1/31/2008: Hillary's Smear Campaign By MICHAEL ZELDIN

...this provides a window into Mrs. Clinton's character... Mrs. Clinton's willingness to ignore the truth [emphasis added] for short-term political advantage is exactly what breeds the partisanship that's paralyzed Washington for too many years, and the cynicism felt by so many Americans, especially the young.

1/31/2008: The New Rules of Politics, By KARL ROVE

Ideas still matter. Both Democrats and Republicans are in spirited and, at times, heated contests. The difference is Democrats are running a nasty race that has as its subtext race and gender. [emphasis added] The Republican race, on the other hand, is a serious debate about serious ideas. Over the last several months, we have been seeing men who represent different strands within the GOP battle each other. The debate can get personal at times-but at core the debate it is about ideas rather than personalities, which can no longer be said about the Democratic race.

1/31/2008: A few quotes:

“A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn’t own.” – Frank Dane

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” – Albert Einstein

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken

1/30/08: Three Kennedys write that "We need a leader who is battle-tested, resilient and sure-footed on the shifting landscape of domestic and foreign policy." I completely agree: we don't need one that breaks down in tears when the going gets rough. Why they back Clinton after they made this statement is beyond me.
— Paul D Blumstein

1/30/08: Stimulus Package Nonsense By Walter E. Williams

There are three ways government can get the money for a stimulus package. It can tax, borrow or inflate the currency by printing money. If government taxes to hand out money, one person is stimulated at the expense of another who pays the tax, who is unstimulated and has less money to spend. If government borrows the money, it's the same story. This time the unstimulated person is the lender who has less money to spend. If government prints money, creditors, and then everyone else, are unstimulated. As my colleague Russell Roberts said in a NPR broadcast, "It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing -- the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper."

1/30/08: A "Stimulus Package"? By Thomas Sowell

The idea of a stimulus package is based on the general notion that there are things the government could do to make things better in the economy. Unfortunately, there is a vast difference between what the government could do and what it is likely to do....One of the biggest problems with government intervention in the economy is that politicians usually have neither the knowledge nor the incentives to intervene at the right time.

1/27/08: FINDING A PROBLEM WHERE NONE EXISTS

"It is hard to imagine any time in history when such rampant pessimism about the economy has existed with so little evidence of serious trouble."
- Economist Brian Wesbury

1/27/08: DELUSION CENTRAL

"Washington, D.C. is a place where delusions go to thrive. That explains why Congress and the president are now agreed on remedies that will not work, expending money they do not have, to fix a problem that may not exist."
- Columnist Steve Chapman

1/27/08: "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." ~ H. L. Mencken

1/27/08: For Shear Bureaucratic Stupidity, the Winner Is...

I may fear the IRS, and I may dread the DMV - but for shear bureaucratic stupidity and its affront to personal liberties, the TSA has earned a special place of loathing in my heart. By Chuck Muth

1/24/08:

Ron Paul Unveils a REAL Economic Stimulus Plan

Four-pronged approach will strengthen the economy by reforming taxes, cutting spending, improving monetary policy and eliminating burdensome regulations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 24, 2008

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA –Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has unveiled a comprehensive economic revitalization package. The four-pronged plan is designed to stem the current economic slide and address the unsound governmental policies that are harming Americans’ pocketbooks.

“Real economic reform must address the underlying reasons for the current economic malaise,” said Ron Paul. “This plan is more than just a band-aid for our economy; it fundamentally reforms four areas where government policies are damaging our national economy. When enacted, my plan will provide both short-term stimulus, and lay the groundwork for long-term prosperity.”

The comprehensive economic revitalization plan is available online at: http://www.RonPaul2008.com/Prosperity.

The four areas that the plan covers are:

1. Tax Reform: Reduce the tax burden and eliminate taxes that punish investment and savings, including job-killing corporate taxes.

2. Spending Reform: Eliminate wasteful spending. Reduce overseas commitments. Freeze all non-defense, non-entitlement spending at current levels.

3. Monetary Policy Reform: Expand openness with the Federal Reserve and require the Fed to televise its meetings. Return value to our money.

4. Regulatory Reform: Repeal Sarbanes/Oxley regulations that push companies to seek capital outside of US markets. Stop restricting community banks from fostering local economic growth.

Congressman Paul has written or co-sponsored numerous bills to enact the policies in his plan. In Congress, he has been a champion of lower taxes and limited government.

Congressman Paul is the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology. In Congress, Dr. Paul has never voted for a tax increase or for an unbalanced budget.

