Did Saint Peter get the memo?

Now it's official.

Despite opposition from various Popes, The Spanish Inquisition, and Ann Coulter....Howard Dean has become the Rosa Parks of The Afterlife.

Dean says Jews can go to heaven - Mike Allen - Politico.com

I cannot believe that in the year 2008, The Leader of The Free World will be chosen by taking part in discussions like this one.

Is Michael Dukakis going to say that Allah will now allow infidels into Paradise?

Is John Kerry going to do a careful study on The Norse Gods, and come out with an opinion on whether Huns could get into Valhalla?

Is Ron Paul going to chime in, and declare that Santa can now bring toys to bad little boys and girls?

The cartoon below has nothing to do with the article. I just thought it was funny.

"Progressive" Is The New "Reactionary"

Here's George Will on the Peruvian menace. He makes some of the same points made elsewhere in these pages, namely that: Opposition to liberalized trade has become liberal or, as is now said, "progressive."

Peru and Other Menaces Newsweek Voices - George F. Will Newsweek.com

It's a beautiful irony. "Classical Liberalism" in the original sense, was generally about smaller government, individual rights, freedom of contract, etc.

Are there any groups more likely to maintain the Big Government Status Quo than those who self-identify as "Progressives"?

The Farmers of Manhattan Need Your Money

EWG Farm Subsidy Database has an interactive version of the map above. It's a map of farm subsidies, with the largest red dots representing the homes of farmers receiving over $250,000.00 in government subsidies, the smallest represent farmers receiving less than $10,000.00 in government subsidies. And in case you don't have good eyesight, that's a map of Long Island.

What would happen to our nation, our economy, and our way of life if the farmers of Manhattan couldn't afford to cultivate Central Park? What would happen to our food prices if David Rockefeller (big red dot) could no longer afford to sell fresh vegetables from the back of his pickup? Would Broadway be Broadway without the familiar John Deere tractors making their way from 42nd street to Tavern on The Green? What if the residents of the West Side can't purchase products made from locally grown wheat?

There's a way of life at stake here !

As I understand it, the current farm bill has made it through the House and the Senate. Please call or write your Senator or Rep, and encourage them to overide any Bush veto of the farm subsidies bill. The farmers of Manhattan are the backbone of America. We've given them money in exchange for campaign contributions for so long, it wouldn't be fair to stop now.

For a more detailed explanation of The Manhattan Farming Crisis, check out the blog of The Advice Goddess.

Maybe The Sky Isn't Falling

ICECAP has a post by John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, sounding off on the topic of Global Warming.
It runs counter to the statements of Saint Albert The Goracle of Music City, and it's worth a look.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

Most readers of this blog will still be alive in twenty years. I hope to be alive in twenty years. If the Texas Coastline is just south of Waco by then, I'll stand corrected.

Artwork from a blogger called Remember The Midwest

Eminent Domain

It took me a while to find this again, but it's worth reading....

TTC News Archives: “Rick Perry is the landowners’ worst enemy in Texas. "

It's got more on the Eminent Domain ripoffs that I wrote about here.

Thank God for iPod

I've spent the last few weeks with my daughter and her music.

We recently spent one evening together in my wife's car, which has no CD player. My kid frantically scanned from station to station, trying to hear just three songs. I could be getting these three titles wrong, but I'm close: "I Lack Drankin' Tea on The Front Porch" by Kenny Chesney, "This Is My Fake British Accent" by Reliant K, and "I Love You Even if You're Fat" from the "Shampoo" soundtrack.

The radio was in perpetual scan unless one of those three songs was playing. Three seconds of music....click....three seconds of guitar intro.....click.....three seconds of some kid from Kentucky whining like The Sex Pistols on Estrogen....ahhh, that's Reliant K, singing with their Fake British Accents. We listened to that song until it ended.

Then....click....click.....click....click....click....

I endured this all night.

I grew up in a radio deprived area of Mississippi, where there were only two decent AM stations that could be pulled in from Memphis. If WHBQ was rolling commercials, you listened to WMPS and vice-versa. FM was a static wasteland.

My daughter, on the other hand, had a stupendous number of radio choices, but only those three songs were given their three minutes of glory each, then.....click.

A few days later we went someplace in my pickup, which has a CD player. My kid spends most of her waking hours downloading CD's. Most of them legal, but she also acquires more bootleg stuff than Junior Johnson.

Between her music and mine, we probably have more than 20,000 songs on disc at our house. She got in the truck with three CD's. I could be getting her CD titles wrong, but I'm close: "I Lack Drankin' Tea on The Front Porch, and Other Hits" by Kenny Chesney, "British Wannabees, Accent Envy and other Hits" by Reliant K, and the "Shampoo" soundtrack, featuring "I Love You, Even if You're Fat".

She put in the Kenny Chesney CD first. We heard the guitar intro to song #1, then....click....fiddle intro to song #2....click....Banjo intro to song #3.....click....Intro to "I Lack Drankin' Tea"....

Her hand instinctively reached for the click button, but she subconsciously realized that it's ok to listen to a complete song if it's one of The Holy Trinity.

