A follow-up to yesterday's hypothetical question

Well, yesterday's hypothetical question about "would you vote for a presidential candidate who had once been arrested for shoplifting?" generated lots of traffic, and even got Twittered/Tweeted by someone who felt a vague hypothetical question was worthy of a wide audience.

But it only got one response. Uncle Fester, who I think is affiliated with the LP of Colorado, said that he wouldn't/didn't vote for Clinton, Bush, or Obama.

So lemme back up a minute.

I don't remember where I first read this, and I can't find it with Google, but most voters wouldn't support a candidate who had shoplifted something during his young adulthood. A shoplifting conviction, in effect, bars someone from the presidency. And perhaps it should.

So here's the kicker. Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama have all smoked marijuana. Bush and Obama admit inhaling. Al Gore and John Kerry have smoked marijuana. Obama has even admitted to a youthful experimentation with Bolivian Marching Powder.

Think of what this implies about some of the recent elections.... If you voted for a Republicrat of a Demoblican in 2000 or 2004, you voted for a recreational drug user.

Chances are, you wouldn't elect a shoplifter to the Oval Office. But you probably gave your enthusiastic support to someone who once did some serious tokin' Back In The Day.

So why, in most cases, does marijuana possession merit a legal penalty that is ten times worse than that of shoplifting?

Presidential Party Pics came from here and here and here.

A Hypothetical Question About Shoplifting. And Something Else.

All other things being equal, if Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama had ever been arrested for a shoplifting offense, would that crime have been enough to make them lose your support and vote for one of their opponents? Or make you stay home on election day? (I'm assuming you're bound to have supported at least one of them in the last 5 presidential elections.)

Hypothetical Questions T-shirt can be purchased here.

Libertarian Reddit

Here's a resource for small and large "L" libertarians. Libertarian Reddit.

They've got around a thousand other sub-categories at Reddit, most of which help the best o' the Web to bubble to the top.

No account is necessary to use Reddit, but you'll need one to vote links up or down, or to comment. If you set up an account, you can then select which topic's most popular articles appear on your front page when you sign in.

For bloggers....if you ever write something that makes it to Reddit's main page, you'll be very, very happy.

Don Boudreaux on Free Trade

In our latest effort at re-enacting every single insane move that led to The Great Depression, we've slapped a high tariff on Chinese tires. Perhaps we believe that prosperity comes from protecting manufacturers instead of the rights of consumers.

This is from George Mason University's Don Boudreaux:

Free trade is justified regardless of the trade policies followed by other governments. A foreign-government’s restrictive trade policies or subsidies or high taxes or low taxes or screechy national anthem does not justify your home government restricting the freedom of you and your fellow citizens to trade as you choose.
Your government should take other governments’ trade and economic policies as given, much as we take consumer tastes and preferences as given.
If your neighbor offers to mow your lawn for free because his psychiatrist recommends such mowing as a sure cure for his depression, should you refuse his offer? If your neighbor offers to mow your lawn for free because he is convinced by some silly book of the wacky notion that exports are good and imports are bad, should you refuse his offer?
If your neighbor chooses to become utterly self-sufficient, refusing to consume anything produced outside of his own household, you might properly regret (1) that he and his family will likely become much more materially impoverished than your neighbor realizes, and (2) that you and other people in the economy will be deprived of the additions to total output that your neighbor would have added had he chosen not to cut himself off from the larger economy.

Ok, here comes the Karate Kid Crane Kick....

But ultimately it’s none of your business. You have no right to insist that, in the interest of a larger GDP, your neighbor must integrate himself more fully with the outside economy.

Now suppose that your self-sufficient neighbor, still refusing to consume anything not produced by his own household, offers to sell to you — say, in exchange only for a friendly smile from you — some tomatoes from his garden. You examine his tomatoes and determine them to be first-rate. Should you refuse to accept your neighbor’s tomatoes in exchange for a quick smile, on grounds that your neighbor will not, in exchange for his tomatoes, really purchase anything from you or from the outside economy? Would you make yourself richer by refusing his offer?

You may legitimately question the wisdom of your neighbor’s policies. But regardless of what you conclude, your best course of action will always be to trade freely with him, and with everyone else.

I've forgotten where I found the picture of the Karate Kid's Crane Kick, but I gave credit the previous times that I've posted it. I'm grateful that I'm not restricted to pictures produced "by my own household".

No more funding for ACORN. It just isn't fair.

It just isn't fair.

The U.S. Senate has voted to cutoff funding for Acorn, the notorious community organizing outfit that was caught on tape (multiple times) giving tax advice on how to set up whorehouses.

I almost caught myself leading with the following sentence..... Acorn has voted to cutoff get-out-the-vote assistance to the U.S. Senate, a notorious whorehouse.

I love Acorn, and was going to have a great time writing about them throughout the census. (Acorn funding for various projects was in the Porkulus Bill, and they had already been chosen to help inflate Democratic Party head counts in the census.)

I woulda had multiple posts about Tony Romo and Emmitt Smith living in my garage, and posts about going in with Acorn to open up Big Al's House Of Pleasure And Voter Registration in my attic.

My favorite Acorn stunt was when they were campaigning for a minimum wage increase, shortly after suing for a minimum wage exemption. (They were arguing that, with such a high minimum wage, they wouldn't be able to hire enough people to accomplish their holy, godly mission. Duh.)

It just isn't fair. I had already mentally composed my Acorn census posts. They were great.

Picture of the former Acorn "Leadership Trainer" came from here.

I don't know what it is, but it isn't "Lying"

Ok, Joe Wilson shouldn't have said "You Lie" during the ceremonial reading from The Teleprompter.
I don't know what he should've said, but there's a time and place for interrupting people, and during joint sessions of Congress isn't it.

There. That's out of the way.

So, how should someone respond when an elected official stands up in front of the nation and says things that just aren't so?
Let's get real here. Is there anyone out there, anyone at all, who believes that our government can take over 1/6th of the economy and have it be "deficit neutral" ? We're ELEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT, fer heaven's sake, and every program they've ever started was supposed to be deficit neutral.
Could our government take over a car wash and have it be deficit neutral, with all the unions, rent-seekers, protectionists, subsidies, and other inevitable burdens of a government-run enterprise?
Does anyone believe that whatever passes for healthcare will cost only $900 billion over ten years?
Does anyone believe that "most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse" ?

Ok, how about "there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize" ??
If anyone actually enforces a provision that requires Washington to enact spending cuts equaling the healthcare savings that don't materialize, I'll give you 30 minutes to draw a crowd and then kiss your rear end on the courthouse steps. Unless, of course, they just print new money to pay for everything.