1/24/08: Tax Rebates, a bipartisan agreement: According to the Wall Street Journal, "The rapid negotiations were unusual in a city that last year was gridlocked with partisan bickering. Both sides agreed to drop items they were pushing: Democrats agreed to exclude food stamps and unemployment insurance; Republicans agreed the rebates could go to people who didn't pay income taxes." [emphasis added]

"Under the plan, individuals who pay at least $300 in income taxes would get up to $600, working couples $1,200 and those couples with children an additional $300 per child under the deal. Workers who make at least $3,000 but don't pay taxes would get $300 rebates. The rebates would begin phasing down at income levels of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples. Couples with incomes of greater than $170,000 -- wouldn't receive the rebates."

Where does this money come from? The government is already in deficit, so it must be borrowed or printed. It will cause inflation.

Will it really provde any stimulus? Or is it just another wealth transfer that will be as ineffective as the past rebates from little Bush and Jimmy Carter?

That's how George Mason University economist Russell Roberts describes the illogic of the economic "stimulus" proposals: "It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing -- the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper." 

“English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong.” —G. K. Chesterton

“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” —Judge Gideon Tucker

1/24/08: All I ever wanted in a cell phone was one that works. I don't want a camera or a music player, a game machine or a web browser. I just want reliable phone service...alas, it is not to be. Almost no other service sucks like cell phone service, expensive and unreliable, at least in the United States. The ultimate joke, the iPhone, was designed for brain-dead liberals who think they are cooler than anyone else. They are not cool; they're fools, chumps, morons. However, I have finally found a multi-purpose cell phone that might be worth getting:

1/24/08: The world is full of hypocrites. Just today, in the Wall Street Journal, I read that Bill Gates, after becoming the richest man in the world, not by creating a better product, but by being a ruthless competitor [this is a complement, by the way], and skirting the fringes of anti-trust laws in the United States and Europe, now calls for a kindler, gentler capitalism. Give me a break! It's easy for him [and for politicians] to be generous with my hard-earned money. Likewise, George Soros wants more financial regulation. He made his billions, now let's put lots of impediments in the way so that others cannot take advantage of the stupidity of governments. Two very large hypocrites...one morning's news...and I haven't even had to go to Washington, Sacramento, or Albany, places where there are more hypocrites than...

1/23/08: “’We’re all Keynesians now.’ So famously declared Richard Nixon back in 1971, in what we thought was a different economic era. But after [recent events], we’re not sure what decade we’re in. With Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Bush both endorsing temporary tax cuts and more federal spending as ‘fiscal stimulus,’ an inflation-adjusted version of Jimmy Carter’s $50 rebate can’t be far behind. Appearing before Congress, Mr. Bernanke told Democrats what he thought they wanted to hear. The former academic economist blessed a ‘fiscal stimulus package,’ as long as it is ‘explicitly temporary.’ How new federal spending can be ‘temporary,’ he didn’t say, as if a dollar collected in taxes or borrowed and then spent can be recalled. The ‘temporary’ line was thus a dagger aimed directly at the heart of Mr. Bush’s desire to make his tax cuts permanent. The Fed chief did aver that, ‘Again, I’m not taking a view one way or the other on the desirability of those long-term tax cuts being made permanent.’ But of course refusing to endorse something is itself a point of view—a point Democrats were already joyfully repeating... Instead, Mr. Bernanke embraced the explicit Keynesian notion that the government should write checks to ‘low and moderate income people,’ who will spend it quickly and thus lift consumer demand... We’re all for putting more money in the hands of the poor and moderate earners, especially via stronger economic growth that will give them better paying jobs. But the $250 or $500 one-time rebate check they may now receive has to come from somewhere. The feds will pay for it either by taxing or borrowing from someone else, and those people will have that much less to spend or invest themselves. We are thus supposed to believe it is ‘stimulating’ to take money from one pocket and hand it to another.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands.” —Thomas Jefferson

“What is euphemistically called government-corporate ‘partnership’ is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn’t work.” —Ronald Reagan

1/23/08: Lenin was surely right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. -- John Maynard Keynes

The Dollar and the Market Mess
By BILL WILBY
Wall Street Journal
January 23, 2008; Page A25

Currency debauchment is a choice. Most governments don't want to debauch their currency -- it's just that they don't want to take the actions that might prevent it, because those actions are perceived to be intolerably painful. Thus it was that last fall, the Federal Reserve, the world's central bank, decided to "let the dollar go" because staying the course on interest rates might threaten the world's financial system (or so the argument goes).

