...for the wrong reasons. The Cost of Doing the Right Thing points out something that will come back to bite the GOP in a couple of years.

"One more such victory and I am lost." -- Pyrrhus

Conservatives once cheered at the idea of controlling both houses of Congress and the White House. But unless we base our reform on true conservative principles, we're going to fail. If all we do is expand the size and influence of government in our lives we, like Pyrrhus, will eventually find that our legislative "victories" have destroyed everything we've worked so hard to accomplish. The GOP sacrificed a major principle to make a minor tactical victory. Pyrrhus' words ring true more than ever. They could lose control of Congress over this as soon as '06, but I think it will be more like '08 when the next president is elected. If Hillary takes the White House, she could take both houses with her, and I am sure she will hammer the GOP over this very same Medicare bill.

Alpha Patriot has a good blog entry on The Steely Truth

A lot of people decried the president's actions when he placed import tariffs on steel in 2001. So why did he do it?

Read the whole thing, it's important.

I watched Meet the Press yesterday, but missed Face the Nation (I didn't know it was on at the same time). I don't care for George, so I watched Fox News Sunday instead.

But what I did see made Hillary sound almost reasonable. She admitted that the intelligence of the UN and Bill Clinton was wrong. Of course we still should not have gone in, but at least we were wrong the right way.

I'm sorry, but when someone uses chemical weapons, that's proof positive they have them. When tens of thousands of American lives are at stake, 97% sure he doesn't have any more doesn't cut the mustard. He had them, he's willing to use them and just because you haven't found any doesn't mean they aren't there. To assume that there aren't any can kill a city.

She also pushed the "We need to be multilateral" saw again.

I quote from USS Clueless:

A lot of those nations, both Gang-of-8 and Vilnius-group, are in Iraq, helping us: Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain have boots on the ground. I was particularly surprised by how large the Netherlands contingent was (and I offer my thanks).

Of course, the UK has the second biggest presence after our own. Australia's not listed, but they were there for the invasion. But I'm surprised and pleased to see that New Zealand's there. (Maybe there's hope for the anglosphere yet. Hello, Ottawa? Care to get back into the game and make it five of five?)

Also Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua (!) are in, collectively providing some 1140 troops who are operating with the Spanish.

You also got Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Macedonia, Ukraine.

The largest contingents come from Italy (3000), Poland (2400), Ukraine (1640), Spain (1300) and the Netherlands (1106). All told it's more than 15,000 troops, in addition to those sent by the US and UK.That's 30 countries by my count, a full brigade of troops, how could that possibly be unilateral?

She also poo-pooed her running in '04, and I believe her. She would rather run when she doesn't have an incumbent to fight, so she's got her eyes on '08 and is doing everything she can (including showing up on three Sunday news programs) to steal the oxygen from any Democrat hopeful to make sure they lose. Hillary is smarter than she looks. She has a long term plan and it's a good one. She scares me and the Republicans better have a plan and a candidate that can outdo her.

Senator Frist isn't one of them. He is seen as too timid right now and Hillary will eat him alive. Unless he gets a total makeover starting now, he won't survive. Hillary is running for '08 now, somebody on the GOP side better start now as well.

This article, Cincinnati Mayor Wants Stun Guns is going to get a police officer killed.

Non-lethal options sound good on paper, but there are real-world circumstances that make NLO's dangerous to the police.

First of all, tasers can be defeated by clothing. In Cincinnati right now, it's colder than the devil's heart. People are wearing heavy jackets. You would have to get a successful hit in the legs to subdue a perp, but there's a high chance that at least one of the darts will miss the legs. Besides, police are trained to go after the center of mass.

Tasers work by overloading the nervous system. Talking with someone 15 feet away in a quiet room is easy. That's the normal operation of your nervous system. Trying to talk with the same friend the same distance away in the middle of a rock concert is impossible. That's what the Taser does. But if your nervous system is already at rock concert level due to drugs like meth or PCP, then the Taser isn't as effective. It may hurt the perp, but it won't disable him. Remember, people hopped up on PCP can lift cars. They will cause massive damage to themselves doing it, but they can do it and feel no pain.