You see, we've already been promised that all new legislation will be posted on the internet for 5 days for citizen review prior to votes. We've been promised the most transparent administration ever. We were promised that Joe Biden (Nobody Messes With Joe !!) would ensure that there would be no misappropriated stimulus. (Yes, I'm aware that the phrase "misappropriated stimulus" is redundant.)

But that was then, this is now. Back to the healthcare speech.... Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don't like this idea. They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won't be. I've insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.

Does anyone out there believe that a government program will be self-sufficient?

(Update from 9-14-09, 7:30 a.m. You can go to The Wall Street Journal for a list of other ummm.... misrepresentations..... in the President's speech.)

Back before the November election, I noticed that Hillary was wildly spouting anything she felt the crowd would like. I thought she was lying when she produced her whoppers about running across runways because of Bosnian sniper fire. She wasn't lying. I don't know what she was doing, but it wasn't lying.

We need a new name for what she did (along with Obama and Bush and Clinton and Bush and Reagan, etc.) when producing inaccurate words for political consumption.

Why do they do it? Well, how many falsehoods would you be willing to lay out on the table for a chance to control half the economy?
Our politicians simply have to lie. They have so many conflicting constituencies, so many opportunities to dip their hands into the till for their supporters, so many ridiculous notions to affirm, that they need to be held to a lower standard than say, car salesmen.

This is why we need smaller government. It's a ridiculous situation when these people's words actually matter.

Here's some Johnny Lang:

The 9-12 Project Parade And Rally, Downtown Fort Worth, September 12, 2009

I participated in the 9-12 Parade, Rally, Protest, and all-around Procession Of The Pissed in downtown Fort Worth today. Much has been written and argued about whether Libertarians have any business aligning themselves with this movement. Go here and read the comments for an overview.
John Spivey, Chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party, put in long hours building a parade float for this event. It was to supposed be an Alamo, made of wood and plaster that would frame the float trailer.
And then the rain began.
The plaster for our Alamo is pink when you apply it to a surface. Once it dries, it takes on a very Alamo-ish tan stucco look.
But if it gets wet again, it turns pink.
The Libertarian Party has enough trouble explaining its positions without showing up at a 9-12 Right Wing parade in the middle of Texas with a pink Alamo. So Spivey made an executive decision to nix the float.
We improvised with a few banners on an SUV.

Considering the weather, the turnout was huge. I'd put it between 8-10,000 people. By the time those of us at the back end of the procession started walking, the leaders had already marched through downtown Fort Worth and were crowding the bandstand. I didn't stick around for the speeches, mostly because my feet were wet and the rest of me was damp. Went back to our booth and helped evangelize Glenn Beck's followers for a while.

Here's the crowd gathering around the Fort Worth Convention Center.

This is me with Michael Badnarik, who was the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in 2004. Mr. Badnarik was probably relieved that he didn't have to ride inside a pink Alamo.

Here's John Spivey with Mr. Badnarik.

One of the all-time great Thomas Jefferson quotes.

Starting them young....

One of my favorite parodies:

Unfortunately, this is not a parody. This was the rationale for spending 3/4 of a trillion dollars.

People are starting to catch on to the dangers of printing more and more money to cover government waste:

....so people like this just MIGHT have some money left for themselves.

Here's another one:

If you look closely, this is a "Don't Tread On Me" Tattoo. And yes, I did ask permission before getting a picture.

A John Adams quote:

One of the things that was most refreshing to me about this event.... I only saw one Republican T-shirt. There were a few people milling around with campaign signs for Debra Medina, who is supposedly so rational that Ron Paul likes her. Our booth was near a Rick Perry cubicle that people were ignoring. For the most part, the message of the rally was Leave Me Alone !

See below.

There were a lot of "In God We Trust" signs, but that, along with the ultra-patriotism were the only elements distinguishing this from a libertarian/small government event.

Here's my favorite sign of the day:
The Libertarian Party will also be marching/riding at the Alan Ross Freedom Parade, September 20, in Dallas. This is the annual Gay and Lesbian Rights march. We're bringing our Alamo.

If our Alamo float is dry by the time the Gay Rights parade begins, we're going to spray water on it until it's pink. Look for us.

Stephen Smith on The Public Option

Go to Stephen Smith's "A Beginner's Guide To Freedom", for the best thing ever written on The Public Option.

Obama's Healthcare Speech, Liveblogged

Before I start liveblogging this speech, let me get some basic assumptions out of the way.

Cash For Clunkers was supposed to last for three months, but ran out of money in five days. Auto dealers began pulling out of the program rather than go through the hassles of dealing with the government red tape and website crashes.

The Porkulus Bill ($750,000,000,000.00) had to be rushed through Congress in two days. No one had time to read it, because of the fierce moral urgency of NOW. Obama moseyed back from vacation and signed it after it sat on his desk for a couple of days. The stated goal was to immediately pump money into the economy, but so far they've only been able to spend 15% of it. They're saying that some of it won't be kicked back into the hands of campaign donors spent on infrastructure projects until after 2010.

This administration can't even screen their employees properly to be sure they aren't tax cheats. (FYI, I believe that if our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ were on this earth in the year 2009, he would be doing everything possible to keep The Disciples' traveling money safe from Caesar. Just an opinion.) Click here for details.

Now they want to more or less take over a substantial part of the economy, and they promise they're going to get it just right.

Here are my preconceived ideas about insurance. Say a group of 100 homeowners are afraid that their houses are going to burn down. They go to an insurance company, and they say "We're afraid our houses are going to burn down."

The insurance company looks at the charts and graphs, and sees that in the next ten years, only one house out of one hundred houses is likely to burn.

So the company says "If each of you will give me 1/2 % of the value of your home every year, then we'll replace your house if it burns down."

That way, the insurance company can replace a house every two years without going bankrupt. If they get lucky, they won't have to replace any.

Here's the kicker....How much should an insurance charge to include someone whose house has already burned? That is, as soon as the former homeowner write a check for one premium, the insurance company has to build him a new house.

How much would the insurance premium be if you were running the insurance company? Unless you're a total idjit, it would have to be for the cost of a new house.

That's the problem with pre-existing conditions. Insurance is not meant to cover disasters that have already happened. Insurance is to guard against future diasters.

How would you respond if your homeowners insurance premiums doubled because your insurance company started paying for houses that burned before the homeowners bought insurance?

That's what I thought.

You can walk into John Petersmith hospital in Fort Worth, and if you need Free medical care, you can get it there. Granted, the taxpayers are footing the bill, but that's cheaper than letting The Chicago Gang get their tentacles further into the system.

Ok, that's all the disclaimers and full disclosures of prejudices I can think of. Here's The Teleprompter Jesus. Those who want to can hit this link and play Obama Clutch-Phrase Bingo.