We got to listen to an actual song for three minutes....then, piano intro to song #5....click....click....click...until we clicked to the end of the CD, started over, clicked through the first three filler songs and listened to "I Lack Drankin' Tea" again.

I complained until she ejected Kenny Chesney, put in Reliant K, then clicked through some filler songs on that CD until she found "This Is My Fake British Accent".

We listened joyfully for three minutes until the song ended.

Then, Electric guitar intro....click....drum solo intro....click....an imitation of a Liverpool Dockworker singing like Princess Di....click....

I almost pulled the truck over. "Why can't we listen to a whole CD, just one time?"
"This is the only song on here that I like."
"How do you know???? When you've never heard anything but the first four beats of any of them????"
"Just drive, Dad," she said....click....."Ok....Did you see 'Shampoo'?"

Tonight, we went to the mall in her SUV.

Her SUV has an iPod-compatible sound system that is the envy of the rest of the world. Her iPod will hold a jillion songs, videos, messages, ringtones, and birdcalls. There's room on that thing for the complete works, including their false starts and time spent tuning up, of every composer and songwriter who has ever lived.

When we got in the car and backed out of the driveway, I was looking forward to hearing the music she had chosen to put on her iPod, rather than what programmers had chosen to put on her radio stations, or record executives had chosen to put on her CD's.

It wasn't meant to be.

Click...click....click...."And yer biscuits never scorch, Yeah, I lack drankin' tea on the front porch...."

Saddam's Bathroom

Here are photos of Saddam Hussein's bathroom, courtesy of Robert Crump - U.S. Army.

Hey, the South American Trade deal passed (see post below this one), and we're in a slow news cycle.

I think I need another Presidential debate....

Or I need Ann Coulter to say something else goofy....

Ok, I just saw that Reverend Pat Robertson has endorsed Pro-Gay Rights/Pro-Abortion Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani. We're back in business ! ! ! God knows that I love being alive in the year 2007 ! ! !

Robert, thanks for the pictures ! !

Why The Rush On Trade?

Harold Meyerson, of The Washington Post, is wondering why Congress is in a rush to draft another trade bill. This Trade Agreement is going to be with Peru.

I can already detect everyone's eyeballs slowly fogging up with a glaze worthy of a 5 pound Bundt cake, just at the thought of reading something about a Peruvian Free-Trade bill. Read what he's got to say, and then try to get back with me....

Harold Meyerson - Why the Rush on Trade? - washingtonpost.com

Adam Smith wrote a book in the 1770's called "The Wealth of Nations". It became one of the founding documents in the history of Economics. Smith discovered that nations grow wealthy through trade, not through hanging onto their gold. We've known this almost everywhere for more than 200 years, except maybe at The Washington Post.

Let's assume that Harold Meyerson is running a Groblet factory, called "Meyerson Groblets, Inc".

All Groblets require three components: a Groblet frame, a Widget and a Sprocket. Mr. Meyerson can make the Groblet frames and the Widgets on his own, using material that can be found by digging around in the Meyerson yard. He also has employees who are great at all aspects of Widget manufacturing. Their parents and grandparents all made Widgets, which were always used on Meyerson Groblets.

Sprockets are different. Sprockets are made of a rare substance not found anywhere near the Meyerson back yard. Mr. Meyerson has always outsourced his Sprocket manufacturing to a factory in a neighboring city. This factory supplies Sprockets to almost every Groblet factory in the nation. They have the raw material for Sprockets in good supply, and the workers there just seem to have a way with Sprockets. We'll call this company "Sprocket USA".

But then a Peruvian company opens. They make great Sprockets. And they're cheaper. "Sprocket USA's" customers, including the Canadian, Mexican, and Haitian ones, all start buying their Sprockets from Peru.

Canada, Mexico, and Haiti have no Trade Barriers in place preventing them from purchasing Peruvian Sprockets.

So sales at "Sprocket USA" start to suffer. "Sprocket USA's" owner goes to Trent Lott and Nancy Pelosi, and bribes lobbies them to put protective tariffs in place against Peruvian Sprockets. Trent and Nancy not only do that, but they also put regulations in place stating that only a certain small percentage of our nation's Sprockets can come from Peru. That should take care of the problem, right?

For a moment, yes. Now all American Groblet factories, including Harold Meyerson's, have to buy Sprockets from "Sprocket USA".

But then American Groblet sales start to decline. The Canadian, Mexican, and Haitian Groblets are cheaper, since they don't come with artificially overpriced Sprockets.
After some investigation, Mr. Meyerson discovers that he too needs to bribe lobby Trent and Nancy, this time to keep out all foreign made Groblets.

Keeping out the Foreign Sprockets wasn't enough. It seems that his foreign competitors in the Groblet Industry can get their vital Sprockets cheaper from Peru, while he's stuck sourcing his from "Sprocket USA" at a much higher price.

Mr. Meyerson spends days and days trying to explain the difference between Groblets and Sprockets in Washington. Donations are made. Contributions change hands. Justice, Human Decency, Workers Rights, Apple Pie, and Motherhood are invoked. Trent and Nancy will do the same thing for all American Groblet companies that they did for Sprocket companies, right?

