The Drink That Refreshes

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5707554.ece

Does your Pepsi lack pep? Is your Coke not the real thing? India's Hindu nationalist movement apparently has the answer: a new soft drink made from cow urine.
The bovine brew is in the final stages of development by the Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India's biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, according to the man who makes it.
Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink – called "gau jal", or "cow water" – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched "very soon, maybe by the end of this year".
"Don't worry, it won't smell like urine and will be tasty too," he told The Times from his headquarters in Hardwar, one of four holy cities on the River Ganges. "Its USP will be that it's going to be very healthy. It won't be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins."
The drink is the latest attempt by the RSS – which was founded in 1925 and now claims eight million members – to cleanse India of foreign influence and promote its ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness.
Hindus revere cows and slaughtering them is illegal in most of India. Cow dung is traditionally used as a fuel and disinfectant in villages, while cow urine and dung are often consumed in rituals to "purify" those on the bottom rungs of the Hindu caste system.

So "W" was right all along

Solicitor general nominee says 'enemy combatants' can be held without trial
Elena Kagan tells a senator she agrees with Attorney General Holder that the U.S. is at war and therefore may detain suspected terrorists indefinitely.

Congressman John Conyers wife...a clue into what ails Detroit

Insults escalated in spat between Conyers, KenyattaBY ZACHARY GORCHOWFREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers had to be restrained during a confrontation last week with Councilman Kwame Kenyatta in which she hurled insults at Kenyatta about his hearing aid, health and education.
Kenyatta would not discuss who said what except to deny Conyers' assertion in the argument that he has cancer and to say he never raised his voice.
He called Conyers' behavior petty.
"It's classical Monica Conyers," he said. "She's unprofessional. She's disrespectful. She's insensitive."
• UPDATE: Kenyatta to Conyers: Apology not accepted
Sources who described the incident on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter said the Feb. 4 argument escalated after Conyers called Kenyatta stupid, following his insistence that she submit in writing her request to cut his budget.
When Kenyatta asked her what she said, Conyers responded he needed to learn how to talk to a woman.
Kenyatta shot back that when he was with a woman, he would do so. That prompted Conyers to yell at Kenyatta that he was stupid, citing his lack of a college degree, to tell him he "can't hear" -- a dig at his hearing aid -- and to try to rub in his face rumors that Kenyatta has cancer.
As at least one council staffer and a council security officer restrained Conyers while she tried to walk toward Kenyatta, he retorted that he hears just fine, doesn't have cancer and told her she needs help. Kenyatta made a report with the council's security unit about the incident, which took place in his office.
There was no physical contact between the two.
Denise Tolliver, Conyers' deputy chief of staff, did not respond to requests for comment, but Conyers sent Kenyatta and other council members a letter titled "My sincere apology" although she does not specify which comments she made that were inappropriate.
"I would like to apologize for my response to your comments," Conyers wrote. "As colleagues, we should have mutual respect for one another even if we disagree."
Conyers has a history of volatile behavior. She was involved in a bar fight shortly before taking office although law enforcement absolved her of any blame in the incident.
She also derided then-Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. as "Shrek" during a council meeting last April.
• VIDEO: See Conyers call Cockrel 'Shrek'

Reality check

Saudi judge sentences pregnant gang-rape victim to 100 lashes for committing adultery

Fannie Mae: still doing what got us into trouble in the first place

3% down????

Who says violence doesn't work

Controversial anti-Muslim MP banned from the UK because of public order fears
A controversial right-wing Dutch politician and controversial anti-Islam campaigner has been banned from entering Britain.

But, does Britain exclude radical Muslim pro jihad Imams?

Jew hatred is a precursor to fascism

1/3 of Europeans: Jews caused meltdown

When you have no investment, you don't care...

Thefts puncture Paris bike scheme

Democrat culture of corruption-Marion Barry

Prosecutors: Jail ex-D.C. mayor Barry over taxes

By BRIAN WESTLEYAssociated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors asked a federal judge Monday to send former Washington mayor Marion Barry to jail for failing to file his tax returns for the eighth time in nine years.
In a motion filed in U.S. District Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Zeno said Barry, who's also a current District of Columbia Council member did not file his taxes in 2007, violating his probation for previous tax offenses.
Barry, 72, was given three years of probation in 2006 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges for failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2004. As part of a plea bargain, he agreed to file future federal and local tax returns annually.
Two years ago, however, prosecutors sought to have that probation revoked after Barry failed to file his 2005 taxes. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson refused, ruling that prosecutors did not prove Barry willfully failed to file his returns, even if he was aware that he missed the deadline.
In Monday's motion, prosecutors noted that Barry has now failed to file his taxes on time for the eighth time in nine years and called his conduct "indefensible."
"It is not acceptable for any citizen to shirk a basic civil duty, let alone a former mayor and a current city councilman who has been responsible in the past and continues to be responsible for spending public funds collected from District of Columbia taxpayers," the motion states.
If the judge decides not to send Barry to jail, prosecutors asked for a hearing so that Barry can explain his conduct and prosecutors can seek to extend his probation by two years.
Barry's attorney, Frederick Cooke, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Barry's spokesman, Andre Johnson, declined to comment.
Barry served four terms as mayor. In 1990, during his third term, he was videotaped in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. He served a six-month prison sentence and in 1994 was re-elected to the mayor's office for another four-year term.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) By BRIAN WESTLEYAssociated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors asked a federal judge Monday to send former Washington mayor Marion Barry to jail for failing to file his tax returns for the eighth time in nine years.
In a motion filed in U.S. District Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Zeno said Barry, who's also a current District of Columbia Council member did not file his taxes in 2007, violating his probation for previous tax offenses.
Barry, 72, was given three years of probation in 2006 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges for failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2004. As part of a plea bargain, he agreed to file future federal and local tax returns annually.
Two years ago, however, prosecutors sought to have that probation revoked after Barry failed to file his 2005 taxes. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson refused, ruling that prosecutors did not prove Barry willfully failed to file his returns, even if he was aware that he missed the deadline.
In Monday's motion, prosecutors noted that Barry has now failed to file his taxes on time for the eighth time in nine years and called his conduct "indefensible."
"It is not acceptable for any citizen to shirk a basic civil duty, let alone a former mayor and a current city councilman who has been responsible in the past and continues to be responsible for spending public funds collected from District of Columbia taxpayers," the motion states.
If the judge decides not to send Barry to jail, prosecutors asked for a hearing so that Barry can explain his conduct and prosecutors can seek to extend his probation by two years.
Barry's attorney, Frederick Cooke, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Barry's spokesman, Andre Johnson, declined to comment.
Barry served four terms as mayor. In 1990, during his third term, he was videotaped in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. He served a six-month prison sentence and in 1994 was re-elected to the mayor's office for another four-year term.