I hope the police regarding NLO's are first option only with multiple officers on the scene. Because the lone officer who tries a Taser first against someone in this situation will be killed. He won't have time to use his firearm after he realizes that the NLO is ineffective.

When I carried my weapon, I had a 25 foot zone around me at all times. If someone with a weapon would have entered that zone, I trained myself to shoot first and tell them to drop it later. Why? Because if they were in that zone, they were in under my reaction time and could get me before I could get them. Even though I could draw and shoot twice in less than 3/4 of a second, someone with a drawn weapon could cross that 25 feet in the same amount of time and get me first. Even if I had my weapon drawn, normal response time to assess the situation, decide on the action and carry it out is still about 1/2 a second. Still plenty of time to get me.

I brought this up because I wanted to illustrate the kind of distance you need for safety. Police often work in contact with the perps, so they are way under response time. They have to read intentions over a second in advance so they can break contact and get far enough away to draw their weapon.

NLO's are a wonderful Liberal thing. It looks good on paper, nobody gets hurt, sometimes it works and when it doesn't the defecation really hits the rotary oscillator.

Since the days that I had my Fat Mac, there is one particular sound effect that I wanted. Today, I finally got it. I downloaded the appropriate shareware, pulled out my DVD of Our Man Flint and got the ring off the Presidents' phone. I have wanted that ring since I first saw the movies back in the 70's.

I also got Ash's little quip, "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun." Name the movie for Bonus Cool Points.

The bad news is my Buckaroo Banzai DVD is with the family. Maybe Blockbuster has it.

Now all I have to do is go through all of my DVD's before the shareware runs out.

Hat tip to American Realpolitik for this quote:

"No one is more victimized by the failures of America's government-run school system than the children of the urban poor, and those children are usually black. Stuck disproportionately in schools that don't work, blocked from the escape hatch of private or parochial school, black children routinely perform far below average in every subject. Sixty-three percent of black 4th-graders, for example, cannot read. The average black high school senior is about as well educated as the average white middle school student. There are many ways to ruin someone's life, but few are as effective as ignorance. And ignorance, by and large, is what public schooling guarantees for children from America's poorest and blackest neighborhoods." --Deroy Murdock

I see the results of such a system every day I drive through the worst parts of Memphis. Please make them stop.

I've already written about the rabid environmentalists, who fully ascribe to the religion of environmentalism, here's another breed of rabid people: P E T A. The website is the obvious one. I'm sorry, but I don't want to provide a backtrack to my blog. I may be crazy but I ain't stupid. These people blow up who they don't agree with.

I bring this to your attention because I found an article, Consumer Group Takes on Animal 'Rights' Activists. Here's the 7 things you didn't know about P E T A.

Just like their tree-hugging cousins, these people have no limits on their consciences and actions and will do anything to 'liberate' animals, including property damage via bombs. To my knowledge they have not killed any humans in any of their 'liberations,' but I wouldn't put anything past them.

Environmentalists don't care about loggers, because they purposefully drive spikes into trees, which will kick a chainsaw back into the operators face. I don't think P E T A's 'activists' care about staff when they place their bombs.

Of course, the official position of the organizations are to disavow these radicals, but they do so with a wink and a nod.

These guys do a good job of tugging at your heart strings, including mine. Yes there is animal suffering. Yes we should do our best to do something about it. But don't fall for their claptrap. While their cause is noble, the limit of their goals is extreme and the execution of their agenda is violent.

Just as a side note, I remember the Thanksgiving episode of the Rush Limbaugh TV show. They had a nice banquet spread out on the set. Rush went over and filled a pita pocket with turkey and went into the audience with it. He gave it to a young man wearing a "P E T A" shirt. You could tell he was burning over the insult and was itching to do something. I suppose a combination of off-camera security and a camera in his face talked him out of trying to disrupt the show.

To remember this Pearl Harbor Day, I give you two links:

All four stanzas to the National Anthem

Red Skeltons Pledge of Allegiance

I would have had this up sooner, but Blogger was down most of the day. My apologies.