Unfortunately, Trent and Nancy don't need any more bribes lobbying. They've already gotten enough money from the Sprocket, Ethanol, and Sugar industries. The Fair Groblet Trade Bill languishes in a committee and then dies a quiet death.

Eventually, so does "Meyerson, Inc."

You can't protect one thing without hurting something else. It's called The Law of Unintended Consequences.

This is similar to what happened in the late 70's/early 80's, when the Steel Industry bribed lobbied Congress to keep out Foreign Steel, but Congress forgot to keep out products manufactured with Foreign Steel. Steel Manufacturing (where we did have a competitive advantage) took a nose dive, and we lost far more jobs in the steel manufacturing industry than we saved in the steel mill industry.

Here's an excerpt from the Meyerson's Washington Post article....

The Bush administration, of course, supports trade deals with just about anyone, as it has made clear by promoting an accord with Colombia, where murdering a union activist entitles the killer to a get-out-of-jail-free card.

A lot of the journalists writing on this subject like to bring up Bolivia, Columbia, and Peru, with their reputations for corruption and drug-trafficking. Yes, those countries have huge problems. But what's more likely to solve them? An open Free Market with the U.S., or isolating their people inside their borders with no market for legit products? And I realize that two wrongs don't make a right, but our American tobacco kills far more of them than their cocaine kills of us.
A truly just and loving God would use that one fact as a reason to keep our products out of every other nation in the world.

Back to the point. Trent and Nancy will never be able to legislate as perfectly as the market. They aren't fast enough, or accurate enough. The more they legislate, the more they're going to screw things up. And Lord Have Mercy, they could screw up a brass donkey.

Trent and Nancy, by even the most conservative estimates, cost us $400,000 for every job saved in the United States Sugar industry. The liberal estimate is that they cost you $826,000 per job saved in the Sugar industry. That's how much you're overpaying for sugar. Three jobs are lost in the candy factories for every job saved on the Sugar plantations.

Irony warning: The conservative estimates on this issue are usually made by liberals; the liberal estimates are usually made by conservatives.....

So what will these people do, those who used to work for Sprocket USA, or for Big Sugar, if Trent and Nancy don't keep out their competitors?

No one has any idea. Some retrain. Some retire. And unfortunately, some never make the change.

When the buggy whip factories shut down because of Henry Ford, those displaced workers didn't starve.

When Bill Gates almost single-handedly, selfishly destroyed tens of thousands of American jobs in the American typewriter industry, we somehow absorbed the losses. Far more of us have been helped than were harmed.

So, as Mr. Meyerson asked, "why the rush on a trade bill?" It's because the future won't be divided between the "haves" and the "have-nots". The next big split isn't between the rich and the poor.

It's between the fast and the slow. One million people a month are leaving poverty in China because of free trade and Globalization. We're better off because of it.

We just need Harold, Trent, and Nancy to get out of the way.

Senator Charles Grassley Asks Ministries To Turn Over Financial Records Within One Month

The Lord has blessed....

Senate Panel Probes 6 Top Televangelists, Sen. Charles Grassley Asks Ministries To Turn Over Financial Records Within One Month - CBS News

CBS News has learned Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct. Letters were sent Monday to the ministries demanding that financial statements and records be turned over to the committee by December 6th.

According to Grassley's office, the Iowa Republican is trying to determine whether or not these ministries are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles. The six ministries identified as being under investigation by the committee are led by: Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn.

Three of the six - Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar - also sit on the Board of Regents for the Oral Roberts University.

Good enough. For more on info on the unrelated scandal going down at Oral Roberts University, click here. Yes, I'm still irritated because Oral Roberts didn't heal my grandmother.
But can you imagine an Oral Roberts University Board of Regents meeting with that ghastly crew?
Has anyone ever had the nerve to call in sick?
Not with all those Alpha-Male Faith Healers taking your illness as an affront to their powers. Oral, Richard, Benny, Kenny, and Creflo would drop everything, fly to your bedside, lay hands all over you, and not cease praying till you were 100% healed.

Otherwise, people would talk.

Here's where it gets interesting, and not for the reasons you might think. There's a Dallas-based watchdog group that has been funneling information to the investigators for years:

The letters sent Monday were the culmination of a long investigation fueled in part by complaints from Ole Anthony, a crusader against religious fraud who operates the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, which describes itself as a watchdog monitoring religious media, fraud and abuse. "We've been working with them for two years," Anthony told CBS News. "We have furnished them with enough information to fill a small Volkswagen."

Ole Anthony is also publisher of a satirical religous magazine called "The Wittenburg Door". This magazine was hilarious 25 years ago, but has lost something in the interval.

Here's some more info about Ole Anthony, linked here from a Dallas Observer article of about a year ago. I happened to read it shortly after it was published, and maybe that's why I don't think "The Wittenburg Door" is very funny any longer:

....allegations that Trinity is a cult began as early as the late '70s and have surfaced numerous times since, often by members' families, sometimes by the media. In 1989, Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News wrote, "there are times when even to its members the foundation looks like a cult of personality."