And, then there is this...


EXCLUSIVE: FBI Raided Lobbying Firm Connected to Murtha
Feds Narrowing In On Companies With Ties To Congressman

And AARP is in favor of this? This will lead to a inter-generational war

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey Print A A A
Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Betsy McCaughey at Betsymross@aol.com Last Updated: February 9, 2009 00:01 EST
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Krugman's Stimulus

Wil Wilkinson takes on Krugman.

Like the president, Krugman seems firmly caught in the paradox of countercyclical macroeconomic politics. The intermediate-level textbook theory says that at times like these we need a certain kind of policy to steady the economy’s nerves and lubricate consumption and investment. The economics says we need confidence. But political reality says we need panic. So we try to induce panic so that we can later induce confidence. This seems an extremely awkward and implausible approach, but that doesn’t keep anyone from trying it.

The deeper problem, I think, is that the textbook theory doesn’t have any politics in it. In macroeconomics textbooks, government is a benevolent central planner beyond politics. It is assumed, for simplicity’s sake, that governments can act in perfect compliance with theory. It is also assumed that theory is settled before coming to a policy problem, that motivated disagreement over theory is not an essential element of democratic policymaking. But of course, there is politics, which trashes hope of either consensus on or compliance with theory. And that’s how we ended up with the legislative monstrosity actually under consideration in Congress. As Harvard’s Robert Barro puts it:

This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don’t know what to say. I mean it’s wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don’t think will work, so I don’t think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don’t think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn’t really geared toward incentives. It’s not really geared to lowering tax rates; it’s more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it’s garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn’t really matter that much.

The economists can duke it out over the possibility of successful fiscal stimulus. But is there any reason based in up-to-date economic theory to believe that this trillion dollar deficit-spending bill is not, as Barro says, garbage?

Krugman is plumping for it anyway. Hard. So what can one say about Krugman? That he is a creature of extraordinary double consciousness. Perhaps more than any economist of his caliber, Krugman understands that policy is largely determined by the outcome of the public opinion shoutfest. Yet this recognition seems to have no effect on Krugman’s ideas. Rather than bring inside his models disagreement over economic theory and the lack of political incentive to faithfully apply them, which would lead him to radically revise his prescriptions, Krugman leaves his textbook theory untouched and simply tries to win the shoutfest. Krugman’s often unbearable stridency seems to reflect an attempt to overcome the problems of democratic disagreement and incentive compatibility through sheer force of will–as if the deep reality of politics is no match for the rhetorical gifts and gold-plated reputation of Paul Freaking Krugman. It is as if his own imagined ability to singehandedly overwhelm the opposition is part of Krugman’s implicit model of how a politics-free macoeconomic theory can be made politically relevant in a time of perceived crisis, which is to say, a time of rank political opportunism.

One can see this attitude reflected in Krugman’s advice to Obama, who he says “made a big mistake” by failing to mercilessly bully his opponents into submission:

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk.

As Krugman sees it, the big problem here is Obama, who lacks Krugman’s intransigent will to mercilessly crush any who would dare keep cartoon Keynesianism from coming to life.

Keep in mind this is legislation that Krugman admits would do little more than “improve our odds.”

Democrat culture of corruption

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell to testify Monday at corruption trial of former state senator
By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer 1:03 PM PST, February 8, 2009
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The defense in the federal corruption trial of a former state senator is aiming to roll out its big guns Monday with the testimony of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.Rendell is expected to provide brief testimony that acknowledges the long hours Vincent Fumo worked on behalf of the state when he was in the Senate.
"They worked their hearts out here. They work a minimum of 10-hour days and at budget time 20-hour days," Rendell said last week at the Capitol."The senator himself, although out of the state a lot, he is always on the phone talking about different issues," Rendell added. "I get harassing phone calls from the senator all the time when he is outside of the state."Fumo, 65, is charged with defrauding the state Senate, a museum and a nonprofit run by aides out of $3.5 million in goods and services. Prosecutors say he spent nearly one-fourth of his time on vacation — at his waterfront Florida mansion, his New Jersey shore home or on museum-funded yachts off Martha's Vineyard — and used the ill-begotten funds to support his lifestyle.
Defense lawyer Dennis Cogan said last week that Rendell worked with Fumo for many years, "so he knows about the work ethic ... wherever (Fumo) is, whether it's in Florida or Martha's Vineyard or wherever."Earlier this month, a state-paid driver testified that he drove Fumo to Rendell's house late at night for work-related meetings, one of many state employees who have supported defense claims that Fumo's staff put in long hours, even if they did personal chores for the boss on state time.Rendell said he didn't know if he could help Fumo defend himself against the 139 fraud, conspiracy and obstruction counts, but would simply answer whatever questions he is asked.A retired state trooper has testified that Fumo once ordered him to investigate whether Rendell was using union labor at a shore house he built at the New Jersey shore. Fumo was supporting Rendell's primary opponent at the time in the 2002 governor's race and thought the labor issue, if true, could be used to attack Rendell.Rendell is expected on the witness stand Monday morning, and Fumo could follow later in the day if he decides to testify.Fumo, a lawyer and banker who maneuvered his way to the top of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee during 30-year senate career, beat two previous indictments early in his political career.

There is no free lunch and the elderly will pay dearly for government run health care

'Too Old' for Hip Surgery

The Laissez Faire Myth

This piece from George Reisman's (author of the wonderful book 'Capitalism') blog points out very clearly that the current financial crisis is not due to runaway laissez faire-ism.

The news media are in the process of creating a great new historical myth. This is the myth that our present financial crisis is the result of economic freedom and laissez-faire capitalism.