I made a comment on William Burton's blog. He commented on the old saw about taxation and the rich.I commented, Businesses don't pay taxes. They pass it along as they would any other cost to the consumer.

Mr. Burton took a whole post to explain why I was wrong.

While I can't necessarily disagree with his points, all I can say is he hit the wrong target.

I could have said, "Businesses don't pay the employee payroll. They pass it along as they would any other cost to the consumer" and have been just as right.

Business taxes are just like rent, payroll and equipment depreciation, they are all costs of doing business. To the businessperson, it doesn't matter if his taxes or his rent went up $1000 a month, his expenses went up $1000 a month that must be paid for out of his gross profit. Hopefully he has some net profit left.The customer, by paying for the product, indirectly pays for all of the costs of doing business, taxes is but one part of it. If any part of the cost goes up, of course some of it will be absorbed by profit, but there comes a point where you can't squeeze any more blood out of that rock so new costs (nee taxes) must be passed, dollar for dollar, to the consumer.

Actually, he got one point wrong:

The important thing to remember is Businesses already charge as much as they can get away with in their particular market. A corporate tax increase would change the formula somewhat, as would any increase in costs, but it would not be passed along to consumers dollar for dollar. Some would be absorbed through lower profits, and some through attempts to lower other costs. (emphasis in original)

Companies like Wal-Mart see things differently. They would rather sell 2,000,000 units with a $1.50 profit than sell 1,000,000 units at $2 profit. That 50 cent price difference cuts them under K-Mart and Target, so it steals sales away from the competition.

Which is exactly how tax cuts work. By putting more money into the hands of those people with money, the people with money can expand current businesses or open new ones, which generates more tax revenue than if the government had kept the original amount. Poor people don't create jobs, rich people do.

One notion that must be disabused is the "greedy capitalist pig businessman." If your boss offered you a 50% raise, would you take it? If so, aren't you a "greedy capitalist pig worker"? Everybody wants to make money. That's what businesses are in business for. Why abuse those who were smart enough to accrue it through legal work? The reason France has a 30% unemployment rate is because business owners are considered evil for wanting to make money. The business owner is so severely hamstrung there is no incentive to go into business or to expand it at all. In fact, there is a penalty for expanding, you can't lay off workers when business goes down.

Like I said. Businesses do not pay taxes.

As I write this, I have several open windows bookmarking things I want to comment upon. But I can't, I'm too busy beating my head into the wall. I don't know why, but I've been like this all day. So it's closet time for me and hopefully I'll have lots of juicy stuff for you on Sunday.

Victor Davis Hanson has turned out another great piece, A Real War.

We are not in a war with a crook in Haiti. This is no Grenada or Panama - or even a Kosovo or Bosnia. No, we are in a worldwide struggle the likes of which we have not seen since World War II. The quicker we understand that awful truth, and take measures to defeat rather than ignore or appease our enemies, the quicker we will win. In a war such as this, the alternative to victory is not a brokered peace, but abject Western suicide and all that it entails - a revelation of which we saw on September 11.

Read it all.

Fox News carries this piece, Eco-Imperialism's Deadly Consequences, and it just reinforces what I said just below in "Environmentalism as a religion."

These eco-nuts are more concerned about a nature that doesn't exist over real-world realities. To them, they would rather let people die in large numbers rather than exert some control over Nature.

Here's the money paragraph:

Desowitz reports a U.S. Agency for International Development official named Edwin Cohn as saying, "The third world didn't require a healthy labor force because there was a surplus of workers; better some people should be sick with malaria and spread the job opportunities around." Even more bluntly, Cohn reportedly said people in the third world were "better [off] dead than alive and riotously reproducing."

Earlier in the article, they tried to put in perspective:

The Ugandan woman is only one of more than 300 million annual victims of malaria in the third world. Between 2-3 million die every year. "Over half the victims are children, who die at a rate of two per minute or 3,000 per day -- the equivalent of 80 fully loaded school buses plunging over a cliff every day of the year," explains Driessen.

That is abominable. We're talking about filling a pro football stadium every ten days, of just children who die because eco-nuts think that DDT is evil, when it has been proved effective and safe as any other pesticide.