1/22/08: During the first (and I pray LAST) Clinton administration, there were several terrorists attacks on American assets overseas, embassies, ships, military installations, and in 1993, the World Trade Center in New York. In response to these many attacks, the Clinton administration did...almost NOTHING. He dropped a few bombs on Afghanistan to draw attention away from Monica, but essentially he did nothing to prevent future attacks. Less than eight months after George W. Bush took office, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked and the target of the fourth flight probably was the Capital. Although I think that George W. Bush is a nincompoop, he is a cowboy and somehow has stumbled through several years without another terrorist attack. Of course we're living in a Police State (which ought to make Giuliani happy) and most of those Police State tactics (especially at airports) are inneffective (after all, they're enforced by government employees) and a waste of time and money; probably thay make us less safe. In the meantime, Bill Clinton distorts his and Hillary's records of (lack of) accomplishment and attacks Obama on behalf of Hillary. The Clintonistas will destroy anyone in their path. Listen to what they say; they are the real racists bigots in this "race" for the White House.

I am a Ron Paul supporter; he is the only pro-freedom candidate. However, if you don't support Ron Paul, just remeber that anybody, ANYBODY, perhaps even John Kerry, would be better than Hillary.

1/21/08: The AMAZING thing about this article is that many on the left thought he was serious and congratulated him for his "progressive" and anti-capitalist ideas. I guess it's true that liberals are brain-dead and have no sense of humor.

Why Girl Scout Cookies Must Be Banned
By Tom Purcell

The Girl Scout cookie season is upon us. That means one thing. The annual cookie sale must be banned. How can we allow anyone, in these progressive times, to inflict empty calories on an already obese public? How can we be so inconsiderate to diabetics and others who are unable to consume sugar? How can we allow any organization, regardless of its cause, to use children to pimp products loaded with trans fat, the partially hydrogenated oil that Americans fear more than communism?

It is true that the Girl Scouts organization was founded in 1912 to help girls develop physically, mentally and spiritually. I know the annual cookie sale has become a tasty part of American culture since it originated in 1917. But the fact is this: The annual sale is teaching girls TERRIBLE values.

It is teaching them raw capitalism -- how to exploit the weak and the helpless. My own niece, an otherwise sweet and lovely child, knows I can't help but eat shortbread cookies by the row. I eat Thin Mints as though they were Tic Tacs. I down Peanut Butter Patties the way grizzlies dine on wild salmon.

I'm addicted. But rather than protect me from my addiction, she preys on me. She calls or visits just before dinner -- when I am at my most hungry and vulnerable. She tells me about her troop's good deeds and how my order will fund even more.

The clever little manipulator always walks away with a sizable order. All Girl Scouts do. They probably meet in private to laugh about the helplessness of their victims -- they laugh about the strong-arm techniques they use to part friends, family and neighbors from their hard-earned dough.

In the process, they are destroying our environment. More than 200 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies are sold every year -- that's $700 million in annual revenue. Precious trees must be felled to farm the grains and sugars needed to produce them -- trees that are essential to dissipating carbon dioxide.

What's worse, as those cookies are manufactured, packaged and shipped, more carbon dioxide is pumped into the air. That's right, the Girl Scouts are causing the Arctic ice cap to melt. The next time you dip a shortbread cookie into a cup of milk, the least you can do is remember the starving polar bears stranded on hideously small ice floes.

That's why the annual Girl Scout cookie sale must end.

Look, if the Girl Scouts want to teach girls how to market products and manage inventory and money, can't they be more socially responsible? Instead of selling cookies, why not sell low-energy-consumption light bulbs? Why not sell something that makes the girls aware of man's thoughtless destruction of our fragile ecosystems?

Better yet, instead of teaching the girls the principles of capitalism, why not teach them how to be government bureaucrats instead? America is moving toward European-style socialism. The careers of the future will be in government, not the private sector. Why not have the government produce a pamphlet on the harmful effects of cookies, then mandate that the girls develop a program to distribute it?

Sure, I know some people will criticize me for demanding an end to the cookie sale. They'll say that it really does teach girls useful business skills. They'll say that it's as much a part of American culture as baseball and apple pie -- that we should celebrate it and enjoy it. They'll say that America has real problems and that I ought to focus on those rather than something as harmless as a lousy cookie sale.

Well, nuts to that. I urge you to write your senator and congressperson. If the Girl Scouts won't willingly stop foisting their cookie pox on the rest of us, we must use the might of the federal government to mandate a ban on their annual sale.

I hope the ban goes into effect before my niece talks me into placing another order.

1/17/08: MonicaGate: Happy 10th Anniversary!

