construction and nine being expanded, according to the Renewable Fuels Association."   And "In 2005, U.S. wind generating capacity jumping 35 percent as companies invested $3 billion to bring an additional 2,400 megawatts online."

Something must be wrong about this report.   How can this be happening in a country which DID NOT ratify the Kyoto Protocol?

An editorial in the New York Times today begins:

"Deficit Demagogues

Less than a week after he denounced the "wayward path" of deficit spending to a gathering of 2,000 Republican Party stalwarts, Senator Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader and would-be president, was busy presiding over business as usual in the Senate.   Last Thursday, Mr. Frist, 49 of his fellow Republican senators and one Democrat approved a $2.8 trillion budget for 2007.   The budget vote came just hours after Mr. Frist and 51 other Republicans voted to raise the nation's debt limit for the fourth time in five years - this time by $781 billion, to nearly $9 trillion.   All of that increase will be needed to pay for earlier tax cuts and spending increases, and, if the Republicans get their way on taxes, to pay for future deficit-financed tax cuts."

This editorial columnist apparently failed to read the whole paper on July 13, 2005 in which the Times printed the following news:

"Sharp Rise in Tax Revenue to Pare U.S. Deficit

... The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well ..."

OK, so now I know.   George Bush was wrong in every way imaginable.   My spiritual leader, Devadip Carlos Augusto Alves Santana, has informed me he is opposed to the philosphy and policies of George W. Bush.   I am a mind-numbed robot controlled by the loud music I have pumped into my brain via my ipod ear-buds.   I must obey Carlos.   I must destroy George Bush and Republicans.

Hey Carlos, don't go quoting Jimi Hendrix!   The man could play anything he wanted on the guitar.   he didn;t repeat the same thing throughout fifty or more songs.   But he was completely doped up on drugs.   His brain was mush.   And if you want to say something, do it with song.   For God's sake, your a musician.   Nobody ever put a gun to your head and made all your musical works consist of meaningless tripe about sex and the "game of love."   If your house is dark and your pots are cold, you should stop hanging around and write a song which expresses more than your lust for women.   And leave the plain, flat philosophy to others.

Mr. Devadip, stick your head out of your own self-absorbed world for a minute, take a look around.   The opposition to the war in Iraq is not reaching the same dimensions as Vietnam.   It is actually shrinking.   If you think, "There is more value in placing a flower in a rifle barrel than making war. As Jimi Hendrix used to say, musical notes have more importance than bullets," buy yourself a gun and put some flowers in it.

Carlos, never fool yourself into believing that what you have done on the planet has any redeeming value.   It was once pretty good music but has really only served to make you wealthy.   Nobody ever lived a happier life because of your music.   Nobody ever got more to eat, a better roof over their heads, purer water to drink, or a better future because of your musical notes.   In the grand scheme of things, your work can best be described as a little nice noise made by an insignificant individual for a brief moment in time.   Thanks!

Bong!   Bong!   It's midnight.   This is the ghost of July Fourth's past.   JAMES MCGREEVEY, you raised taxes the weekend of July Fourth, 2002.   JAMES MCGREEVEY, you were warned, your actions would harm New Jersey business.   JAMES MCGREEVEY, you wouldn't listen, you insisted those who rang alarm bells were full of crap.   You were wrong James McGreevey.   You were wrong.

Bong!   Bong!   It's one, AM.   This is the ghost of tax increases present.   JON CORZINE, don't increase taxes.   Your actions will harm New Jersey business.   You will be wrong.   You will be wrong.

There is a funny coincidence which occurs in the place where economics meets taxation.   This is the place where conundrums meet everyday life.   This is the place where "tax decreases" like Bush's "tax cut for the rich" and Ronald Reagan's absurdly aggressive tax cuts resulted in increased governmental revenue because the business they spurred caused such an upsurge in commercial activity that the government's coffers took care of themselves.   Obviously, the converse is also true.   Tax increases do not increase tax collections.   The nation's commercial history is replete with examples of each conundrum.   Still, some are skeptical.

New Jersey Governor James Florio was skeptical.   He saw an unbalanced budget and sought a tax increase to rectify the situation.   It cost him his job and resulted in little revenue, leaving the budget unbalanced.   His successor rolled back the Florio toilet "paper tax" and Democrats screamed that it would cause a rise in property taxes.   The "flypaper effect" showed this claim to be untrue but still Democrats complained.   Then McGreevey took office, raised taxes successively by unprecedented amounts and was still unable to balance the budget.   New Jersey business was hurt and the budgetary problems remained to the day Jon Corzine took office.   Now Corzine is saying he is going to raise taxes.

Corzine is looking for surgical strikes like raising the cigarette tax and increasing "fees" so as to avoid the ire of the voting public in this midterm national election year.   But he is unsatisfied by what the surgical strikes can