Is this the best we could do?

Barack Obama worries that "unregulated energy speculators may be distorting the market." John McCain complains that "while a few reckless speculators are
counting their paper profits, most Americans are coming up on the short end."

These gentlemen clearly have taken to tossing out any idea of economics and are now in full-scale "pander to the idiots" mode. Here is one author who seems to understand that speculation is not the problem. I just wish I knew a way to profit from those fools who think speculation is the problem.

American Bar Association Statement on Civil Rights Case

Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision on the true meaning of the first amendment in a landmark civil rights case. The American Bar Association agrees that the first amendment should be appropriately limited to protect us from ourselves. Their statement is reproduced below:

The American Bar Association is gratified that the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling in District of Columbia v. The American People recognizes the public interests in regulating speech. However, the ruling also specifically confers a right to speak freely in one's home, provided that it is done in such a manner that the neighbors cannot hear it, be offended by it or otherwise be disturbed. That leaves for further analysis, and appears to support, much of the vast body of regulation that has developed over time based on the needs of those in power to protect themselves from the ill effects of offensive speech in the interest of the public welfare. It leaves the District of Columbia and other jurisdictions the ability to adopt regulations that respond to those legitimate public interests, and retain those already in place. The majority opinion allows limiting the speech that individuals can use in public without appropriate, governmentally approved press credentials, and permits restrictions on dangerous and unusual speech of any kind. It upholds press licensing laws, and restrictions on even permissible speech in sensitive places. This is not a signal to rescind regulation or ignore legitimate restrictions on free speech that are grounded in reason and practicality.

Yeah, that's a joke; the ABA would never say that. Why then, would it say this?

Democrats get one right despite themselves

While the Democrat-controlled Congress voted 276 to 146 in favor of adding gasoline price gouging regulation to the list of idiotic things it has done, Americans dodged a bullet because they did not have the votes to sustain a threatened veto. Sure, probably most people are in favor of this legislation, but most people do not have enough education in the area of economics to make an informed decision on the subject. They think price gouging laws actually help consumers when quite the opposite is true. Remember this the next time you hear that Bush is a lame duck.

Attention John McCain

ANWR is not the Grand Canyon. You can't make this stuff up.

Not all "change" is good

People keep forgetting that undeniable truth. A caller to Bill Bennett's Morning in America put it very succintly this morning: "Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement, by definition, is a change." That's my best paraphrase, but America needs to remember that the focus should be on improvement, not change. The best thing that the government could do would be to simply allow this country to improve by getting out of the way. Socialism is not an improvement.

Obama wants your fingerprints?

Again, why in the world would anyone vote a man who wants a database of so many people's fingerprints? When do we get to the part where we are required to have numbers (or, more likely, RFID chips) on our wrists and foreheads. I wish someone would ask him what he thinks of the Washington, D.C. "papers please" roadblocks.

Carter to Endorse Obama

Now there's a shocker. Birds of a feather . . .

Liberals less honest than conservatives

That is the gist of this story. It probably should not surprise anyone that those who want to take wealth away from the producers at the point of a gun and give to the non-producers would be dishonest. "Stealing" does not appear to be in their vocabulary.

Being a liberal - what a horrible existence

Unlike about 85% of the reviewers on Amazon, I've actually read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged. I'm going to share some of my favorite passages over the coming days. This first one perhaps exemplifies why studies continue to show liberals are miserable when compared to conservatives. From John Galt's address to the nation, undoubtedly with folks like this in mind:

You fear the man who has a dollar less than you, that dollar is rightfully his, he makes you feel like a moral defrauder. You hate the man who has a dollar more than you, that dollar is rightfully yours, he makes you feel that you are morally defrauded. The man below is a source of your guilt, the man above is a source of your frustration. You do not know what to surrender or demand, when to give and when to grab, what pleasure in life is rightfully yours and what debt is still unpaid to others-you struggle to evade, as "theory," the knowledge that by the moral standard you've accepted you are guilty every moment of your life, there is no mouthful of food you swallow that is not needed by someone somewhere on earth-and you give up the problem in blind resentment, you conclude that moral perfection is not to be achieved or desired, that you will muddle through by snatching as snatch can and by avoiding the eyes of the young, of those who look at you as if self-esteem where possible and they expected you to have it. Guilt is all that you retain within your soul-and so does every other man, as he goes past, avoiding your eyes. Do you wonder why your morality has not achieved brotherhood on earth or the good will of man to man?

Obama must indeed be a miserable wretch.

Bill Bennett on Obama

At the corner...

And thus the Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of George McGovern, albeit without McGovern’s military and political record. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far-left candidate in the tradition of Michael Dukakis, albeit without Dukakis’s executive experience as governor. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of John Kerry, albeit without Kerry’s record of years of service in the Senate. The Democratic party is about to nominate an unvetted candidate in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, albeit without Jimmy Carter’s religious integrity as he spoke about it in 1976. Questions about all these attributes (from foreign policy expertise to executive experience to senatorial experience to judgment about foreign leaders to the instructors he has had in his cultural values) surround Barack Obama. And the Democratic party has chosen him.

Charles Krauthammer and Global Warming

This paragraph from his recent article fairly sums up my view on global warming.

I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume
to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.

"Hats" isn't exactly the word I would use, but then I suppose that depends on where a person's head is located.