BTW, the goal of live-blogging these things is to have them posted the minute the speech is over, just to prove you can think and type that quickly. (Thank you Coalla King, of North Sunflower Academy.) In geek circles, you get extra points for being able to do this.

Michelle O just entered the building. She is surrounded by Kennedys of various sizes, whose late patriarch is sure to be name-checked. I think Michelle is intentionally wearing Jackie O pink.

She Whose Name Is Not Spoken just enetered the building. She tried and failed to do the healthcare reform thing about 15 years ago. She's wearing reddish orange, and can be seen from The Washington Monument.

Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, and David Gregory are speculating about which Republicans could possibly be picked off from the herd and persuaded to betray their country. My guess? All of them, if the money and other goodies are adequate.

They just showed Rahm Emmanuel. One of my goals for this blog is to provoke him into mailing me a dead fish. If you don't know that Emmanuel story, Google it. I don't have time to explain.

Chuck Todd is explaining that there are 5, count 'em, 5 versions of this healthcare bill floating around. That way, no matter what objections you raise to Obama's plan, he can say "that's not in my bill." Brilliant.

Obama just entered the building. I'll say this for him, he knows how to wear a suit. He's shaking hands with Biden and Pelosi. I wonder if "Greater Tuna" Pelosi is going to do her Jack-In-The-Box routine all the way through this speech.

He starts the speech. He's reminding us that the last time he addressed both houses of Congress, we were on the edge. Well, we're still on the edge, but we're another 750 billion dollars in debt. Good work, all of you. We've pulled it back from the brink. If there was a brink.

We didn't come here just to clean up crises. We came here to take your money and give it to our friends. I'm not the first President to take up this cause, but I'm determined to be the last. It's been a century since Teddy Roosevelt called for Healthcare reform. (They still haven't gone free-market and reformed it. I have no idea why not.)

He's listing the reasons why some people can't get insurance. See my prejudices listed above. He's throwing out a bunch of stats that I can't wait for Factcheck.org to get ahold of. He's making some good points about how people are hesitant to change jobs because of insurance. Ditto for people being dropped if they get sick. (The solution is to sue the insurance companies until they have a radioactive glow.)

Now he's talking about the high cost. Hit that little link for "Free Market" a couple of paragraphs back.

We're putting a huge cost on taxpayers. We've got to cut costs. Therefore, we're going to have more government involvement in the process. He really is saying this. I'm hearing it with my own ears.

We KNOW we must reform this system.

Okay, here come the Straw Men. There are those on the left who say.... There are those on the right who say.... If you picked point #2 on Clutch-Phrase bingo, you just got points.

Obama says keep what works, rather than start from scratch.

Obama just thanked Congress for "working tirelessly", and NBC cut to a close-up of Charlie Rangel, the most corrupt, tax-evading bastard that God put guts in. Hilarious.

Now he's going to attack the scare tactics. Now is the time to deliver.

3 basic goals: More security and stability for those who have insurance, provide insurance for those who don't, and reduce costs for everybody involved. It's a freakin' Christmas tree, with something for everyone. No one ever has to pay the piper.

If you already have insurance, medicare, medicaid, etc, you don't have to change doctors or anything else. See Bingo point #5.

Now, here's where he goes totally off the rails. UNDER THIS PLAN, IT WILL BE ILLEGAL FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES TO DENY YOU COVERAGE BECAUSE OF A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION. In other words, if your house has burned down, you can still get fire insurance, and the insurance company will have to build you a new house. Don't pay premiums until you get sick. They can't deny you coverage ! ! ! I'm dropping my health insurance tomorrow ! ! !

Who the hell is going to pay for this? Does this goober think the rates are going to stay the same for the people who are dumb enough to pay for coverage if this nonsense passes?

They're going to compete for your business. there will be tax credits, etc etc etc. I'm so horrified, I can't even think straight any more.

John "reach across the aisle" McCain just got a standing-O for getting name-dropped.

Obama: if there are affordable options, and people still don't sign up for health insurance, if some workers don't provide healthcare, it hurts us. Unless everyone does their part, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance. Businesses will be required to provide insurance. But small businesses will be exempt. But you CAN'T game the system.

It only works if everybody does their part. And while there remain some significant details to be ironed out.....

(This wasn't intended as a laugh line, but everyone is laughing their asses off. Hilarious.)

Here are some of the key controversies out there, spread by bad, bad, people. Death panels for senior citizens. It's a lie, plain and simple. Every aging Democrat in the room rises to applaud.

No coverage for illegal aliens, no funding for abortions.

Now he gets to "the public option". He says consumers do better when there is "choice" and "competition". I shoulda put this at the beginning of this post. You can't compete with an organization that can print its own money. Totally false use of the word on Obama's part. The post office, Amtrak, etc etc etc woulda gone under years ago if it weren't for government subsidies. And that's what yer gonna see with Obamacare.

I need more Bud Light. Please excuse me for a moment. Whoaaaa there, he said "Let me be clear" ! ! ! That's Clutchphrase Bingo #21, for those of you playing at home.

The public option would only be for those who don't have insurance. He thinks less than 5% of Americans would sign up. And the public option would have to pay for itself with money printed on the spot. Somehow. I know it blows your mind to think the money would just appear, but it will happen.

He just said the word "Progressive", in reference to The Left. I really dislike that use of the word "Progressive". He's refering to ideas that should have died out during Feudalism. We've made a lot of "Progress" since then.

I missed some stuff there while I was ranting about Progressive. Sorry about that. He's gonna make sure no government bureaucrat or insurance exec gets between you and the care you need. He's gonna tell us how we'll pay for all this.

I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future. Period. There will be a provision in the plan that requires more spending cuts if the savings don't materialize.

This man is full of more crap than the latrines at Fort Pemberton.

Most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings in the existing healthcare system.

You know, that might be possible. Let people go to nurses and other practitioners for care. Get the damn lawyers out of it. Go here for details. It'll never happen. Now he's talking about how much waste and care there are in Medicare and Medicaid. They're going to eliminate that waste. Woulda done it sooner, but they wanted to save the waste so it could be eliminated now. During this crisis. I think that's what he said. I'm on beer #5. This is hurting more than I thought it would.

He's going to protect medicare from becoming a private voucher system.

Some places in Utah and someplace else offer costs that are lower than average. Everyone is suddenly going to be like them.

Here's something that bugs me.... Did you know that HALF of all insurance companies offer care that costs less than average? And HALF of them cost more than average? No shit. They really do. Think about it. So don't look at the less than average cost ones like they're special. Half of anything is less than average, half is more than average.

Here's a bone thrown to the Republicans.... He's going to do something about medical malpractice law. We're gonna move forward on letting doctors focus on practice medicine. He's throwing a bone to Bush, saying that they, too, had this idea. Add it all up, and the plan he's proposing will cost 900 billion over ten years. Compare it to the Iraq War, or the tax cuts for the rich. And if you picked # 14 in Clutch-phrase bingo, you just got some points.