The attempt to place the blame on laissez faire is readily confirmed by a Google search under the terms “crisis + laissez faire.” On the first page of the results that come up, or in the web entries to which those results refer, statements of the following kind appear:

“The mortgage crisis is laissez-faire gone wrong.”

“Sarkozy [Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France] said `laissez-faire’ economics, `self-regulation’ and the view that `the all-powerful market’ always knows best are finished.”

“`America’s laissez-faire ideology, as practiced during the subprime crisis, was as simplistic as it was dangerous,’ chipped in Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister.”

“Paulson brings laissez-faire approach on financial crisis….”

“It’s au revoir to the days of laissez faire.”[1]

Recent articles in The New York Times provide further confirmation. Thus one article declares, “The United States has a culture that celebrates laissez-faire capitalism as the economic ideal….”[2] Another article tells us, “For 30 years, the nation’s political system has been tilted in favor of business deregulation and against new rules.”[3] In a third article, a pair of reporters assert, “Since 1997, Mr. Brown [the British Prime Minister] has been a powerful voice behind the Labor Party’s embrace of an American-style economic philosophy that was light on regulation. The laissez-faire approach encouraged the country’s banks to expand internationally and chase returns in areas far afield of their core mission of attracting deposits.”[4] Thus even Great Britain is described as having a “laissez-faire approach.”

The mentality displayed in these statements is so completely and utterly at odds with the actual meaning of laissez faire that it would be capable of describing the economic policy of the old Soviet Union as one of laissez faire in its last decades. By its logic, that is how it would have to describe the policy of Brezhnev and his successors of allowing workers on collective farms to cultivate plots of land of up to one acre in size on their own account and sell the produce in farmers’ markets in Soviet cities. According to the logic of the media, that too would be “laissez faire”—at least compared to the time of Stalin.

Laissez-faire capitalism has a definite meaning, which is totally ignored, contradicted, and downright defiled by such statements as those quoted above. Laissez-faire capitalism is a politico-economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and in which the powers of the state are limited to the protection of the individual’s rights against the initiation of physical force. This protection applies to the initiation of physical force by other private individuals, by foreign governments, and, most importantly, by the individual’s own government. This last is accomplished by such means as a written constitution, a system of division of powers and checks and balances, an explicit bill of rights, and eternal vigilance on the part of a citizenry with the right to keep and bear arms. Under laissez-faire capitalism, the state consists essentially just of a police force, law courts, and a national defense establishment, which deter and combat those who initiate the use of physical force. And nothing more.

The utter absurdity of statements claiming that the present political-economic environment of the United States in some sense represents laissez-faire capitalism becomes as glaringly obvious as anything can be when one keeps in mind the extremely limited role of government under laissez-faire and then considers the following facts about the present-day United States.

1) Government spending in the United States currently equals more than forty percent of national income, i.e., the sum of all wages and salaries and profits and interest earned in the country. This is without counting any of the massive off-budget spending such as that on account of the government enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Nor does it count any of the recent spending on assorted “bailouts.” What this means is that substantially more than forty dollars of every one hundred dollars of output are appropriated by the government against the will of the individual citizens who produce that output. The money and the goods involved are turned over to the government only because the individual citizens wish to stay out of jail. Their freedom to dispose of their own incomes and output is thus violated on a colossal scale. In contrast, under laissez-faire capitalism, government spending would be on such a modest scale that a mere revenue tariff might be sufficient to support it. The corporate and individual income taxes, inheritance and capital gains taxes, and social security and Medicare taxes would not exist.

2) There are presently fifteen federal cabinet departments, nine of which exist for the very purpose of respectively interfering with housing, transportation, healthcare, education, energy, mining, agriculture, labor, and commerce, and virtually all of which nowadays routinely ride roughshod over one or more important aspects of the economic freedom of the individual. Under laissez faire capitalism, eleven of the fifteen cabinet departments would cease to exist and only the departments of justice, defense, state, and treasury would remain. Within those departments, moreover, further reductions would be made, such as the abolition of the IRS in the Treasury Department and the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice.

3) The economic interference of today’s cabinet departments is reinforced and amplified by more than one hundred federal agencies and commissions, the most well-known of which include, besides the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the FBI and CIA, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, and NASA. Under laissez-faire capitalism, all such agencies and commissions would be done away with, with the exception of the FBI, which would be reduced to the legitimate functions of counterespionage and combating crimes against person or property that take place across state lines.

4) To complete this catalog of government interference and its trampling of any vestige of laissez faire, as of the end of 2007, the last full year for which data are available, the Federal Register contained fully seventy-three thousand pages of detailed government regulations. This is an increase of more than ten thousand pages since 1978, the very years during which our system, according to one of The New York Times articles quoted above, has been “tilted in favor of business deregulation and against new rules.” Under laissez-faire capitalism, there would be no Federal Register. The activities of the remaining government departments and their subdivisions would be controlled exclusively by duly enacted legislation, not the rule-making of unelected government officials.

5) And, of course, to all of this must be added the further massive apparatus of laws, departments, agencies, and regulations at the state and local level. Under laissez-faire capitalism, these too for the most part would be completely abolished and what remained would reflect the same kind of radical reductions in the size and scope of government activity as those carried out on the federal level.

Follow the link and read the entire post.

Another Obama appointment of note

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The global warming myth...

Have you noticed how the grins on the faces of the global warming crowd are starting to look increasingly sickly? Even climate change zealots are starting to wonder if they've been guilty of scaremongering.
Think of the children, Al.
Global temperatures continue to decline. James Hansen, the global warming lobby's most celebrated cheerleader, has been disowned by his old mentor John Theon. He has been called "an embarrassment to NASA" and his work has been branded "unscientific".
I don't believe global warming is anthropogenic. But even if I did, the hysterical climate change industry (I use that word advisedly) has yet to provide plausible solutions to the "crisis". On Friday, New Scientist published an article suggesting that even sustainable power is unsustainable:
[T]he most advanced "renewable" technologies are too often based upon non-renewable resources, attendees heard [...] although silicon is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust after oxygen, it makes relatively inefficient cells that struggle to compete with electricity generated from fossil fuels. And the most advanced solar-cell technologies rely on much rarer materials than silicon.
In other words, the green lobby could be about to rob the planet of scarce natural resources. How incredibly selfish of them. Have they no regard for "future generations"?