More than a dozen former Trinity members interviewed by the Dallas Observer agree that Trinity bears many cult-like traits:
• Zealous commitment to a domineering leader not accountable to any authority.
• Discouragement or punishment of dissent and doubt.
• Use of mind-altering techniques such as denunciation sessions--the infamous hot seats.
• Dictation by leadership of how followers should act, sometimes in great detail.
• Breakdown of personal boundaries, such as denying members permission to marry.
• Encouraging a sense of elitism or special status for the group.
• Fostering an "us vs. them" mentality.

There's more. I think Ole Anthony is simply trying to tear down his more succesful role models:
ABC had accused (Robert) Tilton of manufacturing tears; people were noticing Anthony had the same skill. "I think Ole is a classic sociopath," Larry Ferguson says. "I don't think he knows what real emotions are."

But the biggest issue was the far-fetched stories. Anthony always had a new tale: In addition to being a spy, he'd been a helicopter pilot and crashed when he had a backpacking and survival company in Montana, and he was also in Vietnam setting up nuclear test stations and in Colombia trading coca leaves for intelligence and on and on.

The next question: Who is going to investigate the investigators?

Update from November 25, 2007.....You can click here for an update on The Oral Roberts University investigation.

Jack Croddy

You are paying the salaries of 11,500 Foreign Service Officers. Their positions are described in various places on the Net as "Dream Jobs".
But we're having a hard time finding enough Diplomats in the State Department to properly staff our Embassy in Iraq.

Click here for the full article.

One “Google” article on foreign service jobs with the State Department is titled “Dream Jobs.” It describes the income potential ($130,000 for senior diplomats) plus such perks as embassy housing, moving all belongings to and from their assignment, free air travel back to the U.S. during a two-year tour, observance of all U.S. and local holidays while overseas, and “hardship” incentives (extra pay) while serving in a country that creates some sort of privation. For example, diplomats serving in El Salvador received 5% extra pay and extra R&R because of the likelihood of earthquakes in that country. It should be noted that not all diplomats end up in Iraq or El Salvador. During a 20-year career or longer, many can expect assignments in such places as Paris, London, and Rome. Diplomats are also represented by a union, the American Foreign Service Association.

One of the reasons for the high pay is the element of risk. It's nothing like the risk a soldier faces, but there is a risk. Guess which job comes with the most money?

You've been paying a lot of money to someone named Jack Croddy who now wants no part of this risk....

At that contentious meeting of some 300 foreign service officers who oppose the “directed assignment” to Iraq, senior diplomat Jack Croddy said, “It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment. I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

(Addition from November 6th....Yesterday morning, Diane Rehm from NPR was trying to peddle this as "the first non-voluntary conscription of government personnel since the Viet Nam war", or words to that effect. She's mistaken.
When you join the Foreign Service corps, you have officially volunteered for any time, any place, and sign similar paperwork to that signed by volunteering military personnel. End of addition)

I don't agree with everything that's been going on in Iraq. Most people don't.

Most people aren't pulling down 130K a year for possibly assuming the risk of going there, either.

I have an employee in the military reserves, Robert Crump, who recently learned that he has to go back to Iraq in March. (His photographs from Iraq are scattered through this site.) Robert has two sons. He's worried. But he signed up for the job, and he's going. I haven't heard a single complaint from him, and probably won't. This guy is worth his weight in gold.

I need Robert here in March, because he contributes to the success of our operation. I bet he contributes succesfully to the Army also. I'm sure he'd prefer to be sipping espressos in Paris on the left bank of the Seine with Jack Croddy and the Foreign Service Corps, but Robert doesn't have that option. Does Jack Croddy contribute to anything, anywhere? Can someone tell me? Is the State Department going to have a hard time replacing him, if he resigns in protest? What has Jack Croddy done for you lately?

Here's the part that makes me ill:

The ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said all diplomats have a solemn responsibility to place the nation’s interest over their own, “and those that don’t are in the wrong business.” California congressman Duncan Hunter [R-Calif.] had an even blunter message: the balking diplomats should be fired and replaced by U.S. military troops who were discharged because of battle injuries, but who still want to serve their country. Hunter said there are plenty of U.S. soldiers and marines at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed Army Hospital who would love to embark on new careers. Hunter said he met briefly with President Bush and that the president indicated he might consider the idea.

Lordy, what a mess.

Will someone please forward this post to Jack Croddy? If Jack Croddy does the right thing and resigns, we'll be need someone in Robert's job, starting in March. Jack Croddy is welcome to apply. But tell him not to expect 130 grand a year.

And he'll have some big shoes to fill.

Invocation

"If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it.
If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil.
If you seek an adventure, may this story sing you away to blissful escape.
If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions.
All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not.
May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them.
May you find perfection, and know it by name."

From "Lamb", by Christopher Moore
Now re-released hardback edition, just in time for Christmas.

Feel the Love, by David Brooks

It's worth watching the debates, just to enjoy something like this.

Feel the Love - New York Times

Move over, Stephen Colbert....David Brooks is pure, undiluted greatness.

Declaration of Faith. A Precise One.