1/15/08: Sad news from the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times Leader:

A mother who lost her daughter in a well-publicized automobile accident in Massachusetts nearly 39 years ago was remembered Saturday as a caring woman who loved talking, drinking coffee and making pancakes for breakfast. Gwen L. Kopechne, 89, died on Dec. 20 at the Valley Crest Nursing Home in Plains Township. A small gathering of family and friends attended a Memorial Mass in her honor at All Saints Church in Plymouth. Family photographs pasted on a board were placed near the altar, and two pictures showing Gwen, her late husband, Joseph, and their only daughter, Mary Jo [Kopechne], were placed on a table beneath a Pastoral candle. Gwen was laid to rest in St. Vincent's Cemetery in Larksville next to her husband and Mary Jo [Kopechne], whose [all too brief] life immortalized the family when she was killed in the accident on Chappaquiddick Island on July 19, 1969.

Mrs. Kopechne lived almost four decades longer than her only child, who was 28 when she died. As far as we know, Ted [what is WRONG with those idiots in Massachussetts?] Kennedy has no comment.

1/14/08: The Case Against Hillary Clinton: Why on earth would we choose to put the Clinton family drama at the center of our politics again?
By Christopher Hitchens, Posted Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, at 12:15

What do you have to forget or overlook in order to desire that this dysfunctional clan once more occupies the White House and is again in a position to rent the Lincoln Bedroom to campaign donors and to employ the Oval Office as a massage parlor? You have to be able to forget, first, what happened to those who complained, or who told the truth, last time. It's often said, by people trying to show how grown-up and unshocked they are, that all Clinton did to get himself impeached was lie about sex. That's not really true. What he actually lied about, in the perjury that also got him disbarred, was the women. And what this involved was a steady campaign of defamation, backed up by private dicks (you should excuse the expression) and salaried government employees, against women who I believe were telling the truth. In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton. (For the full background on this, see the chapter "Is There a Rapist in the Oval Office?" in the paperback version of my book No One Left To Lie To. This essay, I may modestly say, has never been challenged by anybody in the fabled Clinton "rapid response" team.) Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's "issues." [Read the whole essay at slate.com]

1/14/08: As we go into the mext round of primaries, let's look at the Republican results so far (combined Iowa and New Hamshire):

1/14/08: ...a few thoughts on the so-called mortgage "crisis" Let me see if I understand this. If a mortgage company lends money to someone (i.e., deadbeat) who cannot and does not pay it back, who is the loser? The mortgage company and its investors, not the borrowers. Most of the people with subprime mortgages have very little or no (i.e., zero, nil, nada) money invested in their homes. Most of the mortgages even paid the closing costs. If they (the deadbests) lose their homes, they lose little or nothing. They may even gain. The "teaser" rates often produced mortgage payments that were well below rents, so they (the deadbests) even got to live more cheaply during the initial period of the mortgage.So now, politicians and brain-dead liberals (i.e., alleged do-gooders and vote panderers) want to make the lenders into criminals and let the deadbeats keep their homes without paying for them. What a great deal...another huge transfer of wealth from those who produce it to those who frequently produce little or nothing.

And as if that isn't already bad enough...if I, an investor trying to save money and at least stay even with the runaway inflation (the real monetary inflation not the alleged CPI) created by government hacks (i.e., Federal Reserve and Congress), were naive enough to lend money to the mortgage company (i.e., buy their debt securities), they (the politicians and brain-dead liberals) want to make me a criminal, too. It's not bad enough that I lost some of my money because I trusted a rating agency (which, fortunately for me, I did not), but now I'll lose even more of it as the jack-booted thugs in the government take my money to pay off other people's mortgages. Next thing you know, I won't be able to pay my own mortgage.

If you borrow money, you should pay it back; if you can't, tough luck. If you lend money to people, you take your chances; if they can't pay it back, tough luck. Next time you might be more careful. The government should have absolutely NOTHING to do with this alleged crisis. It should do nothing.

1/14/08: ...The next president should lead Congress and the country to a unilateral declaration of free and balanced trade. We should neither bar nor prefer any product or country of origin, but we should levy a flat-rate tariff on every dollar's worth of imports, a tax with a floating rate always sufficient to maintain the value of the dollar with respect to other free-floating currencies, commodities and gold.

There is nothing wrong with running a trade deficit equal to the world's desire for dollars. But we have been doing a lot more than that for a lot longer than we should have. We would do the world and ourselves the greatest possible favor if we stopped destroying the dollar.

THOMAS G. DONLAN
Editorial Page Editor
Barron's January 14, 2008

1/14/08: Unions bitterly divided in Democratic race, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, January 13, 2008...a few excerpts from the article:

If Obama becomes the nominee, "it could dampen enthusiasm" among Clinton's union backers because of gnawing public disagreements, said Lawrence R. Scanlon Jr., the political director of AFSCME, which had already flown 100 paid organizers to Nevada and planned to add 100 more.