Quoting the Koran is a crime?

The slow suicide of western values.

HENTOFF: The cost of criticizing jihadists
Nat Hentoff
OP-ED:
Geert Wilders - a film producer and also a member of parliament in the Netherlands - is facing a prison term there for "insulting" Muslims. His short film "Fitna" in 2008 juxtaposed verses from the Koran with scenes of violence committed by jihadist terrorists. The Dutch appellate court refused a free-speech defense because the insults were so egregious.
If convicted, Wilders faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison. Said the defendant: "I lost my freedom already four and a half years ago in October 2004, when my 24-hour police protection started because of threats by Muslims in Holland and abroad to kill me."
I have heard from Muslims in this country that jihadists around the world have more than insulted traditional Muslim law by their fierce punishments of both non-Muslims and Muslims who have acted in speech or writing against jihadists' reinterpretations of the Quran. Some of these protesters, exercising freedom of conscience, have been killed for their "blasphemy."
What awaits Wilders in the Netherlands may be a harbinger of what will happen if a nonbinding Dec. 18 U.N. resolution, passed by a strong majority in the General Assembly, becomes international law. The resolution urges U.N. members to take state action against (punish) "defamation of religion" and "incitement to religious hatred" caused by defamation.
The main force behind this resolution, which was sponsored on its behalf, is the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Following the combustible cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that were published in Denmark in September 2005, this organization had a key role in expanding the violent protests against those cartoons in a number of countries.
On Feb. 9, 2006, I received a copy of a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from a longtime source of mine. He was acting against Sudan's National Islamic Front government killing, raping and enslaving of black Christians and animists in southern Sudan. He was John Eibner, director of Christian Solidarity International, which was instrumental in rescuing many of those captives from slavery in the north of Sudan.
Eibner told Annan (as I reported at the time in the Feb. 14, 2006, Village Voice): "The role of the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), representing 57 Muslim states, in creating a climate for violent confrontation over the cartoons [was shown when] the OIC set the stage for anti-free speech demonstrations at its extraordinary summit in Mecca in December 2005.
"The Muslim states," Eibner continued, "resolved - through many demonstrations - to pressure, through a program of joint Islamic action, international institutions, including the U.N., to criminalize insults of Islam and its prophet. ... On the 4th of February - the day the mob violence commenced - the Organization of Islamic Conference described publication of the caricatures as acts of 'blasphemy.' Blasphemy is punishable by death, according to Sharia law."
Revealingly, although there was outrage when, on Oct. 17, 2005, the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr published the cartoons on its front page, there was nothing like the furious demonstrations elsewhere until after the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit meeting in December 2005.
After the OIC's focus on the cartoons at the Mecca summit, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon and Qatar went on to carry the inflammatory message of blasphemy. And the OIC's grand plan to get international institutions to criminalize insults of Islam began to work. On Feb. 9, 2006, the European Union asked for a voluntary code of conduct to prevent offending Muslims. And on the same day, Annan concurred with an OIC proposal that the U.N. Human Rights Council "prevent instances of intolerance, discrimination, incitement of hatred and violence...against religions, prophets and beliefs."
Last Dec. 18, the OIC triumphed with the U.N. General Assembly's passing of the nonbinding but rousing "defamation of religion" resolution on behalf of the OIC, which emphasized only Muslims and Islam by name as the forbidden targets of such "defamation." Pressure may well continue to enshrine this resolution into international law.
The OIC had a New York Times ad on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, "An Invitation to a New Partnership," addressed to President Obama. The organization wrote: "Throughout the globe, Muslims hunger for a new era of peace. We firmly believe that America, with your guidance, can help foster that peace, though real peace can only be shared - never imposed."
The OIC, however, was at the time fresh from its U.N. victory to actually impose silence on critics of Islamic jihadists, who have long been working to hijack the true Muslim religion. And why has the press, particularly the American press, continued to be so silent on this U.N. attack on individuals' right of conscience throughout the world to call jihadist terrorism what it is? You might want to ask your news sources why they have ignored this global gag rule on free expression.
Nat Hentoff's column for The Washington Times runs on Mondays.

Greenies and Islamists: unlikely allies

Victoria bushfires stoked by green vote

His license should be revoked at the very least.

MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Continue reading

Global warming next?

Duct tape time-

The Democrat Party killed the RV business. Elkhart, IN was the RV construction capital of the US. Isn't it hypocritical for the President to go there and complain about unemployment?

What's happened to the hope over fear man?

'Doom' talk scored as 'not presidential'
Poses risk for 'Yes, we can' candidate

Amazing...

16 illegals sue Arizona rancher
Jerry Seper (Contact)
An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.
His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.
Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett's wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.
The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.
Attorneys for the immigrants - five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States - have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.
The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at "gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women."
In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, it said, Mr. Barnett's dog barked at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, "My dog is hungry and he's hungry for buttocks."
The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.
In March, U.S. District Judge John Roll rejected a motion by Mr. Barnett to have the charges dropped, ruling there was sufficient evidence to allow the matter to be presented to a jury. Mr. Barnett's attorney, David Hardy, had argued that illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a 2002 interview that he began rounding up illegal immigrants after they started to vandalize his property, northeast of Douglas along Arizona Highway 80. He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.
Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.
Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their "clients" to keep them running.
He said he carried a pistol during his searches for the immigrants and had a rifle in his truck "for protection" against immigrant and drug smugglers, who often are armed.
A former Cochise County sheriff´s deputy who later was successful in the towing and propane business, Mr. Barnett spent $30,000 on electronic sensors, which he has hidden along established trails on his ranch. He searches the ranch for illegal immigrants in a pickup truck, dressed in a green shirt and camouflage hat, with his handgun and rifle, high-powered binoculars and a walkie-talkie.
His sprawling ranch became an illegal-immigration highway when the Border Patrol diverted its attention to several border towns in an effort to take control of the established ports of entry. That effort moved the illegal immigrants to the remote areas of the border, including the Cross Rail Ranch.
"This is my land. I´m the victim here," Mr. Barnett said. "When someone´s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can´t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands. And I always watch my back."