My door is always open.

I really hate that phrase. Nobody's door is always open. Not if you're important. Sometimes you're in meetings. Sometimes you're working on something more important that what Joe Blow is worried about.

Now here's some Macho Posturing on the part of our Commander-In-Chief.....

"If you mis-represent what's in this plan, we will call YOU out."

Easy to say, when there IS NOT FREAKIN' PLAN ! ! !

Ok, here's the sentimental Ted Kennedy moment. The Floater is speaking to us from beyond the grave.

Ted Kennedy hoped that this will be the year that healthcare finally passed. It concerns more than material things.....It's a moral issue. Social justice. The character of our country.

Ted Kennedy gave less than 1% of his money to charities. He went to great lengths to shield his fortune from the tax collector. What a freakin' farce.

Those of us who knew Teddy know what drove Teddy. And now I'm going to name-drop three prominent Republicans. Teddy had two children stricken with cancer (close up of Kennedy kids).

That large-heartedness, that willingness to spend other people's money on the things YOU think are important, that's what makes us Americans.

In 1935, there were those who argued that..... (See Clutch Phrase #2)

Too much govt is matched by the perils of too little. Not necessarily true, is it?

He's doing a great closing here. It's emotional B.S., but very well-written. Going faster than I can type. Oh, BTW, most of this won't kick in until after the next Presidential election. Did you know that? And that Congress and most federal employees will be exempt? If you remember those things when listening to this rhetoric, you hear it in a whole new light.

I'm just sayin'.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Obama Clutch-Phrase Bingo

Here's something handy for anyone wanting to play "Obama Clutch-Phrase Bingo" during the healthcare speech tonight. It's from my Facebook friend Rick Moore:

1. "The time to act is now."
2. "Critics of this plan would have us do nothing."
3. "For too long, we have spent too much money to get too little care."
4. "The current path is unsustainable. Nothing less than a complete overhaul will give Americans the care they deserve."
5. "Under my plan, nothing will change for you and your doctor."
6. "This plan will cover more people, and give better care for everyone."
7. "This plan will spend less money."
8. "This debate has been far too divisive, with proponents losing heart, and opponents losing fingers."

Go to HolyCoast.com to read Rick's complete list.
And let me give some advice to the kids reading this....Do NOT try to turn this list into a drinking game. Alcohol poisoning is a very real possibility.

Letters written from school to various presidents, a 40-year collection, with apologies to Brenda Kay Sullivan

Someone programmed The Teleprompter Jesus to address the nation's schoolchildren today.
The Department Of Education has sent out some sample lesson plans centered around the speech. The plans include these gems:

*What do you think the president wants us to do?
*Does the speech make you want to do anything?
*Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
*What would you like to tell the president?

The unfortunate business about How You Can Help The President With His Plans has already been purged from the Department Of Education website, and for good reason.

"What would you like to tell the president?"

Do they really want to ask 10th graders that question???? I don't know about you, but after listening to 30 minutes of earnest BigBrotherisms from Obama, followed by another half hour of earnest, wholesome NewSpeak from the teacher, I'd be tempted to contribute to the United States' record drop-out rate.

But when I got back from work tonight, I remembered something. Other teachers of mine have encouraged letters to the president. And since I'm a compulsive pack rat, I was able to dig into my scrapbook for copies of those letters.

Here's one that Mrs. Norwood, my first grade teacher at A.W. James Elementary School in Drew, Mississippi, encouraged me to write way back in 1967:

DEAR PRESDnT JONSON,

WE HERD YOU ON TV LAST NIGHt.
THEN WE SAW FUNNY LOKING PEEPL CALLeD hiPPIES SAyING "HAY HAY LBJ, HOW MaNY KIDS DID YOU KILL tODAY?"
PLEASE DON'T KiLL ME. YOU CAn HAVE bOTH of MY SISTeRS.

WHITED SEPLKER,
DREW, MISISSISSISSIPI

Even then I had a natural fear of government. Several years went by before another teacher thought we needed to write letters to the president. In 1971, Mrs. Cash, my math teacher at North Sunflower Academy, made us watch a 16mm movie of President Nixon in class. Here's what followed:

Dear Mr. President Nixon,
We watched a movie of you in math today. You said nobody could raise prices or get pay raises any more. You said we have to stop Inflation.
Wouldn't it be better to stop printing any more money?
I'm in the 4th grade. A girl named Brenda Kay Sullivan that I like is in 3rd grade, but she doesnt like me.
Please try not making new money for a while. If that idea works, can you invite me to The White House for a party? And can I invite Brenda Kay Sullivan? She might like me then.
Sincerely,
The Whited Sepulchre,
Merigold, Mississippi

I had forgotten about that one. I don't think our phone ever rang with calls from Washington.

Here's another one from when I was about 15. Inflation was running rampant, and Gerald Ford tried to fight it by encouraging everyone to wear a W.I.N. button. (It stood for "Whip Inflation Now". With God As My Witness, that's how Gerald Ford tried to stop inflation. Giving people buttons.) Coach Johnny Nichols, our history teacher, told us to watch the news one night and then write a letter of encouragement to President Ford. This was the best I could do because my mind was elsewhere:

Mr. President,
Prices are going up on everything. My father says it's because when you suddenly dump a lot more of a valuable thing into a place, the amount its worth goes down. That's what you're doing with money. But if the valuable thing suddenly becomes more scarce, the value of it goes up even higher. Maybe you should start burning money instead of printing it.

Let me put it this way. I want Brenda Kay Sullivan to be my girlfriend and she isn't interested in me. But if I was the only boy in our school, she probably would be interested, because I would be rare. I'd be the only one.

Mary Lynn Godfrey said she wouldn't go out with me if I was the last boy on earth, but I bet she would if all the other guys were dead. Or gay.
That's why I don't think your W.I.N. buttons are going to work.

Just stop printing so much money.
Sincerely,
The Whited Sepulchre
Merigold, Mississippi

P.S., the only reason I'm writing this is for the grade.

A few years later, the great Ruby Sue Issa, History-Social Studies teacher extraordinaire, showed us one of the first videotapes we'd ever seen. It was one of President Carter's fireside chats. Mrs. Issa insisted that we write a letter to Mr. Carter about the video.

President Carter,

What do you mean, we're suffering from "Malaise" ????
I'm 18 and I have my whole life ahead of me, my father is paying me minimum wage for 40 hour weeks on the farm, and I've got a girlfriend ! ! I've got a car ! !
Malaise? Malaise?
Speak for yourself, Mr. Peanut.
Also, my girlfriend, Brenda Kay Sullivan, thinks you look like a nerd giving speeches in those cardigan sweaters. You have the same job that George Washington held. Please put on a suit.
Sincerely,
The Whited Sepulchre
Merigold, Mississippi

P.S. - I read that interview you did, the one where you confessed that you sometimes have lust in your heart? The interview wasn't very interesting, but the pictures in that magazine were GREAT !