But how do you change these people? Who have such strong beliefs despite scientifically proven,independently reproducible results? You can't. You can only drop the clear evidence in front of them and then ignore them. And that is what we must do. For the children.

Attended the company Christmas party, Got my holiday bonus and won a tool kit in the prize drawing. I'm off for the rest of the day, but I have to go and deposit the bonus so I can commence with the holiday shopping. Bloggedy goodness to follow.

Hat tip to American Realpolitik.

Michael Crichton gave this speech to The Commonwealth Club about environmentalism.

He writes that they are a fundamentalist religion. I believe that. They are as rabid about their beliefs as Pat Robertson and Osama bin Laden.

There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?

While I do believe that there was an Eden, it was destroyed by Adam and Eve. Their punishment was a world like the above.

Just like we must convert the Islamic fundamentalists, we must convert the rabid environmentalists. There is no other choice.

Well, Mr. Spike (Steve according to the byline) wrote about me and commented on my Hate Bush Meeting, here.

He brought up Chomsky. I don’t know too much about Chomsky, but what I do know isn’t very flattering. First, his act of not answering questions imbibes a certain amount of sage in him, which is not warranted. Scott Adams has Chomsky’s number here:

Also, facts are like the cubes in a Rubiks Cube. You have to get them in the right position and the right orientation to solve the puzzle. Chomsky likes to tell you the facts, but not the context so you can make sense of the facts. Let me illustrate:

I have here on my desk a magazine that talks about two murderers who are not being prosecuted for killing a total of three people. Justin Doyle killed one man, while Wesley Steven killed two. Based on these facts alone, you would think that these are two despicable guys and the police are failing to do their job. But when I tell you both of these men were acting in self-defense and murdered home invaders, well that puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it? Of course, Steve is in the UK and isn’t allowed the right of self-defense, so he might have a different take on things.

He also asks the following question:

I wonder what he makes of Chomsky’s claim that “No president [since 1945], judged on the principles of Nuremberg, would have escaped hanging”? That includes even the most liberal, that nice Jimmy Carter for example.

I would answer that the winners write the history. The Nazis understood that, they were surprised that they got a trial at all, let alone an actually fair trial.

Has America done some despicable things? Yep. Are we proud of them? Nope. Do we try to get it right the next time? You betcha. America is not perfect, and it is wrong to try and hold us to that standard. We do the best we can, and that is all anybody should be expected to do. Sometimes all we can choose between are two bad choices. It’s like when kids get together to play baseball/football/rugby etc., and sometimes one team is left picking the dorky, uncoordinated kid because that’s who’s left. America had to make some choices like that. We didn’t like who we picked, but we really had no choice in the matter.

Sometimes we have been forced to make a choice, and no matter what we chose, somebody was going to die in large numbers. The only differences was who and how many. Sometimes there is no “good” choice.

Do I actually try to equate any US President to either Stalin or Hitler? Nope. My reference to them was pure hyperbole. Hitler was directly responsible for over 6 million Jewish deaths. Stalin ruthlessly murdered by various means well over 20 million of his own people. You do not see those things happening in the US. You could try to lay Korean deaths at Trumans feet, as well as Vietnamese dead at the feet of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. But it won’t wash. I’m talking non-war civilians dead persecuted by their own government, you’re talking about war dead. No US president since 1917 has ever systematically, brutally, and near totally exterminated any group of people for their political beliefs, ethnicity or religion. I know we have in the past when certain paradigms were in place, but when the paradigms were changed, so did the behavior.

Getting back to Chomsky: There is one paragraph where I did agree with him:

‘Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege,’ he begins. ‘People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police, we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving 70 hours a week to put food on the table – a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.’

Myself, living off of $850 a month, in a clean apartment with a TV, laptop with cable broadband internet, cell phone, refrigerator, et. al., I live better than 60% of the worlds population. I know this and am grateful for it. I try to use my power as an American citizen the best way I can. When I communicate my position on any subject to my elected officials, I expect a courteous response and that they consider my view. Sometimes my elected officials have to go against my wishes, but there are times that they know more about it than I do. That’s what I pay them for.