Declaration of Faith
Read every 100th line in the link above. The one that says "Declaration of Faith". Or just read every 500th line. Or if you're in a big hurry, just scroll up and down it a couple of times with your cursor. Marvel at the time that went into this man's amazing web page.

I like to think that I'm getting more open-minded as I get older, despite a tendency to go off on rants when typing.

But this guy isn't giving himself much wiggle room, is he?....If he learns that there's a mistake on that web page, does that make the whole structure crumble? And what about the incredible precision displayed in this Confession of Faith....I declare that the false teachers most threatening to pastors, students, and scholars today are those who call themselves evangelical but denigrate the biblical teaching about God, the Bible, and salvation. Chief among these are David Basinger, Gregory Boyd, Stanley Grenz, Bob Gundry, Robert K. Jewitt, Bill Leonard, Clark Pinnock, Jeff Pool, Richard Rice, John Sanders, and generally the faculties of Wake Forest and Mercer Universities (including Smyth & Helwys Publishing).

Good Lord, we're not just theologizing about good and evil here, we're making creedal statements about freakin' Publishing Companies !

(Disclaimer: This guy attacks a friend of mine on a different Rogue's Gallery-type page of his website. I'm not just picking on a random witch doctor)

So where do we need to stand on The Infield Fly Rule? Designated Hitters from the American League during The World Series? Pass Interference less than five yards from the line of scrimmage?

I declare that the Bible, while written from a pre-scientific perspective, is truthful in all its assertions that have a bearing on the sciences.

Those are some strong words. Someone could easily back him into a corner, and force him to start making silly qualifying statements.

I declare that the "days" of Genesis 1 are of indeterminate length according to normal biblical usage of the word, and that the Bible contains numerous evidences that the "days" of Genesis 1 were long periods of time.

There we go. I bet some wily geologist backed him into a corner and forced that one out of him....

I declare that all preaching should be expository preaching, which consists in proclaiming the meaning of a biblical text and communicating its specific applications to the lives of the congregation.

What about the old "make three good points and then tell a deathbed story" sermons that I grew up hearing? ? Have those been declared an abomination?

Good. They were getting predictable.

I declare that the use of elements other than bread and the fruit of the vine diminishes the symbolism of Christ's body and blood.

Ahhh. The fruit of the vine....the fruit of the vine....we can't just say JESUS DRANK WINE, can we? No. Jesus wouldn't dare drink wine....

I declare that the drink used in the original Lord's supper was common diluted wine, whose content was much more similar to grape juice than to any wine produced today

Now we're getting somewhere. The fruit of the vine means grape juice, not wine....hey, wait a minute....did they have refrigeration in 33 A.D. Jerusalem??? If not, I bet everything was fermented enough to knock you down....

This whole exercise has grown tiresome, but I could do it all night.

I declare that it's almost midnight, and I'm going to sleep.

What if She'd had an Appendectomy?

The Hillary Clinton Effect : Essence.com has an interview with Hillary Clinton.

This is the best part....
On the most romantic thing her husband has done for her: She hesitates for longer than is comfortable, then she says, “Oh he's so romantic. He's always bringing me back things from his trips. He brought me a giant wooden giraffe from Africa. Oh, he bought me this watch,” she said, holding out her left wrist to show off a Chanel watch, its bracelet made of white cubes shaped like elegant dentures, if you can picture it. “I had dental surgery, and he said it reminded him of teeth.”

Please, Not Another Farm Bill

Ok, there's another farm bill coming through....cover your wallets and lock up your daughters.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Please, Not Another Farm Bill

I'm a huge fan of Willie Nelson. Neil Young. John Mellencamp.

These guys supposedly met at the LiveAid concerts for Ethiopia, and decided that it would be good to do a similar fundraiser for American farmers. They eventually started the Farm Aid series of concerts. Here's an excerpt from the Farm Aid mission statement:

Taking Action to Change the System
Farm Aid works with and provides grants to local, regional and national organizations to promote fair farm policies and grassroots organizing campaigns. Farm Aid partners with family farm organizations fighting factory farming and industrial agriculture, while building opportunity for family farmers who produce our food, fiber, and energy. By strengthening the voices of family farmers themselves, Farm Aid stands up for the most resourceful, heroic Americans-the family farmers who work the land.

That's all good and fine. But I bet the phrase "Promote Fair Farm Policies" covers a lot of unfair territory. Some of the Farm Aid money goes to lobbyists. Those lobbyists agitate for things that wouldn't happen in a sane free market. Things like price supports. Trade barriers. Prohibitive Tariffs. Quotas. And all of the other terms for keeping the rest of the world's groceries out of here.

See the Real Clear Politics article above by Victor Davis Hanson above for yet another explanation of why our current price support system makes no sense, especially in relation to America's poor and the world's poor.

Willie, Neil, and Johnny Cougar do a good thing for some of America's small farmers, but not for America, when they put on the Farm Aid concerts. They help the mega Agribusinesses even more. As of today, if you put "Archer Daniels Midland" and "Willie Nelson" into a Google search, you'll get more than 2,300 hits. This number will increase, as ADM has to work harder and harder to keep out competing farm goods. Willie is promoting FarmAid and Biodiesel. His tour bus runs on Biodiesel.