After that, I was out of high school and didn't have to write any more letters for grades. That doesn't mean the letters stopped, though. Here's a masterpiece of honesty from the early 80's. I have no idea why I have a copy. Maybe the Tri-Delts didn't mail mine with everyone else's:

Dear President Reagan,

My girlfriend at Delta State University is a Tri-Delt, and politically they're all somewhere off to the right of Barry Goldwater. A lot of them have bumperstickers that say "voTe", and the "T" looks like a Christian cross. As if Jesus taught that we should always try to get government involved.
The Tri-Delts are insisting that their pledges and their boyfriends write you a get-well-soon card. Brenda Kay Sullivan, my girlfriend, is hell-bent on being a Tri-Delt, and she's insisted that I write this.

Well, I'm sorry you got shot, and I hope you get well soon. Otherwise, George Bush will be president, and I can't imagine that working out well.
Sincerely,
The Whited Sepulchre
Cleveland, MS

I was out of school soon after that. No more letters. But guess what we found while cleaning out The Aggie's room after she went back to college a couple of weeks ago? Yep, a letter to the President, written in 1999:

Dear President Clinton,

Mr. Graham is my teacher at St. Paul Lutheran and he says we need to ask you a question in a letter. Here is my question. Whenever you are on TV my Dad starts saying WAS SHE WORTH IT, BILL? WAS SHE WORTH IT, BILL??
What is my Dad talking about? He won't tell me.
Sincerely,
The Future Aggie

P.S. When I grow up, I want to go to Texas A&M for college because that's where Michael is going. My Dad says a boyfriend is not a good enough reason to go there. I think he had a girlfriend in school that didn't work out. He says it's something called Buyer's Remorse.
Do people ever feel that way after they vote for a President?

*******************************************

Thanks to Stephen Smith at "A Beginner's Guide To Freedom" for the picture of the W.I.N. button. Stephen is the only person I've ever met who remembers WIN buttons
And to mis-quote Jimmy Durante, "Good Night, Brenda Kay Sullivan, wherever you are...."

A hypothetical question about "The Open Sewer Of Misinformation"

I try to Tivo most of the Sunday a.m. political talk shows.
This doesn't help my blood pressure.
One particular exchange, supposedly about throwing Greenery Czar Van Jones overboard, had me throwing stuff at the TV with more force than usual. I was almost relieved when I discovered that most of the Blogosphere was already posting about it.
I LOVE me some YouTube....



Tom Brokaw and Thomas (No More Huge Houses - Except Mine) Friedman are shown here lamenting that the internet is an open sewer of misinformation. They mourn because nothing is vetted any more. They tear their garments and smear black ashes on their foreheads because no one can reign in the internet.
They did just about everything but discuss why the MSM ignored the unfolding Van Jones debacle until the White House told Jones to volunteer to depart.
Have they ever, ever, ever considered that the Mainstream Media might owe some of its decline to the perception that they are in the tank for Big Gubmint?

Here are some other links on this sad decline, courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

Now, that (the video) is good comedy!
What makes it even more hysterical is that they all take themselves so seriously.
Too much.

The New York Times will publish their first print report on the Van Jones scandal tomorrow morning... more than 36 hours after (Jones) left the White House.
They refused to report on the story until the Mumia Abu Jamal-supporting Truther was long, long gone.
Good work, guys.

Related... Mark Hemingway has more thoughts at The Corner:

While Glenn Beck and others in the conservative commentariat had been shining a light on Jones' radical past for a while, the revelations that finally sunk Jones were broken by Gateway Pundit and other bloggers. Not that long ago, the idea that a guy Googling in the basement would be capable of bringing down a White House staffer would have been a story in and of itself. I suppose some might think this sort of thing is old hat five years after Rathergate, but I also suspect that this aspect of the story will be largely ignored because it makes the MSM look very, very bad.

Actually, I was Googling upstairs at the time.

More... Jonah Goldberg added this on today's "Meet the Press" discussion, via HotAir:

One of Friedman's key take-aways from this whole affair is that too many people will self-censor themselves so they can get government jobs. What a tragedy that fewer people will support cop-killers and anti-American conspiracy groups because of poor Van Jones chilling effect on the culture.

Still More... Kausfiles points to this from Noah Silverman:

Readers of the print edition of The New York Times will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?

Some of you are reading this, and asking yourselves "Who is Van Jones, and why does he matter?"
Well, ask yourself another question. Are you going to find out by going to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or The New York Times?
Or are you going to dive into the "open sewer of misinformation" and do a Google search?

Harming In The Name Of Helping, from Jeff Daiell

From Jeff Daiell, a fellow Libertarian. I really can't think of anything to add to this:

This day, Labor Day, is the perfect day to reflect on how harshly Government deals with the working class and the poor.

Frederic Bastiat said, "The state is the great fiction by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else". It is also the great reality by which the privileged and the powerful become more privileged and powerful at the expense of small businesses and Labor.

How much higher would the standard of living of working men and women be were their tax burden not so high? Income tax, sales tax, property tax, both paid directly to Government and in the form of higher prices on goods and services, all reduce that standard.

How much higher would the real incomes of men and women in the workforce be were there no laws and regulations reducing (in some cases, eliminating) competition among businesses, when such reduced competition means fewer jobs and thus lower wages?

How much farther up the income ladder could the children of working individuals rise were education a matter for the private sector, given that government schools favor the children of the already-affluent?

How much healthier would members of the working class be if government did not restrict entry into the healing professions, making health care and health insurance unaffordable to so many?

How much safer would working-class neighborhoods be if authorities did not legislate what substances we may or may not ingest, given that such legislation benefits organized crime and reduces the ability of law enforcement to combat murder, rape, burglary, and child molestation?

There are so many more examples, but the point is: Government works on behalf of the wealthy and works against the rest of us -- small businesses, the middle class, Labor, and the poor.

So next year, vote to protect working men and women, by voting to eliminate the statutes and regulations that harm them; vote to benefit the employed by moving politicians and bureaucrats into the ranks of the un-employed.

For Texas and Liberty,

Jeff Daiell

Go here to read Mr. Daiell's blog.