The Culinary Workers' ability to organize and deliver votes has been legendary in the labor movement. Under their contract, its members are eligible for as long as six months of leave from their jobs to do political work; the union pays their salaries during that time. As of this weekend, about 200 members were working as paid organizers for Obama -- close to the number AFSCME will have working for Clinton.

AFSCME, which has only a few thousand members in Nevada, is relying heavily on paid workers from outside the state, a practice virtually all national unions employ when they need reinforcements.

The article also mentions the efforts of the Nevada teachers unions. Are not these efforts all contributions in kind? If I cannot give more than $2,300 to a candidate, how can unions pay members to work for political campaigns? Is anyone naive enough to believe these activiuties are NOT coordinated with the campaigns?  Obviously there are special rules for the socialists, because that is what the government employee unions are.

1/13/08: In a news conference Deanna Favre announced she will be the starting Quarter Back for the Packers this coming Sunday. Deanna asserts that she is qualified to be starting QB because she has spent the past 16 years married to Brett while he played QB for the Packers. During this period of time she became familiar with the definition of a corner blitz, and is now completely comfortable with other terminology of the Packers offense. A survey of Packers fans shows that 50% of those polled supported the move.

Does this sounds idiotic and unbelievable to you? Well, Hillary Clinton makes the same claims as to why she is qualified to be President and 50% of democrats polled agreed. She has never run a City, County, or State. When told Hillary Clinton has experience because she has 8 years in the white house, Dick Morris stated "so has the pastry chef."

1/9/08: Maureen Dowd writes, "There was a poignancy about the moment, seeing Hillary crack with exhaustion from decades of yearning to be the principal rather than the plus-one. But there was a whiff of Nixonian self-pity about her choking up. What was moving her so deeply was her recognition that the country was failing to grasp how much it needs her. In a weirdly narcissistic way, she was crying for us. But it was grimly typical of her that what finally made her break down was the prospect of losing."

1/8/08: "It's not easy, it's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I just didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said. "I have so many oppporuntities for this country. I don't want to see us all fall back," she said, her voice breaking in the last phrase. "I have so many oppporuntities for this country."? How 100% arrogant. "*I* have so many opportunities for this country." Apparently, she believes no one else does. She is as narcissitic as her husband; I guess that's why they get along.

1/7/08: “If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honor of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation.” —Samuel Adams [Don't I wish]

“Senator Hillary Clinton’s Christmas commercial, showing various government programs as presents under a Christmas tree, was a classic example of calculated confusion in politics. Anyone who believes that the government can give the country presents has fallen for the oldest political illusion of all—the illusion of something for nothing. Santa Claus may turn out to be the real front-runner in the primaries, judging by the way candidates are vying with one another to give away government goodies to the voters. Santa Claus is bipartisan. The Bush administration [unveiled] its plan to rescue people who gambled and lost in the housing markets when the bubble burst. We now have a bipartisan tradition of the government stepping in to rescue people who engaged in risky behavior—whether by locating in the known paths of hurricanes in Florida or in areas repeatedly hit by wildfires over the years in California or by doing things that increase the probability of catching AIDS. Why not also rescue people who gambled away their life’s savings in Las Vegas? That would at least be consistent. Apparently the only people who are supposed to be responsible are the taxpayers—and they are increasingly made responsible for other people’s irresponsibility.” —Thomas Sowell

“Politicians exploit public demands that government ought to do something about this or that problem by taking measures giving them greater control over our lives. For the most part, whatever politicians do, whether it’s rent controls to produce ‘affordable’ housing, or price controls to eliminate ‘price-gouging,’ the result is a calamity worse than the original problem. For example, two of the most costly housing markets are the rent-controlled cities of San Francisco and New York. If you’re over 40, you’ll remember the chaos produced by the gasoline price controls of the 1970s. Socialist agendas have considerable appeal, but they produce disaster, and the more socialist they are, the greater the disaster.” —Walter Williams

“You may remember that in October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) signed SB 777, a sweeping pro-homosexual education bill, into law. Arguably the most devastating anti-family bill ever passed in California, SB 777 requires all curricula—even that of private schools—to treat homosexuality and heterosexuality ‘equally.’ Under this misguided mandate, teaching students about the benefits of traditional families will be considered discrimination. Schools will no longer be asked to tolerate but to advocate a lifestyle with devastating consequences to the public health and conscience. Among other things, history books will be required to include stories of ‘famous gays,’ literature assignments will feature homosexual influences, and sex education will include so-called ‘safe sex’ for ‘alternative’ lifestyles. A large coalition of parents and activists is doing all it can to stop the law from going into effect.” —Tony Perkins