What are the odds?

Islam group urges forest fire jihad
Josh Gordon
September 7, 2008
AUSTRALIA has been singled out as a target for "forest jihad" by a group of Islamic extremists urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror.
US intelligence channels earlier this year identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the US, Europe and Russia to "start forest fires", claiming "scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands".
The website, posted by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, argues in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine.
The posting — which instructs jihadis to remember "forest jihad" in summer months — says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that "this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time".
"Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says. "You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia."
With the nation heading into another hot, dry summer, Australian intelligence agencies are treating the possibility that bushfires could be used as a weapon of terrorism as a serious concern.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Federal Government remained "vigilant against such threats", warning that anyone caught lighting a fire as a weapon of terror would feel the wrath of anti-terror laws.
"Any information that suggests a threat to Australia's interests is investigated by relevant agencies as appropriate," Mr McClelland said.
Adam Dolnik, director of research at the University of Wollongong's Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention, said that bushfires (unlike suicide bombing) were generally not considered a glorious type of attack by jihadis, in keeping with a recent decline in the sophistication of terrorist operations.
"With attacks like bushfires, yes, it would be easy. It would be very damaging and we do see a decreasing sophistication as a part of terrorist attacks," Dr Dolnik said.
"In recent years, there have been quite a few attacks averted and it has become more and more difficult for groups to do something effective."
Dr Dolnik said he had observed an increase in traffic on jihadi websites calling for a simplification of terrorist attacks because the more complex operations had been failing. But starting bushfires was still often regarded as less effective than other operations because governments could easily deny terrorism as the cause.
The internet posting by the little-known group claimed the idea of forest fires had been attributed to imprisoned Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Suri. It said Al-Suri had urged terrorists to use sulphuric acid and petrol to start forest fires.

Now and then...

Inauguration Day, 2009: Outgoing President George W. Bush quietly boards his helicopter and leaves for Texas, commenting only: "Today is not about me. Today is a historical day for our nation and people." Eight years ago:Outgoing President Bill Clinton schedules two separate radio addresses to the nation, and organizes a public farewell speech/ rally in downtown Washington D.C., scheduled to directly conflict with incoming President Bush's inauguration ceremony.

2009: President Bush leaves office without issuing a single Presidential pardon, only granting a commutation of sentence to two former border patrol agents convicted of shooting a convicted drug smuggler. He does not grant any type of clemency to Scooter Libby or any other former political aide, ally, or business partner. Eight years ago:President Clinton issues 140 pardons and several commutations of sentence on his final day in office. Included in these are: billionaire financier, convicted tax evader, and leading Democratic campaign contributor Marc Rich; Whitewater scandal figure Susan McDougal; Congressional Post Office Scandal figure and former Democratic Congressman Dan Rostenkowski; convicted bank fraud, sexual assault and child porn perpetrator and former Democratic Congressman Melvin Reynolds; and convicted drug felon Roger Clinton, the President's own half-brother.

2009: The Bush daughters leave gift baskets in the White House bedrooms for the Obama daughters, containing flowers, candy, stuffed animals, DVD's and CD's, and heartfelt notes of encouragement and advice for the young girls on how to prepare for their new lives in the White House. Eight years ago: Clinton and Gore staffers rip computer wires and electrical outlets from the White House walls, stuff piles of notebook papers into the White House toilets, systematically remove the letter "W" from every computer keypad in the entire White House, and damage several thousand dollars worth of furniture in the White House master bedroom.

Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago: "Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops die in unarmored Humvees" "Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times" "Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft" Headlines 2009: "Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $170 million" "Obama Spends $170 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party" "Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate" ....and... "Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration" (From Federal bail-out funds, we may assume.)

Sure they won't!!!

Official: Yemen releases 170 al-Qaida suspects

They're Nancy Pelosi's people...explains a lot

Mission residents reject American Apparel
C.W. Nevius
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Congratulations to the residents of Valencia Street. After a rowdy and sometimes misleading campaign, they managed to stop American Apparel - a socially conscious, popular, American-run clothing store - from moving into one of the street's vacant storefronts.
The hoot, of course, is that many of the vociferous opponents of the store admit that they buy and wear American Apparel clothing. Some of them wore it to the City Planning Commission meeting to argue against the store opening in their neighborhood.
"Everyone I know is wearing an American Apparel T-shirt right now," said Chicken John Rinaldi, one of the protest organizers. "I wear one every day."
It's another through-the-looking-glass moment in San Francisco. They love the product but hate the store solely because there are about 260 of them worldwide. That means it's a chain and unwelcome under any circumstances.
By a 7-0 vote - including staunch Republican Michael Antonini - the Planning Commission refused to grant the company a conditional use permit.
This only reinforces San Francisco's reputation as America's squeaky-wheel city. If you can get 200 people together and persuade them to show up at a meeting and raise a fuss, you can stop damn near anything in this town. At some point, someone is going to have to stand up and say we've had enough of government dominated by small groups of shouting people.
I am not holding my breath.
"I'm scratching my head on this one," said Steve Adams, president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro. "There was all this opposition to American Apparel, saying that you need to be socially conscious. Well, they are. They pay their workers more, they have a health plan and they opposed Prop. 8. I'm still trying to figure this one out."
Opponents see it all in black and white. At Thursday night's Planning Commission meeting, public comment on American Apparel ran for about three hours. They railed against retail chain stores as if they were polyester golf pants. One called it "the beginning of the end of Valencia Street," and another warned ominously of allowing "these parasitic entities to come in."
And you thought it was just a T-shirt store with tacky ad campaigns.
Many opponents offered up the same argument: that the minute American Apparel moved in, local businesses would be forced to close and a flood of chain stores would swamp the neighborhood.
Uh, actually, that's not right.
In 2006, voters passed Proposition G, which states that before a chain store can move into a neighborhood, it is required to apply for a conditional use permit before the Planning Commission.
"A lot of energy went into this," said Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who opposed American Apparel. "But I think the 7-0 vote shows that this tool works."
I don't have any quibble with requiring American Apparel to seek out a special permit. My complaint is that Prop. G is being used as a bludgeon instead of a scalpel. If a socially conscious chain store whose clothes are already wildly popular in a neighborhood wanted to move in, you would think that would be fine.
Now, if it were a Wal-Mart or, as Adams says, something that was already well represented, it should be turned down. It's happened elsewhere.
"One thing we said no to was a porn supermarket," he said. "C'mon, it's the Castro. We've already got enough of them."
Admittedly, American Apparel totally blew its rollout in the neighborhood. More than one civic leader warned the company that it needed to do an enormous amount of community outreach, with Dufty leading the way. Instead, company officials basically announced they were moving in and left the neighbors to deal with it.
"I met with them and gave them 10 things I thought they should do," Dufty said. "The reality is they have done none of those things."
In contrast, take the case of Levi's, which wanted to open an outlet on Castro Street. Working through Dufty, the company met with merchants, explained their plans and even pointed out that they wouldn't undercut competitors - products sold in the Levi's store cost as much as $10 more than in mom-and-pop stores.
The result? Levi's conditional use permit passed - there was not a single dissenting vote.
So, if American Apparel had done all that, would it now be setting up shop on Valencia? Probably not. Valencia is one politically active street.
"The deal is, we are not going to allow a chain store to come in here," Rinaldi said. "Never. No way. End of story."
Even if the store makes perfect sense?
I guess that's what you get when you leave city policy to a guy who calls himself "Chicken."
C.W. Nevius' column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail him at cwnevius@sfchronicle.com.