The Weekly Radley - Another warm and fuzzy drug war moment

From the incomparable Radley Balko comes this video of one of the drug war's latest casualties:



For the love of God, why can't they let the poor guy fire one up? Do the pharmaceutical companies not make any money on weed? Do we need to give them some patents?
Or is The War On Drugs as profitable for certain government entities as The War On Terror is for others?
I remember hearing about a huge banner at Fort Worth's General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin military aircraft plant. It was put up soon after the Cold War "ended", and it said "PEACE SUCKS". I dunno if it really existed, but the story reflects the job losses that Fort Worth went through as a result of not having Commies to bomb.
Overall, though, the short-lived peace was very good for us.

Can you imagine the job losses in law enforcement if marijuana was suddenly legal?
Can you imagine the income loss to Drug Lords all over the world?
Can you imagine peace and quiet breaking out along the Texas-Mexico border?

When the U.S. got a wild hair and decided to prohibit alcohol, we experienced a crime wave no one had ever seen before. Bootleggers like Capone and (ahem) Kennedy grew filthy rich by meeting the demands of ordinary citizens. Little old ladies started making bathtub gin. Speakeasies abounded. Since the enterprise fell outside the law, organized crime swarmed in to fill the gap. It got ugly.
Fortunately, people could remember what it was like before Prohibition, and the insane experiment was abandoned after a decade or so.

There aren't many people around who remember marijuana being legal. But they would assure us there was very little drug-related violence associated with the weed.
Why?
Because there was no money in it.

My friend John Spivey has a good argument for those who worry about "what would happen to the kids" if marijuana use was de-criminalized, or legalized. Spivey and I can't remember a time when weed wasn't available for sale at our respective High Schools. We agree that the same situation exists in our kids' schools. The demand is there, the penalties for selling to minors are severe, but the profit is massive.

Legalize it. The demand will still be there, the penalties for selling to minors will still be severe, but the huge profit margin will go away.

Which system will most effectively keep marijuana away from the kids?

In spite of 20 more years of Global Cooling, I hope the dream of warming lives on ! ! !

From The Yid With Lid, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorites....

Scientist Predicts 10-20 Years of Global COOLING

OOPS, Better Buy a new winter coat. At the UN's World Climate Change Conference in Geneva one of the worlds top climate change scientists, predicted that we are facing 10-20 years of global cooling. The Scientist, named Mojib Latif said the cooling would be the result of changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Latif also said that the NAO may be partly the cause of warming during the past 30 years. Do they have SUV's in the North Atlantic Ocean? Do they have McMansions? No? Trucking Companies? Then what new activity can we find to be self-righteous about?

Latif says that he is not a global warming skeptic, and says that after the cooling, the world will start warming again:

World's climate could cool first, warm later
by Fred Pearce, Geneva

Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool. If that's the case, can we get some of our Clunkers back?

"People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference.

"I am not one of the sceptics," insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it." Sorry, Mojib. If you've placed a wager on "cooling", that makes you one of the sceptics. That simple gesture is all that's required to put you on the level of a Holocaust Denier.

Few climate scientists go as far as Latif, an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But more and more agree that the short-term prognosis for climate change is much less certain than once thought.

This is bad timing. You're dang right, it's bad timing. Can you imagine the money being lost by those who were banking on the Goracle's Green Startup companies? The UN's World Meteorological Organization called the conference in order to draft a global plan for providing "climate services" to the world: that is, to deliver climate predictions useful to everyone from farmers worried about the next rainy season to doctors trying to predict malaria epidemics and builders of dams, roads and other infrastructure who need to assess the risk of floods and droughts 30 years hence.

But some of the climate scientists gathered in Geneva to discuss how this might be done admitted that, on such timescales, natural variability is at least as important as the long-term climate changes from global warming. "In many ways we know more about what will happen in the 2050s than next year," said Vicky Pope from the UK Met Office. Exactly. They don't know jack about either one.

Cold Atlantic

Latif predicted that in the next few years a natural cooling trend would dominate over warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. "But how much? The jury is still out," he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a colder phase.

Scientists have proven that if you put a flame near a oil can it will explode, it has proven that if you drop a bowling ball of the top of the empire state building it will go down, not up. Scientists have not proven that man made carbon emissions will effect our climate.

Until they do, it is just plain nonsense to redesign our economy and cause continued hardships in anticipation of a man-made global warming trend 30 years from now. Any push done today is not about global warming, it is about global redistribution of income.

Well said, Mr. Yid.

Happy Labor Day ! ! !

End The Fed, by Congressman Ron Paul - Pure, Undiluted Greatness

I got an advance copy of a long-awaited book in the mail today. Here's one of the opening paragraphs.

"....After all is said and done, the Fed has one power that is unique to it alone: it enables the creation of money out of thin air....Given that money is one half of every commercial transaction and that whole civilizations literally rise and fall based on the quality of their money, we are talking about an awesome power, one that flies under cover of night. It is the power to weave illusions that appear real as long as they last. That is the very core of the Fed's power.
As President Obama said of the economic boom that went bust: "I think it's important to understand that some of that wealth was illusory in the first place."
Exactly.

Those are among the opening paragraphs of Ron Paul's new book "End The Fed". I'm about halfway through my advance copy (I LOVE my new status as a member of the fourth estate), and so far, the book is pure, undiluted greatness. Brilliant.


When I get through reading a good book, there are markings on about 10% of the pages. By the time I got a few pages into "End The Fed", I was losing the ability to distinguish between the good, the great, the superlative, and the immortal passages that should be tattooed on Ben Bernanke's nether regions.
There's no point in underlining and highlighting in a book when it inspires this kind of frantic vandalism:


Here are a few of Dr. Paul's comments on the Fed's practice of pumping money into the economy whenever it suits them:


"It is and should be a mainstream cause to end the power and secrecy of the Fed. It's my own view that ending the Fed would address the most vexing problems of politics of our time. It would bring and end to dollar depreciation. It would take away from the government the means to fund its endless wars. It would curb the government's attacks on the civil liberties of Americans, stop its vast debt accumulation that will be paid by future generations, and arrest its massive expansions of the welfare state that has turned us into a nation of dependents....Essentially you take away from the government the capacity to expand without limit. It is the first step to restoring constitutional government. Without the Fed, the federal government would have to live within its means. It would still be too big and too intrusive, just like all state governments are today, but the outrageous empire at home and abroad would have to come to and end."


This little snippet got 3 stars in the margin:


"Even the Fed itself claims that part of its job is to keep inflation in check. This is something like the tobacco industry claiming that it is trying to stop smoking or the automobile industry claiming that it is trying to control road congestion. The Fed is in the business of generating inflation.....the entire reason for the Fed's existence is to generate more (inflation), not less of it.
What the largest banks desire is precisely what we might expect any large corporation to desire: privatized profits and socialized losses. The profits come from successful loan activities, sometimes during economic booms. But when the boom turns to bust, the losses are absorbed by third parties and do not affect the bottom line. To cover losses requires a supply of money that stretches to meet bankers' demands.....
Whenever instability turns up, so do efforts to socialize the losses."