1/4/08: Barack Obama won. Hillary Clinton lost. Peggy Noonan writes: We wanted exciting, we got exciting. As this is written, late on the night of the caucuses, the outlines of the decisions seem clear: Barack Obama won. Hillary Clinton, the inevitable, the avatar of the machine, lost. It's huge. Even though people have been talking about this possibility for six weeks now, it's still huge. She had the money, she had the organization, the party's stars, she had Elvis behind her, and the Clinton name in a base that loved Bill. And she lost. There are always a lot of reasons for a loss, but the ur-reason in this case, the thing it all comes down to? There's something about her that makes you look, watch, think, look again, weigh and say: No. She started out way ahead, met everyone, and lost.

As for Sen. Obama, his victory is similarly huge. He won the five biggest counties in Iowa, from the center of the state to the South Dakota border. He carried the young in a tidal wave. He outpolled Mrs. Clinton among women. He did it with a classy campaign, an unruffled manner, and an appeal on the stump that said every day, through the lines: Look at who I am and see me, the change that you desire is right here, move on with me and we will bring it forward together.

1/4/08: Huckabee and Obama win the Iowa Caucuses. Congrats to Obama for pummeling the Wicked Witch. And Huckabee? Ugh! Ann Coulter has him pegged: "Mike Huckabee is the Republican Jimmy Carter." She claims that liberals love Huckabee because he fits their warped image of what a evangelical candidate should be, stupid and easily led. Fortunately, this is his first and last win.

July 8, 1947: Many of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, slightly more than sixty years ago, witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO) with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and other federal Agencies and organizations. However, what you may not know is that on March 31, 1948, almost nine months after that historic day, Albert A. Gore, Jr. was born. See what happens when aliens breed with sheep? I certainly hope this bit of information clears up a lot of things for you. It did for me.

1/3/08: Perhaps I've been remiss in focuing on how bad a president the dishonest and prevaricating Hillary would make; perhaps I just didn't take him seriously but there is, after all, a candidate worse than Hillary...John Edwards, the lawyer who channels dead babies in court. The most special of all the special interests, and the most destructive of the well-being of our citizens, is the plaintiffs bar, the so-called ambulance chasers. While I believe in a strong tort system to resolve many issues, the big guns in the plaintiffs bar mostly don't do that. They destroy innovation, cause useful products (like drugs) to be taken from the market, and transfer huge amounts of wealth from others who create it, mostly to themselves. Don't be fooled by his populism; he lives in a house bigger than my neighborhood and spends more on his haircuts than the rent on a modest apartment in the mid-west.

1/1/08: Happy New Year

12/31/07: The real story on Harvard's generosityby Steven Roy Goodman

12/31/07: Everyday Math: Does It Add Up? Critics Say Basics Not Being Learned (Copyright 2007 Albuquerque Journal BY ZSOMBOR PETER Journal Staff Writer): ...Everyday Math has its critics. In 2000, more than 200 mathematicians and scientists, from Nobel laureates to Field Medal winners, took out an advertisement in The Washington Post to decry the program and others like it born of the math reform movement of the late 1980s. The primary objection: They say the programs emphasize calculators too much and the basics not enough. One critic contends it could actually cause "significant educational harm." Read More.

12/31/07: British Newspaper Group Supports Ron Paul's Financial Policy -- Dollar Could Drop Further 50 Percent in Value

The Dollar could fall to half or one-third of its existing value -- British Newspaper and Media Group announces 100 percent support for Ron Paul on Republic Radio. Ron Paul's Ideas are heralded on air as the catalyst for the end of communism in China. International support for Ron Paul's message exceeds all expectation. "If the the financial management of the US over the last few years had been perpetrated by a foreign power other than the US government, it could be considered an act of war...Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate whose policies could prevent a dramatic devaluation of the dollar...In the absence of a Paul presidency it is not impossible that the dollar could fall in value against other currencies by as much as half or even two-thirds."

"The US is essentially bankrupt with approximately $156,000 of government debt for every man woman and child in the US on its balance sheet. On top of that individuals have been oversold personal debt and credit. And the biggest US corporations, in debt and over leveraged, are themselves heavily dependent on the international bankers willingness to lend."

12/27/07: Benazir Bhutto was an intelligent, courageous, beautiful, yet imperfect (as are we all) woman, a force for moderation and goodness, prepared by life’s experience (and perhaps by DNA) to be a leader of a people who, at this time, truly need a great leader. She was struck down earlier today in the prime of her life by forces of evil acting under the false authority of a bastard religion. May she rest in peace. Years of dictatorship and sponsorship of Islamist extremism have made this nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 160 million people a safe haven for terrorists that threaten the world. Bhutto had the courage and vision to challenge both the terrorism and the authoritarian culture that nurtured it. Her assassination has already exacerbated Pakistan's instability. May her dreams for Pakistan to live in freedom, peace and security come true. May her murderers rot in hell after their bodies are slaughtered, packed in pig feces, and wrapped in pigskins.