I would like to thank Steve for giving *both* of my brain cells a good workout tonight. I promised him a piece on the difference between a Liberal and a Socialist. That will take a few days, I want to get it right.

…In a good way, I think. Despite my voluminous vocabulary, Mr. Spike managed to use a word I didn’t know. He used his pretty word to say that my Conservatism stems from my mental illness. I left him a comment on the subject.

Check him out: Spike Magazine. Who knows, I might add him to my blogroll...

NewsMax has come out with an article reviving Vince Foster’s death. Vince Foster: What the Media Won’t Tell You again points out that there are enough holes in this story to make it look like swiss cheese.

…But despite 10 years of denial by the major media, the Foster case has not “closed” – as the Supreme Court hearing Wednesday demonstrated.

The case won’t close because of the failure of authorities to make full disclosure – and to conduct a full investigation into the case, including a complete autopsy.

There are too many quick decisions, too many quick investigations, too many unexplained facts, too much cover-up to make this go away as “just a suicide.” Coupled with all of the other shady incidents that surrounded the Clintons, there has to be more to it and someday I hope to see it all come out. There is no statute of limitations on murder.

I have no doubt that Vince Foster was murdered. I have no doubt Bill and Hillary were involved. While I don’t think one of them pulled the trigger, I do believe that one of them said, “Do it.” They ran that White House pretty tightly and nothing significant happened that they didn’t approve first.

Remember the Hate Bush email sent out that got reported on by Drudge?

Well, some new information has come out, Politics of hate won’t beat Bush and sadly, it is nothing new.

The people whose votes Democrats will need to defeat George Bush don’t hate him. On a personal level, they like him. They need to be convinced not to vote for him, for reasons that have to do with the war, or special interests or the economy. “Hate Bush” headlines do just the opposite.

I was told several years ago that American politics are divided 40/20/40. The 40% on the left would vote for any Democrat candidate, even if it was Stalin. The 40% on the right would vote for any Republican candidate, even Hitler. It’s the 20% of voters in the middle that decide elections. While I can’t agree on the extremeness of the candidates, I do agree on the mix.

While the Right is moving towards the center to actively work for that Center vote, the 9 dwarves are moving farther and farther left, courting the very people who believe Bush=Hitler. The extremism that they show now will severely haunt them when the winner tries to move toward the center during the general election. Short of a national catastrophe, Bush will win.

That’s the way Hillary wants it. She sees 2008 as her one shot back to the White House. It is better to do it when there is no incumbent rather than have to fight someone of “her” party. Here’s the tricky part. Hillary is the most polarizing person in politics today. She has a good shot at ’08 unless the Republicans counter with a move of their own.

Run Condi Rice.

I think Ms. Rice should get the nod for VP on the second term. This will groom her for a shot as well for 2008. Even if she only gets the VP slot again in ’08, it will show the nation who truly is the party of diversity and equality. I think she is getting groomed even today. She’s in charge of the Iraq situation on this side of the ocean and if this can be pulled off, she will be in prime position to move up in the world, possibly to the top spot.

So as I was welcomed, let me welcome these fine blogs:

Dagley Dagley Daily.
Voluntarily in China
Smijer

Sit on the couch. Have a drink. Kick your feet up on the table, you’re family now!

I think this says it all:

Hat tip to Pamibe for creating it.

I found this on NewsMax, Bush Signs Law to Curb Forest Fires. I especially liked the caption of the picture on the front page. You see President Bush with two firefighters in a burned out section of forest. The caption reads, President and firemen viewed eco-nuts’ damage in Oregon.

Like I’ve said before, wildlands and wildlife must be managed by man. When we do so, there is a benefit to all.

Of course the logging companies will make a profit. That’s the purpose of their business, to make a profit. If they can cut down on the number and severity of forest fires while not clear cutting patches of forest, I say go for it.

At least California has done some common sense things for houses in wildlife areas. Things like stucco exteriors, tile roofs and clearcutting the forest back from the house. A majority of houses that did this survived the recent fires.

As long as rabid environmentalists have their say in how the forests are managed, we will continue to have massive deadly fires. Nature cannot control such things by herself, man is needed.