Everything will be regulated. Remember it's for your own good

First They Came For The Dubs
By Edward Niedermeyer February 6, 2009

According to SEMA, legislation has been introduced in the Oregon House of Representatives at the request of Governor Ted Kulongoski to ban aftermarket parts if alternatives are available that “decrease greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.” In reality, Oregon H.B. 2186 (pdf) merely states that the “Environmental Quality Commission may adopt by rule the following to help this state achieve the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.” The specific option that SEMA is steamed about states that “Restrictions and prohibitions on the sale and distribution of after-market motor vehicle parts, including but not limited to tires, if alternatives are available that decrease greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles,” may be enacted.
For some perspective though, the bill would also empower the EQC to enact “restrictions and prohibitions on the use of substances that contain, release or cause to be released greenhouse gases, if alternatives are available.” In other words, anything is possible, but I don’t see green-clad thugs locking folks up for selling Flowmasters anytime soon. Or maybe I really do just hate the aftermarket. Either way, between this, Governor Kulongoski’s pay-per-mile scheme and our beefed-up speeding laws, car lovers are beginning to hate Oregon. Which means our great driving roads will be less crowded for me. Or something.SEMA »

I won't feel complete unless I have a garage full of Ferraris! I want the government to pay for them and their maintenance

Octuplet mom defends her ‘unconventional’ choices

I want to give this lady the 2009 award for narcissism beyond any rational bounds. Could there be a better example of the me first mentality. These kids will suffer their whole lives because of her me first approach to life. This is an obscure form of child abuse.

Ya think!

Earmark-Free Stimulus Bill Lacks Spending Direction

The Stimulus Bill is a function of two parts of the Democrat Party getting what they want. First, there are the no-growth greenies who literally do not want actual growth or economic stimulation. These are the folks who are unhappy that gas prices are no longer $4/gallon. They want you to use less electricity except when it comes to plug in electric cars. Kinda makes your head swim. They are against drilling, gas exploration and nuclear power (the cleanest most efficient form of electricity production. Instead they'd rather have us populate the landscape with millions of acres of windmills and solar panels which at this point are horribly inefficient.

Then there are the redistributionists who think that spending on social programs are just the cat's meow. Giving millions in grants to people who think that putting a crucifix in urine is art. Or, putting more money into the school system without reforming it will somehow work. Why does the government feel it necessary to demand serious reform plans from the auto companies to get more funds while the education establishment has to make no serious changes like requiring the teachers to actually speak English correctly or know something about the topic they teach. Yes, it's a payoff to the teachers unions and the arts establishment.

This segment of the Democrat Party is also populated by the ACORN types. The same folks who brought you the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles. The same people who think you have too much and why shouldn't their constituencies have just as much no matter how much effort or lack thereof they put into their lives. These same folks believe that by restricting trade they will somehow be made richer.

May we be saved from people who think economics is simply the distribution of wealth. Economics has rules that are as rigid as the laws of physics. Every time the socialists/communists have tried to regulate in a way that ignores or dismisses these inevitability's they self destruct. I fear we're in the grip of these arrogant types right now. Just ask Nancy Pelosi or the President.

+

Did you see this on page one of your local newspaper?

UNRWA School Not Hit By Israel: U.N 2/6/2009 1:40 AM ET
(RTTNews) - The United Nations Thursday backed down from a claim that one of its school in Gaza was hit by an Israel Defense Force (IDF) mortar attack last month, correcting its earlier media statements that a massacre occurred within the U.N. education facility, media reports said.The U.N.'s latest field report reads, "The humanitarian coordinator would like to clarify that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school."The revelation reinforces the Israeli assertions that the militant organization, Hamas had been attacking the Israeli forces from civilian locations, thus the high civilian casualties from Israeli retaliation.The U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) January 7 said that "43 persons were killed following an attack on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school transformed into a refugee site for displaced persons."
John Ging, UNRWA's operations director in Gaza, had accused Israel of deliberately carrying out a "horrific" attack by targeting its school and claimed Israel knew it was targeting a U.N. facility.Following the U.N. claim, the whole world condemned Israel over what was perceived as a blatant attack on a school.However, the latest revelations were not expected to ease calls by human rights groups for an independent investigation into these and other incidents.Palestinian medics have said that many of the over 1.300 persons reportedly killed in the three-week Israeli offensive were civilians, including many women and children.

The rabid beasts called Hamas

UN agency halts aid imports to Gaza amid flap over seizure

The good doctor exposes the annointed one

The Fierce Urgency of Pork
By Charles Krauthammer
"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- President Obama, Feb. 4.
Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.
And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.
The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.
He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.
At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.
And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.
It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.
It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.
Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.
The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.
After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

Economics, Evidence and Enlightenment

Randall Hoven examines the 'theory' behind government stimulus and finds it wanting.

With today's economy, wouldn't it be nice if we knew how to make an economy grow? To know what works and what doesn't? Well, we do. We just prefer to ignore the truth.