12/25/07: Yes, there is a Santa Claus, at least if you're a deadbeat. Let's see if I can make this simple: The legitimate purpose of government, as affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, is to protect "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The "pursuit of happiness" requires that we have private property that is secure. However, government at all levels routinely confiscates the property of its more productive citizens on behalf of its less productive citizens in the name of "justice." If done by another human being, this would be called theft. In fact, it is theft. Furthermore, the government requires, under threat of force (jack-booted thugs employed by the government will put you in jail and confiscate all of your property if you try to circumvent its mandates), that we use government money for all transactions (which transactions they further tax). Yet, consistently, year after year, government erodes the value of that currency (through the Federal Reserve, deficit spending, etc.) by creating money of nothing. Rather than protecting its citizens life, liberty, and property, government steals life, liberty, and property from its citizens far more than any crime syndicate ever has.

12/23/07: "I am Woman; hear me whine!" seems to be the main theme of the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign to be the next President of the United States.

12/21/07: Outlaw light bulbs and only outlaws will have light bulbs [In the pursuit of better energy use, has the government gone mad?] Among the regulations packed into the newest energy bill that just passed Congress this week, a ban on the incandescent light bulb will officially end what Edison started 130 years ago.  "If you outlaw light bulbs, then only outlaws will have light bulbs," says Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory.

12/14/07: The DEA is continuing to terrorize medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. On November 20, DEA agents [i.e., thugs] raided the Long Beach Compassionate Cooperative, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles County. In addition to seizing assets, federal agents arrested the owner and warned that other area dispensaries could face the same fate. Again, we see that while we are all still vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the  Government wastes its time on matters which (1) present no danger to anyone; and (2) are entirely legal under state law, which under the Constitution takes precendence over federal law (read the 9th and 10th amendments). There is no authority in the Constitution for the federal government to regulate drugs. The DEA agents and other "law enforcement officers" are the real criminals and should be prosecuted and jailed, along with their "superiors" all the way to the White House and the Capital. The DEA should be abolished; the BATF should be abolished; the FDA should be abolished; the IRS should be abolished...and that is only a start.

12/12/07: Once again we see that Hillary Rodham Clinton is NOT an independent, self-made professional woman, but rather is hanging onto Bill's coattails.

Two for the Price of One? Here's a somewhat disturbing story from New York's Daily News:

Bubba to the rescue!

Alarmed by his wife's slide in the polls and disarray within her backbiting campaign, a beside-himself Bill Clinton has leaped atop the barricades and is furiously plotting a cure--or coup.

"She's in big trouble and he knows it," a top Democratic operative and Hillary Clinton booster told the Daily News.

Sources familiar with the ex-President's thinking say he doesn't believe his wife's situation is desperate. But he's unhappy with her operation--once hailed as a juggernaut--and concerned she could lose the Democratic nomination without major alterations in strategy and staffing.

Bill Clinton is mulling "a lot of different ideas and a lot of different scenarios to fix this," an official who regularly speaks with him said. "He will come up with literally dozens of ideas. The trick will be to figure out the most important one or two to get her out of this downtrend."

There's not a word about what the actual candidate, this person who seeks to be the leader of the free world, is doing to right her own campaign. If the candidate were a man and his wife were taking things over to the extent described in the News piece, we would question whether he's capable of leading anything. Sexual equality demands that we hold Mrs. Clinton to the same standard.

[from Best of the Web, December 12, 2007, OpinionJournal.com, from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page]

12/8/07: And another thing about Queen Hillary...Why would anyone think that she is an "Alpha Female" or a role model for intelligent young women. She is, at best, a mediocre lawyer who became partner in a law firm in a little, almost insignificant, state because she was married to Bill Clinton, who was first Attorney General and then Governor. As Dick Morris, consultant to Bill's various political campaigns states, "Hillary's entire campaign, like her whole legal and political career, is entirely derivative of Bill's" She is now a United States Senator solely because she was married to the President while she was campaigning for the Senate. Forget her leftist political views, her lust for power, and her bitter, vindicative nature; she is definitely NOT a role model for anyone. She has power only because she married a politically successful rogue and is making him pay for his indiscretions.