Paul goes on to explain the history of the Fed, and how its stated goal was to stabilize the money supply. But then,


"In practice the reality has been much different. One only needs to reflect on the dramatic decline in the value of the dollar that has taken place since the Fed was established in 1913. The goods and services you could buy for $1.00 in 1913 now cost nearly $21.00. Another way to look at this is from the perspective of the purchasing power of the dollar itself. It has fallen to less than $.05 of its 1913 value. We might say that the government and its banking cartel have together stolen $.95 of every dollar as they have pursued a relentlessly inflationary policy."


Dr. Paul gives us a chapter on his intellectual influences, and gives some credit to his grandmother, who knew her Bible well. Shortly after the end of WW2, prices were rising because of inflationary war financing, causing Grandmother Paul to remember Genesis 47:15, a passage describing Joseph has become Pharaoh's Bread Czar:

"So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, 'Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed.' "
Our current problem was well established, even in ancient Egypt. Debased currencies fail. Governments cannot manage money.

That's my new favorite Bible verse. Genesis 47:15.
Dr. Paul also discusses FDR's ham-handed attempts to eliminate competitors of Fed Funny Money:

"Roosevelt, by executive order (6102) in 1933, confiscated all gold held by private citizens, with a few minor exceptions such as numismatic (collector) coins, and levied severe penalties on those who disobeyed. The penalty (for owning gold) was $10,000 and/or ten years in prison. In today's money, that's more like $400,000. It was a rather bold, arrogant move from which much harm has come."

And then he writes:

Before gold became legal in 1975, many gold bugs were buying it. I purchased my first gold shortly after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods Agreement. The law was circumvented by buying numismatic coins (any coin dated 1947 or older was considered a numismatic coin). Mexico accommodated American citizens by minting the beautiful Mexican 50 peso, weighing 1.2 ounces, and placing the date 1947 on it.

I love it. I've read through chapter 3, but will probably finish the book tonight.
You must own this book.
Sometime soon, when we're assured of the official on-sale date, we're going to have the Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup at the Border's Books at Hulen and I-30 in Fort Worth. This book will be the topic for discussion.
Stay tuned.

Another nominee for The Whitey - Charles Rangel

Six or seven months ago, when The Teleprompter Jesus was trying to fill his cabinet, I created something called The Whitey Award. The Whitey is given for the best effort at eliminating government waste. Special consideration is given to nominees who accomplish this by not giving the government any of their money.

Previous nominees include Tom Daschle, Rahm Emmanuel, She Whose Name Is Not Spoken, Tim Geithner, Hilda Solis, and the two guys who wheeled a corpse into a convenience store in an effort to cash the dead guy's Social Security check. (Hey, if that dead man's money had gone back to the government, it would've been spent on Clunkers, stimulus programs, or bailouts, instead of drugs and alcohol.) You can go here to read the qualifications of each Whitey nominee.

Early on in the Obama administration, I thought I was going to have to retire the trophy. The playing field was almost like the Special Olympics: too many winners. Then we went about three months without a new scandal, and we seemed to have achieved tax-paying compliance from those we pay our taxes to.

Then comes Charlie Rangel. Rangel is chair of The House Ways And Means Committee, and controls more money than Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, or any other socialist I can think of. And he goes to great lengths not to share any of the pile that is his. Here's a blogger named Ripclawe, from someplace in the Caribbean, on Rangel's latest accomplishment:

Representative Charles B. Rangel failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income and assets on his financial disclosure forms for 2002 through 2006, including tens of thousands of dollars in rental income from a Harlem brownstone he sold in 2004, according to records filed this month with the clerk of the House of Representatives.


Mr. Rangel, who is facing investigations by two House subcommittees into his personal finances and fund-raising, filed amended financial disclosure forms on Aug. 12 acknowledging that he had omitted an array of assets, business transactions and sources of income. They include a Merrill Lynch Global account valued between $250,000 and $500,000; tens of thousands of dollars in municipal bonds; and $30,000 to $100,000 in rent from a multifamily brownstone building he owned on West 132nd Street.

So to Representative Charles B. Rangel, you have our respect and undying gratitude for doing your part to eliminate government waste. Your nomination has been recorded, and we wish you good luck beating the rap on this one.
If you ever get your hands on your own tax money, you'll probably just waste it.

The Top 10 Signs You Might Not Be A Libertarian, and The Top 10 Signs That You Just Might Be

Someone called Darksyde has written something for the Daily Kos called "The Top 10 Signs You Might Not Be A Libertarian". Parts of it are pretty funny, and Darksyde makes some good points about the libertarian ranks swelling because of the recent Republican debacles. All of my additions to Darksydes original post are in italics.

Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it's just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to George Bush's approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional conservative talking points. But what about the everyday gun toting townhall screamers and taxcutters and deficit hawks we see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just conservatives in glibertarian clothes? Here's a few warning signs.

10. If you think Ron Paul isn't conservative enough and Fox News is fair and balanced, you might not be a Libertarian. I think that Ron Paul generally acts on a different continuum than the Conservative/Liberal one. He's "small l" libertarian, as opposed to a Statist. And why does every Lefty that I encounter obsess over Fox News? Do they not own remote controls? I can't watch Fox or the Castro News Network without throwing shoes at the screen. A pox on both their houses.

9. If you believe you have an inalienable right to attend Presidential townhalls brandishing a loaded assault rifle, but that arresting participants inside for wearing a pink shirt is an important public safety precaution, there's a chance you're dangerously unbalanced, but no chance you're a Libertarian. I think that the people carrying assault rifles to Presidential townhalls are less dangerous to society than the featured speaker at Presidential townhalls. I also own two pink shirts.

8. If you think the government should stay the hell out of Medicare, well, you have way, way bigger problems than figuring out if you're really a Libertarian. By the time I qualify for any Medicare assistance, the program will be as broke as The Ten Commandments, and government will have decided to stay the hell out of Medicare. It's a moot point for me.

7. If you rank Anthonin Scalia and Roy Moore among the greatest Justices of all time, you may be bug fuck crazy, but you're probably not a Libertarian. I kinda like Anthony Scalia. I've already written my opinions of Roy Moore. He isn't bug fuck crazy, but is instead.... (I think this is the third time I've been obligated to use that link. Sorry, Mama.)

6. You might not be a Libertarian if you think recreational drug use, prostitution, and gambling should be illegal because that's what Jesus wants. Jesus supposedly turned water into wine (homegrown), he was criticized for hanging out with prostitutes, and he forgave the soldiers who were gambling for his clothes at the foot of the cross. 'Nuff said.

5. If you think the separation between church and state applies equally to all faiths except socially conservative Christian fundamentalism, you're probably not a Libertarian. Don't get me started. I'm even for separation of Americans and State.