What works is economic freedom. What doesn't work is more government.

I'm sorry that those words sound simplistic and like Republican "ideology" (or at least what used to be Republican ideology - before the Bailout Fairy arrived). But they have the benefit of being true. If you were to start from scratch, ignoring all ideology and going simply by the evidence of what produces prosperity, you would come to that conclusion: more freedom and less government lead to greater wealth and prosperity.

It's not the ideology. It's the evidence.

Unfortunately, we are ignoring the evidence and rushing headlong in the wrong direction. Alec Baldwin and others threatened to move to France when George W. Bush became President. They didn't need to. France moved here.

Exhibit A is a thorough study of what works and what doesn't, conducted over 200 years ago, by Adam Smith. He examined the economies at the time and through history and came to the following conclusion.

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things."

The government need not "manage" the economy, but just stay pretty much out of the way, beyond securing "life, liberty and property."

Exhibit B is the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. Every year the data support Adam Smith's conclusion: more economic freedom yields more prosperity, where economic freedom means secure property rights and limited government in terms of size and control of the economy.

"Previous editions of the Index have confirmed the tangible benefits of living in freer societies. Not only are the higher levels of economic freedom associated with higher per capita incomes and higher GDP growth rates, but those higher growth rates seem to create a virtuous cycle, triggering further improvements in economic freedom."

The average GDP per capita of those considered "Free" was $40,253, about 10 times greater than those considered "Mostly Unfree" ($4,359) or "Repressed" ($3,926). There is strong and undeniable statistical correlation between economic freedom (as scored by the Heritage Foundation) and GDP per capita. And it shows up year after year.

Exhibit C is the case of Presidents Reagan and Mitterrand. Reagan was President of the US from 1981 to 1989 and was considered a very right-wing, free-market zealot. Mitterrand was President of France from 1981 to 1995 and was a socialist, the first socialist president of France. This would be an apples-to-apples comparison of free-market vs. socialist governance. How did that work out?

France was behind the US in 1980 and would fall further behind it in the following years. In 1980, France's GDP per capita was 84% that of the US. By 1989 it was down to 79% and by 1995 it was 78%. (For the various international comparisons throughout this article, see the US Statistical Abstract.) In 2006, the latest year for which data is available, it was just 74%. All that wonderful socialism in France just set it back further and further from the US.

Exhibit D is Japan. Remember the Japanese miracle? From 1960 to 1991 its GDP per capita grew from 37% of the US's to 86%. It was closing in on us! By 1991 we were all afraid that the Japanese would outpace us in computer chips, high definition televisions, artificial intelligence, automobiles and overall economic growth. It would buy up all the US assets worth having and we would soon all be working for Japanese bosses.

At that point, 1991, the Japanese government spent just 31.6% of its GDP, lower than that of any European country, Canada or the US. The US was spending 37.8%. The "small government" US had an even smaller government competitor, and it was eating our lunch. Only the US, West Germany and Norway were richer than Japan at that time (GDP per capita).

But then Japan did us a great favor. It decided to grow its government. By 1996 its government was bigger than the US's as a fraction of GDP, and would remain so through 2005. In 2000 its government was bigger than that of Australia, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It had definitely lost its "smallest government" title.

How did that work out for Japan? Its GDP per capita went from 86% that of the US to just 73% by 1995. It had fallen behind Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom by that same measure.

Exhibit E involves Japan again, but this piece of evidence is very relevant to today -- it has to do with economic stimuli. As described by Benjamin Powell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 2002:

"Between 1992 and 1995, Japan tried six spending programs totaling 65.5 trillion yen and cut income tax rates during 1994. In January 1998, Japan temporarily cut taxes again by 2 trillion yen. Then, in April of that year, the government unveiled a fiscal stimulus package worth more than 16.7 trillion yen, almost half of which was for public works. Again, in November 1998, another fiscal stimulus package worth 23.9 trillion yen was announced. A year later (November 1999), yet another fiscal stimulus package of 18 trillion yen was tried. Finally, in October 2000, Japan announced yet another fiscal stimulus package of 11 trillion yen. Overall during the 1990s, Japan tried 10 fiscal stimulus packages totaling more than 100 trillion yen."

Sound familiar? Yet from 1991 to 2006 Japan's economy grew slower than that of any of the other 16 countries listed in the US Statistical Abstract for comparison - even slower than Italy's. Over those 16 years its GDP per capita grew just 16%. That of its Asian counterpart, South Korea, grew 94% in that same period. The US, Canada and most European countries grew at least twice as fast. And today Japan's government debt is 182% of its GDP, by far the highest of any developed country .

Economic stimuli work -- if what you want to grow is debt rather than real GDP.

Exhibit F is Ireland. In 1987, Ireland's government was 52% of its GDP, a higher fraction than even that of France at the time (51.9%). But by 1998 it was only 34.5% -- lower than that of the US or any other European country. It had cut income taxes across the board. Its top corporate tax rate was the lowest of all OECD countries by 2003.

How did that work for Ireland? From 1990 to 2000, its per capita real GDP grew 86%. By comparison, the US's grew just 26% in that period. France's grew just 12%. In 1980, Ireland's GDP per capita was just 61% of France's, but by 1998 it had overtaken France and by 2000 it was 118% of France's.

Exhibit G is Sweden. In 1993, Sweden took the prize for big government. It spent 71% of GDP at a time when even France was spending less than 55%. By 2007 Sweden's spending was trimmed to 51% of GDP. Still not a small government by any means, but smaller than France's, at 52%.

Over that time, 1993 to 2006, its real GDP per capita grew 42% compared to France's 24%. As its government shrank below France's, it's GDP per capita swelled above it -- from 94% of France's to 108%. Sweden cut its government burden and saw its economy take off.

Exhibit H is communism. The idea that an economy can be managed from top to bottom has been tried -- multiple times. It never worked. Not in Russia. Not in China. Not in Cambodia. Not in Cuba. Not in North Korea. Not in Zimbabwe. Not anywhere. The results were widespread poverty, famine and war. The death count due to communism likely exceeds 100 million.