I found this article, School Voucher Law Unconstitutional, Colorado Judge Decides and I worry about this.

“I see no way to interpret the voucher program statute in a way that does not run afoul of the principle of local control,” he wrote.

Of course it will run afoul, that’s the purpose of vouchers in the first place. To shake up the status quo.

Public education is a massive public bureaucracy. I know because one job I had was working as a Memphis City Schools contractor. The amount of people in non-teaching positions makes bloated look anorexic. They had so many administrative positions they used several former schools as offices.

Any business without meaningful competition becomes stagnant. That is what the public education system is, stagnant. The inner-city schools where the drop-out and illiteracy rates are sky-high are the worst. There are other reasons behind these rates besides ineffective school systems, but this is one we can work on.

In Memphis, those who can afford it send their kids to private schools. Those who can’t are stuck with the public system and that is just wrong.

Before the liberalization of the public school system, schools were authorized to use corporal punishment when necessary. I myself was “cracked” on several occasions. Students who were incorrigible were separated from the regular students and sent to disciplinary schools in the system. They did not sacrifice the future of 29 students to avoid wounding the self-esteem of one student.

Nowadays, feelings are more important than facts. This must stop. Get your kids out of such an environment NOW.

The best way to reform the public school system is through market forces. That means competition. If the public school system wants to attract students, it must clean up the campuses and the curriculum.

The bad news is the public school system will only get worse. The students who don’t want to learn, the ones who are on drugs or part of gangs will soon be the only students at public schools. They will be left to the public schools because the private schools will not put up with things like that.

Unless the public system shapes up. If the public system wants to attract the good students, they must do several things. Have a curriculum worth teaching. Make the campuses safe. Warehouse the ones who don’t want to learn in their own schools. You need to separate the wheat from the chaff and be damned about self-esteem. That comes when the kid successfully completes a project or passes a hard test.

You can never eliminate the bell curve, but you can do things like move the curve to the left.

Vouchers will be fought tooth-and-nail by the public school system because they know how bad they are doing. If vouchers were to take hold, you would see student performance skyrocket.

Fight for this if your kids are in bad public schools. You owe it to them.

The final step of this journey is here. Supreme Court Allows Newdow To Argue Pledge Of Allegiance Case will settle this issue one way or the other.

I have already spoken on this issue, and have been clearly against this man and his position since the start. The United States was founded upon the principle of God granting powers to the people and then the people giving some of that to the government. God is an integral part of this country and to deny recognition of that fact is wrong.

If this man were to win, his next admitted his agenda, which is to ban any mention of God in any governmental system. I can’t come up with a link because Blogspot is down at the moment.

I think SCOTUS is hearing this to put the issue to bed permanently. In favor of “under God.”

I hope.

Here is my previous post.

Any time I think I can really go back to work, I do several things in a row. This morning I did all of my personal grooming, vacuumed around the apartment, cleaned Rocket and Corkys cage, then walked down the street and paid the rent. When I started news scanning was when I fell apart.

That got me two hours in the closet. Oh joy.

Of course, Rocket and Corkys incessant screeching didn’t help either. They got three trips to the bedroom this morning. The only way to get them to shut up is to either put them where they can’t see me, or let them out so they can fly over and sit on me. When I let them out, I have to wear a towel over my back and shoulders so they can chew and poop on that instead of on me.

I have such an exciting life, don’t you agree?

I found this article via Drudge, RP students protest ‘liberal bias,’ push conservative agenda.

I am heartened by these young adults, and I just wish my Conservatism was as well developed at that age. I was Conservative, but I was not as clear and articulate as I am now in my views. I know I was a conservative because I would have discussions with a flaming Liberal at my lunch table. Todd was always uptight about the political situation in Bolivia or some such and just about lived off of Rolaids. Like I said, my views on the world was not as well developed as they could have been, but this was back when the only news sources were the paper and TV. No Limbaugh, no Fox News, no internet.

In the article, it talks about a newsletter being started by the students. I have an email into the reporter that wrote the article for a contact for the club. Depending on ad rates, I might take out an ad for the blog. Whatever I can do to help the cause.