Well, my karmic punishment seems to have come to an end. My mechanic friend just called and said he got my vehicle operating. While the problem is not completely taken care of, what is left is relatively simple and easy for even me to do. Once the vehicle has been fully fixed and legalized (no tags this year) the only mountain left to climb is the wife’s disapproval. She is going to be pissed, because she feels that she will not get the same use out of it as I will. If you have any ideas on how I can break it to her, please leave it in the comments.

Please follow this link: A Human Right.

Click on the “A Liability” link and follow the instructions. It’s very eye opening.

This article, John Kerry, ‘King’ of a Sinking Ship, asks an interesting question:

Did you see the footage of him crossing Lake Michigan on a ferry and imitating know-nothing Democrat activist Leonardo DiCaprio in the “I’m the king of the world” moment from “Titanic”?

I’m quite sure the analogy didn’t even pass through Kerry’s head until long after some handler remembered it.

It serves him right.

Rush has this one: Lurch Praises Buckeyes in Michigan.

College football is serious business. Right now there’s a Tennessee Lottery radio commercial that exclaims, “What does the color Orange have anything to do with Tennessee?” The other voice says, “Y’all ain’t from around here, are ya?” Meaning the Big Orange Machine, the University of Tennessee.

Well, Kerry screwed this one up big time. He went into Wolverine territory (University of Michigan) and yelled that he was a Buckeye (Ohio State) fan. Considering that these two schools have a 100 year rivalry, I’m surprised he wasn’t lynched. He did get booed.

Just another nail in his coffin. This guy really doesn’t know what is going on.

An interesting article, Rich Pay More When Tax Rates Fall.

Claiming that too many rich people and corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes seems to be a sure way get applause on the campaign trail. But this populist appeal is based on two economic fallacies:

* that higher tax rates cause rich people to pay more in taxes; and

* that corporations rather than individual workers and consumers pay corporate taxes.

While the second one should be obvious, the first one requires some digging.

When the tax rates are lower, the rich are looser with their money. They are more likely to invest their money into things like the stock market, or in growth of their companies. When the rates are higher, they tend to hold their assets in tax-shelters to avoid paying the higher tax rate. This has the effect of strangling the economy because there is no growth. This is why President Bush’s tax cuts have been such a shot in the arm to the economy. The lower tax rates have freed up large amounts of money and the “rich” are using that money to invest in new machinery, employees, offices, plants and the like. How many poor people create companies that create jobs? Virtually none. If you think you can create a company without some large lump-sum of money, just go and pick up a copy of Entrepreneur magazine. Notice how most of those businesses require tens of thousands of dollars just to open the doors, not to mention hold the doors open until they actually become profitable.

For the second one, corporations consider taxes as just another cost of doing business. They lump taxes into the same pot as all of the other costs of doing business and pass that extra cost along to consumers, as well as not raising employee salaries as much as they could have. Rarely are profits impacted because the profits are used to repay the financial backers of the company, be they private individuals or shareholders.

Again, lower tax rates encourage reinvestment into the company by way of more employees, newer equipment, bigger spaces, etc., to grow the business and make more profits.

So higher taxes slow economic growth, lower taxes encourage economic growth, especially on the rich.

This article, Drug War Dirty Dealings details how we have hundreds of thousands of people behind bars for minor drug offences.

This presents a conundrum for me. While I stand fully behind enforcing the laws on the books, are they the right laws? I mean, should possession be a crime? We saw what happened with the prohibition of alcohol. The supply ran quite well to keep up with the demand, and despite the best efforts of law enforcement, the flow was barely slowed.

The same thing is going on today. While we see news reports of multi-million dollar busts, that only represents less than 5% of the flow of drugs. Quite an acceptable risk.

But there is a drastic difference between alcohol and drugs. Drugs such as cocaine, crack and heroin hook you after the first few doses. There is no “responsible” use of these drugs. Meth makes you unpredictable, aggressive and violent.

I saw on the History Channel that these drugs were outlawed because they were making the Black population “uppity” and “a danger to White folk” in the 20′s and 30′s.

Despite that, I believe that these substances would have been eventually outlawed.

I do not like the present system. But I have no better ideas, other than stringent enforcement of the law. For those who are convicted of possession, trade jail time for the name of their dealer. And so on, and so on, until the first level importers and distributors are caught and punished. We must shift our focus away from eliminating the demand and work on the supply side of things.