Guess who makes biodiesel?

Guess what countries could make it a heck of a lot cheaper than us?

I know I'm starting to sound like a whackjob conspiracy theorist, but take a look at how much Public Television ADM is sponsoring. What could be more wholesome than Willie and Big Bird?

Ok, I forgot about Willie's weed problem. I can imagine Willie and Big Bird going backstage to roll up a fat one....

25 years ago, Willie and Neil went out of their way to help a lot of struggling people by appearing at LiveAid. Millions of people now wish that they had politely declined.

Photo from MSNBC

A Farewell to Alms

Gregory Clark's new book, "A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World", tackles the problem of why some nations are rich and others are poor.

In 1800, the gap between the richest nations and the poorest was 4-1, similar to the income gap between you and that person who makes, well, four times more than you.

The gap is now 50-1, which is similar to the income gap between you and a Hedge Fund Manager. (The rules of polite discourse require that I go at least 24 hours without mentioning the former Hedge Fund employee John Edwards known as The Carolina Ambulance Chaser.)

Despite the world's increasing prosperity, despite the millions moving out of poverty in Asia every year, the poor are becoming less poor at a slower rate than the wealthy become more wealthy. They're moving up, but why are we moving so much faster? And I have no qualms about lumping you into the "we" category. If you're someplace where you can read this on a computer, you're a wealthy "we".

This is from Robert Sameulson's review of Clark's book:

It's nature versus nurture. One of the big debates of our times involves the causes of economic growth. Why is North America richer than South America? Why is Africa poor and Europe wealthy? Is it possible to eliminate global poverty? The World Bank estimates that 2.5 billion people still live on $2 a day or less. On one side are economists who argue that societies can nurture economic growth by adopting sound policies. Not so, say other scholars such as Lawrence Harrison of Tufts University. Culture (aka "nature") predisposes some societies to rapid growth and others to poverty or meager growth.
Comes now Gregory Clark, an economist who interestingly takes the side of culture. In an important new book, "A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Clark suggests that much of the world's remaining poverty is semi-permanent. Modern technology and management are widely available, but many societies can't take advantage because their values and social organization are antagonistic. Prescribing economically sensible policies (open markets, secure property rights, sound money) can't overcome this bedrock resistance.
Look at those three items in parentheses....

Open Markets. AKA Free Markets. AKA Places where people aren't starving. (For those of you overseas or over 50, AKA is an American Law Enforcement acronym for "Also Known As")

If there's one lesson that anyone who stayed awake through the previous century should've learned, it's that planned economies don't work. Closed economies don't work. No nation has ever protected itself to prosperity.

But the small number of people who could lose a lot in a free market always tend to outshout (and out-donate) the massive number of people who would collectively gain a far larger amount. Google anything about sugar, cotton, ethanol, or corn prices. You're getting screwed, unless you're one of the lucky producers of sugar, cotton, ethanol, or corn.

Hit the Free Market Rants tab below for more info.

Secure Property Rights. If I've bought something, it should be mine until I decide to get rid of it. That's why people line up to invest in the U.S., where you can buy a percentage of something like a business, and it will remain yours. But the line to invest in Putin's Russia (where he recently nationalized parts of the steel industry belonging to a competitor and critic), well, that line is very, very short. In fact, if you want to invest in Russia, email me. I've got some great North Korean Growth Stocks I'd be willing to make you a deal on.

But hold on a minute....

A Russian-like problem is rearing it's head in my beloved Fort Worth, Texas. Someone named Billy Mitchell recently put up a billboard with the text "Eminent Domain: Stealing What Others Work For".
(Eminent Domain is a fancy term that essentially means "to steal what others have worked for".)

Billy Mitchell was a bit aggravated that the government would allow Oil and Gas interests to take his land for something that provides a higher tax return than Billy Mitchell.

Example number two: a bunch of houses disappeared a few miles to the east in Arlington, TX. The City of Arlington took the homes from their owners. No one had a choice. The homes and apartments were bulldozed, and a new stadium is being built for the Dallas Cowboys. Arlington technically took posession of the land, but the land is now underneath concrete that belongs to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Click here for a great analysis of the stadium problem, as blogged by a Houston lawyer. Click here for a full blown beautifully illustrated rant, a diatribe that should make our blood boil. It's a harangue that would cause us all to drive over to Arlington with torches and pitchforks if we weren't a nation of sheep.

Sound Money - This means that the money of the nation is good, accepted everywhere, and can be swapped for as much stuff tomorrow as it can today.

Nations in chronic poverty have a tendency to solve their problems by printing money. They shouldn't do that. See the collected works of Milton Friedman. When you have a surplus of something, it's value declines. When you have a shortage of something, it's value generally increases. Gerald Ford's "Whip Inflation Now" campaign could have been eliminated by a simpler campaign called "Stop Printing So Much Damn Money".

There's another problem related to "Sound Money" that has less to do with the amount of paper in circulation, and more to do with the amount of debt owed by the nation printing the paper. That's a topic for another day.