4. You're probably not a Libertarian if you believe the federal government should remove safety standards and clinical barriers for prescription and OTC medications while banning all embryonic stem cell research, somatic nuclear transfer, RU 486, HPV and cervical cancer vaccination, work on human/non human DNA combos, or Plan B emergency contraception. I kinda hope the government continues to stay out of all those fields of research, because I'm confident that China is researching all of the above like crazy. If our legislators are in charge of the funding, they'll just screw it up.

3. If you think state execution of mentally retarded convicts is good policy but prosecuting Scott Roeder or disconnecting Terri Schiavo was an unforgivable sin, odds are you're not really a Libertarian. I can go one further than that....I think we should consult with his family, and then pull the plug on Democratic Senator (and former Community Organizer for the Ku Klux Klan) Robert Byrd.

2. If you argue that cash for clunkers or any form of government healthcare is unconstitutional, but forced prayer or teaching old testament creationism in public schools is fine, you're not even consistent, much less a Libertarian, and you may be Michele Bachmann. Public schools? Public schools? What government official in Washington, now that Jimmy Carter has been sent packing, would ever dream of sending their kids to the Public Schools? What point was Darksyde trying to make here?

And the number one sign: if you think government should stay the hell out of people's private business -- except when kidnapping citizens and rendering them to secret overseas torture prisons, snooping around the bedrooms of consenting adults, policing a woman's uterus, or conducting warrantless wire taps, you are no Libertarian.

Darksyde was doing ok until that last paragraph. He happened to step on a different set of toes there. I'm actually surprised that Daily Kos ran that part of his post. Because I think the Libertarians will soon be seeing some refugees and carpetbaggers from another political party, giving me the opportunity to write something like this. I'll go out of italics mode here.....

Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it's just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to Barack Obama's approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional Lefty talking points. But what about the everyday anti-war protesters and transparency lovers we used to see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just traditional Big State Fat Cats dressing down to go slumming with The Proles? Here are a few warning signs that you really might be a Libertarian.

10. If you thought you were electing the most transparent administration in history, but were sorely disappointed, you might now qualify as a Libertarian.

9. If you recently discovered that anti-government protests aren't reserved for "progressives", but for anyone who believes that government's programs hurt the poor and needy the most, well, you just might be a Libertarian.

8. If you recently looked at your Social Security contributions, and compared them to your 401K contributions, and the money you'll get from each, you'll soon become a Libertarian.

7. If you recently discovered that Ted Kennedy gave less than 1% of his money to charity, which is a lot more than Joe Biden has given to charity, but they both wanted you to give a higher and higher % of your money to them??? And you finally woke up and wondered what the hell is up with that??? You might really be a Libertarian.

6. You might be a Libertarian if you've ever wondered why Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Carrie Prejean (the now-infamous Miss California) all have the exact same position in opposition to Gay/Lesbian marriage.

5. If you've ever looked into why Nancy "Greater Tuna" Pelosi has exempted employees in a certain industry from minimum wage legislation, you've probably become a Libertarian by now. Besides that, she's batshit crazy.

4. If you still believe that the Department of Energy - created to reduce our dependence of foreign oil, the Department of Education - created to help teach something or other, or the Federal Reserve - created to help stabilize the value of the dollar, or this ignorant-assed website have been remotely effective, there's no hope for you and you're probably not a Libertarian.

3. If you became deeply and profoundly irritated when you realized that Extraordinary Rendition would continue during the Obama presidency, you may have become a Libertarian. Or maybe it was when you learned that warrantless wiretaps would continue. Or perhaps you looked at the Obama The Warmonger widget to your right, and got tired of me asking HOW'S THAT HOPE AND CHANGE THING WORKIN' OUT FOR YA ?????

2. If you decided it was somewhat hypocritical to claim as many tax deductions as possible while arguing for more goverment spending, you may have seen the light and become a Libertarian.

And the number one sign: if you think government should stay the hell out of people's private business -- except when kidnapping citizens and rendering them to secret overseas torture prisons, snooping around the bedrooms of consenting adults, or conducting warrantless wire taps, you are no Libertarian.

But some of us have elected a Democrat president and congress who, by commission or omission, continue to approve all of the above.

The Libertarian Party awaits.....

A note to the new Pay Czar

From Michelle Malkin, on the compensation level of Obama's "Pay Czar", the individual tasked with determining how much money someone can earn:

Kenneth Feinberg made $5.76 million last year as a partner in his Washington law firm, Feinberg Rozen LLP, according to a government ethics filing obtained by Reuters.
And his assets, which include a stake in his law firm, two homes and dozens of investments, are worth anywhere from $11 million to $37 million, according to the filing, which places assets in broad value categories.
His homes are a $1.66 million house in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, and a $1.96 million vacation home in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard.

Please allow me a brief digression about Martha's Vineyard....Who was Martha? Why is her Vineyard so popular with those of a certain political persuasion? Did Martha begin with a small summer camp for pious hypocrites, and it grew from there? Just wondering.

As long as I can remember, groups of Lefties have advocated topping organizational salaries at a multiple of someone else's earnings. I can remember people admiring the restraint of Ben & Jerry's founders (Ben & Jerry), who refused to take home more than, say, 10 times the salary of their lowest paid employee. I don't remember the exact number. This exercise in posturing didn't extend to Ben & Jerry's stock options, though, and after cloaking themselves with righteousness for a decade, they walked away with a lots more than 10 times the salary of the lowest 8 percent of the least compensated quartile of the blah blah blah blah blah. The whole thing makes me ill.

Anyway, the salary czar seems fixated on evil CEO's, Wall Street villains, people who burn orphanages, and the like. I think he should roll out something like this:

No lawyer can earn more than 12 times the amount earned by the paralegal who prosecuted Ted Kennedy's manslaughter case.

No actor, regardless of his political activism, can earn more than 17 times the director's salary of the Merigold Mississippi Community Theatre.

Take the cost of shipping one truckload of freight from Fort Worth, TX to a convention center in Chicago. Include Fuel, driver, use of tractor, use of trailer, road use taxes, and wear and tear on the vehicle for the 800 mile trip. From this number, subtract the cost of two union guys spending 20 minutes on forklifts unloading this freight at a Chicago convention center. Assume that this cost is lower than the freight cost. Sometimes it isn't. The leftover amount is the maximum monthly pay for any union leader.

No athlete can earn more than 7 times the annual salary of that guy from your high school who was a bust in the NFL draft, but who never learned how to do anything in school, and now spends his weekends watching his high school and college glory days on old videos.

No government official who leaves "Public Service" (ahem) to become a lobbyist can earn one cent more than the earnings of one of Fort Worth's Rosedale/Lancaster street whores. Equal work, equal pay.