12/8/07: Mr. Romney...courted the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life by buying into the myths at the heart of the “cultural war,” so eagerly embraced by the extreme right. The New York Times seems to think that the Christian religious right is the "...the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life..." I can name several less religiously tolerant sectors: (1) American Muslims; (2) The Global Warming Nazis (and don't tell me that the Gore-ites are not a religion who advocate punishment -- or even death -- for heretics); (3)  the Feminazis (including Comrade Hillary); and that's just three easy examples. Although raised Catholic, I would not describe myself as a Christian. The left and the right each promote their own types of intolerance and almost no one, save Ron Paul (I even changed my voter registration to Republican to vote for Ron Paul) and his libertarian supporters, is left to protect us.

12/8/07: Islam's Silent Moderates

12/4/07: Gee, Obama wanted to be president when he was in the third grade, even in kindergarden? So did about half the kids with whom I went to school. Hillary also wants to be president; she wanted to be president in 1992; she thought she was more qualified than Bill, more qualified than anyone. She lusts for power and no one who lusts for power ever should be given power. She gets wet between her legs when she thinks about becoming president; in fact, it's probably the only way she ever gets wet between her legs!

12/4/07: Religion of Peace? or Religion of Low-life scum of the earth? I already know the answer. You decide.

New York Times; December 3, 2007: In Saudi Arabia, a woman who was gang-raped was sentenced to 90 lashes. The reason? Before the rape, the woman, who was then 19, had been in a car with a man who was not a family member - a crime under the kingdom's legal code, which is based on a strict Wahabi reading of Islamic law. Punishing the victim of a brutal rape is reprehensible. Then a Saudi appeals court more than doubled her lashings to 200 and added six months' jail time, apparently because she had the audacity to publicly challenge the court’s ruling. Her lawyer had his license to practice suspended.

12/3/07: New York Times: In Sudan, a British primary school teacher was originally threatened with 40 lashes, a fine, or six months in jail after her class of 7-year-olds voted to name a teddy bear Muhammad. The government accused her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad is one of the most common names among Muslims, including the student who suggested it for the teddy bear. On Thursday, the court reduced the teacher's sentence to 15 days in jail, but found her guilty and ordered her deported.

btw: I named my most recent bowel movement, "Muhammad," and decided to save it in a plastic bag, label it, and display it along with my Christmas decorations.

Where's the oil? The United States and Canada have as much, if not more, oil in the ground than Mexico and perhaps even the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Apparently, oil is everywhere. So why do we import so much oil when we claim to want energy independence. The Republicans coddle dictators and tyrants to get oil, yet we get cartel prices that are probably 2-3 times what true competitive market prices would be. The Democrats and their Al Gore allies (morons and eco-freaks) won't let us extract the oil we have. If we want to reduce the price of oil from almost $100 per barrel to $30-40 per barrel, all we need to do is allow oil companies to drill offshore, even near California, in Alaska, and in Canada. The competition will drive the cost way down. Once this happens, we can stop subsidizing the terror networks or the Middle East. Let those evil Muslims and banana republics be poor and they won't cause any more trouble. Of course, we also need to build refineries if we want the price of gas to drop back to $1.50 per gallon. The government is the problem and getting the government out of the way is the solution.

12/1/07: Basic Economics: "Government allocation of resources enhances the potential for human conflict, while market allocation reduces it." – Walter E. Williams

11/29/07: After almost 10 years and five partisan campaigns as a registered Libertarian (three for state Insurance Commissioner), I have registered to vote as a Republican, solely to support and vote for Ron Paul for President in the California Republican Primary Election. This does not mean that I support the Republican Party (although it is marginally preferable to the Democratic Party) and, at this point, none of my campaign contributions will go to any Republican candidates other than Ron Paul.

Global Warming is a Hoax

11/21/07: Global Warming is the biggest hoax perpetrated on mankind since communism. Al Gore is an idiot; he is a hypocrite; and using his influence to make money by causing harm to our economy and our standard of living makes him guilty of crimes against humanity, especially the poor. He should not be getting awards; he should be shunned by polite society (along with the empty suit in the White House). I remember my sorrow and frustration in 2000 and 2004 (and probably in 2008) that either the Democrat or Republican would win. Just maybe in 2008, we'll have a better choice, Ron Paul.

11/14/07: “...predictably sketches the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers as the villains and the Writers Guild of America as the victims.” No sympathy here. In Los Angeles, writers who work out of their homes get special business tax breaks and pay little or no business taxes unless they make more than $300,000 per year. I, on the other hand, work out my home, have no customers visiting me and pay a business tax based on my gross income that runs me several thousand dollars every year. I should get a tax rebate because I do not commute to and from work (and often do not drive for several days), helping the environment and keeping the roads less crowded.

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