At least 4 or 5 days a week, I go to Barnes & Noble or Borders and read all these Economics Geek books so you don't have to. I'm grateful that they supply them on the Open Market. I read them in the coffee bar without paying for them, which is probably a violation of their Property Rights. But it helps me maintain a supply of Sound Money.

Joseph Biden won it.

I just finished watching the last half of the Democratic Presidential Debate. boys... Boys.... BOYS ! ! ! Leave Hillary alone! ! ! Now, Barack, she was picking on you first, but you have to play nice.
Barack, I know you'd be willing to show her all your records.
She's still not going to show you hers.
Hillary, will you show him yours if he shows you his?
No?
Ok.
Barack, you and John go pick on George.

Let's start with the obvious.
Dennis Kucinich is stark raving mad. I could swear on a stack of DSM-IIIR's (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) that I saw him raving on the corner of Highway 80 and Alta Mere with a "will work for Scotch" sign a few months ago. I think I gave him $5.00 and some Wendy's Gift Certificates.
Kucinich wants to cancel NAFTA. He wants to cancel the W.T.O. - which would be kinda like cancelling OPEC. I don't think he can do it. The war is all about the oil. Dennis says we should impeach now.
I think it was Tim Russert who asked Kucinich about the current tax system loopholes that allow Hedge Fund Managers to roll their commissions into 401K's, or let the money prosper offshore before it's taxed. It's been on the news. It's been in the papers. The man is a freakin' Congressman, and had no idea what Russert was talking about.
To some, it might've looked like Kucinich was just avoiding the question. I'm general manager of a shipping company, and I knew exactly what Russert was talking about. (I can read....) Once again, I'm ready to swear on a stack of straitjackets that Kucinich didn't understand the question.

So Kucinich said we should impeach.

The moderators asked about the situation where foreign kids spend 193 days in school, but the kids here in the U.S. spend 180 days a year in school. (Democrats have always like to measure Seat Time - it's hard to do Seat Time poorly.) He would cut Pentagon spending 50%, give the savings to day care. Free College. Free Happy Meals. A Free Pony in every garage.

All the healthcare problems will go away if we just socialize medicine.


And then we bring actress Shirley MacLaine into the sandbox. Yes, Shirley MacLaine.

Shirley MacLaine, the godmother of Kucinich's daughter, and Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic Congressman from Ohio, saw a UFO over Shirley MacLaine's house. It gave them warm and fuzzy feelings.
That was all discussed in the Presidential Debates. This is what I found elsewhere....

MacLaine also recommended in the 1980s that Kucinich visit New Mexico spiritual adviser Chris Griscom, whom MacLaine featured in her then-best-selling book, "Dancing in the Light," describing how Griscom helped her communicate with trees. Kucinich has insisted that Griscom was not his spiritual adviser but a "teacher and a very good friend."

When the moderators brought up this story, Kucinich helpfully added that Jimmy Carter had also seen a UFO.
Oh. Never mind, then.

There are people in Great Britain, New Zealand, and China who regularly read this blog. Lord, I'm embarrased for my country.

Another thing I wasn't aware of....Has Rudy Giuliani already won the Republican nomination? These people are already running against him.

Bill Richardson did more mumbling and fumbling than anyone else.
Hillary mentioned someone named "Bill" too many times.
Chris Dodd didn't screw up any, but came across as a politician.

Barack Obama is one smart man. He's too protectionist for my tastes, but he made some great points about our 10,000 page tax code, and a building in the Cayman Islands that's the offshore tax shelter/headquarters of more than 10,000 corporations, and he made a lot of the same points that I made here.

Obama, Edwards, and Dodd came out of their corners implying that Hillary was too wishy-washy to be President. Then Hillary caught a question about Illegals getting driver's licenses. She was for it except when she was against it. Tim Russert lifted his eyes from his jowls long enough to detect the non-answer. Obama and Edwards dogpiled her for Double-talk.

Obama did slaughter one question about the frustrations many Americans have with the airline industry. He blamed it on the airlines being de-regulated. Huh? The airlines are deregulated? American airlines can now fly straight from Texas to Beijing, and the government's not going to stop them? GREAT ! ! !

Remember the kid in high school that you couldn't stand, who was always running for student council, and always did a lot of apple polishing for the teachers? He was incredibly superficial and slick and every word he said seemed as if it had been typed, rehearsed, and reviewed by multiple focus groups? Do you remember that guy too? ? ? Well, he grew up to be John Edwards.

When asked about possible high energy prices this winter, The Carolina Ambulance Chaser said he was going to have HIS justice department investigate the oil and gas companies. When asked if people who live in "repeat" disaster areas (like the people who live below sea level in New Orleans, or on the Carolina coast) should have their losses continually covered, covered, and covered some more by FEMA, regardless of the insanity of continuing to rebuild there, Edwards could only talk about heartbreaking needs and taking 700 students to The Big Easy.

John, they wanted to know if it made sense for the government (us) to insure properties that no individual in his right mind (me) would insure. That was the question. You're prob'ly going to hear it again.