Exhibit I is US history. The US grew from a British colony to the richest and most powerful country on earth. It was founded on the very principle of freedom. After slavery was ended, the US had about as close to a truly laissez-faire free market as ever existed. During that time it enjoyed about 40 years of 4% real GDP growth per year (quintupling the size of the real economy) and absorbed millions of immigrants looking for freedom and opportunity, all while expanding westward and inventing or employing new technologies from steam engines to electricity, automobiles and airplanes.

In 1913 the US Constitution was changed to allow a federal income tax and the Federal Reserve System was established. Sixteen years later came the Great Depression. President Hoover at the time did almost everything counter to free-market principles: he raised taxes, increased federal spending, restricted free trade and encouraged faulty monetary policy.

President Roosevelt did much more of mostly the same: more federal spending, more regulation, more monetary manipulation. By the end of it, Henry Morgenthau Jr., close friend of FDR, FDR's Treasury Secretary and architect of the New Deal said this:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work... We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. ... And an enormous debt to boot!"

Federal spending went from 3.4% of GDP in 1930 to 10.7% in 1934 -- more than a tripling of such spending in only four years -- and it would remain at those elevated levels throughout the Depression. Yet the unemployment rate went above 10% in 1930 and would stay above that level until February of 1941; it was as high as 20% as late as 1938.

Exhibits J-Z. We could go on with country after country, era after era. Whether we are talking the extremes of all countries on the planet (e.g., Australia vs. Zimbabwe) or relatively small differences (e.g., Sweden vs. France), or whether we are talking 200 years ago (e.g. Adam Smith), 100 years ago (the US vs. Europe) or the last 20 years, the evidence always leads to the same conclusion: that government is best which governs least.

There might be some point at which government is too small, where anarchy or tribal behavior might destroy such things as secure property rights, life and liberty. But with government in the developed world averaging over 40% of GDP, we are nowhere near such a point. In fact, our problem is the opposite: where the government itself becomes the thief, rather than the protector of property and individual rights.

Learning Lessons. Europe seemed to take such lessons to heart. The examples of Ireland and Sweden, above, are standouts, but not alone. From 1993 to 2007, Sweden cut its government spending by over 19% of GDP. Canada, Finland, Norway and Spain all cut theirs by at least 10%. The Euro area average cut was 6% of GDP.

How much did the US cut in that period? One half of one percent (0.5%). Portugal was the only country of the 28 listed to cut less -- 0.3%. And Japan and South Korea were the only ones to grow government in that time period, but still came in under the US in government spending as a fraction of GDP, since they started so low.

Government in the US (federal, state and local) in 2007 spent a larger fraction of GDP than did Australia, Ireland, Japan, Slovakia, South Korea and Switzerland (among 28 listed countries). In the Heritage Foundation's latest Index, the US ranks only 6^th, below Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and its score is falling. Our score was 80.7, with Canada breathing down our neck at 80.5.

And that was before the trillion-dollar bailout Bacchanalian debacle.

In short, the US is rapidly losing its standing as the free-market, limited-government leader of the world. While Europe was shrinking its government, the US stood pat. The US is becoming just another European country -- a high-tax, welfare state with a large public sector and rigid work rules.

Unless President Obama governs counter to all his promises, campaign commercials and supporters' wishes, he will only accelerate this trend, not reverse it.

We already overtook Australia, Ireland and Switzerland by 2007. We'll soon overtake Canada, Spain, Luxembourg and the OECD average. Maybe with our trillion dollar bailouts and stimuli, we already did.

All through this time we have been lied to.

• The media called it "laissez-faire capitalism" as the government continued to eat over one third of the economy and regulated us at the equivalent of over 30 New Deals as measured by pages of the Federal Register.
• The media called President Bush a free-market extremist, while he increased federal spending from 18.4% of GDP in 2000 to 20.4% in 2006, added prescription coverage to Medicare, teamed up with Ted Kennedy to expand federal spending on education, subsidized ethanol, etc..
• The media fed the lie that out-of-control imperialism and warfare increased our defense spending to irresponsible and unsustainable levels. Yet defense spending rose from an historically low 3% of GDP in 2000 to a still-low 4% of GDP as we fought wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a level lower than the country experienced for over 50 years, from 1941 to 1994.

The electorate swallowed those lies and elected a man with just 11 years total experience in elective office, only 3 years at the national level, zero military experience and zero executive experience, but the most liberal voting record in the US Senate in 2007.

The conclusion I come to is a sad one: the US is no more.

At least not the US of freedom, free markets and limited government. Just when we should be reinvigorating the US brand of freedom as it had been known for generations, we are accelerating in the exactly opposite direction: salvation through government programs.

Imitating North Korea, Zimbabwe or even France is one way to get "change." Just not the change I was hoping for.

Randall Hoven can be contacted at randall.hoven@gmail.com or via his web site, kulak.worldbreak.com/.

Democrat culture of corruption-Rangel chapter

Report: NY's Rep. Rangel didn't disclose assets
The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A new report says that Rep. Charles B. Rangel failed to disclose what became of thousands of dollars in assets over the past three decades.
The report identifies 28 separate instances within the past 30 years where he failed to report in congressionally-mandated filings on personal assets. The report from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation was based on a review of Rangel's filings from 1978 to the present.
The researchers write, "Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appear or disappear with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held, or when they were sold."
Rangel spokesman Emil Milne says the congressman had already acknowledged errors in reporting his finances.
A House ethics committee is investigating the Democrat's personal finances and fundraising.

Democrat culture of corruption- Solis chapter

Husband of Rep. Solis, Labor nominee, settles tax liens

Anyone surprised?

Daley refuses to release stimulus project list
Posted by Dan Mihalopoulos at 6:40 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley said today Chicago has compiled a wish list of "shovel-ready projects" to spend federal economic stimulus funds on should Congress approve a plan.
Unlike hundreds of other cities, however, Daley said Chicago won't make its list public.
"Yes, we do, we have our list, we've been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart," Daley said.
"It's very controversial. Yes, we have ready projects from the Board of Education to the City Colleges to the Park District to the CTA and the city of Chicago. Oh yes. Us and New York decided not to do that. We thought we could go directly into the federal bureaucracies and the different departments," the mayor added.
Later, Daley was asked why he wasn't being more transparent. "Read some of your newspapers. Heh heh," he replied.