John Edwards also did some razzle dazzle on the question of taxing Hedge Fund managers. Because John used to work for a Hedge Fund, didn't he? So John answered that he was p.o.'d that the Democrats had killed the reform bill. He tied it to Iraq. He talked about swapping American jobs for Toxic Chinese Toys. He talked about Wal-Mart, The Beast of Bentonville, not wanting to secure our borders by having shipping containers inspected. He talked about everything but this:

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Tuesday that he worked for a hedge fund to learn more about financial markets and their relationship to poverty in the United States.
Edwards won't disclose how much he got paid as a consultant to Fortress Investment Group, but said he did keep the money.
"It was primarily to learn, but making money was a good thing, too," the 2004 vice presidential nominee said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Fortress Investment Group, founded in 1998, describes itself as "a leading global alternative asset manager" with approximately $35.1 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2006. The company is headquartered in New York with affiliates around the world.
Edwards said it's legitimate to ask questions about whether there is a contradiction between campaigning against poverty while working for a hedge fund that is designed to make rich people richer. He said the job was a compliment to his position as the head of a poverty center at the University of North Carolina.

I think Joseph Biden won the thing. He made some good points about foreign policy. He didn't go off into too many loony tangents. He came across as experienced, like Chris Dodd. He seemed compassionate. He had to score some populist points at the end by slamming Chinese Toys, which are the Scud missiles of this election cycle. He didn't dog-pile Hillary. Maybe he's running for Vice-President.

It took me about an hour and a half to watch the debate, and another hour to type this mess up. The next time there's a debate, I'm going to try to save a few minutes and do a real-time unedited blog. Require myself to hit "post" every time there's a commercial. A raw feed from the mouth of Dennis Kucinich to my laptop, bounced off a UFO to your computer screen.

Unique

....And in honor of this sentiment, I'm going to go watch the Democratic Presidential Candidates debate

Why You Are Rich

TCS Daily - Wealth and Nations has a great article about why the world is prospering. Yes, prospering. Disregard, just for the moment, all the statistics about how the top 15% of the bottom 25% didn't prosper as much as the lower 18% of the upper 9th percentile over the 2nd quarter. Bear with me here. It's worth it.

The world is prospering. There are reasons why the world is prospering. People are increasingly being left alone to pursue what they want to pursue, with less and less interference from Vested Interests, Governments, or The Blessings of Socialism.
















Here's where it gets interesting. Most people believe that the wealthy should be taxed at a much higher taxation rate than currently exists. I don't care where you live, if you're reading this in English, you probably think that a large number of people are making too much money at the expense of everyone else.

So which percentile is making too much money? The top 30% ? Are they the ones making too much money relative to everyone else? Or do you think only the top 20% is hogging too much of the wealth? Go ahead and get a % in your head.
Then hit this link. Enter your yearly income in dollars, pounds, or euros. This website will show you how many people there are making more money than you do. Wander around the site for a while. Then come back....


If you are reading this Blog in English, chances are you live in a place that has a relatively Free Market. Chances are you have an income that is the envy of the rest of the world. You're doing great. It gets tough sometimes - but much of what we think of as a necessity is really a luxury, and you are dripping with luxuries. The test you just took was based on the exchange rates that were in place as of 2003. A dollar's a dollar. And one third of the world's population lives on two dollars per day. Do you ever wonder why?

I don't believe that the world's economy is a Zero Sum Game. I can win without someone else losing.

So instead of continually harping about redistributing wealth, why isn't there more discussion about redistributing the machinery of wealth? (Like free markets???) In other words, instead of raising taxes, tariffs, or import quotas to make Us as screwed up as Them, why aren't we lowering the barriers to making Them like Us? With all the racket currently being made about foreign oil dependency, why can't we simply make straight-up purchases of Brazilian ethanol? With all the noise about the high cost of food for low income Americans, why can't we purchase foreign sugar at whatever price they'll sell it for?
(Answer: Iowa wheat farmers and Florida sugar producers know how to purchase congressmen.)

Why do we put barriers in place making it difficult for "their" sugar, cotton, and ethanol to compete in "our" markets? (If you have the patience to read the report attached to the "ethanol" link, you can see where our sugar producers have lobbied for a piece of the currently fashionable ethanol action....)

Congratulations. You're rich. I hope you can stay that way.
And may your tribe increase.

More Protection for Multitaskers

A few weeks ago I ran a picture of The Glockberry, a self-defense and communication device for multitaskers. The Glockberry's creator recently emailed me to take credit for his creation.
Jeremy's Status Message: Gun Control

Starting this Blog has allowed me so many Brushes With Greatness....

Jeremy, of Jeremy's Status Message, apparently uses his Blog to let co-workers know when he's "working at home, working at the office, or working at Photoshopping Assault Weapons". When you get a chance, check out the link above for his full array of protection for the active executive.

Here's a smaller sampling of Jeremy's fine work: The Smith & Wesson with GPS capability, to help you find your way and clear your way, while dealing with navigation AND road rage.

Then there's the iMac-10. Judging by appearance alone, it should hold 2,000 tunes, 20 videos, and about 200 rounds.

Many thanks to Jeremy for his service to humanity.